9. ELLY
9
ELLY
J ack is at work the day I move into his house. His driver delivered a set of keys to my flat last week, wrapped in a package so extravagant it was fit for diamonds.
The house is insane. It’s a double-fronted London townhouse with four storeys and an intimidating black lacquered front door at the top of four York stone steps.
It’s absolutely massive.
I knew Jack had made a lot of money, but this place must have cost him millions. Literal millions. If I’d known the house was like this, I’d have moved in immediately.
My phone buzzes, and I pull it from the pocket of my sheepskin coat.
Jack: Don’t nose in my room.
Me: Wasn’t going to.
Jack: Good. You have to wait for an invitation ;)
His message has nerves sparking in my stomach. He is dreadful. You can’t stop the man from flirting. It’s like his whole personality is just flirting. But it is kind of appealing. This huge great muscly man, who is always smiling, eyes gleaming. He always looks so… alive . Like he’s aglow with excitement. Everything is a joke to Jack, and there’s something sexy as hell about the fact he doesn’t take life too seriously.
Maybe, just maybe, I like him. Not to hook up with…but to flirt with? To mess around with? Yeah. I do.
I type a quick response.
Me: Which I would politely decline.
I wait a few moments for a reply, but when one doesn’t come, I put my phone away again, trying to ignore the ache of disappointment that follows.
I unlock the front door and let the men inside. The van and removal men were totally unnecessary. I have hardly any stuff—I could have carried it myself—so I’m glad Jack isn’t here to see it, but I’m thankful that he sorted everything out for me anyway. He didn’t have to do that.
I step into the large entrance hall to find the house is just as impressive inside as it is outside. It’s like a boutique hotel, with modern art on the walls and flowers on the hall table. And it smells like… Jack . It’s as if the wooden floor is oozing his cologne. Waves of arousal begin to pulse through me. Might as well admit it. Walking into Jack’s delicious-smelling multi-million pound home is a huge turn-on.
I lead the removal men upstairs to the bedroom on the second floor that Jack has designated as mine until my lease ends.
It only takes a few minutes for the guys to bring everything up and disappear. When they’re gone, I make my way to the kitchen. It’s so clean and tidy in here, like a show home. Everything put away so perfectly. I wipe my finger along the kitchen counter and check the tip for dust. Not a speck . And the floor practically sparkles. Jack must have a cleaner, or a housekeeper, because there is no way he gets on his knees and scrubs it himself.
I type Kate a quick message.
Me: I had no idea your brother was such a neat freak.
Kate: He’s very particular. Don’t touch his stuff.
A laugh snorts out my nose, and I’m glad no one’s here to witness it.
A folded piece of paper with my name written on it catches my attention. I snatch it from where it rests on the kitchen island, open it and read.
El,
Welcome to the bachelor pad. Make yourself at home. Help yourself to anything you want from the fridge, but don’t lick my cheese.
Jack.
P.S. Always wear slippers.
I laugh at the note, aware of a funny sensation behind my breastbone, like a small, warm kitten is curling up there. If Jack wants me to always wear the slippers, he must mean that if I don’t…
I abort the thought. It’s Jack. He’s joking. Flirting. He wrote ‘don’t lick my cheese’ for goodness’ sake. Even though he admitted he wanted me at the racetrack, it was probably a passing desire… he’s likely forgotten about it or moved on to someone else. He’s not exactly the type to doggedly pursue one woman. He has too many options for that.
Next to the note is an envelope, on top of which is a batch of photographs. I move closer to get a look and fan them out. They’re all attractive women. How weird.
I tidy them into a pile again and push them away. I shouldn’t be looking at Jack’s stuff. But, really, what the hell are they? I clench my fists in an attempt to resist the temptation to look at them again. Come on, Elly. Be good.
My skin itches.
Fuck it. What harm would it do to look?
I pick up the one on top, but as I do, it catches the one beneath and flips it over. My stomach drops as I see the name Lydia written in Mrs Lansen’s neat script. I recognise her handwriting from the letters she used to send Kate back when we were at boarding school. I quickly flip it to the picture side, revealing Lydia’s beautiful face smiling at me. I turn it over again to read Mrs Lansen’s annotations.
