He raises both hands. “What? I wasn’t.”
“Don’t forget... I know you.” Yes—the old Max, with the scruffy clothes and Pot Noodle fetish and terrible timekeeping and secret affection for Take That.
Abustedsmile spreads over his face. “Oh, yeah.”
“I’ll transfer you the money. Just ping me your details.”
He feigns taking me seriously with a frown. “Okay. I will.”
I kick him beneath the table with my foot. “I mean it.”
“Absolutely.”
I smile and shake my head, glance around the virtually empty restaurant. “Okay. Well, I should probably get a cab.”
Endearingly, his self-confidence sways momentarily. I watch him swallow. “Unless... you fancy coming back to mine? Strictly for coffee, of course.”
“Of course.”
—
Max’s flat is less than a five-minute walk from the restaurant.Handy for seductions, I think, before scolding myself. He’s been nothing but a gentleman tonight.
It’s a two-bed place, which I’m guessing puts it at about three-quarters of a million. Inside, it’s beautifully done out—immaculate paintwork, all the period features not only intact but gracefully showcased. Stylish prints hang in sleek frames from the picture rails—the French Riviera, a Hockney reproduction—and there are polished copper light fittings, cushions in bold geometrics, and potted plants exploding from various corners. The kitchen-diner we’re standing in smells of furniture polish and anti-bac, and I can’t spot a single item out of place. Even the tea towels look as though they were pressed prior to hanging.
“This is... like a show home.” I think about my scruffy bedroom back in Tooting and make a mental note to not invite Max back there for as long as I possibly can. Either that, or I’ll have to fly quickly up the ranks at Supernova so I can afford to rent somewhere as swanky as this.
“Can’t take the credit really,” he says. “I had someone come in and help with the furnishings and stuff, when I moved in.”
I sit down on the sofa I’ve been standing next to. “You mean, an interior designer?”
He wrinkles his nose, clearly slightly self-conscious about it. “Not exactly. It was just a favor really, from a friend-of-a-friend.”
He presses a button on his coffee machine, then retrieves a bottle from an Art Deco–style walnut drinks cabinet. “Mind if I have a nightcap on the side?”
“Of course not.”
He twists the cap from the bottle. “I’ve been really getting into vintage cognac lately.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “Did you just say ‘I’ve been really getting into vintage cognac’?”
He turns to face me, clocks my expression, and smiles. “This is what you meant earlier, isn’t it?”
“About you being all smooth moves? Picking up the bill, rhapsodizing about cognac? Absolutely.”
He crosses the room, then—making his voice deep and husky—instructs Alexa to play jazz over his shoulder.
I laugh, and he laughs too, like he’s enjoying trying—and failing—to impress me. I suspect it’s probably been a while since he’s had to work very hard at the seduction game.
“Well,” he says, his eyes tracking mine as he sits down next to me, “maybe I’m just trying to win you over.”
The air seems to thicken then, the levity dropping from the room. Our gazes lock, and I reach for Max’s hand. There is a single moment in which our eyes are asking the same question, and in the next, his lips are on mine. We slide our arms around each other, and now he’s pressing against me, and in the next moment we’re horizontal on the sofa, a tangle of tongues and hands and limbs, tugging at each other’s clothes and making up for that lost decade like both our lives depend on it.
Six
Stay
On my first day at Pebbles & Paper, I spot my old boss Georgia as I’m heading from the bus stop to the shop.
