New beginnings by the su.., p.6
New Beginnings by the Sunflower Cliffs, page 6
Bea wished she could simply ask him about his business partner and what went wrong, but couldn’t risk becoming involved in something that could end up with her losing her home, or even worse, having to move in with her father and stepmother. She shivered.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
Bea nodded. ‘Fine, just a bit stressed that’s all.’
‘Your ex?’
‘Yup, he sends me texts every so often with the D-Day countdown.’
‘D-Day? What the hell is that?’
‘Debt Day.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He’s a moron, what can I say?’
‘I wish I could do something to help you, Bea. Really.’
She smiled at him. He obviously meant what he was saying. ‘Thank you, but I’ll think of something. The thought of losing this house because of him is not something I’m going to let happen that easily.’
‘I’ll see you two tomorrow,’ Bea said to Shani and Paul as she left their flat. She pushed her hands into her bag to find her car keys, catching her nail on an old paperclip at the bottom. ‘Damn.’ She sucked her finger, groaning when she heard Mel shouting from along the precinct towards her.
‘Hey, wait for me!’ Bea could hear the click-clack of her sister’s heels as she ran along the pavement towards her. ‘I know you can hear me.’
Knowing when she had no choice, Bea turned slowly, forcing a smile onto her face. ‘Melanie, I’m in a rush to get home… Can’t this wait?’
‘No. I gather you’ve been seeing Tom what’s-his-name, from years ago? Why didn’t you tell me?’ She pushed her huge Dior sunglasses up onto her head, holding back her shiny bob.
‘It didn’t occur to me that you’d be interested.’ Bea wondered how long it would take Mel to turn the conversation into one about her wedding. She listened as patiently as she could manage.
‘But he’s gorgeous. I always liked him.’ She seemed lost in memory. ‘He reminded me of one of those immaculately suited sixties film stars – without the cigarette, though.’
Bea shook her head and laughed. She doubted Mel remembered Tom at all. ‘You hardly met him, so I don’t know what you ever found to like about him. Apart from maybe the way he dressed.’
‘Rubbish.’ Mel frowned, or tried to. Bea stared at her sister’s forehead; there wasn’t a line on it.
‘Have you had Botox?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Mel waved the notion away with her perfectly manicured hand. ‘I’m twenty-five, why would I need anything like that?’
Bea smiled. ‘Mel, I was born with more lines on my forehead than you have now. There isn’t a single one.’
Mel attempted to raise her eyebrows. Bea tried to hide her amusement. ‘Now, I was thinking, if you’re seeing Tom, then he’d make a perfect best man for Grant.’
What? ‘Grant doesn’t even know him.’
‘Who cares.’ Mel tapped Bea’s arm and lowered her voice. ‘He’d look perfect for the wedding photos.’
‘Never mind his wardrobe,’ Shani said, coming out to join them and shooting Mel an irritated glance. ‘Sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing your comments.’
‘That’s because you must have been listening at the door.’
Shani smiled. ‘Really, Mel, you should run a shop or a salon. Your interest in grooming and fashion is wasted on a legal assistant.’
‘Maybe,’ Mel said. ‘but I earn far more as a legal assistant, which is why I can afford to buy the clothes I like and pay someone else to do my manicures.’
‘Mel is right, though,’ Paul sighed, carrying out a tuna melt and taking a bite from it. ‘I always found it hard to imagine Tom as a scruffy uni student; he was always so smart whenever I saw him.’
‘He wasn’t ever scruffy, that’s why it’s hard to imagine. He was the only immaculate student I remember mixing with, which is probably why I fancied him so much. He always smelt so clean.’ Bea laughed at the memory. She couldn’t help picturing Luke, not at all smart – scruffy, in fact – but always smelling so heavenly.
‘I think we can all understand why Bea would find Tom attractive. Can’t we, Shani?’ Paul said, nudging Bea. ‘Stay with us, love.’ Bea could see he was trying to make a point, but wasn’t sure why he was determined for Shani to grasp it. ‘Let her take some risks in her life. You do,’ he added.
