Over bagels and coffee at a cafe on Saturday morning, Dominic leaned forward. “I have bad news, babes. I have to leave for a couple of days.”
Gemma paused in the act of buttering her Montreal-style bagel to fix him with a raised brow. “What do you mean, ‘leave’?” she asked.
“A press junket for the new album. I thought I told you.”
“You didn’t,” she said as she laid her knife aside. “Does this press junket happen to include Christa?”
“What? No,” he assured her, startled. “Why would it?”
“She’s on your new single, after all. So it stands to reason she’d be there with you, meeting with the journalists and posing for pictures.”
“Well,” he said carefully, fiddling with his coffee spoon, “ordinarily she would, yeah, but with her mum just out of hospital and recovering from a gunshot wound, she has more important things to deal with at the moment.”
“Oh. Right.” Mollified, Gemma took a bite of her bagel. “Can I go?” she asked hopefully. “Where’s it to be? New York? L.A.?”
“Nah. Manchester.”
She frowned. “Manchester?”
“Hey, I don’t set these things up, Max does.” He leaned over the table and kissed her. “It’s only for two days, babes. I’ll be back before you can say ‘let’s make a baby’.”
Gemma lifted her brow as she licked the butter from her fingers. “Perhaps we should go home and get started on that before you go.”
He grinned. “You know what they say – practice makes perfect.”
Pippa’s mum dropped Jools off on Saturday afternoon.
“I’m home,” she called out as she unlocked the front door and dropped her rucksack on the floor. The TV was on in the kitchen. “Anybody here?” Jools asked as she followed the sound down the hallway.
“You’re back.” Her father was sat on the sofa, watching a cricket match. He picked up the remote and switched off the TV as she came in. “Have a good time at Pippa’s?”
She eyed him warily. “Yeah, great. Where’s Felicity?”
“She’s upstairs. Julia,” he added, his words measured, “I want you to know that as of this moment, you’re grounded. You’re not to leave this house until Sunday afternoon, when I’m taking you back to your mother’s.”
She stared at him, stunned. “What?”
“Go up to your room and pack your things.” He stood up and brushed past her and into the hallway. “We’ll discuss it later.”
“Wait!” she cried, and hurried after him. “At least tell me what it is I’ve done!” She caught sight of Felicity coming down the stairs, and froze. “You told him, didn’t you?” she accused. “You told him, after you swore you wouldn’t!”
“I thought your father ought to know.”
“I’m extremely disappointed in you, Julia,” Oliver said, and turned to face her. “Having a boy round when no one was home, the both of you going at it on the sitting room sofa…”
“We weren’t ‘going at it’! And Felicity couldn’t wait to tell you all about it, because she knew you’d do exactly what you’re doing – send me straight back to Mum’s.”
“Felicity was right to tell me. Go and pack your things, Julia. I told you the rules before you moved in – be civil to Felicity and no boys were allowed in the house unsupervised.”
“Fine. All right. I’ll pack, with pleasure.” Angry tears blurred her vision as Jools stormed past him to the stairs. “I know you don’t want me here anyway, you never have.” She glared up at Felicity. “Either of you.”
Oliver bristled. “That’s not true.”
“It is true. I’m just an inconvenience that you and Mum have to deal with, shuttling me back and forth from Lambeth to Maida Vale. But it’s all right, because at least I don’t have to be nice to the bed bunny any longer. I’m done.” Halfway up the steps, Jools brushed past Felicity and paused to look down at her father. “And I’m done with you.”
“Julia!”
But she turned and stormed upstairs to her room, and slammed the door.
It was late when Oliver switched off the lamp and put his book aside. Felicity had long since fallen asleep. Unable to sleep himself, he’d tried – and failed – to read, but his thoughts were too troubled by his argument with Julia to focus. He slipped out of bed and got up, easing the bedroom door open and closing it behind him. Perhaps Felicity was right. Perhaps he’d overreacted. Nothing had happened with that boy, Jez, after all; and Jools was only seventeen. He’d been young himself once, and overcome with hormones…
…which led to a civil ceremony between two people who weren’t remotely ready or suited to marry, much less have a daughter together.
He didn’t want the same outcome for Jools.
Halfway down the hall, he paused outside his daughter’s door. All was quiet. On impulse he knocked softly on the door. “Jools? Are you awake?”
There was no answer. She was probably still angry; she liked to hold a grudge and, like her mother, she had a stubborn streak a mile long. He hesitated, then reached out and put his hand on the doorknob, expecting it to be locked. But it turned easily, and the door swung open.
“Jools?” he murmured as he advanced slowly into the darkened room to her bed. “Are you awake, Lady J? I thought we might talk.”
In the moonlight streaming into the room, Oliver glimpsed the outline of his daughter’s shape under the covers. He reached out to touch her shoulder, to wake her and tell her he was sorry for the angry words between them…
But his hand touched nothing but a pile of blankets, arranged longwise in a roll under the blankets.
“Jools?” He fumbled for the lamp and snapped it on. The bed was empty. “Oh, Christ…Jools, where are you?”
Panic swamped him as he realized that his daughter was not lying, safe and sleeping, in her bed.
Jools was gone.