Rose, despairingly, toyed with the idea of demanding that the taxi driver turn around and take her back home.
Then, if not back home, at least to the nearest pub so that she could fortify her nerves with a couple more glasses of wine.
But she was given little opportunity to object because Lily, with all her newly acquired bossiness, kept up a never-ending monologue for most of the trip, and Rose glumly took on board that her sister had a point. Why should she be scared? It wasn’t as if Nick had guessed her shameful secret. He had no idea that what to him had been a fling had, for her, been the love of a lifetime. She looked good and if there was one thing he had done for her, it had been to inject a level of confidence in her appearance that she had never really had. He had made her feel sexy and the residue of that confidence was still there. The little black dress looked great and if he did turn up, big if because, as Lily had pointed out, he was mega busy and the invite had been last-minute, then she would damn well show him that she was doing fine.
The jazz club was tucked away in a side road a million miles away on the other side of London. Rose had no idea how her sister had managed to discover the place, but it was certainly popular. Despite being early, the venue was already beginning to fill up. She had no time to wonder whether she was feeling nervous about meeting Nick because over the next hour or so she was wrapped up in the business of meeting Lily’s friends, a fair few of whom were American and flatteringly thrilled to be in a genuine British club and not one of those that catered for the loaded tourists.
This was new for Rose, this feeling of blending in with a crowd of people, all strangers to her. She was determined not to drink too much, but the music was sexy and, although she stuck to wine, she found her glass being replaced without her having to ask or even make her way to the bar.
The dress, she thought, was proving even more effective than she could ever have dared to hope.
Several men seemed to find her fascinating, although it was hard to tell because the atmospheric lighting bordered on downright dark. Certainly one in particular had taken her under his wing and had been responsible for at least two glasses of wine, the last of which Rose was now drinking very slowly indeed as she listened to him tell her about his latest film, a short film noir, which had had a very successful première at the Cannes festival.
Lily had asked a lot of her old friends, but most of the new faces belonged to the world of film and media. Rose had never met so many men who seemed to be film producers. They were very entertaining, even if she had never heard of a single one of the films they had produced. A lot of them, she noticed, sported pony-tails, which looked very trendy. Miles apart, she thought nastily, from Nick, who was as traditional as they went when it came to fashion. Long hair and jewellery on men, he had told her, were strictly for hippies, and she had laughed and accused him of being narrow-minded.
The memory made her heart constrict.
At least he wasn’t around. She had kept one beady eye open so that she could take appropriate measures to avoid him, but it was now after ten and he was nowhere in sight, obviously too busy to get away.
Disappointment bit into her and she favoured her companion with a wide, reckless smile.
Which was when she spotted him, standing on the other side of the room, with a leggy red-haired woman on his arm. She looked as though she had been poured into her small silver dress.
Rose felt her heart skip a beat and, weirdly, the noise, the people, even the band playing a slow number on the little raised podium, seemed to fade away, leaving just the sight of him, as sexy as she remembered, in a pair of dark-coloured trousers and a white shirt, casually rolled to the elbows.
Well, he seemed to have managed to relegate her to the history books in no time at all, Rose thought bitterly. Less than a month and he was back to his cover-girl babes.
She gulped down what was left in her glass and concentrated on what the man by her side was saying. His name was Ted, although his friends, for reasons that escaped her, called him Splice, and he was giving her the low-down on the people he had met at the Cannes Festival, a warts-and-all account that would have been hilarious had her attention not been suddenly hijacked by her ex-lover, now excusing himself and heading for the bar while the red-haired beauty sashayed over to the nearest group of men, one of whom she clearly knew. The world of actors, models and musicians was a very small one, Lily had told her.
Rose gaily accepted another drink from Ted Splice, as she called him in her head, and was making sure not to look in the direction of the redhead just in case Nick returned to his date and noticed her staring, when she felt the tap on her shoulder.
She spun round and there he was. She’d been certain she hadn’t been noticed, but he must have seen her as he was making his way back from the bar.
Rose felt her heart skip a beat, then she produced the same sparkly smile she had perfected with Ted.
‘Good heavens. Fancy seeing you here. How are you?’ She noticed that he failed to produce a reciprocal smile. In fact, his expression was cool and Rose was suddenly enraged that he should chuck her aside and then, as if that weren’t bad enough, treat her to the cold shoulder.
‘You seem to be having a good time,’ Nick drawled, giving her a leisurely appraisal.
‘Oh, I am.’
‘Bit of a change for you, isn’t it? This kind of thing?’
‘Well, you know what they say about a change being as good as a rest. I hadn’t expected it to be quite as large as this, but I’m having a brilliant time, meeting loads of really interesting people.’
‘So I couldn’t help but notice.’
His voice dripped ice and Rose wondered whether, having an ego the size of a house, he had expected her to be sitting indoors pining for him. Little could he guess that she had pretty much been doing just that until tonight.
‘What about you?’ she asked politely. ‘Having a good time? Did you come with anyone? I guess you know quite a few of the people here anyway…’ She was gratified to notice that even the subdued lighting couldn’t quite hide his dark flush and she gave him her most innocent look.
‘As a matter of fact, I did come with someone. She’s over there somewhere.’ He indicated somewhere behind her while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on her face, and Rose dutifully turned around to see the redhead looking daggers at her.
‘Oh, dear. Your date doesn’t look awfully happy that you’ve abandoned her. You’d better run along before she blows a fuse.’
Nick, whose mood seemed to be deteriorating by the second, scowled. ‘My date is more than capable of taking care of herself for a few minutes.’ He bared his teeth in a smile. ‘Besides, I don’t think she would begrudge me catching up with an old…friend…’ Of course he had known that she would be there and he had brought along the arm candy to remind himself that he had done the right thing, they had both done the right thing—parted company because at the end of the day she was a settling-down kind of girl and he was a no-commitment kind of guy. That was just the way it was. He liked variety. The redhead filled that role.
‘I don’t think there’s much to catch up on.’ Rose frowned and made a show of giving his remark all the attention it deserved. ‘I’m back at my old job and enjoying it and…’ she could be as cool and dismissive as he was ‘…you were very useful in teaching me that madness isn’t always a bad thing. As you can see, I’ve taken that advice to heart.’ She laughed gaily. ‘I’d have steered a million miles away from something like this in the past—as you pointed out…’
He had been useful? Nick didn’t appreciate the compliment, not at all.
‘There’s madness and there’s stupidity, Rose,’ he gritted. ‘Madness is breaking out of your comfort zone and coming here tonight…’
‘And stupidity?’ She