Friends & Rivals

  ‘Who’d run it?’ asked Lex.

  ‘Me? You?’ Jack beamed. ‘Personally I’d be happy on either side of the pond.’

  No decision had been made, but they’d have plenty of time to discuss it between now and the New Year. In the light of Ava’s unexpected news, both of them had cancelled tomorrow’s flights to LA.

  Looking at Lex now, Jack was taken aback by how down he looked. You wouldn’t think the guy had just scored a major career coup, not to mention that he was here celebrating one of the biggest nights in his girlfriend’s life.

  A flurry of popping flashbulbs disturbed his train of thought. Turning around, he was astonished to see Kendall, looking tired but stunning in a long white gown, battling her way through the crowd towards him.

  ‘Hey!’ His face lit up. ‘You’re the last person I expected to see tonight.’

  She kissed him on the cheek and the flashbulbs went wild. ‘I thought I should come and congratulate Ava in person. Let her know there are no hard feelings.’

  ‘Well, now’s your chance,’ said Jack. Noticing the commotion, Ava had made a beeline for Kendall. She looked at her warily, almost as if she might be an impostor, or had stowed an explosive device in her clutch bag. Perhaps I can’t blame her after such a bitter campaign, thought Kendall, but she could act a little more magnanimously in victory.

  ‘Congratulations.’ Kendall stuck out her hand. ‘It’s an awesome song. You deserve the success.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Ava, blindsided by this spontaneous show of generosity, especially after some of the horrible things Kendall and Ivan had told the press about her in the past few weeks. But her distrustful look had more to do with Kendall’s looks than her sincerity, or lack of it. She’d forgotten quite how stunning the girl was close up, like a Greek goddess. Until Kendall walked in, Ava had felt sexy in her black leather trousers and off-the-shoulder top from Current Elliott. Now she felt like Buttons beside Kendall’s Cinderella – and this was supposed to be her pantomime, her party, her night. She glanced over her shoulder to see if Lex was drooling over Kendall too, but was gratified to see he had turned away and was busy chatting with her parents. ‘It was sweet of you to stop by.’

  The two girls hugged, and Ava hurried back to Lex’s side.

  ‘That was big of you,’ said Jack, wrapping an arm around Kendall’s shoulder and giving her a paternal squeeze. ‘Not many people would have had the courage to show up here tonight. You look amazing, by the way.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Kendall. Her voice was getting croaky again. ‘I feel like shit.’

  Across the room, Lex finally gave in to his curiosity and turned to sneak a quick look at Kendall. When he did, his heart sank into the pit of his stomach. She and Jack were all over each other again, arms wrapped around one another like they didn’t care who saw them. Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. After all that bullshit Messenger gave me about ‘nothing happened’. He’s clearly trying it on with her, and she’s lapping up every second of it.

  ‘Would you like some free advice?’ Jack asked Kendall.

  ‘If it’s about my love life, then no, thanks all the same. I’m becoming a nun and that’s an end to it.’

  He laughed. ‘Now that I would pay to see. It’s not about your love life. It’s purely professional. You should focus more strongly on live performance.’

  Kendall blinked. ‘What?’ This wasn’t the advice she’d expected.

  ‘I don’t think you and Ivan are seeing the big picture, here. Ava beat you to number one because she had a better song. She has better writers and better producers, not because she’s more talented but because she has a huge US label behind her.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

  ‘So play to your strengths, not your weaknesses. You’re twice the live performer she is. If you focused on filling stadiums around the world rather than flogging mediocre singles in your domestic market, you could be up there with Christina and Beyoncé.’

  Kendall raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Since when did you get into flattery?’

  ‘Since never. I’m serious. What happened today was a setback to your UK career, not an end to it. Don’t focus on the setback. Focus on the opportunity.’ He pulled out a business card and handed it to her. ‘This has my new cell and …’ he scrawled something on the back ‘… private email. I’d like you to think about signing with JSM.’

  Kendall shook her head. ‘I couldn’t do that to Ivan. Not now. I’m really worried about him.’

