Page 65 of All Summer Long

Alice shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter who he is. He’s not blowing smoke up my ass, but you’re dead right about the sex, Brad. We are having amazing, brilliant sex, the sort of sex that I didn’t even know people really actually had, and he’s not going home until he’s good and ready, no matter what you or the stupid letting agent says.’

In the long run she probably wouldn’t be proud of the things she’d just said, but in the heat of the moment she meant every word and enjoyed the fact that Brad looked as if he was going to spontaneously combust with fury.

‘Who. Is. He?’ Brad forced the three words between his gritted teeth.

Alice shook her head. ‘That’s what’s really got under your skin here, isn’t it? It’s not that I’m sleeping with someone else, it’s that I’m sleeping with someone more famous than you, isn’t it?’ She rammed her chair back and stood up. ‘Well, let me tell you something, Brad McBride. He’s not just more famous than you, he’s kinder, and sexier and all round better in just about every way. Go back to London, Brad. Go back and find yourself another Felicity to massage your ego, because I’m officially done with you.’

‘Fine!’ he yelled at her back as she walked towards the door. ‘Fine. Go back to your love nest, Alice. Go back and make the most of it while you still can, because that house is bloody well mine and I’m having it back whether you like it or not!’

Alice turned back to him at the door, willing her voice to sound stronger than she felt inside.

‘Go ahead, Brad, do your worst. When you left I felt as if I’d lost everything in my life that mattered to me, but I was wrong. I still had my home. Borne Manor is the one thing I’m not prepared to lose in all of this.’

‘Then I’ll see you and lover boy in court,’ he said, with what she could only describe as a flounce.

She shook her head and sighed. ‘One day you might realise that real life isn’t some corny soap opera.’

‘Says the woman addicted to sleeping with the stars,’ he snapped.

‘As always, you overestimate yourself.’ She walked out of the pub and left him there to stew in his own jealous juices.

Alice was too worked up to notice The Siren’s other resident lurking outside in the hallway. Marsh turned smoothly away from her as she stormed from the pub, and then sidled into the bar when she was safely out of the way.

He looked at Brad and feigned concern. ‘You look like a man who could use a whisky,’ he said, then knocked on the bar for service.

‘Bottle of bourbon and two glasses,’ he ordered when Jase appeared, then took the seat that Alice had recently vacated and bared his teeth in what he hoped might look like a sympathetic smile.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Alice stomped back to the manor, turning the air bluer than even Rambo could as she passed the cottages, muttering under her breath. She crunched up the driveway and straight up the side of the manor, and kept on going over the lawns and past the Airstream. She slowed as she walked beneath the cool shade of the trees, letting the quiet calm of the woods soak up some of her rage. Who did he think he was? He’d pushed all of her buttons and she’d found herself angrier than she’d ever been before. Short of turning green and clubbing him, she needed to think how to handle things, because she’d just hurled a hand grenade into the remains of her marriage and pulled out the pin.

She found who she was looking for contentedly eating grass on the edge of the meadow. Banjo dipped his head towards her, letting her lay her forehead against his warm nose and wrap her arms around his wide neck.

‘Why can’t everyone be like you, Banjo?’ she whispered, scratching behind his ears just the way he liked it. ‘People are so bloody complicated.’

The gentle old horse nuzzled into her, giving her his warm, solid comfort and simple, unconditional affection.

‘I won’t let anyone take this place away. I belong here, and so do you now.’

Crossing to the gypsy caravan, she sat down on its green wooden steps, tracing her finger over the painted flowers as she replayed the ugly scene from the pub in her head. She hadn’t intended to say any of those things, but Brad had taken her breath away with his audacity and thinly veiled selfishness. He’d never been a person who fared well on his own. He needed to be the centre of someone’s world, to be revolved around and adored, taken care of and feted over. It must have been a bitter blow to hear that she wasn’t going to happily reprise her role of chief ego massager, and the bitterest blow of all to hear that she’d moved on to someone higher on the celebrity scale than he was. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the caravan door, letting the sun warm her cheeks and the peaceful meadow calm her nerves.

‘Hey there, gypsy girl.’

Alice opened her eyes and watched Robinson as he drew near, his green eyes filled with gold glitter by the sun- light.

‘Hey there yourself,’ she said, moving across on the step to let him sit too. He chose instead to step up behind her and sit on the top step, his legs a welcome and protective frame around her body.

‘So, how did it go?’

As he spoke he lowered the straps of her vest down her arms and began to massage her shoulders, warm firm circles that made her sigh and drop her chin down onto her chest.

‘Just about as badly as it could have,’ she said, sweeping her hair over one shoulder and plaiting it.

Robinson rolled his thumbs down the bumps of her spine between her shoulder blades and then back up again. ‘That good, huh?’

Alice slipped her arms out of her vest and turned it into a boob tube. ‘You’ll be hearing from the letting agency soon to ask you to leave before the end of your tenancy.’

‘Already did. Told ’em no can do.’

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