Chapter Fourteen
Elle
Stephen’s dark eyes narrowed on me and it was an entirely different look to the one he’d just traced down my body, but no less stirring.
I hadn’t counted on him turning up this morning after he’d sounded so adamant yesterday about not needing help.
I could’ve done without the meet and greet in my jammies, but I was determined not to let him know that it made me self-conscious.
Or that his lingering gazes were calling to my baser urges.
‘First and foremost, nothing is going to happen between you and I, so you can cut the flirting out.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Yes, you do. I’m willing to let it go for now, ’cause I’m not sure guys like you know what to do other than flirt with women, but I suggest you use our time together as a learning experience.
No sex is happening between us, so don’t waste your energy.
I am not a challenge to you because I stood you up before.
I am not a convenient set of lady-bits for you to make the most of while you’re in the vicinity.
There will be no shenanigans. Understood? ’ I paused and waited for a response.
‘Understood…’ he said slowly, his jaw set as though he wanted to say something, but he was restraining himself.
I sighed. ‘But?’
‘But…if I wanted to have sex with you, Noelle, it wouldn’t be because you’re the closest available female. I have a little more discernment than that.’
‘Do you?’ I made no effort to hide the scepticism in my tone.
‘Yes. What makes you think otherwise?’
I didn’t want to drop Beth in it by relaying the stories she’d told me about the alternating women at his apartment when she stayed over with Nick at the beginning of the year.
Or the one who showed up drunk and crying because he’d dropped her without so much as a phone call.
I knew the three of them had made peace now and I didn’t want to wreck that, so I could only back up my statement with personal evidence which, luckily, I had too. ‘Err…Christmas.’
‘What about it?’
‘You weren’t interested in me until you’d already tried your luck with Beth.
It was like I didn’t exist in that lobby when you arrived at the hotel.
You only gave me your number when you realised you weren’t going to get anywhere with her.
Since there were no other single women my age at the hotel, you gave it a shot with me.
’ I shrugged, as though it didn’t bother me even slightly.
It was an indisputable fact. He was just one of those men who needed to have the prospect of a female to get physical with, all the time.
He laughed. ‘You’re wrong. You are so wrong.
There is no way that I wasn’t aware of you when I arrived at the hotel.
I recall speaking to you, directly, but maybe you were too busy laughing at me from behind a leaflet to notice?
I wasn’t getting any signals that you were interested, so my first impression of you was not as favourable as my second, when you actually bothered to talk to me – that’s all.
It wasn’t because you were a last resort for my insatiable sexual appetite. ’
The fine hairs on the back of my neck lifted but I wasn’t going to let him start working on my ego.
‘First impressions are based on instinct and usually correct. Seems like you shoulda stuck to yours ’cause I wasn’t interested in the end, was I?
’ When he didn’t respond, I carried on: ‘So, now we understand that, we can move on to my second rule. If you genuinely want my help, I expect you to hear me out, not dismiss every suggestion I make – no matter how unpalatable they might sound.’
His lips pressed together in a little pucker that told me he was suspicious of what I was saying. Either that or he was flirting again, because it was an undeniably attractive pout.
‘That stands to reason,’ he said.
‘You would think, wouldn’t ya?’ I took another couple of swigs of my coffee. ‘I’m guessing you’ve done an internet search?’
‘Yes. He’s not on Facebook.’
‘Not the only social media out there.’
‘True, but for his generation the most likely.’
‘OK. So, how d’you know he lives here?’
‘There was an envelope with his name and address on in my mum’s wardrobe.’
‘An old flame maybe?’ I moved away from the counter and grabbed the nearest pad and pen from the sofa, perching on the cushions near him, but not next to him. I flipped to a new page, scribbling down a few notes. I looked up when Stephen hadn’t answered and raised my eyebrows at him in question.
‘You know, if you want me to stop flirting, perhaps you should put some clothes on,’ he said.
‘Are you breaking my ground rules already?’
‘I’m asking you to help me with my learning experience.’ He was all innocence. ‘How is it possible not to flirt with you when you’re sitting there, looking like that?’
Crumpled and scruffy, hair unbrushed? Yeah, I was sure he was having a hard time keeping his hands off me. Not.
‘Even if I were sitting here naked, you should be able to control yourself,’ I pointed out.
‘I can’t argue with that.’ He held his hands up and leaned back.
‘So, you think this man could be an old boyfriend of your mom’s? Did you speak to the rest of your family to see if they knew him?’
‘Nick and my nan are all the family we’ve got.’
I swallowed over the jolt his matter-of-fact statement provoked. ‘What about family friends?’
‘My mum’s best friend knew him, but she had no idea what happened to him after he left London.’
‘Or why your mom would have left him money?’
‘That isn’t the mystery that’s here for you to solve,’ he said quietly. ‘I just need to find him to pass on the details and the envelope.’
I tapped my pen on my pad softly. So, he was uncomfortable with talking about his mom’s relationship with the guy. Maybe she’d had an affair and he didn’t want me to know. ‘You’re breaking another rule.’
He frowned. ‘How so?’
‘You’re blocking me.’
‘It’s irrelevant information.’
‘Everything is relevant.’ I extended my coffee towards him.
‘Hold this.’ He took it and watched as I leaned over the back of the sofa to grab a folder from my book trolley.
I pulled out one of my character worksheets.
‘Every detail builds up a picture of who that person is. And when you have enough details you can work out what they’re more likely to do or where they’re more likely to go.
’ I swapped him the coffee for the worksheet and took a long drink as he skim-read it.
‘He’s not a fictional character,’ he said flatly.
‘The police do it too, because people are ridiculously predictable. It’s called profiling. Surely you’ve heard of that? You’re gonna have to give me every tiny detail if you want this to work.’
He sent me a sideways look and pinched his bottom lip for a moment, like he was contemplating changing his mind about having me help him.
Despite the ridiculous hour he’d woken me up and his mercurial mood changes, I didn’t want him to back out.
But equally, there was no point to this if he wasn’t going to work with me.
‘You can’t expect to get answers if you don’t ask questions,’ I added softly.
‘Granted.’ He set the character worksheet carefully on the sofa between us. I filed it back away and decided it might be best to take a different tack for the meantime. He’d agreed; he hadn’t left. I could give him a little space to get used to the idea that he was going to have to talk.
‘So, you found this address in New York and you didn’t want to write him a letter or just put the envelope in the post?’
‘No. And it’s a good job I didn’t. The building’s disappeared.’
‘Where was it?’
‘Little Italy.’
‘Oh great, we can grab some breakfast while we’re there.’
‘Why would we go there again? Didn’t you hear the story properly? The building is gone – it’s a car park now. Possibly it always was, and he gave her a fake address.’
‘Well, which is it?’
He shrugged.
‘Exactly. That, right there, is something you need to get to the bottom of. If the parking lot used to be apartments, then the address is useful to start tracking him down. If it was just made up, then we have to figure out another place to start. We need to eliminate the leads.’
‘Right. And going there will help us to do that?’ He rubbed his thumb along the edge of his hairline. His skin was beginning to glow with a sheen of sweat. Look at that, my flagging A/C had done something useful; proven he was human, not a Greek god carved from marble.
‘Well, before we fall into a black hole on the internet trying to find the information we want, we could – and I know this sounds radical in this day and age – actually go and talk to people.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged and stood up, throwing my empty coffee cup over his head towards my waste bin, watching him wince because it missed. Oh, winding Stephen up was going to be a whole lotta fun. ‘We’ll find out when we get there.’