Buch lesen: «The Plus-One Agreement»

ONE

Q: How do you tell your fake boyfriend that you’ve met a real one and you don’t need him any more?

A: However you like. If he’s not a real boyfriend, it’s not a real break-up. Hardly likely that he’ll start declaring undying love for you, is it?

Chance would have been a fine thing.

This Aston Martin might fly before arm candy addict Dan Morgan developed anything more than a fake attraction for someone as sensible and boring as Emma Burney, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t given it time. Getting on for a year in his company, watching an endless string of short-term flings pout their way through his private life, had convinced her she was never going to be blonde enough, curvy enough or vacuous enough to qualify. In fact she was pretty much the opposite of all his conquests, even dressed up to the nines for her brother’s art exhibition.

She glanced down at herself in the plain black boat-neck frock and nude heels she’d chosen, teamed as usual with her minimal make-up and straight-up-and-down figure. Romance need not apply.

She did, however, possess all the qualities Dan wanted in a supportive friend and social ally. As he did for her. Hence the fake part of their agreement.

An agreement which she reminded herself she no longer needed.

Not if she wanted to move forward from the suspended animation that had been her life this last year. Any residual hope that what was counterfeit between them might somehow turn genuine if she just gave it enough time had been squashed in these last few amazing weeks as she’d been swept off her feet by a whirlwind of intimate, luxurious dinners, expensive gifts and exciting plans. What was between her and Dan was now nothing more than a rut that needed climbing out of.

She watched him quietly for a moment from the passenger seat of his car, looking like an aftershave model in his dark suit and white shirt. His dark hair was so thick there was always a hint of spike about it, a light shadow of stubble lined his jaw, and his ice-blue eyes and slow smile had the ability to charm the entire female species. It had certainly worked on her mother, whose ongoing mission in life was to get Emma and Dan married off and raising a tribe of kids like some Fifties cupcake couple.

Perpetuating her gene pool was the last thing Emma wanted—a lifetime in the midst of her insane family had seen to that. Having Dan as her pretend boyfriend at family events had proved to be the perfect fob-off.

But now she had the real thing and the pretending was holding her back. All that remained was to explain that fact to Dan. She gathered herself together and took a deep breath.

‘This has to stop,’ she said.

* * *

‘You’re dumping me?’

Dan shifted his eyes briefly from the road to glance across at her, a mock grin on his face. Because of course this was some kind of joke, right? She simply looked back at him, her brown eyes serious.

‘Well, technically, no,’ she said. ‘Because we’d have to be in a proper relationship for me to do that, and ours is a fake one.’ She put her head on one side. ‘If it’s actually one at all. To be honest, it’s more of an agreement, isn’t it? A plus-one agreement.’

He’d never seen fit to give it a name before. It had simply been an extension of their work dealings into a mutually beneficial social arrangement. There had been no conscious decision or drawing up of terms. It had just grown organically from one simple work success.

Twelve months ago Emma, in her capacity as his lawyer, had attended a meeting with Dan and a potential client for his management consultancy. A potentially huge client. The meeting had overrun into dinner, she had proved a formidable ally and his winning of the contract had been smoothed along perfectly by their double act. She had seemed to bounce off him effortlessly, predicting where he was taking the conversation, backing him up where he needed it. He’d ended the evening with a new client, a new respect for Emma and the beginnings of a connection.

After that she’d become his go-to ally for social engagements—a purely platonic date that he could count on for intelligent conversation and professional behaviour. She’d become a trusted contact. And in return he’d accompanied her to family dinners and events like this one today, sympathising with her exasperation at her slightly crazy family while not really understanding it. Surely better to have a slightly crazy family than no family at all?

He’d never been dumped before. It was an odd novelty. And certainly not by a real girlfriend. It seemed being dumped by a fake one was no less of a shock to the system.

‘It’s been good while it lasted,’ she was saying. ‘Mutually beneficial for both of us. You got a professional plus-one for your work engagements and I got my parents off my back. But the fact is—’

‘It’s not you, it’s me?’ he joked, still not convinced she wasn’t messing around.

‘I’ve met someone,’ she said, not smiling.

‘Someone?’ he said, shaking his head lightly and reaching for the air-conditioning controls. For some reason it was suddenly boiling in the car. ‘A work someone?’

