Chapter 13
It was the perfect day for a boat trip, the temperature warm, the sun out and glistening off the water. They were all on board the river cruiser currently chugging gently down the Thames towards Windsor and the afternoon’s activity: an escape room. Molly had chosen to sit at the front and her heart had sunk when Duncan and Jasmine had perched themselves on the row in front. She had no interest in watching them flirt.
Thankfully James and Marcus came to join her. Maya – who Marcus admitted he still hoped to win over – opted to sit on the top deck with Chloe and some of the camera crew. It was clear James and Chloe weren’t clicking, Molly suspected because they were both loud. She liked him though, and hadn’t completely ruled out Chloe’s suggestion of swopping. The wave of optimism she’d breezed onto the show with, that she’d end up marrying Duncan, was starting to look like a childish dream. If Duncan chose to stay with Jasmine, Molly knew she needed a plan B to get through the next few weeks. And that was definitely not B for Ben.
She cast her eye to where Duncan was chatting animatedly with Jasmine, because that’s what some men did. Talked. They also took every opportunity to touch the woman they fancied, she noted sourly as she watched him put his hand on Jasmine’s thigh. The expected bolt of jealousy was more muted today though. It was like her brain had got so used to seeing the pair of them together, it was numb to it.
‘Where’s Ben?’ James asked, helping himself to another coke from the ice box. ‘Didn’t think he’d still be doing his lone wolf act on the boat.’
‘He’s prowling the decks, quizzing everyone about escape rooms. “I don’t go into anything I’ve not done before, blind”,’ she mimicked. ‘I did point out it was meant to be fun,’ she added as Marcus and James fell about laughing.
‘Not sure he knows the meaning of the word,’ James smirked.
‘To be fair, he can be a lot of fun,’ she admitted. ‘He just needs to get to know you a bit more before he can relax around you.’
‘How are things going with you two, then?’ James probed. ‘Still feel like throwing your drink over him?’
She chuckled. ‘I’ve got over that. We’re being civil now.’
In fact, somewhere between the picnic lunch (where he’d not laughed when she’d sat on the cake), the bike ride (when he’d calmly waited at the top of each hill for her) and the ice-skating (where he’d told her one session was enough for any sane person, but patiently waited while she’d had a second go) she realised she’d forgiven him for ditching her.
He’d not intended to hurt her, she could see that now, and she’d not exactly handled things well from her side either, twisting everything he’d said until she’d convinced herself he’d not cared at all. He had, just nowhere near as much as she’d cared for him.
‘Wonder if you’ll still be feeling civil once you’re in an escape room with him?’ Marcus smiled, tipping his head back to stare at the cloudless blue sky.
‘There’s no wondering to be had. Me and Ben locked in a small room, forced to work together against a ticking clock, is a recipe for disaster.’
James almost bent over with laughter. ‘Yeah, I can see that. The pair of you bicker like an old married couple.’
‘Err, no. We bicker like two people not meant to be a couple,’ she corrected.
‘Who aren’t meant to be a couple?’
She turned to find Ben sauntering towards them. He had those shades on again, the ones that looked seriously sexy on him. His left hand was slipped nonchalantly into the pocket of his blue cargo shorts. Beneath them, his legs looked lean, and very masculine, she thought with a flutter in her belly.
Unconsciously her gaze darted towards Duncan, and his tanned, hairless, very muscled legs. Legs she’d always liked, yet now looked overblown, somehow. Like a caricature of how sexy legs were meant to look.
Ben came to sit beside her, slotting his long body right up against her before threading the fingers of his right hand through hers and bringing them both to rest on his thigh. Her pulse jumped as she felt the hard muscle through his shorts. And when she accidentally brushed the hairs on his legs, a slow sizzle began in the pit of her stomach.
Belatedly she remembered they were meant to be pretending to try again.
‘Surely you don’t mean we aren’t meant to be a couple.’ His eyes glinted provocatively, as if he knew exactly what his touch was doing. ‘Our start was shaky, but look how well we’re getting on now.’
She wanted to tug her hand away, but she’d been the one to insist on this pretence. ‘Just because you have … one or two attributes I might like,’ she settled on, horribly aware of what some of those attributes were; sexy legs, hypnotic eyes, quiet authority, powerful self-confidence. ‘It doesn’t mean you aren’t on the whole still really annoying.’
Ben winked at Marcus and James. ‘She likes me more than she wants to admit.’
It was alarming to realise he wasn’t entirely wrong.
‘Ah, I spy another group.’
They were interrupted by the sound of Natalie’s booming voice. She was dressed in the most over the top white silk sailor suit, complete with yards of gold braid and a jaunty captain’s hat. Behind her, the camera crew scampered to keep up.
