Double Fault (2 page)

“I’m sorry.  I arrived late because of a route diversion and when I got here a furniture truck was blocking the service road.  I meant to move the car as soon as I finished unloading but there was so much to do I didn’t have time.  I’ll go and park it right away.”

“Make sure you do.” She heard him push against the door ready to exit but her relief was short lived because, as he turned to go, the delegates began to drift into the hall still discussing the conference as they made their way towards the buffet.

She heard his hiss of irritation as he crossed the floor.  “For heaven’s sake!  Are you coping with all this on your own or is there someone else who can take over before the car park grinds to a complete halt?”

“I’m on my own,” she still had her back to him as she rifled through her purse looking for her keys.  “I’ll move my car as soon as I’ve finished serving.”

“Not on my watch you won’t,” he held out his hand for her car keys. It was a large, brown hand with the strong fingers and muscular forearm she remembered only too well. “Give them to me and I’ll move it.  It’s bad enough having the car park blocked without the caterer abandoning post too!”

Kerry half turned and dropped the keys into his outstretched palm, praying that her short hair and practical clothes would stop him looking any closer.  After all why should the great Pierce Simon be interested in the domestic help? It wasn’t exactly his style.

“Kerry!” The disbelief in his voice provoked the trace of a reluctant smile as, her prayers unanswered, she was finally forced to turn right around and face him.

“Hello Pierce.  I didn’t think you’d recognize me,” she kept her voice cool, trying to ignore a sudden inner turmoil as her heart began to thud erratically against her ribs.

“Well you’re certainly different,” his startled blue glance took in everything from her strained expression to the shabby trainers on her feet.  “What are you doing?  Seeing how the other half lives?”

She flushed at the scorn in his voice.  “As it happens I’m the junior partner in
Melanie’s Kitchen.
”

“Next stop the Ritz I suppose,” his half smile took some of the sting out of his words as he nodded towards her shabby trainers. Surprisingly she felt a bubble of laughter begin deep inside her as he nudged her sense of the ridiculous in the same way he used to do when he was the centre of her life.  Hastily she quashed it and moved forward to supervise the buffet, determined not to place the
Greenleas
contract in any further jeopardy, and equally determined not to let him back into her nicely mended heart.  His hand on her shoulder made her jump.

“I’ll see you later,” this time the smile was frosted as he acknowledged her deliberate cold shoulder.  “Ask the receptionist to call me when you want your keys.”

She didn’t answer him as she began to dispense slices of meat and polite small talk to the delegates clustered around the buffet, and after a moment he shrugged and walked away.

She watched him go, seeing irritation in his swift stride and in his curt acknowledgment of the few people who recognized him. She tried to concentrate on that, on the part of him she disliked, the part of Pierce Simon that demanded constant attention and immediate gratification. Instead a more basic memory called to her so instead she found herself feasting on the length of his legs, his slim hips, his golden brown skin and his trademark tangle of sun streaked hair.

“Was that Pierce Simon?” a woman with long blonde hair asked as she spooned couscous salad onto her plate.

Kerry nodded silently as she abandoned an attempt to top up empty juice glasses with trembling hands.

“I thought so.  He’s quite something isn’t he? I must say I haven’t enjoyed watching
Wimbledon
so much since he dropped out of the tennis scene.”

“That’s because you go for the legs instead of the backhand,” the man next to her in the queue teased.

“I never pretend to anything else,” she retorted with a grin.  “I wonder what he’s doing here though? I would have expected
California
to be more his style.”

Me too.
Kerry took some surreptitious deep breaths as she listened, trying in vain to quell the rosy blush that had begun to suffuse her body as she reacted to the lingering fragrance of Pierce’s aftershave.

“He owns
Greenleas
,” a younger man who looked as if he started every day with a five-mile jog explained.  “Well he owns the whole estate actually. I think he’s having a house built somewhere in the grounds, and he has some grandiose plans for developing the country club once the initial renovations are complete.”

