‘Do I look like I’m joking? Why would you even think that?’
‘Because what you want…’ The pause is infinitesimal but it’s enough. Tell me what you want. He murmured it over and over in my ear, followed up with filthy suggestions. ‘…is for me to do the gentlemanly thing and volunteer to go in there. These are custom-made brogues and a Brioni suit. You going to pay my dry-cleaning bill?’
‘I am more than capable of getting into the skip and some of us dressed appropriately. Who the hell wears a suit that needs dry cleaning to go on site?’
‘We’re representing the company,’ he hisses at me. ‘And this is a straightforward case. We could be doing this in an office going over the financials. I dressed to look professional.’
‘And I didn’t?’
He gives my skirt, with its flippy frill, a dismissive look. ‘You’ll do.’
‘And for the record, I don’t expect you to get in the skip just because you’re a man and I’m a poor weak female. So if you can quit whining for five minutes and give me a leg up, I’d be grateful.’
He holds out his hands and I take great satisfaction in planting a soggy, ash-covered boot in the palm of his hand. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he grumbles, ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering. We both know the client’s a lying sack of shit.’ With that he heaves me upwards with more testosterone-fuelled force than necessary and I tumble into the skip, my weight crashing through the pile of soggy empty boxes immediately beneath the surface layer of slithery plastic-packaged shirts. It takes me a while to wade through them and resurface, and when I finally emerge, I spot Señor Lopez scowling behind Tom’s back. It’s obvious he’s heard every word and is less than impressed with either of us.
Somehow, I think lunch is a goner.
Chapter Two TOM
We’re on the same flight back, though thankfully not sitting next to each other. I’m not sure I can keep up the pretence of being unaffected by Lydia. My dick seems to have developed some Pavlovian dog response to her perfume. Every time I get a whiff of that floral citrus fragrance of hers, it twitches.
Even I realise that it might have been good manners to acknowledge we had sex once … actually it was a lot more than once, but it was a one-time thing. What the hell do you say when you’re unexpectedly reunited and in a work situation? Hi, nice to see you again? rather than the first things that sprang to mind which were, one, It took me a while to walk straight after that weekend, how about you? and, two, Damn, fancy running into you when I’ve been doing my utmost to try and forget you.
It doesn’t help that I’m in a seriously shitty mood today. Maybe I took it out on her because that weekend had been so fucking glorious and terrifying. My actions were completely out of character during those forty-eight hours but at the same time so in tune with the guy I’d rather be. Free, uninhibited and a little bit wild. Truth is, I hate my job. Absolutely loathe the fucker. I never wanted to be in insurance, still don’t. Problem is, you do it for a while, to keep the peace, and then you get used to a salary. You rent a place, then you have rent payments and bills and you’re stuck.
So maybe I took it out on Little Miss Eager Beaver. No one likes a keen bean. Especially not one who plays by the book. Normally I’m pretty good at hiding my frustration but not today. And not with her. She’s supposed to be an illusion, the perfect companion that clicked with another me, one that’s never existed outside that weekend. Now I have to face up to the fact that she’s a living, breathing person that I can’t just ignore, as well as the dissatisfaction of who I really am these days. I pull out my phone and open the email I received overnight. You’d have thought the words would be burnt into my brain I’ve read it so many times. I sigh, frustration and elation jostling with each other.
I throw myself back in my seat and hear a tut from behind. I can’t even skive off this afternoon as there’s no excuse for not going back to the office given our trip has been cut short. Lopez couldn’t get us to the airport fast enough. Probably wasn’t that professional to call him a lying sack of shit – even it was true – especially not when I’ve only just joined the company.
It’s fair to say I sulk for most of the flight back to London. Not my most attractive trait but hey, we’re all allowed an off day. Although I seem to have had a lot of them in recent months. Eleven months to be precise.
Rather awkwardly, Lydia and I go through passport control at the same time and end up walking together towards the Underground following the signs to the Piccadilly Line. I should have taken a cab.
We’re standing waiting for the Tube when she nonchalantly asks while studying the advert opposite and not even looking at me, ‘How long are you going to keep this up?’
