MEGAN felt quite light-headed as she pulled on her motorcycle helmet after work. The summer evening was still and heavy, and there was a sense of unreality nagging away at her, as if she couldn’t quite believe that she’d just agreed to go away with Dan McKnight and pretend to be his loving partner!
She climbed onto the scooter which her father and brothers had clubbed together to buy for her twenty-first birthday, as a thank-you for all she’d done for them. Its top speed wasn’t much faster than some of the runners she passed as they jogged along the pavements—but it was an easy way to get home at the end of a long day.
Home was half a small house which she shared with another girl, close to the Softshare building and just half an hour’s train journey away from Central London.
When Megan had left her father’s farm, she’d planned to go into the capital itself—but the exorbitant price of renting and the mad, busy pace of life had put her off. It had seemed too big and too noisy after the peace of the countryside she had grown up in.
At first, she’d rented a microscopically small bedsit—but then she’d started going out with David and was rarely at home, so size hadn’t seemed to matter. And when they’d split up, she’d decided that she needed company. As a parting gesture, David had offered to buy her a cat, but Megan had declined the offer and found herself a housemate instead!
The house was tucked away in a road which ran parallel to the main street. There were trees along one side, and when the shops were closed it was quiet—but parking was nearly always a nightmare, and Megan thanked her lucky stars that her little scooter was so easy to park!
And this place had been a terrific compromise, she reasoned, letting herself in the front door. Green enough to almost imagine that you were in the country, yet close enough to London to feel that your finger was still on the pulse.
‘Hel-lo!’ she called as she rifled through the post lying on the hall table, and found only a letter of the ‘we are sure this is merely an oversight’ variety, asking her to settle up the interest on her in-store account. Maybe her accountant brother was right. Maybe she just shouldn’t have an in-store account!
‘I’m out here!’ shouted a voice. ‘In the kitchen!’
The kitchen was scruffy, but at least it had French doors looking out onto the tiny garden, which in the summer was a glorious sun-trap. Megan had laboriously grown packets of seeds on the kitchen window-sill, and now they were planted proudly in their pots outside—blazing with colour and heavy with scent. A heavy-headed sunflower strained its giant yellow petals towards the sky and cute little black-eyed Susans winked at her provocatively.
Helen was standing by the fridge, hulling strawberries which she was piling into a scarlet pyramid on a glass dish. She was a pretty, bubbly girl who worked as a flight attendant for one of the major airlines, so she had lots of stopovers in places like Paris and Madrid and Rome, which she insisted weren’t glamorous—but which sounded it to Megan! She was currently unattached, even though she always seemed to have hundreds of admirers—but she told Megan she was holding out for the ‘real thing’.
Helen looked up as Megan walked in and stopped chopping once she saw the expression on her housemate’s face. ‘What’s up?’ she demanded. ‘Has something happened?’
‘Well, kind of.’ Megan paused for effect as she anticipated the impact that her next words would have. ‘What would you say if I told you that I was going to spend the weekend in the company of the actor Jake Haddon?’
The knife only narrowly missed Helen’s thumb. She put it down on the work surface carefully. ‘I’d say that you had either been hit on the head or had started dating someone who just happened to share their name with the hunky actor we all know and love!’
Megan picked up half a strawberry and popped it into her mouth. ‘Well, you’d be wrong. Because Jake Haddon—the Jake Haddon—is actually going to be there.’
Helen stared at her in genuine confusion. ‘Where?’
‘It’s a bit of an odd story.’
‘You don’t say?’ Helen picked the kettle up. ‘Tell me all about it while I make some tea.’
Fifteen minutes later, the cooling kettle was left forgotten on the work surface and Helen stared at Megan, her eyes as wide as dinner-plates.
‘You’re sure this isn’t some ploy by your new boss to have his wicked way with you?’
Megan nearly choked on the second-to-last strawberry. ‘Have you seen him?’
‘No. Why? Is he vile?’
Megan shook her head, and almost laughed. ‘No, he’s not vile. He’s just…’
Helen stood waiting expectantly. ‘Just what?’
Megan shrugged. ‘Nothing. It just wouldn’t happen,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m not interested in him, and he’s certainly not interested in me. He even told me so!’
‘Really?’ Helen nodded. ‘That’s why he’s taking you away and having you pretend to be in love with him, is it?’
‘It isn’t like that!’
‘Hmm. Maybe. I know men—’
‘And so do I!’ Megan protested. ‘I grew up in a house full of them, remember?’
‘Yes, and they were your devoted and very protective brothers and father. Not men with an eye for the main chance.’ Helen gave her a speculative look. ‘What on earth are you going to wear? And isn’t he going to get a shock when he sees you out of your habitual trousers?’
‘Probably—especially when he notices my skinny knees!’
‘How many times do I have to keep telling you there’s nothing wrong with skinny knees? Most women yearn for them! Models have them! And you still haven’t answered the question about what to wear. Lets face it, Megan, your wardrobe isn’t exactly full to overflowing with any kind of clothes—let alone suitable clothes for what sounds like a very fancy weekend in the country.’
‘No, I know it isn’t.’ Megan gave her a slightly embarrassed smile. ‘Um, shall I make us that cup of tea now?’
Helen burst out laughing. ‘You mean, you want to borrow some clothes?’
‘Well, we are about the same size. Would you mind?’
‘Mind? I’ve been dying to see what you’d look like in something really funky for ages now. Come on—what are you waiting for?’
Minutes later, Megan stood in front of a full-length mirror looking over her shoulder at a bottom which seemed far from perfect when it was covered in tight buttercup-yellow satin.
‘Helen, I can’t wear these!’ she said flatly.
‘Of course you can! They’re very young and very now—and satin is the new denim, didn’t you know?’ Helen stepped back admiringly. ‘I must say, they make a wild pair of jeans!’
‘Wild,’ echoed Megan weakly. ‘I just don’t know if it’s going to be that sort of weekend.’
‘Didn’t you ask him?’
‘Of course I asked him!’
‘And what did he say about it—this Dan McKnight?’
‘Just that his mother would be there—’
‘His mother?’
‘That’s right. And his brother—’
‘Oh, wow! Sounds like a fun time,’ observed Helen wryly. Megan ignored that. ‘He said we’d get down there in time for dinner on the Friday and travel back after lunch on Sunday. He said that Friday-night dinner was smartish but that they tended to dress up for dinner on Saturday. And that everything else was pretty relaxed.’