His Irresistible Darling (31 page)

He scowled at Pip as she stuck her tongue at him ‘before she continued. “Well I told them that we’d collect her from the airport and as head of our family it should be you. Besides, do you really trust me to drive your Range Rover after what I did to your Porsche?” She tilted her head to the side. Good point.

“Anastacia is flying in directly from Rome due to some mix up or another, er, the bad weather actually I think, and the rest will arrive later today from London. I’ve arranged for an executive mini bus to collect them.” She waved her hand at him urgently. “So you’d better get a wiggle on brother, before this bad weather sets in.”

Matt sighed heavily. He was so damn tired and just wanted to fall into his bed…not that he would actually get any sleep.

“Pippa, this conversation is not over,” Matt grumbled as he grabbed his battered but favourite Barbour coat and car keys.

“Oh and you need to pop into a supermarket and grab some sparkling Perrier water on your way,” she shouted over her shoulder.

“What?” He sighed and looked up at the ceiling in defeat, no longer able to gather the energy to get angry.

“Anastacia’s agent emailed a rider list and the only thing we couldn’t get in the village was Perrier, so you need to grab some. Oh and don’t forget your phone.”

Matt caught his phone and pocketed it.

“I updated it for you. You’re welcome.”

He stared coldly at his sister, mentally counting to ten before he dropped the keys to his Range Rover back on the table and grabbed the keys to the Stud’s twenty year old land rover, used to ferry around bedding hay and feed and other necessities. It was most certainly not what the haughty
America’s Top Model
or whatever she was, would be expecting. He gritted his teeth at the thought of his quiet life being invaded by a woman who was no doubt a shallow, fame-obsessed wannabe accompanied by her equally annoying sycophantic entourage.

“George, come.” Matt patted the side of his leg and whistled.

He cursed to himself and absently raked his fingers through his hair; crossing the snow covered driveway towards the truck wondering how his day could go any further downhill and deciding that he’d simply stay out of the way—out of the house if necessary. Pip’s timing couldn’t be any worse: one of his ‘mares was showing signs of an imminent delivery and his experience told him that she faced a potentially difficult time. The last thing he needed was a group of pompous big city dwellers who’d create nothing but upheaval and shine an unwanted spotlight upon his home.

***

Mrs Henderson and Pip stared at the snow cloud formed on the drive as Matt accelerated away from the house, and looked at each other.

“There’s going to be fireworks,” Mrs Henderson chuckled, crossing her flour covered hands over her apron.

Pip smiled mischievously. “Well someone needs to rattle his feathers and shake him up. Let’s hope he’s thinking ‘Emily who?’ after the next couple of days, hey.”

The co-conspirators clinked their tea cups together in celebration of a job well done.

***

Anastacia couldn’t stop her hands from shaking as she tried repeatedly to put the plane’s phone back in its holder following the most important phone call of her life.

“Oh God, oh God, breathe girl just breathe.” She repeated the mantra to calm her racing heart, breathing in and out slowly and trying to remember her yoga techniques; her hands moving up and down in sync…well, that was useless.

She yanked out the phone again and dialed. He answered after a couple of rings.

“It’s me. Guess what?”

“Erm, I’ll go with… you’ve decided to become a nun and you want me to design a totally bodacious habit for you?”

“Alix honey, people don’t say bodacious anymore. You’re showing your age.”

She heard him suck in a breath in disgust. “You take that back or else I’ll make you look like Miss Bloody Piggy, or worse.”

“Amanda just called.” She let the statement just hang in the air teasingly until she heard his sharp intake of breath as he connected the dots.

“You got it didn’t you, you bloody well got it. I knew it, tell me you got it.”

“I got it.” She held the phone away from her ear as he screamed and eventually decided to join in, tapping her feet on the floor in delight.

Eventually they ran out of air.

“Oh pumpkin, I am so proud of you. God I can’t believe my girl is going to be the face of Passion. Wow, just…ha, do you remember when we used to flick through all those fashion magazines at school. You always loved those moody arty black and white Passion adverts and look at you now. Well done babe, I’m so proud.”

