27. TWENTY-SEVEN
Poppy looked at him with a mixture of confusion and embarrassment, as though this might be some kind of joke, him messing with her. He winced internally but nodded back into the mews. “I have a house here. Half a house. A maisonette. A flat, really. I’ll show you.”
He led the way to the door. It was painted a shade of royal blue, two small bay trees in pewter-coloured pots on either side, the numbers 27a, 27b in brass. He unlocked the door, led the way upstairs. Poppy hadn’t spoken and he couldn’t quite think what to say. Please…was all his brain could come up with. Please, please… Please what?
Don’t hate me. Forgive me. Trust me. Be my friend. Stay at the flat. Don’t let me have ruined everything…
She followed him into the flat, steps slowing, glancing from the worn little rugs on the polished wooden floor to the antique patterned wallpaper to the brass lampshades to the spindly little tables and crowded bookcases and pictures and oddities and plates covering the walls. Her gaze landed on a row of vintage pinball and arcade machines along one side. There was a huge monstera plant in a blue and yellow Chinese pot by her side. She reached out, toyed with one of the big glossy leaves.
“So… You have a secret life as an antique dealer?”
He smiled. “No.”
“You’re actually possessed by the spirit of an ancient spinster aunt?”
He breathed a laugh. “Now that is uncannily on the nail.” He looked around the room, at the battered leather sofa near the old Victorian fireplace, the kilim rugs, embroidered cushions, silk cushions, Moroccan leather footstool… “This was my aunt’s place. My great aunt Mabel. She lived here for decades with her friend, Sarah. Well—they used to split their time between here and Sarah’s farm in Norfolk. Sarah died a few years ago and Mabel chose to move to one of our houses in the country.” He picked up a cushion, plumped it unnecessarily. “Too heartbroken to remain here. Too many memories, I guess.”
“Sarah was her…friend?”
He gave a squinting smile. “Lover. Life partner. But in the days before such things were openly OK.” He tossed the cushion back down. “One of those family secrets everyone knows but never talks about. Anyway. Aunt Mabel offered the place to me when I started my MBA in London and I…” He shrugged. “I like it. I’ve been here ever since.”
“And your flat?”
“Investment property, mostly.”
“And a place to take girls.”
He flushed. She was smart. Smart enough to see right through him. “This place doesn’t exactly scream macho city bachelor.”
“And that’s the impression you want to give people, is it? Macho city bachelor?”
Too bloody insightful by half.
He turned away, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “It’s just easier. Less complicated.”
“Than being you?”
“Yes.”
She paused, gave him a little respite as she walked further into the room. She scanned the bookcase, took in the view from the Crittall paned window, though it showed little but the lights of the house across the road, then went over to the row of vintage game machines. “Interesting aunt,” she said wryly.
He gave a small laugh. “I did add a bit of my own touch. Got rid of the taxidermied animals. The lion skin rug.”
She pulled the lever on one of the pinball machines, let it spring back. “Added some macho bachelor stuff?”
“Nerd bachelor stuff.” He nodded to the flat screen TV on the wall. “And all the modern conveniences.”
She turned, leant back against the pinball machine, head tilted as she looked at him. “So why not stay here? When you offered me your flat? This is where you normally live, right?”
Shit.
“The flat is closer to work.” By approximately seven minutes. “And I…” I want to be where you are. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to be completely alone there. Some people get nervous, alone at night.”
“And the nights you don’t come back to the flat…”
“I come here.”
“Why?”
Because the yearning gets too bad and I don’t trust myself around you.
“Spare socks,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow. Then merely nodded. Looked away.
“What did your friend Cassie mean when she told you to keep your wits about you? It sounded like a warning.”
“It was. Let me make you a drink, and I’ll tell you. Coffee?”
She paused. Of course she did. After last night, he was surprised she was talking to him at all.
“Tea,” she said. “If you have it.”
She followed him into the kitchen, looking around the dated space in the same quiet, speculative way as she’d taken in the rest of his home. It wasn’t a small kitchen, but it was rather shabby, the ancient cooker practically an antique. Neither Mabel nor Sarah had been fond of cooking. And he wasn’t here enough for it to be worth the hassle of having the kitchen redone. He didn’t even know if he liked cooking. Never got much of a chance to try it. Food was delivered, grabbed on the go, or eaten at his desk.
He put the kettle on, found the tea bags. Poppy looked at the box, then the few packets and things lining the back of the counter. “This is all…normal supermarket stuff.”
“Yeah?”
“But at the flat, you only have fancy stuff. Fortnum and Mason. Harrods. Is that part of the macho bachelor thing?”
“Oh… No, I just… When you moved in, I asked the concierge to order some stuff. And that’s what he sent. I ended up putting it on repeat order. Seemed easiest. And you seemed to like the stuff.”
“But it must cost a fortune!”
“Not really.”
“You could change the order to a normal supermarket.” Her face brightened. “Donate what you save to the food bank or something! There’s no point wasting it on me.”
“It’s not a waste.”
He looked away as the kettle finished boiling. Busied himself filling the mugs, getting the milk. “But OK. I’ll do it. Donate to the food bank. How much do you think?”
“A month?” She shrugged. “Twenty?”
