The Younger Man Read online

  Zoë Foster

  The Younger Man

  MICHAEL JOSEPH

  an imprint of

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Acknowledgements

  The Younger Man

  You are reading Zoë Foster’s third novel. Her first one was called Air Kisses, and her second Playing the Field, and if you’re smart (the very fact that you’re holding this book indicates you are), you’ll read those too. She also wrote a handy relationship and dating guide (with Hamish Blake) called Textbook Romance, and a handsome beauty bible called Amazing Face, which is brimming with wonderfully helpful beauty tips and tricks that you’d really enjoy. When she is not writing books, Zoë writes dating advice for Cosmopolitan magazine, beauty advice for Mamamia.com.au and nonsense for zoefoster.tumblr.com. She also spends a fair whack of time at the local roller-skating rink, just being hip and aloof and stuff.

  Age is a question of mind over matter.

  If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

  Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige

  1

  Abby washed her hands and peered at her naked body in the mirror as she dried them on a technicolour Missoni hand towel. It was a gift, but an expensive one, as she had then felt compelled to buy a whole set of Missoni towels to match.

  Her face was flushed, her skin damp with a light sweat. Even with the flattering light of a summer morning bouncing softly off the walls she looked like Twitchy the Tramp: her eyeliner had escaped her lashline and was cavorting around what would eventuate into magnificent bags under her eyes, her thick brows, usually groomed perfectly into position, were unruly and dishevelled, her eyes were red and glazed, and her pixie-short honey-blonde hair danced wildly around her head.

  She felt roughly as terrific as she looked. Her breath was poisonous with the scent of alcohol; her mouth dry from salt-rimmed glasses and smoking the cigarettes she vocally abhorred in Real Life. Her head pounded quietly; warming up for the rousing drum solo it planned to unleash the moment she thought she had a handle on her hangover.

  But Abby did not give a shit about any of this. She had just had heart-pounding, passionate, uninhibited sex with a beautiful man ten years her junior, and she felt fucking fantastic.

  Even in her glorious post-coital glow, she was bound by a bathroom habit she’d been doing since she was seventeen. She twisted 180 degrees to check on her (minor, invisible to most) cellulite, wondering if by some stroke of incredible luck and/or magic, it had fallen off during that final, excessively athletic romp, and she now had the pert arse of an eighteen year old. She did not. It was definitely the arse of a thirty-three year old, and while it was fine, almost good, in jeans and passable in a very low-slung bikini bottom and a thick layer of self-tan, it was not an arse that should be paraded around an extremely good-looking young man in the harsh and unforgiving light of morning. Why the fuck she’d chosen to make the master bedroom the one with the skylight, she didn’t know. Spectacularly bad for self-image.

  It didn’t really matter, though, because as usual, her new male friend would be leaving. Abby had a no-sleepover rule. Didn’t matter if he had Future Husband potential or was a no-strings rascal like the one currently sprawled on top of her crumpled sheets. Didn’t even matter if he was the best lover she’d ever had, and she blushed as she realised this one just may have been. And it wasn’t just because she’d had a bit of a drought lately. He was incredible. So intuitive, so generous, so … skilled.

  She fanned her face and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around her body before walking quietly back into her hot, sweaty room. The dark floorboards creaked noisily under her feet and her breath seemed louder than usual, everything seemed exaggerated, partly because of the hangover and partly because there was a handsome stranger in her bed who she had the task of kicking out.

  ‘Marcus,’ she half-whispered, half-said.

  The toned body remained lifeless; the face, strands of messy brown hair covering it, remained unresponsive. He was young, so young, she thought. Twenty-two years old. He was a baby! Jesus. How did this happen? … Tequila, that’s how.

  ‘MARCUS.’ Nothing. She sighed, contemplating her next move as she perched on the side of the bed near where his head lay, resting next to a bedside table boasting a pile of impressive but unread books. She checked her phone: 6.02 a.m. He needed to leave. Now.

  ‘Marcus!’

