London Celebrity @LondonCelebrity. 3h
Are things getting serious? Sources say “totally infatuated” Elaine Graham and Richard Troy are spending “almost every night together.”
Lainie’s numerous older brothers were all thick-necked, wide-shouldered, brown-haired and green-eyed. Richard took her word for it that it wasn’t a mirrored reflection of the same large man. To a one, they obviously hated his guts. Compared to the Upper Bidford Women’s Institute, however, they were about as intimidating as Cabbage Patch Kids.
The children were a different story.
“Bear¸” said one of the smaller girls. She showed him a dilapidated toy. Most of the fur had been sucked off one ear.
“Bear,” she said again, more insistently.
He wasn’t sure what she was looking for by way of a response. To start with, it wasn’t a bear. It was a cat. Possibly a mouse. Less likely, a squirrel. Definitely not a bear. The kid was related to Lainie, so he suspected she wouldn’t appreciate being corrected on that point.
Gingerly, he took the mystery animal from her. “Cute.”
The lie seemed to satisfy her. To his relief, one of Lainie’s sisters-in-law appeared with a carton of ice cream and a box of waffle cones, and the little girl took off running. He turned the slightly sticky toy over in his hands, wondering where to put it. Through the hot cycle of the washing machine would be his first instinct.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee, Richard?” another woman asked, and he glanced up. She was tall, forty-odd and sharp-featured. Victoria, who was married to Lainie’s eldest brother, Ryan. The one who’d attempted to break Richard’s thumb during their handshake.
“Victoria is a university professor,” Lainie had said in the car, on the way to her parents’ house in Fulham. “She claims to be political, but she’s mostly just stroppy.”
“Black, thank you,” he said. “No sugar.”
A healthy shot of whisky wouldn’t have gone astray either. He couldn’t remember if he’d been nervous the first time he’d stepped onto a West End stage, but he couldn’t have been as uncomfortable then as he felt now, at a one-year-old’s birthday party. As was becoming his new state of normal, his eyes sought out Lainie. She was standing talking to Sarah, who’d been refreshingly pleased to see him. The baby propped on Lainie’s hip was wearing a pink headband, so presumably was not the guest of honour, as the name on the birthday cake had been Cooper. She was bouncing up and down again, but her niece seemed to appreciate the rocking motion more than he had when she’d done it to the springs of his Ferrari.
He’d read an abysmal script a few months ago in which the protagonist had been struck dumb by the apparently sensual sight of his love interest clutching an infant. Watching Lainie sway with the baby, Richard’s main thought was for the welfare of her clothing. These kids had consumed enough food to feed a barracks. It seemed like tempting fate to jiggle one up and down.
She did look beautiful, holding the baby. She had managed to look beautiful holding a sick bucket. She was beautiful, in a way that had nothing to do with a perfect smile, or large breasts, or gorgeous hair, and had everything to do with her.
Although the boobs and hair were a nice perk.
She looked over at him, smiled that perfect smile, and for a moment he couldn’t fucking breathe.
He’d played this, onstage and on film, countless times before age had sharpened his features and his reputation had tarnished his character, and he’d been more frequently cast as the villain than the lover.
He’d had no idea.
Lainie’s gaze shifted down to his hands, where he still held the revolting stuffed animal. Her smile grew. She said something to Sarah, who also looked at him with amusement, and handed her the baby.
He could smell her perfume as she came toward him. Her hair brushed silkily against his cheek as she sat down on the couch at his side and rested her chin on his shoulder for a moment.
“I see you’ve been left in charge of Mister Ed. You should feel privileged. He’s Libby’s favourite.”
“Mister Ed?” Lazily, he rubbed his nose against her cheek.
“Ryan used to watch reruns when he was a kid. He told her it would be a good name for a horse.”
“A horse?” His attention returned to the toy, and he turned it over in his hands. “It’s a cat. I’ll accept a fox at a push.”
“It’s clearly a horse.” She took it away from him and set it down on the coffee table, next to a naked Barbie doll with a shorn head, one leg and an understandably fed-up expression.
Victoria came back with a cup in each hand. “Black coffee, no sugar,” she said, handing him one. “Tea with milk and two sugars.” She passed the other to Lainie.
