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‘I’m sorry, Astrid,’ he said, ‘but my mother is coming to town this evening, and I promised to take her out to dinner. I’m expecting her any minute, in fact. Another time, perhaps.’
Preferably when Paolo was unavailable.
As if on cue, his PA buzzed him from her office. Not sorry for the distraction, Simon flipped the switch. ‘Yes, Molly?’
‘I’ve just had a call from Reception,’ said Molly. ‘Your mother’s there. She’s fine, but there’s been some kind of incident. Could you go down?’
When the lift doors opened, Simon spotted his mother straight away. She was at the centre of a cluster of people on the far side of the atrium, but when she saw him she hurried over to meet him. ‘Thank goodness you’re here!’
Simon’s brows snapped together at the sight of her flustered appearance. Frances Valentine was still an attractive woman, but now her highlighted blonde hair was dishevelled, and there were spots of colour in her cheeks. ‘What on earth has happened?’
‘I’ve been mugged!’ she announced with her usual flair for the dramatic.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked in quick concern.
‘I’m fine. It’s Clara I’m worried about.’
‘Clara?’
‘She saw what happened, and tackled the mugger,’ Frances said admiringly, tugging him over to a bedraggled figure sitting on one of the low leather sofas, nursing one arm. ‘Wasn’t it brave of her?’
With a sinking sense of inevitability, Simon recognized the long legs first. His gaze travelled up over the torn tights, mud-splattered skirt and top to a face that was already unsettlingly familiar. Above the colourfully striped scarf that was wound several times around her neck, Clara Sterne’s face was paler than the night before but, even shaken, she managed to look more vivid than the other women clucking over her and, as her brown eyes widened at the sight of him, he felt an odd little zing pass through him.
‘You’re Frances’s son?’ she exclaimed.
‘You know each other?’ his mother said in delight.
‘No,’ said Simon.
Just as Clara said, ‘Yes.’
How did a woman as warm and friendly as Frances have a son as stiff as Simon Valentine? Clara wondered. She hadn’t been expecting to see him just then, and surprise had sent her heart jumping into her throat at the sight of him.
At least she hoped it was surprise.
He looked as disapproving as ever, as if she had thrown herself into that puddle and torn her tights and hurt her wrist just to annoy him. She had wanted to see him, of course, but not like this.
‘What happened?’ he asked his mother.
Frances launched into her story. ‘I was just crossing the road when I felt this thump on my shoulder and this awful oik grabbed my bag.’ She shuddered. ‘I got such a fright! It’s my favourite bag too. Do you remember I bought it in Venice last year?’
Judging by Simon’s expression, he knew nothing about his mother’s handbags and cared less. Clara saw him keeping a visible rein on his impatience.
‘How did Clara get involved?’
‘She saw what was happening.’ Frances sat down next to Clara and patted her knee. ‘Lots of other people must have seen too, but no one else moved. Clara took off after him straight away, and she got hold of my bag, but they had a bit of a tussle and he pushed her to the ground before he ran off.’
Drawing breath, she looked up at her son. ‘I’m very much afraid she may have broken her wrist, but she says there’s no need to call an ambulance. You try and talk some sense into her, Simon.’
‘There’s no need, really.’ Clara managed to get a word in at last. ‘I’m perfectly all right. I can walk.’
‘You’re not all right! Look at you. You’ve ruined your tights, and I can tell your wrist is hurting.’
It was. When the mugger had shoved her, Clara had lost her balance and her wrist had taken the whole weight of her body as she fell. But her legs were all right, thank goodness, and she hardly counted as an emergency.
‘I’ll get a taxi,’ she compromised.
‘You’ll do no such thing!’ said Frances roundly. ‘Simon has a car. You’ll take her to hospital, won’t you, darling?’
Clara had never seen anyone look less like a darling than Simon Valentine right then. It was almost worth a sore wrist and scraped knees to see the expression on his face, where impatience, frustration and reluctance warred with the mixture of exasperation and affection he obviously felt for his mother.
‘Of course,’ he said after a moment.
‘Really, it’s not necessary …’
‘Nonsense!’ said Frances. ‘You’re a heroine, and so I shall tell the police.’
