The Bachelor: Racy, pacy and very funny!

‘Your dog’s terribly sweet,’ she said. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Jeeves. He’s yours.’ Barney offered her the lead. ‘I’m not even joking. He’s such a little sh … troublemaker. Not like your dogs.’ He looked admiringly at the setters, sitting calmly by their mistress’s side. ‘They’re perfect.’

‘Thanks. This is Whiskey and this is Soda. They’re good girls but they’re Henry’s dogs really.’

‘I like them less already.’ Barney grinned. It was odd. She really was incredibly pretty, yet for some reason he found himself talking to her like an old friend, without the usual pit-of-the-stomach nerves that usually plagued him when he fancied a girl. When he first met Maud, he’d barely been able to string a sentence together.

Why was he thinking about bloody Maud again?

Barney’s girlfriend of just over a year had recently dumped him, for good this time it seemed. By email.

‘I can’t support this charade any longer,’ Maud had written. (As if she’d supported it up till now!) ‘You’re not a novelist, Barney. You’re an unemployed corporate lawyer, fannying around on a computer. Throw away your future if you want to, but don’t expect me to come with you.’

Barney had begun at least eight different drafts in response. He wasn’t throwing away his future, he was following his heart; a concept Maud might understand better if she had a heart of her own.

‘Not everything can be measured in pounds and bloody pence!’ he started one note. But, of course, he hadn’t finished any of them.

Maud was right. How could he call himself a novelist when he couldn’t even finish a sodding email?

Turning his attention back to Eva’s dogs, he asked, ‘How do you keep them that shiny? I mean, are they even real?’

Eva giggled.

‘I’m serious. How many times a day do you have to wash them? Or I daresay you have live-in dog-washers up at the castle, do you?’

‘Not quite.’

It was nice to run into this funny, chatty Irishman. Nice to get out of Hanborough and clear her head. Eva had believed Henry earlier, about the flirty WhatsApp message. But, walking through the woods alone, doubts had already begun to creep in.

About a year ago, Henry had had a string of affairs. Well, more one-night stands really, but they’d still wounded Eva deeply. She’d just plucked up the courage to leave him when he’d broken down in tears, promised to change his ways for good, and proposed. That was the first proposal, and it had taken all Eva’s willpower to refuse. At that point, Henry’s remorse was just words. But in the months that followed he’d bought Hanborough, moved to the country (out of temptation’s way?), and proved his devotion to Eva in myriad ways, both small and large, culminating in a second proposal, complete with a mahoosive eight-carat diamond. This time Eva had said yes.

Now she was here, planning their wedding and helping Henry’s designers pick out wall colours and fabrics. She simply couldn’t face it if the cheating started again.

‘Well, I’m heading down towards Brockhurst,’ said Barney. ‘I’ll see you around, I’m sure.’

‘I’ll walk with you,’ said Eva, slightly to his surprise, falling into step beside him. It occurred to Barney that perhaps she was lonely. Maybe it was true what they said about supermodels being so intimidating that nobody ever spoke to them? Then again, she lived with her hotshot, heart-throb fiancé, so maybe not.

‘I’m not really out here for the exercise,’ Barney admitted, making sure he kept Jeeves on a tight lead as they picked their way down the steep slope.

‘No?’

He shook his head. ‘I like to say I walk for inspiration. I’m a writer, you see. But I’m actually just skiving off the book.’

‘You write books?’ Eva sounded impressed.

‘Theoretically,’ said Barney. ‘I’m supposed to be writing a book.’

‘A writer and a photographer?’ Eva looked at the Nikon hanging around his neck. ‘That’s pretty cool.’

‘Oh, no.’ Barney flushed. ‘Photography’s just a hobby.’

‘Oh my goodness!’

At that moment, seemingly out of nowhere, a pack of foxhounds erupted all around them, followed by a thunderous clattering of hooves. Pulling Whiskey and Soda close, Eva flattened herself against a tree, watching awestruck as the red-coated riders swarmed through the copse and then out again into open countryside. She recognized her brother-in-law-to-be, Sebastian, leading the charge, but he was far too focused on his quarry to notice her.

‘Don’t they look marvellous?’ Eva turned to Barney breathlessly, as one by one they galloped off across the Downs, the hounds crying frantically in front of them, obviously close to a kill. ‘We don’t have anything like this in Sweden. Did you see the fox?’

‘No.’ Barney looked considerably less enthused. ‘But I hope the poor little sod got away.’

‘Oh. You don’t like hunting?’

‘I hate it. It’s cruel, it’s riddled with snobbery, and it’s downright bloody dangerous. They practically trampled us to death back there.’

