‘They’ll never just take my word for it that we’ve just gone our separate ways. Not without a massive inquest. And I can’t be doing with that. Trust me, it’ll work better this way. It’s cleaner. Just go with everything I say.’
She speeded up the end of the sentence as her mother approached.
‘And you don’t need to worry,’ she added from the corner of her mouth. ‘I’ll pay for the dry-cleaning.’
‘You’ll what? What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
He turned his face towards her, a puzzled frown lightly creasing his forehead, and his eyes followed her hand as she raised her flute of champagne, ready to tip the contents over his head. She saw his blue eyes widen in sudden understanding and realised far too late that she’d totally underestimated his reflexes.
Dan’s hand shot out instantly to divert hers, knocking it to one side in a single lightning movement. And instead of providing the explosive beginning to her staged we’re finished argument, the glass jerked sharply sideways and emptied itself in a huge splash down the front of her mother’s aquamarine jumpsuit. She stared in horror as champagne soaked into the fabric, lending it a translucent quality that revealed an undergarment not unlike a parachute harness.
She’d inadvertently turned her mother into Miss Wet T-Shirt, London. And if she’d been a disappointing daughter before, this bumped things up to a whole new level.
TWO
‘Aaaaargh!’
The ensuing squawk from Emma’s mother easily outdid the gallery’s classy background music, and Dan was dimly aware of the room falling silent around them as people turned from the paintings to watch.
‘An accident—it was an accident...’ Emma gabbled, fumbling with a pack of tissues from her tiny clutch bag and making a futile attempt at mopping up the mess.
As her father shook a handkerchief from his pocket and joined in, her mother slapped his hand away in exasperation.
‘It’ll take more than a few tissues,’ she snarled furiously at him, and then turned on Emma. ‘Do you know how much this outfit cost? How am I meant to stand next to your brother in the publicity photos now? I’ve never known anyone so clumsy.’
Emma’s face was the colour of beetroot, but any sympathy Dan might have felt was rather undermined by the revelation that she’d intended, without so much as a word of warning, to make a fool of him in front of the cream of London’s social scene. That was her plan? That? Dumping him publicly by humiliating him? If he hadn’t caught on in time it would have been him standing there dripping Veuve Clicquot while she no doubt laid into him with a ludicrous fake argument.
No one dumped him. Ever.
‘An accident?’ he said pointedly.
She glanced towards him, her red face one enormous fluster. He raised furious eyebrows and mouthed the word dry-cleaning at her. She widened her eyes back at him in an apologetic please-stick-to-the-plan gesture.
Emma’s brother, Adam, pushed his way through the crowd, turning perfectly coiffed heads as he went, dandyish as ever in a plum velvet jacket with a frothy lace shirt underneath. There was concern in his eyes behind his statement glasses.
‘What’s going on, people?’ he said, staring in surprise at his mother as she shrugged her way into her husband’s jacket and fastened the buttons grimly to hide the stain.
‘Your sister has just flung champagne all over me,’ she snapped dramatically, then raised both hands as Adam opened his mouth to speak. ‘No, no, don’t you go worrying about it, I’m not going anywhere. I wouldn’t hear of it. This is your night. I’m not going to let the fact that my outfit is decimated ruin that. I’ll soldier on, just like I always do.’
‘I’ve said I’m sorry. I’ll pay for the dry-cleaning,’ Emma said desperately.
Dan’s anger slipped a notch as he picked up on her discomfort. Only a notch, mind you. OK, so maybe he wouldn’t have it out with her in public, but he would most certainly be dealing with her later.
Emma closed her eyes briefly. When did it end? Would everything she ever did in life, good or bad, be somehow referenced by Adam’s success? Then again, since her mother was already furious with her, she might as well press ahead with the planned mock break-up. Maybe then at least the evening wouldn’t be a total write-off.
She drew Dan aside by the elbow as Adam drifted away again, back to his adoring public.
‘We can still do it,’ she said. ‘We can still stage the break-up.’
He stared at her incredulously.
‘Are you having some kind of a laugh?’ he snapped. ‘When you said you needed a fake break-up I wasn’t expecting it to involve my public humiliation. You were going to lob that drink over me, for heaven’s sake, and now you think I’ll just agree to a rerun?’
She opened her mouth to respond and he cut her off.
‘There are people I know in here,’ he said in a furious stage whisper, nodding around them at the crowd. ‘What kind of impression do you think that would have given them?’
‘I didn’t expect things to get so out of hand,’ she said. ‘I just thought we’d have a quick mock row in front of my parents and that would be it.’
‘You didn’t even warn me!’
‘I didn’t want to lose the element of surprise. I wanted to make it look, you know, authentic.’
He stared at her in disbelief.
There was the squeal of whiny microphone feedback and Adam appeared on the landing above the gallery. Emma looked up towards her brother, picked out in a pool of light in front of a billboard with his own name on it in six-foot-tall violet letters. She felt overshadowed, as always, by his brilliance. Just as she had done at school. But now it was on a much more glamorous level. No wonder her legal career seemed drab in comparison. No wonder her parents were expecting her to give it all up at any moment to get married and give them grandchildren. Adam was far too good for such normal, boring life plans.
His voice began to boom over the audio system, thanking everyone for coming and crediting a list of people she’d never heard of with his success.
‘I can’t believe you’d make a scene like that without considering what effect it might have on me,’ Dan said, anger still lacing his voice.
The blonde champagne waitress chose that moment to walk past them. Emma watched as Dan’s gaze flickered away from her to follow the woman’s progress and the grovelling apology she’d been about to give screeched to a halt on the tip of her tongue. Just who the hell did he think he was, moaning about being dumped, when his relationship principles were pretty much in the gutter? OK, so they might not have actually been a couple, but she’d seen the trail of broken hearts he left in his wake. He had no relationship scruples whatsoever. One girl followed another. And as soon as he’d got what he wanted he lost interest and dumped them. As far as she knew he’d never suffered a moment’s comeback as a result.
Maybe this new improved Emma, with her stupid unrequited girlie crush on Dan well and truly in the past, had a duty to press that point on behalf of womankind.
‘Oh, get over yourself,’ she said, before she could change her mind. ‘I’d say a public dumping was probably long overdue. It’s just that none of your conquests have had the nous or the self-respect to do it before. There’s probably a harem of curvy blonde waitresses and models who’ve thought about lobbing a drink over you when you’ve chucked them just because you’re bored. And I didn’t actually spill a drop on you, so let’s just move on, shall we?’
Adam smiled and laughed his way back through the crowd towards them, and she seized the opportunity as he neared her proudly