Sunday breakfast was at eleven a.m., but I was up long before that and ducked back to the guest wing to get changed out of my crazy outfit. I felt strangely furtive as I ran down the stairs, although it was nobody’s business except mine where I chose to sleep. Or why.
By the time I emerged from my guest-wing bedroom, showered and dressed, Alex was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee. Sitting on the same chair where I’d done his eyeliner the night before. My stomach fluttered slightly at the memory.
I had no idea if he knew whether I’d slept there or not. If he did know I hadn’t been there, it could only be because he had come into my bedroom to find me, so I could hardly ask him.
‘Sleep well?’ he said in his best let’s-pretend-nothing’s-going-on, gung-ho style.
I nodded, wondering whether he had inherited that technique from his mother, or learned it at school, but clearly it was his default setting. If anything gets at all weird, just act jolly until it passes. It was a very English way of coping, I thought.
‘Want some coffee?’ he continued, in equally cheery tones.
I shook my head.
‘I think I’ll go over to the main house and get some tea,’ I said. ‘Ham has a great selection over there.’
I was getting as vapid as him, I thought. I was nearly at the door, when he spoke again.
‘Stella,’ he said suddenly. ‘When are you going back up to town?’
‘After lunch sometime.’
‘Well, as you don’t have your car here and the trains are so terrible on Sundays, do you want a lift up with me? The twins are going back with Chloe and it would be really nice to have some company on the drive.’
He’d given me so many reasons why it was a good idea – and well-rehearsed reasons, judging by the way he had just gabbled them out – that, caught on the hop like that, I couldn’t think of any excuse to decline, although the idea of spending two hours in a small space with Alex did make me feel rather uncomfortable.
‘Yeah, great, thanks,’ I said, trying to sound more enthusiastic than I felt. ‘That would be great.’
‘Great,’ said Alex. ‘We’ll go after lunch then.’
‘Great,’ I said again and then I legged it over to the main house.
I avoided Alex for the rest of the morning, sticking my head into the papers – which I did have to read for work and had been planning to do on the train – and keeping it there.
Ham had looked so pleased when he’d heard we were going back to town together, I set about ignoring him too. I didn’t want him getting all maypole-y on me.
We were halfway through lunch – baked gammon with pineapple, another recipe from Chloe’s future book – when my mobile rang. I had it in my pocket, as I had to be on duty on Sundays in case something came up and the news desk needed me urgently to write a story for Monday morning’s paper.
I answered it at the table – I was the only one Ham permitted to have a mobile anywhere near it – to find it wasn’t the news desk. It was Jay.
I nearly choked on my Russian salad, I was so surprised.
‘Hi, beautiful,’ he said. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything.’
‘No,’ I squeaked. ‘I’m just having lunch, hold on.’
Judging by the way everyone round the table was looking at me, it was quite clear from my face that it wasn’t the news desk.
‘Excuse me,’ I said to Ham, who hated people leaving the table during meals only marginally less than people who talked on mobiles during them. ‘I’ll take this outside.’
‘Hang on,’ I said to Jay and practically galloped across the sitting room, through the French windows and into the garden. I kept walking, across the lawn, until I reached the summerhouse.
‘Hi,’ I said, breathlessly, as I sat down. I was so surprised to hear his voice on that phone. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Jay. ‘Are you sure this is an OK time?’
‘Yeah, it’s great, I just had to come outside for some privacy.’
‘Where are you?’ he asked in such an intimate tone it made my stomach turn over. And much more violently than it had with Alex just a short time before.
‘I’m at my father’s place in the country. I’ve been here for the weekend.’
‘Willow Barn?’ said Jay.
‘Yes,’ I said, amazed. ‘Have you heard of it?’
‘I told you, I’m seriously into architecture and it is quite a famous house, as you probably know. Is it as great as it sounds?’
I looked back up at it; the whole wall of glass in front of the two-storey space that was the living area, with the mezzanine floor off to the right, which housed the kiddie corridor and the little turret beyond that, which was Ham’s lair.
‘Yes, it is,’ I said. ‘It’s totally great.’
‘When are you coming back to town?’ asked Jay. ‘I would really love to see you.’
‘This afternoon sometime.’ I paused for a moment. This was no time for game playing. ‘And I’d like to see you too.’
