MILLIE'S FLING (51 page)

‘
Exactly.
God, this is fantastic.’ Hester clasped her hands together in delight. ‘You and Millie. It's perfect! Ooh, and she said she’d probably ring me tomorrow—just wait until she hears about this!’

Shit.

He’d ripped his own arm off for nothing. The grizzly bear was going to eat him alive after all.

‘No.
No!
’ Hugh kept his voice level. ‘Hester, you mustn’t do that. This is between Millie and me. If she phones, you have to promise me you won’t breathe a word.’

Hester's face fell. He watched it happen, like a lift with severed cables plummeting to earth.

‘I’m serious,’ he said. ‘Very serious indeed.’

Finally, she managed a brave-little-soldier nod.

‘Of course. I understand. You’re absolutely right. I won’t tell Millie anything.’ She shook her head with such vigor her
emerald green parrot earrings bounced off the sides of her neck. For added emphasis she mimed zipping her mouth shut.

Her great big blabbermouth, Hugh reminded himself, wondering if it might not be simpler to superglue it shut.

Illegal. But tempting.

He gave it one last shot. ‘Do you promise?’

In reply, Hester gave him her most trustworthy—in other words, not trustworthy at all—Cheshire-cat smile.

‘Absolutely. Definitely. You can rely on me, I
promise
.’

Hugh wondered why he wasn’t reassured.

The Royal Lancaster was the poshest hotel Millie had ever stayed at. Actually, apart from a dreary little boarding house masquerading as a hotel in Blackpool where she’d once spent a dirty weekend with an accountant called Kevin, it was the only hotel she’d ever stayed at. And it was turning out to be a completely thrilling experience. Hot water shot out of the taps at such a rate that she’d had two baths already. Her room was vast, six times the size of her bedroom at home. And the view over Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens was stunning.

Feeling like a yokel up from the sticks—which, of course, she
was
—Millie pressed her nose to the window, marveling at the red double-decker buses trundling along the busy road below, as well as the sheer number of black cabs zipping past. It was so completely different from Cornwall. Apart from a few brief visits to her mother, she had never spent any real time here. Thanks to Adele, who regarded it as hopelessly common, she’d never even done any proper sightseeing.

Well, it was about time she did.

I might decide I love it enough to move here, thought Millie, feeling reckless. Maybe a change of scenery is just what I need.

Because basically, now that Hester was settled with Nat, she was going to have to find somewhere else to live anyway. And apart from her job—which was, after all,
only
a job—there was precious little to keep her in Newquay. It wasn’t as if her father and Judy were likely to slip into a Victorian decline.

Plus, moving away would hopefully take her mind off Hugh. Because, let's face it, all this bumping into him and just-being-friends simply wasn’t working out. It was hard to cope with. Falling in love with someone who didn’t love you back was the pits. And if she stayed in Newquay, they would only keep bumping into each other.

Whereas if she moved up here, she could get on with making a new life for herself. With a bit of luck, her memory would be wiped clean of him, like turning the wheel on an Etch-a-Sketch. In a couple of months, she might wake up one morning and think, Hugh? Hugh
who
?

Ooh, look at that black cab doing a U-turn right in front of that truck! The taxi drivers in this city drove like demons, they just—

‘Millie, it's me! Ready to go?’

Millie raced barefoot across the pale carpet—so thick and springy it was like bouncing on a trampoline—and flung open the door.

‘My God!’ she exclaimed. ‘What happened? You look
awful
.’’

Orla grinned, because she knew she didn’t. Her eyes sparkled, her pre-Raphaelite curls tumbled past her shoulders, and she was poured into a memorably low-cut dress of sea green shot-silk that shimmered every time she moved.

‘I know, I’m a complete disaster. They probably won’t let me in.’

The message was clear. Orla was proving to the world that she was well and truly over Giles. Looking at her now, no one would doubt it. Millie had nothing but admiration for her.

‘Honestly, someone's
smoking
in one of these rooms.’ Lifting her head like an outraged bloodhound, Orla sniffed the air and glared at the many doors lining the broad corridor. ‘It smells
completely
repulsive
. People who smoke shouldn’t be allowed to stay in hotels—as soon as we get downstairs I’m going to report them to the manager!’

Oh, and she was still off the cigarettes.

