“It’s all right,” he said. “You can continue shouting at me in a minute, Ipromise.”
She didn’t trust herself to speak. The only thing she could do was get out of the street. His body, solid behind her, steered her towards the pavement, and this time the pressure of his arm on her back and his hand still under her elbow didn’t allowargument.
The Pavement Cafe
Millie nearly missed the step. She wasn’t used to being helped to walk. Perhaps he could feel her shaking because his arm tightened, pressing her to him to support her.
“A small step up, here.” He urged her through theentrance.
The sign on the door read: CAFÉ OPEN 8AM TILL 3PM. It was a small café, two small tables and a kitchen section with a coffee machine and a sandwich grill behind a glass counter. Places like this sold sandwiches and lunchtime snacks to office workers. A waitress was just turning the sign from OPEN to CLOSED, but a look from the man at Millie’s side was enough to ensure they were allowed in withoutargument.
He walked her to a table. “Here.” He pulled a chair for her; his hand moved from her waist to the small of her back as he guided her. “This looks comfortable enough.” His voice was softand warm.
She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had pulled a chair for her. Certainly not her husband. Maybe he offered chairs for the “sophisticated women” he romanced. Beige women, like her, had to get their own chairs. Unless they broke down in the middle of the road. So, she wasn’t just “ugly,” “fat,” and “beige,” but now stupid and hysterical. A shudder went through her.
“Are you cold?” He was still here, placing his newspaper down on the table. He took off his coat and, crouching down, placed it around her shoulders, and immediately, warmth enveloped her.
She concentrated on breathing. Inhale. Exhale.Calm down.
“You’ve had a bit of a shock. You’ll be all right in a minute.” He spoke close to her ear, as if reading her mind. Over his shoulder, he called to the waitress, “Tea. Strong, sweet. Quickly, please.” Then turning back to Millie, he said more softly, “I’ll just bea minute.”
Before she could answer, he was already up and walking out ofthe café.
Millie sat for a moment, letting herself feel the warmth from his coat flow into her. Slowly, the shaking subsided, and she leaned back, letting the expensive wool, the warm luxurious smell… what was it? A faint masculine scent, warm, woody…
Wonderful.
Just wonderful. She was in some unknown café, wearing a stranger’s coat and losing her mind over his cologne—was it cologne? No, maybe his own scent? Too faint to tell for sure and yet so heady shecouldn’t—
Stop it!
She sat up straight. This was the man who just laughed at her and called her a moron. More to the point, he was the rich man whose expensive car she now had to pay to repair, and whose expensive coat was wrapped around her, filling her senses with its warm, comforting weight and heady, manly cologne, a man who was—
“Your husband?” the waitress asked, placing the tea down on the table with a clink of cupon saucer.
“Excuse me?” Millie asked.
“Is he your husband? Only I wasn’t sure because he’s not wearing a wedding ring.”
Did anyone still do that, check a man’s fourth finger? This waitress had to be a much nicer woman than the one in bed with Henry this morning. “No,” Millie answered as kindly as she could. “He’s not myhusband.”
Relief and pleasure washed across the waitress’s face.
Millie looked away. Time to take control of her senses. Removing the coat from her shoulders, she placed it on the back of another chair. Curiously cold without it, she wrapped her hands around the mug of hot tea and took a grateful sip. “Mmm. Lovely.” She thanked the waitress, but the girl didn’t answer.
Millie looked up and found her gazing through the window, attention riveted on the man walking back towards the café. She was already smiling as he came in. “What will you be having?”
“Nothing for me, thank you.” He walked towards Millie, apparently oblivious to the disappointment on the waitress’s face.
So, he was used to women falling at his feet. It was so easy for rich playboys who thought they were God’s gift.
“There you go,” he said, placing her handbag and car keys on the table in front of her.
She noticed his long hands, his slim wrist watch, a Habring Doppel. The understated elegance didn’t fool her. She knew how much it cost because Henry had talked for a year about wanting a Habring watch. He’d dropped hint after hint close to his birthday. And although she’d wanted to get it for him, £8,000 was so completely out of her reach as to belaughable.
Still, Henry had grumbled that all successful lawyers had luxurytimepieces. That’s what he called them, not watches buttimepieces! Joking, she had asked if they actuallymadetime. Bad joke. Henry had shouted, then sulked all through the birthday dinner she had prepared for him. He’d gone on sulking for a week until, in desperation, she’d found an imitation on eBay for £200, and Henry had beenmollified.
But there was nothing fake about the stranger standing in front of her now.