Eva said nothing. This was clearly an exaggeration, but there was no mistaking the strength of Barney’s feelings. She wanted to change the subject, to return to the easy, chatty conversation they’d been having before. But, before she had a chance, Barney abruptly announced he had to get back to work, turned around and left her, with only the most cursory of goodbyes.

Eva watched him go feeling curiously deflated. He’d seemed so nice before.

Whistling for the dogs, she turned around herself and began the long tramp back to Hanborough. It was weird to think that this time tomorrow she’d be in Milan on a shoot, in a world about as far removed from this one as possible.

Perhaps it would do her good to get away for a while? The whole text thing had left a sour taste in her mouth. And things always improved between her and Henry after they’d spent some time apart.

Graydon James sighed with relief as the bellboy showed him into his suite at The Dorchester.

It wasn’t his beloved Manhattan. But at least he was in London, free from the cloying silence of the Swell Valley, with all its ghastly green hills and sheep and fresh air. How did people live there? Young, beautiful people in the prime of their lives, like Henry Saxton Brae? It was a crime against humanity that that boy was straight, but even Graydon knew a dead horse when he saw one. He was too old for futile flogging. Too old, as well, to cope with Guillermo’s relentless bitching and whining about being ‘left out of the process’ at Hanborough.

‘He only ever talks to you,’ Guillermo had pouted at Graydon last night in bed, sulking like a toddler about Henry’s preference for the organ grinder over the monkey. ‘He’s never once asked my opinion on anything. Not the plans for the master suite, not the Venetian finishes, not the fabrics. Nothing! It’s like he thinks I’m your lackey.’ He gazed down sullenly at his taut, dancer’s abs, his huge cock lying limp and slug-like between his legs, sulking like its owner.

‘Well, you are,’ Graydon shot back nastily. He’d had enough of tiptoeing around Guillermo’s ego. He had the damn job, didn’t he? ‘Like it or not, I’m the boss. Clients like to deal with the boss. It makes them feel they’re getting what they paid for. If you can’t handle that, you’re in the wrong job, sweetheart.’

An architect had already drawn up plans for the structural restoration of the castle, but Graydon had made it a condition that he and his team would run the entire project, from foundations to flower arrangements. As project manager, Guillermo would be working eighteen-hour days and getting his perfectly manicured hands seriously dirty. The fact that he was already complaining about the client, not to mention contributing nothing to this crucial first week of site meetings, did not bode well.

‘I’m going up to town for a few days,’ Graydon informed him curtly. ‘Little Miss Wonder-Tits is off on a job, so you’ll have Handsome Henry all to yourself. See if you can convince him you’re more than just a pretty face.’ Grabbing Guillermo’s hand, Graydon placed it firmly on his cock. ‘And see if you can convince me that I haven’t made a big mistake in trusting you with this.’

In fairness to Guillermo, the sex was still good. But Graydon was tiring of the attitude.

Throwing his case down on the bed, Graydon ordered himself a double espresso with cantuccini from room service – that was something else that sucked in the countryside. Coffee. Henry Saxton Brae drank Tesco instant. If there were ever any question about his sexuality, that cleared it right up. Idly checking his messages, Graydon ignored the one from his accountant, noted three from Flora, pleading to be allowed to leave Nantucket, and one from a prospective client, a Russian oligarch with a positively palatial house in London, opposite Hyde Park. He stopped abruptly at one from World Of Interiors.

‘Good afternoon, Mr James. My name is Carly di Angelo. We’re doing a cover piece for our September issue on the world’s most beautiful city apartments. We were wondering, would Flora Fitzwilliam be prepared to talk to us about West Fifty-Sixth Street? I’ve tried contacting her directly but can’t seem to get through. I understand she’s on an island somewhere … ’

Graydon rang back instantly.

‘Miss di Angelo? Graydon James. Yes, I’m afraid Flora’s not available at present. But it just so happens I’m in London and I’d be very happy to talk to you about our work at West Fifty-Sixth. Perhaps you weren’t aware, but I actually lead the design team myself?’

He hung up, purring with pleasure.

Graydon hadn’t done a stitch of the work on Luca Gianotti’s stunning Manhattan penthouse apartment. It had all been Flora, from start to finish, and the baseball legend had been ecstatic with the results. But the project had been commissioned under the GJD – Graydon James Designs – brand. As far as Graydon was concerned, that made West Fifty-Sixth Street his. Just as Hanborough would be his, and Lisa Kent’s Siasconset folly, and anything else that his staff worked on.

If Flora, or Guillermo, or any of the ingrates didn’t like it, they could spend the next thirty years building their own fucking empires. None of them would ever have amounted to anything without the great Graydon James.