“Thanks, Vicky.” Lainie took it and sipped, with a grateful sigh. She flicked a glance at him through her lashes. “You’re surviving, then.”
He swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “Just.” He raised the cup. “Although if one of your brothers helped make this, I should probably check it for traces of strychnine.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. They don’t usually behave like the Corleone family. Will set kind of a bad precedent.”
“Story of his life.”
She grinned. He watched her narrowly, but there were no shadows in her eyes. Not a hint of lingering anger or regret. From her demeanour, Farmer might have been only a passing acquaintance. The corner of his mouth curved upward.
Another of the children, a small-to-medium-sized boy, came toddling over with a melting ice cream cone and laid a sticky miniature hand on Richard’s knee. He sighed and looked around for a suitable toy. Mister Ed was obviously private property, and he didn’t want to sacrifice the Barbie. The little boy looked like a holy terror, and her life had obviously been hard enough.
Lainie came to the rescue with a neon-green foam sword. Her ungrateful nephew whacked her around the ribs with it before charging off to decapitate his siblings.
Lainie looked at Richard ruefully. “Most of them will be taken off for a nap soon.”
He wouldn’t mind one himself. He had an entirely new respect for people with kids. They were exhausting. He also questioned the sanity of teachers, nannies and anyone who voluntarily wrangled the little beasts en masse. Naturally high spirits seemed to go into warp speed under the influence of pack mentality. He watched a card game disintegrate into something more like a reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo.
He’d occasionally wondered if he’d missed something, being an only child. Grievous bodily harm, by the looks of it.
“Thank you for coming.” Lainie spoke in his ear. He turned to look at her. Her green eyes were level and serious on his. “I do appreciate it. I know this is so not your scene.”
It wasn’t. He hadn’t met a woman’s family since his university days. And his girlfriend at the time had also been an only child. But this was obviously the centre of Lainie’s world, and he...cared about Lainie.
He shrugged. “We said we were going to spend the day together.”
When they’d made plans for their day off, she’d forgotten about the family gathering, but needs must. The rest of the week was going to be packed with performances, meetings and duty appearances, so there wasn’t going to be another chance to spend time with her away from the prying eyes of the public.
There were no paparazzi here. No pretence.
Just the vaguely threatening stares of her five hundred brothers.
One of them dropped into a seat opposite, a half-empty coffee cup in his hand, and Richard sat calmly under his scrutiny. It was the youngest. Cal, the only one with a beard.
He looked fairly unhappy about the proximity of Richard’s hand to his sister’s thigh.
Too bad.
“So,” Cal said, with suspicious civility. “Richard.”
“Cal,” Lainie returned warningly.
“Rumour has it you’re a bit of a prick.”
“Cal!”
Her brother’s face remained politely enquiring.
Richard’s lips twitched. “That does seem to be the general consensus.”
Cal leaned back, frowningly inspecting his jumper, which bore traces of his children’s lunch. “And are you?”
“I believe your sister has said so more than once.” He smiled slowly, looking down into Lainie’s indignant face. “And I respect her opinion.”
She shook her head at him. Reluctant amusement lightened her eyes to a gleaming shade of mint.
Cal watched them in silence. “Good enough.” He stood up, drained the last of his coffee, and clapped Richard on the shoulder as he passed by. “Welcome to the family. See you in two weeks at the next birthday party.”
“I’m adopted,” Lainie said. “I share no genes with these people.”
Richard glanced pointedly through the archway into the other lounge, where her freckle-faced, still partially red-haired father was playing Playstation with the teenagers. He tugged gently on a lock of her own hair.
Lainie put her hand up to rescue her scalp, her fingers closing over his. “Coincidence.”
Without thinking, he nodded at the framed photograph on the mantel. “Your sister is indicating otherwise.” He belatedly recalled that she’d almost cried the last time they’d talked about Hannah. It was still a novel experience, keeping a watch over someone else’s feelings.
Fortunately, her eyes remained clear. Her expression softened as she looked at her sister’s image.
“That’s Auntie Hannah,” said yet another childish treble, and he looked down at a young girl with a brown ponytail. He was relieved to see that this one had clean hands and looked old enough to entertain herself.
“She could curl her tongue like me.” She demonstrated. “Can you do that?”
“Yes, Richard,” Lainie said provocatively. She widened her eyes at him. “What can you do with your tongue?”