Lydia Archer. Twenty-nine years old. PR Manager at Archer Consultancy. Very sociable. Academic. Successful. Perfect for Jack. Granddaughter of Sir Marcus Compton. Fine breeding.
Perfect for Jack? These notes are like a window into Mrs Lansen’s twisted mind. And … breeding? Ha. It’s as if she thinks Lydia is some kind of pedigree dog.
Pedigree bitch.
I instantly reprimand myself for the mean thought. I don’t know Lydia. Maybe she’s not that bad, and she owns her own company, which is impressive. I’ll give her that much. She’s a high flier. I take out my phone and put her name into Google, and it brings up an array of glamorous photos of her with various celebrity clients. In several of them, she’s draped all over that famous actor who Kate and I met in one of Nico’s clubs earlier this year. Michael Drayton.
Ugh . A flutter of insecurity explodes in the pit of my stomach. Lydia’s beautiful and competent. Maybe she’s more suited to Jack than I am.
I scan through the rest of the cards, reading the notes on the back. Mrs Lansen must have put all these together and given them to Jack. How interfering can a mother be? That woman is crazy.
I shuffle the pictures back into a pile and push them away.
But wait. Jack took Lydia on a date. Before or after he got these cards? Maybe he’s taking these suggestions seriously. Maybe he’s just as crazy as his mother.
What an awful thought. I dismiss it instantly, because no one is as crazy as Mrs Lansen.
After a day of unpacking and getting familiar with the house and the local area, I’m sitting at the kitchen island on a fancy rotating bar stool, staring at a bowl of Persian chicken and walnut stew I made this afternoon. Jack might have said I could take things from his fridge, but there was nothing in there, apart from twenty half-size cans of Angel Tree tonic water, ten bottles of Dom Pérignon, and a block of cheddar cheese, so I went shopping.
I used to love cooking when I was younger. I did a lot of it with my mum in the school holidays. She was a real foodie, and was happy as long as I was doing exactly what she wanted, and I was happy just to be with her. So cooking it was . The thought raises a bitter taste at the back of my tongue, because at the time I didn’t realise she only wanted to spend time with me on her terms. As soon as I told my parents I wouldn’t be going to law school after uni because I wanted to be a musician, our relationship fell apart. It’s not as though they’ve cut me off exactly, but I get no financial assistance from them, and whenever we do meet, they make sure not to ask a single question about my career, my music, my aspirations, or my life in general. The weather is practically all we have left.
I shove all those thoughts out of my mind. I don’t want to think about my parents right now.
I lift my fork and assess the food I’ve made. It’s a veritable feast. Nowadays, I rarely cook anything fancy because I’m alone most of the time and happy to eat a cheese sandwich, which, ironically, I could almost have made from the contents of Jack’s fridge.
But what better way to say ‘ thank you for letting me live in your Notting Hill mansion for the same rent as a tiny flat in South London ’ than Persian chicken, cumin roast potatoes, a pistachio and feta dip with flatbreads, and tabbouleh? But now that I’m sitting here, with my plate piled high and enough leftovers to feed an army, I feel like an idiot. I should have checked whether Jack had plans. I don’t even know when he’s coming home, and there is no possible way I can eat it all myself. The ingredients were crazy expensive, too. I had to buy three bottles of pomegranate molasses that I definitely can’t afford. Beans on toast for me for a week after this.
I don’t want to wait all night just so we can eat together either. If Jack walks in and I’m sitting here like I’m about to say grace over a bowl of untouched food, waiting for his delectable arse to walk in, I don’t know what he’ll think. It’ll look like I’m serving him up dinner, like a good little housewife.
That’s definitely not what I meant to do. Is it?
This is confusing.
I tuck into the food, but I’m not really tasting it. My mind is all over the place, and I keep glancing at the pile of female faces staring up at me from the island. It’s like they’re watching me. It’s unnerving. I push them out of sight behind the fruit bowl.
The sound of the key in the front door makes me sit up straight, and my heart does a little jig. He’s home.
The door creaks as Jack enters. At least, I assume it’s him. I can’t see from here.
