So Now You're Back

Aldo yelled with boyish excitement as Trey Carson challenged him to a race up the outdoor stairs. Trey let her brother have a head start, then sprinted up the stairs after him, his body a blur of graceful, athletic motion as he disappeared from view.

Her knee twitched, her heart beating in heavy thuds.

He made her nervous, that was all it was. She certainly didn’t fancy him. He might be fit but he seemed so old and boring. He certainly wasn’t cool. He wore straight-legs like her dad, instead of skinny jeans, and battered Nike high-tops, which would have been OK, except they looked as if he actually used them for sports. He was way too serious. He thought her mum was Wonder Woman. And he hadn’t updated his Facebook status since last year. Plus, he wasn’t even on Instagram, or Snapchat, or WhatsApp, or Twitter, because she’d checked.

But there was something about the width of his shoulders beneath his un-hip polo shirts. Something about the way his short hair curled over the top of his ears that should have looked goofy but didn’t. Something about the scent of lemon soap and spearmint gum that clung to him, so unlike Liam’s scent of eau de stale cigarette butts.

What would it be like to spend time with Trey? To talk to him without resorting to her habitual snark?

Lizzie took her iPhone out of her back pocket and texted Carly. She needed a distraction. The latest argument with her mum must have messed with her sanity if she was actually feeling disappointed she hadn’t been able to walk the devil child to school with the moist au pair.

Wozzup? she texted.

Nada. Watching Friends reruns … Carly’s reply popped up two seconds later, because her best friend was surgically attached to her phone and her texting skills were autistic. U know, The One Where Rach Sucks Joey’s dick!!!

Lizzie choked out a laugh, glad her friend couldn’t see the insta-blush firing up her neck. You wish.

FYI Friends would have been amaze-balls as a porno. Bet Joey’s beef is at least 10 inches, Carly replied.

Fancy a trip to Primani 2morrow? Lizzie texted back, before Carly mortified her even more by teasing her about the size of Trey’s beef again.

Thought you were doing something with Superstar-Mum?

She’s going on a book tour in the US. No biggie. Means more quality time with my BFF. Lizzie typed the fake reply not wanting to let on to Carly how disappointed she was her mum had bailed on her again.

Carly was not a good ear. Not only did Lizzie have the sneaking suspicion her BFF was more interested in her mum’s celebrity than she was in her—ever since Heat magazine had published a blurred photo of Lizzie and her mum shopping in Knightsbridge at Christmas, Carly had convinced herself Lizzie’s life out-glammed that of the Brangelina clan—Carly had accused her of being a baby if she moaned about her mum’s work schedule. So now Lizzie kept her resentment a secret, because she didn’t want Carly to know her life was actually about as glamorous as Lisa Simpson’s or that Super Nanny, as Carly had nicknamed Trey, thought she was a bigger brat than Bart.

Bullcrap, I’m off to that thing in Clapham 2morrow w/ Kip & the guys. Want 2 cum?

Lizzie stared at Carly’s answering text and wanted to hurl her iPhone against the kitchen wall. She stifled the burst of temper, and the hurt beneath, mainly because she knew her mum would refuse to pay for yet another cracked phone screen. But seriously? How could Carly ask that, when she knew Kip and the ‘guys’ would include Liam? But then, of course she would, because her so-called BFF had told her she was being a baby about Liam, too.

‘Why are you getting so worked up. It was only a BJ, it was only once and it was Amber’s eighteenth. And she’s fancied Liam for ages.’

When Lizzie had argued that perhaps Liam should have stumped up some cash for a present for Amber rather than gift-wrapping his cock, she’d got Carly’s trademark eye-roll and the one word Lizzie had begun to hate with a passion. Because Liam had used it all the time, too. When he said she was getting too pushy, or too clingy, or doing what he called her ‘stalker vibe’.

Whatever.

A word that basically said, Don’t bug me, don’t bother me, don’t make such a fuss about bugger all. Your opinion, your feelings, your pride don’t matter in the big fat scheme of things that do matter.

You’ve got a boyfriend who gets caught getting a BJ from one of your friends at her birthday party?

Whatever.

You’ve got a mum who takes time out from her busy HELLO!-style life only because she’s having some weird freak-out about you being anorexic?