Shani narrowed her eyes but ignored him. ‘When are you going to ask him all about his situation with his wife—ex, Bea?’
Bea wasn’t sure when the conversation had moved on from Mel’s wedding to her dating plans. She recalled Shani admitting a crush she’d had on Tom years before when they’d been dating, and Bea wondered if she still could have any feelings for him. Maybe that was what concerned Paul right now? ‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about,’ Bea said, ignoring her suspicions. ‘He told me they’ve signed the separation papers. And after Simon it feels, um…’
‘Safe?’ Shani volunteered.
‘Yes, I suppose.’ Bea nodded, not too sure she liked to admit this point. ‘He’s easy to be around. I know him and, to be honest, I don’t feel like I’m going to fall for him in any way.’
‘At least he’s not the sort to mess you around,’ Mel said, checking her mobile for messages and quickly texting someone. ‘He seems very loyal and must have married that Vanessa soon after leaving uni.’
‘Which is probably why he took years to return to Jersey. He must have visited his family over here at some point, but I’ve never bumped into him in all that time. He does seem loyal though,’ Bea said. ‘And even though she was the one to have the affair, he doesn’t sound bitter in any way.’
‘Mmm.’ Shani shrugged. ‘Then he’s a bigger man then most would be. I’m not so sure I’d be happy to forgive something like that. You weren’t either, Bea.’
‘Bea is going to do whatever she decides, so let’s not psychoanalyse why she is seeing Tom,’ said Paul, before taking another bite of his lunch and staring at Mel. ‘Have you had something done to your forehead?’
Mel glared at him. ‘No.’
‘Anyway,’ Shani interrupted, ‘if Tom’s getting a divorce, then she’s nearly an ex-wife. Take note, the emphasis is on the word ‘nearly’. Do you want to be loaded down with more baggage, Bea?’ Shani continued, obviously not ready to give up just yet. ‘You’re still sorting things out with Simon. I know you’re old friends and all that, but there are loads more blokes out there. Why pick someone who’s going through a divorce? Move on before you get too emotionally involved. I mean, why go for him when you can take your pick?’
‘Yeah, right,’ laughed Mel. ‘There’s such a wide choice of available, sane, heterosexual men out there just waiting.’
‘Don’t be so smug.’ Shani glowered at her. ‘And it’s obvious you’ve had Botox, Mel, so stop trying to deny it.’
‘What the hell is your problem, Shani?’ Mel asked, dropping her phone back into her bag and pulling the strap up onto her shoulder. ‘Bea’s more than capable of watching out for herself.’
‘I am, and I’m enjoying being single for a change. Maybe it’s a relief being with someone who says something and means it, rather than Simon who always said one thing but was getting up to all sorts behind my back.’ Bea was growing tired of their bickering. ‘If you must know, I’m seeing Tom this Friday.’ She patted Shani’s hand. ‘This isn’t a great romance. We really are just friends. Relax! What can possibly go wrong?’
6
SEPTEMBER – DIGGING FOR THE TRUTH
Bea glanced out of the hall window to see if the taxi had arrived yet and spotted a note on the hallstand that Luke must have left earlier.
Please leave back door open tomorrow morning. Will bring paint samples for you to look at. L
She smiled. His untidy handwriting on the torn piece of paper was similar to others he’d left her over the previous few weeks. Just like the writer, she mused, straight to the point and abrupt. Could this man really be involved with something underhand and illegal?
She heard the taxi’s tyres crunching on the gravel outside the front door and, pushing further thoughts of Luke to the back of her mind, she grabbed her jacket and bag.
Arriving at Sammy’s Bar, Bea paid the cab driver and walked in. She glanced around the noisy room but couldn’t see Tom, so bought herself a vodka and tonic and took a seat at a small table with a clear view of the entrance. Tapping the table with her newly painted fingernails, Bea surreptitiously glanced down at her watch for the fifth time. She was contemplating whether to order another drink or leave, when the door opened and in strode Tom.
