Chapter Twenty-Four
‘I can’t believe I did that,’ Frank said, his voice cracking as he turned away from the window embrasure of the first-floor study, concealed from view by the heavy velvet curtain. The sound of the paparazzi screeching Lexy’s name had carried across the courtyard into the house, but Frank had in any case been keeping an eye out for his wife, sure that she would be coming back some time today. He could barely see her over the gates, but from the shouts of the journalists, the way they were clustering around the gatepost, the car pulling away again as the paparazzi crowded around it to get the shots of Lexy leaving, it was clear what had happened.
‘I know it must have been really hard,’ Caroline said softly. ‘I’m so sorry you’re going through this, Frank.’
Frank’s complexion was ashen. He shook his head slowly as if trying to deny what had just happened: his wife, in tears, being turned away from the house they shared together.
‘I’m so glad you’re here, Caroline,’ he said, slumping down onto the sofa on which she was sitting. Much as she had wanted to watch Lexy trying and failing to gain access to the house, Caroline had refrained; it wouldn’t look right for her to have her face pressed against the glass next to Frank’s.
‘Oh, I couldn’t have stayed away!’ she said in the same soft tone. ‘Not if you and the kids needed me.’
That morning, seeing the story breaking online, Caroline had tried to ring the house but failed to get through, as it was already under siege. Having delivered Lexy on the Loose a couple of days ago, she had reluctantly returned to London the next day.
With the house phone going straight to answering machine, she had texted Frank, wondering if she dared just to pack a bag and get on the next train to Bournemouth. But to her great relief, a mere few minutes later Frank had rung her, sounding terrible. This had emboldened her to offer to come to Sandbanks and help look after Laylah and London. Frank had almost sobbed with relief, confessing that he had been hoping she would suggest it but that he hadn’t dared to ask her himself, as it seemed like such a huge imposition . . .
The paparazzi had beaten Caroline to it, of course: the mansion was staked out by the time she arrived. But it had been easy enough to make her way through the crowd, mumbling about being a friend of the family. It had been scary, but exciting, to have that quantity of attention briefly directed her way as they realized she was entering the house to which they all wanted access. The questions rat-tat-tatted out like machine-gun fire: was Lexy leaving Frank for Deacon? Was she with Deacon right now? How was Frank coping? Did the kids know what their mum was up to? It gave Caroline a vivid sense of what it was like to be Lexy, to have people surrounding you, literally begging you just to give them a quote.
Many people would have disliked being pestered like this. And a few months ago, Caroline would have been one of them. But not now. Now, she liked it quite a lot.
The kids had not gone to school or Montessori that day, of course. They were out on the back lawn, which was entirely sheltered even from long-distance photo lenses: it was a major reason Lexy and Frank had bought the house, the privacy it gave them from press intrusion. The house’s two wings curved around the lawn and gardens below, while thick trees lined the fences on either side. The next-door neighbours’ houses were as impregnable as their own. The richer people were, the more privacy they could purchase.
Leaving Laylah and London in Gabriela’s charge, Caroline had slipped away to find Frank, who had told her that Lexy was on her way to Sandbanks. For the last hour, the two of them had sat in the study, both so aware of what would happen when Lexy arrived that they were barely able to say a word. Now that it had happened, however, the floodgates had opened.
‘I still don’t know if I did the right thing,’ Frank said, twisting his hands together in his lap. ‘I’m just picturing her face as she typed in that code and realized that I changed it . . .’
‘You said you couldn’t face seeing her right now,’ Caroline prompted, steering him where she needed him to go. ‘You said you needed time to get your head straight, and you didn’t want a big scene in front of the kids.’
‘I don’t,’ Frank said unhappily.
‘And you said that if she just came home as if nothing had happened, without ringing first to try to explain or say sorry, you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from being angry and a scene would be bound to happen,’ she went on.
Frank nodded.
‘I know it was a shock for her,’ Caroline continued. ‘But Frank –’ she had heard that repeating someone’s name was an effective way to make them inclined to do what you wanted – ‘it was a shock for you to be woken up by a journo ringing you at six in the morning to ask you if you had a comment to make on your wife snogging a boybander in the loos of some club!’
