“I’m thinking how lucky I am to have two amazing women under my roof.”
I saw her smile despite herself. She put the book down. “How did Lauren take me staying over?”
“With a pinch of salt. Why don’t you grab a shower or whatever you need to do? I’ll show you where my room is?”
She stood up and picked up her drink, most of it already gone. “’Kay.” She paused. “I feel like I’m a teenager again. Only, this didn’t happen when I was a teenager. The popular boys were out of my league.”
“More likely they felt too intimidated.” I wasn’t sure how she’d take the words. It was almost how I felt now: she was startlingly pretty and when I thought about her talent as a chef and a business woman, I shit myself that she was in my house. Metaphorically. And that she was in my bed, or would be.
“What do you mean?”
She had no clue.
“You’re gorgeous. You’re clever and astute and talented. So fucking successful I want to poke my own eyeballs out. I’m not surprised that some men would struggle to talk to you.”
“You seem okay with it.”
If she could read my mind she’d know that was completely untrue. My small two bedroomed terraced house could fit in one section of her huge place and I’d never have the money to be able to invest in a restaurant or have someone kick start it.
“I’m about to get you in my bed.”
She flushed, her cheeks darkening.
“No pressure. Let me show you where it is. I just need to check my emails before I head there myself.”
I had an ensuite, convenient for me in that I could shower late and not wake up Lauren, but also that I avoided the mass amounts of girly products.
I needed to see if anyone had seen my brother so checking my phone while she was in the shower was high on my to-do list. It wasn’t unusual for him to go missing so I didn’t have alarm bells ringing. Yet. Something didn’t sit right and I was at the point of doing what I hadn’t needed to for a couple of years and walk the streets to find him during the nights. Hopefully there would be someone in one of the shelters or soup kitchens that had seen him.
I left Simone to do what she needed to, lurking in the hallway downstairs while I went through the various social media outlets on my phone, checking messages, sending some myself. Nothing had been reported. A couple of volunteers from places where he frequented had been in touch to say they hadn’t seen him.
Leaving my phone downstairs was habit. If my brother was going to call me, it would the house phone he’d dial and I slept with a handset next to my bed. In seven years, he’d made that call once.
Simone was sitting on the bed, looking out of the window over London, the curtains still open. Her hair was damp, my dressing gown wrapped around her even though it was two people too big.
I crossed the bed and sat down behind her, my legs either side of hers. She rested her head back against my chest, a gesture that felt more intimate than any kiss.
“You okay?”
“Kind of. I’m just realising that someone broke into my new restaurant and wrote ‘whore’ on the tiles. It’s starting to feel kind of personal.”
“Can you not think about it for tonight? There’s nothing we can do right now that will change things.”
“I know. I’m good at compartmentalising.” She turned around and straddled me this time, my dressing gown gaping at the waist and exposing soft, creamy flesh.
Maybe she was using me to forget. Maybe I was an exorcism for her demons. I didn’t know. Her lips met mine and I didn’t care either. We were alone and private and had time to be whatever we needed to with all of our cards already laid out on the table.
“I can still sleep on the sofa.” One last act of being gentleman-like, because I was going to struggle with the same offer in a few more seconds.
Her laugh was soft, quiet. “You know, I didn’t think it would bother me, finding that word scrawled over the tiles. I can rationalise most things, but right now, I’m actually worried that someone was targeting me.”
I didn’t want to say to her that I thought she might be right. Since she’d told me, my head had been going through every fuckwit it could be, right from the dick in her least favourite tapas restaurant to the waiter she fired for groping another member of staff. “Your friend’s brother-in-law has sent someone round to your house to check it’s okay and it is. A cleaning company is in tomorrow to sort the tiles and you’ve got security involved. Whether or not it was because of you is irrelevant, so it’s okay.” I pulled her hair onto my fist and ran my hand down the length of it.
“I know. Thanks for letting me stay.” She turned round to face me. “Is this going to be awkward tomorrow?”
“Why would it? We won’t let it be.”
“Other staff?”
