His expression was irritated. I had gotten the impression that he didn’t like Jon when he met him at the priory. “It’s pretty much done. She commissioned both Jon and me to work on another property she has. It’s a house that had been converted into six self-contained flats and she wants it reconfigured back to a huge house for her nephew and his family to move into when they come over from America in a couple of months.”
“Easy money?”
“Kind of. I’m literally designing it, which is more of a hobby than work. Then other people do the graft.”
“Unlike the priory,” he said and took my hand.
I hadn’t held a man’s hand as I walked down a street for months, maybe years. In fact, I couldn’t remember. It felt strange, different. Usually my hook ups stayed as that – comfortable arrangements involving easy dates and decent sex. We never got to the hand holding stage before the relationship, if you could call it that, wore out.
“That’s more mine,” I said. “Eventually, I’d like to renovate and help restore unique buildings. Jon’s architects aren’t the ones to work with for that as they’re more about making a quick buck and moving on to the next project as soon as possible. I sometimes work with an architect called Gabe who I’ve become good friends with. We’ve talked about joining up when we’ve time to take on something spectacular. Something special.”
He directed me across the road and up a small alleyway. We weren’t too far from Borough Market but I didn’t know where I was being taken. Through the alley was a small bar at the end of a series of what looked like boutique shops. The sign outside simply had the symbol of a conical flask.
“What’s this?” I said, knowing I was staring rather a lot.
Eli gave a quiet chuckle. “You’ll see when you go in.”
I wandered inside, slightly in front of him, and found a bar that looked like it belonged on Diagon Alley. “How’ve I never found this place?”
The look Eli gave me was smug and telling. “Because you’ve never come out on a date with me before.”
I raised my eyebrows and tried to give him a stern stare. “Are you trying to tell me you’re some sort of wizard and you’ve magicked me into a world of spells and wands and He Who Shall Not Be Named?”
He passed me a menu. “It’s new. I helped them with some of the legal work. I thought you’d like it.”
His hand rested on my lower back, its warmth seeping straight through the thin material of my dress. It was a possessive touch, making sure that everyone nearby knew we weren’t just friends.
It wasn’t my thing, for someone to mark me as their territory. Having six elder siblings meant I’d been babied and spoilt and as a child I’d milked that, wanting to get my own way and manipulating my brothers and sisters into putting me first. But that had come at a price: being protected. They all had an opinion on everything I did, or so it felt. By eighteen I’d had enough of being everybody else’s business and without telling them, applied to schools in America to study interior design, not law, and not Oxford or King’s Universities.
The uproar when they found out had been pretty much heard across the Atlantic, especially from Maxwell who’d had a lot to say on the matter. My eldest brother was the best of men; loyal and caring and devoted to us, most of the time, when we weren’t pissing him off. He’d taken on the role of caregiver when his mother had died, leaving our father to look after Max, Jackson, Claire and Callum, who’d only been two at the time. I didn’t know a great deal, only that Dad had been pretty much useless and didn’t know what to do, so it had been Max who had stepped up. But that also meant he was bossy and overbearing.
So I didn’t need a bossy and overbearing man. I’d avoided all attempts from any man to act like he owned me, or make me his in some way and I wasn’t sure how I felt about Eli’s touch.
“They treat making cocktails like a science,” he said, moving his hand to check the menu himself. “Most come with added smoke.” He nodded down the bar to where a couple were sitting, both with tall glasses that were steaming. The man was videoing his and I made a note to bring Payton here one night. My sister was obsessed with Harry Potter and Instagram and this would be her Mecca.
“Does Payton know about this?” I said. She and Eli worked together in the same department. He was the head of the department and a partner, although my sister was one of the owners. They got along, just as Eli had done with my father before he retired.
“She does,” Eli said. “But I’m not sure if she’s been. What are you ordering?”
We spent the next hour trying a couple of cocktails and talking about everything and nothing: the book and the box from the secret room; businesses; politics; Seph’s irritating sense of humour and Payton’s tendency to forget to look after herself. We talked about his sisters and his parents, who had moved to France and owned holiday cottages there, and how that meant he felt responsible for his sisters when they had a problem.
If I’d had a moment to take a step back and think about us, I’d have wondered what we were going to talk about when we got to the restaurant. I’d known Eli for a good couple of years so having to explain my family and the weirdness of it to him wasn’t necessary. For the first time in forever, I was comfortable and happy on a date with a man.
He pulled out my chair for me when we got to Wright Brothers and I laughed, not quite knowing how to react. I saw the waiter stifling his amusement and Eli raising an eyebrow and I tried to dig my discomfort deep into the ground.
“You’re not one of the boys with me, Ava,” he said when the waiter had taken our drink orders. “I don’t doubt that you could kick my ass at plastering or wallpapering or fixing a roof but that doesn’t mean you don’t get to be treated like a woman.”
I felt my cheeks redden. “I’m just not that girl.” I fiddled with the napkin. “I was so used to my brothers and Claire doing everything for me that when I moved to New York for college I resented anyone doing stuff for me as I needed to show I was capable of doing it myself.”
“I know you can pull out a chair for yourself.” He looked through the menu. “But I want to make sure you know that people care enough to want to look after you.”
I shrugged. “I get that. But you’re not ordering for me.”
He laughed. “I’ve never done that. I had a woman order for me once.”
“Did she get it right?”
He shook his head. “I left before the main course and made sure I paid the bill on the way out. I was a trainee solicitor and she was a partner at the same firm, but a different department. I didn’t know how to turn her down so I went on the date with her. I think she was hoping I’d be a secret submissive.”
