Vanity (32 page)

Andy looked over the table at her and smiled.

‘Can we get the bill now, please?'

‘Yeah, course. On me, as I'm the main breadwinner now! But why the urgency? We haven't finished the charcuterie …'

‘Oh, you silly, gorgeous thing. Sod the charcuterie! Do you realize what you just said? On top of each other all day … There is nothing I would like more than to be on top of you right now. I know we said we'd walk back, but I'm willing to blow the last of my meagre earnings on a cab.'

The Hôtel du Panthéon was a gorgeous little boutique hotel overlooking the Panthéon itself, and Andy and Bella's bedroom, on the top floor, was Provençal-inspired, with a wrought-iron balcony, four-poster bed, toile de Jouy curtains and an eighteenth-century armoire with panels upholstered in a checked fabric (underneath wire mesh) that nearly matched the faded blue-and-white eiderdown on the sumptuously inviting bed.

‘Oh, it's so pretty!' said Bella, kissing Andy as they stumbled into the room.

‘Not as pretty as you.
Vous êtes très jolie, mademoiselle
…
Très, très jolie
…'

His words were slightly muffled as he was kissing her neck, which he knew she loved.

‘
Merci, monsieur
, but surely we're on ‘
tu
' terms by now?'

Bella was actually trembling.

‘I'm rather enjoying the formality,' said Andy as he ran his hands up her legs, underneath her skirt and stroked her through her wet knickers. ‘May I, mademoiselle?'

‘
En Français, s'il vous plaît
… Oh, fuck it, yes you may.'

Andy stopped for a second, looking directly into her eyes.

‘
En Français?
'

‘
Bien sûr
… Mais oui, oui, monsieur
…
N'arrêtez pas
…' Bella's words were hampered by her breathlessness.

Andy pushed her gently back onto the bed and started to pull down her knickers.

‘
Très, très jolie
,' he murmured again as he knelt on the floor, kissing all the way up her legs, from her ankles to her knees, to her inner thighs. He teased her for a few seconds, kissing his way from one hipbone to the next, deliberately avoiding what lay between, before Bella moaned, and pulled away from him.

‘This isn't fair,' she said. ‘
Ce n'est pas
– what's fair in French? Oh, fuck the French!'

And she leant over to him, undoing the belt on his jeans, kissing his torso, every bit of him she could reach, all the while. As soon as she'd pulled the jeans past his hips, his erect cock sprang free.

Bella, still sitting on the bed, took it in her mouth and sucked and stroked and sucked, stroking and sucking and wanting to give as much pleasure as she possibly could to the man she loved more than life itself. Andy, his jeans halfway down his legs, was groaning and pulling at her hair.

Then he stopped her again.

‘Please, take off your dress.' He laughed, slightly. ‘I'm afraid at this stage of the game, I can't remember how to say that in French …'

‘Something to do with
deshabiller
?' Bella suggested, looking up at him with flushed cheeks and glittering eyes. ‘But yes,
mais oui, bien sûr, monsieur
…'

As she pulled the pink A-line shift over her head, Andy just stood there looking at her.

‘
Très, très jolie
.'

Oh, God, what was it about compliments –
especially
in French – that was such an enormous turn-on?

‘You're not too bad yourself, mister,' she said, trying to sound like Barbara Windsor, and attempting a saucy,
Carry On
giggle as she leant back on the four-poster bed. Andy, laughing, kicked his jeans off and leapt onto the bed beside her, kissing her as he unfastened her bra.

‘Oh,
très, très jolie
,' he said again, as he gazed at her full naked breasts, her long dark hair spread out against the blue-and-white eiderdown, her thickly lashed big brown eyes full of love and lust as she looked up at him. He took her left breast in both his hands and gave it his full attention, sucking and sucking until she was clawing at his back in exquisite rapture.

‘The other one's feeling a bit left out,' she managed to gasp, after a bit.

‘Easily remedied,' muttered Andy as he made his way to it.

Bella's hands were running over Andy's warm body, down his broad back towards his lovely muscular male buttocks.

