CHAPTER THREE #3
It wasn’t the writer who’d been studying her from across the room. It was a tipsy man in his fifties. She noticed that he wore a wedding band.
‘Had to come and introduce myself,’ he said. ‘Harry Sloane.’
‘You had to, did you?’ she replied wearily. As the man asked if she wanted a ‘real drink’, she noticed that Tom Branimir was watching the scene from his table. He stood without ceremony and walked nonchalantly towards the bar, taking up residence on the other side of her unwanted admirer.
‘Vodka neat, please,’ she heard him tell the bartender, his voice a smooth baritone.
He wasn’t looking at Raina. Fine. Challenge accepted. She turned back to the red-faced man in the expensive suit and smiled. ‘So what do you do, Harry?’
‘This and that,’ he said. ‘Right now, I’m thinking of investing in generative AI.’
Raina winced and Branimir made an almost inaudible noise of amusement. Raina glowered over at him, but he still wasn’t looking at either of them. His eyes were fixed upon his glass, though he wore a small smirk.
‘Oh, no,’ she said to Harry. ‘What kind?’
‘Creative kind, probably. Don’t tell me you’re a snob about it! People are paying for artists when they could—’
‘Oh, Harry,’ Raina said on a sigh, finishing her amaretto and giving him a look of pity. ‘Let’s not.’
‘So!’ Harry was oblivious to her disapproval. ‘That dress looks wonderful but it—’
‘Can I stop you right there?’ Raina asked, not unkindly. ‘Is this going to be a come-on? Half-arsed or otherwise? Were you going to say this dress would look better on your bedroom floor?’
She saw the writer stiffen, while Harry’s face broke into a sheepish grin. ‘Well, yeah. But I don’t do anything half-arsed, darling.’
‘Oh, sure. I believe you, cookie. Hey, I’ll save us both the time. I can’t get involved with you, Harry. For two very good reasons. One, you’ve got a wedding ring on. Two, people who believe that artificial intelligence can replace creative people? They’re always bad in bed.’
A stunned silence met this remark, though Raina could see Tom Branimir smiling against the rim of his glass. Harry made a strange spluttering sound and so Raina held up her hands in a gentling gesture.
‘Let me explain,’ she said sweetly. ‘People who want a machine to make art are not interested in the creative process. They see art as a product. An end goal rather than a soul. You skip the essential creative part so you can market and sell it. But that defeats the entire purpose of making art. Furious, flawed, utterly human art. With all its imperfections. Art is as much about the journey and the process as it is about the finished design.’
‘Uh . . .’ Harry was staring at her as though she were a lizard person. ‘But I don’t see how—’
‘See, it’s like expecting sex to be purely about making children. Someone who rushes the journey to get to a specific ending? That’s not what I want. I want someone who can savour the process, you know?’
Harry’s eyes dropped hungrily to her breasts, and it was clear he’d stopped listening.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Raina added, taking a minuscule step back. ‘I’m maybe in favour of AI that can help doctors find cancer cells. But not the kind that kills our planet to make shitty, inhuman art without a soul. Sorry, Harry. I kind of want a man who can use his own mind.’
The ‘as well as other things’ was implied.
‘Anyway,’ Harry said, stupid but determined. ‘Why don’t we—’
‘You’re boring her.’
The words were spoken with cold finality, causing Harry Sloane to blink in bemusement. When he turned to acknowledge Tom Branimir, the two men eyed each other with disdain. Whatever Harry saw in the writer’s face, it was enough to make him mutter a curse and storm away.
When they were alone, Tom downed the last of his drink and met Raina’s gaze. ‘I never use AI.’
Fuck, thought Raina. She felt a tingle in the palm of her hand and the bite of curiosity.
She gave him an appraising look. ‘It’s impolite to eavesdrop.’
‘You should have some sympathy for the man,’ he said, in a tone of voice that bore no sympathy at all. ‘He probably relied on AI for all of his conversation starters tonight and you’ve just shut him down entirely. He’ll be licking his wounds over the girl who played hard-to-get all night now.’
‘Woman. And I don’t play hard-to-get,’ Raina said, regarding him coolly. ‘Men play easy-to-resist.’
He looked pleased by her reply. Then, ‘He just wants to feel young again with a woman who’s beautiful and interesting. He chose you. Obviously.’
Raina took a small step closer. ‘What’s so obvious about it?’
‘Well, who wouldn’t?’
The words landed on Raina with a sharp spark of electricity. There’d been a touch of longing in his voice. She watched him quickly mask it with a cold expression, but the words lingered in the air. Holding the writer’s gaze, Raina was surprised by how quick he was.
