Getting out of the car, he walked up behind Kendall and gently put his arms around her. ‘It’s OK,’ he whispered. ‘He’s hurt us both. I understand.’
Ivan’s unexpected compassion and tenderness was more than Kendall could bear. Turning around, she threw herself into his arms, sobbing and sobbing until she hadn’t an ounce of breath left. Eventually she recovered enough to ask plaintively, ‘Oh, Ivan. What are we going to do?’
‘That’s easy,’ said Ivan, tightening his grip around her tiny, shivering body. ‘We’re going to make you the biggest female recording artist on the planet. We’re going to wipe the floor with Ava Bentley, JSM and anyone else who gets in our way. And we’re going to annihilate Jack fucking Messenger.’
Kendall managed a small laugh. ‘Oh we are, are we? Well, that’s good to know. Anything else while we’re at it? Take over the world, perhaps?’
‘As a matter of fact, there is something else,’ said Ivan.
‘And what’s that?’
‘We’re going to get married.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The morning after Jack Messenger told the world that he had signed Ava Bentley to JSM, Kendall Bryce and Ivan Charles announced their engagement. Just as Ivan had hoped, the news was received rapturously by the British press. Every celebrity gossip magazine from Heat to Now to OK! ran pictures of the happy couple on their front covers, and for weeks shots of Kendall smiling and flashing her huge four-carat diamond engagement ring were plastered all over the red-tops. Indeed, so great was the public surge of affection for the couple, particularly in the light of Ivan’s recent setbacks, that Polydor brought forward the release of Kendall’s new album, Flame, which promptly debuted at number five in the UK album charts and number two in France, as well as going gold in every other European market.
Within a week, it was as if Ava Bentley had never existed. And Kendall and Ivan were already on their way back.
Ava’s defection to America and Jack Messenger wasn’t the only news to get ‘buried’ by Ivan and Kendall wedding fever. In the weeks preceding the wedding, Ivan was unceremoniously sacked by ITV; and Jester, the once great company to which he’d devoted his entire adult, professional life, was quietly dissolved in a South London courtroom. But no one wanted to read about these doom-and-gloom stories, especially with Christmas just around the corner. They wanted to read about Kendall’s dress, who was invited to the star-studded reception, and where the newlyweds would be going on honeymoon. Everybody loved a happy ending.
Meanwhile, back in LA, Jack could do nothing but watch in frustration as Ivan skilfully rebuilt his image, telling television interviewers around the world that he’d decided his time with Talent Quest had reached ‘a natural end’. ‘I want to spend more time at home with my beautiful wife,’ he gushed. ‘Who wouldn’t? I’m so blessed to have Kendall in my life. Family’s really my focus now.’
It was galling to come back from England having succeeded in annihilating Jester, only to find that Ivan Charles had already risen phoenix-like from the ashes. But then perhaps Jack should have expected it? Ivan had always been a consummate master of his own image, and a wily and determined competitor. Jack’s mood wasn’t helped by the fact that Lex Abrahams, and a lot of the other JSM staff, were still furious with him for taking off for a month and for saddling them with a string of unknown British acts (half of them classical, for God’s sake!) without consulting a soul.
‘What is this?’ Lex shouted at him the day he got back, ‘a partnership or a dictatorship?’ For once, Jack was lost for a comeback. Even Catriona was upset with him for going after Ava. Apparently she considered it ‘below the belt’, conveniently forgetting that her slippery, two-faced ex-husband had never exactly been big on Queensbury Rules when it came to business – or any kind of rules, for that matter.
The thought of Kendall marrying Ivan made Jack feel physically sick. There was no doubt that in PR terms it was a masterstroke. But the idea that he, Jack, might have brought the thing to pass was more than he could stomach.
So much for the return of the conquering hero.
Two days before the wedding, Catriona raced around the drawing room in Burford, manically plumping up pillows and rearranging photographs on the various side tables.
‘Muuum.’ Rosie walked in and rolled her eyes. ‘For heaven’s sake, stop it. Anyone would think the pope was coming over. It’s only Dad.’
In black, skintight jeans and the extortionate Balmain leather jacket that Ivan had bought her for her birthday last year, Rosie looked tall and skinny and gorgeous. Gone was the gawky teen of the last few years, replaced almost overnight it seemed by this clear-skinned, willowy, confident young woman with magenta-painted toes and an artfully arranged selection of bangles jangling at her wrists like Christmas bells.
