The only detail that stood out in stark relief was Vaughn. It was early November now, and though Grace had swapped bare legs for woolly tights and had got used to the way her hair swished about her shoulders, her feelings about Vaughn hadn’t changed much from the first day they’d met.
He still had her on the freaked-out setting and Grace couldn’t imagine that changing any time soon. She’d started to think of him as two separate people. There was Good Vaughn, who was as elusive as a rainbow after a rainstorm, but was funny ha ha rather than funny weird and had bought her a £3,000 crystal-embroidered Marc Jacobs dress in Paris. Then there was his far more ubiquitous evil twin, Bad Vaughn, who found fault with everything that Grace said, did and wore, from letting her phone roll over to voicemail instead of answering it in five rings or less, inserting the word ‘like’ at random intervals (‘It’s not like anything, Grace. It either is or it isn’t’) to her wearing flat shoes because ‘I never realised just how short you are.’
During the second trip to New York he’d been outbid at an auction and had sunk into such a dark mood that he hadn’t spoken to Grace all evening. He’d only started speaking to her again when they were back in his huge but spartan Central Park apartment, and that was to tell her to relax because she’d been far too tense to even think about having sex with him.
Bad Vaughn was definitely her companion for this evening, Grace thought glumly. She’d wanted to go to the restaurant at the Pembroke Hotel for weeks after she’d read a review in ES Magazine. She’d even sent Madeleine some beauty freebies as a thank you when she’d managed to book them a table, and Piers had emailed her that afternoon to say that he’d heard Madonna was going to be there. But Bad Vaughn was doing everything in his power to ruin it for her.
‘ “Amish organic free-range chicken with foraged mushrooms”,’ Vaughn recited from the menu with a sneer. ‘Ridiculous. And this fashion for truffle fries is getting very boring.’
‘What about the lobster?’ Grace suggested brightly, looking at the daily specials. He’d obviously had a stinker of a day and Bad Vaughn didn’t deal with stress very well. ‘You like lobster, right?’
‘I’ll have the lamb,’ Vaughn decided, as if he was ordering his last meal. ‘And don’t try to humour me. What are you going to have?’
Grace flushed. He had this uncanny knack of sounding like her grandmother telling her to stop showing off when she was little. No put-down since had ever taken the wind out of Grace’s sails quite so effectively. Though Vaughn came a close second.
‘I’m going to have two starters instead of a main. Maybe the crab cakes and the country salad or something.’ Grace watched Vaughn wince at her mumbling. ‘No dessert,’ she added pointedly, because if he was going to keep on being mean to her then she wasn’t going to order dessert solely so he could eat it. ‘I’m not that hungry.’
They got through the meal with the barest minimum of conversation. Every time Grace tried out another amusing bon mot to show Vaughn that she’d done the required reading for that week, it was met with a grunt until he finally told her that she was giving him a headache. She could tell he was seething about her decision not to even look at the dessert menu, but his BlackBerry kept ringing with calls that he just had to take so he couldn’t bring pressure heaping down on her.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ he hissed as it rang again, and he picked it up with a white-knuckled hand. ‘Now what?’ he barked into the receiver.
Grace looked at her reflection in the back of her spoon and tried not to eavesdrop on a very tense conversation about a collection of photographs for a new exhibition, which had been impounded by Customs for being obscene. Vaughn’s head sank lower and lower until he looked like he had no neck and he kept rubbing the bridge of his nose the way Grace did when she was getting a headache. He pushed his plate away virtually untouched and stood up.
‘Finish your dinner,’ he said shortly. ‘I’ll be waiting outside. I need to take this call. We’ll have to stop at the gallery on the way home.’
‘Um, do you want me to ask the waiter for a doggie bag?’ Grace asked, but Vaughn just scowled at her and walked off.
He was still scowling when she finally emerged from the restaurant.
‘I was beginning to think that you’d climbed out of the bathroom window and disappeared into the night,’ he snapped, as he held the car door open for her.
‘I had to get this.’ Grace handed him a little box containing a generous portion of bitter chocolate cake that she’d sweet-talked from their waiter. She really wished she hadn’t bothered now. ‘Thank you for taking me out to dinner.’
Vaughn peered at the contents of the box and Grace peered at his face and the warring emotions on it: surprise, delight and, inevitably, rejection. ‘It’s very kind of you,’ he said stiffly. ‘But I can’t eat this.’
‘You can watch me eat it then,’ Grace replied in exasperation. ‘Might even let you have a bite if—’
Grace didn’t even have a chance to finish the sentence with a sassy little quip, before Vaughn was hauling her into his arms so he could kiss her. He’d never kissed her like this before. Biting, hungry kisses, as if he couldn’t get enough of the taste of her, his hand tangling in her hair to tip Grace’s head back to meet his mouth.
His other hand was already sliding up her skirt in a possessive way, and just as she was about to protest because she didn’t want their driver to get an eyeful, Vaughn pulled away to talk to him. ‘Take us to the gallery,’ he ordered in an unsteady voice.
