Chapter Ten
Two weeks later
‘Ghost Mouse’s losing weight!’ Lexy said, flopping down next to Frank on their king-size bed. ‘Have you noticed? She’s slogging over to the nature reserve and lugging up and down the beach every day, apparently!’
‘Yes, good for her,’ Frank said, clicking off the TV and putting an arm around his wife. ‘I’ve been showing her how to stretch. She was limping around for a week after she started.’
‘Was she?’ Lexy said incuriously.
‘Seriously, did you not even notice the poor thing couldn’t get up the stairs! Lucky for her we’ve got a lift.’
He looked down at Lexy, who, as usual, was scrolling through her Instagram account on her rose-gold iPhone, seeing how many likes she had garnered with the photos she had uploaded that day.
‘Did you not notice she was moving like a lame donkey?’ he asked, and shook his head in amazement at his wife’s obliviousness as she said:
‘No, was she? She’s always sitting down when we do our sessions, so . . .’
Lexy trailed off, her attention captured by the comments on a selfie of her in the shower that morning, which she had artfully angled to show off her curves without actually being naked.
‘You’re unbelievable, Lex,’ Frank said. ‘Do you notice anything that’s not about you? Do you realize that Laylah’s got no sense of discipline? She’ll talk back to anyone and think she can get away with it because you laugh whenever she says something cheeky, instead of ticking her off for it. And did you know that London’s been biting kids at his Montessori? Not just kids! Lina says she’s going to give her notice if he goes after her again, the little horror.’
‘Just tell her to wear extra clothes for padding. We’ll up her rate a bit,’ Lexy said airily.
‘Lex, you’re joking, right?’ her husband snapped. ‘Can you put that phone down for once so we can talk?’
‘I can think of other stuff to do than talk,’ Lexy said, still scrolling on her phone, but one-handed now, as she was sliding the other one down to stroke Frank’s penis through the pyjama trousers he was wearing. ‘Can’t you? Much more fun!’
‘Lex . . .’ Frank gently removed her hand from his genitals, winding his fingers through hers. ‘You go for my dick any time I want to talk about something you want to avoid. It’s not that I don’t like it, but sometimes we need to look at what’s a priority.’
‘Sucking you off is always a priority,’ Lexy said, raising their linked hands to her mouth and starting to lick the tips of his fingers, while still, however, continuing to survey her social media on her iPhone. ‘I’ll get on to that in just a sec.’
Frank’s dick started to stiffen at these promising words; its owner muttered a curse at it to settle it down again.
‘Hey, Caroline’s knocking out some really hot sex scenes, by the way,’ Lexy commented. ‘I should read you one to get you in the mood. They’re a massive turn-on.’
Frank dragged his hand away from his wife’s, and his arm from behind her. Pulling back, he sat up straight on the bed, crossing his legs.
‘Lexy,’ he said. ‘Did you just suggest that you read scenes that Caroline’s written about you having sex with other men? Are you completely crazy?’
When Lexy didn’t answer immediately, Frank reached out and put one large hand over the screen of the iPhone.
‘Lex, this is beyond a joke!’ he said, his voice deepening with resentment.
Lexy sighed, dropping her phone to the elaborate satin bedspread, turning to look her outraged husband full in the face.
‘Some of them are partly made up,’ she said, ‘because . . .’ Her voice trailed off as she realized that was because they described experiences so racy that her editor was concerned she might be sued if the identities of the other participants were revealed. ‘Um, I could change the names when I read them to you?’ she suggested.
‘They’re still about you and another man!’ Frank writhed in embarrassment and anger. ‘I never want to think about that kind of thing! You know I don’t!’
Another man? Lexy thought. Oh babes, you have no idea – you think I only ever shagged one guy at a time?
Never mind. It’s not like he’s ever going to read the book.
‘Okay,’ she went on, ‘what about Caroline’s Regency porn threesome thing? It turned into a foursome, actually. I got her to put the whole thing up on her blog – it’s brilliant. Want to have a read?’