‘You look lovely,’ Catriona told her, smiling. ‘No one’ll be looking at the bride when they see you in that bridesmaid’s dress.’
This remark earned a second eye-roll, but it was followed by a hug and an offer of a cup of tea. There could be no mistaking her daughter’s happiness as she skipped into the kitchen to put the kettle on, and Catriona didn’t begrudge her a second of it. For Rosie the wedding was exciting. She’d been over the moon when Ivan had asked her if she’d consider being bridesmaid. After all the poor girl had been through in the difficult early days of their divorce, the pain of seeing her parents at war, finding herself the undeserving target of her brother’s anger for the ‘crime’ of maintaining a relationship with her dad, Rosie deserved a little joy. Catriona and Ivan were ‘friends’ now, and even Hector had calmed down on the Ivan bashing. Although he drew the line at attending the wedding, he hadn’t given Rosie any stick for her decision. Perhaps Rosie felt that an official union between her father and Kendall would draw a line under all the heartache and enable all of them to finally move on?
Perhaps she was right. Catriona herself had mixed feelings about the wedding. It had certainly come as a shock. She’d had no idea Ivan was even thinking of taking such a big step, and had heard the news on television like everybody else. In fairness, Ivan had tried to call her, as she later discovered when she charged her phone and checked the messages. But it was still a bolt from the blue. There was a time when news like this would have been inordinately painful. Now the negative feelings she had fell more into the wistful, regretful, nostalgic category. This was soft-focus pain, of the sort that called for anxious cushion-plumping rather than a bottle and a half of Gordon’s. Not drinking definitely helped.
Ivan arrived before Rosie’s promised tea. Through the drawing-room window, Catriona saw him park his blue Bentley on the High Street and climb out, brushing lint off his corduroy trousers and smoothing down his hair as he walked round the side of the house. He’s nervous too, she thought, not without affection. How strange this all was! Catriona hadn’t actually seen Ivan in person in well over a month, not since before Stella came to stay. So much had happened in his life in that time, and so little in her own. But she was happy pottering around Burford, tending her garden and taking her photographs. She wondered if he was happy, living his life at warp speed, having his every up and down splashed all over the tabloids for public consumption. I suppose he must be. He wouldn’t do it otherwise. Perhaps Kendall was the wife he needed after all.
‘Dad!’ Rosie flung open the kitchen door, spilling tea all over the flagstone floor.
‘Hello, Rose.’ Ivan hugged his daughter tightly. Like Catriona he was astonished by how quickly she seemed to be growing up. ‘You look gorgeous as ever. Are you packed?’
‘Nearly,’ said Rosie, who hadn’t even unearthed a suitcase yet. ‘I’ll just go upstairs and, er, finish off.’
Catriona walked in just as Rosie was leaving. Bloody hell, thought Ivan, she looks good too. Ever since she got back from California, Cat had been on some health kick, no doubt inspired by St Jack of Brentwood. But, as irritated as he was by Jack’s influence, Ivan had to admit that Catriona looked ten years young
er as a result. Her skin was clear, her pale-blue eyes bright and shining and her wild blonde hair as thick and lustrous as he remembered it in her twenties. But the biggest change was in her figure. She must have lost two stone at least, none of it from her tits, which seemed fuller and more glorious than ever beneath her tight coral T-shirt. Her legs looked terrific in a pair of slim-fitting cords and sexy riding boots, and Ivan searched in vain for the comforting roll of fat that used to be wrapped around her hips and belly.
‘Hello, Ivan.’ She kissed him on both cheeks. Ivan noticed that she smelled of violets. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ said Ivan. ‘You know. Busy. You?’
‘Less busy.’ Catriona laughed. Now that he was actually here, she felt her tension easing. ‘Nothing much changes around here, you know that. Can I get you some tea?’
They sat in the parlour at the back of the house, overlooking the garden. It was only half past three, but midwinter dusk was already beginning to settle over the frosty ground, giving everything an eerie, silvery feel. Catriona lit a fire and poured piping hot Lapsang into mismatched china cups. ‘Shortbread?’ She offered a plate to Ivan. ‘It’s home-made.’
Ivan looked at it longingly. ‘I can barely get into my morning suit as it is.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Catriona. ‘You’re skinny as a bean. You always were. Go on.’