‘Oh
, je t'aime
,' she managed to gasp, as she found his cock and manoeuvred it into her slippery cunt. ‘
Je t'aime, André, je t'aime
.'

‘
Et je t'aime aussi, ma Belle
.' Andy smoothed her hair back from her face and kissed her as his cock started thrusting inside her. Bella wrapped her legs around his back, drawing him in, deeper and deeper, gasping with sheer joy at the length, the breadth of him, filling her up.

And then they were lost, kissing and fucking and kissing and fucking, as though nothing else in the universe meant anything at all. It was just the two of them, together, in their lovely little Paris hotel room, overcome with love and desire, taking and giving pleasure in equal measure.

The release, when it came, was simultaneous and explosive.

Once he had recovered his composure, Andy leant over to kiss her again.

‘
Je t'aime, ma Belle
. Forever.'

The following morning, hungover but happy, they breakfasted on chocolate crêpes with chantilly, strong coffee and citron pressés, sitting outside a café in the sun. Considering that dinner the previous night, at the fabulous restaurant the hotel had recommended, had consisted of foie gras on toasted brioche, rare fillet steak in a brandy cream sauce, and a hazelnut praline pudding (all washed down with a couple of bottles of excellent Burgundy), this was definitely erring on the greedy side.

In a vain attempt to work off some of what they'd eaten, they decided to walk to the Musée d'Orsay, where they marvelled at the Degas, Monets and Renoirs. One of the Bateaux Mouches dropped them back at the Île de la Cité, where they did at last venture into Notre Dame.

‘OK, I think that's enough culture for one day,' said Andy, once they'd done the full tour of the grand Gothic cathedral. ‘Wonderful though it's all been, how about heading back to the hotel for a quickie?'

‘You're insatiable.' Bella grinned.

Afterwards, satiated and sweaty in damp, crumpled sheets, they just gazed at each other, smiling.

‘You were right,' said Andy. ‘This has been a fabulous weekend. It was lovely to get away and spend some proper time with each other again.'

‘Mmmm,' Bella agreed happily.

‘But we should probably check our phones now, don't you think? There could have been a major terrorist attack on London, for all we know …'

‘Yes, you're right.' Bella had enjoyed being cut off from the constant stream of information that bombarded them on an hourly basis, but she did think she should check her messages, at least. What if something had happened to one of her loved ones?

As she switched her phone on, she saw she had six missed calls, all of them from Poppy.

‘Poppy's been trying to get hold of me,' she said. ‘Probably just wants to tell me about the awards in LA, but I'd better call her back.'

Poppy picked up on the first ring.

‘Hey, Pops! How were the awards?'

‘I won Best TV Newcomer. Oh, Belles, it's all just awful …' And Poppy burst into tears.

Bella sat up straight. ‘What are you on about? You won? That's great! What's awful? Tell me, lovey …'

So Poppy told her.

And as she listened, Bella started to feel very ashamed of herself: ashamed for being so resentful of Poppy's success that she hadn't been able to be sympathetic to her very real problems with Damian; ashamed of her own self-pity about Andy's job, when she was the luckiest woman in the world to have him; ashamed that jealousy and small-mindedness had been eating away at her for absolutely no valid reason whatsoever.

‘… and now he's gone away, Belles. He's just buggered off, no note, no response to any of my emails, he's still not answering his phone …'

‘Oh, Pops. Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry. Do you have any idea where he might have gone?'

Poppy gave a snort of laughter through her tears at this. ‘Yes. Yes, I do. He told Lars that he's going on a road trip across the States on his own. He told him that he needs to
find himself
. When the fuck did the man I married turn into such a ridiculous bloody hippy?'

Bella laughed. That sounded more like the old Poppy.

‘So you're just going to wait till he comes to his senses?'

‘I can't do that, Belles; he's drinking like a bloody lunatic at the moment, God knows what'll happen to him. No, I'm going after him.'

‘How on earth are you going to do that? America is huge …'

‘I know exactly which route he'll take, silly sod – it's been one of his adolescent dreams for years. We used to plan it when we first started going out.'

An idea was starting to form in Bella's mind.

‘How much of a head start on you, do you think he's got?' she asked.

