Married By Christmas Page 23

  ‘Ah, watch me then! Miles, Miles!’ Charisma bellowed across the din, so that Miles looked up and laughed when he saw her frenzied gyrating, making the most of her years of exotic dance training. Leaving the redhead to stamp her foot and skulk off alone, he crossed over to where Charisma danced, and Anna stood looking up at her, in awe of and a little bit horrified by the powerhouse that was the woman that Tom had married first.

  Miles dropped an arm around her shoulder as he joined her.

  ‘She’s quite something, isn’t she?’ he said, right into her ear because it was the only way to make himself heard. Anna shivered, feeling his breath on her neck. ‘It’s a good job she and Tom didn’t last more than five minutes, I think a couple of weeks with that lady would probably be enough to kill any man.’

  ‘Hey, Miles!’ Miles looked up as, improbably, Charisma swung a black lace – and rather large-cupped – bra around her head three times before draping it over Miles’s head, leaning down just low enough so that he could get more than a glimpse of what was now unbridled beneath her pewter dress.

  ‘That’s an impressive move,’ Miles said, picking up the bra and looking at it quizzically, before placing it rather formally on the bar.

  ‘Pah, I can do that, that’s Flashdance 101,’ Anna said, before she knew it, blushing when Miles turned to look at her, his arms crossed as if waiting. ‘I’m not going to though!’

  ‘I know,’ Miles said. ‘Pleased to hear it too, that’s not really the sort of move a nice girl makes.’

  ‘So you prefer a nice girl to …’ Anna nodded up at Charisma whose bra stunt had earned her a small crowd of male admirers, clamouring around her feet. ‘Her. Because you know she’s very much after you.’

  ‘I know,’ Miles said grinning. ‘But not because of my great personality, or even my newly acquired rock-star status.’

  ‘Oh, just your incredible body and amazing good looks then,’ Anna said, realising a little late that she was fluttering her eyelashes at him and smiling flirtatiously, the tip of her nose almost touching his.

  ‘That would make the most sense,’ Miles conceded. ‘But no. She’s after me, not because she wants me, but because she doesn’t want you to get me.’

  ‘Um?’ Anna wondered if the tequila was taking its toll after all, because she hadn’t followed anything that Miles had just said.

  ‘What I mean is Charisma Jones is not a woman’s woman,’ Miles said. ‘She’s the kind of girl who is always in competition with other women, and who always wants to win.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Anna said, turning again to where Charisma had finally persuaded some poor suited man to join her on the bar, where he bobbed about awkwardly as she wound her body around him, all the time checking to make sure that Miles was watching her.

  ‘Charisma knows that I’m here for Tom. So that we can get married. She knows there’s nothing going on between you and me.’

  ‘That won’t stop her trying to make me notice her instead of you though,’ Miles said, leaning across the bar and gesturing for their shot glasses to be filled again. ‘And you can bet your life that when it comes to it, she’s not going to want you to have Tom either.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Anna had continued to believe that she was as sober as a judge until her sixth shot of tequila whereupon she became suddenly very, very drunk all at once.

  Thankfully they had left the club at that point, Charisma having dragged them to a little cabaret bar she knew, coercing a pair of fur-trimmed velvet Santa hats from a passing office party with a good deal of sexual manipulation and some kissing under fake mistletoe that Anna was certain included tongues on the way. Having perched one hat on her head, making it an instantly sexy accessory, she jammed the other on Anna’s, which looked a whole lot less alluring, what with the brim covering her brows and forcing her ears to stick out at an odd angle. Anna looked more like an actual elf.

  The bar was a welcome relief after the noise and heat of the club, and Anna couldn’t help but take some pleasure in skipping past the lengthy queue that shivered outside, down the metal steps that led into the basement venue and getting direct VIP access via Charisma’s apparently close relationship with the doorman. Inside, the tiny venue was packed with large round tables, each lit with small red tassel-fringed lamps, and every available space in between filled with stylishly dressed people, chatting and drinking as a very plausible Judy Garland drag queen sang ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ with exactly the right amount of melodrama and watery mascara.

  ‘Sweet,’ Miles said, as Charisma somehow obtained three stools at the busy bar and ordered them their sixth round of shots.

