Page 35 of So, I Met This Guy . . .

‘Hi, would you gorgeous ladies mind if we joined you for a drink?’

Probably not the best time to be chatted up. Maggie and Flick were oblivious to two men approaching them, until one of them spoke to Flick.

‘Yes. We would,’ snapped Flick.

In the middle of sliding onto bar stools next to them, the two men paused, their charming smiles wavering.

‘Oh . . . OK.’

‘Sorry, we’re just having a private conversation.’

Maggie smiled apologetically as they reverse-slid off the bar stools while Flick scowled.

‘Will you stop saying sorry!’ she hissed as the men beat a hasty retreat.

‘Sorry.’ Maggie hiccupped and covered her mouth. ‘I didn’t want to be rude.’

‘We’re not being rude. And, anyway, we can buy our own drinks.’

‘At these prices I’m not sure we can.’ Maggie screwed up her face and blinked, trying to bring Flick into focus as the two men slunk away. ‘Thank God your editor’s paying.’

‘Fat chance,’ muttered Flick, under her breath.

Correction: it was meant to be under her breath, but alcohol turns up the volume and Maggie heard her.

‘Oh no! Do you think the newspaper will refuse to reimburse you if they don’t get a story?’

‘The newspaper’s not paying,’ admitted Flick.

‘Can they do that?’ Maggie looked stricken.

‘Well, yes, they can, actually . . .’

‘But that’s terrible!’

‘Well, it’s not really . . .’

Flick hesitated, wondering how she could put this, how she could fudge it, or spin it, or be selective with the facts. But she’d drunk three very strong cocktails on an empty stomach. The only thing spinning was her head.

‘My editor doesn’t know I’m here,’ she confessed at last. ‘No one does.’

Well, she was always planning to tell Maggie. She’d just been waiting for the right time, only it never seemed to arrive.

Maggie frowned and shook her head as if she had water in her ears. What Flick was saying was taking a while to compute. Her hair had come loose from its top knot and hung in long, pale auburn waves around her face. In her drunken state she liked to think it made her look like a pre-Raphaelite painting, but she had a feeling it just made her look a little unhinged.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said finally.

Avoiding Maggie’s gaze, Flick fiddled with the rings on her fingers. One of them was her mum’s and she twisted it around like a talisman. She wasn’t sure this was the right time, but considering everything had gone tits up, what did it matter now?

‘My editor doesn’t know I’m here. The newspaper didn’t send me.’

Maggie looked blank so Flick soldiered on.

‘When I pitched the idea to my editor, he was interested, but not enough to fly me out to Monte Carlo. So I thought I’d use my initiative and pay for my own flight and accommodation.’

There. That sounded a lot more professional than not on your nelly.

‘I was planning to come by myself. See what I could find out. And then you called.’