“You mean you actually know him?” As the blonde woman’s voice cut across the general remarks Kerry heard the familiar edge of excitement, the sexual frisson that Pierce’s presence seemed to engender in every woman he met.

“Sort of.  I work out in the gym a couple of times a week and he’s often there too.”

His words evoked a provocative memory. Pierce in the tightest of Lycra shorts and vest, his chest and arms glistening with sweat, his hair drenched into tight curls as he pushed himself to physical limits.  She remembered the ripple of his muscles and the sinuous length of his legs as he dipped and twisted in an agony of exercise, and then later the shower, hot and relaxing.  She could almost feel the water cascading across her back as he pulled her in with him, ignoring her protests and pushing aside the heavy, wet strands of her long straight hair to kiss her neck and to…

Abruptly she surfaced as someone asked her for a knife, and then busied herself preparing coffee while the conversation continued to ebb and flow around her.  It was mainly speculation about Pierce’s decision to leave the tennis circuit nearly two years earlier when he was still close to his peak.

Kerry listened, surprised at just how ignorant three years of struggling alone had made her. It had left no time for newspapers or magazines, no money for television, so that caught up in a daily round of dirty nappies and pureed carrot, she had missed his premature retirement. She had tried to distance herself of course, smashing her memories as viciously as he had once smashed tennis balls, so why should her main reaction be one of shock?  After all it had to come one day, so why not before his fitness began to decline? By retiring early he’d escaped the ignominy of tired muscles and slower reactions as he faced ever younger opponents across the net.

“I wonder how old he is.” The blonde woman was still musing about his other attributes.

“Thirty-three,” the words were out before Kerry could stop herself and she blushed.

“You too!” The woman laughed.  “Funny how that potent macho image gets to us all isn’t it, even whilst we all insist we’re fighting for equal rights.  What else do you know about him?”

That he’s six foot and three inches tall, was born in November, has an Irish mother and an English father, likes jazz and fast cars, kisses like a dream, thinks he’s god’s gift to women, and is the most arrogant self-obsessed member of the opposite sex you are ever likely to meet!
The words buzzed round and round, unuttered, in Kerry’s head as she gave a slight shrug and turned away.  The woman would find out for herself soon enough anyway.  From the way she was cross-questioning the young man who had claimed such a tenuous acquaintance with Pierce, she had every intention of following through. It was a syndrome Kerry knew well, and one that Pierce had never been averse to encouraging with a mild flirtation of his own.

* * *

By two-thirty Kerry was alone and she wrapped and stacked mechanically, tipping paper plates into two black trash bags and retrieving crumpled napkins and plastic cups from beneath tables and off windowsills. Finally everything was tidy and she knew she couldn’t put off the evil moment any longer.  She needed her car keys so she had to find and face Pierce.

Leaving the boxes and cooler containers near the door she made her way to Reception.  The area was clear now and a girl with purple nails and a matching lipstick was sitting behind a large wooden desk. 

“I…would you call Mr. Simon for me please,” Kerry flushed with embarrassment as the receptionist looked her up and down and obviously found her wanting.  “He has my car keys. My car was blocking the entrance,” she added hastily, hoping this was enough to disassociate her from any personal connection in the girl’s mind.  Then she turned away and pretended to read the notices pinned to an adjacent board while the girl called Pierce’s cell phone.

He came almost immediately, striding across the high gloss floor while he rapped out a stream of instructions to a young man in a tracksuit who was jogging to keep up with him.

“Finished?” He broke away from his companion and came across to where Kerry was trying to look interested in a poster about a Yoga class.

“Yes thank you,” she held out her hand.  “If you’ll give me my keys and tell me where you’ve parked my car, I’ll load it from the service entrance.”

“And then I suppose you’re going to push it home.” Pierce made no attempt to hand over the keys as he stood looking down at her, his arms folded across a broad expanse of chest.