‘Yeah,’ he said, nodding gloomily. ‘Yeah, that’s true.’
‘And then the photos, and the video!’ she continued. ‘The impact on the kids! So awful!’
Frank, who was staring at his hands, nodded vigorously at the reminder of his very strong feelings about parents who caused scandals that affected their children.
‘That was why you decided to change the codes,’ she reiterated. ‘You said if she’d come home last night and talked about it then you wouldn’t have been as angry. Where was she, anyway?’
‘Emily says she was out with Sam Hope and Michelle McCrain,’ Frank said flatly. ‘On the lash. They stayed out till three a.m., apparently. Sam was tweeting about it this morning.’
Caroline pulled her phone out and quickly went onto Twitter, searching for Sam’s account.
‘Up till 3 w @michelleeeeMc & @sexylexyoriginal, ow, head hurts can I go back to slp now??’
‘Just seeing fotos @sexylexyoriginal you are SO SO SO naughty OMG.’
‘WOW @sexylexyoriginal said last nite big goss today no kidding! #juicy #naughty #noway #scandal @yeahimDeacon I mean you!’
Caroline read the tweets aloud, assuming a sombre tone which contrasted with the frivolity of the words. Frank was shaking his head in disbelief.
‘This is awful, Frank,’ she said, putting the phone down. ‘I can’t believe she told her friends that there was juicy gossip coming! That’s so disrespectful.’
‘They’re not her friends,’ Frank said flatly. ‘They’re – partners in crime. They all set each other off, especially when they’re coked up. Lexy thinks I don’t know she gets caned sometimes, but of course I bloody do. No way are any of them up till three a.m. without taking charlie, not with the amount of drink they all put away.’
‘Oh,’ Caroline said, rather shocked. ‘I didn’t know that. She doesn’t talk about it in the book.’
‘She wouldn’t, would she?’ Frank said almost sharply. He caught himself at once. ‘I’m sorry, Caroline,’ he said contritely. ‘I’m really wound up, I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just . . . she copped off with Deacon, then went and found Sam and Michelle and did a ton of charlie instead of coming back home to her family. And the reason she’s getting back so late is because she woke up with a massive hangover. It’s just all so bloody irresponsible! She’s a wife and a mother. She shouldn’t be giving a guy enough encouragement that he thinks he can follow her into the loos and start trying to give her one!’
Nodding in agreement, Caroline reached out a hand to him, and to her great relief, he took it. His fingers were dry, warm, enveloping hers, and he did not let go, but rested their clasped hands on the sofa between them.
‘You’re such a comfort, Caroline,’ he said, heaving a long sigh.
Caroline hoped that he would notice how perfect her French manicure was – she had done it on the train, not caring about the irritated stares of the other passengers at the smell of nail polish – how smooth and moisturized her skin. She was dressed in an outfit which was part of an entire wardrobe she had bought for her newly slim figure; she would have loved to be able to wear really skinny jeans like Lexy’s, but the constant running on the sandy beach of Studland had given Caroline too much calf and thigh muscle for those. The jeans were close-fitting, though, showing off her newly slim legs, and over them she wore a V-necked T-shirt and loose sweater, both from Joseph on sale, the quality much better than anything she had previously owned.
The bonus money had not yet hit her account, but Gareth had emailed to say how pleased he was with her for finishing before her deadline, and that, based on the quality of the previous sections of the book she had sent him, he was authorizing the payment with the accounts division of Bailey and Hart. On that assurance, and the knowledge that Lexy was planning to stir something up with Deacon in the next couple of days, Caroline had gone shopping very strategically for a new, fitted, elegant wardrobe that would hopefully see her through a stay at Sandbanks in Lexy’s absence.
Caroline leaned forward, putting a little cleavage on display. That was the reason behind the V-neck T-shirts. She had learned from Lexy that when you were amply endowed, a V-neck was the best cut. It showed off your breasts by highlighting the cleavage, while the downwards point of the V gave the illusion that your waist was smaller than it was.
Frank’s gaze could not help but flicker over the swell of Caroline’s breasts.