“Are you being gross?” her niece demanded, and Richard snorted. Lainie’s cheeks reddened.
Taking pity on her, he stuck his tongue out and curled it, to the resounding approval of his younger audience.
“She could do cartwheels too.” She looked at him expectantly.
“No,” he said firmly.
“Yeah, Auntie Lainie can’t do them either.” The little girl looked disparagingly at her aunt. “Mum says it’s because she has a heavy top.”
Richard bit back a grin. His gaze moved to the...top in question, and Lainie pinched him.
“She can do some stuff, though,” the precocious child grudgingly allowed. “She can sit on the ground and put her foot right up behind her head.”
“Can she?” He eyed Lainie with new interest. “That sounds...useful.”
“I did it once and almost broke my hip,” she replied deflatingly. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
“He can curl his tongue like Auntie Hannah, Gran,” the little girl said to Rachel, who had come into the room to gather up dirty plates.
“Is that right?” Lainie’s mother glanced at Richard, and then smiled at her granddaughter. “You can take these plates to the kitchen for me, please, madam.”
He got to his feet, still holding his empty coffee cup. “Let me,” he began, but Lainie took the cup from his hand and a stack of plates from her mother.
“It’s okay,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. It was a very casual, gentle, affectionate action, which somehow rendered him motionless. “I can do it.”
Her niece trailed in her wake, holding a single plate and looking martyred.
Rachel stood looking at the photo of Hannah. Slipping his hands into his pockets, he remained silent.
“She was a good person.” Rachel turned her head to look directly at him. “So is her sister.”
He didn’t so much as blink under her steady regard. “I’m aware of that.”
“Good,” she said, unsmiling. She continued to watch him for several seconds, then nodded and returned to the kitchen.
He walked over to take a closer look at the family photographs. He was standing near the open door to the hallway, well within hearing range when his name came up in conversation.
“So, what do you think of Richard Troy, up close and personal?” He didn’t recognise the female voice, but instantly identified Victoria when she responded.
“He seems to have a few more brain cells than the last walking ego she had in tow. But once again, Lainie takes up with an up-himself actor.”
“He doesn’t seem that bad.” The unknown woman sighed. “Do you reckon it’ll last?”
“No.”
“They do seem pretty into each other.”
“She seemed to be pretty into the manwhore too.”
“Vicky...”
“Besides, do rebound relationships ever last? None of mine did.”
The voices trailed away and he heard footsteps going up the stairs. He was still standing by the doorway when a trio of kids came tripping through. They were all clutching plastic swords.
Apparently Lainie’s brothers had dispatched an execution squad.
One of the two boys looked him up and down. “Are you a pirate?”
Richard dropped the murderous scowl and resisted a self-conscious urge to touch a hand to his unshaven chin. “No.” His response was curt. “Sorry.”
The boy persisted. “But you could be a pirate?”
Technically, he had been a pirate, although he suspected the kids were after a more interestingly bloodthirsty performance than was required by Gilbert and Sullivan. He eyed the plastic sword that the other boy offered, and shrugged. He’d worked with less convincing props, and he was in the mood for wielding a weapon. And thanks to the past weeks of work on The Cavalier’s Tribute, his swordplay wasn’t too rusty.
The children grinned from ear to ear when he threateningly brandished the sword. The female pirate, who looked a lot like Lainie, growled and took a violent stab at him with her own weapon. It was lucky the room was childproof, with no breakables on display.
“You’re the baddie,” the first boy informed him bossily.
“Again, that seems to be the general consensus.”
The swordfight continued amidst rising giggles, and did a surprising amount toward working off his bad temper. He fielded off an enthusiastic slice and creased his face into another angry scowl, much to his opponents’ delight. Eventually—naturally—the Lainie-look-alike declared herself the victor, for no other reason than that she wanted to be.
Amused, Richard lowered his sword in surrender. He heard a deep chuckle. Turning, he was slightly embarrassed to see Lainie’s father watching the game.
“Fence at Oxford, did you?” Simon Graham asked, grinning.
“No, but I’ve had good motivation to practise recently. Attempting to skewer Will Farmer.”
Simon’s amusement visibly increased. He studied Richard. “So, you’re Franklin Troy’s son. You’re not much like him, are you?”
