Friends & Rivals

  ‘Let Ivan know I’ll see him,’ said Kendall, brushing her hair back from her face and wincing at the pain as she inadvertently touched her bruises. ‘He can come over as soon as I’m dressed.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Kendall nodded. ‘You’ll be in the house, though, won’t you? You don’t have to go and pick up Miley or anything?’

  ‘Oh don’t worry,’ said Stella firmly. ‘I’ll be here. I wouldn’t dream of leaving you alone with him. Besides,’ she added meaningfully, ‘I have a few things I want to say to your husband myself.’

  Unsurprisingly, Ivan turned up looking ashen, miserable, and as remorseful as either Stella or Kendall had ever seen him.

  ‘I feel terrible,’ he told Stella in the kitchen, while Kendall finished getting ready upstairs. ‘Just terrible.’

  ‘Yeah, well, a hangover’ll do that to you,’ said Stella unsympathetically, pulling the dead leaves off her potted basil.

  Ivan groaned.

  ‘You have a serious drinking problem,’ Stella went on. ‘You do know that, right?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ grumbled Ivan. ‘I thought I had it under control, but when I got home last night and she wasn’t there … when I realized what I’d done …’ His eyes welled with tears. ‘I’m not a violent person.’

  ‘We’re all violent people under the right circumstances,’ said Stella, slightly more softly. ‘And you have a horrific temper.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?’

  ‘I hope not,’ said Stella, angrily tearing some healthy basil leaves.

  Just then Kendall walked in. She was wearing Stella’s clothes, a white chunky-knit sweater over a ‘sensible’ pair of dark jeans. The outfit completely de-sexualised her. Perhaps that’s the intention, thought Ivan. It also did nothing to distract attention from the awful swelling on her face.

  She looked at Ivan without emotion. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi.’

  Silence hung in the air between them like a wall.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me.’

  They went into the sitting room and sat down on opposing sofas, as awkward as two teenagers on a blind date. Clearly the onus was on Ivan to begin, to say something. ‘Sorry’ was laughably inadequate, yet not to say it was impossible, unforgivable. He cleared his throat nervously.

  ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry, Kendall. I didn’t mean to push you so hard. I was just lashing out. I … I don’t know why I did it.’

  ‘I do,’ said Kendall. ‘You were angry, you were drunk and you thought you could get away with it.’

  Ivan crossed his legs gingerly, jokingly cupping his hands over his crotch. ‘Yeah, well. You soon put me right on that last one.’ He tried to smile, but Kendall wasn’t laughing. ‘Sorry,’ said Ivan lamely. For almost a full minute he stared down at his shoes. When he looked up he was crying, properly crying, the tears rolling unchecked down his cheeks like a small child who’s suddenly lost sight of its mother.

  ‘Are you going to leave me?’

  When she walked into the room, Kendall hadn’t had an answer to that question. Now, unexpectedly strengthened by his weakness, she found she did.

  ‘No,’ she said calmly, ‘I’m not going to leave you. I’m going to stay, and we’re going to be happy, and if Ava Bentley comes back to Britain, with or without Lex or Jack or any other hangovers she’s stolen from my old life, we’re going to wipe the fucking floor with her.’

  Ivan was so happy he could have burst into song. He was convinced it was the stress of Ava’s ‘comeback’ that had finally pushed him over the edge. But not only was Kendall not going to leave him, she was going to fight Ava and JSM with him. She was going to be his team-mate, his best friend, the way that Catriona always used to be.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ he gushed, ‘I can’t tell you how much that means to—’

  ‘Not so fast.’ Kendall’s tone was icy. ‘If I agree to come back I expect things to change.’

  ‘Of course.’ Ivan nodded, humbled. ‘Whatever you want.’

  ‘You have to quit drinking. Completely.’

  ‘I know. I will. I have, as of this morning.’

  ‘I’m serious, Ivan.’ For the first time Kendall’s own voice started to break. ‘I’m not talking about a few days off because you feel guilty. I need you to stop for good.’

  ‘I know and I will.’ Getting up, Ivan came over and sat next to her. ‘Catriona was drinking very heavily a year or so ago and she knocked it on the head just like that. I’ll talk to her about AA or support groups or—’

  ‘No!’ Kendall sat up, physically pushing him away. ‘I don’t want you talking to Catriona. I don’t want her anywhere near us. She’s part of the reason you started drinking in the first place.’

