Chapter 7
Carter
“I’d have picked you up from the airport.” I wheeled Laurie’s case down the hallway towards the stairs, surprised at how light it was.
“No need. I’m capable of getting a taxi and you’ve done enough. I’d kill for a glass of wine though. I have no idea what time it is so if it’s ten in the morning, don’t judge me.” She hung her coat up and headed to the fridge, taking out the bottle of Chablis I’d put in there to chill.
I pulled out a single wine glass and passed it to her.
It was just after midday and twelve hours after I’d downed my fifth whisky.
I’d needed something after leaving Erin’s party last night, and whisky had been the only thing available.
“I’m on call till midnight,” I said as she looked at me questioning. “So it’s all yours.”
“Good move. The journey was rough. I’m thinking if I tell my family how rough it was, they might decide not to come to the wedding.” She poured the wine almost to the top and then leaned over to slurp it.
“I think you’re being hopeful there.” I sat down at the table, the same seat Harriet had been in when she’d come round.
“Probably.” She sat down. “You’ve got loads of the wedding stuff done.”
I had. I’d completed the list we’d agreed on and ticked off a few more things. The whole wedding thing was becoming harder to stomach, and doing some of those things with Laurie and having to pretend to be a couple would’ve made it even harder. “Thought it’d be easier just to get it done.”
“Thank you.” She took a long drink of the wine. “That’s good. Jesus. What a journey. What a few fucking weeks. What time is it actually?”
“Midday. Do you want some lunch?”
“Only if it’s liquid. I have tomorrow to get over jetlag and I need to get down to the shop on Monday. Good news though – I’ve signed a contract on the apartment to rent it while the sale goes through, so I’ll move in there in another week or so.” Half the glass had now gone.
“What about when your relations are over and we’re pretending to be loved up?”
“They don’t need to know about the apartment. We can stay here after the wedding unless someone does something stupid and buys us a night at the Ritz. I can’t believe you’ve agreed to do this.” She stared at me. “What’s wrong?”
“I kissed Rose last night.”
“And how was it? Did fireworks explode and a choir of angels start singing?”
I wished I could have some of that wine.
“They did, didn’t they? Did you explain that you were a saint and helping me out?” She paused. “You didn’t, did you?”
“I wanted to tell you first that I was, you know, telling Rose.”
“I’ve already said to tell her. I can tell her if you want?”
“Pause that thought and please don’t.” I didn’t think Rose would be calling me a saint for marrying another woman. “I don’t know what the right thing to do is?”
“Remember, sometimes doing the right thing is the wrong thing to do. And by that, you can back out.” She finished the wine and topped up the glass. “I will stop after this. I need to shower and look round this beautiful house.”
“I’m not backing out. I promised you I’d help, and what we’re doing isn’t fraudulent.
” She’d checked the conditions around her trust with at least three lawyers, and I’d checked it separately too.
Laurie’s family had been built on arranged marriages and marriages of convenience.
This was just that. We could file for the marriage to be annulled the day after the wedding, no divorced status, no mess, no illegalities because Laurie wasn’t marrying me so she could work in the UK – that was already sorted through her mother being born in Scotland.
“The door remains open. I’m sure I could pay someone to step in, although that was what I was technically doing with Lewis.” She rolled her eyes.
I didn’t say anything, purposely getting up and putting on the kettle.
Laurie had been engaged to Lewis, and it had not ended how Laurie expected.
He’d ghosted her completely, not turning up to a date where she’d expected him to propose.
She’d seen a photo of him on social media with his arm around another woman two weeks after.
I’d met her when she’d been sobbing her eyes out in a café round the corner from the hospital where I’d been working.
At first, I’d wondered if it was serendipity.
We got along, she cheered up, we hung out.
Laurie was gorgeous and intelligent, and we had no chemistry whatsoever.
One failed kiss had been enough to tell us both that this was never going to be anything more than friends, but I promised her a favour, and all had been fine until I’d spoken to Rose at the start of September.
This is the first time we’ve both been single since we were a bit more than kids. Do you think it will be any different?
Which meant she thought it would be different. Maybe I wasn’t just one of her friends any more, no longer just the boy who kissed her to help her out with a dare and not because all he wanted was to be the first person to kiss her.
The only person.
“You’ll meet someone.” I shook my head at Laurie. “You have a whole city of creatives and writers and poets to charm.” Because Laurie was very charming when she wasn’t running at a hundred miles an hour.
She shrugged. “I’ve kind of given up after Lewis. You were the perfect man but you know, zero attraction.”
“Thanks.” Although I didn’t mean the sarcasm.
“Welcome. Okay, let me get settled and showered and I might start to feel human.”
I didn’t get called out to the hospital, the later the day getting, the less chance there was of me being needed.
There were three scheduled surgeries, none of which were complicated, and no one was off sick, so the team was fully staffed.
I helped Laurie with her unpacking and then went and managed a food shop from the local stores because I had nothing in, something on which she commented.