Richard’s half smile faded. He rubbed the back of his wrist over his sweaty forehead. Looking down at the sword in his hand, he flipped it around, extending the handle for the kids to take. “I hope not.”
* * *
Lainie stood in the doorway to the kitchen, biting down on the edge of her thumbnail. Richard nodded and responded to something that her dad said. He was still flushed and ruffled after his impromptu playacting with the kids. She’d almost dropped a plate when he’d started channelling Captain Hook. At least three members of her family had obviously given him the thumbs-up. She couldn’t help remembering the last time Will had been with her family. Like Richard, he’d looked as if he’d wandered into the monkey cage at the zoo, but he’d been even more hopeless at hiding his discomfort. And he definitely hadn’t bothered to muck about with her nieces and nephews. He’d spent most of the time on his phone. Probably texting Crystalle, in hindsight.
“I so knew it.” Sarah’s voice was smug in her ear.
Lainie removed her thumbnail from her mouth long enough to respond. “Did you? I didn’t.”
She still wasn’t sure quite how this had happened. How, in a matter of weeks, she had ended up...
“Totally smitten,” Sarah said. “Both of you.”
“I am,” Lainie admitted. She reached down and clasped her sister-in-law’s arm, holding it for support. “I don’t know about him.”
He was still snarky, sarky, snobby Richard Troy. But sometimes—
“Lainie. Last month, the man would barely have recognised you if he fell over you, outside the theatre. Today, he came to your parents’ house for a baby’s birthday party, put up with your brothers acting like something out of a Tarantino movie, and let a bunch of lunatic children attack him with plastic swords. He’s a goner.”
She affectionately pulled Lainie’s hair, much as Richard had done earlier, and went to corral her offspring.
Lainie felt strangely tongue-tied and shy of Richard as they put on their coats, ready to leave. His knuckles brushed her nape when he automatically reached out to pull her hair free of her collar. She looked at him and then quickly away.
“Tig?” His fingers closed loosely around her wrist. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” she said, still not looking at him.
“Lainie—”
“Bye, Lainie. See you later, Mr. Troy.” Phil, her oldest nephew, gave her a one-armed hug as he passed. She belatedly lifted a hand to squeeze his shoulder. She had to stretch up to do it. He was almost as tall as Ryan now. “Oh, happy birthday to you too, by the way,” Phil said, and Lainie’s head snapped up in time to catch Richard’s faint grimace.
“Birthday app,” Phil explained, raising his phone. He pushed open the front door with his elbow, making a face at the drizzling rain outside “Your name came up on the celebrity list when I was uploading some photos of Coop. Meant to say something before, but I forgot. Hope the rest of the day is a good one.”
He departed with another casual wave, and Lainie stared at Richard. He looked annoyed.
“It isn’t your birthday, is it?” she asked apprehensively.
His frown deepened. “Well—” he said reluctantly, and she released a sharp breath.
“Why didn’t you say something? We could have done something to celebrate.”
“You’ve just answered your own question.”
“You’re exasperating.”
In the car, she kept one eye on the passing streets while she checked her email and Facebook. She’d been linked to a new gossip article. They’d been papped leaving Richard’s house.
“Why is it,” she demanded, scrolling through the photos, “that you look good in every single photo, and I look borderline okay in one out of ten?” They stopped at an intersection, and she held the iPad for him to see. “Look at that. It’s like James Bond and something out of Fraggle Rock.”
He didn’t bother to turn his head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You could have told me my hair was doing that.” She glanced up. “Wait! Stop at Sainsbury’s, please.”
Richard shot her a look. “Why?”
“Because I need to buy stuff.”
“What stuff?”
Fortunately, there was one single advantage to having grown up surrounded by large and irritating men. She knew how to effectively end a line of questioning. Employ the dreaded tampon. “Oh, you know. Women’s stuff.”
He flicked the indicator without another word. He waited in the car while she sped into the supermarket, hugging her coat across her chest and ducking her head against the rain. When she finally emerged, staggering under the weight of her bags, he looked bored and irritable. She dove thankfully back into the passenger seat and ran her fingers through her damp hair, trying to smooth down the frizz. Her clothing smelled strongly of wet wool.
