CHAPTER 1

The Four Seasons – No. 3 in F Major (Autumn) – Vivaldi

Andie Corcoran walked out of the bedroom, shook her burnished copper hair back from her face and cleared her throat.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Not that I want to sound like a walking clichéor anything. But – does my bum look big in this?’ She turned slowly so that Tom could see the back view of the figure-hugging electric blue dress she was wearing.

He whistled slowly as she turned. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Yes!’ She whirled around and her eyes, soft grey with little flecks of the brightest green, stared at him in horror. ‘Yes!?’

He laughed. ‘Oh, come on, Andie. Of course your bum doesn’t look big in it. You have a lovely bum. Neat but kind of voluptuous. And you look amazing. Stunning even. It’s so – so unlike you. And it’s enough to make me want to rip that dress off you straight away.’

She tried to glare at him but couldn’t quite keep the twinkle out of her eyes. ‘Well you can’t. Not yet. Just wait here a minute.’ She disappeared back into the bedroom and reappeared a moment later, this time wearing a button-fronted dress in maroon silk. ‘Is this better?’ She turned around again.

Tom exhaled slowly. ‘It’s more what you usually wear.’

‘More boring?’

He hesitated. ‘More ordinary,’ he said eventually. ‘But honestly, love, you’ll look great no matter what you wear. The clothes aren’t important.’

‘The clothes are vitally important,’ she corrected him. ‘And I don’t want to look great – even though great is exaggerating just a fraction anyway given that I weigh at least half-a-stone more than this time last year – but great isn’t good enough, Tom. I have to look sensational.’

‘I suppose it’s pointless saying that you always look sensational to me?’ He walked over to her and began to undo the tiny buttons at the front of the dress.

‘Utterly pointless,’ she agreed as she wriggled away from him. ‘I know that it doesn’t usually matter very much to me what I wear but this is the one day of the year that it does.’

‘Another year, another wrinkle.’ He grinned at her. ‘And you’re only thirty-two. Hardly pension territory yet.’

‘Old enough to think I’d have more sense.’ She pressed her fingers to her temples. ‘I guess if I was really mature I’d just grab something out of the back of the wardrobe and fling it on but I’m not quite able for that yet. Besides, I don’t want to be the one that looks as though she couldn’t afford to be there.’

Tom grinned. ”I’ll never quite get to grips with the whole designer one-upmanship that goes on among women,’ he told her. ‘although I’m glad that you don’t normally fret so much about what you’re going to wear.’ ‘Most of the time it doesn’t really matter,’ commented Andie. ‘But this is different.’ She leaned against the flat wall and looked at him pleadingly. ‘So what do you think?’

‘If you want to look demurely sensational and more like your usual self then I’d wear the maroon,’ said Tom. ‘But if you want to make a statement about being an elegant sex-bomb, the blue’s the one.’

Suddenly Andie started to giggle. ‘Sex-bomb. If only.’

‘You are to me.’ Tom put his hands on her shoulders. ‘You know you are.’

His lips found hers and this time she didn’t stop him as he fumbled at the buttons.

‘Hell’s teeth,’ he muttered. ‘There’s enough of them.’

‘Designed to slow men like you down,’ she murmured breathlessly.

‘Men like me!’ He slid the dress off her shoulders so that it suddenly rippled to the floor. ‘What d’you mean, men like me?’

‘Sexy men.’ She pushed her hands beneath his black T-shirt. ‘Stamina men.’

‘I’m glad you think I’m sexy. But stamina?’

‘Oh, you’ve got that in spades.’ She led him through the open door and into the bedroom. His eyebrows lifted as he couldn’t help but notice the scene of devastation. Dresses, blouses, skirts, shirts and shoes in a variety of heel heights were scattered in disarray so that it resembled a communal changing room during the January sales.

‘How come you have so many clothes when you don’t give a stuff about what you wear?’ asked Tom.

‘This is my entire wardrobe.’ She pushed a rose-coloured top out of the way and lay on the bed. ‘Some of these things are absolutely ancient.’ Her teeth found the lobe of his ear and she bit gently on it. ‘Like me.’

He laughed. ‘How come you didn’t obsess as much about it last year?’

‘Last year was Jin’s turn. She was the one who’d turned thirty. When it was me, I was devastated. Remember? I cried.’

‘Well I think you improve every year.’ He gathered her fiercely to him and rolled over so that she was over him. ‘You’re on top,’ he told her and grinned delightedly as she slid on to him.

‘This was supposed to happen after my bath.’ She lay beside him on the crumpled duvet and picked up her discarded bra with her toes.

‘What’s wrong with now?’ he asked.

‘Because once I have a bath your closeness disappears,’ she told him. ‘I wanted you to be with me this evening.’

‘I wish I could be,’ he said. ‘I really do.’ He slid off the bed. ‘How about I run the bath for you?’

‘If you like.’ She closed her eyes and listened to him walking barefoot to the bathroom.

‘What would you like me to put in it?’ he called. ‘There’s a nice looking bottle of something purple on the shelf.’

‘Not that!’ she called back. ‘In the cabinet. An Elizabeth Arden bath crème. It’s the only expensive one I have and I want to be expensive the whole way through.’

‘Whatever you say.’

She heard the sound of the water flooding into the bath and she sighed. It would be nice, she thought, not to have to go anywhere tonight. To stay in the flat with Tom and make love to him again and then to send out for some Chinese food and eat it, half-naked, on the bed while they watched something romantic on the TV. And then to sleep for a while, wrapped in each others arms. So much more appealing than going out. Especially going out to Jin’s triple birthday celebration, an event which Andie knew would be as stage managed and as over-the-top as everything her younger sister did.

‘Come on then!’ She felt him lift her into his arms and she opened her eyes. ‘Let’s get you clean and scrubbed and ready to go.’

‘Put me down!’ But she laughed as he carried her into the bathroom and held her over the foaming bath.

‘Gently or with a splash?’ he asked.

‘Oh, gently, please.’ She kissed him on the nose. ‘Otherwise the tidal wave – a result of the Archimedes principle of displacement and due to the fact that my bum is definitely big no matter what you say – will engulf the entire bathroom and possibly leak down onto poor old Tina below.’

‘You’re no fun.’ But he lowered her slowly into the bath.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘That’s why you love me.’ She closed her eyes and disappeared beneath the foamy water.

‘Wrong,’ he said as she emerged.

‘Wrong?’ she blew foam from her nose.

‘I love you because you’re the most fun I ever had.’

‘With my clothes off or on?’ she asked.

‘Either.’

‘Fair enough.’ She flicked some foam at him.

‘Don’t,’ he said dangerously. ‘Or I’ll jump in there with you and Tina will definitely have to worry.’

‘Promises, promises,’ said Andie and disappeared beneath the water for a second time.