‘All right.’ Rather to Clara’s relief, Simon interrupted his mother’s account of her heroics and took charge. Her wrist was getting more painful by the minute, and she was glad to be able to sit numbly while he despatched the cluster of receptionists who had been clucking ineffectually and arranged for his mother to be taken to his home in a taxi.
Only then did he turn his attention to Clara.
‘There’s no need to look at me like that,’ she said as she got stiffly to her feet.
‘Like what?’
‘Like you think I arranged the mugging on purpose.’
‘It crossed my mind.’ Simon pushed the button for the lift to take them down to the basement car park. ‘If you were desperate enough to sit through a lecture on monetary policy, who knows what you’d be prepared to do.’
‘I was desperate to talk to you, but not quite desperate enough to tackle a mugger,’ said Clara. She didn’t add that Roland would certainly have pushed her into it if he thought it would get results.
As it appeared to have done. She mustn’t waste this opportunity, she told herself, but her knees were stinging where she had grazed them and the pain in her wrist made it hard to concentrate.
Simon looked at her sideways as the lift doors slid open and they stepped inside.
‘And yet you did it anyway. It was a dangerous thing to do. What if the mugger had been armed?’
‘I didn’t think,’ Clara confessed, cradling her forearm. ‘I saw your mum stagger, and then this young guy snatched her bag. It just made me mad. She looked so shocked that I ran after him and grabbed the bag back.’
She was very aware of him in the close confines of the lift. He seemed bigger than he had the night before. Stronger and more solid. More male. More overwhelming, and she found herself babbling.
‘It would have been fine if he’d just let me take the bag back,’ she rattled on. ‘I suppose that was too much to hope after he’d gone to all the trouble of stealing it. Anyway, he turned round and shoved me, and the next thing I was crashing into a puddle.’
She grimaced down at herself. Her favourite skirt was ruined. ‘I kept hold of the bag, though, and everyone was looking by then, so I think he just cut his losses and ran off. Your mother had caught up with us by then, so I was able to give her the bag back. She insisted that we come in here, but I honestly didn’t know that you were her son!’
‘I believe you,’ said Simon with a dry glance. The lift doors opened, and they stepped out into the garage. ‘But I hope you’re not going to ask me to believe that it was coincidence that you were outside the building?’ he asked, leading the way to a sleek silver car.
‘No.’ Clara didn’t see any point in denying it. ‘I was hoping to catch you when you left work. I thought you might be in a better mood today.’
Simon jabbed the key in the direction of the car to unlock it. ‘I was in a perfectly good mood yesterday!’ he said as the lights flashed obediently. ‘Just as I’m in a perfectly good mood today,’ he added through clenched teeth, opening the passenger door for her with pointed courtesy.
‘Gosh, I hope I never meet you in a bad mood,’ said Clara.
There was a dangerous pause, and then Simon shut the door on her with a careful lack of emphasis.
‘I’m grateful to you for going to my mother’s rescue,’ he said stiffly when he got behind the wheel and started the engine, ‘but if you’re thinking of using this situation to press your case about this wretched programme of yours, please don’t bother. I’m not changing my mind.’
Clara heaved a martyred sigh. ‘All right. My wrist is too sore to grovel right now, anyway.’ She slid him a glance under her lashes. ‘I guess I’ll just have to resign myself to pain and the prospect of losing my job.’
‘You know, there is such a thing as employment law,’ said Simon, unimpressed. ‘They can’t sack you because you had an accident and hurt your wrist.’
‘No, but they can for failing to do your job, which in my case was to get you to agree to present the programme.’
‘Emotional blackmail.’ Simon put the car into gear and drove up the ramp and out into the dark January evening. ‘The perfect end to a perfect day.’
‘You’re right.’ Emotional blackmail was all she had left. ‘It’s not your problem if my career is over, or if I can’t pay my rent and have to go back to live with my parents and admit I’m a total failure.’
Simon spared her a brief glance. ‘Save it,’ he advised. ‘If you’ve done your research, you’ll know that I’m completely heartless.’
‘I have, and you’re not,’ said Clara. ‘I know how many times you’ve volunteered for emergency relief projects after disasters. A heartless person doesn’t do that.’
‘Don’t make me into a hero,’ he said curtly. ‘I’m not getting my hands dirty. I just make sure the money gets to those who need it.’