Richard turned around and stretched to look into the backseat. “So, by ‘women’s stuff,’ you actually meant your entire weekly shop.”
She flipped down the overhead mirror to check that her mascara was still attached to her eyelashes. “Well, I figured since we were here...”
The comment he muttered under his breath was uncomplimentary and mildly offensive to her sex in general, but she’d taken ages to make up her mind in the bakery section and he’d been waiting in the car for over half an hour, so she kindly let it go.
Neither of them could cook much more than tea and toast, so they also stopped to pick up takeaway for dinner. She wanted pizza. He wanted Thai. They compromised with Moroccan.
They were going back to her flat for the night, since her landlady was away for the weekend and Lainie was on cat-feeding duty again. Richard carried the bulk of the shopping bags up the stairs for her and then seemed confused about what to do with them. Obviously, his housekeeper usually did the supermarket run. When he frowned down at a packet of dishwasher cubes and tried to put them on the biscuit shelf in the pantry, she firmly removed it from his hand.
“You could do me a favour and go down and feed Cat Richard,” she suggested tactfully. She wanted him out of the way for a few minutes anyway. “The food is in Mrs. Talbot’s fridge. You can give him the rest of the can. And make sure his water bowl is topped up.” She assumed a helpful expression. “The water is in the tap. You just hold the bowl underneath and turn it to...”
He nipped her earlobe with his teeth in retribution.
When she heard his footsteps going down the stairs, she quickly put away the frozen food and then went hunting through the rest of the bags for what she needed. She left the boring things to put away later. Clearing room on her limited bench space, she set out the peach-and-apricot pie she’d bought. A dessert from a boutique bakery would probably be nicer, but she’d never have got away with that side trip. Besides, she highly doubted that Richard had ever eaten a supermarket dessert, and everyone should have a new experience on their birthday.
She was pushing candles into the top crust when he reappeared.
“I swear to God, that cat was smirking at me. What are you doing?” He halted in the doorway, staring at her handiwork.
“Putting in your candles. I’m going with three on one side and five on the other, because I think the crust will collapse if I try to stuff in all thirty-five. You shouldn’t be so old.”
There was a long silence. She looked sideways at him. His face was completely blank.
“It’s a pie,” he said at last.
She stood back to admire it. “You don’t like cake.” He’d turned down the Victoria sponge someone had brought into the theatre for Theresa’s birthday last week.
“No. I don’t.” Slowly, Richard walked over to stand at her shoulder. He looked down at the birthday pie. “What’s with the M&M’s?”
“I needed something to spell out ‘Happy Birthday’.”
“Does chocolate go with fruit pie?”
“Chocolate goes with everything.” She bit her lip as she looked up at him. She was a little more apprehensive than she was prepared to let on. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re slightly insane.” He suddenly pulled her close to him and pressed a rough kiss to her temple. “Thanks.”
She wrapped both arms around his lean waist and rested her forehead against his chest. “Happy birthday.”
The pie was actually fairly tasty. They ate it with forks straight from the serving plate, sitting on the floor of her small lounge. It didn’t really go with the chicken tagine, but she’d eaten far stranger combinations during her student days. Her stomach lining had been trained the hard way with months of pot noodles and post-clubbing kebabs.
Not for the first time, she wished she had an open fire. The heat pump kept the room warm, but it wasn’t as conducive to doing sexy things on the rug. Richard was sprawled on his back, one arm tucked beneath his head, his shirt riding up. The pastry calories probably wouldn’t venture anywhere near his flat belly. Genetics played a mean game of favourites. She was lying on her stomach. She was well aware that he could see directly down her top, and her cleavage tended to look better from this angle than when she lay on her back and her boobs slid toward her armpits. Problems of the naturally top-heavy, as her sister-in-law had rudely put it.
She contemplated just rolling on top of him and seeing how things progressed, but decided in favour of the pie, for the present. She’d been too on edge about exposing Richard to her family, and vice versa, to eat much at the party. Propping her chin on one hand, she reached with the other to skewer a mushy piece of apricot. As she chewed, she eyed him thoughtfully. “So, how horrifying was today, on a scale of one to ten?”
“I had a better time than you’re likely to have next Sunday, at Westfield’s house.” Richard folded back his other arm, and his biceps flexed invitingly. She determinedly ate another mouthful of stewed fruit. “Your family is very...you.” He smiled faintly. “Open. Friendly. Talkative.”