  ‘Do you know,’ Anna said. ‘I’m always going to drink tequila from now on. I feel fantastic and I’m not in the least bit drunk.’

  And that was when she fell off her stool and into a giggling heap on the floor.

  Laughing, Miles helped her up and slid her back onto the seat, his hands helpfully remaining on her waist to secure her in a seated position. Judy finished her number with a flourish and was taking a bow when Charisma was struck with an idea.

  ‘Want to do something really fun?’ she asked Anna, leaning towards her.

  ‘Yes!’ Anna said, wide-eyed at the notion. ‘Is it drink more tequila, because you know I’m completely sober on tequila. It’s like magic.’

  ‘Dance with me,’ Charisma said. ‘Oh come on, it will be wild.’

  ‘There doesn’t seem to be a dance floor,’ Anna said, looking around. ‘Or a floor … Is it me or is the room going uphill … and anyway I can’t dance.’

  ‘Come with me.’ Charisma grabbed her hand, telling Miles, ‘We’re just going to the ladies’ room.’

  ‘Is there a dance floor in the ladies’ room?’ Anna asked, teetering along behind Charisma who marched purposefully down a black-painted corridor and walked unannounced into a brightly lit dressing room where Judy was peeling off one set of lashes.

  ‘Judy!’ Charisma shrieked, kissing him on a heavily rouged cheek. ‘Long time no see, baby!’

  ‘Carrie!’ Judy turned in his chair and hugged her warmly. ‘I thought you’d given up the life of sin for a life of God or a serious actor, both equally as celibate?’

  ‘I have,’ Charisma said. ‘But just for tonight, I’m sort of celebrating, and I want to dance just once more, and so does my friend here.’

  ‘No,’ Anna said cheerfully. ‘I’m a terrible dancer. I’ve got no rhythm.’

  ‘You don’t need rhythm for this kind of dancing, darling,’ Charisma said, reaching into Judy’s wardrobe and bringing out a sexy Santa outfit. ‘I’m going to teach you the one thing you need to keep Tom happy. I’m going to teach you how to strip. All we need is a bit of tit glue, some tassels and you can make your debut right here …’

  Anna didn’t remember grabbing Miles as she fled into the biting cold, but she must have because he was there as she stumbled into the snowy night with Charisma hot on her heels.

  ‘Wait! Wait up! I was only joking!’ Charisma was calling after them.

  ‘Only joking about what?’ Miles asked when Anna, suddenly all at once out of breath and not at all sure which way was up, stopped, clinging on to a street light for dear life.

  ‘She was going to get me to do that thing she does!’ Anna accused, pointing at Charisma, who arrived a few seconds later giggling like a loon. ‘That naked thing, in front of people. Like with the singing on the open mic night, but naked. I don’t do naked and you –’ Anna waggled her finger at Charisma ‘– are a very, very bad person.’

  ‘Wow, Tom’s taste in women has really changed,’ Charisma said, sarcastically. ‘Look, I wouldn’t really have got you to dance with me. I just thought as tonight was a night for Charisma and not boring old Erica that I might let loose a little, have some fun, show Miles here a thing … or two.’ Charisma managed to smile and pout at Miles simultaneously, a feat of co-ordination that Anna was very envious of, considering that she couldn’t co-o
rdinate her own feet at that point. ‘I knew you would never be daring enough to try your hand at burlesque. Besides you don’t have what it takes.’

  ‘I have what it takes!’ Anna insisted, pulling open her coat and thrusting out her chest, causing Miles to take a sudden interest in the sidewalk. ‘I’m a thirty-four double D I’ll have you know!’

  ‘Oh, so that’s why Tom likes you,’ Charisma teased, chuckling merrily.

  ‘No, no … he likes me because I’m … I’m …’ Anna pointed at Miles, thankfully forgetting to chest thrust any more. ‘Miles, why does Tom love me?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Miles said, suddenly exasperated by the two beautiful but drunk women who were besetting him with difficult questions and chest measurements. ‘Look, we’ve had a great night, it’s been a lot of fun. But I think maybe now it’s time I got Anna back to the hotel.’

  ‘Yes! Yes!’ Charisma jumped on the idea. ‘After-party at your place, room service, minibar!’