‘Keep what up?’ Okay, so I’m being deliberately obtuse, but why can’t she leave it? It happened. Months ago. Eleven months ago.
‘Pretending that you don’t know me.’
‘I don’t know you,’ I say because if we’re being pedantic about these things. I don’t know know her. I don’t know her age, and before today I didn’t even know her surname, didn’t know what she did, where she lives or anything about her. I don’t know her heart’s desires, her past, present or future.
There’s a pause and I regret being such a dick but it’s too late to backtrack.
To give her maximum credit, she doesn’t make a thing of it, which perversely makes me like her even more. I like that she’s no-nonsense, making it perfectly plain she thinks I’m a wanker in the way that she purses her lips and gives me a pitying smile.
‘I take it you’re going back to the office,’ she says.
‘Might as well. You going to write up the report?’
‘I think that would be best,’ she says, her voice clipped and disapproving. ‘Given that I was the one actually investigating the claim.’
I wince. She’s right. She was doing the job I should have been doing. Despite being made to feel in the wrong, I kind of like that she knows who she is and isn’t going to compromise. Not that I’m going to show it.
‘Fill your boots. The financials speak for themselves.’ I sound like a petulant prick. It’s not her fault I’ve been offered my dream and can’t fund it, or that she makes me think of what a fake I am.
I sit opposite her on the Tube and covertly study her. Shoulder-length brunette hair, sensible suit. In fact, everything about her is sensible. I’m still not sure what made me move on her that night. I mean she’s pretty in a non-showy way, very understated. I usually prefer more out-there women, glamorous and glossy.
There was something about the dress she wore. Black. Silk. Severe at the front, unexpectedly sexy as hell at the back. I study the navy blue suit she’s wearing now. It looks expensive and plain apart from the feminine little flippy hem to the skirt. She’s self-contained, like she knows her own worth, but under her clothes I know her body is…
I shut the thought down and try to concentrate on the rattle of the train hurtling through the dark tunnel. It was just sex. Good sex … okay, amazing sex. I might even go as far as to say once-in-a-lifetime sex. At that moment I catch her eye and it all comes back. Blood starts to circulate where it shouldn’t and I put a brake on those thoughts and transfer them.
Email. Film. Offer.
This morning the email came. The one I’ve dreamed about for years. After months of discussion, Oswater Productions have green-lighted my screenplay, with ME, yes ME, as director – this is a BFD. The biggest in my life, except I need to secure more funding to make the project happen and be able to give up my day job.
Maybe I could moonlight as a gigolo or an escort. The thought makes me scowl just as Lydia looks my way again. She stiffens, I can see it in the tightening of her jaw. She thinks my grimace is aimed at her. I look away, down at my phone, one hand rubbing against the faded fabric covering my seat. She unsettles me and I don’t know why. Is it because she was completely uninhibited that weekend and so was I and it scared the shit out of me?
When the train pulls into Green Park station, I’m even more grumpy than I was getting off the plane. I need to pull myself together and put on a good show. I ought to try and make a good impression at the new company.
My parents think it’s fan-fucking-tastic that I’ve joined Bignall Harcourt Claims Assessors, although I suspect Dad pulled a few strings to get me the job – even though I asked him specifically not to. He can’t help himself. I shouldn’t have let on I’d got an interview, except my sister Rosie announced over Sunday lunch she’d just had a promotion. Competitive much?
Mum and Dad are thrilled by the big fat salary increase – Mum especially. She thinks it’s a ‘pass go’ to mortgage, matrimony and multiple babies, which apparently I owe her. The idea fills me with terror.
I follow Lydia out of the carriage and into the throng of people. She doesn’t even look back at me, just strides ahead, weaving her way through the crowd with the navigational ease of an Exocet missile.
I’m in a halfway house of indecision. We’re both going the same way, to the same place – it feels churlish not to talk and I don’t feel like apologising or explaining but manners – thanks, Mum and Dad, you’ll be proud – get the better of me.
‘Hey.’ I stop and tug at her arm at the top of the escalator. ‘Look, I’m not in the best mood today, right. I don’t always behave like this.’
