Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [98]
`Thanks for the lift, you're a star. I'd ask you in for a drink - Florence would love to see you - but I know you must be dying to get back to the new flat.'
Fenn exhaled slowly.
Mission accomplished.
About time too.
`Of course I am,' he told Miranda with a careless shrug. `Still, the flat isn't going anywhere, is it? Twenty minutes won't hurt.'
Chloe was dozing on the sun-lounger in the garden, soaking up the late-afternoon rays. When she felt an insect tickling her nose, she batted it away idly without opening her eyes.
Then it happened again. Chloe looked up and saw Miranda grinning down at her.
`Bzzz bzzz.' Miranda waggled the blade of grass in her hand. `Wake up, we've got company.'
`Who?'
`My new chauffeur.'
`Who?' As she sat up, Chloe felt the straps of her bikini top cut into her shoulders. It was last year's bikini, designed for an altogether less inflated figure. These days, her breasts spilled over the cups like extravagant scoops of ice cream crammed into tiny cones.
As for her poor bikini bottoms, straining valiantly away at the seams… well, Chloe was just grateful for the miracle of Lycra, and for the security of knowing that Florence's back garden couldn't be overlooked.
`My new personal chauffeur,' Miranda announced smugly. `Fenn.'
`What? Oh my God-'
`No need to panic, I'm pretty sure he's seen underdressed women before.'
Oh yes, underdressed women who weigh about as much as one of my kidneys, Chloe thought wildly.
`Go and get my sarong,' she yelped. Aaargh, her sarong was see-through. No, bring towels, lots of towels!'
`You're being silly, you look fine.' Miranda glanced up at the house. `Anyway, too late. He's here.'
Fenn was wheeling Florence down the ramp. Chloe cringed and wondered if she could hide under the sun-lounger. Her face burned; how could they all be so insensitive?
`Flap flap,' Miranda teased. `Anyone would think you had a big crush on Fenn.'
`Towels.' Chloe glared at her as scarily as she knew how. Ridiculous; she didn't have any kind of crush on Fenn. She just didn't want him to see her looking like this.
Across the lawn Fenn heard the hissed command and guessed the cause of Chloe's anguish in an instant.
`Won't be a sec,' he told Florence and headed back into the kitchen, returning moments later with the emerald-green sarong he had spotted hanging over the back of one of the chairs.
Grateful for Fenn's tact but still barely able to look at him, Chloe wrapped the sarong around herself. Oh dear, it was better than nothing but she still would have preferred a bath towel. Or a king-size duvet. Or, best of all, a nice sturdy body bag complete with six-foot zip.
`Fenn's moved into a new flat,' Florence explained, distributing bottles of Guinness. `In Holland Park.'
Chloe's eyebrows went up. `What was wrong with the house in Hampstead?'
Fenn shrugged. Apart from the fact that it was in Hampstead, there hadn't been a single thing wrong with it. `I was too late. Someone else got there first.'
`Isn't it a shame? So he had to settle for this other place instead,' Miranda crowed. `And now I don't have to catch the tube any more,' she did a little dance for joy, `because Fenn's going to give me a lift into work.'
Florence patted his ann.
`If you ask me, you should have stuck to Hampstead.' Her voice lowered. `She sings, you know. In the mornings.'
Fenn was beginning to wonder if he'd made a horrible mistake.
`Not in my car, she won't.'
`Still, it'll be nice, we'll see more of you,' Florence went on cheerfully.
Maybe not such a horrible mistake after all.
Just so long as he doesn't see more of me, Chloe thought ruefully, attempting to tug the flimsy cotton of her sarong further up over her breasts.
`What's the flat like, then?' Florence took a swig of Guinness. `Done out all right?'
`Think Peter Stringfellow, twenty years ago,' said Fenn. `With knobs on.'
'Hail!' cackled Florence. `A shag pad.'
Miranda grinned. Chloe, still shockable, spluttered into her drink.
Fenn said