Friends and Rivals. Tilly Bagshawe
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off,’ snarled Lex. He knew they shouldn’t have come to Joan’s.
‘Oh my God, that’s so funny!’ Kendall laughed. ‘Now US Weekly’ll run a story saying the two of us are together. How hilarious is that?’
The food arrived and Kendall fell on it, shovelling down forkfuls of frittata and French toast like she hadn’t eaten for weeks. Lex watched her, picking intermittently at his omelette.
‘So,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘Are you ready for London?’
‘Sooo ready,’ mumbled Kendall through a mouthful of blueberry muffin. ‘I can’t wait to do those gigs, and I can’t wait to meet Ivan Charles. Everyone says he’s way more fun than Jack. Not that that’s hard. Root-canal surgery is more fun than Jack.’
Lex was used to listening to Kendall complain about the man who had made her a mega-star. But over the years he had also provided a shoulder to cry on while she sobbed her heart out about her unrequited love for Jack. Lex knew that Kendall’s bitching was just displaced adoration. He sympathized. Unrequited love sucked.
‘I’m not sure there’ll be too much time for fun in your schedule,’ said Lex. ‘You’re rehearsing every day you’re not performing.’
Kendall shrugged. ‘I’ll make time. I wanna see Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London. And I wouldn’t mind sleeping with Brett Bayley either.’
‘Brett’s married,’ said Lex disapprovingly.
‘Tell that to him,’ grinned Kendall. ‘How mad do you think Jack would be if Brett and I got together? We’re both Jester acts, after all; both Americans in London. Our paths are bound to cross.’
‘Stop being provocative,’ snapped Lex. Reaching into his messenger bag, he pulled out the photographs he’d brought her. ‘Take a look at these. You need to pick one for the album cover.’
‘Ooooo.’ Kendall leaned forward excitedly. ‘Has Jack seen them?’
‘Not yet.’ Jack, Jack, Jack. If only she knew how transparent she was.
‘Well, we can’t use this one.’ Kendall handed back the portrait shot. ‘I don’t look anything like myself.’
‘That’s exactly what you look like,’ said Lex. ‘The camera never lies, remember?’
‘Says the man who just had a sense of humour failure about the paparazzi,’ Kendall shot back. ‘I look like a twelve year old with TB. That’s a no.’
‘You look beautiful.’
‘Yada yada yada. Oh, now this I like.’ She picked up one of the thorn tree images. ‘Both of these. They’re sexy but classy. Like art.’
‘Like art?’ Lex sounded horrified. ‘They are art.’
‘You know what I mean,’ said Kendall. ‘They’re arty and commercial. The label’s gonna love them.’
‘Do you love them? Lex hated himself for the tentative, hopeful tone he heard in his own voice. With other clients he was confident in his work. With Kendall, he never stopped feeling as though he was auditioning for her approval. Pathetic.
‘I do.’ Kendall beamed, leaning across the table to kiss him. ‘I love them and I love you. Where would I be without you, my lovely Lex?’
Lex’s heart beat so fast as she pressed her lips to his that he worried it might jump out of his chest and start throbbing away on the table. He closed his eyes, let the happiness rush through him and immediately heard the click click click of a camera shutter. This time it was Kendall who spun around, shaking her fist through the café window.
‘He’s my friend, asshole, OK? You can quote me on that. Read my lips: We are just fucking friends.’
Lex’s happiness drained away like pus from a lanced boil.
One day they’ll carve it on my tombstone: Just Fucking Friends.
Jack Messenger pushed open his front door with a sigh of relief. It was good to be home.
Jack didn’t enjoy travelling at the best of times, and this trip to England had been particularly stressful. He’d spent the entire eleven-hour flight home unable to concentrate, or to banish the vomit-inducing image of Ivan pumping away at that teenage violinist from his mind. Poor Catriona. A midlife crisis was embarrassing enough to watch, but Cat had to live with it. Or rather, she chose to live with it. That was the part that bothered Jack the most. The fact that even after all the betrayals, all the slip-ups and lies and bullshit, Catriona Charles was still in love with her husband. She still saw the Ivan she’d fallen in love with at Oxford. Whereas for Jack, that person, his friend, was all but gone.
Dropping his suitcase on the floor, he wandered into his study. As usual it was immaculate, an oasis of calm and order in the frantic chaos of Jack Messenger’s professional life. He and Ivan used to joke that running a music management business was the best on-the-job training a psychotherapist could have. As managers they were part mentor, part friend, part boss, part life coach to some of the most talented, spoiled and rampantly fucked-up individuals on the planet. Life at Jester was equal parts exhausting and rewarding, but it was never dull. Jack loved it. But he also loved leaving it behind in the evenings and retreating behind the walls of his tranquil fortress.
Sonya had designed and decorated the house, and her presence was still everywhere. Jack limited photographs of his wife to the master bedroom. He’d learned that having them around the house made some people feel uncomfortable, and prompted others to try and talk about his loss, something Jack was congenitally incapable of doing. But you couldn’t pick up a cushion or switch on a lamp, without being reminded of Sonya’s subtle, feminine taste, her love of colour and texture, her warmth. That was the one thing Jack Messenger missed most about his wife. The world was a colder place without her.
Flipping open his calendar (Jack was still a pen and paper man where possible), he groaned. He’d totally forgotten he had a dinner date with Elizabeth tonight. Elizabeth Grey was Jack’s female companion of the moment. Nominally his ‘girlfriend’, though that wasn’t a word Jack himself ever used. She was a senior exec at Paramount – smart, funny, independent and kind, as well as beautiful in the classy, understated way that Jack liked: long hair, minimal make-up, slim without being scrawny. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Elizabeth, not one complaint that Jack could level at her. Except the fact that she wasn’t Sonya.
Dialling her number, Jack was relieved to get the voicemail. ‘Hi, Liz. Listen honey, I’m sorry, I’m gonna have to bail on tonight. I’m totally wiped after my trip. I’ll call you tomorrow, OK? OK thanks. Sorry. Goodnight.’
He hated how awkward he sounded. Somehow he couldn’t shake the feeling that dating at 40 automatically made you a jerk. Switching off his phone so Elizabeth couldn’t call him back, he padded into the kitchen for a snack when something caught his eye. The door to his wine cabinet was ajar. No bottles were missing. Everything else was as it should be. But Conception, Jack’s housekeeper, always locked that particular cabinet.
Kendall.
Kendall was curled up on the couch watching Two and a Half Men with Lex Abrahams when Jack burst in with a face like fury.
‘Have you taken wine from my house while I’ve been gone?’
Kendall didn’t look up from the screen. ‘Hi, Kendall, hi, Lex. How are you? Nice to see you again,’ she said sarcastically.
‘Answer the question.’
‘Of course not! Jesus, so what, I’m a thief now?’
‘Not a thief. You replaced it,’ said Jack. ‘But you forgot to lock the wine closet afterwards. Where’s Kevin?’
‘He wasn’t feeling too good,’ said Kendall blithely. ‘So I sent him home and called Lex to come over and save me from