Then step to and be a better person,a stern voice commanded inside her head,stop whingeing and do something that would make your daughter and Ben proud of you!
Once Cassie had given Emily the go-ahead, the girl had swung into action, dealing with the British Embassy and the local authorities in Dubai, including the coroner.
‘You wouldn’t believe the paperwork involved with repatriating Dad’s body back to the UK,’ she’d complained to Cassie. ‘And then there’s all the packing to do. Rosalyn says she couldn’t have coped without me. Oh Mum, it’s so awful for her, and she’s so grateful to you and Ben for what you’re doing.’
The grieving widow herself had phoned Cassie to express her tearful thanks and to say just how amazing Emily was.
‘She’s a wonderful girl,’ she had said, ‘but then I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that.’
From thousands of miles away, Rosalyn’s breathily thin, watery voice trickled down the line and Cassie had known a moment’s guilt that she had harboured so much resentment and animosity towards this unknown woman.
Cassie had known Rosalyn was fifteen years younger than she was, but she hadn’t expected her to look quite so young in the flesh. In all her Instagram and TikTok posts, Rosalyn had come across as a generic, heavily contoured version of the millions of young women who had ever pouted and posed in front of a camera, but Cassie’s first glimpse of her at the airport revealed a fresh-faced girl who looked almost as young as Emily. What make-up she wore was the bare minimum, just a little smudgy dab or two around her eyes and a touch of lip-gloss on her pillowy lips.
Cassie had driven Ben’s SUV to Heathrow to meet Emily and her charges and at some point, while they were collecting the luggage from the carousel, Drew’s body had been discreetly removed from the plane by the appointed funeral director. Their job had also been to deal with sorting out the mundanity of Customs Clearance and Airline Handling charges. That was a week ago and it would be some weeks before a funeral could take place as a coroner in the UK had yet to decide if a further inquest or postmortem was required.
Ben had been waiting for them when they arrived at Hope Hall, and with his help they’d hauled the luggage from the boot of the car and carried it up to the apartment. In the days that followed, more luggage arrived and went straight into storage until Rosalyn knew where she was going to live.
It rapidly became clear just how dependent Rosalyn was onEmily, leaving most of the care of her son to the girl while she spent much of the day in her room in bed. Also clear was that Emily treated Rosalyn more like a friend or a big sister, rather than a stepmother. Observing this closeness as Emily fussed around Rosalyn, willingly fetching and carrying for her, it filled Cassie with an emotion she wasn’t proud of: envy. She was profoundly jealous that Rosalyn had usurped her role as Emily’s big sister, a role that Cassie had enjoyed ever since Emily had become a teenager and people who didn’t know them would assume they were sisters and not mother and daughter. It was a role she’d treasured.
In deference to the situation in which they now found themselves – a grieving widow and confused little boy living with them – Ben hadn’t felt it was right to go ahead with the surprise party he had arranged for Cassie’s birthday. It seemed disrespectful. But he’d insisted that they still go away for the surprise trip he’d planned. Emily had been quick to agree with him.
‘Mum, you not being here for a few days will help Rosalyn relax, as you can be a bit reactionary and give off, you know, a bit of an intense vibe at times,’ Emily had said. ‘It will give her some, you know, head space.’
Cassie had taken offence at that and had been on the verge of saying,‘Well, pardon me for breathing in my own home!’when Ben had given her a warning look. Swallowing back her outrage at the injustice –she did not give off an intense vibe and was not reactionary!– she’d suggested a game of tennis to Ben as the safest way to vent. The poor man had known he was in for a beating but had gamely complied.
I’m a bad, bad woman, she thought now as she watched Ben swim to the pebbly shore of the man-made pool which they had to themselves. While a pair of seagulls wheeled overhead, she kept her eyes on him as he made his way up the short strip of beach to where she was sitting on the raised platform of decking.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said, when he was standing in front of her and shaking the water from his hair before grabbing the towel from the sun lounger next to hers.
‘You do?’
‘Yes, that I’m the spitting image of Daniel Craig emerging from the sea in his sexy blue swimming trunks. It’s the rippling muscles, isn’t it?’
‘Got it in one, Mr Bond,’ she said with a happy laugh.
Wrapping the towel around his boyishly slim waist, he said, ‘How about a kiss then, Miss Moneypenny?’
‘Oh,James!’ she said in a girlish voice, mimicking myriad Bond conquests as Ben bent down and kissed her long and hard on the mouth.
In their suite later, they lay languorously satiated in bed, their bodies slick with sweat and their hearts still pounding in their chests. A half-empty bottle of champagne stood in an ice bucket on the bedside table along with two empty glasses.
‘I’ve always been partial to sex in classy hotels,’ Cassie murmured, playing her fingers over Ben’s chest, ‘can we stay here forever, please?’
He turned his head to look at her. ‘I’m not sure I’d have the stamina,’ he said, smiling. ‘You’ll have reduced me to a dried husk of a man within weeks. Not that I’m complaining, but we’ve certainly upped the ante since arriving here.’
‘It must be the sea air,’ she said contentedly, still luxuriating in the lightheaded afterglow of the climax Ben had so expertly brought her to. ‘That and the privacy.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘having guests around at home isn’t entirely conducive to an afternoon given over to champagne and sexual pleasure, is it?’
When she didn’t say anything, he said, ‘It won’t be for much longer, Rosalyn will soon find a place of her own and then everything will go back to normal.’
‘Will it?’ she said doubtfully. ‘I’m not so sure.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t think Emily is going to let things go back to normal,’ Cassie said. ‘She wants Rosalyn and Finlay in her life, maybe ours too; she wants them to be her family.Ourfamily.’
‘Finlay is her half-brother,’ Ben said after a pause, ‘so it’s understandable. But equally she’s on a crusade right now.’