  She told Jack about Ivan’s radio silence since the chart was announced and his no-show at their own party earlier.

  ‘Discuss it with him,’ said Jack. ‘Believe it or not, I’m not doing this to kick the guy when he’s down. I care too much about Catriona and his kids for that. But you may find he wants out too.’

  This hadn’t occurred to Kendall, but she supposed Jack might have a point. Now that her big new UK deal was dead in the water, was it really worth Ivan’s while economically to stay on as her manager? If not, and he was serious about making a go of things with Catriona, he might be willing to let her go.

  ‘What about Lex?’ She bit her lower lip nervously. ‘I thought you said he didn’t want me back. That he was dead against it.’

  ‘He was.’ Jack glanced over at Lex and Ava, who were chatting to Ava’s father, arm in arm. ‘But things have changed since then.’

  ‘You really think he’d go for it?’ Kendall failed to keep the hope out of her voice.

  ‘Ask him,’ said Jack.

  ‘Ask him’, thought Kendall. Yeah, right. Like it’s that easy. ‘Hey, Lexi, have you forgiven me for being a total bitch and trying to ruin your life? You have? Great! How about we work together?’ But despite her misgivings, she found herself inching slowly in Lex’s direction. She waited till Ava had wandered off to work the room before tapping him on the shoulder.

  ‘Hi.’

  Lex spun around and looked at her. The dress was stunning, and her perfectly made-up face as magnetically beautiful as ever. But beneath the artistry he could see she was tired and drawn. She’s upset she lost today. But I guess now she has Jack to comfort her. His expression hardened. ‘Hello, Kendall.’

  Oh dear, thought Kendall. He’s still mad at me for the other day, finding me in Jack’s bed. But surely Jack explained? He said he’d cleared everything up, that he and Lex were cool again.

  Desperately nervous all of a sudden, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Finally she blurted out, ‘Do you have any plans for Christmas?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll have to stick around in Britain for a while, now that Ava’s gonna be in such demand.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  It was like getting blood from a stone. Kendall took a deep breath.

  ‘Jack and I were just talking about the possibility of me signing on with JSM, maybe even coming back to LA for a while.’

  ‘Of course you were,’ said Lex contemptuously. The conversation was not progressing as Kendall had hoped.

  ‘I wouldn’t do it if you didn’t feel comfortable with it,’ she said hurriedly. ‘JSM is your company too. I wouldn’t dream—’

  Lex swatted her words away like an irritating fly. ‘I couldn’t care less. You and Jack do as you please.’ He started looking around for someone to talk to, an escape route. It was unbearable, listening to her lay the groundwork for a romance with Jack, but her pity for his feelings was the last straw.

  ‘If you prefer I didn’t come to LA—’ began Kendall, but Lex cut her off again.

  ‘It makes no difference to me,’ he said brutally. ‘In fact, I’ll probably be setting up a new London office next year, so our paths need never cross. Johnny!’ He waved to an acquaintance like a man flagging down a lifeboat and left Kendall standing there without another word.

  She was still standing when Jack came up to her. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Hmmm?’ She awoke as if from a dream. ‘Oh. He said he was fine with it.
He said he’d be running the London office, so if I came to LA our paths wouldn’t cross.’

  ‘Did he?’ Jack’s expression visibly brightened. Lex had seemed totally noncommittal about London earlier, so this was good news indeed.

  ‘You know what? I’m shattered,’ said Kendall, who suddenly looked it. ‘Do you mind if I cut and run?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Jack, kissing her warmly on the cheek. ‘Take care of yourself, Kendall, OK? And think about my offer.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Oh, and Kendall?’ Jack called after her as she headed for the door.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Merry Christmas.’

  The streets of Mayfair were deserted as Kendall’s black cab weaved its way south towards the river.

  Christmas Eve, Kendall thought sadly. Everyone has somewhere to go. Family. Friends. Everyone but me.

  Then she pulled herself together. She had family, albeit scattered and far away. More to the point, she had a friend, a friend she’d be joining for Christmas lunch tomorrow just as soon as she knew that Ivan had turned up somewhere, safe. Thank God for Stella. Where on earth would I be without her?

