Chapter 32
Lila
‘You bitch.’
Lila stared at him, horrified, stunned into silence.
‘You absolute bitch,’ he repeated, just in case she hadn’t quite caught him the first time.
An unstoppable wave of nausea rose from her twisted gut, and she buckled over and vomited right there on his hall carpet.
If she thought his sneer couldn’t be any more venomous, she was wrong.
‘What the fuck…?’
His clenched fists told her that he was fighting to control his temper, as he turned on his heel and stormed back into the room behind him. Lila followed him and when she got there she saw that it was the kitchen and Ken, her Ken, the love of her life, was now pacing up and down.
He rounded on her. ‘What the fuck were you thinking?’
Lila was on a different wavelength altogether. There was no way his boot of a wife was telling the truth. No way. Was there?
‘You begged her to stay? She was leaving you and you begged her to stay?’
‘Of course I did. Didn’t you hear everything I just said?’
‘You couldn’t have meant that.’
Full-scale, epic level self-preservation and denial kicked in.
She’d heard. Of course she had. But those weren’t the words of her Ken.
Her Ken loved her. He wanted to be with her.
Surely he’d just been saying all that to placate his daughter and son, to try to salvage his relationship with them by convincing them that he really wanted to stay with their mother.
Well, it didn’t work. She was gone. Finally, his wife had got the message.
And now he was going to fold Lila into his arms, tell her that he hadn’t meant any of it, that he loved her, that of course he wanted to be with her, and that now their time had finally come.
This was it. A tiny white flag of triumph raised itself above the parapet…
‘Of course I bloody meant it.’
It wasn’t triumph. It was surrender. Game over. Battle lost.
All her life, her mother had waited for a man and she’d got him. Lila was so sure that the same would happen to her. He’d be worth the wait. The end would justify the means. What was meant to be would be.
Until it wasn’t.
However, she had to check one more time that she wasn’t getting the fairy tale ending she’d been dreaming of since the first time he kissed her.
‘You don’t love me? Because I can forget everything you said out there.
I know you were just trying to save face.
This could be our time Ken. We could be together, share our lives, make love every day, build a new future together.
This is the chance to have everything we’ve ever talked about… ’
‘You’ve talked about!’
‘No! Don’t you dare say this was all me.
You were every bit as desperate to be with me as I was with you!
’ Even as she said it she knew, somewhere deep inside, that it wasn’t true.
How many times over the years had he called it off.
How many times had it been her who’d engineered a ‘chance’ meeting to rekindle their relationship.
The reality of everything that had happened today was sinking in, seeping into her pores, and the nausea was back.
She forced it down. There was no way she was giving into it a second time.
‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she said, like a puppy, waiting to be kicked again. ‘You don’t love me?’
He stopped pacing, ran his fingers through his hair, his exasperation bubbling like lava in a volcano that was just about to blow. ‘Of course I don’t fucking love you,’ he said through gritted teeth.
Lila knew then, actually believed it. He didn’t. It was over. She’d wasted seven years of her life on a man for whom she’d always been just a shag.
How could she have been so stupid? She retreated out of the kitchen, taking several steps before she felt able to turn her back on him. In every sense.
Stepping over the pool of vomit on the hall carpet, she paused, before a fit of petulance compelled her to drop his cardigan on top of it, and followed the path taken by Bernadette only minutes before.
By the time she got to the car, the shaking had started.
What had she done? She’d lost Ken. She’d lost Cammy. She was on the verge of losing her job. She’d lost everything. Everything!
Why hadn’t this worked out for her? It was so tragically unfair. Hadn’t she done everything he wanted, moulded herself into his perfect woman and still he didn’t want her? How could that be? How could he live with that… that… frump for all these years and then not choose to be with Lila?
None of this made sense. She wanted to scream.
And then she wanted to go back in there and persuade him to change his mind, but she wouldn’t.
If he didn’t appreciate her worth, that was his problem.
She wasn’t going to beg. He’d regret it tomorrow.
He’d wake up and grasp what he’d done and he’d want her back, she knew it.
But in the meantime…
She realised, to her complete devastation, that she didn’t know where to go.
She couldn’t go back to the flat because she couldn’t face Cammy.
How could Cammy have done this to her? How could he have been so deluded that he actually thought she might say yes?
Hadn’t he noticed that she’d been off with him for weeks, that whatever they had was fizzling out?
What a fool. No, the flat was definitely out.
She couldn’t go to her mum and dad’s house either, because no doubt she’d be interrupting them and lately she’d been feeling decidedly unwelcome when she landed on them without warning.
Besides, they were probably furious with her for running out of the restaurant and then rejecting at least a dozen calls from her mum.
And she was still absolutely seething with them for failing to warn her about Cammy’s plan to propose. Traitors.
She had nowhere to go. She pressed the ignition button and started driving, heading back into the city. The first building she saw was the Hilton, where she’d changed earlier, a place of familiarity. It was all she needed.
She veered off the motorway, onto the street that took her up the ramp to reception, then stopped, grabbed her handbag, laptop, phone, and her ever-ready toiletries, before she jumped out and handed the keys to the concierge to park the car.
The doorman gave her a smile of recognition. She was a regular here. Everyone knew her, at least by sight, so she was always treated with the respect she deserved. Even the receptionist went out of his way for her.