Footsteps approach, and I spin on my kitchen stool to find him standing in the doorway in a long dark overcoat, leaning on the door frame. He stares at me, and I struggle to take my next breath. He’s gorgeous. And big. Really, really big.
“Hi, there,” he says, brushing a hand through his hair. His voice is all smooth, and the hairs on my forearms stand in slow motion. I wish I was wearing long-sleeves.
I point my fork at him. “Don’t ‘ hi there ’ me. I see what you’re doing.”
One of his devastating smiles breaks over his face, and I briefly wonder if I could fall in love with his smile and remain immune to the rest of him. “What am I doing?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” I spin on the stool so my back is to him, but he’s making that amused humming sound in his mouth, and it resonates deep in my core. Damn it . He hasn’t even fully entered the room, and hidden parts of me are already throbbing.
His footsteps come closer until he’s right beside me, and every muscle in my body tenses. I pretend to focus on my food, but really all I’m doing is observing him out of the corner of my eye and growing light-headed because my breathing has become unaccountably shallow.
He takes off his coat and suit jacket, folds them carefully, and drapes them both over a kitchen chair, before he pulls out a stool and sits down next to me. He smells like fresh air and whatever that delicious scent is he wears. I inhale like I’m greedy for it.
He’s smiling so wide I can see his perfect white teeth in my periphery. My insides are fizzing as though I’m about to go to a party I’ve been looking forward to. This is messed up.
He stares at my bowl of stew, and his gorgeous smile turns slightly crooked, as though he’s both puzzled and amused. “The whole house smells like… whatever that is.”
I shrug. That’s not what I was smelling . “Oops. A girl’s gotta eat.”
“What is it?”
“Khoresh-e-Fesenjan.”
“Which is?”
“It’s Persian. Chicken and walnut stew with pomegranate molasses.”
Jack’s eyebrows fly up. “There’s no way you found pomegranate molasses in my cupboards. Or that many walnuts.”
I laugh, but it sounds more nervous than amused. What if he hates this? “No. I went shopping. Even I couldn’t make a meal out of a block of cheddar cheese and a gallon of champagne.”
Jack dismisses my comment with an eye-roll. “My housekeeper’s away. She normally stocks the fridge.”
“I took a tonic water,” I say, tapping the small can beside my plate. “Figured you could spare one.”
“Best tonic on the market,” he replies, nodding at the can.
I vaguely recall Kate telling me Jack was the first investor in Angel Tree tonic water when one of his school friends set up the company. A decade later and the drink is everywhere. Sold out to some huge drinks corporation for nearly a hundred million, and Jack got an enormous payout. Money rains into his life, whereas I seem to be in a permanent state of drought.
He leans over my dish, inspecting it at closer range. My heart flutters at how intimate this is. How domestic . Mrs Lansen might have picked out a load of suitable partners for her son, but I’m the one who gets to sit next to him at dinner. I’m winning. I shake the bizarre thought away. I must be losing my mind.
“That looks kinda disgusting,” he says, wrinkling his nose as he inhales. “Smells good though.”
Before I can think about it, I’ve filled a fork and I’m holding it out to him. “Taste it.”
He frowns at the lump of stew but opens his mouth wide around my fork, and his lips wrap around the tines. He lets out a low, appreciative moan that vibrates up the fork and into me until it nestles right between my legs. Oh boy, am I in trouble here.
The fact that I’m feeding him must occur to both of us at the same time, because Jack’s eyes shoot up to mine and lock on, alarm erupting in his gaze, but it vanishes instantly, replaced with a look that says, ‘I know what you were thinking, and it was dirty’.
Heat rages through me, but I force my features into stillness, refusing to acknowledge his expression, which wipes clean in response. He pulls back, an almost respectful look on his face as he chews on the food. “That’s surprisingly good,” he says after he swallows. “Is there more?”
I nod at the hob, where I’ve left a big pot full of stew and the other dishes. “Plenty.”
He gets up and walks over to the worktop, hesitating as he notices all the pots and bowls of dishes I’ve made. “Holy fuck, you’ve made a mess. You hosting a dinner party?”
I blush. “Nope.” I want to tell him I did it for him, but for some reason, I can’t bring myself to. “I… I like cooking.”