  ‘I was thinking now would be a good time to say goodnight,’ Miles said quite firmly.

  ‘Goodnight?’ Charisma asked dismayed. ‘But we’ve only just started and it’s not every day you get your marriage annulled, is it? You can’t just make me sign something that important and monumental and then expect me to go home … alone?’

  ‘The papers!’ Anna exclaimed suddenly, remembering her precious cargo. Frantically, she began searching her bag and her pockets and for some reason down the front of her top for the large brown envelope. ‘The papers have gone! Oh no, where have I left them?’

  It took a further discussion for them to decide that they hadn’t seen the envelope since the second bar they’d been to, where Charisma had grabbed it and waved it above her head like a flag, declaring that as soon as she signed the contents she would be open to offers of marriage. Charisma, they decided, must have left the package in that bar, shortly after their third shot of tequila.

  ‘You did it on purpose!’ Anna accused, listing heavily against the lamppost. ‘You don’t want to annul your marriage to Tom, you want to keep him!’

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’ Charisma asked her, seemingly genuinely perplexed.

  ‘Because in all these years you never ever tried to get it annulled before!’ Anna said.

  ‘I’ve been busy!’

  ‘Doing what, shaking your bottom about for perverts?’ Anna challenged her.

  ‘Pursuing a serious acting career, actually,’ Charisma said, apparently amused by Anna’s attempt at an insult. ‘And as long as stupid guys pay to see me dance naked, then I’ll do that too. It pays the bills while I’m waiting for my big break. And anyway Tom didn’t even think about getting it annulled until it was too late. Does that mean he still secretly wants to be married to me?’

  Anna lunged at her with more intent than accuracy, missing her target by such a wide angle that she instead landed in a mound of icy and dirty snow that had been swept up against a wall. Quickly, Miles lifted her to her feet, keeping his arms under hers to steady her.

  ‘I think we’re all a bit tired,’ he said, sounding less like a rock star and more like a weary Nursery School teacher. ‘Look, it’s fine. We’ll call the bar in the morning, pick up the papers, sort out the signature then. For now though, Anna needs some sleep.’

  ‘But it’s only just past midnight,’ Charisma sulked, stamping one foot in the snow. ‘I’ve been boring old Erica for so long, all I want to do is have a little fun. Hey, what about you and me take Miss Goody Two Shoes here back to her hotel and then head out alone. You’re celebrating too, remember and I bet you and I could make some sweet music together?’

  Miles sighed, wondering how best to take care of Anna and also keep control of Charisma at the same time. The worst possible case scenario would be to lose her in this city again, this time without any clue of how to find her. He didn’t think somehow that her role in a third-rate play that nobody was going to see would be enough of a reason for her to stay put if she decided that now was the time to do another life and name changing flit.

  ‘Let’s go back to plan A,’ he said, reluctantly, but unable to come up with an alternative. ‘Come back with us. Have a drink, stay over and, in the morning, we’ll find the papers, sign it all off and everything will be done.’

  ‘Stay over you say?’ Charisma said, widening her eyes at the suggestion. ‘What will you and I get up to while poor old Anna sleeps off all that tequila?’

  Miles looked Charisma firmly in the eye. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘We will be getting up to nothing, Charisma, because I have only one rule: I never mess with married women.’

  Charisma chuckled as Miles began to escort Anna back to the hotel, following in their wake. ‘But nearly married women, that’s a whole other story, right?’

  Thankfully Tom didn’t notice Anna passing them in the lobby, as he sat side by side with Liv on the sofa, because he had his head pushed back into the deep folds of the leather upholstery, and his eyes closed, finally giving in to the exhaustion and the after-effects of a good meal, wine and a large brandy.

  It was Liv whose mouth fell open and then clamped very tightly shut again as a decidedly dishevelled-looking Anna, her blonde mane tangled around her shoulders, her lipstick smudged, her mascara dislodged, entered the lobby in a decidedly haphazard fashion, her arms around the neck of a man that Liv vaguely recognised. In their wake, grinning like the cat who’d got the cream, in a full-length fur coat, was a sultry brunette who couldn’t be anyone else in the world but Charisma Jones. Anxiously, Liv sat in silence until the curious little ensemble disappeared into the lift, and then she tentatively shook Tom’s arm, just enough to rouse him, but not enough to get him to open his eyes.

