It's Raining Men Part 2

'Well, come on, let's have a news day. What have you got to tell me?'

'I have been offered a promotion.'

Nothing that Clare didn't expect, then. She grinned.

'There's a shocker, smartypants.'

'It's in Dubai,' he went on, subdued.

'Dubai?' Clare gulped. She didn't expect that. 'Why Dubai? You won't take it though, will you, if it's there, surely?'

'It's a new position.'

He didn't say that he wasn't taking it.

'You've accepted it?' Clare felt slightly faint as if all the blood had been diverted from her head.

'Not yet.'

Not yet was the same as yes, wasn't it?

'You're going to live in Dubai?' Clare's mouth formed the words but her brain was refusing to accept them. Lud wouldn't have taken a position in Dubai without talking to her about it. At least her old, dear, familiar Lud wouldn't have. The one who wasn't ruled by his smartphone. 'When . . . when . . .?' Her lips felt as if they were losing their power to obey her.

'Monday. I go on Monday.'

'Monday?' She sounded like a deranged echo.

'Well, I am flying to Dubai on Monday to meet with people, to decide if I want to take the position but they want someone quickly and they've made me an offer I would be an idiot to refuse. If I say yes, there will be a little toing and froing for a couple of weeks then I start a two-year contract.'

'I can't believe you didn't say anything until now.' Clare bit her lip to combat the tears of hurt which were rising to her eyes.

'I didn't want to say anything until I had been offered the position for sure. Now I have and am here talking to you about it, but suddenly everything is rush rush rush.' He coughed. 'Clare, I was hoping you would come with me.'

Oh no, this couldn't be happening, thought Clare. There had to be a G.o.d of timing who was seriously p.i.s.sed off with the world and had decided to wreak vengeance. Of all the places in the world where Clare would have loved to live, Dubai was right up there in the top three. The endless sandy beaches, those beautiful seas on her doorstep, the sun, the shopping. She pictured herself diving beneath warm water that was as blue as Ludwig's eyes.

Lud's hand squeezing hers popped the bubble of her reverie.

'It's all right, I know how much the partnership means to you,' he said. 'I can't believe we both have such great news, but . . .' She knew what that 'but' meant: great news that wasn't great news if you zoomed out and looked at the whole picture.

Clare swallowed hard and tried to block out all images of going to Dubai with Lud.

The wine waiter arrived at their side with a bottle of iced champagne.

'I took the liberty of ordering some for us when I made the booking,' said Lud. 'To celebrate.' He dropped her hand and her fingers seemed to grow cold in a second.

The waiter twisted out the cork and poured the Cristal into two long flutes. Then Lud's phone rang and he immediately he picked it up to answer it.

Maybe if he had ignored it, things would have been different, but even now, in this most intimate of moments when he was asking her to give up everything that she had worked for to follow him thousands of miles around the other side of the world, she was less important than whoever was at the end of the phone. The significance of him taking the call was ma.s.sive to her.

Over dinner they talked more about Dubai and the partnership. The position in the land of blue skies and opulence sounded wonderful, although Lud said that he didn't want to pressure Clare into making any rash decision. But Clare knew that however much she wanted to be seduced into going with him, when the time came for her to tell him her answer, it would be no. And all because he had picked up his phone just after the champagne had arrived.

Chapter 7.

Lara laid her head on James's chest and listened to his heartbeat: still racing after s.e.x. He liked her to be on top, which she hated because she didn't like all her flesh on show. He relished the sight of her generous b.r.e.a.s.t.s bouncing up and down. Lara worried about her stomach jumping up and down as well, banging on his and making slapping sounds, although he in the throes of pa.s.sion never seemed to mention it. Tonight, he was too tired for much foreplay; he had just enough energy to conjure up an erection for her to work her magic on, with her on-top bouncy dance, then he came and whispered how much he had needed that. Lara, unsated, was glad to climb off at the end and snuggle up to his side. He lay, his arm around her, in such a post-o.r.g.a.s.mic glow one would have been forgiven for thinking he had just eaten a huge portion of Ready-brek and acquired a neon orange aura.

She knew she had tried extra hard just then, haunted by pictures of him in bed with Tianne. Had the s.e.x with his ex been so good that he couldn't stay away? Was she some sort of siren, luring him in to crash against her rocks?