“Loud, demanding and bossy?” She extracted a red M&M from the remnants of the pie and put it in her mouth. Richard lazily opened one blue eye and followed the sweet’s progress.
He contemplated her lips. “Your family obviously love you a lot. I’m glad you have people who watch out for you.”
And who watched out for him? She hesitated. “Richard...”
“Mmm?” His eyes were closed again.
“How did your mother die?”
There had been no details on Wikipedia, only the bare fact that Anna Troy had passed away two years after her husband. There were a lot of photos of her taken just prior to her death, when she’d been linked to an Italian racing car driver. The images had firmly established the origin of Richard’s dark, sculpted looks. It was the similar jaded look in her eyes that had affected Lainie most. Anna had been in the arms of a smiling, super-hot man, surrounded by dozens of laughing people, and she’d looked lonely. She’d probably died lonely.
Hannah had died alone, despite the fact that her hands had been held tightly, but she hadn’t died lonely.
Lainie didn’t want Richard to live lonely.
He was quiet long enough that she regretted asking, but he did eventually answer. “Ironically, she did die of a heart attack. The postmortem revealed an arterial blockage.”
“Did it happen in England?”
“In Italy. She’d been seeing an Italian. I think he genuinely grieved for her, to give him credit.” He sat up suddenly and shoved a restless hand through his black curls. “They weren’t exclusive, though, and could go days without seeing one another. The coroner thought she’d been lying there for about eighty hours before her body was found.”
“That’s awful.” She reached out to him. Very lightly and gently, she spread her fingers on his abdomen, and he put his hand over hers. “I’m sorry.”
“So was I. Sorry for her, mostly. I really hardly knew her. She wasn’t a particularly good mother. I’m sorry she died like that, and that she never seemed to get much happiness out of her relationships.”
Lainie scooted closer and curled up next to him, sliding her hand across his chest in a hug and touching her nose to his cheek. He bent his arm to hook loosely around her neck.
There was a heavy weight to the silence, in contrast to the lighthearted sensual thrum of a few moments ago.
Geez. Way to rain on his birthday.
Unable to just sit there while he had that look on his face, she carefully released him and got to her feet. Walking across to the table, she opened her bag and rifled through it to find the DVDs.
“I got us a movie,” she explained, holding up the first of the cases.
“Is it a romantic comedy?” he asked suspiciously, and she tried to imagine his reaction to Pretty Woman or While You Were Sleeping. He would probably disapprove of the idealization of prostitution in the former. The latter might be good for her conscience. She and Richard had originally faked their relationship, but it had been with reluctant mutual consent. At least one of them hadn’t been in a coma at the time.
“I do have high expectations for the comedy, yes.”
“What is it?” He sounded even more suspicious.
“You’ll probably guess from the theme music.” She turned on the TV and started the DVD player.
She looked at him between lowered lashes when the disc began to play. It was a makeshift copy, so there were no menu options. Alas. She would have paid a great deal for behind-the-scenes special features.
It took less than five seconds for his entire body to stiffen. “What the f—” He snatched up the plastic case, turning it over to see if there was anything printed on the front. His eyes—intensely blue, incredulous and wrathful—snapped to hers. “Where the hell did you get this?”
“Shh!” she said, grinning. “You’re on. Oh, my. Sexy pompadour, Troy.” Richard lunged for the remote, and she held it out of his reach. “No way. Student Richard Troy, strutting his stuff with the T Birds? I’ve been looking forward to this all day.”
Richard’s expression was beyond price. “Where,” he repeated, dangerously, “did you get it?”
“Victoria knows a lot of people at Oxford. I caught her in a good mood, and she called in a favour. Someone scavenged in the drama archives. And struck gold, I have to say. Did they have to sew you into those jeans?”
“Off. Right now.”
“And miss you doing the finger-pointing to ‘Greased Lightnin’? Not a chance in hell.” Still grinning, she held up the other DVD. “If it softens the blow, I had Mum burn this to a disc. Behold my sixteen-year-old debut as Ado Annie in Oklahoma! I didn’t even edit out the part where my sash catches on a wagon wheel and I fall into a wooden trough. Fair’s fair. And I promise I won’t leak yours to the tabloids next time you piss me off.”