Whatever.

You’ve got a dad who still thinks you’re his smart, witty, wonderful baby girl. When you know you’re not?

Whatever.

You’ve got a little brother who used to look at you as if you were Hermione Granger and a Powerpuff Girl all rolled into one, but now looks at you as if you’re an unexploded bomb?

Whatever.

You’re going to be stuck for two weeks with a guy who’s weirdly hot but thinks you’re a bitch?

Whatever.

Somehow or other that one word had become a curse. And she hated it. But she knew, deep down, there was one thing she hated more than that bastard, buggering, like-I-give-a-shit word …

And that one thing was herself.

She’d dated Liam and given him BJs until her jaw ached because everyone else thought he was cool. She never confided in Carly, even though they were supposed to be BFFs, because she was scared Carly might drop her. She almost wished she did have anorexia because at least then she would feel as if she deserved her mum’s attention. Her dad didn’t know what she was really like because she didn’t have the guts to tell him. Aldo was scared of her because she’d gone postal on him once too often. And Trey thought she was a bitch because most of the time she was. Especially with him. Because …

Because she might be developing a small, inconvenient crush on him. A crush she could never ever let him know about. Because if he found out, he’d be horrified and she’d be mortified.

Her mum and her mum’s celebrity had come to symbolise all the things that were wrong with Lizzie’s life. But she knew the Domestic Diva was only really responsible for—at most—half of them. The rest of Lizzie’s failings were entirely down to Lizzie.

She texted Carly back. Thnx, but I’ve got to help out with Aldo while my mum’s away.

Just pretending her mum would trust her with that responsibility felt good for a moment. But it was another lie, of course. Trey didn’t need help with her brother. He was far too efficient for that. And her brother didn’t want to spend time with her any more, because Trey was the Aldo Whisperer now.

No wonder her mum had wanted Trey to move in for two weeks. Humiliation sat like a lump of uncooked dough in her stomach. Raw and stodgy and indigestible.

WotevZ. I’ll txt u next wk. Enjoy the mini-terminator. And c if you can size up Super Nanny’s meat while your at it. Carly’s text finished with a grinning devil emoji. And then another one with red cheeks.

The heat flushed all the way to Lizzie’s hairline as she texted back a grinning devil as if she was up for the idea, like the fraud she was.

Whatever.

Chapter 5

Halle slotted her new Audi A8 into her dedicated parking space, under the neon sign emblazoned across the brick wall of her cake design studio in Hammersmith.

Best’s Bespoke Bakery—Designer Confectionery from the Domestic Diva.

The quiet purr of the car’s powerful engine died as she turned off the ignition. The A8 had been a present to herself last Christmas, when her sixth book had topped the Sunday Times non-fiction bestseller list. Driving it was usually a great way to lift her mood.

But not today.

She let her gaze linger on the studio’s sign while she dialled her assistant, Mel, but the retro swirl of lipstick-red neon wasn’t giving her the usual ego boost today, either.

She was still feeling guilty about having to lie to Lizzie this morning—inventing a fictitious US book tour to stave off any unanswerable questions about the two weeks she was about to spend in Tennessee with Lizzie’s dad. And Lizzie’s predictably pissed-off reaction to the news.

‘Hi, Mel,’ she said when her PA picked up. ‘Just checking in to find out if the final paperwork came through from Jamie yet.’

Maybe all was not lost.

She didn’t have to go anywhere if Luke hadn’t signed on the dotted line. Which as of yesterday included her stipulation that he agree not to tell Lizzie about their trip. She didn’t want her daughter involved in this fiasco. She was emotionally fragile enough. Why stress her out about something when it meant nothing? If Lizzie figured things out once Luke’s article was published, Future Halle could handle it.

‘Yup, Jamie emailed it this morning. Apparently, Luke wasn’t too happy about the confidentiality clause. But he’s signed it.’

‘OK, I guess I really am going to Tennessee tomorrow, then.’ Halle let out the breath she’d been holding and ticked off the item on the to-do list in her head. The to-do list that would never end. ‘I assume everything’s booked?’

‘Yes, the flight leaves at ten from Heathrow.’

‘How long is it?’ Where was Tennessee anyway? Hopefully not too far from New York. She’d never been a big fan of hanging suspended in a metal box thirty thousand feet above sea level.

