‘So,’ she says. ‘Have you decided?’
‘Decided what?’ Alex is having trouble accessing his thoughts. On account, perhaps, of blood having rushed away from his brain and towards other places.
‘Are you going to let me work on this novel with you?’
‘Your hair is trapped in your earring,’ he says. Which does not answer the question, but does buy him time. And does also give him an excuse to reach forward and gently remove the forward-falling strand, brushing her cheek as he does so. Her skin is so soft.
She looks up at him, her eyes full of – something. Asking, perhaps, to be taken seriously enough to work with him. In this moment, it feels impossible to deny her that.
‘I think that would be fine,’ he squeaks out. He has got to get control of his voice. Of his mind. Of himself.
‘Good,’ she says. She seems to be satisfied, and he wishes the same were true of him. ‘I can work withfine.’
‘So when do we start?’
Jess picks up the coffee that’s been called for her – another flat white, though he’s surprised that he doesn’t add sugar. If pressed, he would have guessed she’d have sugar in her coffee, marshmallows in her hot chocolate, strawberry sauce on her ice cream.
She leads him to a table. ‘That’s what we’re here to discuss, isn’t it? Get your diary out.’ She reaches into herbackpack for an actual, physical notebook – colourful and loud, of course. Then she retrieves her phone from her pocket and hands it to him.
‘Put your number in there,’ she says.
It shocks him how easily he obeys, unthinkingly and without argument. Is this how their relationship is going to be from now on?Let’s hope not, he thinks.This spells trouble.
Chapter Seven
Jess
Today’s the day Alex and Jess are officially starting work, and Jess has taken maybe a bit longer than usual to pick her outfit. It’s that awkward, not-quite-spring time of the year, when she digs her coldish-weather clothes back out for one last outing before she moves on to her summer wardrobe. Boots, scarves, layers. Soft jumpers. Merino wool. Looking good helps Jess to feel good, feel confident. It has nothing to do with Alex himself, of course. The electric shock that Jess felt when Alex’s finger brushed her hair away from her earring was probably just static. He is not handsome enough to tempt her into trying to impress him. And if shedoesimpress him, she’d like it to be with her writing, not for how good a messy pencil bun looks on her or for her ability to pick a colour palette. She only wants to teach him a lesson about who deserves to be taken seriously. She doesn’t care what he thinks abouther, only that he is put in his place and that his arrogant assumptions are corrected.
But choosing the right scarf (maroon and white gingham) to go with the new boots she picked up in anend-of-season sale (dark brown knee-highs, block heel) and the right in-between-the-seasons coat (dark denim), then hunting around for her tortoiseshell glasses … All of this has taken longer than Jess planned, and she’s running a bit late. So she doesn’t have time to do much more than glance at the postcard she picks up from her doormat. Her mum is in Santorini this time, having a wonderful holiday, enjoying the sun, and all the rest of it. Nothing fundamentally different from the postcards Jess has been receiving all her life: the primary way in which her mother has conducted a relationship with her since Jess moved out to go to university. They are punctuated with calls that always seem to end before Jess has fully updated her mum on her life, with a quick ‘must dash, love’ and some air kisses down the phone. At least it makes for a fun collection of postcards on her fridge. She’ll find a spot there for this one later. But for now, she’s more excited about wearing her boots for the first time. She eyed them all winter and was thrilled to see them on sale. She’s glad she’s getting to wear them before the days get warmer and she’s back to Mary Janes and sandals.
But it turns out that wearing a pair of boots for the first time is maybe not the wisest choice for travelling across London, from Pimlico to Hampstead (of course Hampstead; where else could Alex be expected to live?). Definitely not the wisest choice if you’re trying to rush down the Tube stairs because you have a hunch that the person you’re meeting is the type not to suffer unpunctuality gladly, and you don’t want to give him the upper hand by starting off on the wrong foot.
And it’s exactly that kind of tangle of limbs that gets Jess into trouble as she twists her ankle on the last step down and has to cling on to the banister to stay upright and avoid, if at all possible, landing on her tailbone.
It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, she tells herself, checking around her and feeling grateful that nobody was there to witness her humiliation. After a second or two of deep breaths, it really does seem fine. The ankle seems fine while she sits on the Victoria Line to Euston; it twinges a bit on the escalator at Warren Street when she changes to the Northern Line; it seems fine again while she is sitting on the least dirty seat she can find on the next train. But by the time she’s got out at the station at Hampstead and walked up the steep hill immediately outside, she thinks she might be about to die.
And when Alex opens the door to his – of course! – adorable house (a yellow door!), it’s all she can do to keep from falling into his arms and begging him to carry her over the threshold. She thinks it takes a lot of self-control not to groan when he points to the stairs. Apparently, not even a three-time-bestselling author can afford an entire house in Hampstead; he has a flat, like everyone else she knows, though he doesn’t share it with anyone, which deserves some credit. But then, he’s in his mid-thirties, and maybe that’s just what being in your mid-thirties is like – being a proper grown-up. Jess knows she is lucky to be able to afford Pimlico at all, never mind alone and in her twenties – a combination of hard work, unexpected professional success, and, let’s be honest, help from her grandparents. They like having her close by, and shelikes being able to hang out with them and with Ivy, her little cousin who often stays with them. And, of course, she loves Pimlico. Who wouldn’t? It’s central – easy to get everywhere on the whizzy Victoria Line, the station a three-minute walk away from her flat. But Pimlico is also quiet, with the friendly feel of a village where the local newsagent calls you by name and the owners of the legendary greasy spoon know to always give you extra mushrooms.
‘Are you okay?’ Alex asks, an unusually kind concern in his voice. Or perhaps it’s not unusual. Perhaps it’s unfair to judge him based on just two meetings, one of which was a contentious one with his editor. But whether or not it’s unusual, it’s certainly unexpected. ‘You look a bit pink.’
‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘I was hurrying to get here on time, and that hill … you know?’
Alex looks at Jess intently, as if trying to decide whether she’s lying, and then gestures for her to go first up the stairs. Gallantry, she chooses to think. The kind of good manners that comes from being educated at one of those fancy private schools. (Westminster, to be precise, not that she has memorised his Wikipedia page.) Nonetheless, she’s aware of his eyes on her as they walk up the stairs, assessing, she hopes, her clothes (good), or noticing how flattering this corduroy skirt is on her curves (also very good, if she does say so herself), rather than how pathetically she is hobbling.
‘What’s wrong with your ankle?’ he asks, when they’re two steps up and she finds herself, again, clinging to a banister as if her entire life depended on it.
‘Oh, nothing. These are new boots and they’re taking some getting used to, that’s all.’ Jess winces. Hardly the put-together, super-professional image she was hoping to put across today.
‘Looks like a little more than that.’
She’s not sure how to respond. To reiterate the lie, or to call him out for being a know-it-all, or, better, to thank him for his concern? Surely the latter is most appropriate, but it sticks in her throat a little, and it doesn’t convey cool, nonchalant, and in-control in quite the way she intended to during this first meeting, just the two of them. So she goes with awkward silence. Always a great option – works in almost every circumstance.
‘Sit, sit,’ he says when they get to the top of the stairs and he opens the door for her, seemingly unfazed by said awkward silence. ‘And maybe take those boots off?’
It takes every clenched muscle in Jess’s body for her to control her face, so as not to give away how much it hurts to remove the offending boot. Sitting on a chair next to hers, Alex indicates his lap.
‘Let me see.’