Lara didn't like to acknowledge to herself that she was envious of Tianne's and James's history. Especially as she noticed that s.e.x had become much more perfunctory since she had moved into his house. She hated to admit that it would slide very quickly into bored middle-aged, old-married-couple s.e.x if they didn't take care to address it. In the early days, at her old Islington flat, their lovemaking had been much more mutually satisfying. And when she moved into his gorgeous boudoir of a bedroom and they became a co-habiting couple, she'd hoped their s.e.xual repertoire would only increase, but it had worked the other way. Okay, so they both worked long hours and were tired, but she was always ready to put her heart and soul into s.e.x when things were heading that way. She couldn't remember him giving her an o.r.g.a.s.m since she moved in, though, and somehow doubted the hedonistic minx that was Tianne would have stood for that. Tianne Tianne Tianne all roads seemed to lead back to b.l.o.o.d.y Tianne. Lara needed to know whether what Keely had said had been the truth. It was the elephant in Lara's room. She started off by bringing up the subject casually.

'Was that okay for you? That's your favourite position, isn't it?' she said, stroking the few fine greying hairs on his chest.

'Oh, boy, yes,' he replied with breathy pleasure. 'And you're so good at it.'

'Have . . . have all your exes done that for you?'

'Erm,' he said, thinking. 'Yes, at one time or another. Some enjoyed it more than others.'

'Like who?'

'What do you want to know for?'

'It's interesting,' she replied, still stroking, still trying to sound light.

'Well, if you must know, Rachel didn't like it said it made her feel fat. Chloe liked it, but then she had a great figure.'

Too much info, thought Lara. On top was bound to be okay if you had no wobbly bits and also the c.o.c.ky confidence of the very pretty Chloe, who stripped off to her bra and very tiny pants to model for catalogues.

'Not that you haven't got a nice figure,' added James quickly. 'Chloe was actually a bit too skinny for my liking. And I don't like fake b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Plus, she was the most boring woman I've ever met. She had a brain the size of an undergrown pea.'

That cheered Lara a little. Even if she wasn't exactly thrilled about such a grey word as 'nice' to describe her attributes.

'What about . . . Tianne?' pressed Lara. The name was like a sour sweet in her mouth and came out almost in a spit.

'Oh, well, her, she . . . she loved it. Then again, the s.e.x we had was always on the spicy side.'

Spicy? What did that mean? Did he rub cayenne pepper over his w.i.l.l.y? Did she shove a chilli up his a.r.s.e at the crucial moment? She felt a green-eyed monster rear inside her at a sudden vision of Tianne and her long, flowing dark hair bouncing wantonly on top of James, both of them screaming in joint ecstasy. She swallowed hard.

'Do you ever see her?'

'Who?'

'Tianne?'

'No,' said James. 'Can't remember the last time I saw her. Why all the questions?' He pulled himself away from Lara and propped himself up on the pillow. 'What's the matter, darling?'

It would be very bad form to quote his daughter, thought Lara. But then again b.u.g.g.e.r it.

'It was just something Keely said.' She tried to make it sound as if she hadn't been chewing it over in her mind for hours. 'That you found Tianne irresistible.'

She felt James tighten for a second, then his muscles suddenly relaxed and he laughed.

'She's winding you up,' he said. 'Tianne was a little tart. I was the older man with a wallet. That was my attraction to her. She even-' He snapped his mouth shut.

'What?'

'Nothing.'

'Go on.'

'No, it's nothing really.'

But Lara knew that was a big fat lie. He had been about to tell her something intimate, and she had to know what it was now. 'You have to tell me. What? What did she do?'

James groaned with equal measures of resignation and impatience. 'Okay, okay, she used to pretend to be a prost.i.tute in bed. She wanted me to tuck money into her knickers before we had s.e.x. She was a mercenary little cow. I had to fight with her to get the notes back. Satisfied?' His head fell back forcibly onto the pillow.

Did that turn you on? Did you love her doing it? Do you want me to do that? Do I need to spice myself up? Rub my nipples with Tabasco sauce? Lara's brain filled up with ludicrous questions. They were queuing at her mouth to jump out.

'Did you like her doing that?' Please say no.

'I can't remember,' James replied, the impatience rising in his voice now. 'I suppose at the time, in the moment, it was . . . exciting.'

Lara felt him shrug. He was obviously lying and did remember. How could you forget that? She wished she could rip what she had just heard out of her head because now, in the dark, she saw an x.x.x-certificate s.e.x scene that even Ron Jeremy would blush at. Not only was there the right amount of sweat and groaning, a couple lost in the throes of erotic s.e.x resulting in a mutual o.r.g.a.s.m of tsunamic proportions, but now there was the added element of a pair of knickers stuffed with twenty-pound notes.

'Did you ever sleep with her again after you'd finished?'

