‘I’m sorry.’ Guy shook his head, forcing himself to look at her. There was resignation in his dark blue eyes. ‘I really am. It’s been a great evening, but ...’

‘But what?’ wailed Valentina, overcome with a sudden rush of fear. ‘What have I done wrong? What’s the problem, for God’s sake?’ Casting around for a reason ... any reason ... she said helplessly, ‘Am I too fat?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ It was every model’s greatest fear. What was worse, he thought with an inward sigh and a glance at her stick-thin legs, was that she really meant it. ‘You aren’t fat and you haven’t done anything wrong. It’s me.’

Relief mingled with suspicion. Valentina’s fingers continued to clench and unclench against the bedspread. ‘What, then? If you’re going to try and tell me you’re impotent,’ she warned, ‘I may have a bit of trouble believing you.’

Guy had to smile. If he had been impotent, it would have been so much simpler. She would have felt sorry for him and he would have been off the hook. But ‘won’t play’ was harder for Valentina to bear than ‘can’t play’, and now thanks to him she was feeling sorry for herself.

‘No,’ he said gently. ‘Look, you’re a gorgeous girl and I’m probably going to kick myself in the morning, but right now I just know it would be ... well, the wrong thing to do.’

Valentina didn’t. As far as she was concerned it was the most absolutely right thing to do in the entire world. Her brown eyes clouded; what the hell was the big deal anyway, she thought with renewed frustration. It wasn’t as if she was asking him to hitch-hike barefoot across bloody Antarctica. It was only sex, after all.

‘More like you get a kick out of leading girls on,’ she retaliated, still smarting from the humiliation of being rejected for no good reason at all by the most attractive man she’d clapped eyes on in years. And after such a promising start, too.

‘It’s not that, either.’

‘Bastard,’ murmured Valentina under her breath.

She wasn’t taking it at all well. Guy pushed his fingers through his hair in a gesture of mild despair. ‘Look, that’s just what I’m trying not to be. If we spent the night together, I’d be a real bastard. You see, there’s .. . somebody else,’ he admitted with reluctance. ‘I’m already involved with someone, and it wouldn’t be fair to either of you if I ...’

His voice trailed away. He took a slug of brandy, swallowed and shrugged.

‘Oh.’ Valentina’s fingers began to unclench. A man with a conscience was something of a novelty in her experience. It was just a shame, she thought sorrowfully, he was so intent on being faithful to someone else rather than her. ‘Who is it, anyone I know?’

Guy shook his head. As far as he was aware it wasn’t anyone at all, but it appeared to be doing the trick, which was all that really mattered. He still didn’t understand why the idea of sleeping with Valentina should suddenly have become such an undesirable proposition. It just had. Maybe, he thought with a mixture of resignation and alarm, there really was such a thing as the male menopause and it had arrived a decade ahead of schedule. Damn, what filthy rotten luck. Of all the nights to be hit with it .. .

‘Well, she’s a lucky girl.’ Acknowledging defeat with as much good grace as she could muster, Valentina smiled and reached for her jacket. ‘Whoever she is. No, don’t worry, I can find my own way out. I’ll ask the night porter to get me a cab.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Guy, meaning it. Opening the door for her, he planted a brief kiss on her cheek. ‘I was tempted, you know. This monogamy thing is pretty new to me.’

‘Invite me to the wedding,’ Valentina quipped. ‘I’ll tell her what a hero she’s married. After all, I can personally vouch for your fidelity.’

He grinned. ‘Thanks.’

But she was still wildly curious. Guy wasn’t giving much away. Unable to resist it, she paused in the doorway. ‘Is she beautiful?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it ...’ — a stab in the dark, now — ‘the girl I spoke to on the phone? What’s her name, Maxine?’

Guy started to laugh. ‘No,’ he said, patting her shoulder. ‘Nice try, sweetheart. But it definitely isn’t Maxine.’

Thea, lying in bed with Oliver’s arm around her, was looking pensive.

‘What is it?’ Pulling the duvet up to her shoulders, for the central heating in Thea’s house was about as predictable as Thea herself, he gave her bare shoulder a squeeze. ‘Worried about Janey?’