Quite a big ‘just’, Clara would have thought. Simon might not be pulling people out of the rubble or a doctor saving lives, but he regularly left his comfortable life in London to spend several weeks in extremely difficult conditions. Nothing happened without money, and relief efforts depended on financial managers like him to channel the funds where they were most needed and stop them being siphoned off by fraud and corruption.
Simon was clearly anxious to change the subject. ‘Besides,’ he said, cutting across her thoughts, ‘it’s totally unreasonable for anyone’s job to depend on one person.’
‘Tell that to my boss,’ said Clara glumly.
‘They must be able to find someone else. It’s not even as if I’m a professional broadcaster.’
‘It has to be you.’ Faced with his intransigence, she had nothing to lose, Clara decided. She might as well be straight. ‘The budget is based on your participation, and Stella Holt won’t take part unless you do. The whole thing falls apart without you,’ she told him. ‘And so does MediaOchre. There are only three of us as it is. That’s why I’ve been so persistent.’
‘Basing the entire future of a company on one individual is an extremely risky economic strategy,’ said Simon severely.
‘I suppose so, but you have to take a risk every now and then, don’t you?’
She knew immediately she had said the wrong thing. Simon’s expression didn’t change, but she felt him withdraw, like a snail shrinking back into its shell, and his voice was distant. ‘Not in my experience,’ he said.
There was a pause. ‘Well, you can’t say I haven’t tried,’ she said after a moment.
‘No,’ said Simon, ‘I can’t say that.’
A dreary drizzle misted the windscreen, and the streetlamps cast a fuzzy orange glow over the commuters hurrying for the tube, collars turned up against the cold and the damp.
How was she going to break it to Ted and Roland? Clara’s heart sank. She had failed them both. Now she could wave goodbye to her shiny new career and her hopes of becoming a producer. Just when she had filled the aching gap in her life left by Matt and found something she really wanted to do too.
Where was Julie Andrews when she needed her? As so often, Clara opted for frivolity when things looked like getting desperate. It was better than the alternative, which was crying hopelessly and which never really helped anyway. That was a lesson she had learnt the hard way in the weeks and months after Matt had left.
Well, she would just have to cheer herself up. Clara hummed a few bars of My Favourite Things under her breath while Simon negotiated an awkward junction.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Singing to myself.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘To make myself feel better.’ It seemed obvious to Clara.
‘I thought that’s why I was taking you to hospital.’
‘Music is the best medicine,’ she said. ‘Musicals taught me that.’
She might as well have claimed to have learned it from aliens. ‘Musicals?’ asked Simon as if he had never heard the word.
‘Shows where the actors sing and dance around,’ said Clara helpfully. ‘And some of the greatest movies ever made. Take The Sound of Music. You must have seen that?’
‘I’ve heard of it.’ He eased into a gap between a bus and a taxi.
‘I’ll bet you know most of the songs.’ She hummed the tune again. ‘Is it ringing any bells?’
Simon glanced at her, shook his head slightly, and turned his attention back to the traffic. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Clara.’
She gaped at him, astounded by his ignorance. This was probably how he felt about anyone who didn’t know all about quantitative easing and interest rate policies.
‘It’s a classic song,’ she told him. ‘And, what’s more, it really does work. When things go wrong—like you refusing to take part in the programme and ruining my career, for instance—all I have to do is sing a bit and I instantly feel better.’
It had worked when she missed Matt. Most of the time.
‘Who needs a doctor when you’ve got The Sound of Music?’ she said cheerfully, and Simon shook his head in disbelief.
‘I think I’d still take my chances at the hospital if I were you.’
At least three of the nurses in the A and E department recognized Simon, and there was a rather unseemly tussle as to who would help him. Initially triumphant at securing the task of dealing with Clara, the staff nurse was positively sulky when she realised that Simon planned to wait outside, and that the other two were left to fuss around him.
Not that Simon even seemed to realise that he was getting special treatment. ‘I’ll be here when you’re ready,’ he said to Clara. Taking a seat on one of the hard plastic chairs, he unfolded the Financial Times and proceeded to ignore everyone else.
By the time she emerged with a plaster cast up to her elbow and her arm in a sling, Clara was tired and sore and feeling faintly sick. She wanted Matt. Usually she was very good at persuading herself that she was fine, but at times like this, when her defences were down and she just needed him to put his arms round her and tell her that everything would be all right, his absence sharpened from a dull ache to a spearing pain.