We breathed down the phone at each other for a bit, the sense of possibility hanging so palpably between us.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Jay suddenly. ‘I’ll come down and pick you up. How long does it take to get there from Chelsea?’
I was so surprised, I forgot to protest.
‘About two hours,’ I said. ‘But I’d have to ring you back with exact directions. It’s really hard to find. Maybe it’s better if I just meet you in town,’ I added, as the implications of him turning up down there started to hit me.
‘What’s the post code?’ said Jay.
I was still in such a state of shock I told him.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there soon. Don’t go anywhere.’
And he hung up.
‘Who was that?’ asked Ham, with his usual bluntness, when I walked back in to finish my lunch. They were all on their pudding – kiwi fruit pavlova.
‘Just a friend.’I said, much too quickly. I could see he was looking at me beadily. So was Alex. Oh, God.
‘Actually,’ I continued, thinking the only way to do it was to get it over with quickly. ‘He rang to say he’s coming down this afternoon to fetch me, so I won’t need that lift back now, Alex, but thanks so much for offering.’
Ham was looking very beady now.
‘I hope you gave him decent directions,’ he said. ‘Or the poor bugger will never find it.’
He laughed heartily.
Just over ninety minutes later, while I was still trying to read the papers, but not taking anything in, there was the unmistakable crunch of tyres on the gravel outside the front door.
‘He got here quickly,’ said Ham, with his usual tact. ‘Must be keen.’
I glanced at Alex. I’d rather hoped he would have been gone before Jay arrived, but too bad.
I got up slowly to go to the door, trying to be a bit cool. Mistake – Ham beat me to it, moving with uncharacteristic speed.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said, looking out of the window. ‘Nice bloody motor. Look at this, Alex.’
And he threw open the double front doors to reveal Jay, climbing out of a vehicle that looked more like an alien space probe than a car. With his deep tan, his pale blue shirt, his jeans and his sunglasses, he looked like something out of a 1970s Martini advertisement. Sort of perfect.
Ham was out to meet him before I could even make it to the door. And Archie and Toby overtook me on the way. Alex was a little slower, but even Chloe and Tabitha were coming out for a look. Daisy and I brought up the rear together. I picked her up. I needed an ally. I was suddenly feeling extraordinarily shy. I mean, I hardly knew the guy and here he was mingling with practically my whole family. The first boy I had ever brought home.
I arrived outside just in time to see Ham pumping his hand.
‘Great to meet you,’ he was saying. ‘Henry Montecourt. Stella’s dad. This is my wife, Chloe, my stepsons, Archie and Alex, various other children. This is Stella’s friend, Jay, everyone. I must say, this is a hell of a car. It’s an Enzo, isn’t it? I’ve been dying to have a proper look at one of those. May I?’
Before I could even say hello to Jay, Ham was levering his huge bulk into the passenger seat and it looked like they were going off for a spin.
I could hardly see them through the tinted windows, but the driver’s side suddenly opened and Jay’s head popped out.
‘Hi, Stella,’ he said, grinning at me. ‘Back in a minute.’
They were, but then Archie and Toby had to have turns as well. Then Ham took it for a slow drive down past the paddock and back, all on his own, and then he and Alex and Jay had a look under the bonnet.
It was such a display of male bonding, they should have been wearing penis gourds.
By the time they came into the house, I was almost losing interest. Almost. And the girls were doing a good job of keeping it up.
‘He’s rather gorgeous, Stells,’ said Chloe. ‘You’ve kept very quiet about him.’
‘I’ve only just met him,’ I said.
‘Well, he must be very smitten then, to come down here to collect you like this,’ she said. And for once, her sweet, uncomplicated nature really irritated me.
‘Now he is seriously hot,’ Venezia was saying, coming back downstairs. The little trollop had gone up specially to put lipgloss on, I realized, snitched from Tabitha.
‘He is seriously hot,’ echoed Daisy, in her piping tones, just as Jay walked into the house with Ham and the other boys. Ham had his arm round his shoulder. They were laughing in that hearty brothers-in-testosterone way about nothing in particular.
‘Would you like some tea, Jay?’ said Chloe immediately, to distract attention from Daisy, who was now singing ‘He’s hot, he’s hot, he’s seriously hot’ as a jolly little tune, and I loved her all over again.
‘That would be lovely, thank you, Chloe,’ said Jay and it was Chloe’s turn to beam at him. He was like a human charm offensive.