‘No, not a work someone!’ Her tone was exasperated. ‘Despite what you might think, I do have a life, you know—outside work.’

‘I never said you didn’t.’

He glanced across at her indignant expression just as it melted into a smile of triumph.

‘Dan, I’ve met someone.’

She held his gaze for a second before he looked back at the road, her eyebrows slightly raised, waiting for him to catch on. He tried to keep a grin in place when for some reason his face wanted to fold in on itself. In the months he’d known her she’d been on maybe two or three dates, to his knowledge, and none of the men involved had ever been important enough to her to earn the description ‘someone’.

He sat back in his seat and concentrated hard on driving the car through the London evening traffic. He supposed she was waiting for some kind of congratulatory comment and he groped for one.

‘Good for you,’ he said eventually. ‘Who is he?’

‘He was involved in some legal work I was doing.’

So she had met him through her job as a lawyer, then. Of course she had. When did she ever do anything that wasn’t somehow linked to work? Even their own friendship was based in work. It had started with work and had grown with their mutual ambition.

‘We’ve been on a few dates and it’s going really well.’ She took a breath. ‘And that’s why I need to end things with you.’

Things? For some reason he disliked the vagueness of the term, as if it meant nothing.

‘You don’t date,’ he pointed out.

‘Exactly,’ she said, jabbing a finger at him. ‘And do you know why I don’t date?’

‘Because no man could possibly match up to me?’

‘Despite what you might think is appealing to women, I don’t relish the prospect of a couple of nights sharing your bed only to be kicked out of it the moment you get bored.’

‘No need to make it sound so brutal. They all go into it with their eyes open, you know. I don’t make any false promises that it will ever be more than a bit of fun.’

‘None of them ever believe that. They all think they’ll be the one to change you. But you’ll never change because you don’t need to. You’ve got me for the times when you need to be serious, so you can keep the rest of your girlies just for fun.’

She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap.

‘The thing is, Dan, passing you off as my boyfriend might keep my family off my back, and it stops the swipes about me being single and the comments about my biological clock, but it doesn’t actually solve anything. I didn’t realise until now that I’m in a rut. I haven’t dated for months. All I do is work. It’s so easy to rely on you if I have to go anywhere I need a date that I’ve quit looking for anyone else.’

‘What are you saying?’

She sighed.

‘Just that meeting Alistair has opened my eyes to what I’ve been missing. And I really think our agreement is holding us both back.’

‘Alistair?’

‘His name is Alistair Woods.’

He easily dismissed the image that zipped into his brain of the blond ex-international cycling star, because it had to be a coincidence. Emma didn’t know anyone like that. He would know if she did. Except she was waiting, lips slightly parted, eyebrows slightly raised. Everything about her expression told him she was waiting for him to catch on.

‘Not the Alistair Woods?’ he said, because she so obviously wanted him to.

He stole a glance across at her and the smile that lit up her face caused a sorry twist somewhere deep in his stomach. It was a smile he couldn’t remember seeing for the longest time—not since they’d first met.

The glance turned into a look for as long as safe driving would allow, during which he saw her with an unusually objective eye, noticing details that had passed him by before. The hint of colour touching the smooth high cheekbones, the soft fullness of her lower lip, the way tendrils of her dark hair curled softly against the creamy skin of her shoulders in the boat-neck dress. She looked absolutely radiant and his stomach gave a slow and unmistakable flip, adding to his sense of unreality.

‘Exactly,’ she said with a touch of triumph. ‘The cyclist. Well, ex-cyclist. He’s in TV now—he does presenting and commentating.’

Of course he did. His face had been a permanent media fixture during the last big sports event in the UK. Dan felt a sudden irrational aversion to the man, whom he’d never met.

‘You’re dating Alistair Woods?’

He failed to keep the incredulity out of his voice and it earned him a flash of anger that replaced her bubbling excitement like a flood of cold water.

‘No need to make it sound so unbelievable,’ she snapped. ‘You might only see me as some power suit, great for taking on the difficult dates when one of your five-minute conquests won’t make the right impression, but I do actually have a dual existence. As a woman.’

‘How long have you been seeing him?’ he said.

‘What are you? My father?’ she said. ‘We’ve been out a few times.’

‘How many is a few?’

‘Half a dozen, maybe.’