Matt wasn’t there for her any more. There was no one there for her.
Except Simon Valentine, who was sitting exactly where she had left him, and the rush of relief she felt at the sight of him made her screw up her face in case she burst into tears or did something equally humiliating.
‘The sister said your wrist is broken,’ he said, folding his newspaper and getting to his feet as she appeared. ‘I’m sorry, it must be very painful.’
Clara put on a bright smile. She wasn’t going to be a cry-baby in front of Simon Valentine.
‘It’s not too bad.’ She moved her arm in its sling gingerly. ‘I have to come back to the fracture clinic in a week, and they’ll put a lightweight cast on it then.’
‘My mother rang while you were being X-rayed,’ he told her. ‘It seems she picked up your bag when you dropped it to go after that mugger.’
Clara clapped her good hand to her head. ‘Thank goodness for that! I forgot all about it in all the kerfuffle.’
‘We’ll go and pick it up, and then I’ll take you home.’
‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ she said quickly. ‘I can get a cab.’
‘You might as well resign yourself,’ he said. ‘My life wouldn’t be worth living if my mother got wind of the fact that I let you go home in a taxi!’
His suit was still immaculate, and she was horribly aware all at once of her scuffed knees and mud-splattered clothes where she had fallen. His hand was strong and steadying through her jacket as he took her good arm and steered her out through the doors to the car park, and she was guiltily grateful to his mother for insisting that he go with her to the hospital.
Being driven was a luxury too, she thought, sinking into the comfortable leather seat. It certainly beat the tube, or squeezing onto a bus with everyone else, coats steaming and breath misting the windows.
‘You don’t strike me as a man who’s scared of his mother,’ she said, turning slightly to look at him as he got in beside her.
‘She has her own ways of getting what she wants,’ said Simon in a dry voice. ‘I’ve learnt it’s easier just to do what she says.’
Throwing his arm over the back of her seat, he reversed out of the narrow parking slot. Clara sat very still, afraid to move her head in case she brushed against him. All at once it felt as if there wasn’t quite enough oxygen in the car.
‘I thought she was charming,’ she said breathlessly.
‘Oh, yes, she’s charming,’ he said with a sigh and, to Clara’s relief, he brought his arm back to put the car into forward gear once more. ‘Great fun, wonderful company and completely irresponsible, but she gets away with it. She can be utterly infuriating, but if you try and reason with her, she just smiles and pats your cheek and, before you know where you are, you’re doing exactly what she wants.’
Now why hadn’t she thought of patting his cheek? Clara wondered. Somehow she felt it wouldn’t have worked for her.
She liked the sound of Frances, though. She seemed a most unlikely mother for Simon.
‘You must take after your father,’ she said.
It was a throwaway comment, but Simon’s face closed and his mouth set in a compressed line.
‘No, I don’t,’ he said harshly. ‘I don’t resemble him at all.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘WOW.’ A-glitter with lights, London lay spread out below Simon’s apartment. Across the Thames, the bridges were illuminated as if strung with fairy lights, and Clara could see right down to the Houses of Parliament and the huge circle of the London Eye. In the darkness, the streets seemed to be shimmering with energy.
‘Wow,’ she said again. ‘What a fabulous view! It feels like you’re on top of the world, doesn’t it?’
She turned back to admire the rest of the apartment, which was stark and stylish, and somehow not at all what she had expected of someone as conventional as Simon Valentine. ‘What an amazing place.’
Simon shrugged as he pocketed his car keys. ‘It’s a convenient location for the City, and these properties make sound investments.’
‘Right,’ said Clara, who had never invested in property in her life.
‘I think it’s ghastly!’ said Frances. She had changed and was looking remarkably relaxed and elegant for someone who had been mugged hours earlier. ‘I keep telling him that he should at least put up some curtains.’
She looked around her disparagingly. ‘Soulless is the only word for it. What this place needs is a woman’s touch,’ she said as Simon blew out an exasperated breath, having clearly heard it all before. ‘Don’t you agree, Clara?’
