Chapter Twenty-Nine
My phone started ringing and I sat up in bed, catapulted out of a deep, dreamless sleep.
Blinked.
It took five seconds for my brain to catch up, to remember.
I was in Olly’s room. I was alone in his bed. I could hear the shower running.
The phone screen told me it was Esme, video call.
I jumped out of bed and started to collect my clothes, my hands fumbling as I tried to put on my bra. I was just pulling on my jeans when Olly appeared, wrapped in a towel.
‘Uh-uh,’ he said, shaking his head as I reached for the phone. Gestured towards my hair.
Cursing, I ran to the mirror. The last traces of my red lipstick were smeared; my curly hair stood wild, to attention, like I’d been pulled through a hedge backwards – or, you know, had the best sex of my life.
‘Lizzy, breathe,’ said Olly, looking amused.
Esme rang off. ‘You can call her back. Just… compose yourself, then take the call over there.’ He gestured to a pair of armchairs in the corner of the room.
‘When you call back, say you’re having a drink with me here.
’ He was drying himself, pulling on a shirt and buttoning it swiftly, efficiently.
I stood at the mirror, running my fingers through my hair, adjusting my necklace, wiping off my lipstick. But there was no erasing the glow I had about me. My eyes were bright, my skin suddenly dewy. One nicely fraught hour with Olly and I looked like I’d spent a weekend at a health spa.
We were both ready in a couple of minutes and sat down in the armchairs.
‘Lights, camera, action,’ murmured Olly.
I whacked him on the knee and hit Call.
Esme and Ajax’s faces swum before me, an enormous headboard behind them.
‘Is that a bed?’ I said, my voice sounding ever so slightly high-pitched.
‘The most enormous bed,’ said Esme. ‘And relax, no one’s naked. We’re just staying cosy here in light of the acqua alta. Ended the brainstorming session ten minutes ago.’
‘Oh, right,’ I said, carefully not looking to my left. ‘I just got caught in the water. Am drying off and having a cup of tea with Olly.’
‘Hi, guys.’ Olly smiled, looking relaxed.
‘I’m glad we’ve got you both here,’ said Ajax. Even to me, who was permanently annoyed by him, his tone sounded clipped. ‘So we got some great thoughts down on paper, the team are real livewires. We’re so proud of them.’
Yada, yada, yada, I thought, trying to keep the thought from my face.
‘The thing is, when Ez and I went to find you guys and see how you were getting on with your speech for the investors, we found nothing but an empty flipchart. So, what’s happening? Do you have a fresh draft for us yet?’
‘Olly and I had a very constructive conversation,’ I said, trying to ignore the fact that, out of sight, Olly had just put his hand on my knee.
‘But the thing is, we need more material from you. A little detail, at least. Like, say, the works of art users will view at the beginning of building their profile.’
‘My paintings,’ Esme answered without hesitation. ‘And possibly an installation or two, if the tech team give us the okay on that.’
‘Wait a sec, my honey.’ Ajax was rubbing her back.
‘What?’ Esme seemed slightly irritated. ‘I’ll develop work especially for the project. We talked about this.’
‘I mean, yeah, we chatted, but not in any depth. To be honest, I thought you were joking about that. We’re going to need big hitters – Van Gogh, Dali, Picasso, Emin, Hirst.’
I found myself in the unusual position of agreeing with Ajax. ‘A range of works would be helpful to give people a choice. But we’ll need to factor in image licensing…’
They weren’t looking at me or hearing me. Esme’s gaze was fixed on Ajax. ‘You’re saying I’m not a big hitter?’ she said piercingly.
‘Of course you’re a big hitter. But we need a range of work for people to connect over.’
‘Maybe you can hash this out between yourselves,’ said Olly. ‘Then let us know. And any detail that you have. Send us some voice notes and we’ll get that statement done.’
‘We need this to be wow,’ said Ajax. ‘We need the world’s attention to be captured.’
Like when there’s a disaster of some kind, I thought.
‘We really don’t have the details, though, do we?’ said Olly. ‘Chroma is still an idea, not fully fleshed out.’