‘You’re ending our agreement on the strength of half a dozen dates?’

‘Yes, well, they weren’t dates in the way you think of them. He hasn’t just invited me out for an impressive dinner as a preamble to taking me to bed. You can actually get to know someone really well in half a dozen dates if you approach them in a more...serious way.’

The thinly veiled dig didn’t escape him and indignation sharpened his voice.

‘OK, then, if he’s so bloody marvellous, and you’re so bloody smitten, why the hell isn’t he on his way to look at your brother’s wacky paintings and meet the parents? Couldn’t you have dumped me on the phone and saved me a load of time and hassle?’

He pulled the car to a standstill outside the gallery steps and turned off the engine.

‘I’m not dumping you! How many times? It’s a fake relationship!’

A uniformed attendant opened Emma’s car door and she got out. Dan threw his keys to the parking valet and joined her on the steps.

‘So you keep saying,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘I could have spent this evening working.’

‘Like you don’t spend enough of your life doing that.’ She led the way through the high arched doorway into the gallery. ‘You can easily afford an evening. Alistair’s out of the country until next week, and I need this opportunity to draw a thick, black and irreversible line under the two of us for my parents’ eyes and undo the tissue of fibs I’ve told them.’

They walked slowly down the red-carpeted hallway, his hand pressed softly at the small of her back—the perfect escort as always.

‘I really don’t see why I need to be there for you to do that,’ he said, smiling politely at other guests as they passed, maintaining the perfect impression. ‘Especially since it’s only a fake relationship.’

Even as he piled heavy sarcasm on the word fake he wondered why the hell he was turning this into such a big deal. Why should he care? It had simply been a handy arrangement, nothing more.

‘Because the problem with it being a fake relationship is that it was a pretty damn perfect one,’ she snapped. ‘And so now I need a fake break-up.’

* * *

She outlined her suggestion as they walked down the hall and it sounded so insane that his mind had trouble processing it.

‘You can’t possibly be serious. You want to fake an argument in front of your family so you can make some kind of a righteous point by dumping me?’

‘Exactly! Shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll choose a moment, start picking on you, and then you just play along.’

‘Why can’t you just tell them we broke up? That things didn’t work out?’ He ran an exasperated hand through his hair. ‘Why do I need to be here at all?’

‘Because I’ve spent the last year building you up as Mr Perfect, bigging you up at every opportunity. You’ve no idea what it was like before we started helping each other out. The constant questions about why I was still single, the hassle about my body clock careering towards a standstill, the negativity about my career. Introducing you as my boyfriend stopped all that like magic. They think you’re the son-in-law of their dreams—a rich businessman who adores me, good-looking, charming, not remotely fazed by my mother. They’ll never just take my word for it that we broke up amicably. I’d spend the rest of my days being questioned about what I did to drive you away. You’d be forever name-dropped as the one that got away. No man I bring home would ever live up to your perfect memory.’

‘You don’t think you’re going a bit overboard?’

‘Are you really asking me that? You’ve met my mother. You know what she’s like.’

He had to concede that Emma’s mother was without a doubt the most interfering person he’d ever come across, with an opinion about everything that was never wrong. Her relationship with Emma seemed to bring out the critic in both of them. Mutual exasperated affection was probably the nearest he could get to describing it.

‘This way your fabulous reputation will be ruined, by the time Alistair and I finish our trip to the States you’ll be a distant memory, and they’ll be ready to accept him as my new man.’ She shrugged. ‘Once I’ve...you know...briefed him on what they can be like.’

Trip to the States? His hands felt clammy. He stopped outside the main gallery and pulled her to one side before they could get swept into the room by the crowd.

‘You’re going on holiday?’

She looked at him impatiently.

‘In a few weeks’ time, yes. I’m going to meet some of his friends and family. And then after that I’m going to travel with him in Europe while he covers an international cycling race for American TV. I’m taking a sabbatical from work. I might not even come back.’

‘What?’ His mind reeled. ‘You’re giving up your life as you know it on the strength of a few dates? Are you mad?’

‘That’s exactly it! When do I ever do anything impetuous? It isn’t as if sensible planning has worked out so well for me, is it? I work all hours and I have no social life to speak of beyond filling in for you. What exactly have I got to lose?’

‘What about your family?’

