Heidi Rice - So Now You're Back

No, she’d been excited because she’d wanted desperately to read her dad’s book. Not only was he a great writer—she’d read pretty much every article he’d ever written, so she knew that for a fact—but because he’d finally be writing about the one thing she’d always wanted to read. What had happened between him and her mum. In that fluid, focused way that could ‘unveil the beating heart of the human condition’. Well, that’s what Time magazine had said on his profile, when he’d done a story for them about the murder of a socialite in Palm Beach.

Instead of answering the question, her mum locked the whisky-coloured gaze that Lizzie’s brother, Aldo, had inherited onto her face, and a concerned frown formed on her brow. The concerned frown that Lizzie knew meant she was about to be lied to. Again.

‘It’s OK, don’t worry, everything will be fine. I just need to call Jamie and get the legal team on this.’

‘Why?’

Her mum placed a trembling hand on the table, then lifted her champagne glass and drained the lot, another sure sign she was freaking out, big time.

‘Listen, Lizzie, you don’t have to worry about any of this.’ Her fingers still shook on the glass. ‘It’s between me and your dad, but it’s really not that big a deal.’

Yeah, right. Not a big deal, even though you’re swearing and sweating and knocking back champagne like an escapee from Alcoholics Anonymous.

‘You’re going to stop Dad writing his book. That’s it, isn’t it?’ she said, leading with her frustration so as not to give away how deflated she felt.

Why was her mum such a neurotic control freak? And why did she always have to ruin every single good thing that ever happened in Lizzie’s life? Like when she’d first hooked up with Liam, and her mum had worried he was going to turn her into a drug addict because she could smell weed on him the one time she’d met him. Or when Lizzie had finally lost her puppy fat at sixteen—because she’d grown four inches in a year—and her mum had forced them all to go to family therapy because she’d panicked that Lizzie was becoming an anorexic and was on the verge of starving herself to death.

Perhaps if her mum spent more time actually being the Domestic Diva, instead of pretending to be her on TV, she wouldn’t freak out all the time about nothing.

‘Excuse me, you’re Halle Best, aren’t you?’ An ancient guy of at least fifty hovered next to their table, interrupting Lizzie’s thoughts.

No shit, Sherlock.

Lizzie glared at the old git, but, as was always the case with her mum’s fans, he didn’t even see her sitting there.

‘My wife and I love your show.’

‘Thank you, that’s very generous of you,’ her mum replied, all the signs of her previous distress disappearing fast, until all that was left was the serene, polished and totally fake expression she always pasted on when she was doing her Domestic Diva act.

‘Do you mind? I hate to be a nuisance, but …’ He presented a napkin to her mum, then pulled a pen out of his pocket—obviously not hating being a nuisance enough to not be a total bloody nuisance. ‘Could I get your autograph?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Her mum sent Lizzie a tentative smile—as if to say sorry for the interruption—before taking the pen and signing the napkin. But Lizzie already knew that apologetic smile was as fake as the rest of her mum’s act. Her mum was probably rejoicing at being rescued by this jerk.

No way would she get a straight answer out of her now.

‘You are a bastard. Salaud. Imbécile .’

Luke Best ducked the jar of cornichon pickles that came flying towards his head and flinched as it shattered against the apartment wall. ‘Bloody hell, Chantelle. Calm the fuck down. Why are you so angry?’

‘I love you and you lie to me,’ she cried.

‘No, you don’t, and no, I didn’t. I told you this wasn’t serious from the start. It’s not my fault you didn’t listen.’

‘I hate you now.’

‘I get that,’ he said as he edged towards the hallway. ‘Which is all the more reason for us not to see each other again. We haven’t got together in months. You must have seen this coming?’

‘You see this coming, connard ?’ Chantelle grabbed an onyx ashtray with an Asterix figurine on it and let it fly.

He ducked again, but the heavy object spun in mid-air, hurtling towards him like an Exocet missile, and smacked into his brow.

Pain exploded.

‘Shit!’ He touched the developing knot on his forehead and his own temper ignited. ‘Right, that’s enough.’ He marched forward, grabbed hold of one hundred pounds of fuming French womanhood and wedged her against the wall, trapping her throwing arm. ‘Quit acting like the Madwoman of Chaillot and get a clue. We’ve been over since March and you know it.’

He’d tried to do this gently, tried to explain to her that their ‘relationship’ had never been more than a couple of dirty weekends. But she’d refused to let it go. Refused to get the message. And finally refused to leave him alone while his daughter had been over for her eighteenth birthday.

And that had been the last straw. The nuisance texts and the hung-up phone calls whenever Lizzie answered his phone had been stalkerish enough, but Chantelle’s sudden appearance at his place yesterday morning, wearing nothing but a coat, a thong and skyscraper heels, had made him see he had to sort this situation out.

He’d bundled the half-naked woman out of the building before Lizzie woke up, promising to trek over to Chantelle’s apartment in the thirteenth arrondissement and ‘discuss their relationship’ this morning, once Lizzie was safely back in the UK. So here he was, giving it to Chantelle straight, with no sugar-coating and no more avoidance tactics. And what did he get for his straight talking? A bloody head injury, that was what.

‘This is over, OK? C’est fini .’ He gave her a slight shake to get the message across. ‘I don’t want to see you around my place any more. No calls, no emails, no texts. If I don’t answer them, it’s because I don’t have anything to say to you.’ He’d hoped that might be a clue, but apparently Chantelle wasn’t good at processing subtle.

‘You tell me this now, when we had sex like dogs all weekend?’ She meant rabbits, he thought, but he didn’t correct her, suddenly weary at the memory of how he’d originally thought the way she mangled all his British expressions was so cute and sexy.

‘That was months ago,’ he said, his temper dissipating as quickly as it had come.

‘Be reasonable, cherie,’ he said as gently as he could manage while his brow was throbbing from her unprovoked assault. Chantelle was only twenty-five and hopelessly immature from the few actual conversations he could remember them having. ‘I told you right from the start I wasn’t interested in anything big. This is going nowhere. You need to grow up and figure that out.’

And it was way past time his dick grew up, too, and stopped making stupid decisions that got him into these sorts of fixes.

Ever since Halle, he’d stuck to casual flings, because his life was complicated enough without inviting any more drama into it. But even with casual hook-ups you had to watch your step.

And with Chantelle he’d obviously missed a step.

He’d picked her up in a bar near his apartment in the Marais the night he’d put Lizzie on the plane home to London after their week-long pre-Christmas holiday in St Moritz. And an hour after Chantelle had served him his first drink, they’d been going for it in the bar’s stockroom.

Why not admit it? He’d been feeling down, maybe even a little lonely. So he’d jumped on Chantelle and her come-hither looks. And used her for sex.