She picked up her phone again. If she couldn’t distract him with sex, she was eager to place an electronic barrier of some sort between herself and her husband, who was trying to have a conversation about awkward subjects in which she had no interest. Lexy was fully occupied with her one overriding priority: her career.
‘No! Put that phone down now, Lex!’
‘Ooh!’ Lexy tried for a flirtatious tone as she obeyed his command. ‘You sound so butch, I love it. Here I am – all yours!’
She put the phone down on the bedside table, theatrically pushing it away from her, and flapped her faux eyelashes in a way that usually made him melt. Lexy had, practically from birth, learned the technique of flirting her way out of any awkward situation. The only daughter of a doting father, with three older brothers who all adored and spoilt her almost as much as her parents, she had learned that a toss of her curls and a bat of her lashes was almost always a Get Out of Jail Free card.
Lexy’s mother had been the lone voice trying to hold her daughter accountable for her actions, wanting her to take responsibility and make amends if she misbehaved, rather than just charm her way out of it. But Mrs O’Brien would be the first to admit that she had failed. The tricks Lexy had perfected on her father and brothers worked just as well on her teachers, the male ones in particular. Female teachers made valiant attempts to force Lexy to take her studies seriously, use her brain rather than her charisma, but Lexy had been too busy achieving her status as the Queen Bee of her school, the one all the boys wanted and all the girls wanted to be.
She knew fairly early on that the status she craved would not be attained by using her brain and going to college. Lexy dreamed of having her own reality show, presenting stints on Loose Women, product lines, endorsement deals and a loaded footballer husband. None of those goals would be achieved by getting the BA in Media Studies her teachers were suggesting. She’d be too old by then – twenty-one, twenty-two! Over the hill! No, she needed to get her body out there on TV when it was as young and fresh as possible, so by the time she hit her thirties – which to her, back then, meant that she would practically be on her deathbed – she had the career and the social media followers and the man all in place.
And Lexy’s grand plan had worked out more perfectly than she could have imagined. However, she hadn’t bargained for the fact that when you married a decent family man, rather than a perpetual slag about town, he’d expect you to sit down with him and have serious conversations about your kids cheeking and biting people, rather than taking sexy photos of the two of you cuddling in your designer bedroom which could promptly be uploaded to Instagram.
She could tell from the way Frank’s full lips were pursed into a straight line, the firmness in his dark brown eyes, that emergency measures were called for. Reaching up, she took hold of the lapels of her Kiki de Montparnasse silk satin butterfly-patterned robe and slipped it off her shoulders, revealing that she was naked underneath it, and freshly waxed to boot. Her new boob job was so perky her tits were almost nudging her chin. They’d settle down a little with time, just as her nose had done – shit, that month where its tip was Miss-Piggy-meets-a-ski-jump had had her freaking out, but her surgeon kept assuring her that gravity would sort it out, and now it was perfect . . .
Despite himself, Frank’s lips softened as he stared at his naked wife. To him, Lexy was the most attractive woman in the world. She might have knocked out two kids, but with the help of a very good plastic surgeon, a diet of cigarettes and chicken slices, plus a hardcore personal trainer, she was perfectly comfortable posing even in a semi-recumbent position, which inevitably made anyone’s tummy pooch out a bit, unless you were a gym bunny with a body-fat ratio of six per cent.
Sensing that Frank was still struggling, brain versus cock – which was visibly butting against the fly of his pyjama trousers once again – Lexy decided to tip the balance in her favour. Knowing very well that Frank was very much a breast man, she cupped her 34DDs in her hands, pressing them together to create an eye-popping cleavage as she said saucily:
‘Right, big boy, you’ve got my full attention. Still want to talk about the kids, or do you fancy letting off a bit of steam?’
It was with considerable smugness that she heard her husband groan, ‘Okay . . . but we still need to talk . . . after . . .’, as he reached out to cover her hands with his own, his head lowering to start kissing the plastic surgeon’s latest twin masterpieces. Hopefully all he’d be good for afterwards would be sleep.