Chapter Nineteen
To my surprise, the bored tone of the man at the council offices never altered when I recounted my tale when I phoned him from work that morning. For a very reasonable fee he offered to send someone round to collect the fridge.
‘Where’s Emily?’ From the way Cara’s eyebrows were creased over her soft brown eyes, she must have overheard some of my bizarre conversation.
‘She’s going to be late in this morning,’ I answered shortly, not wanting to go into details, especially as over her shoulder, Helene and Camilla were both listening avidly. It was obvious Emily had already told them she was leaving.
Cara stepped back giving me a mild look of reproach. Bugger, she didn’t deserve that. She’d been my first ally on the beauty team. Easily worth ten of Emily.
‘Sorry, Cara. Didn’t mean to snap. Been an eventful weekend.’
‘I kind of gathered. If there’s anything I can do . . .’ her voice trailed off weakly as she gave me a sympathetic smile and went back to her desk absently flicking at the Arsenal pennant stuck to her computer.
Arsenal. Football. I suddenly remembered. I was supposed to be taking Ned tonight.
‘Actually, Cara, there is something . . .’ Was it a bit of a cheek to ask her to go to a football match with a complete stranger?
I’d underestimated the power of the Arsenal football team.
Cara’s eyes lit up. Ned could have been Quasimodo for all she cared. All that mattered was that she going to ‘the Arsenal’ as she called it.
‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Olivia. Sure you don’t want to go?’
‘It’ll be wasted on me. Plus I need to do something urgent this evening,’ I said, turning back to my to-do list, adding Ned’s name to the bottom.
With a million phone calls to make, a bulging inbox of emails and a feature deadline to meet, my day was going to be hectic.
My phone never stopped ringing that morning.
David, to tell me that Fiona was due to return, so was popping in for a meeting later today; journalists chasing photos, printers wanting artwork and . . . I still had to talk to Ned.
* * *
Thank God for work. If I’d had time to think, my brain would have melted into a puddle. It had been an eventful few days.
I worked diligently through my to-do list and it was late afternoon when I spoke to Ned.
‘All set for the big game tonight?’ he asked, when I finally got through to him.
‘’Fraid not. Sorry, Ned, I can’t make tonight. It’s a bit complicated.’
He didn’t say a word, so I ploughed on quickly. ‘Don’t worry. You can still go, but you’ll have to go with a work colleague of mine. She’s a big Arsenal fan. In case the client asks, it’ll look better if someone from our company is there.’
‘OK,’ he said slowly. I could tell he was pissed off. Not that I blamed him but my emotions were like glitter in a snow globe. They were so mixed up I couldn’t summon any guilt.
‘Look, I’m really sorry,’ I explained dropping my voice. ‘It’s been a hell of a weekend. My sister lost a baby.’
Immediately I could tell he perked up. ‘Shit, sorry that’s bad news.’
‘Yeah, well. She’s in hospital.’ I didn’t add ‘in Australia’.
Thank God she’d got Bill with her. And Ned didn’t need to know about Daniel, just yet.
Let him enjoy his Arsenal match. Not that I was big-headed enough to think that he was smitten with me but telling him now would only hurt his pride unnecessarily.
Feeling relieved to have avoided any unpleasantness, I arranged that he would come to the office to meet Cara at 6.00 p.m., by which time I would be long gone.
At five thirty on the dot, I switched off my computer, forwarded the barcode tickets to Cara without a grain of guilt and left the office. My mind was on other matters.
Anyone seeing me skipping down Oxford Street might have questioned how much coffee I’d been drinking. Anticipation and excitement had added an extra bounce to my step.
As I spotted Daniel outside the front of John Lewis, my stomach twisted with nerves. I speeded up and he looked up, catching my eye as I got closer. For a moment we looked at each other without saying a word. My mouth went dry as one corner of his mouth quirked.
‘Hi,’ he said softly. My heart lurched as I smiled shyly back.
‘Hi.’
Giving his head an amused shake he stepped forward and slid a hand across my cheek, into my hair and pulled my head towards him for a kiss.
‘That’s better,’ he said afterwards, putting his arm around me and steering me inside. ‘How was today?’
‘Busy,’ I said. ‘I didn’t get a chance to speak to Emily as she wasn’t around much. How did she take it?’ I asked, our hands linked, as we sailed upwards on the escalator.
He winced. ‘My ego feels as if it’s been ripped out, chewed up and spat out again. Be gentle with me.’
‘That bad?’
‘Hell hath no. The worst boyfriend on the planet.’ He sounded reasonably cheerful about this as he pointed to himself. ‘Rubbish relationship material.’