  Ivan frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  I mean that you miss her and your old life. But you can’t have it while you’re with me, and you don’t want to lose me, so you feel like you’re being ripped apart and you drink to blot it out.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Kendall ‘I don’t know what I mean. I just … I don’t want that woman involved in our lives.’

  Ivan reached out and stroked her hair. That woman. It was the clearest expression of jealousy he’d heard yet from Kendall, and although he knew it shouldn’t, it reassured him. If she was jealous of Catriona, she must still care. His own sexual jealousy and paranoia about Kendall being with other men was the glue that kept him with her. That and the fact that they needed one another professionally, now more than ever with Ava Bentley’s UK comeback on the horizon.

  ‘I won’t talk to Cat,’ Ivan assured Kendall. ‘Not if you don’t want me to.’

  ‘Of course you can talk to her,’ said Kendall. ‘About the children, or whatever. Just not about drinking or our private lives. And I’d like to be there when you do talk to her. I don’t want to feel shut out any more. I’m family now too, remember?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Ivan. ‘Of course you are. And I will stop drinking. I promise you, sweetheart. I’ll be a model husband from now on. I’ll make this up to you.’

  ‘Good,’ said Kendall, willing herself to believe him. She still felt angry and humiliated and hurt. But she focused on channelling those feelings away from Ivan and towards Ava. Ava was the threat, not just to Kendall’s career and her UK dominance, but to her marriage. It was Ava’s betrayal that had pushed Ivan over the edge, Ava’s relationship with Lex that had made Kendall fuck up last night’s gig, Ava’s return to England that had lit the match which ignited an explosion of violence in Kendall’s relationship.

  Once Ava was out of the picture, things would get better with Ivan.

  They had to.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ‘Team Ava’– consisting of Ava herself, Lex, Jack, Lisa Marie, Ava’s publicist Jen Gomez, and two Columbia gofers who delighted in the names of Chuck and Rusty – landed at Heathrow on 1 December. The next day the biggest snowfall for twenty years dumped itself over London, carpeting the city in a magical blanket of white and bringing services, transport and life in general to a complete, grinding halt.

  ‘This is a disaster!’ Jack stared out of the window of his suite at The Dorchester, cell phone in hand. ‘Ava’s supposed to be filming live in Manchester tonight but all the motorways are kaput, domestic flights have been cancelled and the train services are running a skeleton service, whatever the fuck that means?’

  ‘Helicopter?’ suggested Jen Gomez. Sitting at the desk in the office section of Jack’s suite, Jen was wading through last week’s press clippings on Ava’s imminent arrival in Britain. Thanks to a relentless and brutally successful PR campaign being waged by Kendall Bryce’s camp, the coverage was wholly negative. Ava had been painted as a traitor who’d turned her back on Britain and her roots and been corrupted by the lure of Hollywood, money and fame. Much had been made of her ‘manufactured’ new look, which the entire nation apparently loathed. One article even poured scorn on Ava’s ‘newly adopted American accent’, an
entirely fictitious creation as Jen Gomez knew only too well. One of Jen’s biggest challenges when it came to promoting Pure had been trying to make Ava’s broad Yorkshire vowels understandable to a US audience. The kid sounded about as American as Gerard Depardieu with a throat infection. But the Daily Fail weren’t about to let a little thing like facts get in the way of a good, bitchy feature.

  ‘I tried.’ Jack threw his arms up in frustration. ‘But it looks like every rich banker in London trying to get to Gstaad had the same idea. There’s not a chopper to be had. We’ll have to cancel.’

  Jen groaned. She could see the headlines now. ‘Spoilt Brat Bentley “Too Important” For Regional Chat Show.’‘Ava Snubs North To Party With Hollywood Pals In London.’ It was terribly unfair. Anyone less starry and self-centred than Ava would be hard to imagine. So far Jen and the team had managed to shield Ava herself from the worst of the bad press. But the truth was they had a mountain to climb if they were going to win back the British public in time to have a shot at being Christmas number one.