His eyes twinkled as he smiled at her. ‘Hi, gorgeous,’ he said, striding across the room dressed in his trademark bespoke suit, his sandy hair combed to one side. ‘You look perfect, as usual.’ Unable to help grinning back at him, Bea couldn’t help notice the admiring stares he was getting from other women in the bar.
He leant down and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Good to see you,’ he said, settling down in the seat opposite her. ‘I’ll get us some drinks.’
‘Red wine for me, please.’ She watched him go to the bar and when he turned to smile at her, she pointed to the ladies’ room. Tom nodded.
She washed her hands and touched up her lip-gloss. Hmm, she didn’t look too bad, considering she’d been painting for a couple of hours after work. Bea rubbed her thumb across her newly applied nail varnish. She missed having decent nails.
Bea returned to their table and sat.
‘I could do with the weather dropping a few degrees,’ Tom said, undoing the button on his linen jacket. ‘September, and it still feels like mid-summer.’
Bea took a sip of her drink as he looked her up and down. She wanted to ask him about Luke’s involvement with the money laundering case, but could see he was about to say something.
Tom leant across to her, and taking her lightly by the wrist, pulled her towards him. She could feel his breath against her ear, and wondered if he was going to kiss her. ‘The label from your knickers is hanging out of the top of your trousers,’ he whispered, trying unsuccessfully to stifle his laughter.
‘Oh,’ muttered Bea, quickly tucking the offending label away while furtively glancing around the bar to see if anyone else noticed her faux pas.
‘Hey, don’t look so embarrassed,’ he said. ‘I’m sure no one else noticed, but thought you’d like to know.’ He winked at her.
‘So,’ she said, mustering as much dignity as possible. ‘How’re things going with your separation?’
He looked at his drink, a grimace passing across his previously cheerful face. ‘Well, if you’re sure you want to know?’ She nodded. He leant back and turned his wine glass by the stem for a few seconds. ‘As I told you, I found out she was seeing someone else. Had been for about eighteen months.’
‘That’s awful. How did you find out?’ Bea winced at the unfeeling way her question had come out. ‘I meant, who told you?’
‘I wasn’t told exactly. She was meeting up with a guy who I discovered was one of the beneficiaries of one of the bigger trusts I looked after. I’ve had bi-annual meetings with him over the past five years, and we’ve always got along well. So, last year, instead of meeting up in the boardroom, he suggested we go out to lunch and discuss everything away from the office.’
Bea was surprised Tom appeared so happy to tell her everything, and wondered if maybe it was because she’d asked him after he’d had a drink. She waited for him to continue.
‘Well, you know how it is,’ he said. ‘Do business, have lunch, knock back a couple of glasses of wine. Him that is, not me,’ he explained, raising an eyebrow. ‘He started to relax and began telling me about this woman he was seeing.’
‘How horrible,’ Bea murmured, wishing she had ignored Shani and not been quite so nosy after all.
‘Not at first,’ he continued quietly. ‘He didn’t know he was describing my wife. We chatted like old friends and he told me how great she was, and although she had a husband the marriage was all but over. How it was only a bit of harmless fun for both.’ He shrugged at the memory. ‘I agreed with him on that point, too. It never occurred to me for one second the poor fool we were discussing was me.’
Bea winced. Bloody Shani, now she felt truly intrusive. ‘When did you realise?’
‘It was at the following lunch, six months later. I asked him how everything was going. He told me, although this time mentioning her first name, and describing her Titian hair. At first I felt a little unsettled, but shrugged off the notion.’ He made a loser sign with his thumb and forefinger. ‘I thought I was being paranoid. Up until that point, it had never occurred to me Vanessa could ever be unfaithful. Then, when he said how he looked out for her drophead silver Audi, the penny dropped. I mean, let’s face it, Jersey is a small enough place and there aren’t that many silver Audis, especially ones driven by redheads.’
‘What did you do?’ Bea remembered exactly how sick she felt when her aunt had sat her down and told her that she’d caught Simon making out with someone in his car.
‘Nothing,’ he replied, his face expressionless for a moment.
