Jessica Hart - Four Christmas Treats

‘I haven’t finished yet,’ Tilly said. ‘Art—that’s ma’s billionaire—is American, and has very strong ideas about Family Life.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Patience. I am getting there. Ma’s got this guilt thing that it’s her fault that I’m anti-men and marriage, because she and Dad split up.’

‘And is it?’

‘Well, let’s just say the fact that she’s been married and divorced four times already doesn’t exactly incline me to look upon marriage with optimism.’

‘Four times?’

‘Ma loves falling in love. And getting engaged. And getting married. This time Ma has decided she wants to be married at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve in a Spanish castle. So Art is transporting his entire family to spend Christmas and New Year in Spain to witness the ceremony—at his expense. We’re all going to stay at the castle so that we can get to know one another properly “as a family”. Because, according to Ma, Art can’t think of a more Family Time than Christmas.’

‘Sounds good so far.’

‘Well, here’s the bit that is not so good. Art’s family comprises his super-perfect daughters from his first marriage, along with their husbands and their offspring.’

‘And?’

‘And Ma, for reasons best known to herself, has told Art that I’m engaged to be married. And of course Art has insisted that I join the happy family party at the castle, along with my fiancé.’

‘But you haven’t got a fiancé. You haven’t even got a boyfriend.’

‘Exactly. I have pointed this out to my mother, but she’s pulling out all the high-drama stops. She says she’s afraid Art’s daughters are going to persuade him not to marry her, and that if I turn up sans fiancé it will add fuel to their argument that as a family we are not cut out for long-term, reliable marriages. She should really have gone on the stage.’Tilly looked at her friend. ‘I know this sounds crazy, but the truth is I’m worried about her. If Art’s daughters are against the marriage, then she won’t stand a chance. Ma isn’t a schemer. She just can’t help falling in love.’

‘It sounds more like you’re the parent and she’s the child.’

‘Well, Ma does like to imply that she was little more than a child when she ran off with my father and had me. Although she was twenty-one at the time, and the reason she ran off with Dad was that she was already engaged to someone else. Who she then married after she realised she had made a mistake in marrying my dad.’ Tilly was smiling as she spoke, but there was a weary resignation in her tone. ‘I feel I should be there for her, but I just don’t want her to blame me if things go wrong because I didn’t turn up with a fiancé.’

‘Well, you know what to do, don’t you?’

‘What?’

‘Hire an escort.’

‘What?’

‘There’s no need to look like that. I’m not talking about a “when would you like the massage” type escort. I’m talking about the genuine no-strings, no-sex, perfectly respectable and socially acceptable paid-for social escort.’

Sally could see that Tilly was looking both curious and wary. ‘Come on, pass me the telephone directory. Let’s sort it out now.’

‘You could always lend me Charlie,’Tilly suggested.

‘Let you take my fiancé away to some Spanish castle for the most emotionally loaded holiday of the year for loved-up couples?’ Sally gave a vehement shake of her head. ‘No way! I’m not letting him miss the seasonal avalanche of advertisements for happy couples with their noses pressed up against jewellers’ windows.’ Sally balanced the telephone book on her lap. ‘Okay, let’s try this one first. Pass me the phone.’

‘Sally, I don’t…’

‘Trust me. This is the perfect answer. You’re doing this for your mother, remember!’

‘Will I do what ?’ Silas Stanway stared at his young half-brother in disbelief.

‘Well, I can’t do it. Not in a wheelchair, with my arm and leg in plaster,’ Joe pointed out. ‘And it seems mean to let the poor girl down,’ he added virtuously, before admitting, ‘I need the money I’ll be paid for this, Silas, and it’s giving me some terrific contacts.’

‘Working as a male escort?’ Beneath the light tone of mockery Silas felt both shock and distaste. Another indication of the cultural gap that existed between him, a man of thirty plus, and his barely twenty-one-year-old sibling—the result of his father’s second marriage—for whom Silas felt a mixture of brotherly love and, since their father’s death, almost paternal concern.

‘Loads of actors do it,’ Joe defended himself. ‘And this agency is respectable . It’s not one of those where the women you escort are going to come on to you for sex. Mind you, from what I’ve heard they’re willing to pay very well if you do, and it can be a real turn-on in a sort of Mrs Robinson way. At least that’s what I’ve heard,’ he amended hastily, when he saw the way his half-brother was looking at him. ‘It’s only for a few days,’ he wheedled. ‘Look, here’s the invite. Private jet out to Spain, luxury living in a castle, and all at the expense of the bridegroom. I was really looking forward to it. Come on, be a sport.’

Silas looked uninterestedly at the invitation Joe had handed to him, and then frowned when he saw the name of the bridegroom-to-be. ‘This is an invitation to Art Johnson the oil tycoon’s wedding?’ he demanded flatly.

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Joe said with exaggerated patience. ‘Art Johnson the Third. The girl I’m escorting is the daughter of the woman he’s going to marry.’

Silas’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why does she need an escort?’

‘Dunno.’ Joe gave a dismissive shrug. ‘She probably just hasn’t got a boyfriend and doesn’t want to show up at the wedding looking like a loser. It’s a woman thing; happens all the time,’ Joe informed him airily. ‘Apparently she rang the agency and told them she wanted someone young, hunky and sexy, Oh, and not gay.’

‘And that doesn’t tell you anything?’ Silas asked witheringly.

‘Yeah, it tells me she wants the kind of escort she can show off.’

‘Have you met her?’

‘No. I did e-mail her to suggest we meet up beforehand to set up some kind of background story, but she said she was too busy. She said we could discuss everything during the flight. The bridegroom is organising the private jet. All I have to do is get in a taxi, with my suitcase and passport, and collect her from her place on the way to the airport. Easy-peasy. Or at least it would have been if this hadn’t happened during that rugby match.’ Joe grimaced at his plaster casts.

Silas listened to his half-brother’s disclosures with growing contempt for the woman who was ‘hiring’ him. The more he heard, the less inclined he was to believe Joe’s naive assertion that his escort duties were to be strictly non-sexual. Ordinarily he would not only have given Joe a pithy definition of exactly what he thought of the woman, he would also have added a warning not to do any more agency work and a flat refusal to step into his brother’s shoes.

Normally. If the bridegroom in question had not been Art Johnson. He had been trying to contact Art Johnson for the last six months for inside information about the late legendary oil tycoon Jay Byerly. Jay Byerly had, during his lifetime, straddled both the oil industry and the political scene like a colossus.

As an investigative journalist for one of the country’s most prestigious broadsheets, Silas was used to interviewees being reluctant to talk to him. But this time he was investigating for a book he was writing about the sometimes slippery relationships within the oil industry. And Jay Byerly was rumoured to have once used his connections to hush up an oil-related near-ecological disaster nearly thirty years ago. Until recently Art Johnson had been a prime mover in oil, and he had been mentored by Jay Byerly in his early days.