It felt better having someone in the house already; the building was too big for one person and I’d been drowning in it since coming home.
Laurie and I got along without it feeling awkward or forced, mainly because there weren’t any expectations from each other.
I’d checked my phone at least fifty times to see if Rose had replied to my message from last night, but there was nothing, it was left on read.
I wasn’t surprised. Rose would think about something seven different ways until she came to a conclusion. It usually meant that she was right, especially if she started to psychoanalyse everything, which she was probably doing right now.
“Shall we go out for dinner? Or at least a walk?” Laurie appeared wearing jeans and a jumper that looked like she’d ordered it from the Arctic.
“London’s not that cold.”
“Beg to differ.”
“You’re used to New York.”
“It’s a different sort of cold. Anyway, do you fancy a walk out to somewhere – nothing posh or anything. I want to see some sights.” She stuffed her hands in her jean pockets.
“Fine with me. Saves cooking.” Something I wasn’t a fan of. “Where do you want to go?”
“Where do you think?”
I shook my head. “Chinatown.”
She grinned. “I can check out my shop.”
“Always an ulterior motive. How’s the jet lag?”
We headed out, her coat twice the thickness of mine, setting off towards the Thames so we could walk by the river, not in any rush. The worst thing that could happen right now was work calling me in, but this was London and the Tube meant it wasn’t that difficult to get around.
We went through the details of the wedding so far, Laurie updating me on her family’s plans and the questions they’d been asking – nothing to do with her business because they didn’t think it was suitable for her to work anyway.
Then I started pointing out places we were passing, the Globe, Millenium Bridge, Blackfriars, telling her some of the history I’d picked up from Rose when we’d first started to be friends and she’d been my London tour guide.
“You realise you mention her about every tenth sentence,” she said after I pointed out Cleopatra’s Needle across the other side of the river.
“Who?”
“Really? Rose. This is where you and Rose did this, or this is a really weird fact that Rose told you. It’s a good job this engagement thing is fake else I’d be getting a complex.”
I looked away from her, trying not to smile because she was right.
“You didn’t talk about her this much in New York.”
“I was trying not to think about her – I wasn’t really thinking about her.” It wasn’t until she’d said what she did that I started to wonder whether the thing I’d had about her years ago might not be futile.
“Fair enough. Over the bridge?”
I nodded. Laurie knew London a little but not well. “You’re getting your bearings already.”
“I’ve been staring at maps of London for the last six weeks, wishing I was here already and an ocean away from the pantomime that is my family. I can’t tell you how glad I am that my grandmother went into labour early and I could get a UK passport.”
We upped the pace, rain starting, which wasn’t unusual.
“If I’ve got time this week I can show you around some more.”
“You won’t have time, Carter. I know you’ve been running around sorting everything out. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for what you’re doing. I owe you so much.” She paused walking for a moment, just outside a wine bar, and hugged me. It felt nothing like it had with Rose last night.
I looked away, straight through the window of the wine bar and saw four faces I hadn’t expected, peering at me, some of them not very happy.
“What’s up?” Laurie turned around. “Is that Rose? I recognise her from your photos.”
“It’s Rose. Rose, Fallon, Erin and Harriet.” Why hadn’t I told Rose last night? “We should go in and you can meet them.”
“You’re about to feed me to the lions, aren’t you?”
“Safer to go towards them than them come out here.” I walked in, nodding at security, Laurie behind me. This would be part two of Erin’s birthday – her and the rest of the fab four as my father used to call them.
It was Fallon who was standing to greet us. “Carter,” she sounded far too happy. “Harriet said you had a friend coming over.”
I nodded, observing as Laurie introduced herself, charm switched to level ten.
It was impossible to dislike Laurie, unless you were a member of her family where none of them liked each other on principal.
She recognised each of the four of them, remembering things she’d grilled me for and explaining I was helping her out while she moved over here.
It didn’t matter. I guessed Rose had told them all what’d happened last night, and now they’d all seen me hugging a woman for far longer than friends usually did.
Coincidence was not my friend. I saw Fallon’s face and was glad we didn’t have overlapping shifts for the next week because my life would potentially have been at risk.
“We should leave you to it. Happy birthday, Erin. It’d be great if we could meet again soon – I literally only know Carter so I’m desperate to meet more people.” Laurie smiled and gave Erin a hug. “And Harriet, Carter mentioned you might be able to help on the book front.”
There was an excited response from Harriet involving something about special editions and sprayed edges, but I wasn’t listening, I was fixed on Rose.
She looked beautiful, dressed in tight faux leather pants, with a sheer blouse tucked into them, I could make out every dip and curve, the swell of her breasts underneath and the smooth, sensitive skin of her neck where I’d kissed her last night.
I kept my eyes rising to meet hers, and then realised she’d been staring at me as I’d looked her up, and she wasn’t happy.
There was no smile, because now she knew half the secret I’d been keeping, and the half she didn’t know meant that right now, she hated me.