OK, if she hadn’t been a teeny bit squiffy she possibly wouldn’t have done that. ‘It’s my chicken impression.’
‘Not exactly Rory Bremner, are you?’
‘Ooh, I saw Rory Bremner once,’ Lola said excitedly. ‘In a delicatessen:
‘He must have been thrilled. Can we get the stuff out now?’ She waggled her fingers once more.
‘You’re really scared I’ll win, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t believe this.’ Heaving a sigh, Doug pushed up the sleeve of his pale grey sweatshirt, assumed the position against the car and clasped Lola’s right hand. Her heart lolloped as his warm fingers closed around hers. She could feel his breath on her face, smell the aftershave he was wearing, see the glint of stubble on his jaw, imagine the way his mouth would feel if she were to kiss him right now ...
Like premature ejaculation it was all over far too soon. CLONCK went the back of her forearm against the boot of the Mercedes.
‘That’s not fair,’ Lola wailed. ‘I wasn’t ready’
‘Correction. You weren’t strong enough.’ He paused. ‘What are you doing now?’
‘Nothing. Just looking at you.’ She’d seen a lot of eyes in her life but none more beautiful than Dougie’s. He had the thickest, darkest eyelashes of any man she’d ever known.
‘Well, stop it. I don’t trust what’s going on here. All of a sudden you’re persuading my sister to move into the flat next to yours and I want to know why’
‘I didn’t persuade her. It was her decision. But I’m glad she chose to,’ said Lola. ‘Because I like Sally. We get on well together. And I’d rather have her living next door than the geeky nerdy type who would have moved in if she hadn’t come along in the nick of time.’
‘Is that the only reason?’
‘Of course!’
Now why don’t I believe you? Oh yes, that’s right, because you’re a mercenary liar. Take these.’
Having sprung open the boot once more, Doug dumped a huge pink canvas holdall in Lola’s arms.
‘How many times can I say I’m sorry?’
‘Forget it. Not interested.’ There was that muscle again, twitching away in his jaw as he hauled out two boxes of books. ‘Just so long as you aren’t still harbouring some kind of plan to persuade me to change my mind about you, because that’s not going to happen.’
‘I know. You told me that last week.’ Honestly, whatever happened to forgive and forget?
then we went back to my flat and tore each other’s clothes off. We had wild sex all night long and it was ... ooh, fabulous!’
‘Nice try, Pinocchio.’ Cheryl carried on stacking books on a table in readiness for an author to come in and do a stock-signing. ‘So what really happened?’
What had really happened was far less encouraging. Lola pulled a face and said, ‘He emptied the car, dumped Sally’s things in her flat and drove off.’
‘Oh dear. So you won’t be bringing him along to Bernini’s tomorrow night. I was looking forward to meeting him.’
Tomorrow night was their works Christmas party. This year for some reason someone had suggested it should be fancy dressand in a moment of madness Lola had agreed. ‘I wouldn’t inflict that on Dougie. I’m not sure he’s the dressing-up-like-an-idiot kind.’
‘Plus,’ Cheryl helpfully pointed out, ‘he’s not exactly your number one fan at the moment.’
‘I know, I know’ Lola began folding the books’ jacket flaps to the title pages to make signing speedier. Too ashamed to reveal the whole truth, she had left out the money aspect; as far as Cheryl was concerned, all that had happened was that Dougie had reacted badly to being chucked.
‘Oh, cheer up,’ said Cheryl. ‘If anyone can win him round, you can. Think about it, meeting up with your first love again is fate! It’s romantic! You made a mistake before, but there’s no reason why you can’t give things another whirl, especially if he’s as gorgeous as you say he — oh, hello!’
Looking up, Lola saw that the man who wasn’t a private detective was on the other side of the table.
‘Hi.’ He greeted them both with a friendly smile.
‘How did you get on with ... ?’ Bugger, out of the books she’d recommended, Lola couldn’t remember which one he’d ended up buying.
‘It was great. I’m going to try the other author you mentioned. It’s just that he’s written a whole lot of them and I wasn’t sure if I should start with the first in the—’
‘Lola, there’s a drunk guy trying to steal books.’ Tim rushed up, his face puce with indignation.
‘He’s over in Mysteries, trying to stuff a load of Agatha Christies down his trousers. Quick!’
Euww. Dropping the book in her hand, Lola raced across the shop floor in Tim’s slipstream, dodging customers and cursing shoplifters. Poor Agatha, what a grim thing to happen. She definitely didn’t deserve this.
Chapter 15
‘Where to, mate?’
‘Airport,’ said Gabe.
He sat back in the air-conditioned cab and didn’t glance up at the window of Jaydena’s apartment as the driver pulled away from the kerb.
