Chapter Twelve
It had been another terrible date, yet Tess felt strangely buoyant. Still wasn’t in the top five of the worst dates she’d ever been on, and although she was a modern woman and not some lily-livered nineteenth-century damsel in distress, she was grateful Gabe had come to her rescue.
She looked over to where he was leafing through the loans ledger. He didn’t look angry. And he had winked at her earlier. There was something about someone so stern, so buttoned-up as Gabriel Sharma, winking at her which had been strangely … endearing.
Still, there was no point in prolonging the inevitable.
‘Are you going to tell me off now?’ Tess asked.
Gabe paused from his ledgering to raise an eyebrow at her.
Even his big black creative director specs couldn’t ruin the effect of that perfectly ironic arched eyebrow.
‘Should I be telling you off? What for?’ he asked in a mild voice, which did as much for Tess’s fluttering stomach as the wink and the eyebrow.
‘For chucking a glass of water at Rochester,’ she explained. ‘Damaging library property.’
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds as if he was considering how big a bollocking Tess deserved, then he shook his head. ‘I think in this instance, the library property really deserved it.’
Tess was relieved all over again. Not that she paid much attention when Gabe was getting all aerated about his stuffy books.
Her stomach was still fluttering, and when it suddenly let out an ungodly rumble, she realised it wasn’t relief and, thankfully, not some misplaced softening towards Gabe, who now grinned.
It was hunger.
Her tummy grumbled again and Gabe grinned again.
‘Did you manage to eat more than a couple of mouthfuls?’
Tess shook her head. ‘I spent valuable eating time showing Mr Misery how to use chopsticks.’
It was just as well that she was still leaning against the desk because she was suddenly quite weak from going a full five hours since her mid-afternoon sweet treat with nothing to break her fast but one measly dumpling.
Gabe had taken custody of the two bags of food from the restaurant, which rested at his feet.
Technically, he had paid for them, but also technically, Tess had put in a very generous thirty-quid tip.
Not just because she felt guilty for making such a scene in the restaurant, but also because it was engrained in her to always go halves for the first five dates at least.
It was amazing how many men thought that by standing her a box of hot wings, they were then entitled to full sex as recompense.
The thought made her slump against the desk even harder, so she missed what Gabe was saying. Probably something about how he was going to fall on his sword for daring to bring smelly food into the library to contaminate the books.
‘Sorry, I missed that,’ she said.
‘I was just saying that we can’t divvy up the food here, the books …’
Honestly, if Tess could find a man who cared about her even half as much as Gabe cared about his books …
‘But we should be all right in the kitchen, or if you don’t think you can make it home without sustenance, we could eat in the back office. There’s some beer in the fridge. What do you think?’ he raised his eyebrows, both of them this time.
Prolonged contact with Gabe, who’d been quite nice to her during the last hour, although that surely couldn’t last, and maybe eating a delicious dim sum late supper while it was still hot?
Or go back to an empty flat because Saskia had a two-day offsite in Seoul? Tess could heat the food up again, although it never tasted quite so good. But at least she wouldn’t have Gabe watching as she shoved dumplings into her mouth as if they were Pringles.
‘Well … Oh God!’
Her stomach answered for her by roaring like an angry dragon.
‘Let’s get you fed before you faint,’ Gabe said with another smile, which wasn’t even a little bit supercilious. ‘Are you strong enough to pick up a bag or shall I take them both?’
It was hard to tell if he was being friendly or spikey.
‘I’ll use what little strength I have left to take the bag with the crispy seaweed rolls,’ Tess decided, and ignoring Mona’s knowing smile, she followed Gabe through the library to a small door at the back of the stacks, marked private.
It led to a small draughty corridor with store room, bathroom and kitchen off it, where Gabe made a pitstop to gather plates, napkins and ‘Are you all right with beer? There’s red wine left over from a staff party but I wouldn’t recommend it.’
Beer was fine. Tess took a couple of brightly coloured cans from Gabe then stepped through the door he opened at the end of the corridor. ‘The office. Where the magic and the mess happens.’
It was messy. But in an organised chaos kind of way.
There were shelves of books, of course there were.
A desk, which was almost obscured by yet more books, but they were in neat piles and a MacBook which looked quite out of place in a room that seemed as if it hadn’t been updated in the last hundred years.