Richard’s younger self pulled out a comb and ran it through his slick bouffant of hair in slow motion, and she tried really, really hard not to laugh. The current incarnation had lost his implacable cool. His cheeks were burning bright with colour.
A bit of summer lovin’ commenced on the screen, and he winced. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He took the other disc from her hand and held it up menacingly. “This had better be embarrassing. I mean complete and total humiliation.”
“I’m singing ‘I Cain’t Say No,’ I have hair extensions and braces, and it was a single-sex school so my love interest was played by a fifteen-year-old girl, who was just about concussed by my left boob during the finale. It ain’t good.”
“Fine. Let me know when it’s on, and you won’t mind if I answer a few business emails in the meantime. You can sit on my lap and block the TV.”
“Check us out. Compromising and everything.”
He staunchly ignored the rest of his adolescent performance, but looked reluctantly amused as he typed into the iPad with one hand. His other hand played with the ends of her hair. And she had the pure joy of hearing him laugh heartlessly when her own teenage self flounced and pouted her way across the stage.
In bed that night, she lay on her side, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of his bare chest as he slept. A light scattering of black hairs trailed down his chest, circling his flat nipples, and she followed them with a fingertip. Lowering her head, her hair slipping down to pool on his skin, she touched her lips to his in a whisper of a kiss. He murmured her name, but didn’t wake. When she rolled over, sliding her arm under the pillow and closing her eyes, she could still feel his body, warm against her back.
She fell hard into sleep and would happily have stayed there if Richard’s phone hadn’t rung at dawn. Not even dawn. The bedroom was still dark when she cracked her eyes open at the insistence of his frigging annoying ringtone.
“Richard.” His leg hair was tickling her foot. She pressed her big toe against his calf and gave it a shove. “Phone.”
He didn’t even alter his breathing.
The phone kept ringing.
“Phone.”
He clearly had no intention of getting up.
Swearing under her breath, Lainie sat up, rubbing her forehead. She leaned over him, brushed the tumbled hair from his eyes, and put her lips against his ear. “Phone.”
He made a grumpy noise, but still didn’t move.
“I don’t know what you’re grunting at me for. It’s your phone.”
His response was to put his head under his pillow. He pressed it against the ear closest to her mouth.
“Fine. I’m answering it. But you’re going to regret it if it’s some other poor woman you conned into bed.” Leaning heavily on his back, she reached over his recumbent body and snagged the phone from the bedside table. “Never mind. It’s Lynette. If you shagged her, I’m too intimidated to compare notes.”
She swallowed a squawk when Richard retracted the long leg he was dangling outside the covers and tucked his cold toes into the curve behind her knee. Sliding her thumb against the touch pad, she reluctantly answered the call. Any communication from Lynette or Pat was liable to spell trouble. “Hello?”
There was a brief silence. Lynette managed to convey her amusement before speaking a word. “Good morning, Lainie. It’s a little early for you to be answering Richard’s phone, isn’t it?”
Lainie wasn’t sure if she meant time of day or brevity of relationship. Bit of a cheek if it was the latter, considering that Lynette was partly responsible for tying them together in the first place. “We’ve taken up hot yoga,” she said blandly. “You have to get up very early to do hot yoga.” Didn’t you? “It’s part of Richard’s new healthy-living image. We’re considering naked meditation in Hyde Park next.”
“I’ll start drafting the press release now. Is Richard there, or will eagle pose end in catastrophe if he takes the phone?”
“He’s here.” She ruthlessly pulled the pillow away from Richard’s head and one blue eye stared narrowly up at her. “Lynette wants a word.”
With a sigh, he heaved himself up to a sitting position and took the phone. He looked even more of a grouch than usual first thing in the morning. And the stubble situation was acute. He was verging on a full lumberjack beard now. No wonder she had patches of irritated red skin in interesting places.
“Is the theatre on fire?” His voice had a throaty edge. “Are you on fire?”
Lainie couldn’t help smiling. He was just so...cute. All rumpled and sexy and cranky. The covers were bunched around his hips. She leaned forward and kissed his chest. Evading the grab he made for her, she scooted out of bed and snatched up her fleecy dressing gown. She didn’t fancy freezing to death in the loo. It would make embarrassing copy for the gossip blogs.