‘Should we pipe her on board?’ Ben whispered, and Molly had to bite into her cheek to stop from laughing.
Natalie came to a stop in front of them. ‘Mind if we come and join you?’
Ben let out a heavy sigh. ‘Mind if I go?’
Natalie hooted with laughter. ‘You’re such a naughty one, Ben Knight. But you stay right there, honey. Our viewers want to hear from everyone.’ Her gaze swivelled round the group. ‘Well, we’ve nearly come to the end of the first week. How are you all finding being on the show?’
‘We’re having a fantastic time, aren’t we, babe?’ Molly turned to find Duncan had risen to his feet and, with the dutiful Jasmine in tow, was squeezing himself on the bench beside her.
On the other side of her, Ben inched closer, his grip on her hand tightening.
‘Yours certainly seems to be a pairing that’s working out,’ Natalie remarked to Duncan before turning her attention to Molly. ‘How about you and Ben? Viewers have noticed a thawing of your relationship.’
Hard to deny it when she was acutely conscious of his body heat against her side. ‘If you mean I only feel like throwing my drink over him twice a day, then you’re right.’
Ben gave her a small smile. ‘Progress.’
‘Well, the next activity should determine exactly how much progress.’ Natalie chuckled. ‘There’s nothing like being locked in a room together to bring out the tension between a couple.’
‘I reckon we’ll do just fine, don’t you, babe?’ Duncan winked at Jasmine. ‘Escape rooms are all about communicating with each other, listening, working together. All things we’ve been pretty good at so far.’
Ben shifted against Molly, sending her body into hyper-awareness mode. ‘I thought they were about solving puzzles and getting out as fast as possible?’
Duncan gave Ben a cocky smile. ‘Guess we’ll find out who’s right in a few hours.’
Testosterone molecules bounced between the pair of them and Molly sighed. Somehow this had turned into a competition, and it was only going to go one way.
* * *
That phrase, wanting to pull your hair out? Ben was surprised he had any hair left.
‘I told you, I asked everyone on the boat. These places usually hide objects in books.’ He yanked another text book off the shelf and shook it out.
‘Usually isn’t always,’ Molly pointed out. ‘And there’s fifty odd books to check. If we’re trying to save time, we should go for the quickest route and check out the containers on the shelves first.’
‘It’s not quickest if it’s wrong.’ He tugged out another book. Next time someone mentioned going to an escape room, he was going to be very, very, busy.
‘This is ridiculous.’ She planted her hands on her hips and raised her chin. ‘Will you please stop stubbornly going through all the books for a second and check inside that box on the top shelf. I’ve done all the others.’
‘You check it.’
She let out a frustrated wail. ‘I would, if I could reach the bloody thing. Oh, bugger it. I don’t need you.’ With a huff she dragged off her trainer and threw it at the wooden box, which toppled onto the floor, spilling its contents. Beaming, she held up the blasted key they’d spent the last five minutes looking for. ‘Told you.’
That smug expression on her face? The beaming smile? He wished it didn’t do weird things to his insides. ‘Clearly this is a sub-par escape room.’
All cocky now, she marched over to the giant safe in the corner of the room and unlocked it. ‘If you’d listened to me, it would have saved us five minutes.’
‘If I’d listened to you, we wouldn’t even have made it past the first clue,’ he pointed out.
‘That first clue was just stupid. Why have a room looking like a library, but not make the five-letter code to the combination lock, BOOKS?’
‘Because in these rooms it’s all about thinking laterally.’ Another piece of advice he’d received on the boat. When he’d tried CRIME – because they were supposedly here to solve one – and it had worked, he figured he had this place sussed.
‘Didn’t work with the key, did it?’ she retorted, dragging stuff out of the safe.
‘That was just a hiccup.’ He stared down at the supposed clues she’d uncovered. ‘There’s nothing helpful there.’ Taking a step back, he looked round the room again. ‘We’re missing something. Does anything look out of place to you?’
‘Err, hello.’ She held up a piece of paper that had come from the safe. ‘Aren’t you going to help me solve this?’
‘Solving the puzzles is getting us nowhere. We need to think … bigger.’ He’d built his own company, for God’s sake. He could beat a cocksure personal trainer in a ruddy escape room.
‘You realise we’ve only got five minutes left now to solve the murder?’ She stared down at the paper again. ‘Doesn’t it make a teeny bit of sense to focus on using the time to solve a clue we’ve taken fifty-five minutes to find? Rather than staring at four walls?’
‘Not if it isn’t the right clue. What if they’ve all been red herrings and the right clue is staring us literally in the face?’ What had the boat crew said? ‘We need to look for something that shouldn’t be in a library. Or that’s here but looks odd.’
‘You shouldn’t be in the library,’ she muttered. ‘And you look odd. So by your logic, you’re the clue.’