‘Nothing? What, nothing at all?’ It didn’t sound like the Tom she had known all those years ago.
‘You married in your early twenties, too – didn’t your family and friends warn you that you were rushing things?’
Bea nodded. ‘My stepmother must have told me dozens of times that it would end badly with Simon.’
‘Anyway, what’s the point? It wasn’t as if he knew who I was. I mean, think about it – he was a good client of mine, and until then we’d had an excellent business relationship.’
‘But he was sleeping with your wife,’ she said.
‘Exactly, my wife. She was the one being unfaithful. And let’s be honest, if you have to get divorced, and to me there is no other option when there’s no trust left, I was going to need all the money I could get for legal fees. I didn’t need to lose a good client. Well, not just then anyway.’
Bea couldn’t think what to say to such a revelation. ‘That sounds so calculated,’ she said, shocked at his callous admission.
‘It does when you say it out loud.’
She put her hand over his. ‘How horrible. So what’s happening now?’
‘Everything’s in the hands of the solicitors. We’ve gone for a year’s legal separation, like I explained the other week. She still doesn’t know he’s my client.’
‘Really?’
‘He knows. I told him when I left the company and moved to where I am now.’ Tom smiled triumphantly. ‘It was one hell of a shock to him, too. I can still picture his face. He didn’t know what to do with himself.’ He squeezed Bea’s hand. ‘Can we change the subject now?’
‘Of course. Sorry.’
Tom looked at the clock above the bar. ‘I’ve booked a table for us at Giuseppe’s, if that’s ok?’
‘Perfect.’
Bea was relieved to get out into the warm evening air. She couldn’t remember being out to dinner with someone other than Simon. ‘When we were dating we never went to restaurants together.’ She laughed.
‘No money, which is why I’m enjoying taking you tonight.’
They entered the dimly lit restaurant. Bea looked forward to seeing Giuseppe. ‘I used to come here quite a lot with Simon.’
Tom frowned. ‘You should have said, I could have booked for us to go somewhere else.’
‘Don’t be silly, this is great. You can’t beat the food.’
Giuseppe welcomed them with open arms. ‘Cara, I’m so sorry about you and Mr Porter,’ he whispered as he gave her a brief hug. ‘He says though that you’re very happy now and have both moved on.’ Gio looked across to where Tom was now waiting by their table. ‘And I can see he was telling the truth. I am pleased. He is a handsome man, no?’
Bea nodded. ‘He is, Gio.’ Gio pulled back a chair for her and Bea sat down. Gio took their order then departed.
Tom smiled. ‘Do you remember we were thrown out of that pub the first summer we were seeing each other, when we got drunk with the drummer from that band?’
‘You mean you got drunk. I had to get you home afterwards and my aunt panicked when I was late home.’
‘I remember, you wanted to take over the world,’ he teased. ‘You insisted you’d be a millionaire by the time you were twenty-five. What happened?’
Bea sighed. ‘Life got in the way. Anyway, what about you? You were supposed to be running your own multi-national business by now.’
He shook his head. ‘I know. Disappointing, aren’t we?’
‘Never mind,’ said Bea holding her stomach to ease the pain caused by so much giggling. ‘We didn’t succeed because our priorities changed. And we’ve still got loads of time to achieve stuff.’
‘True,’ he said quietly. ‘What do you want to do most?’
‘When Aunt Annabel first died, I thought I wanted to continue with her gardening designs, especially the one she was taking to the Chelsea Flower Show this year.’ She pictured Annabel with her designs in her shed. ‘But although I grew up with her teaching me stuff about gardens, I’ve got my own garden to keep going and need to find a way to buy out Simon. I don’t have a sponsor for the show and to be honest I don’t have the expertise to see it through.’
Tom smiled at her. ‘You’re still grieving over her, Bea. Most of my memories were of your aunt chatting to us while we lay in the sun, or her bullying me to mow her lawn or something. She was a big character and brilliant at her designs. You’re doing well enough just trying to keep her home together for her. That’s enough for anyone to deal with on their own.’
