Forget Me Knot (38 page)

SHE WAS
just about to press the buzzer to Dan’s flat when the street door opened and Katie appeared. “God,” Abby said, “you only just leaving? It’s past seven. Dan is such a slave driver.”

Katie laughed. “The man is an absolute poppet and you know it. It’s just that with the filming over, there was a mass of administrative odds and ends to tidy up. We’ve both been working like lunatics. Dan only stopped an hour or so ago, when Cinders arrived.”

“Cinders is here?” Abby heard herself say, aware of her heart rate picking up.

“Yes, and she seemed to be in a bit of a state. She was desperate to talk to Dan. He whisked her into the living room and they’ve been there ever since. Haven’t got a clue what’s going on.” She paused. “Was Dan expecting you?”

“No, I thought I’d surprise him.”

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be more than grateful. You might be able to help him cheer Cinders up.”

Abby’s smile belied her anxiety.

It was then that Katie remembered she had left a pile of letters in Dan’s study. “I was planning to address them at home and put them in the mail first thing tomorrow.” She rooted round in her handbag for her door keys. “Thank the Lord Dan let me have a set of keys. I’m always forgetting something.” Eventually she found them and let them both into the flat. While Katie scuttled off down the hall toward the study, Abby hovered in the main doorway. Part of her couldn’t face stepping into the flat and hearing what she feared she might hear.

There wasn’t a sound coming from the living room, which pretty much ruled out the scenes of wild debauchery she had begun to imagine. In the end she managed to convince herself that Cinders was merely having some kind of emotional episode or other and Dan was trying to help. She started down the hall, waving good-bye to Katie, who was by now coming back in the opposite direction, looking at her watch. “Be a miracle if I make my bus,” she said, picking up her pace.

Abby crept toward the living-room door, which was ajar. She peered inside. Dan was sitting in a black leather armchair. Abby could see only Cinders’s profile. She was standing by the window, her back to Dan. Neither of them
was saying a word. Several seconds passed before Cinders broke the silence.

“Darling, you really have to tell her,” she was saying. “In the end it’s the kindest thing. Of course, it will be a blow, but she’ll get over it. You’ve been promising to do it for weeks. I simply can’t wait any longer. I love you and I want us to be together. I want us to create our own perfect nest. We can’t do that until this thing is sorted out…. Right now it’s all such a mess. I need order in my life. I can’t bear the way everything is all over the place. Look, if you won’t tell her, then I will.”

Abby thought she might be sick. Tears rolling down her face, she turned on her heel and ran toward the front door. A draft must have caught it, and it slammed loudly behind her.

She ran down the path, shaking with shock and disbelief. It was Toby and Christian all over again. This was becoming a habit. Was she ever going to stop finding lovers cheating on her? Three days ago Dan had been practically on his knees, apologizing for not being honest about his background and saying how much he wanted to be with her. Now this. How could he do this to her? How could he?

She was several yards along the pavement when she heard Dan’s voice. “Katie! Hey, hang on. Did you remember those letters?” It was obvious that in the dark he couldn’t see who she was. Abby ignored him and carried on toward her car. She could hear footsteps jogging behind her. “Abby,” he cried, finally making her out. “Slow down. What on earth’s the matter? Was that you in the flat just now? How did you get in?”

She kept running.

“Christ!” The lightbulb had come on. “Katie must have let you in and you heard Cinders. Abby, please come back. That wasn’t what you think…”

Weeping and breathless, Abby reached her car. She climbed in and locked the doors. Dan had caught up and was tugging on the driver’s door handle and banging on the window. “Abby! Please! You have to listen.”

She turned the key in the ignition and started to pull away. Dan let go of the handle. She drove to the end of the road and turned left. She had no idea where she was heading.