‘I’m hardly going to be missed, am I? My parents are so busy following Adam’s ascent to celebrity status with his art that they’re not going to start showing an interest in my life.’

She leaned in towards him and lowered her voice, treating him to the dizzying scent of her vanilla perfume.

‘One of his pictures went for five figures last month, you know. Some anonymous buyer, apparently. But two words about my work and they start to glaze over.’

She leaned back again and took a small mirror from her clutch bag.

‘And you’ll be fine, of course,’ she went on, opening the mirror and checking her face in it, oblivious to his floundering brain. ‘You must have a whole little black book of girls who’d fall over themselves to step into my shoes. You’re hardly going to be stuck for a date.’

True enough. He might, however, be stuck for a date who made the right kind of impression. Wasn’t that how this whole agreement of theirs had started? He didn’t go in for dating with a serious slant—not any more. Not since Maggie and...

He clenched his fists. Even after all these years thoughts of her and their failed plans occasionally filtered into his mind, despite the effort he put into forgetting them. There was no place for those memories in his life. These days for him it was all about keeping full control. Easy fun, then moving on. Unfortunately the girls who fitted that kind of mould didn’t have the right fit in work circles. Emma had filled that void neatly, meaning he could bed whoever the hell he liked because he had her for the serious stuff—the stuff where impressions counted.

It occurred to him for the first time that she wouldn’t just be across London if he needed her. He felt oddly unsettled as she tugged at his arm and walked towards the main door.

‘You’ve had some mad ideas in your time, but this...’ he said.

* * *

As they entered the main gallery Emma paused to take in the enormity of what her brother had achieved. The vast room had a spectacular landing running above it, from which the buzzing exhibition could be viewed. It had been divided into groupings by display screens, on which Adam’s paintings—some of them taller than her—were picked out in pools of perfect clear lighting. A crowd of murmuring spectators surrounded the nearest one, which depicted an enormous eyeball with tiny cavorting people in the centre of it. His work might not be her cup of tea, but it certainly commanded attention and evoked strong opinions. Just the way he always had done.

She took two crystal flutes of champagne from the silver tray of a pretty blonde attendant, who looked straight through her to smile warmly at Dan. For heaven’s sake, was no woman immune? Emma handed him one of the flutes and he immediately raised it to the blonde girl.

‘Thanks very much...’ He leaned in close so he could read the name tag conveniently pinned next to a cleavage Emma could only ever dream of owning. ‘Hannah...’

He returned the girl’s smile. Emma dragged him away. Why was she even surprised? Didn’t she know him well enough by now? No woman was safe.

Correction: no curvy blonde arm candy was safe.

‘For Pete’s sake, pay attention,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘You’re meant to be here with me, not eyeing up the staff.’

She linked her arm through his so she could propel him through the crowd to find her parents. It wasn’t difficult. Her mother had for some insane reason chosen to wear a wide flowing scarf wrapped around her head and tied to one side. Emma headed through the crowd, aiming for it—aqua silk with a feather pin stuck in it on one side. As her parents fell into possible earshot she pasted on a smile and talked through her beaming teeth.

‘They’ll never just take my word for it that we’ve just gone our separate ways. Not without a massive inquest. And I can’t be doing with that. Trust me, it’ll work better this way. It’s cleaner. Just go with everything I say.’

She speeded up the end of the sentence as her mother approached.

‘And you don’t need to worry,’ she added from the corner of her mouth. ‘I’ll pay for the dry-cleaning.’

‘You’ll what? What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

He turned his face towards her, a puzzled frown lightly creasing his forehead, and his eyes followed her hand as she raised her flute of champagne, ready to tip the contents over his head. She saw his blue eyes widen in sudden understanding and realised far too late that she’d totally underestimated his reflexes.

Dan’s hand shot out instantly to divert hers, knocking it to one side in a single lightning movement. And instead of providing the explosive beginning to her staged we’re finished argument, the glass jerked sharply sideways and emptied itself in a huge splash down the front of her mother’s aquamarine jumpsuit. She stared in horror as champagne soaked into the fabric, lending it a translucent quality that revealed an undergarment not unlike a parachute harness.

She’d inadvertently turned her mother into Miss Wet T-Shirt, London. And if she’d been a disappointing daughter before, this bumped things up to a whole new level.