Gabe directed Tess to an ancient and sagging velvet sofa, very similar to the one that had belonged to her great grandmother when Tess was a child.
After switching on a big standard lamp with a fringed shade and a smaller desk lamp, Gabe sat down in an equally droopy scuffed leather chair and began to unload the bags and put their precious foil container cartons onto a low, scarred wooden table, which rested on a faded Persian-looking rug.
The whole effect was quite cosy.
‘Don’t stand on ceremony, because I’m not going to,’ Gabe said, handing Tess a plate and one of a pair of chopsticks, which the restaurant had thoughtfully provided. ‘Help yourself.’
At least if she was stuffing her face then Tess wouldn’t have to make awkward conversation with Gabe, and she was quite lightheaded with hunger now.
Neither of them really spoke after that unless it was to comment on how delicious the food was. Once Tess made an embarrassing moaning sound as her mouth made orgasmic contact with an edamame puff and Gabe appeared to choke on his mango and prawn roll.
There was easily enough for at least six people because it turned out they were both chronic over-orderers, but the cartons were almost empty when Gabe finally pushed away his plate and the remnants of jasmine fried rice that he couldn’t quite manage.
Tess forced down one last dumpling and rubbed her stomach, which was no longer growling but felt as if it had been gestating a food baby for the last eight months.
‘I’m stuffed,’ Gabe said and all she could do was murmur her agreement.
He was well over six foot and there was a lean heft to him like he worked out.
Tess was five feet four in her socks and very much did not work out, yet she’d matched him pretty much bite for bite.
Just as well that she didn’t care what he thought of her and could loll back on the sofa and pat her bloated belly.
She was going to need a hoist to lever herself upright.
‘So good,’ she managed to say. Then it all came flooding back. ‘Unlike that date.’
‘Maybe Rochester wasn’t the greatest choice,’ Gabe noted, but there was no edge to his words, when usually it was hard to tell where the edge ended and the words began.
Tess was too full to dissemble. ‘Promise you won’t tell me off …’
‘You make it sound like I’m always telling you off or about to,’ Gabe complained. He too was sitting at a very relaxed angle, his long legs stretched out in front of him.
‘That’s because you usually are,’ Tess said.
‘The first time, Ella was the one who suggested Heathcliff. But this time I hold my hands up. I really didn’t do proper due diligence.
The whole copyright thing has taken most of my favourite romantic heroes out of the running, so I took a punt on Rochester even though I haven’t read Jane Eyre in years.
It wasn’t until I was sitting opposite him and he asked me to be his mistress … ’
‘He did what?’ Gabe asked slowly and coldly.
‘See, I knew you’d be angry …’
‘Just to be clear, it’s not you that I’m angry with.’ Gabe took off his glasses so he could polish them on the ends of his white shirt, which had become untucked. Even unfocused and blinking, his dark eyes promised untold agony for Charlotte Bronte’s deeply problematic idea of a romantic hero.
‘I should have done my research,’ Tess insisted because she had to take some responsibility for her own role in her dating downfall.
‘I didn’t even google him until he was sitting opposite me and saying some very dodgy things about his mad wife.
Men always do that; call women crazy to diminish us and make us the problem. ’
Silence met this loaded statement. To his credit, Gabe didn’t counter with ‘not all men.’ Instead, he put his glasses back on and said, ‘I’ll have to rewrite all the terms and conditions if The Love Library goes live.’
‘Something like, “The Love Library cannot be held responsible for emotional distress caused by any of its loans?”’ Tess suggested.
Gabe tipped his head back and groaned. ‘Sadly, yes, something very much like that,’ he agreed.
It was late now. Tess should really be heading home to think very hard about some of her more recent life choices. But she stayed where she was, sluglike from good food, a couple of beers and actively enjoying Gabe’s company …
The silence between Tess and Gabe wasn’t charged for once; both of them regrouping only so they could go back to exchanging barbs. It was languid, lethargic, content.
‘I like this room,’ she said at last because Tess could only handle a silence for so long. About thirty seconds, tops. ‘It’s very homely.’
Gabe looked around the space with a frown. ‘I think you mean to say it looks like a tornado recently swept through it. But we’re a two-hundred and then some year-old library. The paper, the books, they’re infinite.’