  ‘Tom? I’m just going to powder my nose,’ Liv said. ‘Back in a minute.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Tom muttered, clearly still half asleep. ‘See you in a bit.’

  Aware that she wasn’t going to have much luck looking for Anna if she just ran up and down God only knew how many corridors shouting her name, Liv realised she needed a plan. Producing her lipgloss from her pocket, she approached the bellhop who was manning the lift that Anna had climbed into.

  ‘Hello, that blonde lady dropped this,’ she said, offering the tube of gloss as evidence. ‘I just wondered what floor she got out on? I thought perhaps I’d try and catch her.’

  There were a million holes of logic and reason in her flawed proposal, but the tired looking bellhop didn’t care, probably deciding by taking one look at her that she wasn’t an international assassin intent on dastardly deeds. ‘Twelve,’ he said languidly, pressing the relevant button as Liv stepped inside, biting her lip as she felt the elevator ascend. The way she saw it, she had about ten minutes to get to Anna, warn her Tom was here and find out what the hell was going on, before Tom realised she’d been gone much longer than a quick trip to the bathroom merited and came to find out what was going on. As soon as the doors slid open, she rushed out into the richly carpeted corridor, but it was now empty. And then she heard a peal of laughter from behind the double doors of a suite at the end of the hall, and Liv had no idea how, but she knew with absolute certainty that it was Charisma Jones’s laugh.

  ‘Anna?’ She knocked firmly on the door, which was opened by the sexy brunette.

  ‘You’re not room service,’ she said looking Liv up and down with marked disappointment. ‘You’re not anyone.’

  ‘Liv!’ The man that was just depositing Anna on the sofa caught sight of her and smiled warmly, which was when Liv realised where she knew him – he’d played at Simon’s wedding, and then Simon had set him up with Anna. He’d been the one who’d almost killed her with kiwi. What on earth was he doing here?

  ‘Miles,’ Liv said with some relief that Anna wasn’t exactly alone in a hotel room with a stripper and a strange man, although technically both things were true.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Miles asked her as Liv entered the room tentatively to find Anna sprawled on the sofa, a cloud of hair
covering her face.

  ‘Funny,’ Tom said from behind her. ‘I was just about to ask you the same question.’

  And it was at the sound of his voice that Anna sat up and opened her eyes just in time to see her fiancé be engulfed in an embrace by his current wife. And even in her less-than-sober state, she was fairly certain it involved tongues.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘You’re here,’ Anna said, blinking at Tom, who seemed to take an eternity to finally unpeel himself from his wife’s embrace, dislodging her fingers one by one. Watching Charisma maul her fiancé as if from a great distance and behind a good deal of bubble wrap, Anna turned to Liv, who was rather incongruous in a scene occupied mainly by wives and wives-to-be. ‘You’re here too? Am I hallucinating? Is this tequila-related?’

  ‘Tequila? You’ve been drinking tequila? What about you never drinking tequila again after that last time, on Sue’s hen night in Madrid when you thought you’d gone blind?’ Liv reminded her rather crossly, making Anna realise that her best friend and fiancé really were here, and, for some reason, rather than feeling overjoyed and delightfully surprised she felt somehow surprisingly resentful and quite inconvenienced.

  ‘No, we are not a hallucination, sorry to disappoint you, Anna,’ Tom said firmly, with the kind of scowl he usually reserved for days when his football team lost, which was most Saturdays during the season. ‘But what the hell are you doing with a strange man in your hotel room?’

  Tom pointed at Miles, as if there might be some confusion about which strange man exactly he was referring to. Anna looked to see Miles standing with his arms crossed, his shoulders squared, rather like he was getting ready to defend his homestead, or this instance a suite in a New York hotel.

  ‘He’s not strange,’ Liv interjected from the doorway, the look on her face telling Anna that she was putting together the disembodied male voice that she had heard on the phone with the man standing in front of her. ‘What I mean is, he’s not a stranger – he’s Miles, he’s a friend of Simon’s … He and Anna went on a date … once, ages ago. I don’t know what he’s doing here, but I know he isn’t a stranger. Anna?’