The Inheritance (16 page)

Dylan changed the subject. He didn’t want to waste his lunch talking about Gabe Baxter, a man with whom he maintained a nominal friendship but whom he’d always secretly envied. Before long he and Tati were chatting away happily about school, and some of the pupils they had in common, over a long, lazy lunch. A couple of Boody Marys and a mouth-watering steak and kidney pie put paid to Dylan’s hangover, and Tati positively glowed with contentment after her second ice-cold glass of Chablis, remembering her bettering of Brett Cranley at church this morning.

By the time they paid the bill and emerged onto the green, it was almost three o’clock on a gloriously warm Sunday afternoon.

‘What are you doing now?’ Dylan asked casually.

Tati’s face clouded over. ‘Paperwork, unfortunately,’ she groaned. ‘I stayed late on Friday but I still have a stack of forms to finish for Years Three and Four. You’ve no idea how time-consuming it is.’

‘Oh, I do,’ Dylan reminded her. ‘I’ve been a teacher for eight years. I’ve done my fair share of mindless form-filling, believe me. If you like you can bring them over to mine and I’ll help you. Maisie’s away and I’m not really doing anything this afternoon.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Tati. She loathed the education department paperwork with a passion, not least because half of it made no sense to her and she had to cross-reference answers between one exam board and another. An experienced teacher like Dylan could get the job done in half the time. ‘You really don’t mind?’

‘Course not. Go and get the files and I’ll nip home and put some coffee on.’

By the time Tatiana arrived at the Pritchard Jones’s house, having changed into more comfortable denim shorts, flip-flops and a faded Rolling Stones T-shirt, a delicious smell of fresh-roasted coffee was already wafting through the kitchen. Maisie’s interiors magazines and piles of fabric samples lay scattered over the oak table, and pictures of Dylan’s very pretty young wife were everywhere, from the fridge door to the pinboard to the walls, covering every inch of space not already taken up by Dylan’s landscape paintings.

‘Your wife’s gorgeous,’ said Tati admiringly, and truthfully.

‘Thanks,’ said Dylan, a tad stiffly.

‘How come I never see her at school?’

‘She used to pop in a lot.’ Dylan handed Tati a mug of coffee and poured another for himself. ‘But she’s pregnant now and she gets very tired, especially in the afternoons. She’s usually napping when I get home.’

‘Is she a designer?’ Tati flipped idly through the magazines, clearing a space on the table on which to plonk her giant stack of paperwork.

‘God no. This is all just for the baby’s room. She doesn’t work,’ Dylan said, a touch dismissively, Tati thought.

She sat down at the table, but Dylan gestured towards the sofa, kicking off a sleeping tabby cat to make room for the two of them.

‘Let’s work over here. More comfy.’

For a second, Gabe Baxter’s ‘Dylan Dick-Hard Jones’ jibe replayed in Tati’s mind.
He’s only interested in what’s between your legs.
But she quickly pushed the thought aside. Gabe Baxter was poisonous, an obnoxious little wide boy on the make. What did he know about Dylan’s intentions? Tati wouldn’t let Gabe ruin the one, genuine friendship she’d made since coming back to Fittlescombe.

In the end, she and Dylan got through the paperwork in record time. Once Dylan had shown her the ropes, it was easy. Of course, no one at St Hilda’s, least of all the poisonous Year Six teacher Ella Bates, had bothered to talk her through the system. Tati realized now she’d spent untold hours chasing her tail, quite unnecessarily.

‘I can’t bloody believe this,’ she complained to Dylan. ‘Those cows. They could easily have told me what to do. I hate working at that damn school.’

‘You don’t mean that.’ Dylan smiled his twinkly smile and cleared away the papers, his hand accidentally brushing Tati’s bare leg as he reached over to the coffee table.

‘I do,’ said Tati. ‘I mean, I love the kids.’

‘That’s because you’re a natural teacher.’

‘Do you really think so?’

Despite her outer confidence, she’d always doubted her own abilities. For whatever reason, Tatiana wanted to be a good teacher, to have a genuine skill that people valued and respected. That her father would have valued and respected.

‘I do.’ Dylan smiled. There was something so good about his face, so kind, beneath those unruly auburn curls. He wasn’t small-minded and petty like the other staff, or cold and austere like Max Bingley. ‘Just look at how far Logan Cranley’s come on since you’ve been helping her with her reading. That didn’t happen by magic, you know.’