Grace turned to Vaughn who was now staring out of the window and looking as remote as hell. Before she had time to chicken out, Grace’s hand covered Vaughn’s so she could squeeze his fingers. The pressure was returned immediately though neither of them spoke for the time it took the car to wend its way through the Mayfair streets.
Vaughn didn’t let go of Grace’s hand until they were climbing the stairs up to his office. It should have killed the mood, but Grace didn’t feel out of the moment because the look in his eyes was heating her up from the inside.
She was already closing the gap between them as he beckoned her with one long finger. In the movies when the hero and heroine kissed in a frenzied, passionate way while they manoeuvred around the various obstacles that were between them and the nearest horizontal surface, there were never banged elbows and jostled limbs.
Grace, however, cannoned off the wall and knocked her hip on the fire extinguisher as Vaughn danced her down the corridor, arms tight around her. There was a brief pause as she fumbled with the door handle, his hands under her skirt so he could tug down the Agent Provocateur knickers that had cost her (well, him) sixty-five pounds. Grace heard the silk tear but she was already falling through the open door and being marched across the room.
Vaughn bent her over the back of the Cubist sofa, and before Grace could even wriggle out of her jacket, she heard the rasp of his zipper and he was inside her in one deep, hard stroke.
It was everything Grace hated about sex: undignified, messy, desperate - but this time she was getting dragged under. Her fingers gripped handfuls of leather cushions as she bent her head and took deep breaths in time with Vaughn’s thrusts, each one surprising a moan out of her as she ground back against him.
It was hard to move with Vaughn’s hands tight on her hips, and if she could just get one hand free to rub at her clit, then . . .
‘Are you close?’ His voice was slurred, not clipped and cut like usual, like his control was hanging by the most frayed of threads.
‘Nearly,’ Grace managed to grit out and he pushed her further into the sofa, changing the angle so she clenched around him in delighted surprise and then it was game over.
He groaned, like he was lost, as his rhythm faltered, then Vaughn was driving into her so fast and hard and all Grace could do was hold on and hope for the best. He came with a gasp that may or may not have been her name, and Grace’s elbows, which had been keeping the whole show upright, collapsed under the strain a
nd she sprawled against the back of the sofa, Vaughn on top of her, still inside her.
It was kind of nice to be like that for a minute or two. There was something comforting about the weight of Vaughn all around her, solid and reassuring. But then he was simply heavy and Grace stirred and shifted until Vaughn took the hint and set her free, taking hold of her hand again so he could sit them both down. Just this once, Grace curled herself against him so she could muss his hair. She decided to be philosophical about the sex; she’d had more near misses with Vaughn than with anyone else. Tonight she’d been closer than ever and, as an added bonus, Vaughn was still pleasingly non-verbal.
He stretched lazily, eyes closed as Grace rubbed her fingers in a slow circle against his scalp. ‘What happened to the chocolate cake?’
It was a really effective mood-killer. Grace immediately took her hand away and flopped back against the cushions with a furious little huff. ‘It’s probably still in the car.’
‘Pity,’ Vaughn sighed, completely unaware that Grace was trying to burn holes in his skin with her eyes. ‘You’ll have to put something similar on the menu when you’re planning the dinner.’
Grace sat up because snuggle-time had just been cancelled. ‘What dinner?’
Vaughn opened one eye. ‘Didn’t Madeleine mention it?’
‘No. What dinner?’ Grace repeated, her voice growing shriller.
‘You’re hosting a dinner for me on the nineteenth. Or did we move it back to the twenty-first?’ Vaughn finally sat up and adjusted his shirt, which had sustained only minor creases in all the excitement. ‘There’s no need to look quite so panic-stricken, Grace. I’ve given you two months to find your feet and this is easing you in gently. It’s just a little dinner-party for eight people, nothing that alarming.’
‘Say what?’ Yeah, he’d mentioned something about parties at the beginning but Grace hadn’t been listening that hard and she thought that she’d just wear a pretty dress and order a bevy of good-looking waiters to keep people’s glasses filled.
‘Are you unfamiliar with the concept of a dinner-party?’ Vaughn asked, his voice dripping with condescension. ‘I did mention this right at the very beginning of our arrangement, Grace, so I’m not sure why you need clarification. It’s very simple. There’ll be a Russian client of mine, another art dealer and an artist about your age, plus their significant others who I’m relying on you to entertain while I do business. You’ll plan the menu, organise the seating, gift bags and such.’
Grace wished that her knickers weren’t currently a damp, torn scrap of satin on the floor. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have bare-arsed. ‘I can’t. I just can’t,’ she insisted, hysterical now winning out over shrill. Home-made streamers and cup-cakes were not going to cut it, and no one she knew actually had a dining room to have a dinner-party in - apart from her grandmother who’d been entertaining members of the Rotary Club with a menu that she hadn’t deviated from since 1995. She could just imagine Vaughn’s white-hot fury if she served his guests smoked salmon mousse and duck à l’orange. ‘Don’t make me do this. I’ll ruin it and it’ll be crap and your guests will think I’m useless and no one will buy another painting from you ever again.’