  ‘Mmmphffh …’

  ‘Come on. You gotta get outta here. My fiancé will be home any second and he probably won’t be as thrilled to meet you as I was.’

  Marcus suddenly sat bolt upright, his face twisted in confusion and panic.

  ‘Fiancé? You have a fiancé?! Whatthefu—’

  ‘Yes,’ Abby spoke slowly and calmly. ‘He gets home from his business trip this morning, and presumably will want a shower and a kiss. Obviously I have to clean this place up before he walks through that door. You know, get rid of the condom wrappers and the scent of mating. That kind of thing.’

  But Marcus wasn’t listening anymore. He was untangling himself from the sheets, and scrambling around on the floor trying to locate clothes that had been removed by two sets of very impatient, urgent hands. He found his undies, simple black Bonds (nothing wanky and designer, thank you) and pulled them quickly up over his tanned legs and white arse before hopping into his dark blue jeans. Without so much as a look at Abby, who was still sitting on the side of the bed, he raced out into the lounge room for his rockabilly checked shirt, tripping over her low mosaic coffee table. She could hear him swearing in hushed tones.

  Abby padded to the lounge room and leaned against the doorway as she watched Marcus racing to put his socks and shoes on.

  ‘Got everything then?’

  Marcus stood up and patted his pockets for the holy trinity: keys, wallet, phone.

  ‘Yep … What’s so funny?’ Marcus looked at Abby, his eyes bleary but handsome, his hair the kind of cool mess that stylists spent hours creating for arrogant fashion campaigns.

  ‘Nothing. Why? Nothing …’

  ‘You’re smiling!’ he said in disbelief. ‘I’m about to be intercepted by a furious man on your front steps and you’re smiling. You’re a lunatic.’

  A giggle tried to escape Abby’s mouth. ‘I’m not smiling!’

  ‘No, because now you’re laughing, and that’s worse.’ He looked at her in disbelief for a few seconds before his outrage softened. God she was sexy, he thought. He had a thing for women with short hair. Even with her eyes smeared in black shit and her hair all crazy. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to pick her up and take her back to bed and do very bad things to her. He had half a mind to push her onto the lounge righ
t now.

  ‘’S just nervous energy. Now, go, go!’

  Marcus shook his head. How often did she do this? That poor son of a bitch fiancé. He stopped at the front door, and turned to face her across the room, all coy and shy in her towel, despite having been straddled naked on top of him, panting and theatrically moaning not thirty-four minutes ago.

  ‘Do I get a goodbye kiss?’

  She sighed, enjoying his beautiful face and those deep brown eyes for the last time. She wanted to. Very much. Why not? What would one kiss do? Nothing. It would do nothing.

  She walked over to him, one hand holding her towel up, the other tucking her hair behind her ear, and stopped before him, looking up into his eyes.

  ‘You do.’

  He looked into her blue eyes for one, maybe two seconds before leaning down and kissing her softly on the lips. It was the perfect kiss: gentle, final, lingering. Abby felt her heart do a small pirouette as she pulled away from his lips, and looked into his eyes. Oooh, he was a piece of work, this one. Best he disappeared into the dawn, forever.

  ‘Now scat, young man.’

  He turned and opened the door; ‘I don’t call you, right?’

  ‘You don’t have my number, so, uh, no.’

  ‘I could find it if I wanted it.’ He smiled mischievously and pulled the door closed.

  Abby shook her head and walked back to her bedroom.

  The kids of today. Honestly.

  2

  ‘You’re sick.’ Abby half-smiled, her eyes wide with disbelief. It was the kind of demented behaviour generally reserved for psychotic ex-girlfriends in Hollywood films, but somehow, as usual, her friend made it cute.

  ‘Wasn’t like I did it on purpose, it was more like, well—’ Chelsea toyed with her long caramel-chocolate hair and issued one of her trademark smiles, wicked and childlike in equal parts, masterfully created to excuse her of any blame.

  ‘Okay, so maybe just explain how deliberately running up the back of a Porsche was not on purpose, Chels?’

