The Bachelor: Racy, pacy and very funny!

‘You embarrassed me!’ she told him.

Henry just shrugged. ‘You shouldn’t be so easily embarrassed. It was only a stupid raffle.’

‘Stupid to you, maybe. But you made a commitment, Henry.’

‘Seb was there, wasn’t he? He was happy to do it. No one cares except you, Eva.’

In the end, as usual, it had been Eva who’d cracked first, even though Henry was in the wrong. He could keep up the silent treatment indefinitely, but Eva needed affection and companionship the way a plant needed sunlight and water. She’d reached over and touched his arm in bed one night, and of course then he’d pounced on her like a cat on a mouse and proceeded to have sex with her with the sort of crazed intensity only Henry was capable of. Over the two years they’d been together, Eva had learned to draw immense comfort from the desperation of Henry’s lovemaking. He approached her body every time like a man who’d just come out of prison. There was a profound neediness there, which was reassuring given how arrogant and aloof Henry could be in other ways.

He’s a complicated person, Eva told herself. But he loves me. And I love him.

I understand him.

In Eva’s opinion, it was Henry’s childhood that was responsible for what some people might see as his character flaws. Growing up as the second, neglected son of a great old family had left him with a burning impetus to succeed, to make his own way. All those years training to make it as a tennis star had taught him iron discipline, but they’d also taught him to be selfish, to trample down the competition whatever it took. Eva blamed his being sent away to boarding school at seven for his emotional coldness, and his parents’ divorce for his manipulative side.

‘Give it a rest, Sigmund,’ Henry would say, whenever she brought these theories up. Henry wasn’t a big believer in psychoanalysis, especially not when practised by his own girlfriend. He’d fallen for Eva because she was stunning, and because she loved him unconditionally. But if she needed something to fix, she should take up charity work. Or buy a model aeroplane kit. Henry used to love those at school.

A buzzing on the side table made Eva jump.

Henry’s mobile.

She picked it up without thinking and touched the new WhatsApp message. Instantly she felt her chest tighten and a lump rise up in her throat. The thumbnail picture was of a busty, dark-haired girl Eva had never seen before. Marie J. The message read:

‘Where r u handsome? Missed u this week. Again. When u back in London? M’, followed by a whole string of emoji winks and hearts, the sort of thing a schoolgirl would send.

Don’t jump to conclusions, Eva told herself. But it was hard. Especially after that ‘again’. She started scrolling back through Marie J’s chat history. There were far too many ‘handsomes’ for her liking, but nothing a hundred per cent conclusive of an affair. Yet—

‘What are you doing?’

Eva spun around guiltily. She hadn’t heard Henry come inside, but suddenly there he was, standing right behind her.

‘I might ask you the same question,’ she shot back, unable to help herself. ‘Who’s Marie?’

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific than that, sweetheart,’ Henry drawled. ‘May I have my phone, please?’

‘No!’ Eva was shaking now, her eyes welling with tears. She was leaving for a modelling assignment tomorrow morning and the last thing she wanted to do was fight with Henry. Not until she had an explanation. ‘I want to know who Marie J is. And why she’s missing you and asking when you’re going to be back in London. I can’t go back to this, Henry. I just can’t!’

‘Eva,’ Henry’s voice softened. ‘For God’s sake. Marie J is a stupid little girl who works at the wine bar on Ebury Street. I’m one of her regulars.’

‘Regular whats?!’ Eva blurted hysterically.

‘Regular customers. At the bar. You’ve met her.’

‘No, I haven’t! I’ve never seen her before in my life!’

‘Yes, you have,’ Henry insisted patiently. ‘You’ve just forgotten. Because she’s instantly forgettable. Eva, I am not shagging the girl behind the bar at Ebury’s. Give me some credit.’

Eva hesitated. She wanted to believe him. She did believe him. Mostly. But with Henry’s past it was difficult to rebuild trust.

‘How does she have your number?’

‘She asked me for it and I gave it to her.’ A note of exasperation was creeping into Henry’s voice.

‘Why?’

‘Why not? Christ, if I went through your address book right now, how many blokes’ names do you think I’d find on there? D’you think I’d know all of them? Of course I bloody wouldn’t.’

This, Eva supposed, was true.

