I wipe my hands on a tea towel, hurrying to the intercom, and can’t suppress a smile as Mia’s face appears on the screen.
“Hiya,” I say, and her face breaks into a smile.
“You going to let me in?” She asks, giving the camera a dramatic wave as the door buzzes. “Ta very much!” Her voice drifts off into the distance, and the door closes behind her.
I glance around my flat, like some panicked bachelor trying to impress his date. Everything looks fine, it’s clean, I don’t know why I’m worrying. I consider running off to quickly get changed, but I give myself a mental slap and scold myself for being so daft.
She’s here for dinner, nothing else, you randy old bastard.
I open the door, and there’s a soft ding as the lift reaches my floor. Mia steps out, looking stunning in a tight, long-sleeved black dress over stockings and high boots. Her red coat is slung over her arm, and she runs a hand through her loose hair as she strides down the corridor towards me.
“Fancy seeing you here,” I say, and she laughs.
“Yeah, some old codger who lives here invited me for dinner.” She steps inside the flat, standing opposite me as I close the door behind her. She gazes up at me with a small smile. “I think I made it over here without anyone noticing. No flashing cameras in the bushes.”
I want to touch her, but I don’t know if that would be the wrong thing to do right now. “I thought you were angry with me.”
Mia’s eyebrow’s shoot up. “Angry? What for?”
“I… I don’t know. Ignoring you all day, or-”
“You were at work.” She rolls her eyes and leans against me, leaning up to press a warm kiss to my lips. “I weren’t angry. I did think about you all day though.”
“So did I.” I wrap an arm around her waist, pulling her against me for another deeper, more lingering kiss. “And I’ve been wanting to do that all day too.”
“Hopefully more than that.”
I step away reluctantly to hang her coat by the door, and head back to the kitchen as Mia slips off her boots, gazing around the flat.
“Well, this is nice,” she says, crossing the room in her stockinged feet to gaze out the windows. “Extremely posh.”
“Thanks. You haven’t seen this place, have you?” I pour her a glass of wine and walk over to the window to bring it to her.
“No, the last place of yours I saw was the house in Shepherd’s Bush.” She takes the wine with a a pinched expression. “I guess that’s Cynthia’s house now?”
I nod with a sigh. “She was rather adamant that she keep it. Said she spent a lot of time remodelling the garden.”
“Doesn’t seem the gardening type, that one.” Mia says with a crooked grin.
“I will have you know she was very good at supervising the gardeners,” I reply, and Mia chuckles into her wine.
“Ah, well, in that case.”
“Indeed.” I go back to the kitchen, and Mia pads after me.
“So what we having?” She perches on a bar stool and surveys the counter before her. “Looks like you’ve been busy.”
“Nothing special, mushroom chicken, some greens, and rice.”
“Looks special to me, I’m a terrible cook.” She leans on her elbows on the counter and watches as I work. “I hear Archie didn’t make it in today.”
I pull a face at the frying pan as I set it on to heat. “No, he didn’t. Which, if I’m honest, surprised me a little.”
“Me, too.” Mia shakes her head, gazing over at the windows as rain continues to pelt against them. “I thought he’d for sure come in and act like god’s gift. He thinks he’s the be-all and end-all of that club. Even Jordan didn’t expect that.” She looks back at me. “I saw you didn’t announce that he’s not contracted for next season.”
“No,” I say carefully, frying the mushrooms in a healthy amount of butter. “The Board felt it would be wise to only release the details of his suspension. Not… not that he’s leaving altogether.”
“Makes sense.” Mia takes a sip of her wine and narrows her eyes at me. “How you holding up?”