BY NOW ABBY’S EYES
were so full of tears that she couldn’t see and had to pull over. No sooner had she turned off the engine than her mobile rang. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and took the phone out of her bag. When she saw Dan’s number, she switched off the phone. She sat for a full fifteen minutes, her body racked with heaving sobs. She couldn’t work out who she was more angry with—Dan, for betraying her, or herself, for being naive enough to believe that Dan would be able to resist Cinders in the end. Given the choice between the beautiful, posh actress who was about to become a Hollywood A-lister and the florist from Croydon, who was he going to choose?

And of course Cinders didn’t have a boyfriend back in the States. That was something she’d concocted to keep Abby off the scent.

Overwhelming as her anger was, more than anything she felt bereft. She had known Dan for such a short time, but losing him felt like losing part of herself. Without him she was hollow, incomplete. She hadn’t dared admit it to herself until now, but she had fallen in love with Dan.

Two hours later, having hit the MI and driven practically to Luton and back, she arrived home.

She lay on the bed, fully clothed and staring at the moon shadows on the ceiling. The ache she felt inside was almost physical. She was certain that she would never ever find love again. She was one of those people whom love tantalized and teased but finally evaded. She fell into a dreamless sleep and was woken the next morning by somebody banging on the door to the flat.

The previous evening’s events hit her with the force of a wrecker’s ball. Tears started to well up in her eyes. “Who is it?”

“Me.” It was Martin. “It’s past nine. You OK?”

She lowered her feet onto the floor. Her head throbbed. Her mouth and tongue were as dry as felt. She stood up and went to the front door.

“Hey,” she mumbled, rubbing her head.

“Hiya. Bloody hell, you look terrible.”

“Cheers.”

“Did you sleep in your clothes?”

Abby looked down. “Seems like it.”

“What happened? Judging by the swollen eyes and the smudged mascara, I’m guessing an extremely boozy night?”

“You could say that.” Then she burst into tears.

He immediately put his arms round her. “Hey, Abby, what on earth is it? Come on, tell your aunty Scozza. Surely it can’t be that bad.”

“It is,” she wailed. “Dan’s in love with Cinders.”

Martin was stroking her back. “OK, that sounds pretty bad. Look, you go back to bed and I’ll bring you a nice cuppa. Then we’ll talk.”

She plodded to her room and collapsed onto the bed. A few minutes later Martin was back with sweet tea and jam toast.

“I’ve phoned Soph. She’s on her way.”

“But she’s got a business to run. You shouldn’t have bothered her.”

“Oh, please. Here’s you in the midst of some terrible emotional trauma and looking like death. Can you imagine the bollocking I’d get if I didn’t call her?”

“I guess.” Abby sipped the hot tea, but when she tried the toast she simply couldn’t get it down.

By the time Soph arrived, Abby was sobbing into her pillow. Soph sat down on the bed beside her and began stroking her friend’s hair. “Sweetie, you have to tell us what’s been going on. Now, come on… take a deep breath.”

“I’ve fallen in love with Dan,” she cried into the pillow.

“All right.”

“No, it’s not bloody all right. It’s all wrong. He loves Cinders.”

“How do you know? What happened exactly?”

After some cajoling, Abby turned over to face them. “I caught them last night at Dan’s flat. She was begging him to tell me the truth about their relationship. I knew I couldn’t trust him. I’ve been such an idiot.” She looked at Martin. “Cinders never had a boyfriend in L.A. That was just a line she spun you. She knew you’d tell me and that it would stop me becoming suspicious.”

The rest of the story—about Dan being the son of the S&M chairman and a megawealthy French countess—came out in fits and starts.

“It feels like my life’s turned into a bad fairy tale,” Abby said, wiping the snot from her nose. “I mean, how many
girls manage to get swept off their feet by not one handsome prince but two and then have both of them cheat on her?”

For a few moments, Martin and Soph seemed lost for words.

“So,” Martin said eventually, “Dan’s a toff. Who’d have thought it? I mean, he seems so ordinary. How you pull that off when your mam’s related to Marie Antoinette, I have no idea.”