She hadn’t pulled any punches then.
‘I’m a boring old git with an unhealthy obsession with ball . . . sports.’
‘Have I made a terrible mistake?’ I teased.
‘I never go to decent restaurants.’
‘What, never?’ I asked, in mock outrage as we stepped off the escalator.
He drooped his head in dejection. ‘Nope.’
We wound our way through the electrical department to find the fridges.
‘You don’t need to worry then,’ I said cheerfully, sailing past the televisions, tugging at his hand as he stopped briefly. ‘It’s your kitchen I’m interested in — we can eat in.’
‘It gets worse . . .’
Playing along, I sighed heavily and stopped. I turned to face him. ‘What, there’s more?’
‘I’m crap in bed.’ His eyes twinkled, his lips twitching.
‘That’s it then. Sorry . . .’
‘Oy,’ he tickled my ribs. ‘You’re supposed to be on my side.’
I lowered my voice, there were other people around. ‘Perhaps you just need practice?’
‘Are you volunteering?’
That took the wind out of my sails.
‘Well, surely you must have some good points,’ I said bracingly, as I turned and pulled him along towards the household appliances.
He sucked in his breath. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Not one.’
‘Sure? No redeeming features at all.’ I thought for a moment. ‘I might have to reconsider.’
His arm snaked round me and pulled me closer, his warm breath teasing my neck. ‘I’ve been through the verbal wringer. I need first aid and sticking plasters, woman. What are you going to do about it?’
‘Depends. Are you young, free and single again?’
‘Resoundingly, yes. Emily never wants to set eyes on me again. Mind you, she’s not overly fond of you either at the moment. What have you done to upset her so much?’
‘What? Apart from breathe?’
‘I asked her about your married man but she stuck to her guns. Insisted he existed — even after I said I believed you. At which point she spat your name out, reminding me, I might add, of an indignant llama, and said you wouldn’t know the truth if it came and slapped you.’
I laughed. I could so clearly picture Emily’s face. ‘And what did you say to that?’
‘Well,’ he hedged slightly.
‘Daniel,’ a note of warning creeping into my voice.
‘I didn’t mean to let on about us . . . but I might have been a bit . . . vocal in support of you.’
‘Can I help?’ A small man stepped out in front of us.
I gave Daniel a look, my heart filling with a little burst of pride as he gave me a little wink.
‘Er yes, we’re looking for a fridge,’ I said self-consciously.
Shopping for white goods in John Lewis wasn’t quite how I’d envisioned spending my first proper date with Daniel but I felt a little, definite thrill. Shopping for two made a change.
Our man was a mine of useful information. He really knew his fridges, although discussing the merits of automatic defrost when your libido is on fire takes some doing.
Everything went swimmingly until we got to the taking-possession-of-our-chosen-model part of business. It turned out choosing a fridge was easy. Having it installed before the milk went off was another matter. Delivery took at least a week.
‘Dad’s got a spare fridge in the garage we use at Christmas,’ volunteered Daniel as my face fell. ‘Let me give him a call. I could bring it over tomorrow after work.’
Our helpful assistant beamed at this, although looking at my credit card clutched in his hand, it would have been a fight to the death to get it back from him.
* * *
Having someone to look after me, after years of self-sufficiency was rather nice.
In fact, it was blood-tinglingly gorgeous.
We went for a drink, strolled hand in hand through Covent Garden and stopped for dinner.
It should have been perfect but annoyingly thoughts of Peter kept intruding.
I did my best to keep them at bay by telling myself that he wouldn’t dare do anything else now. Would he?
Although I didn’t mention it to Daniel I was conscious that he too kept surreptitiously scanning the crowds as we walked along.
As it started to get dark, we headed towards the river and both relaxed as we left the crowds behind. We made extremely slow progress across Waterloo Bridge. Daniel kept pointing out landmarks.
‘Look.’
‘Where?’ I asked, stopping only to find his head dipping towards mine and his lips brushing my mouth.
‘The London Eye,’ he said grinning as he lifted his head. I soon joined in the game.
‘Look, Big Ben.’
It took half an hour’s sightseeing to get over the bridge and ten minutes to get up the stairs into Waterloo station.
‘Daniel, you don’t have to put me on the train,’ I said, as we looked up at the departures board, standing arm in arm, cheek to cheek. ‘You’ve still got to go all the way back to the West End to get your car. I’ll be fine, honest. There’s a train in five minutes.’
He shrugged.
‘I’d rather . . .’ He looked round at the busy concourse before kissing my cheek. His lips worked their way to my mine. ‘Plus I’m not going to see you ’til tomorrow night.’