Chapter 4
Lila
As decisions went, starting the day off with a tough choice between white, silk and virginal, and black, slutty and crotchless, hadn’t been the worst one in the world. The anticipation had turned her on so much she’d almost made a mess of her eyeliner. Almost. Lila wasn’t that kind of rookie.
Cammy was already sitting up in bed when she left her dressing room, so she’d distracted him with a joke about keeping him because he looked so great.
There was some truth in that. His light brown hair, usually swept back, was falling over his eyes.
His tan was still a honeyed, caramel colour, thanks to a weekend in Marbella last month, and that torso…
It was the kind of six-pack that came from great genes and a dedicated gym regime.
Her phone rang and she tapped a button on the steering wheel of her Evoque.
One of the perks of the job. When she’d started with Radcal Pharmaceuticals at twenty-two, as a junior rep straight out of university, she’d been given a Mondeo.
Oh, the indignity of a standard rep’s car.
Since then, she’d worked her way up, courtesy of record-breaking sales and no-nonsense demands, until she got this baby. Red. Black roof. Sexy as hell.
‘Good morning gorgeous, how are you doing?’
Her smile was instant. ‘Morning Mum, I’m great. What are you up to?’
‘I’m just about to leave for the golf club with your father. We’ve booked a double session on the simulator and we’re teeing off at eleven.’
Lila frowned. ‘Hang on – you’re going to the golf club. To actually play on some computerised machine?’
‘Yes. You know, if you can’t beat them…’
‘Join them on the fake golf course?’ she finished for her, with a sigh.
‘Honestly, you’d almost swear it was real. We’re playing St Andrews today. We did Pebble Beach and Mar-a-Lago earlier in the week.’
Lila was no longer listening.
Bugger. She’d been planning to pop in on Mum later, but since Dad had taken early retirement, he’d been totally monopolising her.
It had always been her and her mum, Louise, just the two of them, with Dad coming back maybe a week or so in every month.
It was the sacrifice they’d had to make for a dad that supported them by working away, in his big shot consultancy role in the oil industry.
Mum always said they shouldn’t complain because it was so much harder for him being parted from them.
And besides, he made it up to them. There had always been a couple of incredible holidays every year: the Maldives, California, Hawaii.
Mum traded her BMW in for a new model whenever she felt like a change of colour.
And when Lila had turned seventeen, her brand-new convertible Mini had been wrapped in a huge ribbon, waiting outside the door.
When Dad was away, she definitely enjoyed the rewards, and she didn’t even care that he didn’t seem to particularly notice her when he was home.
Her mum had more than made up for his distance, in all respects, by lavishing Lila with love and affection.
If anything, they were more like sisters or best friends than mother and daughter.
However, a couple of years ago, he’d come back here full-time, and now that he’d taken early retirement, Mum had undergone a personality transplant, embraced an outdoor sport, and was so busy with Dad that there was no time left for Lila.
Lila didn’t understand it. Louise didn’t do golf.
She did girlie lunches on Lila’s expense account on a Friday, sometimes a mani-pedi if Lila could finish early.
She didn’t do bloody golf with a husband who had suddenly become a full-time presence in their life and who was now monopolising his very willing wife. What was her mum thinking? Traitor.
‘Look, I have to go, another call coming in.’ She hung up before her mum had a chance to reply, determined not to let Louise’s desertion kill her buzz.
She pressed the touchscreen on the dashboard a couple of times, until it took her to her call list. There he was. His name. Right at the top.
Ken Manson. Press.
‘Yes?’
‘Dr Manson, this is your favourite rep, on her way to meet you. I went for black and slutty.’
She knew he’d be trying desperately to keep his tone steady. His wife was probably right there in front of him. Poor cow. The thought actually added to the thrill.
‘Okay, prep O.R. three and tell them I’m on my way in. I’ll be about fifteen minutes.’
‘I might have to start without you if you’re going to be that long. A mistress has needs.’
‘No, no worries at all, you didn’t disturb me, I was just leaving anyway.’