‘A day or two, I suppose, though from what Lars told me, I imagine he needed at least a day to recover after their final binge, before setting off.'

‘Can you hold off another day?' Bella could hear her own voice rising in excitement.

‘It'll take at least another day to sort everything out. Why?'

‘Well … what would you think about me coming with you?' Bella looked at Andy enquiringly, but he was smiling and nodding, giving her the thumbs-up.

‘You'd do that? Really?' Poppy sounded as if she was about to cry again. ‘But what about your work?'

‘I've literally just finished one commission, with two weeks to go until I need to start the next one. Timing couldn't be better, Pops, really!'

‘Really?' Poppy repeated. Bella had seemed so resentful towards her recently that she'd been steeling herself for Bella's
reaction to her news. She'd actually thought that Bella
might blame her; this response was the last thing she'd
anticipated.
‘Oh
,
Belles, it would make everything so much
more bearable …'

‘You never know, it might even be fun. Thelma and Louise, eat your heart out!'

‘Well, in that case …' Bella could hear Poppy pulling herself together. ‘You'd better start looking at flights. Where are you, by the way? Your phone didn't have a UK ring to it …'

‘Oh, only Paris, darling …'

As she hung up, Bella looked over at Andy again. ‘Are you sure you don't mind? I know it's totally out of the blue, and spontaneous and silly and everything, but I really think Pops needs me …'

‘I think it's a fantastic idea. It'll do you good to have an adventure – you've been going a bit stir-crazy, stuck in the flat on your own, with Poppy gallivanting around the States and me working late every night. I'll miss you like mad, though …'

‘Not as much as I'll miss you …'

‘You'll be having too much fun to miss me. But as this may be our last night together for a couple of weeks, let's make it one to remember.'

Bella grinned. ‘What did you have in mind?'

‘Trust me, darling. You'll remember it.'

‘Oh, Pops, it's absolutely beautiful. I can't believe how generous you've been – this
and
Dorothy. Have I got time to try it on before we go?'

Bella was kissing the beautifully bound
Collected Short Stories of Dorothy Parker
and stroking the peacock silk of the Halston halterneck maxidress that Poppy had bought her in Sandra's vintage store at the beginning of the summer. She had flown into New York late last night and this was the first time Poppy had had the opportunity to give Bella her presents since she'd bought them. They had just finished a disgustingly greedy breakfast of pancakes with bacon and maple syrup, washed down with a huge jug of freshly squeezed orange juice, to set them up for the long journey ahead.

‘Yeah, go on,' said Poppy, laughing. ‘I'll clear this lot away.' She gestured at the remains of their breakfast. ‘But be quick; he's got quite a head start on us already.' When Bella had arrived the previous night, Poppy had shown her the route that she was ‘almost a hundred per cent certain' Damian had taken.

‘It's the route Kerouac took in
On the Road
,' she'd said. ‘Sometimes I wonder if my husband's ever going to grow up.' She'd said it flippantly, but Bella could see the worry in her eyes, and her gamine little face was starting to look gaunt. ‘I'm not worried about whether I can persuade him to have me back,' she'd added. ‘I know that once I explain about Ben, he'll realize that the whole thing's a bloody idiotic misunderstanding. But I'm shit-scared that he'll do some damage, either to himself or to somebody else. You should see the amount of booze he's been putting away recently, Belles.'

‘He doesn't drink and drive, though, does he?'

‘Not usually, no. But he's been so angry and depressed, God knows what he's capable of.'

Now, Bella went into Poppy and Damian's bedroom to try the dress on and Poppy started to tidy up the breakfast stuff. Just as she'd finished stacking the dishwasher, her doorbell rang. Impatiently, she walked over to the intercom – it had to be a mistake at this time in the morning.

‘IT IS I, LARS,' boomed the huge and familiar voice.

‘Oh, hi, Lars, come on up.' What on earth did he want?

Bella emerged from the bedroom, wreathed in smiles. The dress suited her even better than Poppy could have hoped, the empire line emphasizing her long legs and giving her a beautifully slender silhouette (skimming the recent belly podge), while the deep halterneck showed off her impressive cleavage and pretty shoulders.