‘Nine hours and forty minutes.’

‘Nine …’ So nowhere near New York, then. Bollocks. ‘There isn’t a shorter flight?’

‘I checked. You could get a shorter flight to New York and then transfer for a flight to Atlanta, but there’s a four-hour stopover in Newark.’

‘Oh …’ Shit. The take-offs were always the worst part. Two flights would not be better than one. ‘Fine.’

She jotted down ‘pack Xanax’ on the never-say-die to-do list to keep her calm during take-off.

‘Are Luke and I travelling together?’

‘Yes, he’s hiring a car in Atlanta to do the three-hour drive to the resort. It’s all in the itinerary I sent through from him a week ago.’

‘Right, of course.’ That would be the itinerary sitting on her laptop that she had been avoiding. She added ‘read itinerary and weep’ to the list. Followed by ‘pack extra-strength Xanax’. After sixteen years of avoidance, she was going to be spending close to thirteen hours in a confined space with the man. She might need to get comatose.

‘The car’s booked for six tomorrow to take us to the airport. I spoke to Dave at Crystal PR and he said the publicity junket for the next season of Best of Everything won’t kick into high gear till you get back, so you’re all clear there. Plus, Becky at Random House said there’s nothing more to do on the next book till they get the flats from the printers. Is there anything else you need me to do before tomorrow?’

‘No, I’m good, thanks, Mel.’ Or as good as it was possible to be in her current circumstances. Rearranging her schedule had been easier than expected. And she could certainly do with a break. It would have been nice, though, if this particular break didn’t include a travelling companion she had no desire to see again in this lifetime. ‘I’m going to spend the next couple of hours getting everything up to speed at the studio. Then I thought I’d do the kids a home-cooked meal tonight.’

She popped ‘hit Waitrose’ onto the list.

‘What a nice idea,’ Mel said dutifully. ‘What are you cooking?’

‘Vegetable lasagne and key lime pie.’

Not exactly a menu worthy of Britain’s best-loved baking guru, but Aldo had fixated on key lime pie during their trip to Disney World last summer while Lizzie was with Luke, and vegetable lasagne had once been Lizzie’s favourite dish of hers. Back when Lizzie had been proud of her mum’s career as a master chef.

‘They’ll love that,’ Mel said with a lot more enthusiasm than Halle felt.

‘I hope so,’ Halle replied, not holding out much hope. Her daughter’s sulks weren’t known for their brevity. So she was already braced for the silent treatment over the dinner table after this morning’s bust-up.

After saying goodbye to Mel, Halle unplugged her iPhone from the car’s charger and headed into the studio. Once part of a Victorian wharf used for storing marble imported into the city—back when the Thames was the main thoroughfare for bringing goods in and out of London—the rehabbed brick building was now the bedrock of the Domestic Diva brand.

Halle walked through the tinted glass double doors, waved to Jonno, their receptionist, then strolled past the luxury meeting rooms used for client consultations and tastings and into the cavernous open-plan kitchen at the back. Glass panelling had been used to replace the old warehouse’s loading doors during the refurbishment, flooding the space with natural light and gifting her dedicated kitchen staff of two food stylists, one master baker and a couple of assistants with a spectacular view of the Thames and the grandiose Harrods Depository on the opposite bank.

Halle loved the way the space made a statement. Of modernity and ambition.

She breathed in the scent of freshly baked sponge and rose water. This was where her career had finally taken flight. Where all those nights spent baking, icing and moulding decorations in the tiny kitchen of her council flat in Hackney while the kids were asleep had been validated. But today, the clean, striking lines of the stainless steel catering ovens and the industrious chatter of her workforce weren’t giving her any more of a lift than the sign outside.

Yet more proof—not that she needed it—that she was not looking forward to tomorrow’s trip.

The two assistants sent her awed looks from their workbenches. She waved back, in too much of a rush today to stop and have a team-building pep talk about the commission they were working on. From the delicate white and pink sugar flowers they were both moulding out of flower paste, she guessed they were busy on the wedding cake she’d designed for a D-list celebrity a couple of weeks ago.

She raced up the steps to the mezzanine level, which looked down over the baking hub, her sensible heels clicking on the steel risers. Arriving at the glass cubicle she used a couple of days a week as her office, she booted up her computer and collapsed into her chair.