‘Wow,’ he said, looking around and taking in the space. ‘So this is Willow Barn, it’s just as amazing as I’ve heard.’
‘Jay’s interested in architecture, Ham,’ I said. I couldn’t help myself.
‘Would you like a tour?’ said Ham and off they went.
Ham’s official tour of the house always started in front of the closed front door – the first stage of the ‘emotional journey’ and all that claptrap – and as they disappeared back out of it, I went over to the kitchen to help Chloe with the tea. I was getting the cups out of the dishwasher as Alex walked past us and out of the back door to the guest wing.
Shortly after, he was back, holding his weekend bag.
‘I’m going to split, Chloe,’ he said, not looking at me. ‘I need to get back to town. Please thank Ham for having me, it’s been great. Bye, Stella.’
He kissed us both quickly on the cheek and left.
I felt a bit bad about it for a moment, he was clearly feeling a bit usurped, but then Ham and Jay came back and I kind of forgot about him.
‘It’s amazing, Stella,’ Jay was saying. ‘I really love that turret room. It feels so intimate after all the space down here. A real haven. And now Henry says you are going to show me round the garden.’
I glanced at Ham who was looking beady again. Boy, I thought, he could change horses quickly, but I wasn’t complaining. As far as I was concerned, he was now backing the right one. Gee up, neddy.
We left the house through the French windows, as I had done to take Jay’s call, and as we turned round to look back at the building from the far edge of the lawn, he caught hold of my hand and squeezed it. I squeezed back and immediately dropped it. I strongly suspected Ham was watching us through the telescope in his turret room.
‘It’s great to see you, Stella,’ said Jay, looking at me with those intense blue eyes, his head tilted to one side. ‘I like your family a lot.’
‘Not as much as they like you. My dad is the world’s biggest petrolhead and you could not have made a better move than arriving in that mad car. What is it anyway?’
‘It’s a Ferrari Enzo,’ he said casually.
‘Aren’t Ferraris always red?’
‘They are mostly. But this one’s black. I don’t like red cars.’ He smiled at me. ‘Now show me the garden. Preferably some bits that are well out of sight of the house.’
I led him through the rose garden and down the steps into the bamboo thickets, over the stream via the Chinese bridge into the wilder wooded area, and finally to Ham’s shell grotto.
‘Wow,’ said Jay when we got inside. ‘This is really wild.’
It was. Ham had found a small natural cave in the side of the hill when he was excavating the garden and had seen fit to have it entirely covered in shells, in mosaic designs featuring erotic scenes in the classical style. We’d found it hilarious as children. Now it was having more of the intended effect on Jay.
He pulled me into his arms.
‘You left me in a terrible state last week,’ he said, kissing me gently between his words. ‘How could you do that to me?’
I smiled at him, as I breathed in his wonderful smell again, but I couldn’t relax into his embrace. And this time I wasn’t playing games. It had all been just a little too weird having him pop up fully formed in the family part of my life, which I normally kept so firmly separated from my love life. So I was still digesting all that, plus I felt extremely inhibited by the close – and all too knowing – proximity of my father.
Luckily, the shell grotto was not the most comfortable place for intimate encounters, so I was able to prise Jay out of it fairly easily. Then, after finishing the rest of the garden tour at high speed, we went in for tea, during which Ham managed not to embarrass me too much, although Venezia filled the gap, pouting and posing like a bunny girl, despite death-ray glares from Chloe.
Then it finally seemed like time to start getting back to town.
I nipped over to the guest wing to grab my things and saw that Alex had left my nightie on the bed for me. There was a note by it.
‘It looked better on you. A.’
That was it. There was no kiss, and I was surprised how much I minded.
The entire family came out to see us off, which was slightly mortifying, and then as I was about to get into the car, Ham came over and whispered in my ear, with surprising discretion.
‘You made me wait long enough before you brought someone home, you little minx, but it was worth it. You’ve got yourself a serious Alpha Male there, Stella. And I like him too.’ He put his hands on my cheeks and turned my head, looking right into my eyes. ‘Don’t blow it.’
I knew exactly what he meant. Follow Daddy’s rules, if you want to hook him, that’s what he was saying. Make him wait.
I smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek. The old goat.