Ivan gave into temptation. ‘What about you?’ he mumbled through a mouth full of delicious, buttery biscuit crumbs. ‘You look like you haven’t had a biscuit in a year.’
Catriona blushed, swatting away the compliment.
‘I’m serious,’ said Ivan. ‘You’re looking fantastic. Like a new woman.’
You’re marrying a new woman, thought Catriona stupidly. Aloud she said, ‘I’m trying to be healthier. Jack sort of got me into it, running and eating protein and whatnot.’
At the mention of Jack’s name, all the congeniality drained from Ivan’s face. ‘You and Jack still thick as thieves, eh?’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Catriona bridled. She thought of her last conversation with Jack, where she’d got upset with him about ‘stealing’ Ava Bentley from Ivan, and they’d actually had rather an unpleasant row. ‘We have our differences, but he’s an old friend.’
‘He looked like more than a friend in those Daily Mail pictures,’ said Ivan grumpily. ‘You were all over each other.’ He knew he was being ridiculous. That he had absolutely no right to say anything to Catriona about her friendships, love life, any of it. But he’d never been much good at controlling his emotions, and the jealousy welling up inside him needed an outlet.
Catriona was just about to get to her feet, a how dare you already half formed on her lips, when Hector’s voice drifted in from the kitchen. ‘Mum? Are you home? MUM!’
‘In here,’ Catriona called back nervously. ‘With Dad. He’s come to pick up Rosie for the wedding.’
Hector stuck his head round the doorway. Ivan was shocked by how much older he looked. Christ, he’s matured. They’re growing up without me. Blond and blue-eyed like his mother, but with his father’s strong jaw and masculine bearing, Hector had recently lost the freckly, Just William-ish look of his boyhood and shot up several inches in height. He still needed to fill out a bit, to get past that gangly limbed teenage stage. But you could already see the handsome, intelligent, decent man he was going to become.
He met Ivan’s eye without flinching, and nodded a curt ‘hello’. Not exactly a warm welcome, but a light year’s improvement on his former rabid hostility.
‘Hi,’ said Ivan warily. He didn’t want to jinx the good start. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you.’
‘I didn’t know if I’d make it back in time,’ said Hector. ‘I wanted to see Rosie before she goes. I’ve got her a surprise.’
Catriona eyed her son distrustfully. ‘What sort of surprise?’ Rosie was so excited about the wedding and her trip to London, the last thing she needed was one of her brother’s practical jokes. However well intentioned, Hector’s ‘tricks’ had an alarming tendency for getting out of hand.
‘A brilliant one,’ grinned Hector. ‘Come into the garden in five minutes and I’ll show you.’
He dashed out of the room, leaving his parents looking at one another with raised eyebrows and an amused look on their faces. The earlier tension between them had evaporated like dew in an unexpected burst of sunshine.
‘I was just thinking how grown-up he seemed,’ said Ivan with a smile, ‘but perhaps I spoke too soon?’
‘Do you remember when he was little, his “traps”?’ said Catriona. ‘In the London house – how he used to drag us out into the garden where he’d tied all the plants and garden implements together with string?’
‘Wearing my father’s old RAF cap and holding his cap gun? How could I forget?’
They both laughed at the memory. But when the laughter trailed off, the room felt heavy with silence. A million words formed in Ivan’s head, most of them beginning with I’m sorry, but none of them coming near to conveying the regret that he actually felt. In the end, silence seemed more respectful. Catriona, who’d been fine up until this point, suddenly found herself having to use every ounce of energy not to cry. When Hector called ‘Ready!’, she shot out of her seat like a racehorse at the sound of the starter’s pistol, practically running into the garden.
‘What do you think?’ Hector looked at his mother expectantly.
‘Oh!’ Catriona gasped. ‘Oh my goodness gracious! He’s lovely!’
A pathetically small brown and white puppy snuffled and tumbled its way over the cold stone path. It had too much skin for its tiny frame, like a bloodhound or a basset, but the longer legs and wiry coat suggested some sort of terrier. Gambolling over Catriona’s flower beds, it threw itself at Ivan’s feet, pressing itself into his trouser leg for warmth. Ivan crouched down to pet it, pulling it up onto his lap where it promptly peed.
