in for a quick hug before shooing Rayne away. ‘Go. Speak soon.’ She shook her head as her friend roared away in her sporty black Mini, a Union Jack design on its roof. The girl certainly had personality.
God, she’d missed her. Had missed all her friends. She’d given so much up when she’d moved to the States. Pretty much everything in fact. And all she had to show for it was a bare left hand, a few extra laughter lines and a dress she’d never wear hanging in her closet.
By the time she’d heaved all the boxes and bags up to her top floor living quarters, she was hot, sweaty and swearing. She was also grateful her new boss and his kids weren’t around to see what a complete mess she was; damp dark hair coming loose from its high ponytail and sticking to her slippery face, denim shorts creased and the straps of her dust-smudged white vest top falling off her shoulders. It was a scorchingly hot day and although the lower floors of the house were cool and spacious, the upper floor was carpeted, more compact and suffered from heat rising upwards. Throwing open the skylight windows hadn’t helped much, there was no wind outside to offer any relief.
Thankfully Matt wasn’t due back for hours as he was holed up in his studio with some new talent he’d discovered and both kids were visiting with their grandma, his late wife’s mum. It was his way of giving her time to settle in, which she should be grateful for, but instead of abandoning her maybe he could have stuck around to see if she could do with a hand?
She shook her head. It wasn’t his job to help her move in. Why on earth should he? Looking at all the stuff spread out over the length and breadth of the bedroom, a mixture of old and new, cases and boxes of clothes, shoes and her beloved books, knowing there were more in the lounge area, she blew out another long breath. It was strange to think that this set of rooms had been her sister’s home for three years. She felt uncomfortable, like an impostor. It was going to take hours to unpack too. Mind you, there was no bookcase so her books could stay packed away for now, which would save some time.
As she opened the first crate from America and a long black and white Marc Jacobs gown slithered to the floor, her addiction to clothes caught hold and she forgot how uncomfortable she was. Leaping up, she unpacked everything else in delight, rediscovering old friends from before she’d left, including the ancient Alaia chain-link leather sandals she’d saved up a month for when living at Ruth’s. Haphazardly laying clothes, shoes, belts and handbags across the bed and every available surface, she stroked them lovingly, holding the soft, luxurious fabrics against her face. God, she adored all this, and given enough money would shop every single day. New York had been a revelation. She’d fallen in love with the stores as much as the loud, straight-talking people. She’d also been lucky that even though Liberty had been bossy and occasionally unreasonable about her children, she was generous and had fallen into the habit of gifting her collections to Zoe after every season. She was going to sorely miss that perk of the job, along with her charges Ava and Grace, and a hundred other tiny little things she’d come to love about NY.
As well as the life she’d had planned. One that Greg had robbed her of with his stupid, selfish behaviour.
All of a sudden it flowed over her.
Bastard! How could he do that to her? After everything they’d been to each other…Friends, lovers, partners. But clearly she’d been fooling herself, because if that was really the case, he could never have done what he’d done. For god’s sakes, it was the oldest story in the book, sleeping with someone else. Couldn’t he have at least been a bit original? Or ducked out of their relationship if he wasn’t happy? She wanted to punch him, yell at him, tell him all the ways she’d like to make him suffer, how much she hated what he’d done, how three and a half thousand miles between them would never ever be enough.
She ground her teeth. Watching him hurt would give her satisfaction, definitely. But she wasn’t sure it would make her feel any better, and there was no way she was going to give up her dignity by losing control. Sometimes all a girl had left was her pride, along with her instinct for survival. The best thing was to cut him off completely, forget he even existed, until she could speak to him without having a total meltdown.
Picking up a hot pink, strapless dress she’d worn to a party not long before leaving for New York, she shook her head. What had she been thinking? She couldn’t imagine wearing it again. Her mum, if still alive, would have probably told her to put it in the bin or give it away, that once things became useless, you should just get rid of them. But Zoe was feeling sentimental, so she tucked the dress into the back of the massive built-in wardrobe in her new bedroom and hung up a beautiful sequinned blue top. Spying her favourite black Manolo Blahniks she slipped them on, mood instantly lifting. She’d saved up her bonuses to buy them and they were totally impractical, but boy, did they make her feel great.
Grabbing a cropped jacket she’d once worn to a rock concert, she stroked it before hanging it up, smiling at the memories of the blaring music and sweaty, jumping crowd. Unpacking her old things, marvelling over them and remembering the girl she used to be, along with the good times in New York, might be the closest she’d been to happiness in a while.
That, and the thought of Matt’s face when he was plastered all over the weekend papers, his precious privacy blown sky high. There might be a confidentiality clause in her contract, but she had absolutely no fear of breaching it. He’d hardly want the publicity of a big court case, and she would do whatever it took to do right by her sister.
Matt crashed his car keys into a bowl on the expensive white sideboard, kicking the heavy black front door shut behind him.
He hissed out a swear word. The studio had been a nightmare. For some unknown reason the singer with the incredibly rich, adaptable voice who’d seemed so passionate, enthusiastic and energetic when he’d offered her a contract after weeks of sound tests and negotiations with her agent had today been listless and disinterested. It was like working with a different person. He could only hope the chance he’d taken on her wasn’t going to backfire. The fact it might frustrated him, made irritation burn inside. She had it in her to be amazing, world-class. So what the hell had happened to change her so radically? To make her avoid his gaze and mutter that she was fine, when she quite clearly wasn’t? He would never get women. Why did they always do that? Not that he’d been thinking of her as a woman, despite her fragile blonde beauty. He only saw her as a gifted artist. The talent was always off limits, at least in his code of practice.
He pulled a hand through his dark hair, itching for a cool, calming shower and a strong black coffee before going to his office and dealing with the tedious mass of emails he was behind with because his assistant Sadie was still recovering from her procedure. He supposed he should do the polite thing and find his new nanny first though. Say hello, ask if she needed anything.
Taking the two sets of spiral staircases in large leaps, up from the ground floor and past his and the kids’ rooms on the first floor, he strode down the top floor corridor and swung into the doorway of Zoe’s living space. Not in the white and beige lounge area. She must be in the bedroom. If the door was closed he’d knock, but it was open, so he walked straight in, impatient to get it over with.
The greeting he’d planned died on his lips, breath unexpectedly clogging in his throat. There was a knee-jerk response in his lower body, his jeans going uncomfortably tight.
Bloody hell.
Of all the beautiful women he’d worked with over the years—the singers and divas with their glamorous designer outfits and fashionable haircuts, manicures and pedicures, their gym-perfect toned bodies and fake tans—she was by far the sexiest he’d ever seen.
Sitting on the plush blue bedroom carpet, she was leaning against the ivory wall-paper, head tipped back as she gulped thirstily from a can of coke. Her creamy skin was flushed and her shapely but slightly too slim bare legs were on display, stunningly shown off by a pair of ultra-high black heels and some nearly non-existent cut-offs. A white vest-top outlined generous breasts and