She would also need to fit in a quick, confidential chat with Trey Carson at some point. She added the new item to the to-do list from hell as she opened the document marked ‘Consultation Schedule’ on her desktop.

Given her daughter’s not exactly ecstatic reaction to the news that Trey was going to be sleeping over for the next fourteen days, she ought to give the guy a heads-up on some of her daughter’s issues. Figuring out how to do that subtly enough so as not to tread on Lizzie’s already fragile ego, or have it lead to World War Three if she found out Halle had spoken to Trey, would have to be another problem for Future Halle, though.

Because Present Halle was too busy mentally kicking Past Halle’s arse for agreeing to Luke’s stupid stunt in the first place.

Why hadn’t she walked away in the Café Hugo three weeks ago, when Luke had begun talking in tongues about love doctors and Vanity Fair articles? Would stopping Luke’s memoirs—correction, phantom memoirs—be worth getting stranded for two weeks with him in the Tennessee wilderness however luxurious the resort?

As soon as she’d been back on the Eurostar, in the soulless comfort of first class, without Luke’s don’t-be-a-chicken smile daring her to lose her grip on reality, the rational, sensible answer to that question had seemed fairly obvious.

Two weeks against phantom-memoir stoppage? Good deal? Um, no.

What she should have done in Paris was tell Luke to take his love-surgeon-article bollocks and shove it right up his superbly toned backside.

But in Café Hugo, the reckless, impulsive, insane streak, which Luke had mined so easily when she was sixteen, had come out of hiding for one last hurrah. And she’d taken him up on the dare.

Once she was back in the UK, and Jamie had fired her an email with the subject line ‘Is Your Ex Delusional?’ she still could have denied all knowledge of the devil’s bargain she’d made with Luke and got Jamie to handle the fallout. But she hadn’t. She’d had him draw up a contract for Luke to sign.

Et voilà. She was now having to abide by her side of that contract.

So really the only person to blame for this monumental error of judgement was herself.

Or rather that part of herself—the part she thought had died sixteen years ago while trudging round East London trying to find the father of her child—that refused to back down from a challenge.

Back then, that part of herself had been valiant and stupidly optimistic and determined to prove Luke still loved her. Now that part of herself was valiant and fatalistic and determined to prove she was totally over him.

But that still gave Present Halle an excellent reason to give Past Halle a really good kicking.

A tap on the door frame helped halt Halle’s growing multiple personality disorder from getting any worse. She spotted Carrie, the design studio’s general manager and all-round admin superstar, standing on the threshold. Halle winced at the fluorescent pink-and-orange tie-dye minidress, which clashed spectacularly with the electric-blue highlights in Carrie’s hair.

‘Halle, were we expecting you? I didn’t have anything in my schedule,’ Carrie said, reminding Halle her general manager had a much saner approach to office admin than she did to wardrobe choices.

‘Slight change of plans. I’m going to be out of the country for two weeks as of tomorrow.’ In Nowheresville, Tennessee, no doubt whopping Past Halle’s arse for the duration. ‘So I thought I’d come in to do a quick run-through of the schedule while I’m away. You’ll have to take any client consultations that can’t be rearranged.’

‘Hold on.’ Carrie’s brows shot up. ‘You’re taking a holiday? For two whole weeks?’

The shock on Carrie’s face suggested it had been longer than she’d thought since her last two-week break.

‘It’s not a holiday, exactly. It’s more of a personal thing,’ she said, sticking to the minimalist story she’d worked out in lieu of the book tour one, which Carrie would see through straight away as she had access to Halle’s schedule.

Telling her staff the truth had been quickly discarded. Having to explain to them about Luke and his article would only complicate things. Plus, she didn’t want to risk any leaks. This trip was about getting closure for the shockingly bad life choices she’d made as a teenager. And not about giving the gossip mags a chance to editorialise said shockingly bad life choices for the benefit of their judgemental readers.

‘A personal thing?’ Carrie looked intrigued, then clapped her hands with glee. ‘You found a Mr Best? That’s terrific. My work is done.’

Carrie knew about Luke? How the …?