Ugh, that sounds pathetic.
He hmmms in the back of his throat, but before he can comment on the sheer volume of food I’ve prepared, the doorbell rings. Jack freezes, his focus shifting inward as if he might be able to determine who’s at the door through the use of some inner sense. “You sure you aren’t expecting people?”
“No.”
His lips turn downward and he heads out into the hall, and I strain to listen. The door opens with a creak and an excited female voice announces, “I brought sushi.”
The silence that follows is a beat too long, and my heart drops for the duration of it, plummeting down what feels like a ravine of emotion. I should have known Jack Lansen would have plans. A date. A woman. Sushi.
I’m such a fool.
“For me?” Jack replies, surprised, and at the tone of his voice my heart starts the slow climb back up. He’s as shocked by this arrival as I am.
“For us. It’s from that place you said you liked.”
For us . That sounds... cosy .
There’s a shuffle of feet and the click of heels on the wooden floor. Whoever is out there is coming in, and I’m pretty sure Jack didn’t actually invite them inside. Not vocally, at least, but then he’s a master of body language...
Jack clears his throat. “I wasn’t expecting—”
A breathy giggle cuts him off. “I told you I’d get some for you.”
A lengthy pause follows. “Right. Well, maybe you should come in then.” Jack sounds incredibly reluctant, but very polite. If it was me out there, I’d be backing right back down the front steps around now.
A moment later, Jack’s in the doorway, eyes wide and apologetic, a bag of what I assume is sushi in his hands.
“Hey, Ja-ack,” the woman calls, turning his name into two sultry syllables. Jack swings back towards the door, and I follow the motion.
Lydia appears in the doorway, and her trench coat falls open, revealing lacy black underwear that leaves very little to the imagination.
I nearly choke on my mouthful of food just as Lydia catches sight of me, letting out a deafening scream as she quickly pulls the coat closed, but not before I’ve got an eyeful. She has an absolutely killer body, and she’s clearly here for sex.
“Oh, shit,” I mutter, ears still ringing on account of Lydia’s epic screech.
“You didn’t say you had company,” she says, addressing Jack as if I’m not here, a pinch of breathless annoyance in her voice.
“You didn’t say you were nearly naked under there.” Jack covers his mouth with a fist. His expression is hovering somewhere between entertained and appalled. I suspect he’s suppressing a smile, and it makes me want to laugh. In fact, the urge to giggle is so intense that I’m not sure I can keep it inside. When mixed with the self-recriminations that it was foolish to cook for Jack on my first night, the sensation is discombobulating, as though I’m a balloon that’s being both inflated and deflated at the same time.
“You remember Elly,” Jack says, gesturing to me, and I rapidly swallow my amusement.
Lydia nods, her arms tightly crossed over her chest. “The waitress.”
Jack tilts his head as though he’s contemplating contradicting this. “She’s my housemate,” he clarifies.
Lydia’s eyes widen. “You live together?”
“We do,” I confirm, aware I sound like I’m staking a claim. Jack’s eyes flash to mine and the delight on his face tells me he hears it too.
“Oh. Gosh, I only bought enough sushi for two.” Lydia looks genuinely uncomfortable, and she glances to Jack for help. I get a sudden twinge of guilt. She didn’t know I was here, or that I’d cooked. She didn’t mean to sabotage my efforts, and she’s dared to make a huge play for Jack, in her underwear no less, and here I am, laughing at her.
I’d hate it if someone did that to me.
“Relax.” It’s an ironic word choice given that my insides are squeezing together like a concertina, but Jack’s love life is none of my business, and I don’t want to interfere. Maybe later I can source some Tupperware and pack the leftover food away and eat it during the week. I pick up my bowl and walk towards where Lydia is standing in the doorway. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Wait, don’t go,” Jack pleads. There’s a panicked look in his eyes that almost makes me pause, but there’s no way I’m staying here, knowing Lydia is only wearing her underwear beneath that trench coat.
“No, really, I’ll leave,” I say quickly. “Enjoy your dinner.” As I pass Jack, I lean into him and add, “Sushi is a delicacy, after all.”