‘Not looking so bad yourself,’ Orla teased as they stepped into the lift. It was also the poshest lift Millie had ever been in in her life—to be fair, there weren’t many buildings
with
lifts in Newquay—but she didn’t mention this to Orla. There was such a thing as sounding too much like Crocodile Dundee.

Checking herself briefly in the mirror as they traveled downwards, Millie made sure her hair and make-up were okay. She was wearing the Dolce & Gabbana caramel suede dress. (If Orla was her matchmaking fairy godmother, this was her version of Cinderella's ballgown.) She’d even remembered to polish up the tiger's eye earrings Hester had given her last Christmas.

Well, as Orla kept gleefully pointing out, tonight could be the night that changed her whole life.

Then again, so could any night. If you were at home watching TV and a spider ran across your foot, you could panic and leap up on to the coffee table, lose your balance, topple over backwards, fracture your skull, and… well, die.

Which would also change your life.

With any luck, this evening wouldn’t provoke anything quite so dramatic.

‘Here we are,’ Orla announced as the lift door slid noiselessly open. ‘And we are going to enjoy ourselves. Smile, darling. It's showtime!’

Orla certainly knew a lot of people. Millie, incapable of remembering the names of everyone she was being introduced to, could only marvel as Orla worked her way through the throng. They were
having drinks in the Lounge Bar before the ceremony itself got underway. More guests were arriving all the time. As the noise level rose, so did the perfume and smoke levels in the room.

Brightly, Orla called out, ‘How are we doing so far? Spotted anyone
you
like the look of?’

It was like being injected with a giant dose of anti-aphrodisiac. Being ordered to find someone and chat them up simply wasn’t natural. Especially not with Orla standing there avidly charting your progress.

Like having a wee, thought Millie. It was one of those things she just couldn’t do in front of an audience.

‘Why don’t you introduce me to someone you like the look of?’ she countered. ‘Anyway, I thought you already had someone in mind.’

‘Oh yes. My surprise.’ Orla pulled a face. ‘Except there's no sign of him so far. To be honest, I don’t know if he's going to be able to make it. Okay, okay, my choice.’ Keenly, she scanned the room. Moments later, her eyes lighting up, she said, ‘There's someone you might like. Noel Blackwall. Writes horror novels, lives in Sussex, just sold the film rights to his last book for two mill.’

Millie dutifully looked over and her heart did… nothing. Noel Blackwall was of average height. Looks-wise, he was average. He appeared to be around thirty and was engaged in conversation with a slightly older woman sporting a towering blonde beehive.

‘Is that his girlfriend?’ said Millie.

‘
Nooo
, only his agent.’ Briskly, Orla nudged her forward. ‘Come on, I’ll do the honors.’

The trouble with Orla, Millie belatedly realized, was that she had extremely dodgy taste in men. Look at who she’d married, for a start.

‘… So that was how I got the idea for my new book,
Crunching Cockroaches
.’ Noel was still droning on in her ear. He’d barely paused
for breath since Orla had foisted Millie on to him. Even his agent had looked relieved when Orla had dragged her away in order to give ‘these two young people time to get to know each other.’ Having heard enough stomach-churning detail in the last twenty minutes to put her off her food for life, Millie was now wondering if she was ever going to be able to escape. With his monotonous voice, complete absence of humor, and supercilious manner—he loathed and despised
everyone
in publishing—he was, officially, the most awful man she ever met.

Ever.

‘Gosh, that's fantastic,’ she lied. ‘I wonder where Orla's got to, it's probably time I went and found her before—’

‘No, you can’t go yet.’ Urgently, Noel placed a damp, pale hand on her arm, his eyes bulging with irritation. ‘I haven’t finished telling you about the book-signing session I did for
Crunching Cockroaches
. This weird guy turned up with a bucket and you’ll never guess what was in it.’

Millie, her skin crawling from the contact with his hand, suppressed a shudder. Oh Hugh, where are you? Why can’t I be with you now, instead of stuck here with this weirdo?

Except, depressingly, she knew the answer to that one. Because Hugh doesn’t want to be with me, thought Millie. He probably thinks I’m a weirdo.

Aloud, she said, ‘Um… cockroaches?’

Noel Blackwall stared at her, unblinking.

‘How did you know that?’