‘You look nice,’ he said naively, not realizing why that statement had popped out of his mouth. ‘Still working out? Did you find a gym in London, or are you doing park running, like I suggested?’
‘I joined a gym,’ Caroline said. ‘There’s a chain near me that’s really cheap, just twenty pounds a month and no contract. But it’s weird running on a treadmill – it feels so easy after doing it on the beach.’
‘That’s why I said park running,’ Frank said. ‘If there’s a grass track you can get to, that’s the closest to what you’ve been doing.’
‘There is a park not that far away,’ Caroline said. ‘I just haven’t had time to go over there and have a look yet – I only finished the book a few days ago, so . . .’
She bit her tongue. Mentioning the book had been a mistake; it had brought Frank’s thoughts back from the delightful topic of how good she looked onto the much gloomier one of what his wife had been prepared to do in order to garner publicity for herself.
‘I just don’t know how she could do this,’ he said so poignantly that Caroline felt a lump in her throat. ‘No matter how much Emily tells me that it’s all for publicity, that he jumped Lex in the loos and she only kissed him back because she remembered what they were talking about in the meeting and thought it would work – how is that supposed to make me feel better? It’s obvious that she’s kissing him back! You can see that! And how come those women were in there photographing it? It looks like a setup to me!’
‘Did you see the video?’ Caroline asked quietly, and Frank’s hand tightened on hers, squeezing it almost painfully.
‘No,’ he muttered. ‘No, I couldn’t. Is it – is it bad?’
Caroline lowered her eyes and fell silent, as if she couldn’t bear to say the words of confirmation.
Across the room, on the desk, Frank’s mobile buzzed with a text coming in. This was nothing new; friends and family had been trying to get in touch all morning. But given the timing, and the fact that Lexy had not been in touch all day, Frank jumped to his feet, his hand dropping Caroline’s as he hurried over to the desk and grabbed his phone.
‘She’s at the Ferry Hotel,’ he said, looking down at the screen.
‘That’s unusual,’ Caroline couldn’t help saying. ‘She’s always so snarky about that place.’
Frank gave a half-smile.
‘She’s saying she’ll wait till the paps clear out, and then can she come over and talk?’ he said, still reading. ‘She says she’s really sorry, it’s not what it looks like . . .’
His voice trailed off, and Caroline remained silent once more, again seeming like a loyal employee who, unable to come up with anything in her boss’s defence, preferred not to say anything at all.
‘But it is, isn’t it?’ Frank said, not really as a question. ‘I haven’t even watched the video, but from what the media’s saying about it –’
He looked at Caroline, who squinched her brows together and drew her lips back in an expression that conveyed, very clearly, that she did not want to describe what happened in the video to Lexy’s husband.
‘I really hope the kids never see it,’ she murmured, knowing this would trigger Frank. ‘I mean, just those photos of his jeans . . .’
‘Yes!’ Frank agreed furiously at this successful attempt at adding fuel to the flames. ‘He came in his trousers! He came in his fucking trousers while his hand was up my wife’s skirt! The little bastard – if I ever come across him he’d better run. Otherwise I’ll wring his fucking neck!’
He stared down at the phone in his hand.
‘She must think I’m the biggest mug in the world,’ he said. ‘A total fucking mug. How can it not be what it looks like? They were humping away and then that skinny little dipshit came in his fucking jeans – what’s she going to tell me to explain that away?’
But Caroline had the feeling that Lexy would think of something. She was so quick-witted, so clever, so able to wrap Frank round her little finger. Caroline had watched Lexy get away with neglecting her children, running rough-shod over Frank’s wants and needs, but then, just as Frank’s resentment reached boiling point, turning on her dazzling charm and heading any trouble off at the pass with a display of perfect wife and mother virtues that lasted just long enough to settle Frank down and allow Lexy to resume her selfish behaviour as before.
If Lexy gained access to Frank now, she might well be able to talk him into forgiving her, letting her come home. And that would fatally scupper Caroline’s chances with him, which couldn’t be allowed to happen.