When she returned to the bedroom, Richard was off the phone and typing something into his iPad. He tapped the screen a few times, then tossed it aside. Eyeing her dressing gown, he came up on his knees and caught her around the waist. He, apparently, had no issues with subarctic nudity.
“Nice,” he said, running his hands up her arms. “Take it off.”
“It’s warm.” She captured his sneaking fingers and entwined them with her own. Leaning forward, she rested her forehead against his. She lightly kissed the bridge of his nose. “Morning.”
“It’s six thirty. It’s dark. That’s night. Bedtime.” With deft movements, he pulled his hands free and yanked open the belt of her dressing gown. It was slipped from her shoulders and thrown haphazardly behind her. Ignoring her laughing protest, he pulled her hard against him and pushed her down on top of it.
She wriggled beneath his heavy body, getting into a more comfortable position, and he gently kissed her cheek. She could feel the heat and hardness of his sleep-warmed skin along the full length of her torso. His mouth drifted to hers. He nudged her thighs with his knee, and she agreeably parted her legs, lifting them to hug his hips. He hooked an arm under her bent knee, lifting her teasingly against him.
“Warm enough?” he asked wickedly, as he bent his head to her neck. She closed her eyes, her breath quickening. His touch was leisurely, almost lazy. It was a slow drift of pleasure, rather than the intense, driven heat of their previous intimacy. She could stay in the moment, keep tabs on her own body. Focus on his.
The heat pump in the lounge was on a low heat overnight, not nearly enough to counteract the predawn chill of autumnal London. The bedroom was cold. Richard was not.
A warm hand slid firmly up her ribs and lifted the weight of her right breast. His thumb moved to flick and circle. Her back arched. Sinking her fingers into his messy curls, she tugged his face toward hers.
“I assume the Metronome is not on fire?” she murmured.
He moved his hand down her hip, sliding it beneath her, seeming to enjoy the feeling of her skin. His lips returned to her neck, moved up to her jaw and cheek. “No.” He nudged her cheek with his nose. It was an affectionate gesture, and she relaxed her grip on his hair, shaping his head with her palm.
When he would have kissed her mouth again, she held him away, staring up at him, content to just...look, for a moment.
His cheeks were already flushed. Men, in her experience, tended to pull the same facial expression during sex that they made just prior to a final touchdown in a televised rugby match. Utter concentration. Leashed anticipation. Perspiring forehead. Ready to celebrate the successful try with a triumphant shout, a pat on the back and a beer-fuelled nap.
Bad time to get an urge to giggle.
He smoothed her hair back from her own damp forehead, rubbing his thumb against her temple. “Tig.” His voice was deep and rough, and effectively banished any ill-timed amusement.
She watched her fingertips as she traced the edge of his ear, stroked the side of his neck, tested the strength of his shoulder. The muscles there were flexing as he kept his weight propped on one arm.
Her gaze returned to his. His eyes were almost black. No trace of sleepiness now.
“What did Lynette want?” she asked quietly. The room felt hushed. She touched his chin. Ran her thumb across his lower lip.
He caught it, briefly, between his teeth. “To spread the misery of insomnia.” He shifted against her, and they both drew in a hitching breath. “She’s had an email from...” He exhaled sharply when her hand crept sneakily down between them. “Ministerial bigwig. Requesting that I speak on cultural funding at a parliamentary conference next month.”
“What?” Lainie’s lashes had drooped to a languid half-mast, but she looked up at that. She withdrew her prowling hand to grip his biceps. “That’s awesome. It’s exactly the sort of opportunity you want, isn’t it?”
Richard retrieved her fingers and firmly returned them to their previous site of exploration. “It’s a very good start.”
She had questions about the conference—very bright, astute questions—but he’d never know how perceptive she was, thanks to his bossy, demanding lips.
God, he tasted good.
“You’re not bad at this sex thing,” she gasped a few minutes later, her arm inadvertently tightening in a chokehold around his neck.
He reached up and loosened her grip, pulling her hand around his torso so she could grip his back. Taut muscles moved under the smooth, warm skin there.
“Although, you know, regular rehearsals. Important for any performance.”
The tip of his tongue teased hers. “You’re adorable,” he said. “Stop talking.”
She let the man hone his craft.