She frowned at his words, wishing she wasn’t so affected by the tantalizing and far too familiar tang of his aftershave. “Of course not.  Please give me my keys Pierce.  I’m not in the mood for games.”

“Nor am I!” Without warning he took her arm and ignoring her protests, propelled her at speed across the reception area to a door marked private.  Pushing her inside he closed it firmly behind him and flipped the lock before waving her towards a dark blue leather couch.

“Now we are guaranteed some privacy, you can listen to me.  Your car won’t start.  A mechanic is working on it at the moment so you’re not going anywhere yet, which suits me fine because I think you owe me some sort of explanation and I am quite prepared to stay here until I get one.”

Suddenly Kerry’s legs wouldn’t hold her and she folded onto the couch with an inward groan.  It was all so unfair.  She had always known she would have to face him again one day and she’d lived and relived this scene over and over again, except that in her imagination Pierce was the supplicant to her successful businesswoman.  She’d always pictured herself elegantly dressed in a tailored suit and a designer blouse; in control of her emotions; cool and confident; prepared for the confrontation she knew was coming.  She stared miserably at the scuffed trainers that made her slender legs look too thin and the smear of tomato relish on her white blouse.  She might have known her dreams wouldn’t come true.  They never had as far as Pierce was concerned, which was why she had walked out on him three years ago when she was two months pregnant; too proud to ask for his help; too vulnerable to risk his contempt.

He took advantage of her silence to use his cell phone to order coffee. It gave Kerry the breathing space she needed.  By the time he’d finished her chin was up and she was ready to protect herself and the twins from the one person who should have been the centre of their lives.

“Explanation?” Her smile was carefully positioned, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

“Yes, explanation dammit!” His brows drew together in a familiar scowl as he crossed the room to sit next to her.  “While I’m on court playing one of the most important matches of my life you pack up your wardrobe and disappear.  No warning. No explanation.  Nothing.  I was out of my mind with worry until I found your note.  Why did you do it Kerry?  What happened to make you run away?”

She managed a nonchalant shrug, hating what she was about to do but unable to think of an alternative. “I told you in the note.  I was fed up with following you around the tennis circuit.  Fed up with not having a life of my own.”

“Well you sure as hell managed to hide your misery when you were buying up
Paris
and living the highlife in
London
and the States,” he drew his brows together again in a disbelieving frown.  “There has to be something else, or was it someone else.”

She feigned a bored indifference as she met his puzzled blue gaze. “There was nothing…except I’d just had enough.  All those hours of watching you play and then listening to you dissect your game…it was boring Pierce. So was only being able to socialize with other tennis players. I wanted more but you never listened to me. Not properly.  It was always ‘
we’ll talk about it later Kerry, after the next tournament’
. In the end I’d had enough and besides, after nearly a year together, I wanted to leave good memories behind.  If I’d told you I was going and why, there would have been arguments and bitterness.”

That bit at least was true she told herself, hoping against hope he would buy her story and lose interest.  After all he’d only ever had to click his fingers for a bevy of beauties to come running, so why should he bother about an old flame who’d walked out on him three years ago, particularly one who had lost her looks and her fortune.

“Memories! I wanted more than memories Kerry, and I thought you did too. I thought we had a future together.” His voice bit into her thoughts as he leaned forward and grasped her wrist.

She dredged up every ounce of scorn she had in her and looked him squarely in the face, not flinching at his expression, ignoring the compelling draw of the deep blue eyes that had melted her so often in the past. “Don’t be ridiculous Pierce.  A future is only possible in the real world, away from constant travel and a different hotel room every week.  You never once asked me what I wanted in all the time we were together.  You never even wondered how I filled my time while you trained and practiced for hours and hours each day.  You never considered I might be bored.  You never thought about the future except in terms of matches and tournaments.  You just liked having some arm candy to fill in the gaps and add color to your publicity.  I was just a pretty face on the terraces for the television cameras to pick out while you changed ends.”