Caroline found herself remembering a historical novel she had read recently about the six wives of Henry VIII. When the fifth one, young, pretty Katherine Howard, had been accused of adultery, she had screamed and pleaded, trying to get to his rooms and beg him for mercy. But Henry’s advisers had not allowed Katherine to see the king; she was so charming that they were afraid that, given access to him, she would use her wiles to convince him not to have her executed.
Caroline needed to apply the same principle with Lexy. There was a wedge between Frank and his wife now, but this was only the start. If Caroline couldn’t drive the wedge in deeper, she would lose all the advantage she had gained.
‘But Frank, how could she explain the photos of Deacon’s jeans to the children?’ Caroline asked, looking up at Frank with big doe eyes. ‘That’s the worst part! They’ll see them sooner or later – no matter what we do, some kid at school will show them the pictures – maybe even the video – kids can be so cruel! I don’t even want to imagine how that’ll make them feel.’
Frank dropped the phone to the desk and knuckled his eyes hard.
‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘I can’t think about that! I’ve always said to guys on the team who’re playing away that they’re scum for not thinking about the effect on their kids, and here’s my own wife doing exactly that . . .’
The phone buzzed again. Frank gulped out a hopeless sob.
‘If it’s her, I can’t see her right now . . . Caroline, I can’t . . .’
Caroline got up and walked across to the desk, picking up Frank’s iPhone. Sure enough, the screen was showing another text from Lexy: ‘Frank pls pls ring me, pls, Im crying my face off, Im crying & so guilty, pls answer, need 2 talk to u NOW pls.’
‘I’m not sure if you should even look at these,’ she said, sounding sad. ‘There’s no explanation or anything for what she did—’
‘Like there’s any she could give!’ Frank said, his voice thick with tears.
‘She wants to talk to you, but—’
‘I can’t,’ Frank said again, to Caroline’s great relief.
‘I’ll just delete them and turn off your phone,’ Caroline said, pitching her tone between a question and a statement, so that later she could always say that she had thought it was what Frank wanted.
Frank said nothing, which she took as consent. Swiftly, Caroline deleted the messages from Lexy. And then, her heart racing, she went to the Favourites list in his iPhone contacts. Pulling up Lexy’s number, she blocked it, doing it so fast that she didn’t give herself time to think about what she was doing. Lexy could text and ring as much as she wanted, to no avail: Frank would think that, discouraged and guilty, she had stopped trying to get into contact with him. The home phone was going straight to the answering machine, but that, Caroline knew, was already full from the sheer volume of calls that morning. Lexy would not be able to leave a message there.
Had Caroline gone too far? Maybe. But Frank’s phone was always lying around. If she lost her nerve, she could easily unblock Lexy’s number.
There and then, however, Caroline had no regrets. Turning the iPhone off, she set it down on the desk and pushed it away a little, symbolically creating a distance between Frank and his conduit to the world outside. She glanced over at the desktop computer and thought that later on, when Frank was safely out of the way for twenty minutes or so, she would log on and block Lexy’s email address too. In for a penny, in for a pound.
‘I’m so sorry this is happening to you and the kids, Frank,’ she said sadly. ‘I’d do anything to make the pain go away.’
She was standing in front of him, looking up at him, her eyes wide. Tentatively, she reached out and touched his arm.
‘I could do with a hug,’ she said in the same small voice she had been using all through this talk. ‘Would that be all right? I know I’m not going through what you are, but I’m feeling pretty upset. I really thought she was a better person than this.’
Wordlessly, Frank dropped his hands from his face. His handsome features were distorted by grief, his eyes red. Slowly he opened his arms, and equally slowly Caroline stepped into the space he had created, so close to him that she could feel the heat from his body. Tentatively, she wrapped her arms around his wide, solid chest, her heart racing faster than she could ever remember it doing in her life.
The weight of his arms pulled her even closer, until the whole front of her body was pressed against his. It was the first time in her adult life that she had ever felt comfortable with a man’s body fully against hers, because it was the first time that she’d felt in reasonable shape. Her breasts, in a T-shirt bra that shaped them and pushed them up, were large and firm, and below them she no longer had a roll of fat. Her stomach was not flat, and never would be unless she got lipo, but she was seriously considering that option. Now that she had started to change her body, she never wanted to stop.