  ‘It was a tap. A little bumper kiss. And it was his fault; he was flirting with me in his side mirror. And I just had this moment when we were stuck in this long trail of traffic where I accidentally pushed too hard on the accelerator and it happened …’

  More laughter from Abby. She tipped her empty cappuccino into her mouth to enjoy some of the chocolaty froth that insisted on clinging to the bottom of the cup.

  ‘Abs, that’s so off – what are you, five? Anyway, whatever, he said he’d pay for the damage. You’re missing the important part – he is hot, funny, and generous.’

  ‘Rich. The word you’re looking for is rich.’

  ‘Tell me that’s not what I’ve been searching for – hot, funny and successful.’

  ‘It’s spelled R-I-C-H.’

  Chelsea folded her arms over her perky, expensive breasts and scrunched her mouth over to one side in a paltry attempt to disguise a smile.

  ‘You’re an asshole, do you know that? I like this guy! And all yo—’

  Abby laughed heartily, throwing her head back to allow more room for her jaw to fall and the laughter to barrel out. Chelsea was the most blunt, judgemental person she knew, and yet she could never, ever hack it when it was given back to her. Even when it was sprinkled on jovially, like cute, teasy icing sugar.

  ‘With all due respect for the man, who is of course your soulmate, how can you know you really like him when the extent of your interaction with him was a minor car accident?’

  ‘We sparked! It felt very meant-to-be-ish. Anyway, you wait and see. After dinner tonight I’ll prove it.’

  ‘Prove what? That he’s rich? I guess if you can steal his platinum AmEx, sure …’

  Chelsea shook her head and checked her BlackBerry for the 689th time.

  ‘What’d you do on the weekend anyway?’ she said, changing the topic as she deleted one of the many daily newsletters she received. She opted-in impulsively and was too lazy to work out how to unsubscribe. It was textbook Chelsea. Want, need, race in; lose interest.

  ‘Had that bloody gala thing. Ended up going out with some of the girls afterwards to that new place, Deluxe, and getting absolutely trolleyed on tequila. And then hooked up with a very, very, very hot and preposterously young boy. Looks a bit like one of those gorgeous boys in the Burberry ads, all olive skin and brown eyes and longish hair and that perfect amount of facial hair. In all it was a very professional, grown-up evening.’

  ‘How young? Like, eighteen?’

  ‘No, you sicko … twenty-five.’ Abby looked down.

  ‘How. Old.’

  ‘Twenty-two.’

  ‘WHO’S the sicko?? Twenty-two! Was he wearing a nappy?’

  ‘Oh, you’re an idiot. Twenty-two is an adult! God knows what I was up to at twenty-two, but I wasn’t a child. I knew what I was doing.’

  ‘You were being dull as shit with Mr Boring. That’s what you were doing.’

  Abby’s friends loved to remind her how different she had been while with her ex-boyfriend, a man she had stayed with for six years, although no one, Abby included, could work out why. He was nice enough. Nice friends, nice family, nice, nice, nice. Too nice. Abby had ended it a few years ago when she found a diamond ring in his underpants drawer. She figured it was better to break his heart by saying she had fallen out of love, rather than have him go through the whole proposal business.

  ‘He’s actually pretty smart. Funny too. Amazing body, Chels. Fit. Tanned. Delightful. Felt a bit pudgy next to him, but he didn’t seem to mind.’

  Chelsea didn’t dispel Abby’s belief she was pudgy. Chelsea always felt Abby could do with a little more time in the gym.

  ‘Did you take him back to your lair?’

  ‘Of course. You know what tequila does to me.’

  ‘Was it worth it?’ Chels was in rapid-fire interrogation mode. She needed all the details. Immediately. Then she would conclude whether or not Abby should bother with a guy again. Her decision was final – Chelsea was convinced she knew men. The problem was she dated the same kind of man every time, which fuelled the deluded opinion that she knew all men.