‘You want to know about paranoia, try dating a supermodel,’ Henry quipped. Taking the phone gently out of Eva’s hand, he slipped it into his pocket. Then he wrapped his arms around her tightly. ‘I love you,’ he whispered in her ear.

‘I love you too.’

‘Nothing’s going on.’

Eva exhaled into him, relief flooding through her like the antidote to some deadly poison. Breathing in the lemon and patchouli smell of Henry’s Penhaligon’s aftershave, she felt a sudden rush of longing, and was just thinking of taking him back up to bed when Graydon James and Guillermo appeared in the drawing-room doorway.

‘Yoo-hoo!’ Graydon yodelled, gesturing at Henry like someone trying to bring a plane in to land. ‘Sorry to interrupt you two lovebirds. But Guillermo and I are done for now in the great hall. We were hoping you might show us up to the attic rooms? Talk us through your vision for the old servants’ quarters? If you can spare him, Princess.’

He winked at Eva, who grinned back. Graydon seemed fun. Unlike Guillermo, who stood around pouting a lot and looking bored, like a typical male model.

‘Of course.’ Eva wriggled out of Henry’s arms. ‘I was about to take the dogs for a walk anyway.’

‘Jeeves! Jeeves! Get back here this instant, you stupid fur-ball!’

Barney Griffith cupped his hands around his mouth like a loudspeaker as he bellowed into the wind. His Border terrier ignored him completely, and continued charging up the chalk hillside towards a field full of sheep.

Tall, broad-shouldered and sandy-haired, with a freckled complexion and merry, hazel eyes that lent him a permanently boyish look, Barney could have been very handsome if he weren’t so permanently unkempt. Clutching his most prized possession, the trusty Nikon D100 camera that had cost him a month’s wages back in the days when Barney had wages, he ran after the dog, giving himself a stitch almost immediately. In his defence, despite the fact it was almost June, a month of solid rain had left the Downs muddy enough to make walking without boots a fool’s errand. Consequently, Barney wasn’t exactly dressed for sprinting, in wellies and an old pair of canvas gardening trousers. But, even if he’d been in Lycra and Nikes, the truth was that he had become horribly unfit. There was a lot to be said for his new life as a novelist living full time in the countryside. But it did involve a lot of sitting on one’s arse eating Jaffa Cakes. At least when he’d been a City lawyer he’d had a corporate gym membership. He’d never used it, of course, but just having the card in his wallet had probably burned off a few calories …

‘For Christ’s sake, Jeeves!’ Panting like an asthmatic pensioner, and with sweat pouring down his face, Barney rounded the crest of the hill just in time to see a ravishingly attractive blonde emerge from the woods. She was very tall and wearing a yellow sundress with wellies that served to emphasize both her slender waist and absolutely endless legs. Two immaculately groomed Irish setters trotted obediently at her heels, their bracken-red coats gleaming and rippling in the wind, as if they were auditioning for a dog-food commercial.

‘You haven’t seen …’ Barney gasped, his soft Irish brogue coming in fits and starts. ‘… a scruffy … terrier … have you? The little sod’s … run off.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ the goddess replied. She had the faintest touch of some sort of accent, and looked vaguely familiar, in an untouchably beautiful sort of way. ‘Would you like me to help you look?’

Just then, a tired but not remotely sorry-looking Jeeves dashed back to his master, hurling himself headlong into Barney’s ankles in a frenzied attempt to make himself acquainted with the Irish setters, who both kept their eyes fixed on the horizon with regal disdain. It was like watching a tramp trying to chat up a pair of movie stars. The Gabor sisters in their heyday, perhaps.

Clipping Jeeves’s lead firmly back on, Barney finally caught his breath.

‘Thanks for the offer.’ He smiled up at the goddess. ‘But he’s back.’

‘So I see.’ The goddess smiled back. ‘I’m Eva, by the way.’

Eva! Of course. The bra girl, getting married to what’s-his-chops, with the castle.

‘Barney. Barney Griffith. I’d shake your hand but I’m sweating like a racehorse.’

‘That’s all right. It’s a beautiful day for some exercise.’ Bending down, Eva ruffled Jeeves’s matted fur affectionately. Barney noticed the absolutely enormous diamond on her engagement finger. Talk about the Rock of Gibraltar. That thing must have cost more than his cottage.