‘Thanks,’ said Tati, suffused by a warm glow of pride. Used to compliments about her looks, it was rare for her to be admired for anything else. Since her father’s death, and losing her birthright to the Cranleys, her self-esteem had been particularly low. ‘I don’t know why you’re so nice to me,’ she told Dylan.

‘Don’t you?’

His voice had taken on a rough, throaty edge. He touched her leg again, but this time there was nothing accidental about it.

Tatiana watched his fingers lazily move up and down her thigh. At first it was almost as if it were happening to someone else. But the rush of desire that shot through her was most definitely all her own. God it had been so long, so very long since she’d had a man. She’d never really thought about Dylan sexually, perhaps because he was older, and married, although that had never hindered her libido in the past. Since her father’s death, Tati had effectively shut down that side of herself completely. Apart from that one, disgusting yet disturbingly erotic touch from Brett Cranley weeks ago, she hadn’t had anything approximating to an enjoyable sexual experience in well over a year.

‘You’re so beautiful.’ Dylan was whispering in her ear now, his hands creeping upwards, playing with the frayed hem of her shorts. On autopilot, Tati reached around the back of his neck, pulling him towards her and kissing him. The kiss was more curious than passionate, like someone reminding themselves of a familiar, favourite food that they’ve always loved but haven’t eaten in a long time. Dylan’s response was unequivocal. Pushing her down onto her back so she was stretched out full length on the couch, he kissed her back hard, pressing his entire weight down on top of her. The combined sensations of his stubble grinding against her cheek, the smell of his aftershave and excitement, and his hand sliding under her T-shirt to grab her bare breasts made her gasp out in pleasure. But a few seconds later reality reasserted itself. Feeling Dylan’s rock-solid erection pressing down on her groin through his khaki trousers, Tati suddenly panicked.
Dick-Hard Jones.
All she could hear was Gabe Baxter’s mocking voice in her head:

You’ve adopted a rat of your own.

Opening her eyes, like a hypnotized patient emerging from a trance, the first thing she saw was a photograph of Dylan’s wife staring down at her from the kitchen wall.

‘We can’t do this.’ She tried to wriggle out from under him, but Dylan seemed oblivious. ‘Dylan,’ she shouted louder. ‘Stop.’

‘Stop? Why?’ He raised his head a fraction, but was still lying on top of her, his weight pinning her down.

‘You know why,’ said Tati. ‘Your wife.’

‘She’s away. She won’t know,’ Dylan murmured, resuming his exploration of Tati’s magnificent left breast.

‘That’s not the only reason,’ said Tati, trying not to enjoy the sensation. ‘We work together. We’re friends.’

‘You are so fucking sexy.’ Ignoring her, Dylan reached down and began to unbutton her fly. Tati froze, lust replaced by anger, at Dylan, at herself, and at Gabe bloody Baxter, for being right all along.

‘I said Stop!’

With all her strength, she drew her right knee upwards into Dylan’s groin.

It was more of a nudge than anything, but he jumped off her all the same. A look of profound annoyance flashed across his face. ‘Are you kidding me?’

‘No. Why would I be kidding?’ Tati sat up, shaking, and straightened her clothes. ‘Come on, Dylan. You know as well as I do this is a bad idea.’

‘That’s not what you thought five minutes ago.’ He ran a hand through his hair, a picture of frustration and fury. His erection, sticking out like a tent pole at the front of his trousers, looked ridiculous now, and not remotely sexy.

‘You led me on,’ he whined petulantly.

Tati would have laughed, but there was a cold glint in Dylan’s eye that made her think better of it. Instead she picked up her papers, clasping them to her chest like a shield.

‘That wasn’t my intention. Look, you’re an attractive man. It’s not that.’

‘Please,’ Dylan snapped. ‘Don’t patronize me.’

Tati felt like crying suddenly. It was true, she had kissed him back. And she had been tempted. But only for a moment. Dylan was behaving as if she’d made the first move. As if she’d come here with the express purpose of seducing him, which couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

‘I’d better go,’ she mumbled, backing away from him towards the door. ‘Thank you for the help with the papers.’