Miffed, he glanced down at what he was wearing. ‘I don’t look odd.’
‘Depends on your point of view. This set is from the Agatha Christie era, so you standing here in shorts and a polo shirt looks very odd.’ She glanced back at the clock. ‘And you’ve just wasted three minutes arguing with me when we could have been solving this.’
‘I’ve wasted three minutes? You’re the one arguing when you could have been helping me figure out what’s out of place in here.’
With a loud exhale she stood up and waved the paper under his nose. ‘Just listen to this, will you? Where are the lakes always empty, the mountains always flat, and the rivers always still?’ She read out.
He shrugged. ‘A map.’
Her face lit up. ‘That’s it! The answer to who the murderer is, is in the map book.’ She stared down at all the books he’d upended looking for the last clue. ‘Do you remember one of them being a map book?’
‘I was looking for a key,’ he reminded her sourly.
‘Quickly, we need to?—’
A claxon sounded, indicating the time was up, and the door on the other side creaked open.
‘Well, I guess we failed. No surprise there.’ Not looking at him, she stalked out of the room.
Disgusted, he stomped out after her.
He wanted to ask her what she meant by no surprise there, but Natalie was waiting for them with her annoying wide smile and stupidly big microphone.
‘What a shame, you guys so nearly cracked it. Only one couple has managed it so far.’
His gaze strayed over Natalie’s shoulder and he caught sight of Duncan and Jasmine laughing and … crap, was that a medal round the man’s neck?
As if aware of him watching, Duncan turned his head, caught his eye. And winked.
The bitter feeling of defeat lay heavy in his gut.
‘Where was the answer?’ Molly asked.
Ben had an awful, creeping feeling that he knew.
Natalie chuckled. ‘You guys were so close. It was in the map book.’
Molly gave him an accusing look. ‘I guess if we’d sussed out each other’s strengths before we started, worked as a team, listened to one another,’ she emphasised. ‘We might have cracked it. Everything I bet they did.’
She looked pointedly over at Duncan and Jasmine, who were now drinking glasses of champagne, Duncan’s chest so puffed up he looked like a frigate bird. And no, Ben wasn’t a bird- watcher, but his parents were and he’d had a lot of bird facts thrown at him growing up.
With a sense of doom he saw the microphone slide towards him.
‘Do you have anything to add, Ben?’ Natalie asked.
‘It’s not the winning, but the taking part that matters.’ He forced a smile, aware he wasn’t convincing anyone. As if to prove it, Molly burst into laughter. Before she could say anything damning, he grasped her hand. ‘Excuse us. We’re off to drown our sorrows.’
‘Not the winning, my arse. You hate to see them drinking champagne as much as I do,’ she grumbled as he led them towards the café/bar.
‘Champagne is overrated.’
‘Only when you’re taking a shower in it.’ Again her gaze swung towards Duncan. ‘As a drink, it’s fizzy and celebratory, expensive and indulgent. Classy and?—’
‘Do you want a glass?’
She stared at him with wide eyes. ‘You can’t drink champagne when you lose. That’s like … ooh, let me think. Like having a picnic on a rainy day, or throwing a party when you get sacked. Or…’
‘I get the picture.’ He exhaled, the disappointment – and he should not kid himself, the humiliation – ebbing away as he gazed at her animated face. In a flash he was taken back to when he’d first met her, experiencing that same sense of wonder, of everything that was hurting in his life being pushed aside through the sheer pleasure of listening to her.
‘What?’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Did I get something on my face from that room? Dust? Ink?’
He took the excuse and ran a thumb across her cheek. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.’
Her pretty green eyes popped. ‘Apology accepted.’ She gave him a hesitant smile, but then her face fell. ‘I’m sorry we got beaten by Duncan and Jasmine.’
He wasn’t sure what was worse, the reminder that they’d lost, or the reminder that she was still totally invested in Duncan. Turning back to the bar he signalled to the bartender. ‘Two bottles of lager, a bowl of chips and a plate of wings, thanks.’
‘What are you doing?’ she whispered, and it pissed him off that she glanced over at Duncan again.
‘They get overrated champagne. We get wings, chips, beer.’ The bartender slid two bottles across the bar. He picked his up and toasted Molly with it.
‘I shouldn’t be eating chips, or wings.’ She glanced down at the bottle. ‘Or drinking alcohol during the week.’
‘Looks like Duncan doesn’t mind breaking the rules.’
‘Fine.’ She took a sip, then another. And when the platter of chips and wings arrived, she was the first to dive in.
‘Who are the winners now?’ He remarked, picking up a chip.
She rolled her eyes, but as he watched her devour a wing a few minutes later, her mouth smeared with BBQ sauce, it did feel like he’d won.