‘Well leave quicker. You don’t want the party to be over before you get there.’
‘That’s fine. Okay, I’ll be right there.’
Her grin lasted all the way to the Starbucks drive through – a cappuccino for her and a skinny macchiato for Ken.
She turned up Clyde on the radio, and sang along to a throwback song from Simple Minds.
It was her dad’s favourite song, and Ken liked it too – a bit weird but not entirely surprising given that they were almost the same age.
Not that they’d ever met. Lila had never told her parents she was seeing a married man.
What was the point of admitting that someone wouldn’t leave his wife to be with her? At least, not yet.
If this were a Greek tragedy, she had no doubt that there would be some profound theory that she was attracted to older men because she’d missed her dad so much as a child and never really felt his closeness or approval.
But what did the Greeks know? All that mattered was that she loved Ken, and when they’d been apart, she missed their meetings. Missed feeling like this. Missed him.
She’d met him on her first month on the job, bumped into him a few weeks later at a medical conference, and been in bed with him by midnight.
Since then, it had been an excruciating seven years of secrets, promises, pleasure and pain.
They only ever met in hotels, at quiet meeting points in remote locations or in his office.
The closest they’d come to anything resembling a normal relationship was when he travelled to compete in marathons, or to medical conferences.
She’d go with him, and there, out of sight, they could eat, and drink, and hold hands and be like every other loved-up couple.
That was the pleasure. The pain kicked in when the jealousy crept up on her, when he broke another promise to leave his wife, or when she just desperately wanted to tell the world that she was his girl.
She wanted to be Mrs Kenneth Manson. It was like an addiction that she just could not break, no matter how many times he let her down or how hard she tried.
When they’d split the last time, she’d been sure it had been for good, had tried to convince herself that was the case.
They’d been in a gorgeous suite at the Blythswood Square Hotel, courtesy, once again, of her company expense account.
They were well into their second bottle of wine when she’d pushed him to leave his wife, pressed him for a time frame for them to be together, accused him of keeping her dangling on a string for years, reminded him that she wanted to be married by the time she was thirty next year.
He’d refused. Given her the same old line.
He’d leave his marriage when the time was right and only he would decide when that would be.
She’d cried. She’d raged. But he didn’t budge, so she’d stormed out of the hotel room, gone to the bar, and when she was pulling out her key card to charge her drink to the room, she’d come across the business card that cute guy in the menswear shop had given her that afternoon.
On impulse, she’d called, he’d come and picked her up, and she’d cut Ken out of her life.
For a while.
The truth was, much as she tried to make it work with Cammy, he wasn’t her guy.
Gorgeous, yes. Funny too. But he didn’t have a shred of Ken’s maturity or come close to his intellect.
That’s what turned her on. His brains. His presence.
What a cliché. The beautiful young blonde and the distinguished older doctor.
She was a trophy wife waiting to happen, if only Ken would bloody hurry up and realise it.
When they’d met up again at the convention in London a few weeks ago, she’d immediately sussed that he’d missed her as much as she’d been lost without him.
She’d worn the red dress he loved in the hope that he’d be there and it didn’t let her down. By midnight, it had been discarded on the floor of a room at The Dorchester – God bless the company credit card – and by dawn, he was promising her they’d make it work.
It was going to happen. She knew it. She hadn’t gambled seven years of her life to walk away with nothing.
In the meantime, she hadn’t had the heart to tell Cammy it was over yet.
What was the point? So she could lie alone every night, thinking about what Ken was doing, visualising him sleeping with his wife?
Cammy was fun, easy on the eye, and good enough in bed that she didn’t think of Ken every time she orgasmed, so she’d been happy to hang on to him.
Now, it was time for that to change. It had to. Time to move on and seal the deal on the next stage of her life.
She pulled into the parking space outside the hospital and made her way through the complex maze of corridors and lifts to Ken’s office on the fifth floor.
Private hospital of course. Ken had given up working for the NHS years before, although that wife of his was still nursing over at Glasgow Central.