She swallowed the lump which had formed in her throat at his praise. He was genuinely proud of her achievement. She could always count on Alix. She could
only
count on Alix, she quickly amended. “We’ve done all right haven’t we. It’s everything, all my dreams come true, but now I’m scared Alix. What if I mess it all up? Three years is a long time and they’ll have huge expectations. They’ll want their pound of flesh.
Skinny
flesh,” she emphasised.

“Nonsense, you won’t mess it up, you’ve got me. I won’t let you. New York baby!!” Alix went off screaming again and muttering about all the plans he had for them in New York while she half listened, knowing Alix could entertain himself for quite a while without needing her input or encouragement. Talking with Alix always soothed her. She reclined her chair on the private Gulf Stream jet, closing her eyes. She hadn’t gotten much sleep over the last few nights and spent most of the time tossing and turning waiting to hear from her agent. She’d taken a sleeping pill earlier in the day in the hope that it would help her get some sleep on the plane, then the call had come through.

“So did you manage to pack some clothes for me?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

“Yep, got ‘em. So what exactly happened in Italy? You sound like you’ve been partying too hard babe.”

She decided to ignore his quip about partying. Telling Alix she wasn’t sleeping would only lead to an inquisition and she wasn’t ready for that. “A complete nightmare. Take one over-emotional photographer and an equally stroppy designer having artistic differences into the mix and what do you get? Both of them storming off the shoot in different directions leaving me shivering in the middle of a bloody fountain in a bikini wondering what the hell just happened, and having to wait around ‘till they kissed and made up. Honestly these dramatics are turning into an occupational hazard in Italy. So what time’s your flight?”

She could hear the background commotion and sounds of his fellow disgruntled passengers. “Er, well, it’s saying on the board that it’s delayed at the moment. It’s a good thing you could arrange to fly straight there from Rome rather than trying to come back to London first. I don’t think anything is landing or taking off from Heathrow at the moment.”

“Hmm, well, okay. Will you let me know when you know more?”

“Will do. So, have you spoken to her yet?”

She let out a long breath before responding. “What’s the point? I’ll just get Angela. I speak more to my mother’s assistant than I do her. Anyway she’ll be out at some LA premier and then I’d be sat waiting for her call; which we both know won’t come so…” she shrugged her shoulders.

“Don’t you dare let her spoil this for you.’ She’s not worth it. But I know you’ll call her anyway, won’t you?”

“Probably.” She could see him rolling his eyes at her and shaking his head.

He groaned out loud before continuing sheepishly. “It goes without saying that I’ll owe you big time for doing this for me, I—”

“Alix, you’re my rock. I’ve lost count of the times you’ve been there for me so don’t you dare say thank you to me for spending a weekend in Yorkshire modeling your creations. It’s the least I can do for you, okay?” She owed him more than he would ever know.

“Okay,” he mumbled. “So what’s involved with Passion from now?” he asked, cleverly changing the topic.

“Well, Amanda is going to email me the papers which I’ll have a look at once I get to Melville later. She said they’ve already found me an apartment on the upper-east side near their offices and they want everything in place and ready to go after London Fashion Week. So it all fits together nicely. By the way, do you have any idea where this Melville house actually is?”

“Not a clue, I just Googled it and fell in love with the house and grounds, it’s a farm or something somewhere in the North Yorkshire Moors. There’re picking you up so you’ll be fine. Anyway, I’m just glad I got you to model for me before you become even
more
famous and your head won’t fit through my clothes.”

“Ha de ha ha. I know I can always rely on you to keep me grounded.” After a short pause they both laughed.

“There’s no hope for you then pumpkin!”

She smiled to herself and she recalled that it was she who comforted Alix as he passionately jumped from one disastrous relationship to another and had his heart broken over and over, yet she admired his tenacity and zest for life. She was the constant in his life and vice versa and she’d recently made a pledge to herself to help him find the love of his life…at least that stopped her examining her own disastrous love life too closely. Her last boyfriend had sold all the juicy details of their six month relationship to the press. At least what they had fabricated had been juicy—the reality had been that they’d barely dated due to work pressures—but hey, at least he’d got his profile heightened and no doubt made a few quid out of it..

She mouthed her thanks to Heidi for the tea she’d just placed on her tray table and tentatively sipped at it.

