“Poppy!”
But her standing only made the boat rock a little more. I watched in slow motion as she yelped, lost her balance seconds later, her face cycling through surprise, resignation, thenacceptance of her fate. She fell backwards into the water with a splash that somehow managed to be both graceful and wholly undignified.
My amusement vanished in an instant. Eliza hated boats for this precise reason.
I kicked towards her, my waterlogged clothes making every movement feel like I was swimming through molasses. “Eliza!”
She surfaced nearby, her hair plastered to her face as panic flickered across her features. “Oh my fucking god, whose idea was it to get a bloody boat?” She winced as she spat out the stale water.
“I’ve got you,” I told Eliza, swimming close. “You’re okay. Hold on to me.”
She threw her arms around my shoulders, and we both caught our breath. To my right, three swans started to swim towards us. I decided not to alert Eliza to that.
Roka leaned over the side of the boat, which was somehow still upright despite our dramatic exit. “Are you guys okay? Want to try to get back up?”
I shook my head. “We’ll live,” I replied. “But I don’t think trying to clamber back up is the answer.” My teeth started to chatter. “Can you get hold of the boat attendant to come and get us?”
However, when I glanced in his direction, his motorised dinghy was already on its way.
“The cavalry is coming,” Roka said, waving her arms.
“This is your fault for agreeing to get into the boat in the first place,” Eliza huffed into my ear.
“My fault?” I turned my head. “You’re the one who jumped in after me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, I fell. Besides, I have to keep you alive. It’s the minimum I can do, especially now Margot practically lives with me.”
I smiled that she was still combative, even up to her neck in algae. Thankfully, the swans had changed course, maybe put off by Eliza’s scowl.
“Can we agree to disagree, just this once?”
Eliza shook her head, but there was a ghost of a smile on her lips. “Never once in any previous business trip have I ended up in the middle of a lake.”
I spluttered out a laugh. “Didn’t I tell you working with me would be fun?”
CHAPTER 13
Roka’s apartment turned out to be a Brooklyn Heights penthouse with the kind of stone steps and huge windows that screamed ‘movie set’, complete with a kitchen island that sparkled like it’d been dipped in glitter.
She let us in, then disappeared briefly and returned with tracksuit bottoms for us both and two Roka tour T-shirts. I seriously could have kissed her. Getting out of these lake-drenched clothes was my top priority. Of all the things I’d imagined might go wrong, mutual drowning hadn’t made the list.
Meanwhile, Roka’s top priority had been making sure the lake bloke didn’t spread the story. She’d promised him two tickets to her upcoming intimate Manhattan show plus a tip that made his eyes go cartoon-wide, all in exchange for pretending we were competent humans who hadn’t just provided the afternoon’s entertainment for half the lake.
“Use my guest rooms to get ready.” She indicated two doors next to each other. “They both have their own bathrooms with everything you could need, but take your time. When you’re ready, I’ll be on the roof with fresh coffee.”
When she disappeared, I glanced at Eliza. “Even though this isn’t going exactly to plan, I feel like we’ve made an impression.”
She rolled her eyes, but laughed all the same. “You always make an impression, Poppy Voss.” She stared at me for a beat too long, stroked my arm, and then bolted through one of the doors like she’d been scalded.
I had no idea what to make of that.
Having intended to have the quickest shower of my life, I ended up spending more time marvelling at what pop stars have in their guest bathrooms. Acres of stylish tiles and enough plants to supply a garden centre was the answer, along with hotel-soft towels.
When I eventually made it outside, Roka was on the sofa chatting to Eliza, in a rooftop garden that offered a picture-postcard view of Manhattan’s skyline. Fairy lights were strung between potted olive trees, and comfortable seating areas were scattered around like someone had actually thought about how people might want to relax rather than just pose for Instagram.
Roka had changed into jeans and a vintage Fleetwood Mac T-shirt, and without the baseball cap, her famous sculpted fair hair caught the afternoon light.
“You made it!” she said when she spotted me. She jumped up, poured me a coffee from the pot on a side table, then we all settled down amid a mammoth pile of cushions I would not want to fluff up on a daily basis.