  Just then Ava stuck her head round the door. In a red woolly hat with a bobble on it, a matching puffa jacket and big, white, fluffy snow boots, she looked like an excited little kid about to go sledging. ‘Any news?’

  ‘We’re cancelling,’ said Jack. ‘We’ve tried, but there’s no way to get you there. It can’t be done.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ said Ava, grinning from ear to ear. She clearly had no idea how important these first few days of publicity were. All she wanted to do was go outside and play. ‘Am I free for lunch then? My dad booked a table at a posh Italian in Knightsbridge. He wants to meet Lex.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re free,’ said Jen. ‘Have fun.’

  ‘And if anyone wants your autograph or asks for a picture, make sure you give them one and make nice,’ added Jack. ‘You want to make a good impression out there.’

  Ava looked at him strangely. ‘Of course I’ll give people my autograph. Why on earth wouldn’t I?’ Skipping out through the door, she was gone.

  Lex had not wanted to come to London. He had disapproved of the whole exercise from the first, and had kept up his told-you-so grumbling all the way across the Atlantic, much to Jack’s irritation. Not only had Ava’s own reputation been thoroughly trounced by the notoriously no-holds-barred British media, but her return to London had actually boosted Kendall’s own image and profile. Pictures of Kendall and Ivan together looking loved-up and supportive in the face of Ava’s ‘betrayal’ were everywhere. Whereas Ava was the local girl who’d been corrupted by evil Americans, Kendall was the new Kylie, the foreigner who’d abandoned her own country for England and made it her home. The Brits couldn’t get enough. If Lex read one more interview about how much Kendall adored England, how she loved spending time in the countryside and the north, how her favourite food was steak and kidney pudding and she’d given up vodka in favour of Guinness, he was seriously gonna puke.

  But even he was having a tough time being down on London this morning. Ava had leapt out of bed literally shrieking with delight when she saw the snow, and it was hard not to share at least some of her childlike enthusiasm. The city looked unreal, like a scene from a Victorian Christmas card, all snow-topped spires and silent, muffled-white streets. Walking to Harrods to do some Christmas shopping (there was no other way to get there) he passed rows of grand, white-stucco-fronted houses, whose front gardens had been transformed overnight into perfectly iced wedding cakes. Turning into Hyde Park, a frosted wonderland of majestic oaks, their leaves shocked white like old men’s hair, interspersed with dark, shiny green holly bushes, some of them erupting in a profusion of blood-red berries, the thing that struck Lex most was the silence. There wasn’t an engine to be heard, only the soft crunch of footfalls in the snowy blanket and the distant peal of church bells. Unlike Oxford Street, Kensington and Chelsea had eschewed gaudy holiday fanfare, decorating their pretty streets instead with greenery. Miniature Christmas trees clung to the top of lampposts, which twinkled in the evenings with merry white lights. But if nature and a Conservative council had restricted the outdoor decorations to a restrained palette of green and white, the explosion of color and richness inside Harrods more than made up for it.

  Walking through the Food Hall just moments after it opened, Lex felt like Charlie entering the hallowed gates of Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory. Visually it was a work of art, an Aladdin’s cave of edible gems in every conceivable shape and colour. There were mountains of candied fruit, iced cabinets full of seafood and vast plates of multicoloured salads. There were chocolates and cheeses and a bakery stuffed with everything from vivid green and pink French macaroons to rustic brown loaves of Irish soda bread. There was coffee from Colombia and juicily trussed joints of beef from Scotland. Finest sushi-grade albacore was being sliced by Japanese chefs just two feet away from blazing pizza ovens, where an Italian man was already doing something wonderful with rosemary and oregano, the scent of which filled the air and made Lex’s mouth water. And that was just the ground floor.

  Upstairs there was everything from carpets to Christmas cards, modern Danish furniture to priceless, millennia-old fossils. There were dazzling evening dresses and medieval maps and harpsichords and Barbie dolls and diamonds. Nowhere in LA came close to this place. And no store Lex had ever been in, anywhere in the world, could touch Harrods when it came to Christmas spirit. Not even Lex could keep up his Scrooge routine in here.