'Oh G.o.d.' She heard James slap his head but she carried on relentlessly. She had to know.

'Behind Rachel's or Chloe's back?'

There was a telling pause before he answered, 'No, of course not.' And he must have known that she noticed because he amended that to: 'I slept with her once. Behind Rachel's back, okay?'

'Why?'

'I don't know. We b.u.mped into each other in a pub one night after work and, well, things weren't going that well with Rachel. They were b.l.o.o.d.y awful, actually. I ended up going back to hers for a chat and a coffee . . .'

He tailed off but he didn't need to say any more, Lara could guess the rest. She was like a drug. Heroin. Once he'd had her, he was hooked.

'Oh,' she said again.

'The evil cow went straight round to Rachel's to tell her what I'd done. That's what sort of person she was. I hope I never see her again,' James went on, with such venom that Lara's shoulders were instantly unburdened of half their tension and she felt the air escape from her lungs. Tianne Lee might have been a drug, but it appeared that James had managed to wean himself off her after realizing what destruction she left in her wake.

'Did-' she began to ask, but James patted her arm.

'No more. Go to sleep, darling,' he said. 'I don't want to talk about her. Suffice to say that I wouldn't touch anyone like her ever again, not even with a ten-foot barge pole.'

Lara bit down on the stream of questions lined up waiting to be asked, but she knew they wouldn't go away. They'd infiltrate her dreams and torture her through the night if she ever managed to get to sleep.

James had no such problem. Within minutes he was snoring gently. He had the ability to drop off immediately after an o.r.g.a.s.m. His tensions were relieved; Lara only wished hers were.

She nestled close to James's trim body and tried to force herself into sleep whilst wrestling dark-haired demons with money falling out of their pants. She wondered why women felt the need to know details about a man's other lovers when all it did was torture them.

Chapter 8.

Clare braced herself before ringing the number. It was ridiculous how nervous she became when phoning her own father. She was thirty-three, not three, for G.o.d's sake.

It rang four times before a woman's firm voice recited her number down the phone and asked who was speaking please.

'It's me, Mum. How are you?'

'Alice. How lovely to hear from you, darling. How's Martin?'

'No, Mum, it's me Clare.'

'Oh, Clare, how are you?' Was it Clare's imagination or had the temperature dropped a degree in her mother's voice?

'Fine, Mum. Are you okay?' d.a.m.n. Her parents hated the word 'okay'. How could she forget? 'Good, I mean. Both of you?'

'Daddy's in the garden. I presume you're ringing to say "Happy Birthday" to him. Your card hasn't arrived.' Dorothy Salter's voice had the merest nip of annoyance in it.

'Oh, no.' Clare's heart sank. She had posted it days ago. 'Has the postman been today?'

'Not yet,' said her mother. 'Alice and Martin's card arrived on Tuesday. Toby and Polly's card arrived last weekend.'

Great. She bet her clever-clogs IT genius sister Alice had had the card biked over at enormous expense. And perfect b.l.o.o.d.y Polly would have posted Toby's card for him. Her brother was useless but her sister-in-law was an obsessive diary keeper. Mind you, she didn't have much else to do except clean their eight-bedroomed mini manor in Harrogate and do a Zumba cla.s.s when she got super bored waiting for her QC husband to come home in his sw.a.n.ky suit from an exhausting day counting his fees. Well, today was the day when Clare would make her parents' eyebrows rise to the ceiling and beyond. She had wanted to tell them as soon as she found out, but had sat on this secret until now an extra birthday present for Daddy.

'I do hope the card comes today,' said Clare. 'I posted it ages ago so he would get it in time. Can I speak to Dad?'

'Of course.' She heard Dorothy turn away from the phone to call her husband. 'Lionel.' A rap on the window. 'It's Ali- Clare for you.'

Clare bit down on her lip to offset the twinge of pain she felt at hearing her mother almost get her name wrong. In a moment she was going to deliver the line that might have her mother calling Alice by Clare's name for once, the next time they spoke. It was her Shirley Valentine moment, the moment after golden-knickers Marjorie Majors gets the answer wrong and Shirley, who knows what man's greatest invention was, is waiting to say the words that will revolutionize the way she is thought of: 'The wheel, miss.'

'h.e.l.lo, Clare,' came the brisk voice of her father, taking the phone from his wife's hand.

'Happy Birthday, Dad. I can't believe my card hasn't arrived.'

'Yes, well, we haven't had today's post . . . Ah, apparently we just have . . . I think your card is here. Is it in a blue envelope?'