Page 28 of Storm in a D Cup

‘What’s thematterwith you?’ I demanded of Julian as we were getting ready for bed later that evening. The evening of our Spider Anniversary, in case you’d forgotten. And Genie had managed to squeeze an invitation for the night from us because by the time she’d finished demolishing my taste in decorating and pretty much my entire persona it was dark and Julian didn’t want her on the roads at that hour. In fact, neither did I want her on the road. I preferred her at the bottom of a ditch, but no matter.

And now Julian stared at me blankly, surprised by my outburst.

‘The “cheap-looking linen” comment! What the hell does Genie Stacie know about tradition and the value of anything! Those linens were hand-embroidered by my grandmother more than forty years ago! And theroasted cowcomment? Why didn’t you say anything?’

He shifted uncomfortably. ‘Oh – she didn’t mean anything by that.’

My eyes popped wide open. ‘Du-uh?’

Julian shrugged. ‘Genie’s just like that. She’s never liked to be exceeded in anything. It’s just a weakness of hers.’

‘Exceeded? The woman called me a cow.’

‘No, she didn’t.’

I gaped at him. ‘She suggested putting me in theoven!’

‘To get rid of you as a rival, not because she sees you as a cow,’ he maintained.

I couldn’t believe such words were coming out of his mouth. Me seen as a cow? What happened toYou’re my queen? But something else had caught my attention for the moment.

‘Rival?’ I whispered. ‘Since when did she become my rival? Is there something I should know?’

Julian rolled his eyes. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

I rested my hands on my hips in my usual teapot gesture whenever I was furious. ‘Oh, but that’s exactly what you meant.’

He sighed. ‘Stop it, Erica – you’re exaggerating.’

‘Oh, I’d love to seeyou, if I had an ex-lover staying with us and flaunting our past in your face while flirting with me,’ I threw back as I shimmied out of my clothes and left them there on the ground, along with my underwear and socks. If I was going to be seen as the family stable animal, I might as well start acting like one.

Julian sighed, running a hand through his hair the way he did when he was frustrated, which was actually very rarely.

‘Yes, Genie Stacie’s not very tactful, but she was actually paying a tribute to you.’

‘Tribute – ha!’ I snapped, pulling my nightgown over my head, too exhausted to shower. If our evening ablutions usually led to sex, tonight Julian was going to remain high and dry. Roasted cow, my foot.

‘Of course,’ he tried to explain to me. ‘All these years she’s been the center of every man’s attention, and now that she’s seen that one man’s attention focuses on his beloved wife, she goes all scared and tries to pull herself up by bringing others down.’

I threw back the covers and gave him my hairy eyeball before turning onto my side facing the wall. ‘Save your cheap psychology and your lame sugar-coating for an idiot. I’m not interested.’

The bed creaked as he rolled over closer to me, and I could feel his face just above me although I was staring vehemently at one of my own Tuscan countryside paintings on the wall next to the window. And I wondered whatknow-it-allGenie Stacie would have to say about my painting technique. It was one of the first things I’d painted since we’d moved to Tuscany, when things were all hunky-dory and we were happy. Scratch that. WhenIwas happy, because apparently everyone around me still was.

It turned out I wasn’t so confident after all if I let a useless, shallow by-product of Hollywood get to me like this. Couldn’t Julian see her for what she was?

‘And did you see the way Maddy was staring at her?’ I continued, but Julian didn’t answer. ‘Julian? What, are you sleeping already? I’m still talking to you!’

‘I thought you’d said goodnight,’ he said.

‘I didn’t, actually.’

‘I noticed. I was just being sarcastic.’

‘Like your friend?’ I broke off. ‘Already it’s rubbed off on you?’

He groaned. ‘Jesus, Erica – are we really arguing over Genie Stacie? After what you putmethrough years ago?’

Uh-oh. I knew this would come back to bite me on the ass. Years ago, Julian’s busy schedule, his gorgeous agent – and my own ambitions for A Taste of Tuscany – had driven a wedge between us (do you see a pattern here?). I’d had onefeeling-sorry-for-myselfafternoon in the company of Chef Alberto Veronesi, exasperated that Julian kept postponing our wedding date, when Alberto had kissed me. And I’d confessed it to Julian. Big mistake. Since then, although he’d forgiven me after what had felt like a thousand years, neither of us had brought it up.

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