Her bra straps weren’t digging into her, nor was the waistband of her jeans. If Frank should one day not only hug her like this, but run his hands up and down her back like a lover, it would feel relatively smooth. She wouldn’t need to flinch away with embarrassment for fear of him feeling how tightly cinched in she was, or dread red welt marks forming as soon as she took her clothes off.
His scent was all around her. She pressed her cheek against his chest, settling there, breathing him in, and with exhilaration she felt his head lower, his jaw resting against her forehead, his breath warm on her hair. Tears started to form in her eyes. She was in Frank’s arms, exactly where she had wanted to be from the moment she had seen him. In the days to come, they would hug more frequently, comforting each other. And one day, when she felt his body language responding to her as a woman, not just a friend, Caroline would pull back, just a little, and tilt her head to look up at Frank, her lips parted.
And he would bend down and kiss her. She knew it. She could tell by the way he was holding her, the way their bodies were relaxing against each other. When you had this kind of full-body contact, your reactions could not be faked. Frank liked holding her, liked being close to her, not just intellectually but physically. Look how long he was maintaining the embrace, much longer than a simple hug for reassurance and comfort. She could feel his heartbeat against her cheek, and she heard herself sigh as she relaxed even further against him.
‘You’re crying,’ he said into her hair, and she shivered at the sensation of his lips so close to her, the light, sensual tickle of his breath on her scalp.
‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m getting your T-shirt wet.’
Frank slid his hands up her back to her shoulders, almost as she had fantasized about him doing. Looking down at her with concern, he thumbed the tears from her eyes. The intimacy made her tremble with excitement.
‘I hate that you’re caught up in all of this, Caroline,’ he said. ‘I’m really sorry you’ve got sucked into our mess.’
‘It’s okay, Frank,’ she said. Every time he said her name, it was a secret thrill; every time she said his, she felt it was as if she were casting a spell, drawing him into an increasingly intimate relationship.
‘Honestly, it’s all about the kids as far as I’m concerned,’ she continued. ‘I’m not even thinking about myself. I just want to make sure they get through this as best they possibly can.’
Frank’s smile was all the reward she needed.
‘I was thinking – why don’t we try to take Laylah and London out for the afternoon?’ she suggested. ‘They’d love to spend some quality time with you, and I honestly think it would do you the world of good as well. You know what it’s like when you’re spending time with small kids – you can’t think about anything but them and all the questions they’re firing at you.’
Frank pulled a face.
‘I’d love to,’ he said, ‘but where are we going to go? There’ll be paps hanging round the house for days, and they’ll follow us as soon as they see us going out—’
‘I thought we – I mean, you – could take the boat out?’ Caroline said. ‘I’ll happily come to make sure the kids don’t fall overboard! We could pack a picnic, have lunch and snacks if the weather keeps nice . . .’
Frank’s expression cleared like the sky after a summer rain.
‘That would be great!’ he enthused. ‘It’s why I got the boat, to have family days out on the water. But Lex never wanted to come – she was always fussing about getting splashed or rained on and messing up her hair, or she was shooting off to London and couldn’t spare the time.’
Caroline knew this perfectly well; she had heard Frank offer several times to take the family out on the power boat, only for Lexy to come up with one excuse after the other. The kids were too lively to be left to run around on the large boat without being constantly supervised, even with life-jackets on, so Frank couldn’t take them out alone; and besides, as he had plaintively repeated to Lexy, the whole point was for the four of them to be together.
Frankly, Caroline wasn’t looking forward to it. She couldn’t swim very well, and although the power boat was generously sized, with a big covered indoor cabin and wide back deck, she knew that even in a lifejacket she would be nervous the entire time. But she would do much more for Frank than get on a boat for the afternoon and put a smile on her face as she handed sandwiches out to the kids and dried them down after they had taken a dip in the sea.
‘I’ll go down to the kitchen and get a picnic together, shall I?’ she said. ‘You go tell them what we’re planning? I can’t wait to see the excitement on their faces!’
But frankly, the expression on their father’s face was all that she needed to make her wild with happiness.