‘No wonder you nixed all my blind date suggestions,’ Carrie continued with a mock pout. ‘You were busy trolling on your own. You could have told me.’

Trolling? Blind date suggestions? Wait a minute. Carrie had said a Mr Best.

Oh, thank fuck.

This conversation had nothing to do with Luke and everything to do with her GM’s Cupid delusion. Carrie had met Alan the folk guitarist, aka Mr Right On, eighteen months ago and been on a mission to spread the love ever since. Halle was one of the few people at the studio who’d avoided getting stabbed in the arse by Carrie’s love dart.

‘There is no Mr Best,’ Halle said emphatically. Or not one anyone need know about. ‘And I’m not looking for one. I have a perfectly good vibrator I can date if I need to.’

Not that she’d had many dates with her vibrator lately. In fact, when was the last time she’d gotten Bugs, her Rampant Rabbit, out of the bedside drawer? She did a quick calculation.

Good Lord, had it actually been Christmas Eve? Six whole months?

No wonder Luke’s tactile thumb had given her a hot flush. Well, at least it was good to know the anxiety of seeing him again hadn’t induced a stress menopause.

She slotted ‘get Bugs out of mothballs’ onto her to-do list.

‘Vibrators can’t hug you like a man can,’ Carrie stated with a sanguine look. ‘Unless your vibrator’s a new model I haven’t heard of.’

‘Hugs are overrated, as is all the bullshit that goes with them when men supply them.’

‘Halle!’ Carrie looked scandalised. ‘Don’t be so cynical. Not all men are bastards.’

‘And not all men are like Mr Right On,’ Halle countered, cutting the edge out of her voice. Just because she’d learned there was no such thing as a free hug, Carrie didn’t need to know that. Yet. ‘Now, could we please stop talking about my love life?’

‘Dating a vibrator does not count as a love life,’ Carrie said emphatically, but she stepped into the cubicle and sat in the spare chair.

Halle shot her a severe look.

Carrie threw back her you’re-still-on-my-dating-hit-list look, before saying, ‘So where do you want to start? With the client consultation schedule or the fact that the Kane Corporation CEO has come up with yet another brilliant suggestion for the decoration on their sixtieth-anniversary cake?’

‘You’re joking? But we signed off on that design weeks ago. And isn’t the event this Saturday evening?’ In two days’ time.

The studio took on only about eight hundred cakes a year now. All bespoke designs mostly for celebrity parties or huge corporate events and all handmade by the fabulous team she’d assembled. But even so, each cake had to have the unique Halle Best stamp on it. That’s what her clients were paying thousands of pounds per cake for. With her TV and publishing commitments, she no longer had the time to spend hours painstakingly moulding Mexican modelling paste or baking sponges or mixing crumb coating, so her job mostly involved fronting the studio’s PR initiatives, creating the basic designs, instructing the team and schmoozing the clients.

Right from the start, the Kane Corporation’s cake had been a hard sell, and an even harder schmooze. Carlton Foster, the CEO, who had insisted on consulting with Halle personally, had been adamant about showcasing the company’s product range on the cake because the party would be getting lots of exposure on their social media platforms. Unfortunately, it was next to impossible to make a cake topped with syringes, surgical gloves, catheters and bedpans look edible, let alone appetising. After much negotiation, and some extracurricular schmoozing, Halle had managed to satisfy Foster’s marketing zeal while also hopefully preventing his guests’ gag reflexes from engaging by suggesting a five-tiered dark chocolate sponge iced with a raspberry and tangerine white chocolate ganache—black, red and orange being the colours of the Kane Corporation logo—decorated with a tasteful montage of 3D illustrations from the company’s iconic advertising campaigns of the past sixty years. Foster had signed off on the design two weeks ago. And the party was happening on Saturday at the Kensington Roof Gardens. The sponges would have been baked. The decorations would already be in production. They simply didn’t have time for any major rethinks. Or redesigns. But even so …

‘What’s the suggestion?’ Please don’t let it involve the return of the bedpans.

Halle wanted to be as flexible as possible. When it came to big-occasion cakes, last-minute suggestions or panic attacks were the customers’ prerogative. Especially if they were paying ten thousand pounds for the privilege.

‘Foster is really keen for us to incorporate something to illustrate Kane’s latest charitable initiative in the Third World.’