‘Include more personal stuff,’ piped up Esme. ‘More on our love affair.’
‘What happened to, when others go low, we go high?’ said Olly. Miraculously, there was something about his intonation which meant the question sounded pleasant rather than negative.
‘We all know the way this works,’ said Ajax. ‘Sex sells. You’re not working for the Royal Family now, Olly.’
‘So I gather,’ said Olly.
‘And a wedding date?’ I said. ‘We were going to announce that, weren’t we?’
Esme gazed down the lens. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Yes.’
‘And, re: going personal, anything specific you want us to include?’ I said. ‘Perhaps something you talked about at your first meeting? You need to give us something to work with, something you’re comfortable sharing.’
‘I’m sure you have quite enough to get started,’ said Esme. ‘We’ll send you voice notes to help.’ She pressed the end call button and their faces vanished.
Olly’s hand was still on my knee, and I slotted my fingers over his. It felt perilously, dangerously good. Like I was in safe harbour in the middle of the most crazy storm, but also on the verge of creating our very own storm. A good one. I gave him a bemused look. ‘Why are they being so shady?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Search me. This has all gone a bit too off piste for me.’
‘Do you mean everything?’
‘Not this,’ he said softly, a smile tugging at his lips, warmth filtering into his dark eyes. He licked his finger and prodded my arm. ‘Is there any chance I can persuade you to take off those wet clothes?’
I elbowed him hard, and he gave a shout of laughter, pulling me against him.
We were just about to kiss when a ping indicated the first of Ajax and Esme’s voice notes landing in our phones.
We sighed in tandem, and, groaning, I looked at my phone and noted the ever-climbing number of emails.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, resting my forehead against his and making a sad face.
‘I’ve got to go back to my hotel. Maybe something miraculous will occur to me about the speech. ’
‘Are you settled there all right?’ he said playfully. ‘I mean, there might be a spare room here. Just saying.’
I shoved him cheerfully as my heart rate quickened. ‘It’s a very nice hotel, thanks. I’ve stayed there before. Came here on a minibreak with bloody Jack Dillane, would you believe?’
His expression darkened, but he just nodded. ‘Right.’
‘Sorry,’ I said clumsily. Why had I said that? Was I trying to prove something to him? That someone else had wanted me? I put my hand on his arm. ‘Jack wasn’t anything special. We weren’t even that close. He was actually… not very nice.’
There must have been something about the way I said it, a touch of the pain Jack had caused me, because Olly gently pulled me towards him and held me close.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said, so softly it was almost a whisper.
Then he held me back, looking at my face. ‘Can I walk you back to your hotel?’
‘No. Thank you. Honestly. You just stay here, in the dry, coming up with genius words for our crazy bosses.’ I brushed his collarbone with my fingers, mainly because I couldn’t help it. ‘I’ll stick to the passarelle, I promise.’
He kissed me. And I knew I was in deep trouble.
Because if anything, his kisses got better: setting up a deep ache inside me that was very quickly proving to be addictive.
I could talk smart, but I was falling like a stone.
And if I forgot to be sensible, work was going to get even more complicated.
I took a deep breath. ‘Can we agree to keep this between us?’ I said lamely, feeling as though strong magnets were pulling my body towards his. ‘I think we need to have a discussion when we get home. About what this is, what we both want.’
‘Will the discussion involve large amounts of physical touching?’ said Olly.
I couldn’t help my cry of laughter. ‘If you like.’
‘I like,’ he said.
‘It’s a promise,’ I said. ‘But I think, for now, we just need to be calm and sensible and concentrate on getting through this business trip.’
‘No distractions,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘No distractions.’
‘Agreed.’ His expression was military-grade unreadable.
I got up, picked up my bag. Looked at him. He was sitting on the bed. Shirt unbuttoned at the neck, jeans on, hair wet from the shower. His dark brown, amber-flecked eyes fixed serenely on my face, as though he was taking every detail in.
I didn’t want to leave him. I didn’t want to leave this room.
‘I’ll see you later,’ I said, and went quickly, before I could change my mind.