She longed for him to say something, to relent, to admit that he was sorry and had gone too far and that they could still be friends. God knew Tati needed a friend in Fittlescombe, and up to this point, Dylan Pritchard Jones had been it. All she needed was a smile, a small gesture, anything to break the tension. But instead Dylan turned away, his face set like flint.

‘You can see yourself out, I assume,’ he said bitterly.

Tati fled.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Monday morning saw a break in the weather and the first rainy day southern England had endured in weeks.

Jason Cranley sat at his desk, staring through a grimy window at the grey London skyscape. It struck him that the city seemed somehow more
right
, more
real
, in the drizzle than it did in the sunshine. Tower Bridge had looked fake last week against a backdrop of blue sky and sunshine, like a prop from a movie set. The rain seemed in an odd way to suit it, to bring it back to life. Or perhaps it was just he, Jason, who suited the rain? He who needed the grey world outside because it reflected the grey world inside, the ever-present clouds inside his head?

Wearily, he dragged his attention back to his computer. Ever since his ‘epic fail’ with the pitch document for McAlpine, Brett had had him churning out market research, trawling through the internet and London newspapers looking for data on property transactions. It was perfectly obvious that no one, least of all Brett, needed this stuff; that it was a task Jason had been given to fill his time and keep him out of trouble. But he couldn’t really complain. It wasn’t as if he had a burning ambition to work at the sharp end of his father’s business, and at least the research gave him time to pursue the one aspect of London life that did interest him: music.

He’d discovered that a number of jazz venues within a ten-mile radius of Cranley Estates’ offices held open auditions for new performers on a fairly regular basis. Jason had played piano at a couple of tiny, coffee-shop gigs back in Sydney, before his depression had returned with a vengeance. The mere act of sitting at a keyboard soothed him, the way that lighting up a cigarette or sipping a glass of whisky or sinking into a hot bath soothed other people. But performing, on the rare occasions when he found the courage to do it, filled him with a sense of contentment and wellbeing and fulfilment that nothing else on earth could compare to. Having a room full of people applaud him for doing what he loved most in the world – no matter how small a room – was like having a brilliant surgeon restart his heart.

Surreptitiously opening the website for Joe’s Diner in Borough Market, and clicking on the ‘Performers’ tab, Jason allowed his mind to wander deliciously into fantasy as the rain drummed on the windowpane.

‘Buying restaurants now, are we? I didn’t know we’d diversified.’

The secretary’s voice was like a jug of ice cubes down his shirt. Jason jumped, accidentally shutting down his screen altogether in his clumsy attempts to close the web page.

‘Was that a porn-slam?’

Michelle looked at Jason archly. She was clearly joking with him. Ever since the day of his botched presentation, when Jason had accused his father of sleeping with her, he’d noticed Michelle’s attempts to make-nice. Part of him wanted to respond in kind. She seemed a sweet girl, and had always gone out of her way to be kind to him. And technically, he supposed, there was a possibility he was wrong about her and his father. But then he remembered the way they’d looked at one another that day and he knew he hadn’t been.

‘I don’t look at porn,’ he mumbled, refusing to meet her eye.

‘I know. I was only kidding. You just looked so guilty when I came in.’ Michelle grinned. ‘Planning a night out, were you? There’s nothing wrong with that. You should get out more, a bloke your age.’

‘Says who? My father?’ Jason snapped.

Michelle bit her lip awkwardly. ‘I’ve been to Joe’s,’ she said, trying to move the subject on. She’d only come in to check the printer, which had been playing up lately, and wished she hadn’t. ‘It’s a fun place. We could go together one night if you like.’

Jason couldn’t take the fake camaraderie a moment longer.

‘He’s just using you, you know.’ Swivelling around on his chair he fixed Michelle with a searing, intense stare. ‘He’ll take what he wants until he gets bored and then he’ll sack you and move on. You’re probably not the only one he’s ch-cheating on my mother with even now. You’re not special.’

Michelle’s mouth opened, then closed again. She looked as if she’d just had acid thrown in her face.

Jason knew he was being cruel. It pained him, because he wasn’t a cruel person. But he wanted to get through to her, to jolt her out of her complacency, or blindness, or whatever it was that made attractive, fun, decent young women like her fall for his bastard father.

‘You’re very sure of yourself,’ she said eventually. The words were challenging but her tone was quiet and defeated. ‘What makes you think you know?’

‘That there are other women, you mean? Besides you?’ asked Jason.