  At twelve-thirty, laden down with shopping bags but considerably lighter in the wallet, Lex re-emerged onto Walton Street. Ava had texted to say the Manchester trip was off and her entire schedule for the next forty-eight hours was ‘on hold’. While the country held its collective breath, waiting to see if yet more snow was on its way overnight, Ava’s father Dave had booked a table for lunch at Scalini.

  Lex had last been to the restaurant a decade ago, as a young photographer touring with Enrique Iglesias. It hadn’t changed at all, a good thing in Lex’s book, and he tried to relax as he was led to the table. OK, so Dave Bentley had a reputation as being a bit overbearing. But really, how bad could he be over the course of one lunch? Besides, it wasn’t as if Lex was about to marry Ava or anything. They’d only been dating for less than a year, so today wasn’t going to be some sort of son-in-law interview.

  ‘There you are!’ A fat, red-faced Tweedledum of a man in tweed trousers and a garish yellow sweater stood up and literally bellowed across the room, much to the consternation of the other diners. ‘You’d better not keep her waiting like this at the altar, eh? EH?’ Dave Bentley roared with laughter at his own joke. Beside him, Ava sat mortified, doing her best to shrink into her chair.

  ‘Alex, in’t it?’

  Lex had arrived at the table now and bent down to kiss Ava hello. As he did so, Dave’s arm came down like a metal rod, thwacking him so hard on the back and shoulders he almost fell into Ava’s lap. ‘Pleased to meet you at last.’

  ‘You too, sir,’ gasped Lex, struggling to get his breath back.

  ‘He goes by Lex, Dad,’ said Ava meekly. ‘I told you that, remember?’

  ‘Lex?’ Dave boomed. ‘Lex? That’s not a name. Not for a person anyway.’

  ‘Dad!’

  ‘Well I’m sorry, but I speak as I find. It’s a car isn’t it?’ He laughed again. ‘No, no, I’ll stick to Alex if you don’t mind. I’m not ’aving my daughter marrying a fella who sounds like a bleedin’ Cabriolet. Wine?’

  ‘Er, no thank you, not for me. I never drink in the middle of the—’

  ‘Oh, go on, ’ave a glass. You’re all health nuts aren’t you, you Americans?’ Dave filled Lex’s glass to the brim. ‘Cheers, Big Ears!’

  It was going to be a long, long lunch.

  Kendall sat beside Ivan in the helicopter, gazing down at the winter wonderland below.

  ‘How long till we get to Manchester?’ she shouted over the whirring blades.

  ‘About an hour,’ said Ivan smugly. He was picturing Jack Messenger’s face
when Kendall appeared on Good Morning tomorrow in Ava’s stead. Talk about a coup. By the time Kendall had finished charming the pants off the audience and painting Ava as the two-faced little snake that she was, he wouldn’t be surprised if Jack gave up the whole misguided Christmas number one campaign and flew back to LA with his tail between his legs.

  Kendall stared out of the window. The noise of the chopper gave her a perfect excuse to avoid conversation. These days she found the less she talked to Ivan, the easier it was. Not that there was any hostility between them. In fact all their private interactions were scrupulously, painfully polite. (As opposed to their public encounters, which were gushingly romantic and Brangelina-esque.) Ivan had kept to his word and stopped drinking. He’d also done a spectacular job of orchestrating the smear campaign against Ava and bolstering Kendall’s own public image in the run-up to Christmas. But all of the fun, the spark and banter, had gone out of the relationship. The sexual chemistry that had been their one constant since the earliest days seemed to have deserted them, like an exhausted guardian angel. Kendall had forgiven Ivan for what happened that night at The 100 Club. So it was a surprise to find that forgiveness alone was not enough. Something had broken that day, a connection between them had snapped, and nothing either of them did or said could bring it back again.

  Kendall knew it. Ivan knew it. But nobody had the desire or the courage to say it out loud, still less to think about what it meant for their future. Especially now with their mutual enemy at the gate.

  Kendall wondered briefly about Ava, where she was right now and whether she was with Lex. Closing her eyes, she forced the thought out of her mind. She had trained herself to shut down her emotions when it came to Ivan. As for Jack, last time he was in England she’d been in pieces mentally, but this time she felt nothing at all. She could do the same with Lex. She’d have to if she was going to protect herself, no matter how many loved-up shots of him and Ava arriving hand in hand at Heathrow she was forced to endure.