‘You look great, Dad,’ Zara agreed, getting a bashful smile in return.
‘Thank you, girls. I’m just going to head on downstairs and get a bit of fresh air. I’ll wait for you by the front door.’
Twenty minutes later, Brenda, Zara and Millie found him there and he joined them. If he noticed Brenda’s makeover, he didn’t say, but she didn’t care. Zara had worked wonders. Her curly shoulder-length bob that spent most of its life scraped back into a bun at work, was in a semi-updo, with wavy tendrils falling down each side of her face. Her eyes were a smoky light grey, not too much but enough to make them stand out against the nude lip. And she had no idea what miracles had been worked, but she appeared to have cheekbones for the first time since her twenties. The girls had picked her outfit too – a plain pale blue shift dress, that they’d accessorised with one of Millie’s long gold chains and small gold hoops at her ears. For someone who spent most of her days in scrubs or comfy clothes, feeling frumpy, weary and unattractive, this was a revelation. She hadn’t felt this lovely in years.
An internal voice piped up, expressing the wish that she’d lost the twenty pounds that the last few months of emotional eating had added to her hips. She blocked the thought. Not today. Today, for the first time in recent memory, she was just going to feel good about herself.
‘Tell me we don’t have far to go, because this heat will have my make-up off in no time and all your amazing work will be wasted, Zara.’
‘Nope, not far. Just across the road, actually.’
Brenda felt her excitement rising. The Bellagio. It was stunning and last time she’d been in this city, she remembered standing not too far from here, gazing up at the frontage and thinking to herself that one day she’d be able to afford a cocktail in there. Well, today was that day and the bonus was that she was here with her two gorgeous daughters. What a treat.
They crossed over, then walked two abreast – Millie and Colin in front, her and Zara behind them – up the sloped entrance to the hotel and made it to the lobby without, thankfully, breaking a sweat.
Brenda’s eyes were on stalks as Zara asked a concierge for directions, then led them to a wonderfully opulent restaurant. It was gorgeous. Sumptuous. Lavish. Oh, she couldn’t wait to tell Bernadette about this.
‘We have a table booked under the name Zara Jones.’
The maître d’ at the podium checked his screen. ‘Right this way. Your guests are already here.’
That threw Brenda just a little. Guests? They must be meeting Millie’s new man friend this morning after all.
Millie and Zara were in front now, and Colin was at Brenda’s side behind them, as they all followed the maître d’. Brenda was still scanning the room, taking in every detail, gasping at the huge windows with views out to the fountains and the strip, until several things happened at once.
The maître d’ stopped at a table that was tucked into a corner.
Millie’s smiley dimples came into full force as she said, ‘Mum, Dad, this is Aiden.’
Zara gleefully added, ‘And we think you already know his parents.’
That was the moment. The horrible, stomach churning, heart-stopping moment that Brenda realised she was looking straight into the faces of Gary Gregg and Eileen Smith – the only two people in this entire world that she truly detested.
19
AIDEN
Aiden’s eyes were watching what was going on, but his brain was struggling to process it. This was almost like an emotional rerun of his meant-to-be-wedding day. The anticipation. The joy. The absolute conviction that you were doing something wonderful that would delight your family and make everyone happy… only for it to all fall apart in an anticlimactic crapshow of unexpected developments.
He could see that Zara and Millie were watching with the same abject confusion, especially when, like him, they spotted their mum’s laser-focused stare going between his mom and his dad, then back again, her jaw dropped, her fists… oh man, her fists were clenched. And she didn’t appear to be the type of lady who clenched her fists in fury on a regular basis.
His mother was staring back, but there was something in her expression that he didn’t recognise. Horror? Dismay? No, it was something else. Embarrassment? But why?
As for the men, Zara’s dad was giving off the vibe that he’d rather be anywhere but here and his own dad had puffed up his chest, the way he always did when he sensed he was about to face an uncomfortable situation and was preparing to go on the offensive. It was like a standoff between two rival gangs, but with less weapons and more Bellagio napkins to wipe up any bloodshed.
What was going on? This was supposed to be a joyful reunion between four old friends. What were they missing?
Zara found her voice first and she went for the obvious move in a situation that wasn’t unfolding as expected. He’d been just about to do the same, but she got in there before him, her words oozing uncertainty and unasked questions. ‘Mum? Dad? Aiden’s parents are—’
‘I know who they are,’ her mum assured her. ‘Hello Gary. Eileen.’
Shit. She looked like a lovely fifty-something lady with a kind face and comfortable shoes, but she sounded like a mob boss.
A suited waiter approached, immediately sensed the tension and kept right on walking. The atmosphere here was so ice cold that Aiden was kind of wishing he could bail out with him.
‘Hello, Brenda.’ His mum this time, and she sounded rattled. But this wasn’t ‘Dad has shown up with a twenty-nine-year-old’ rattled. This was something much more than that. This was rattled to the core. It was also the first time in living memory that his father had stayed silent for more than thirty seconds. Aiden had been pretty sure his pop would have been pumping hands, slapping backs, hugging everyone and ordering champagne by now. Instead, he was just staring at Zara’s mum, waiting for the next comment to come and very obviously not looking forward to it with giddy glee.
Aiden caught Zara’s gaze, saw his own confusion reflected back at him, and decided it was his turn to try to navigate his way through this. For the umpteenth time in the last few weeks, he found himself in a situation that his training and career experience should have equipped him for, yet he was at a loss as to how to handle this. He decided to start slow, test the waters, make sure he was picking up the right signals.