She was, of course, but that wasn’t what was uppermost in her mind right now. Indirectly, she thought, the problem was Oliver himself. The trouble with being in love was the fact that it was so time-consuming. Whilst this might not be a problem for Oliver, who could easily afford to have his time consumed, it was an undoubted drawback when you were a not altogether successful sculptress with work to do and bills to pay. The sale of the Ballerina had temporarily stalled the boring letters from the bank droning on about her overdraft, but the increasing displeasure of Tom Sparks, the owner of the studio, was somewhat more ominous. She was falling behind with the rent in a big way, and he wasn’t amused. Sadly, not working meant not selling. And whilst at first it hadn’t seemed to matter — how, after all, could financial security even begin to compare with all-consuming happiness? — the prospect of losing her beloved studio was fast becoming a real possibility.

All she had to do, of course, was mention this inconvenient dilemma to Oliver. Without so much as a second thought he would sign the necessary cheque like the proverbial good fairy and make everything right again. As far as he was concerned, there was no dilemma: Thea needed money and he had plenty of it. He would be happy to help out. No big deal.

But there lay the crunch. For it was a big deal. It hadn’t been easy, but one way or another she had been self-supporting for the last twenty-five years, and whilst the idea of becoming a kept woman had always appealed, she now realized that some fantasies were better left unfulfilled. Maybe it was a salutary lesson, a kind of punishment for ever having wished it in the first place. Or maybe, she thought dryly, it was just sheer bloody bad luck. Because Oliver Cassidy, erupting into her life, had changed her. Here he was, the proud and generous owner of all that gorgeous money ... and she loved him too much to take it.

It was no good, Thea decided, she was simply going to have to make time to work. If necessary – ugh, what a hideous prospect -- she would even get up a couple of hours earlier each morning and sculpt whilst Oliver slept.

‘Yes,’ she lied, dragging her mind back to that other dilemma: Janey. Propping herself up on one elbow, she sighed. ‘I ballsed it up completely. I should have tackled Alan on his own, of course. She was bound to take his side.’

Oliver kissed her warm shoulder. It was ironic, he felt, that they should both have been through virtually the same ordeal. In his own case, however, Véronique’s untimely death had effectively prevented him from ever being able to be proved right.

‘Of course she was,’ he said consolingly. ‘I know how hard it is; we do our best for our children, God knows, but sometimes they have to make their own mistakes. Give her time, darling, and maybe she’ll come to her senses.’

‘I bloody hope so.’ Thea’s tone was fretful; she still nurtured a fearsome longing to corner Alan Sinclair and slap him senseless. ‘But how much longer is she going to need and how much more damage can he do in the meantime? Janey’s so stubborn it almost frightens me,’ she added, her tone bleak. ‘I wouldn’t put it past her to get herself pregnant, just to spite us all.’

Chapter 48

Janey was looking wonderful, thought Bruno, watching from a distant corner as she entered the party on Alan Sinclair’s arm. In a billowing white silk shirt tucked into white jeans, and with her blond hair left loose to fall past her shoulders, she exuded an air of careless glamour he had never seen in her before. The self-esteem which had been at rock-bottom for the past two years had clearly been revitalized by her husband’s return, he decided, impressed by the almost magical transformation. It was as if she had been brought back to life, like a desperately wilted flower plunged into a bucket of water in the nick of time.

Hastily, Bruno pulled himself together. What was the matter with him anyway? Nauseating similes weren’t his bag at all. Talk about un-macho .. .

Janey looked good because she was happy and in love, he decided, firmly banishing all thought of wilting flowers from his mind. It was as simple as that. Whether she would deign to speak to him when she realized he was here, however, was another matter altogether.

In the event, Janey didn’t have a lot of choice. Having resolutely decided to ignore Bruno her plans were scuppered within minutes by Pearl, who dragged him into the kitchen. Janey, leaning against the fridge, was still waiting for Alan to uncork a bottle of Australian white.

Gazing at a heavily doodled-on Chippendales calendar above the cooker, she assumed a fixed, I’m-not-listening expression. But the kitchen wasn’t that big and nobody had ever called Pearl subtle.

‘... I still don’t believe you, darling!’ she cried, clinging to Bruno’s arm and waggling an admonitory finger at him. ‘It’s all very well saying you’ve fallen madly in love with this Maxine character, but does this mean you’re actually planning to stay faithful to her, forsaking all others and all that gloomy stuff? You realize of course the whole town’s laying bets on how long you’ll manage to stick it out,’ she added gleefully. ‘So far nobody’s dared risk their money on anything more than a month.’