  ‘He might just be the best lover this woman has ever had. Four times in as many hours. With SEVERAL added bonuses for no extra charge.’

  All of Chelsea’s previous ideas about this man changed instantly. Despite being a huge and loyal fan of the ‘No Sex Until Three Months’ club, she loved sex. The fact that her ex-husband – Tim, a monstrously successful plastic surgeon who was also a chronic gambler – never gave her any loving might have had something to do with it. She’d had a healthy account at AdultPleasures.com for years. She had been a mess for a few months after divorcing him and his addiction, but had bounced back, or rather overshot, as she was now a serial dater, with a Facebook wall that could pass for Match.com. She wasn’t interested in settling down with a man for a while, and with her enormous settlement money, didn’t need to.

  ‘Reaaallly! Well, you have to see him again, obviously. Twenty-two or fifty-two, if the sex is good, age doesn’t mean a thing.’

  Abby shook her head and exhaled. ‘Can’t, unfortunately. Threw him the fiancé line.’

  Chelsea closed her eyes and threw back her head. ‘WHY do you always DO that? It’s so psychotic to begin with, and then, if you realise you do actually want to see them again, you can’t, because they think you’re a screwy bitch. Which you are.’

  ‘I don’t know! I was, I didn’t know if, it just fell out of my mou—’

  ‘Did you give him your number?’

  ‘No.’

  Chelsea shook her head: Abby was such a retard in these situations; she managed to sabotage things before the guy even left her apartment.

  ‘Look. He’ll find you if he wants to. He knows about Allure, right?’

  ‘Think I mentioned it, yeah … He knew one of the girls, too.’

  ‘Then hopefully he’s ballsy enough to contact you.’

  ‘He thinks I’m engaged! Anyway,
whatever, it’s just sex. I can find more sex.’

  Chelsea shrugged, scrolling through her phone’s inbox. ‘Ohmygod, our new receptionist is so wrongo – she uses Comic Sans for God’s sake …’ Chelsea locked her phone and placed it in her bag. ‘Well, my cradle-snatching friend, as delightful as this has been, I must go. Some of us have disgusting, rotting mouths to peer into.’

  She stood up, her toned, tiny body resplendent in a body stocking miscast as a dress, and swung her handbag, Gucci of course, complete with gilded keyrings and enormous G’s screaming from every square inch of the leather, over her shoulder.

  Tim’s ‘generous’ divorce payout meant Chelsea now only needed to work three days a week – which she did as a cosmetic dentist in one of those high-end surgeries in the CBD that had mood lighting and essential oil burners and groovy jazz playing in the foyer – leaving her plenty of time to make her body toned and tiny and tight dress-ready.

  ‘We doing pilates tomorrow morning? Mads is in.’

  Abby hated pilates, but seeing what it did for Chelsea’s figure ensured she kept up her pricey twice-weekly sessions. Their figures used to be fairly comparable, but then thirty had happened, and Allure, and the twelve-hour days and processed, convenience food that came with it. It wasn’t terrible, but now she had an extra layer of flesh hanging over the waistband of her jeans and cuddling her bra straps. It all just … hung. Over. She was a walking hangover.

  ‘Reformer class at eight. Then let’s go for breakfast and I can tell you both how Porschey De Rossi fell in love with me over our entrées.’ Chelsea winked playfully, threw twenty dollars on the table and bounced out of the café, the eyes of the waiter following her, glazed and pathetic under the spell of her petite arse.

  Abby checked the time, it was just after nine, and she was rarely at work later than eight. This – or possibly the second cappuccino – made her jittery with anxiety, and with shaking fingers she picked up her bag and phone, and set off.

  3

  Abby parked her duck-egg blue, vintage Mercedes in the car park, several layers below the core of the universe, and waited for a lift that operated at the pace of a drugged tortoise. The girls gave her plenty of stick about her car, but she treasured it. It was a complete pain in the arse, always breaking down and needing parts shipped in from Jupiter, but it was such an elegant, timeless beast. She couldn’t bear to part with it.