Like Abby, they both understood why Dan had panicked and felt he had to keep his background a secret. Like her, they even understood why he had relayed Abby’s ideas about how to improve S&M to his stepfather without telling her. What they couldn’t get their heads round was Dan cheating on her. “I just can’t believe Dan would do this,” Soph said. “He’s such a lovely, genuine sort of a bloke. I didn’t have him down as the two-timing type.”

“My guess,” Abby began, “is that Cinders has been working on him ever since they started filming. I think he fought her off for a while, but in the end he couldn’t resist her. And sometime in the last three days she finally managed to seduce him. She’s one of those beautiful, manipulative women who are used to getting anything they want. Most important of all, she’s posh. Toby admitted that he always wanted to be with somebody of his own class, and I think that deep down, despite claiming the opposite, Dan does, too.”

Soph and Martin listened to her, hugged her and commiserated with her until Abby finally decided Soph should get back to work. “And I can’t sit around moping. I have to open the shop.”

“No way,” Martin said. “I’ll manage the shop on my own today. You are staying in bed. No arguments.”

She didn’t attempt to raise an objection. She remembered how Martin had made her rest after she found out about Toby and Christian. She laughed a quiet, bitter laugh. It was almost becoming a routine.

After Soph and Martin had gone, she fell asleep immediately. It was four o’clock when she woke. She knew it wasn’t a good idea, but something made her switch on her phone and check her voice mail. There were twelve calls, all showing Dan’s number. She had no intention of listening to them. Instead, she sat on the edge of the bed, her thumb pressing delete over and over again.

It took all her energy and willpower, but afterward she put a brush through her hair, washed her face and went downstairs. The shop was empty. Martin appeared to be coming to the end of a phone call.

“Thank you for letting us know…. Yes, I’ll be sure to tell her.”

“Tell who what?” Abby said.

“Gosh, you’re up,” Martin said, his face etched with anxiety, which Abby took for concern about her.

“I thought I’d come down… you know, see what’s going on.” She managed a pale smile.

“That was the lady in Majorca—you know, the one who’s supplying the lavender for Mr. T’s party.”

“Right. When’s it arriving? One of us will need to go to Heathrow in the van and pick it up.”

“It’s not.”

“Not what?”

“It’s not arriving. The Spanish baggage and cargo handlers have just gone on strike. No planes are taking off or landing on the mainland or any of the islands.”

Abby swallowed hard. “You have to be kidding.”

“I wish I was.”

“But today’s Wednesday. The party is on Sunday. What am I supposed to do?” She fell onto one of the stools in front of the counter. She could feel herself starting to shake.

“Abby, calm down. It’s only the lavender for the terrace. I mean, it’s not as if we can’t get the cherry blossom or peonies. Mr. T won’t mind.”

“Of course he’ll bloody mind,” Abby cried, her temper flaring in a way it never would normally. “You know what he’s like. You’ve seen how he is when he gets angry. He’s a perfectionist and a control freak. He’ll go ballistic.”

“Abby, you have been through enough stress in the last twenty-four hours. You have to take it easy. I’m frightened you’re going to lose it completely. Let me sort this out. I’ll tell Ichiro and he’ll speak to Mr. T.”

“Don’t you dare! If Mr. T finds out I can’t get the lavender, he will sack me. Once news gets out that I let him down, I could lose all my corporate clients.”

“That’s ridiculous. All your clients know how reliable you are. Plus, they like you. Nobody would ditch you over one slipup that isn’t even your fault.”

“It doesn’t work like that. Liking me has got nothing to do with it. People will see that I can’t be trusted. Nobody will be interested in the details. They simply won’t risk employing me anymore. And it doesn’t end there. London is such a village. Everybody knows everybody else; you know how fast gossip spreads and how facts get distorted in the telling. Eventually it could filter down to street level that Fabulous Flowers isn’t what it was and, hey presto, all the wedding and party orders dry up. That is our bread and butter. Without them, I would be finished. There would be no Fabulous Flowers.” She took a deep breath. “OK, we
have to stay focused. There has to be something we can do. But what? What?”