Jay and I talked all the way back to London. We were never lost for something to say and I felt really comfortable with him, except for the occasional moment when his hand strayed a little too far up my leg and I could hardly breathe, let alone form a sentence.
But fortunately for our conversation – and Ham’s rules – Jay’s driving style required both hands on the wheel most of the time. I love fast cars, but even I was gripping the seat as he zoomed along the M23 like it was a German Autobahn.
‘I knew Michael Schumacher had one brother…’ I was saying, as he overtook a red Porsche, at warp-factor speed.
‘Red-car asshole,’ he was saying, smiling triumphantly in the rear-view mirror. ‘What did you say? Schumacher? I’d like to take him on. Do you like Formula One?’
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I don’t find it very riveting television – although Ham adores it – but it can be quite fun in the corporate tents.’
He turned and smiled at me warmly, all blue eyes, white teeth and suntan.
‘Where did you get your tan?’ I asked him.
‘Mustique, mainly. And a bit of skiing. Do you ski?’
‘No,’ I said, firmly. I’d been once, to St Moritz for a John Frieda shampoo launch and I was useless. Apart from posing around in the furry boots, I had loathed it.
Jay looked surprised, like I’d said I couldn’t swim, or maybe read.
‘Really?’
‘We never went as kids,’ I said. ‘It’s not Ham’s scene. He’d rather go and look at museums than go downhill at high speed.’
Jay nodded, as if it all now made sense.
‘Your dad is so great,’ he was saying. ‘He’s awesome, but tell me about the rest of your family. Who were all those kids?’
So I explained about the six wives and the six children who were my half-brothers and sisters, plus the various exstepsiblings and semi-steps.
‘Whooah,’ said Jay. ‘That is seriously complicated. Do you all get along?’
‘Mostly,’ I said and then I told him about Venezia’s little outrage of the weekend.
‘That is seriously nasty,’ said Jay. ‘Why is she so bad?’
‘I think it’s a combination of nature and nurture. Her mother, Kristy, is a total witch – the only real gold-digger Ham has ever been sucked in by…’
Jay’s head turned suddenly to look at me.
‘Hmmm,’ I added. ‘That was an unfortunate turn of phrase in the context, wasn’t it? Although I’m sure it was entirely her skill in the “love arts” which lured Ham into her clutches. She was his mistress on and off for years, before they got married.
‘Venezia was conceived and born while he was still married to Rose – the twins’ mum – two years before they came along. So that must be a bit weird for Venezia. She was Ham’s secret daughter for quite a long time. The rest of us may be a mixed-up bunch, but at least we were legitimate. Then on top of that, she’s really bright – she definitely got that from Ham – and the combination is pretty lethal.’
Jay was shaking his head.
‘Phewee. You’ll have to draw me a diagram to understand all this. I thought my family was messy, but you guys really take the prize.’
‘Why is your family messy?’ I asked innocently.
His head shot round and then just as quickly back.
‘Oh, the usual stuff, divorce shit, half-siblings – but only one in my case.’
I could sense him shutting down as he spoke, but I wanted to know. He knew about my mad family, in all our gory detail, I felt I had a right to ask about his.
‘Where did you grow up?’ I pushed him.
‘Oh, mainly in New York, although we had a place in Rhode Island too. Partly over here. My grandmother was English… Hey, don’t you want to know how I got your number?’
As subject changers went, it was a good one. I’d been puzzling about that, but had decided not to ask him.
‘Yes. How did you get my number?’
‘Well, no thanks to you, little Miss Mystery. I rang the Journal repeatedly and they’d never heard of you. Do you really work there? I was seriously starting to wonder. They kept saying we don’t have a Stella Montecourt, we have a Stella something else, but not a Stella Montecourt. I was getting really pissed off in the end. I knew your name was Montecourt, because of your dad, so what was that all about?’
‘Oh, no, I forgot to tell you,’ I said, my hand flying up to my mouth, and it was the truth. I had forgotten. ‘I don’t use that name at work. My byline is Stella Fain. The full family name is Montecourt-Fain, but it’s so pompous we don’t use it much, and I don’t want people to immediately connect me with my dad by just using Montecourt, because it’s so identifiable, so I just use the Fain part.’
‘Well, it was one way to get rid of some lame guy you didn’t want to see again,’ he said, turning to smile at me. ‘Did you get my flowers?’
I thought quickly.
‘What flowers?’
