‘Hey.’ He drops his lips to my brow. ‘You look tired.’
I shrug, feeling defeated by my day. ‘Just life.’
‘Well,just life, Amy has gone all out and made us a three-course congratulations meal. She’s set the table, too. Do you want to grab a shower first or are you good to go?’
‘I’ll shower. But do you know what I’d love?’
He wraps his towel around my neck and pulls me towards him. ‘What?’
‘If we ate on the sofa, watched trash TV and snuggled.’
‘If that’s what the lady wants, that’s what the lady shall have.’ He bites the tip of my nose then clips my arse cheeks with his towel so I move upstairs to shower. When I come back down, I’m dressed in a pair of leggings and an oversized white shirt, my damp hair towel-dried. Gregory has shuffled the sofa to be directly facing the large flat screen and lit two candles on the coffee table. Two wine glasses are filled with a chilled white of some variety and two small plates host goat cheese and roasted vegetable salad.
He sits up from his position laid out on the sofa and hands me the remote, which I use to stream one of Amanda’s new recs.I sit down and pull my knees up to my chest, resting sideways against Gregory. ‘This is exactly the medicine for today.’
He strokes my hair from my brow. ‘Rough day?’
‘Oh, you know, handed my notice in, found out the registration of my client’s new software is going to shit, been told to clear out my dad’s home. Regular day I’d say.’
‘When do you have to clear out the house?’
‘This weekend. Sandy’s going to help me.’
‘I can help, too.’
I hug my knees tighter as I ask, ‘Would you be offended if I asked you not to?’
His jaw rolls and I can see his mind working in overdrive. ‘Not if that’s what you want.’
I really don’t want to get into my dad’s things being too personal for a stranger. There’s no way of saying that so he’ll understand. More than that, I can’t tell him about the part of me that doesn’t want him there because it doesn’t feel right. My dad was murdered and he was alone when he died. That’s something I’m still coming to terms with. I’ve accepted, most days, that helping Gregory take over Pearson’s company was at least something I did for the right reasons. But I’m not ready to put side by side my dad’s death and the role that the man I love played in my dad being taken before his time.
The way Gregory fusses, shuffling on the sofa, adjusting the volume of the TV and dimming the lights in the room, sipping his wine and handing me my plate without meeting my eye, all tells me he’s not okay with the idea. He knows how my mind works, he knows my thoughts, but voicing them won’t help either of us. So I accept my plate and remark on the romcom we’re watchinguntil Gregory’s shoulders relax and he lifts one knee onto the sofa, pulling my feet across his straight leg.
‘Are you ready for main?’ he asks, taking my empty plate from my lap.
‘I can get it. What are we having?’
‘No, Amy has left strict instructions as to how I pan fry our duck and heat through her special plum sauce.’
I follow him to the breakfast bar with our wine glasses. ‘What makes it so special?’
After discarding our plates in the dishwasher, he shrugs. ‘Amy made it?’ he says with a short laugh.He’s back.
We eat duck then Amy’s Special Chocolate Orange Cheesecake: special because Amy made it. I’m stuffed to the point of waddling by the time we’re done. ‘I can’t remember when I last ate like that,’ I say, placing my empty dessert plate on the coffee table then leaning back to hold my triplet belly. ‘I feel like a female Bruce Bogtrotter.’
‘Bruce who now?’
‘Bogtrotter. FromMatilda. You have seenMatilda? Come on!’
Leaning across him, I grab his phone from the opposite arm of the sofa and google Bruce, chocolate cake all around his mouth, a sadistic grin on his face.
Gregory takes the phone from me and holds it next to my face. ‘Jesus, you’re right. Such a likeness. You’re just a chubby boy trapped in a skinny-lady body.’
‘Hey,’ I protest, slapping his arm with a giggle. ‘You just ate what I did.’
‘Yes, and I’m about six inches taller than you and twice as wide as you. Plus, I fill up from my nose.’
‘Huh?’