Utterly charmed, he turned to Hector. ‘Where did you get him? He’s a cross-breed, I presume?’ In the delight of the moment, he had forgotten to edit himself around his son and just asked the question naturally. Hector responded in kind.
‘He’s from Middle Farm in Icomb. Fifty quid. The bitch is a Jack Russell with a bit of spaniel in her, I think. Maisie, Jonas Lyon’s dog.’
‘My God,’ laughed Ivan. ‘I remember that dog. Hasn’t Jonas had her since prep school? I’d have thought she was a bit long in the tooth for puppies.’
‘That’s what the Lyons all thought. They’ve got no idea who fathered the litter, but I reckon it was a pedigree something. Look at the way Byron holds his head up. He knows he’s something special.’
‘Byron?’ Catriona giggled, watching the scruffy little dog worrying at the sleeve of Ivan’s cashmere Aquascutum Jacket. ‘As in the poet?’
‘As in Lord Byron,’ said Hector firmly. ‘Was he a poet? I thought he was just a cool dude. Anyway, he’s a present for Rosie, a sort of sorry-for-being-such-a-tosser-last-year slash Christmas present. Do you think she’ll like him?’
The question was addressed to Catriona, but Ivan answered, with Byron still hanging off his arm, legs flailing and tail wagging wildly. ‘She’ll love him, mate,’ he grinned. ‘He’s a fucking inspiration.’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ said Hector. And quite without thinking, the two of them hugged.
Upstairs at her bedroom window, Rosie had watched the whole scene play out. The puppy, her parents’ obvious affection, Hector and Ivan laughing and joking with one another, like the old days. It should have made her happy. Everybody getting along at last. But instead she locked her bedroom door, sank down on the bed, put her head in her hands and wept.
Two days before her wedding to Ivan, Kendall booked herself into a suite of rooms at The Connaught Hotel in London. Tucked away in a quiet corner of Mayfair, The Connaught was less flashy and brash than The Dorchester or The Berkeley, yet every bit as exclusive. Downstairs the lobby and formal rooms were decorated in classic English upper-class style, w
ith eighteenth-century portraits and landscapes on the walls, antique but unfussy mahogany furniture and exquisite red and blue Persian rugs thrown over wide, walnut floorboards. Upstairs, Kendall’s ‘apartment suite’ was more sleek and modern in design, a smart mixture of dark blues and greys contrasting with the crisp white linens and gleaming silver fixtures. At over three thousand square feet, the suite was vast, comprising of three bedrooms, each with their own bathroom, a living room, study, library, butler’s pantry and two terraces. Rosie, Ivan’s daughter, and Stella Bayley, Kendall’s bridesmaid and maid of honour respectively, would spend the night before the wedding in the two spare bedrooms. Then, on the morning itself, the reception rooms and terraces would be flooded with stylists, hairdressers, dress designers, make-up artists, florists and the rest of the seemingly never-ending entourage considered essential for a modern celebrity wedding. It would, Kendall told herself, be fun.
So far, since the first heady days of her engagement, there’d been little time for fun. Flame’s success, and the furore surrounding her and Ivan’s marriage, meant that Kendall had been on a pretty much ceaseless round of publicity. Every day she had at least four ‘official’ work engagements, CD signings, appearances on TV or radio shows, photoshoots for fashion magazines or for commercial sponsors. But, beyond that, every time she stepped outside her door she was ‘on’, playing the role of the returning mega-star, or the ecstatic fiancée, smiling till her jaw ached and waving till her wrists felt limp. She had no idea how Kate Middleton did it. As exciting and rewarding as it was to be the centre of so much attention, it could not fairly be categorized as ‘fun’.
It also meant that she had almost no time to think about the personal side of what was happening to her. Marrying Ivan was more than just a wedding. It was a marriage, a commitment to forge a life together, to have children, to grow old. How did she feel about that? She told herself she was happy, that she loved Ivan. If she was confused and anxious, it was because it had all happened so suddenly, the proposal, the media frenzy, the sudden career success. Even so, for someone who’d just been given everything she ever wanted wrapped up in a big red bow, Kendall felt a pronounced lack of elation. For some reason she found herself longing to speak to Lex Abrahams. In past emotional crises he’d always made sense of things for her in a way that no one else since had been able to. Twice since she’d checked in to the Connaught, she’d dialled Lex’s number, only to hang up the phone at the first ring.