‘I’ll bet you a cheese omelette that they all focused on the windows. That’s if you’d allow anything that yellow to brighten the monochrome perfection of your kitchen.’
‘I let you in,’ he reminded her, ‘and I promise you no one has ever looked greener, or more out of place.’
‘Dressed like this,’ she replied, reprising the twirl, ‘I’d look out of place anywhere except your basement.’
‘True.’
‘Maybe you should have left me down there.’
‘Maybe you should get out of it.’
Something about the way he was looking at her sent a tremor of longing through her. It was as if something had become unhinged in her brain. Shock-it had to be shock. She didn’t do this. But, before she could do something really stupid, she said, ‘I think we’ll stick with the plan.’
Plan! What plan?
When he didn’t answer she crossed to the drawing board to take a look at what he was working on. It wasn’t a big project, just the front and side elevations of a single-storey house.
There was a photograph clipped to the corner of the board. Taken from a rocky ledge, the land fell away to a small sandy cove. The site for the house?
The edges of both photograph and drawing were curling slightly, as if they hadn’t been touched in a long time. Yet it was here, he kept it close, and she ran a hand over the edge of the photograph in an attempt to smooth it.
‘This is nice,’ she said, looking back at him. ‘Where is it?’
He didn’t look at the picture.
‘Cornwall.’
‘I’ve never been to Cornwall.’
‘You should,’ he said, his face devoid of expression and for a moment she thought she’d put her foot in her mouth. Right up to her ankle. ‘It’s…nice.’ Then she saw the tiny betraying flicker at the corner of his eye. ‘And full of Cornish piskies. Dressed like that, you’d be right at home.’
He was teasing her?
‘I’m not a pixie,’ she said, mock indignantly, to disguise the rush of pleasure, warmth, that threatened to overwhelm her. ‘I’m an elf.’
‘Piskies, not pixies.’ Then, abruptly, ‘That’s the lot. You’ve seen it all now. Choose a room, Lucy. Make yourself at home. I’ll go and make a start on that cheese omelette I owe you.’
‘You’re admitting I was right?’ she demanded, not wanting him to go.
‘Smart as paint,’ he agreed, leaving her in his room. A gesture of trust? Because she was a stranger, too. Or because he felt the same tug of desire, heat?
Except they weren’t. Strangers. They might never have met before but, from the moment their eyes had met, they had known one another, deep down. Responding to something that went far beyond the surface conventions.
She looked again at the photograph.
What a pathetic, pitiful word to describe such a landscape. To describe a house designed with such skill that it would become a part of it. It wasn’t
It was extraordinary. Twenty minutes. That was all it had taken her to see through surface veneer to the darkness at the heart of the apartment.
He’d designed it as a gift for Claudia, his cousin’s wife. Envisaged it filled with light, colour, life-reflecting the light, colour, life of the city. He’d been forced to watch, helpless, as Christopher had taken his vision and sucked the life right out of it. Just as he’d sucked the life right out of the woman he loved.
Lucy didn’t bother to look at each room before deciding which to choose. They were all as soulless as the room upstairs.
She dumped her bag on the bed and checked out the en suite bathroom. Like those upstairs, it was supplied with all the essentials, including a new toothbrush which she fell upon with gratitude.
She’d replace it first thing…
She caught her reflection in the mirror.
‘Not bright, Lucy B,’ she said. ‘You are such a pushover. One smile and he’s got you wrapped around his little finger.’
One look and she’d seen her engagement to Rupert for the sham it was.
But, even if he was as genuine as her instincts-and just how reliable were those dumb whoosh, flash, bang hormones anyway?-were telling her, this was, could only ever be, a very temporary stopgap. Breathing space.
She took out her own phone and it leapt into life. Of course. Why would Rupert cut her off when it was the one way he could contact her?
There were dozens of voicemails. She ignored them. There was no one she could think of who’d have anything to say that she wanted to hear. But she opened Rupert’s last message:
Blunt and to the point, it didn’t escape her that he’d waited until the store was closed, all the doors were locked and there was no chance that she was still inside before calling her.
Proof, if she needed it, that he’d had someone watching all that time, just in case.
No doubt he’d had everyone out checking anywhere else she might have taken cover, too. She guessed some of the messages were from her former flatmates, the owner of the nursery where she’d worked. Everyone who had touched her life since the day her mother had abandoned her.
No apology, but at least there was no pretence. Forced to accept that she’d somehow slipped through his fingers, he was ready to talk.
The problem there was that there was nothing he had to say that she wanted to hear.
Or maybe one thing, and that was unintentional.
Not that, in her heart of hearts, she’d needed confirmation that Nathaniel really was on the level. That he’d seen she was in trouble and hadn’t hesitated to step forward.
That he was one of the good guys.
But it was good to know that her judgement wasn’t terminally damaged. Not as crap as she’d thought.
She logged into Twitter. There were hundreds of messages now. And a new hashtag:
No prizes for guessing who’d come up with that one, she thought, as she logged into her diary.
‘Can I help?’
Nat, emptying the trolley, turned at the rare sound of another human voice in his kitchen. Lucy was standing in the doorway, a discordant slash of garish green against the cool grey of the slate and marble surfaces of the kitchen.
A discordant note in his life, knocking him off balance, sending a fizz of expectancy racing through his veins.
‘Shall I put these away?’ She didn’t wait for an answer, but picked up a bag of salad leaves and, as she turned, he saw that she’d taken off the felt boots and striped tights, that the tunic barely covered her satin-skinned thighs and that her toenails were painted a bright candy-red that would have all the boy elves’ heads in a spin. Not to mention the CEO of this department store.
She opened one of the doors to the stainless steel fridge and he saw her pause for a heartbeat as she realised that, apart from bottled water, it was empty.