  Just then her mobile rang. Kendall leapt on it. ‘Ivan?’

  ‘No. It’s me.’

  Catriona sounded cold and distant. It was years since the two women had spoken, but the pain was still evident in Catriona’s voice. Not knowing what to say – what could she say to the wife whose husband she’d stolen and whose family she’d destroyed – Kendall said nothing.

  Catriona’s next words shot through her veins like ice.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s been an accident. Kendall? Are you there?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kendall croaked. ‘I’m here. What happened?’

  ‘Drink-driving. The stupid arse downed the best part of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and wrapped his car round a tree on the Oxford Ring Road.’

  Is he …?’

  ‘He’s alive.’

  The relief was so huge that Kendall thought she might vomit. She opened the window of the cab, letting in a blast of freezing night air.

  ‘But we don’t know for how long.’ Finally Catriona’s calm, capable façade slipped. Kendall recognized the terror in her short, sharp intakes of breath. ‘He’s in Intensive Care at the John Radcliffe. He hasn’t regained consciousness.’ The tears flowed freely now. ‘I don’t know how things stand between you, but you’re listed as his next of kin. Oh, Kendall!’ Catriona broke down into uncontrollable sobs. ‘The doctors are saying he might not last the night.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Two months later, Los Angeles

  Jack walked along the paths of the St Martin of Tours cemetery, enjoying the crunch of gravel under his feet. It was early, not yet eight, but it was already shaping up to be a beautiful day, the sort of day that only LA could provide in the depths of winter. Above him a pale morning sky was beginning to burn through the mist and filter through the leaves of the giant eucalyptus trees. The air smelled of pine and honeysuckle and newly mown grass. Summer scents. They added to the sense of peace that Jack always felt when he came here. He’d never been a religious man – that was always Sonya’s bag. But he had soul enough to appreciate the tranquillity of this church-

  yard.

  Crouching down by Sonya’s grave, he swept away some dry leaves with his hands and laid down his flowers. In the early days he’d found it too painful to come here. It was too brutal a reminder of his loss. Later, the feeling became one of awkwardness. What sort of crazy person brought flowers to a dead person? But now, stretching out his long legs on the grass, Jack felt totally relaxed. He found he could talk with an easy sense of companionship, certain somehow that Sonya was there, she was listening. It beat therapy every time.

  ‘I miss her,’ he confided. ‘I mean, I’m here, I’m with you, it’s a beautiful day. I’m not unhappy. But I miss her more than I thought I would.’

  The ‘her’ in question was Catriona Charles. Ivan’s car accident had been a terrible shock for all of them, even Jack. Pictures of his totalled Bentley printed in the Sun were shocking enough to make strangers wince. The car looked like a crushed Coke can, its entire front section obliterated by the huge tree Ivan had careered into at over eighty miles an hour. No one should have survived that crash, still less done so with their mental faculties intact. But then Ivan Charles always had had the luck of the devil.

  After six weeks at the John Radcliffe Hospital, with Catriona dutifully visiting him for hours each day, the jammy bastard had made a full recovery. He would still need hours of physio, possibly for the rest of his life, and he was under strict doctor’s orders to rest and avoid stress of any kind. Kendall had also made regular visits. The shock of what had happened seemed finally to have cleared the way for forgiveness, and there was no animosity towards her from Catriona or the children. Even Hector had hugged her in the hospital cafeteria, a moment that brought tears to Kendall’s eyes.

  ‘I won’t be able to manage you any more, you know,’ Ivan told her, sipping his favourite orange juice that Catriona had brought in from Huffkins in Burford. ‘According to the quacks here, all I’m fit for is knitting.’

  Kendall laughed. ‘Please! You wouldn’t have the patience.’

