Aiesha looked at the walnut cabinet where row after row of musical scores were stored. All the classics were there as well as a selection of more modern pieces. She thought of Louise’s talent, all those hours and hours of practice and personal sacrifice to make it to the top tier of musical performance, wasted on a man who hadn’t appreciated her.
From the first moment Aiesha had stepped over the threshold of the Challender mansion in Mayfair she burned with envy over James’s childhood. What she would have given for such luxury, for such comfort. For a full night’s sleep without some sleazy beer-sodden creep sneaking up on her. For a roof over her head each night, for regular meals, a top-notch education, and holidays to somewhere warm and exotic and exciting.
But now she wondered if he, too, had suffered from neglect. Nothing like the neglect she had suffered, but the type that left other sorts of scars.
Growing up with a selfish, limelight-stealing father would be enormously difficult, if not at times downright embarrassing. Trying to please someone who could never be pleased. Trying to live down the shame of having his father’s playboy behaviour splashed over every paper while his mother suffered in silence at home.
The weeks after Aiesha’s story broke were intense for him and his mother. She had seen the footage of James being chased along the street outside his Notting Hill residence and again in front of the office block where he had his architectural business. His father’s peccadilloes had brought enormous shame to him then and now.
Was that why James was so much of a workaholic and perfectionist? Driven and focused to the exclusion of all else, in particular fun? Was that why he had those lines of strain around his mouth and two horizontal ones on his forehead? He frowned more than he smiled. He worked rather than played. Was that why he had chosen such a boring and predictable woman to marry? Phoebe Trentonfield was probably a nice enough person, but she wasn’t right for him. He needed someone who would stand up to him. To push him out of the nice little safe comfort zone he had created for himself.
Someone who would release the locked down passion in him.
Someone like me...
Aiesha pulled out the shiny black piano stool and sat down heavily on the thought. She wasn’t the type of girl a man like James would settle down with. She didn’t tick any of his neat little boxes.
She was from the wrong side of town.
She was from the wrong side of everything.
Men like James Challender did not get involved with Vegas lounge singers who had a father in prison and a stepfather who should be.
Men like James chose girls who were polished and cultured, women who had a blue-blood pedigree centuries long. Aristocrats who knew which cutlery to use during which course and who never put a high-heeled, designer-clad foot wrong.
Aiesha put her hands over the keys, opening and closing them to warm them up. Her bruised knuckles protested at the movement but she ignored them. She was used to pain. She knew all its forms. Physical pain was the easiest to deal with.
Emotional pain was the one she had to avoid.
* * *
‘Are you out of your mind?’ Clifford Challender roared at James via his mobile while he was out walking Bonnie. ‘That little slut will ruin your reputation and laugh in your face while she’s doing it.’
James refrained from disclosing to his father the truth about his relationship with Aiesha. It wasn’t just because of the punch and kiss and make-up incident last night, which he was still trying to wrap his head around. Clifford was not the discreet type. The news of his sham engagement would be all over social media come his father’s first vodka of the day. Although, judging from the tone of his father’s voice, he suspected he had already sunk a couple of shots and it wasn’t even 10:00 a.m.
‘I keep out of your affairs. Please keep out of mine.’
‘I blame your mother for this,’ Clifford said. ‘She’s always been a sucker for a lame duck. That girl will take her for another ride. Just shows what a stupid fool she is to fall for it a second time.’
James was glad his father was close to a thousand kilometres away, otherwise he might have been tempted to give him a black eye to match his own spectacular one. He hated the way his father used every opportunity to trash his mother since the divorce. It was his father’s way of shifting the blame off himself. In Clifford’s mind, James’s mother had ruined everything by ‘making a fuss’ about his occasional affairs.
Although James was furious with Aiesha about her methods, he was privately relieved the scandal had brought on the divorce that should have happened years before. ‘I’ve already warned you about speaking about Mum like that.’