‘I’d like a room for tonight please?’
He checked the screen. ‘I’m afraid we’re full…’
She was a split second away from going full-scale diva-strop, when he quickly remedied the situation.
‘… But we’ve just had a phone call from a guest to say they’ve been called away and asking us to check her out, so if you don’t mind waiting…’ he checked his watch, ‘maybe half an hour, we’ll get the room turned around and ready for you. Perhaps you could have a drink in the bar?’
She’d heard worse ideas. Picking up her phone, her laptop case and her bag, she crossed the lobby, aware as always that she was gathering admiring glances from at least half of the guests enjoying a late night chat or drink. Not an attractive one among them.
In the bar, she ordered a glass of champagne, then parked herself at a corner table and opened her laptop. She was immediately assaulted by a succession of high-pitched pings, and watched, uncomprehending, as the notifications flashed up on her Facebook and Twitter accounts.
What the hell was going on?
She ran her eye down the list.
‘Lila, is that you in this clip?’
‘Damn, she whipped his ass.’
‘That has to be @LoveLila – would recognise those tits anywhere.’
‘OMG, his face though!!!!!’
What the…? She clicked through to the post they were referring to and her heart felt like it had actually stopped.
The setting, even on the still frame at the beginning of the video, was instantly recognisable. Grilled.
There was Cammy. Her mum. Her dad. Her.
With a shaking finger, she pressed play.
Whoever had taken the footage had obviously been nearby, perhaps at the next table, and had been mighty swift when Cammy got down on one knee, because there he was, holding that pathetic ring up, all bloody misty eyes and hopeful.
Her toes curled so tight her Louboutins began to pinch.
‘Lila, I love you – and I want to love you every day of our lives…’ Oh, crap, there was sound too. This was a nightmare. A nightmare. The most humiliating moment of her life and it was caught on film.
She watched as the Lila on the video looked at the ring, at him, back at the ring, then him, clearly in shock.
‘Lila, will you marry me?’ he said.
The nausea threatened to rise once again. The horror. The sheer mortification. How could she not have known he was planning that?
‘No… I can’t… I…’ Lila-on-video didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, she grabbed her bag, jumped to her feet and rushed to the door.
This was awful. For years her life had been played out on social media and she’d relished every like, share, and comment, but not this.
This was her worst moment, out there for the whole world to see.
She wanted to die. She actually wanted to die.
Until she played it again and realised that, embarrassment aside, she looked pretty hot.
Scrap that, she looked sensational. That dress was definitely the right choice, and when she’d ran out of the restaurant, the back view…
well, those endless squats at the gym had definitely paid off.
It might be a moment of mortification but at least she looked incredible. If she didn’t get a free Cavalli dress out of this she’d be furious.
So anyway, silver lining, she was gorgeous.
The figure below the video drew her attention then, and she realised that there was another silver lining.
One hundred and six thousand views and increasing by the second. Holy shit. One hundred and six thousand people had watched her video. One hundred and six thousand! Now, one hundred and seven thousand. And climbing rapidly.
‘Elle est magnifique.’
‘Man, I so would.’
‘Mignonette!’
‘Well, fuck me sideways (that is actually a request – call me).’
‘J’aurais eu le sexe avec elle toute la nuit.’
Lila wasn’t one hundred per cent sure of the literal translations of the French comments but she got the gist. They loved her.
Thought she was gorgeous. Wanted to make love to her.
She felt her breasts swell and butterflies of sheer glee push every negative emotion out of the way.
A bolt of realisation. The name of the person who had posted the clip was French.
Jean Pascal. She quickly googled him. Twenty-seven years old.
French team captain. Single. Gorgeous. Played for Paris St Germain.
National hero. He was a modern day, Gallic equivalent of David Beckham and as soon as she saw his face she recognised him.
He was the most gorgeous of them, the one she’d spoken to first, when she asked him to take a selfie with her.
No wonder the thing had gone viral. He had over half a million followers, and many of them, it seemed, now adored her.
One hundred and eight thousand views now.
This was unbelievable! Incredible.
The champagne arrived and she knocked half of it back in one go.
More pings, and this time she saw that her Facebook personal messages were in treble figures, as were the DMs on her Twitter feed.
She scrolled through them, and saw that – be still her heart – there were messages from at least half a dozen newspapers, magazines, and media blogs, and the video had only been up for an hour and a half.
Hang on, one of them was saying that he was…
he was… she had to stop herself from punching the air.
A producer on This Morning! He wanted to talk to her.
Aaaaaaaaaagh, she was going to be on a sofa with Holly and Phil!
She scrolled down some more, when another name caught her eye.
Jean Pascal.
With a shaking Shellac nail, she opened it.
Je te veux. Nous devrions parler, non?
She quickly plugged the sentence into Google translate.
I want you. We should talk, no?
Oh yes. Oh yes, yes, yes.
Ken Manson could piss right off. Clearly she didn’t need him.
Being the wife of an eminent heart surgeon had been her dream for so long. But you know what topped that?
Being the wife of an international football star, especially one who looked like Jean Pascal.
She clicked reply, then typed in the phrase she’d just acquired courtesy of Google translate.
Ne fais que parler?
Only talk?