He raised an eyebrow as he took out his phone. Sure, twenty was doable, but…
“Twenty? Every month?”
“Ten?” she suggested. “You decide. It’s your money.”
“I thought maybe two or three…”
“Two or three?” She gave him an odd look. Then her eyes narrowed and she laughed. “Please tell me you’re not talking about thousands. I’m talking about pounds. Twenty pounds.”
“Ah.” He grinned. “Sorry. Occupational hazard. Leaving off the noughts.”
“Yeah, occupational hazard of being you.”
He tapped away on his phone, filled in the details on the charity’s website. “There. OK. Five. Done.”
“Five pence?” she teased.
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, Poppy. Five whole English pence.”
Poppy thanked Roscoe as he handed her a cup.
Well. This was weird. Being here, in Roscoe’s secret inner life. It ought to have been reassuring, because it had never made sense to her, his sterile show flat, how that could truly be the taste of the man she was getting to know.
This eclectic, vibrant, complicated, and downright weird space was much more in keeping with the person who watched sci-fi shows with her, traded Cockney rhyming slang, ate fried chicken with a groan of appreciation—but not in the street—read economics texts for fun, followed the world news with rabid interest, kissed like sin itself, spotted broken phone chargers, swept damsels in distress off the streets, panicked in bathrooms—and hid the whole beautiful lot under sleek suits and a smooth playboy smile.
Roscoe was real. And very human. And still utterly, utterly out of reach.
It hadn’t even occurred to her that he’d have two properties in London only fifteen minutes apart. Why would it have? Most people she knew would never get on the property ladder at all. Never had been on it. Lived in council housing for generations. Their entire time on earth spent in borrowed, rented spaces.
Most people she knew didn’t donate five thousand pounds a month to charity on a whim.
Last night, she’d asked him if he saw her as equal. It seemed a na?ve question now. Of course he didn’t. How could he?
“So, do you have any other places around here?” she said. “A whole stack of ‘em, like Monopoly cards?”
He chuckled, leading them back towards the living room, a vintage flowery mug of coffee wrapped in one large hand. “No. Just these two.”
“But I bet your family does.”
He sat on the sofa, legs crossed at the ankle, mug held with two hands on his lap as he looked up at her with a quirked brow that clearly said, Poppy… Why exactly are you asking? You already know the answer.
“Yes,” he sighed. “Several London properties. The estate in Lancashire. An estate in Dorset, an estate in Derbyshire. Land—lots and lots of land. A French chateau. A castle in Ireland. I personally own part of the New Forest and a very small part of Wales. Hate me for it. Go on.”
She smiled, but her stomach twisted, sick. Out of reach, her brain sing-songed. Out of a reach, a fairytale prince…
She took a seat on a high-backed winged armchair, the fabric some kind of muted lavender paisley print. “Of course I don’t hate you.”
It was said lightly, but it made Roscoe look at her, study her face with cautious concern, because it brought last night stumbling into the room. And last night was mortified, clutching its knickers in one hand, hastily covering its breasts with the other. Poppy sipped her tea, focused on the beige liquid as she tucked her legs under her on the seat, looked across the room at a fig plant balanced on an old leather book, pretended not to feel any of the hundred things she was feeling.
Roscoe said, “Poppy…” and Poppy’s heart went thump.
She sipped her tea.
“About last night…” said Roscoe.
“It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. It matters to me that we’re OK. That things are OK between us.”
She fought back a blush, studied again the tea in her cup. The surface of the liquid trembled slightly, but her voice refused to. “We’ve been in an awkward situation like this before and we got over it. It’s fine, really. We were drunk and it was stupid. I don’t want to be childish about it. And I’m not going to let it ruin things at work. But I understand if you’d rather I moved out.”
“No. No, I don’t want that. Like I said, I can stay here.”
Please don’t, please don’t…
“If that’s what you want.”
“Is it what you want?” His voice was hesitant.
She met his eyes briefly. “I don’t think it’s necessary. Like I said. I don’t want to be childish about things. But I…I also don’t want to get hurt.”
Roscoe moved in his seat as though that had hurt him. Made him wince.
“But I won’t get hurt,” she persisted. “Now that I know where we stand.”
“I’m so sorry… I should never have…”
“We both wanted it, Roscoe.” Her voice was hard. She wasn’t going to be pitied over this. “Admit that much.”
She looked up in time to see him nod. He was still sitting with his legs out, ankles crossed, holding his cup. But not relaxed. Every line of his body hard, tense. Miserable. The sinews and bones of his strong hands stood out where he gripped the mug. They had been on her body, held her breasts. His mouth had…
This would all be so much easier if it hadn’t felt so good. But of course it had. It was Roscoe Blackton. The best of the best. Giving her one taste of luxury, of scorching bliss, then pulling it away, leaving her with nothing but the knowledge of what she was missing out on.
“I can give… But I can’t take.”
She scowled at her brain’s unhelpful reminder. That had been a ridiculous offer. How would that even work…? He’d touch her, kiss her, make her lie there passively while he gave her pleasure with his hands, fingers, mouth—
“Tell me what Cassie meant,” she said quickly.
He looked as relieved at the subject change as she was. With a slight laugh, he ran a hand through his hair and said, “She thinks Elliott Carter-Hall is out to destroy me.”