Second Chance - Jane Green [68]
And so much harder on nights such as these when Saffron is so clearly everything his wife is not.
‘Confession time,’ Saffron says, as P helps her stack the dishes in the dishwasher. ‘But first,’ she says, grinning, ‘can I just say how much I love that you, hottest sex god in America, are stacking dishes in a tiny kitchen in my little house? If your fans could see you now…’
‘What? You don’t think this is sexy?’ P places a hand on his hip and poses with a plate. ‘Isn’t this what every woman wants? A man who helps out?’
‘Sort of, but I think if they were with you they’d expect to be waited on hand and foot by a butler, no?’
‘They’d be waiting a very long time for that.’ P laughs. ‘So, back to confession time. What’s the confession?’
Saffron blushes. ‘Okay. I lied.’
‘About what?’
‘I didn’t cook this. I really want you to think I’m a great cook, so I lied.’
P roars with laughter. ‘I know you lied. Only Wolfgang Puck makes this as well as this. Plus I was with Samuel when he picked it up. I’m not stupid, my darling.’
Saffron breathes a sigh of relief. ‘I know you’re not stupid, but I wanted you to think I’m a great cook.’
‘Honey, cooking is the last thing I care about.’
‘Oh yes?’ She raises an eyebrow and P closes the dishwasher and puts his arms round her waist, pulling her in for a kiss.
‘Do you know something?’ He pulls back and gazes into her eyes as she smiles at him. ‘I love you, Saffron.’
‘I love you too,’ she says, and taking him by the hand she leads him out of the kitchen and upstairs to bed.
Chapter Fourteen
Frauke looks up from where she’s scrubbing down the counter after Daisy’s lunch and whistles, low and slow. ‘Wow! You look fantastic!’
‘Really?’ Holly does a delighted twirl in the kitchen. ‘You don’t think it’s a bit… young?’
‘Holly, you are young. I am always telling my other au pair friends that I am lucky because I have such a young host mother. I even say that you should dress more like this. Younger. The clothes you wear are beautiful, but they make you look older. If I didn’t know I would think you were in your mid-forties.’
‘Frauke!’ Holly says indignantly, even as she laughs. ‘Talk about knowing how to ruin a good mood.’
Frauke looks confused. ‘Why? Today, Holly, I think you look maybe thirty. No, twenty-eight.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, and I love your hair like this. It is very sexy. Where are you going?’
‘Oh just lunch with an old friend. Daisy!’ She shouts up the stairs. ‘Come and give Mummy a kiss goodbye!’
Holly climbs into her car and takes the CD from her bag. She has made it herself, a series of songs that somehow speak to her, tell her about her life, fill her with optimism about what her future holds.
She had forgotten music could be this powerful. As a teenager, her life was music. She would leave her mother’s house with her Walkman in hand, and spend hours traipsing, depressed, around Hampstead Heath, being the lonely misunderstood teenager who needed to be rescued by a knight in shining armour.
She listens to the radio now, but hasn’t actually bought a CD for years unless it was something for the children. Two weeks ago, on Will’s advice, she went out and bought an iPod, bringing it home and spending the next two days uploading CDs, buying songs, creating playlists. This one she called ‘Happy’, filled with music that lifts her up.
Van Morrison’s ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’; ‘I’ll Take You There’ by the Staples Singers; then Corinne Bailey Rae. Holly shakes her hair out, curls that she expertly worked in using the curling iron this morning, and she sings along at the top of her voice, feeling sixteen, feeling young and free and as if anything is possible.
Which it is.
She is first