Love notes by Avis Exley Page A

make sure he’d really left, and still not
daring to believe she’d be spending the next three days without
him. In the five years since they’d met, she could hardly remember
three hours alone. Instead, she been shadowed everywhere by Marty,
his bodyguards or half a dozen of his entourage, not to mention
fans and photographers. Three days alone felt like a lifetime and
she intended making the most of every second.
    Even though she’d promised not
to leave the hotel, she wanted to throw on her coat and run all the
way down to the village but didn’t dare take the risk. Maybe she’d
feel braver in the morning but, in the meantime, she went to the
hotel gift shop where she picked up a couple of paperbacks and the
largest bar of chocolate they stocked. On her way back to her room,
she called Aiden.
    “Are you eating again?” he asked
when he heard her muffled voice, his laughter trickling down the
line.
    “Chocolate,” she admitted. “And
I’ve had a massive lunch too. None of my stage outfits will fit
after this month.”
    “Good. I’ve always preferred
curves to bones.”
    Erika didn’t want to think about
Aiden’s preferences at that precise moment because she knew exactly
where that conversation would lead and anyway, she’d recently had a
very graphic reminder of exactly what Aiden liked. She changed the
subject.
    “I’m calling to say Marty’s left
for London.”
    “Do you want to go out
somewhere?”
    “No, thanks. I plan to lie on
the bed, watch a film and eat the rest of this chocolate.”
    “Sounds tempting.”
    “I had no idea you were a film
fan.”
    “No. I meant the lying on the
bed part. Do you want company?”
    She laughed again at his
predictability and let herself into her suite. “No, to that too.
But full marks for trying. I’ll see you here at seven.”
     
     
    Erika laughed so much she
couldn’t get her breath and gripped the edge of the table. “I don’t
believe a word,” she gasped, tears streaming down her face. “You’re
making it up.”
    “I swear it’s true,” Aiden
promised, his hand on his heart. Like everything, he gave himself
over completely to the laughter and his face erupted into the
broadest smile Erika had ever seen, as he clenched his ribs and
struggled to speak. “You couldn’t invent something like that.”
    “You probably could.” She wiped
away the tears with her fingertips and gulped down air. “I’d
forgotten how truly terrible some of your stories are. I haven’t
laughed like this in…” She paused and found she couldn’t
remember.
    “…in too long,” Aiden finished
for her as he poured them both more wine. “It was the first thing I
noticed when I saw you again. You had sad eyes.”
    “I had jet lag,” Erika corrected
him, determined not to be psychoanalysed. “No one could sparkle
after a whole day on planes with Marty.”
    Aiden’s expression told her he
wasn’t so sure but the laughter wasn’t far away. “When I think back
five years, I remember you laughing all the time. We had a lot of
fun, you and I.”
    “We certainly did. I didn’t
deserve to pass my degree, the amount of time we spent
together.”
    “And yet you got a first.”
    “Back when I played real music.”
Erika dismissed her current work carelessly but couldn’t help
sounding wistful. “These days, I hardly pick up an instrument. It’s
quicker to use session musicians for the albums and it’s impossible
to perform Marty’s sexy stage routines sitting at a piano.”
    “So you miss it.”
    “More than I can say.” She took
a sip of wine and thought back longingly to her student days. “Do
you remember when I used to sing in pubs and at weddings?”
    “Some of the best nights I’ve
ever had,” he told her honestly.
    “Banging out cover versions on a
tuneless piano and singing into bad mics.”
    “Too much to drink and dancing
on the tables. And usually there was a fight to round off the
evening.”
    He pointed to a scar above his
right eye