Undertaking Love Page 0,58

have to be a bull. Boy oh boy, was he a cracking specimen. Well over two foot long.’

Brynn held out his hands to demonstrate and Jonny’s eyes boggled with excitement. ‘Why do I suddenly feel so inadequate?’ He cackled and crossed his legs.

‘No need at all, Jonny my love,’ Cecilia squawked from down the table. Marla groaned, shut her eyes, and wished for death. Her mother was always eager to don her sex therapist hat. She cast a longing look towards the door. Could she get away with a loo break yet?

Cecilia pointed a long red nail at Brynn.

‘Brynn honey, be honest. Don’t I always tell you that girth is more important than length?’

Brynn turned beetroot, casting a glance down at his own trouser department.

‘I mean,’ Cecilia leaned forward and dropped her voice to a stage whisper and they all leant in a little. ‘I, for instance, am terribly small –’ she glanced at her lap with an exaggerated grimace ‘– down there.’

Marla, who had heard this spiel many times before, waited for the requested earthquake or alternative divine act to strike her mother and shut her up.

‘Anything more than a few inches would just hang around outside in the cold.’ She threw her hands up and nodded sagely at her stunned-into-silence audience. ‘Girth wins every time. A man can never be too wide.’

Dora smiled fondly across the table at her husband. ‘My Ivan’s hung like a donkey.’

Ivan stuck his thumb up at his wife and patted his groin absently as he reached for the butter.

Marla glanced at Tom, who had tears of laughter coursing down his cheeks. He raised his glass in salute. ‘This is hands down the best dinner I’ve ever been to in my life.’

Johnny whistled under his breath and shot an excited look at Emily. ‘Don’t look now, but Gomez and Morticia just walked in.’

Marla followed his gaze to the doors. Crap. That was it. She was done with praying. She cowered behind her oversized menu and hoped desperately that Gabe wouldn’t spot her. She flicked a glance at Rupert. Things had only just settled back into an uneasy truce between them, she wasn’t sure they were on an even enough keel to handle being in the same room as Gabe just yet.

She risked a quick look around the menu to see who Gabe was with.

Oh. My. God.

Was that his receptionist?

Marla scrutinised the woman in the clinging black dress with her hair piled up and too much make up on. It was! It was Melanie. Surely Gabe wasn’t seriously dating that hideous, dog-murdering girl? But then, why would they be out for dinner á deux at Franco’s, if he wasn’t?

Crap. Melanie was looking their way.

Look away, look away, look away. But of course, Melanie didn’t look away. She tipped her head to the side and met Marla’s gaze with raised eyebrows and a tiny smile. What was that look in her eyes? Was it smugness, or triumph maybe? A horrible mix of both, Marla decided, burning up with hatred.

She murdered Bluey. She’s a horrible manipulative little cow bag, and she murdered my dog. What the fuck was Gabe thinking? And did he not think it was unethical to fraternise with his staff? He ought to watch his back. Melanie was the sort of woman who would cry sexual assault the minute he stepped out of line. Marla sniffed and tried to concentrate on the menu, although the idea of food was beginning to make her queasy.

Meanwhile, realising that she’d lost her audience, Cecilia turned to see who Jonny and Emily were craning their necks to get a look at.

‘Who are they, honey?’

She elbowed Marla and nodded over at Gabe and Melanie. Marla feigned ignorance.

‘Err … I’m not sure.’ She glanced pointedly at her mother’s menu. ‘Have you decided? I think I’m going to have the salmon.’

Cecilia wasn’t fooled. ‘Marla, who are they?’ she hissed. ‘Ooh, they’re coming over. Introduce me.’

Marla sunk lower in her chair and chanced a look at Rupert, whose thunderous expression confirmed that he had also clocked Melanie hauling Gabe across the restaurant.

Jonny leapt to his feet – ever the genial host despite the fact that it wasn’t even his party. The gentle way that Gabe had handled Bluey’s death had left Jonny with a new-found respect for Marla’s adversary. He reached out and shook Gabe’s hand. ‘Gabe.’

Marla was at least heartened by the way he dismissed Melanie with a curt nod.

Cecilia was out of her seat and bobbing like an excited child