‘OΚ, I guess you didn’t get them then, because I put the wrong name on them too. Shame, they were nice flowers. Roses. I chose them myself. I put my cell number on the card – I was nearly put off when you didn’t call me. But only nearly.’
I quickly reviewed the flowers situation. Jeanette must have recognized Montecourt on the card. Funny she hadn’t mentioned it.
‘So do you want to know how I got your number, or not?’ he said.
‘Yes. And I also want to know how you found Willow Barn without directions.’
‘Oh, that was easy. I had the post code. I just tapped it in here…’ He gestured at the satellite navigation thing on the dashboard. ‘And Miss Bossy Boots delivered me to your door.’
He pressed a button and an incredibly officious woman’s voice said: ‘After five hundred metres, take the next exit.’
‘Did she tell you my mobile number too?’ I asked him, cheekily.
‘No. That wasn’t so easy. I tried to get it from Jericho’s PA, but she pretended she’d never heard of you, so I swallowed my pride and called Amy. Which was really humiliating, thank you, Stella.’
He pretended to punch me on the arm.
Excellent, I thought. Result.
‘So,’ said Jay. ‘Now I’ve finally found you, what are we going to do? Dinner? Where do you like to go? What do you feel like?’
‘I feel like going somewhere I’ve never been before.’
Jay grinned wickedly. ‘How about my apartment?’
Then, just as I was wondering how to play things from there, my phone rang. This time it really was the news desk. Brilliant.
‘Stella?’ said the gruff voice of Eric, the deputy news editor. ‘Something’s coming over the wires from Australia about a designer from there getting the big gig at Gucci. Is that a story for you?’
‘It certainly is,’ I said, trying not to sound as thrilled as I really was to have a valid excuse to torture Jay a little more. ‘I’ve been tracking that rumour for a couple of weeks, it’s a huge story. I’ll come straight in.’
I snapped my phone shut and looked at my watch.
‘I’m really sorry, Jay,’ I said. ‘But that was the news desk. I’ve got a big story breaking and they want it for tomorrow’s paper. I do work there, really, and I’ll have to go in to the office right away.’
I didn’t have to at all. I could have done the story perfectly easily from home and emailed it in, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.
He looked quite crestfallen.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I added. ‘After you’ve driven all this way and everything…’
‘I’ll take you to your office,’ he said, recovering quickly. ‘Where is it?’
‘So far east it’s practically in the North Sea. Are you sure you want to? You can just drop me anywhere in town and I’ll get a cab.’
‘I like driving,’ he said. ‘And I like being with you. I want to spend a little longer in your company.’
He gave me a look I would come to know well in the months ahead. It was the real Jay, at his most open and appealing. He may have been like a clam about his family, but in any other context, he could be amazingly, touchingly honest about his feelings, and it was probably the thing I liked most about him.
‘If you’re only offering me crumbs,’ he said, ‘that’s what I’ll take. I like you enough to accept crumbs.’ Then he grinned, wickedly. ‘But you’ll have to give me a down payment on the full cake.’
And he pulled over into the next lay-by and kissed me until my head was spinning.
By the time we drew up in front of the docklands skyscraper which housed the Journal’s offices, I really was getting worried about meeting my deadline, which made getting out of the car a lot easier.
I had just opened the door and swung my legs out, when Jay put his hand gently on my arm.
‘Not so fast, cub reporter,’ he said. ‘You’re not leaving this automobile until I have your home, work and cell-phone numbers. And your email address and preferably your IRS number. I’m not going through that again.’
‘I never answer the work phone,’ I said. ‘So don’t bother with that, but here are the rest.’
I scribbled my home and mobile numbers on the back of my business card and handed it to him. But I didn’t ask for his.
‘Hey, Stella Fain,’ he called out to me as I walked up the steps towards the building. ‘I’ll be looking for your story in tomorrow’s paper. OK?’
When I made it up to the thirty-first floor, where my desk was, I could hear a phone ringing, which was quite unusual late on a Sunday afternoon. When I got nearer to my work station, I realized it was my phone.
For once I broke my rule and answered it, because I thought it might be someone ringing me with an important lead about the Gucci story.
‘Stella Fain,’ I said in my most professional voice.
‘Just checking,’ said Jay, laughing, and put the phone down.
I sat at my desk and smiled. I liked his style. I liked it a lot.