“But what if they change their mind when I get there? I’m not exactly the body type they’ve gone for traditionally am I?” she said, now biting her lower lip.

“Don’t be so bloody ridiculous, if I could get my hands on your mother I swear—”

“Okay,Okay. Calm down Mike Tyson.” She chuckled as she heard him mutter
“Who?”.
“It’s just that we both know that this is
it
for me. At twenty-six, I’m not going to get a chance like this again and I’m just doing my usual doubting routine. Sorry.”

‘‘“
Okay, well there’s an official-looking airline chap wandering around in an ill-fitting uniform just begging for a make-over so I better get off and see what’s happening with our flight. I’ll see you soon and we can celebrate properly.”

“Okay, see ya, mwah.”

She managed to get the phone back in the holder without too many problems this time and sipped again at her drink, trying to forget the fact that it was Christmas in a few days and she hadn’t done any shopping so it was likely to be another mad rush around on Christmas Eve. It saddened her to think that she and her mother were basically strangers now and would be spending yet another Christmas apart. Not that she’d ever had a normal Christmas with her family. Her very early Christmas memories with her mother usually meant party after party with the Hollywood types whilst she was left at home being cared for by Angela. That was a ‘good Christmas’. A normal one meant that she didn’t even get to go home for Christmas; she stayed boarding at school in England and got to watch all the other children being collected by their parents or at least their parents’ chauffeurs. She remembered how she hated those children, but it wasn’t their fault they had parents who actually gave a damn.

“Miss Harper, sorry, but would you like anything else to drink? The captain says we’ll be hitting some turbulence as we descend through some bad weather so he’s about to put on the seatbelt sign.”

She dragged her thoughts from her troubled reverie “Oh, no thank you Heidi, I’m fine, you go and buckle up. And I’ve told you, please call me Anastacia. You’ve flown with me all around the world and you’ve even done a fifty yard dash down a runway to retrieve my fly-away knickers to save my dignity, so I’d say we’re on first name terms, wouldn’t you? She raised her eyebrow and smiled.

Heidi nodded and returned her smile as she retreated towards the back of the jet.

Ana returned her stare out of the small window to look at the darkening sky, not that she could see much. It was quite a change from the weather in Rome.

***

After a few hair-raising moments of bad turbulence the plane finally landed and taxied to its stand.

She gathered her belongings and wrapped her new cashmere wrap around her shoulders, thankful for the gift from Alix. As she approached the doorway she was hit by a blast of frigid Yorkshire air and falling snow which was starting to stick to the ground. She snuggled into her wrap and stepped out, hoping to God that Alix had chosen warm, practical clothes for her. She laughed to herself; if you couldn’t trust a fashion designer to pick clothes for you, who could you trust!? Despite her fierce independence, even she wouldn’t have turned down a chivalrous offer of a coat from a gentleman round about now. If only.

“Welcome to Yorkshire Anastacia, have a lovely stay and thank you again for the tickets to London Fashion Week. My daughter will love it. We’ll wave to you.”

“No worries and you’re very welcome. I’ll see you soon Heidi. Safe flying.” She said, giving a quick hug.

It had been lovely and warm in Rome, even in December. She didn’t like cold weather and neither did her favourite Jimmy Choo’s.

***

“Stay, George.”

Matt recklessly abandoned the heap of metal affectionately known by all at the stud farm as ‘the hummer’ and rushed into the arrivals hall. He was late. He hated being late for anything; the upshot of being rapped over the knuckles with a ruler by the nuns at his strict Catholic school. Being late was a sign of tardiness. Still, on the plus side, he had to smile at the thought of keeping Miss Tall and Snooty waiting around the arrivals hall and having to mill about with the locals. Ah well, every cloud…

The airport was packed with people arriving home. But then what did you expect a few days before Christmas?

He stood back and held open the doors for an elderly couple struggling to push their heavy cases on a trolley and he felt compelled to help them into a waiting taxi. He didn’t even mutter a curse when one of the heavy cases dropped onto his foot and instead smiled through gritted teeth and wished them a Merry Christmas as they went on their way. At least Mrs Henderson would be proud.