Clara thought of the cluttered flat she shared with Allegra. It was cosier than Simon’s apartment, that was for sure, but she couldn’t see Simon wanting cushions and throws and magazines scattered on the sofa. He wouldn’t like cold mugs of tea left lying around, shoes discarded on the floor or bras and tights drying over the radiators. That coffee table would never be buried under nail polishes and phone chargers and old newspapers and empty crisp packets and menus from the Indian takeaway round the corner.
In fact, the woman’s touch was probably the last thing Simon needed.
‘It’s very spacious,’ she said diplomatically.
Frances sniffed. ‘I don’t know why he doesn’t buy a nice house in Chelsea or somewhere. It would be so much nicer for me to visit.’ She heaved an exaggerated sigh but, when Simon remained unmoved, turned back to Clara.
‘Anyway, come and sit down.’ Without giving Clara an opportunity to protest, she drew her over towards one of the cream sofas and spoke over her shoulder to her son.
‘Darling, do get Clara a drink. You must be gasping for a G&T,’ she told Clara. ‘I know I am! Or I suppose Simon could make tea,’ she added doubtfully.
‘Mother—’ Simon’s teeth were audibly gritted ‘—Clara’s anxious to get home. She might not want a drink.’
‘Nonsense, of course she does. Don’t you, Clara?’
Clara was torn. Simon was clearly desperate to get rid of her, but it had been a long day and now that Frances had mentioned gin …
‘I’d love a gin and tonic,’ she confessed.
‘There you are!’ Frances turned triumphantly to her son. ‘And I’ll have one too, darling, to keep her company.’
Simon sucked in a breath. ‘Of course,’ he said tightly and disappeared to what Clara presumed was a kitchen.
‘Don’t mind him,’ Frances said with a sunny smile. ‘He likes to disapprove, but it’s good for him to relax a bit. He works so hard, poor darling, and now he’s on his own again …’ She leant towards Clara confidentially. ‘Well, I always thought Astrid was a bit of a cold fish, but at least she would make him go out.’
Clara was dying to gossip, but didn’t think she ought to. She asked Frances how long she was visiting instead, and Frances chatted happily about herself until Simon reappeared with drinks.
‘Now you must tell us all about you,’ she insisted, and proceeded to grill Clara about her family, background and job.
‘Oh, you work in television? How exciting! Simon’s on television sometimes.’
Clara’s eyes met Simon’s fleetingly over the rim of her glass. ‘Yes, I know.’ She had to give him points for being able to pour a mean gin and tonic. It was long and fizzy, with just the right amount of lime and ice. She was feeling better already and she settled back into the sofa, prepared to enjoy herself before she had to face the reality of failure again.
‘You must be very proud,’ she said to Frances.
‘Oh, I am, terribly. Of course, the idea of him being a pin-up is a bit of a hoot. Not that he wasn’t a gorgeous baby.’
‘Mother …’
Clara smothered a smile at Simon’s expression as Frances rattled on. ‘I see him on the news, and he sounds so clever and sensible. You’d never guess what a reckless little boy he was, would you?’
‘Mother—’ said Simon again, warning in his voice ‘—Clara’s had a long day. She doesn’t want to listen to a lot of boring family stories.’
Frances ignored him and spoke to a fascinated Clara. ‘He was full of mischief when he was little. Your hair would stand on end if I told you half the things he got up to! But then his father died …’ She trailed off sadly. ‘That was a horrible shock. I don’t know what I would have done without Simon then. He sorted everything out, and he’s been looking after us ever since.’
Simon’s jaw was set. ‘That’s not true—’
‘It is true,’ insisted Frances. ‘I always wonder how different you’d have been if your father hadn’t left things in such a mess.’
What mess? Clara wondered. It sounded as if there was an interesting story there, but when Simon caught her eye his expression was so tense that she couldn’t help responding to his unspoken appeal.
‘I really should be going,’ she interrupted Frances, who was clearly ready to tell the whole story. Draining her glass, she put it down and, one-armed, manoeuvred herself awkwardly to her feet from the deep sofa.
‘Must you go?’ Frances looked disappointed. ‘It’s been such fun meeting you, and I’m so, so grateful to you.’
‘It was nothing, really.’
‘It wasn’t nothing. You were an absolute heroine, and you’ve broken your wrist rescuing my wretched bag. I can’t possibly thank you enough. You must promise to tell us if there’s ever anything we can ever do for you. Mustn’t she, Simon?’