Page 52 of The Only Way Is Up

‘No, he just turned up,’ Daisy repeated. ‘He asked me to take him back, I said no, and now he’s on his way to a sex addiction clinic in Switzerland.’

‘Yeah, I heard that bit the first time,’ Katie commented wryly. ‘Do I need to know the details?’

‘You definitely don’t,’ said Daisy quickly. ‘Those places are super discreet, so hopefully things will go quiet for a bit.’

‘How discreet? We could really do with keeping Christian’s bonkathons out of the press.’

‘I don’t know. The Swiss are pretty tight about stuff like this. Christian used to tell me stuff about Swiss tennis players that would make your eyes boggle, but none of it ever ended up in the papers.’

Katie sighed. ‘OK. So, what about the headmaster? Have you actually been banging him over the kitchen table?’

Daisy hesitated for a second, reminding herself that nothing good ever came from keeping important information from her manager. ‘We kissed,’ she said talking over Katie as she started to interrupt. ‘It was nothing, but it was in the kitchen of his house, which makes me think he must have told someone, because everyone else had left the party. Or maybe someone was looking through the window, I don’t know.’

‘Honestly, your life.’ Daisy could practically hear Katie rolling her eyes. ‘OK, none of this is a big story, but little ones can snowball. Clara called earlier, wondering if you have any plans to stay out of the news for a while, like we all agreed.’

Now it was Daisy’s turn to roll her eyes. ‘I’m doing my best here. It’s not my fault if someone is talking to the tabloids every time I change my knickers.’

‘Or don’t wear any,’ added Katie wryly. ‘I think we should release the statement that you and Christian have split up. Get that out of the way so it’s one less thing hanging about.’

‘No,’ said Daisy decisively. ‘As long as I’m still living in Shipton Combe they’ll name Tom as a third party and turn his life inside out. That would be disastrous for him. Christian being in a clinic is good news; now we’ve been seen together the press will assume he’s here with me all week. I’ll stay off Instagram so nobody asks questions and get Ruby and Will to leave me off theirs. So let’s stick with the original plan and wait until I’m back in London in a few weeks.’

‘And what about you and Tom?’ asked Katie gently.

‘There is no me and Tom,’ Daisy said firmly. ‘I shouldn’t have kissed him. It was a stupid thing to do. And if he thinks I’m messing him around, he’ll stay away.’

‘Hmm,’ said Katie doubtfully. ‘If you say so.’

Daisy’s phone buzzed as she shuffled forward in the queue for a ski lift. She waited until she was safely in her seat and soaring up the mountain before she gingerly pulled off her gloves and extracted her phone from her pocket. If it slipped out of her hands it would fall twenty metres into the untouched powder snow below and not be seen again until spring, so this was a delicate operation.

The message was from Simon. She felt a flurry of panic that he needed the cottage back, then briefly considered the possibility that Stella had burned it down and panicked a bit more.

Darling, I need a massive favour. On Saturday Archie’s off to do a garden project in New Hampshire—

Archie was an award-winning garden designer who specialised in creating beautiful outdoor entertaining spaces, at least according to his website. His clients were usually rich Americans who wanted him to create a classic English country garden for their McMansions, but with a swimming pool and a barbecue the size of a small car.

—It’s three weeks over Xmas/NY, the owners are in Aspen so he can live in their house. But I’m taking Ruby to Des’s and then first week Jan I’m going on a spa break with Fern Britton. Could you have Hank until Archie gets back? I can drop him off and pick up Ruby at the same time, he LOVES Shipton Combe.

Oh God. Hank was Archie’s Jack Russell terrier and Daisy wasn’t really a dog person. But she couldn’t possibly say no; Simon had lent her his house. At least Hank seemed fairly low maintenance and well behaved.

No problem, messaged Daisy, adding a paw emoji to make her message sound more enthusiastic.

Hank was only a small dog, and it was only three weeks. How hard could it be?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

‘So which run shall we do next?’

Daisy turned her face to the sun in the cable car. Melanie, Ruby and Will had all finished their five-day course of lessons yesterday, and today was everyone’s final day of skiing before they all travelled home tomorrow. Last night they’d all agreed that they wanted to spend today together, although Daisy would bet good money on Ruby and Will getting bored of their mothers and going off to do their own thing before lunch.

‘Number three!’ cried Ruby. ‘It’s my favourite.’ She turned to Will and Melanie, explaining, ‘It goes through the forest all the way back to the village, and there’s a bar on the way down called Helga’s that does amazing hot chocolate. We didn’t do it during our lessons. Did you?’

Ruby looked at Melanie, who shook her head. ‘We did a few reds but only short ones. Isn’t number three a red all the way down?’

Daisy smiled reassuringly. ‘The final third is blue,’ she said. ‘And it’s really gorgeous. You should definitely see it, and we can take it steady. There’s no hurry.’

Melanie nodded happily, and Daisy thought how different she looked from a few weeks ago. Her face had caught a touch of sun, adding some colour to her ghostly pale cheeks. But it was more than that. She was less jittery and anxious, like her frayed edges had been smoothed off by laughter and mountain air and good company.

Melanie wasn’t the kind of person Daisy would normally be friends with, simply because Daisy’s friendships had all been formed within the bubble of stage school and the TV industry. But lack of glitter aside, Melanie had the qualities that Daisy really valued in a friend – she was smart, funny and kind and clearly adored her son. Wasn’t that what really mattered, at the end of the day? She realised she wanted to keep the friendship going after she went back to London – not just for Ruby and Will, who she suspected might be in each other’s lives for quite some time – but for herself too. With the exception of Des, hardly any of her showbiz pals had checked in on her beyond the first couple of weeks after The Incident. Life moved fast in those circles, and there were always a thousand other things to think about.