Vaughn was staring at Grace as if her head was spinning around Exorcist-style. ‘I don’t understand why this is such a surprise,’ he said, derision curling around each syllable. ‘I’m not asking you to split the atom.’
‘God, can’t you see what a terrible idea this is? I’m a twenty-three-year-old girl who spends most of her days hanging up clothes in a fashion cupboard. Do you really think I’m the best person to organise a fucking sit-down dinner for eight people?’ Grace put her hands over her hot face. ‘If you make me do this, I will fuck it up. End of.’
Vaughn stood up; all the better to stare down at her with icy disapproval. ‘No, fucking it up is not an option,’ he said with grim finality. ‘I thought we might go back to my house after I’d made a few phone calls, but actually I’m not in the mood to listen to any more of your melodramatics.’
‘I’m not being melodramatic! You could try to understand where I’m coming from.’ It was hard to flounce seated so she settled for wriggling her shoulders furiously. She had a feeling that tears weren’t far off.
‘At the moment, Grace, you seem to be coming from another solar system.’ Vaughn was already striding towards the door. ‘I’m going to New York tomorrow. I’m back in London on Wednesday - I’ll talk to you then.’
Three days later, after a series of increasingly terse phone calls between herself and Vaughn, Grace was officially summoned to meet Madeleine Jones outside the offices of a private catering firm in Bloomsbury. Grace saw a tall, well-preserved redhead who looked like she bought all her clothes and shoes in LK Bennett sales, glancing impatiently at her watch, even though Grace was actually two minutes early. Grace thought about ducking around the corner and having a sneaky cigarette because she was dreading meeting Madeleine in the flesh, though the most recent emails and phone-calls had been almost cordial. Plus she was also freaking out about menus and temperamental chefs.
Grace got as far as pulling out her trusty Marlboro Lights but in the end steeled herself to walk up to the other woman with a perky smile. ‘Madeleine? Hi, I’m Grace.’ Maybe she should have called her Ms Jones. It suited her better than Madeleine, which was too French and frivolous and cake-related for someone who always punctuated her emails so perfectly.
Grace was being given the once-over too, Madeleine’s eyes widening slightly as she took in Grace’s jeans and jumper. But she’d been doing returns all week, and grubbing about in the cupboard in a little black dress would have been totally impractical.
‘Good, you’re on time.’ There was something about Madeleine Jones that reminded Grace of one of her lecturers at St Martin’s who’d been teaching textiles since God was a boy and had looked at each new intake of students with the world-weary air of a woman who’d seen it all before. But at least Madeleine was smiling. A polite, reined-in kind of smile, but it was a smile. ‘Shall we go in?’
They were shown into an empty dining room and took a seat at a table laid out with six different place settings. Grace stared at them in dismay. Vaughn had said nothing about cutlery and crockery - though he’d had plenty to say about Grace’s can’t do attitude when she’d spoken to him on the phone the night before. However, he’d finished the lecture with the news that Ms Jones had kindly volunteered to lend her services just this once.
‘I really appreciate you helping me out like this,’ Grace said with her most winsome look. The look that even disarmed Kiki sometimes when she was getting difficult about Grace’s very long lunches, which doubled up as spa appointments. ‘Thanks for sending me the list of all those dietary requirements. God, I can’t believe that anyone’s still doing the South Beach diet. It’s so three years ago. And what’s the difference between macrobiotic and vegan?’
‘Grace, you’re bright red. Please calm down.’
‘So, can I ask you some questions about the guest-list?’ Grace persevered, pulling a piece of paper out of her jeans pocket, because she’d long gone past calm and was edging towards hyperventilation. ‘This Russian guy’s girlfriend, I knew her name was familiar and I Googled her - and she’s practically a supermodel!’
Madeleine didn’t seem to share Grace’s distress. ‘I’m sure you can talk about fashion and all the other exciting things you do at work. Vaughn thinks the two of you will get along really well.’
Grace paused at the thought of Madeleine and Vaughn spending a cosy coffee-break discussing her and her many failings. ‘And this art dealer’s boyfriend, Alex . . . I don’t know anything about him.’
‘Vaughn says you’ve already met him. At Boris Volkova’s party in September.’
September seemed light years ago. Then Grace had a memory of an effete, annoying person blowing smoke rings in her face with her own cigarettes. ‘But Vaughn told me to keep away from him, that he was trouble - s
o why is he on the guest-list?’ It would have been helpful if Vaughn had filled her in on some of this information himself instead of telling her to stop having hysterics and leaving it to Madeleine.
‘Because Vaughn wanted to invite Harry and sadly, Alex is part of the package,’ her mentor explained. ‘If he starts causing trouble, which Vaughn seems to think he might, you’re to shut him down. Politely, but don’t stand for any nonsense.’