Orla coughed and made pointed get-it-away-from-me gestures with her arm. Usually it had the desired effect; people apologized at once and moved their cigarettes away. This time she might as well have been invisible. The man carried on puffing and waving his own hands about as he spoke to his companion. Orla, standing less than two feet
to his left, tsked and coughed again, more loudly, as the noxious fumes swirled around her head.

And still he seemed not to notice her.

‘Excuse me.’ Leaning over, bashing the clouds of smoke away like centuries-old cobwebs, she tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Would you mind?’

Breaking off his conversation, the man appeared to see her for the first time.

‘I’m sorry? Oh…’ Realizing that Orla was looking at his cigarette, he smiled and pulled a packet of Marlboros from his jacket pocket. ‘Of course not. Here you go, help yourself!’

Having geared herself up to get angry with him, Orla was now forced to be nicer than she’d planned.

‘No, I don’t
want
one. I was trying to tell you that your smoke is going in my eyes.’

‘Ah, that's the trouble with smoke,’ he confided comfortably. ‘You have no control over it. It's like trying to be in charge of a field full of sheep—you do your best, but before you know it, they’re bounding off all over the place.’

He had a seductive Irish accent and laughing eyes that crinkled up at the corners. Aware that she was sounding prissy and school-teacherish, Orla said evenly, ‘You could control it if you put it out.’

‘What?’ Feigning alarm, he held up the offending half-smoked cigarette. ‘You mean before I’ve had all the goodness out of it? That's a terrible idea, and one that only an extremely successful and
wealthy
novelist could suggest.’

He was in his mid-thirties, Orla guessed. Tall, with cropped curly hair, a thin, tanned face, and a quirky smile.

‘You really shouldn’t smoke, you know. It's so bad for you. Stains your teeth, gives you wrinkles, makes you smell disgusting.’

‘And causes cancer. Don’t forget that one.’

‘I don’t know if you even realize this,’ said Orla, getting into her stride now, ‘but every single time you light up a cigarette, all the
non-smokers in the room wish you wouldn’t. They look at you and despise you for being so weak-willed and selfish. I mean, how would you like it if we spat in your food?’

He raised an eyebrow.

‘You’d do that?’

‘You see? As far as you’re concerned, that's a terrible thing to do. Yet you’re allowed to kill us with your secondhand smoke!’

‘You’re very… passionate about this,’ he observed. ‘May I ask how long it's been since you renounced the evil weed yourself?’

Orla sensed he was making fun of her.

‘Quite a while.’ As if that had anything to do with it, damn cheek! ‘In fact, a
long
time ago.’

‘Is that so? Truly?’ Taking another pleasurable puff of his cigarette, her tormentor drawled innocently, ‘Sure it's not just a couple of weeks?’

He had the most mischievous eyes Orla had ever seen, silvery-grey and narrowed with laughter. She knew she should be crosser with him than this.

‘Look, how long ago I gave it up is irrelevant. I’m now a non-smoker.’

‘I’m sorry. That's grand.’ Acknowledging her superiority, he nodded in deferential fashion. ‘Good for you. I’m deeply impressed. So how are you doing, on the vice-front? Any left, or was that the last?’ A dimple appeared in his cheek. ‘Are you now a vice-free zone?’

Heavens, what was going on here? Aware that goose pimples were breaking out all over her arms, Orla wondered if she could get away with blaming it on the air-conditioning.

It had been so long since anything like this had happened to her that for a moment she genuinely couldn’t figure out what it was. Then it hit her like a football in the chest; she was actually experiencing sexual attraction.

Sexual attraction to a stranger, Orla amended. Not the married kind, where you somehow slipped into a comfortable routine
of sleeping together. This was completely—
completely
—different. Heightened awareness fuelled by adrenalin. A kind of fizzy whoosh of anticipation, like Alka-Seltzer bubbling up in a glass. Tingling all over. A delicious eagerness to hear what he would say next.

How ironic to think that she spent her life writing about these sensations, yet it had actually been twenty-odd years since she’d last experienced them herself.

So long, frankly, that she’d had trouble recognizing them.

This is flirting, Orla realized in a haze of happiness. I’m standing here flirting with a complete stranger. And it feels…
fantastic
.

Hew liked her, she could tell. The spark was definitely mutual. Furthermore, it had been acknowledged by the man he’d been talking to earlier; he had moved discreetly away, leaving them alone together to get on with it.