  She didn’t say anything to Ivan, because she didn’t want to risk upsetting him or precipitating a fight, but the truth was she’d already decided to quit the business. Jack’s offer to join JSM was a generous one and kindly meant, but the thought of seeing Lex Abrahams at work every single day was more than Kendall could bear. He and Ava were happy, and she told herself she could be happy for them … but only from a distance. In any case, her heart just wasn’t in it any more. The music business wasn’t about music. It was about business. In the early days with Ivan, she’d enjoyed the fight, the constant battle to stay at the top of one’s game. But not any more. She wanted to go home, to see her family, to start again. It was time to close this chapter and open a new one.

  Jack had called Catriona a couple of times, but he knew from Kendall how Ivan still felt about her, and he was wary of doing anything that might jeopardize his recovery, or make a difficult situation worse. The times they had spoken, Catriona had sounded strange, agitated, as if she were in a hurry to get him off the phone. Reluctantly, Jack had taken the hint and backed off.

  ‘I spoke to Hugh Storey the other day,’ Jack told Sonya. ‘You remember Hugh, from Oxford? The rower who looked like John Cleese? Anyway, he said Ivan was living with Catriona again. He ran into him at some lunch party in Woodstock and Ivan said he was happier than he’d been in years. You’re going to tell me I should be happy for him, aren’t you? Happy for both of them? Well, you’re right of course. That’s the trouble with you, Son. You’re always right.’

  At that moment a starling landed right on top of the gravestone. It hopped from foot to foot, observing Jack for a moment with its beady, amber eyes. Then it took off, swooping back up into the trees.

  Jack grinned. ‘I get it. You wanna change the subject.’

  He tried to think about something positive to tell her, some happy news to share. JSM was going great guns, but Sonya didn’t want to hear about business. Eventually he said, ‘Lex is coming home today. I’m worried about him, actually. He’s supposed to be setting up our new office in London, which he was excited about. But every time we’ve spoken recently he sounds like his cat just died.’

  Jack would see Lex tonight at dinner. He hoped his fears were ill-founded, that he’d just been catching his partner at bad moments on the phone. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was really wrong.

  Lex gazed out of the plastic plane window at the familiar sights below. The wide grid of freeways, lined with toy-sized palm trees; the grey circle of smog surrounding the city like a carefully blown smoke ring; the tower blocks of downtown, incongruous in such a low-rise city, and dwarfed by the snow-capped peak of Big Bear behind them. This was LA. This was ‘home’. So why did it feel so alien? He
’d been desperate to get out of England. But now that he was finally here, it hit him with a jolt that what he was running from could not be escaped with air miles. Geography couldn’t fix a broken heart.

  ‘I’m gonna have to ask you to stow your computer, sir,’ the pretty stewardess told him politely. ‘We’ve started our descent.’

  ‘Of course. Sorry.’ Lex flipped shut his MacBook and handed it over. He’d had the figures open on his lap for the past three hours, but may as well have been staring at a blank screen. What’s happening to me? I can’t focus on anything.

  He’d finally done the deed and broken up with Ava last night. He’d assumed that she already knew things weren’t right between them. He’d been so down and evasive with her lately, refusing to look at apartments for them to move into in London or to talk about summer vacation plans; barely touching her sexually. He’d given her all the signs. But when he actually sat her down and let her know it was over, she’d gasped and sobbed and wailed like a wounded animal. It was awful, just awful.

  Today wouldn’t be much better. He’d barely slept a wink on the plane, and tonight he had to face Jack and tell him that he wouldn’t be moving to London after all. Someone else would have to oversee JSM’s expansion. Lex had only offered to do it in the first place because the alternative was coming back to LA and spending every day with Kendall. But now that she’d turned down Jack’s offer and reportedly quit the music business, there was nothing to stop him coming home. London winters were grey and bleak and long and unutterably depressing. One more and he’d end up on suicide watch.

  They landed on time and for once Lex made it quickly through Customs and baggage claim. The heat mugged him the moment he stepped outside, the sunlight so bright he instantly began scrambling for his shades. Jumping into a yellow cab, he headed straight to Malibu. Patricia, his lovely Guatemalan housekeeper, was there to greet him, relieving him of his bags in the pristine white kitchen and offering to make him frittatas.