‘I’m Raina. Have we met? You’ve been glancing over a lot tonight, like I owe you money.’
He almost smiled. ‘No. I would have remembered us meeting.’ His voice was so deep and there was a lilt in his accent, something that didn’t belong to a London borough.
‘You’re Tom Branimir.’
He looked surprised at that. ‘Yes.’
‘So, is this business or pleasure? You coming over here, I mean.’
‘Business.’
‘I see.’
He jerked his thumb in the direction of the band, who were now playing a bluesy number. ‘Would you like to dance?’
You’re up to something, Raina thought. She wasn’t going to let a gorgeous face, broad shoulders and a deep Scottish voice distract her.
He was clever. And possibly sneaky. There were tons of prettier women in the room.
He could have sidled up to any of them. He wasn’t closing in on her because of some anti-AI garbage kindred spirit shit. He had an agenda.
And autistics were naturally skittish around people with secret intentions. No matter how hot they were.
‘No, not really. I don’t like to dance,’ she said politely. ‘Unless it’s a Tom Waits song. But thank you for asking. I’m not sure what business you and I could possibly have with each other, but I know a bit about your professional rep so it’s maybe best for me to sit this one out.’
She turned back to her drink and took a dainty sip.
Brazen little witch.
Tom Branimir stood frozen by the bar, faced with Raina Lewis’s profile and her cavalier dismissal of him. He was off balance. She was so much more than he’d anticipated. Faster, wittier. She made him nervous, and no one made him nervous.
He liked to think he wasn’t a dick, so he turned to go. But as he did, he realized he might never get another chance. If Raina Lewis was the perfect subject for the one positive chapter in his book, there would be no better moment than tonight.
‘Excuse me one minute.’
He strode over to the band. The guitarist pulled something out of his ear and listened to Tom’s calm request with cool indifference.
He returned to Raina at the bar, just as ‘Hold On’ by Tom Waits began to play.
‘I know no means no and you’re well within your rights to tell me to go jump in the Thames,’ he said steadily, ‘but I really would like to dance with you. To discuss something.’
A spark of amusement flashed in her green eyes and she dutifully placed her glass back down on the bar. She made no sound of verbal agreement but moved onto the dancefloor. Tom followed, releasing a steady breath and taking in her feline walk while wondering why he felt so out of control.
He placed his hands on her hips, the sequins of her dress nipping his open palms. He moved one hand to her back, feeling bare skin beneath his fingers. As Tom battled with what to say, she reached out and brushed his tie with one finger.
‘This is from Liberty.’
He smiled, surprised. ‘It is.’
‘I love that store.’
He believed it. She looked expensive.
‘What business brought you over to me then?’ she asked. ‘Let’s have it.’
Her tone was casual but she still watched him. Watched him with that cool, assessing gaze that let him know that the laughing, lit-up woman from earlier in the night was locked away behind caution and suspicion. He wanted to coax her out, to experience that warmth up close.
‘I saw a beautiful woman,’ he said honestly.
‘What are you working on at the moment?’ she pressed, bypassing the compliment completely. He was taken aback, and it must have shown on his face because she added, ‘Yes, I really do know who you are. I’ve read some of your work.’
She was two steps ahead of him. ‘I’m working on a book. A collection of all my . . . uh—’
‘Assassinations?’
She said it derisively.
‘Well . . .’ He acknowledged her tone with a shrug. ‘I prefer “hitman” to “King of Cancel Culture”, or whatever that newspaper editor called me.’
She rested her wrists on his shoulders. He didn’t think it possible to be more aware of how close she was, but the subtle movement put every part of him into an alert state. He cleared his throat and splayed his hands on her waist, pulling her closer.
‘What do you do?’
‘I’m self-employed,’ she said innocently.
He scowled, irritated by her caginess. ‘As what?’
She sighed, as if readying herself for some kind of insult. ‘The Disability Track. It’s a podcast.’
It merely confirmed what Tori had said but he nodded as if it were new information. ‘Interesting.’
She narrowed her eyes just a little but said nothing.
‘It’s a podcast about disability then?’
‘Well, sort of,’ she said softly. ‘It’s a space for women who happen to be disabled-slash-neurodivergent. To vent, to laugh, to report.’
She was ever so slightly defensive. Like she was used to people making fun of her.
‘Makes a change from all the True Crime.’
She laughed at that. ‘Yeah, I guess. To each their own. I listened to a live episode of one last week and there’s something a little jarring about a room full of people screaming and cheering when they hear their favourite serial killer’s name. Bellowing for Ted Bundy like he’s Mick Jagger.’