Chapter 18 Andrea #3
I hesitated, just enough for him to pick up on my uncertainty.
“Give it some thought.” He put his hands on his large knees. “I’m not going to force you into something you can’t follow through on. That would be disastrous for me.”
“Heaven forbid the truth upend your important business deal.”
He looked at me for a couple of moments, then stood.
“Okay, Andrea.” He said my name like an insult. My mind flashed to the moment in the boardroom when I’d accused him of running out on me. I knew I couldn’t come back from that. Not that I wanted to. I just wanted to get this deal over and be done with him.
“While you’re thinking, mind if I use your …” He looked toward the hallway.
Thank God Eliza had reminded me to clean the toilet.
“Second door on the left.”
Good. I needed a break—my head was spinning. Should I back out of this arrangement now? But I couldn’t. Five years’ protection against losing my job was crazy. I had to see it through. I’d handle Monish and Kelly. I’d just say—
Wait. The second door on the left.
No. It wasn’t. The bathroom was the first door.
“Stop!” I leaped up so fast my coffee nearly went flying. Mr. Darcy skittered under the sofa.
I made it to the hallway just in time to see Liam’s hand on the knob. The airing cupboard door swung open.
There was a pause—half a second of silence. Liam stood staring into the cupboard as if he didn’t know what to do. Then a box of Defenda pads slid off the top shelf and landed squarely on his shoes. He blinked at it, with a faint frown, like he couldn’t quite process what he was looking at.
He turned to me, brow slightly furrowed. “I … ah …”
A slipping, sliding sound came from the cupboard.
“Liam!” I reached out, but I was too late.
He turned back and glanced up at the gap left by the Defenda box, just as a carton of Fortis ErectaGel sachets tumbled out, the corner catching him sharply on the forehead before bursting open on the floor next to the adult incontinence pads.
Silver and red packets scattered. Mum’s face smiled up at him from the carton, looking secretly pleased.
My stomach curdled. “Oh my God … sorry … that’s … ah …”
He looked down at the battlefield of packets.
Said nothing. Just bent, scooped up three sachets, and tried to pile them on top of the flattened carton.
The sachets slid out and sprawled onto the floor again, impossible to stack.
He tried again. Same result. Undeterred, he picked up the box of Defenda pads and reached to insert it back into the space on the top shelf, but the gap seemed to have shrunk.
He gave it a firm shove, but it wouldn’t fit.
“Where would you like these?” he asked, standing with his arms full of bladder control pads.
“I—it doesn’t matter … really. Just—” I gestured to the floor, wincing.
He placed the box down neatly next to the mess of erectile dysfunction sachets, as if this was a perfectly acceptable new home for them, then stood stiffly. A thin trickle of red blood from where the box had impaled him ran down his forehead, pooling above his right eyebrow.
“Liam … you’re … um …” I reached out as if I meant to stem the flow with my hand.
“What?” He touched his forehead and looked at the blood smeared on his fingers. “Oh. Right.”
“I’ll just—” I pointed behind him down the hallway, then squeezed past him to the bathroom, grabbing something I thought might help.
“Do you want—?” A toilet roll. I was giving Liam von Roth a toilet roll, the best I could offer him in first aid, after being attacked by a box of penis gel samples in my flat.
I wanted to die.
Liam dabbed his head with a piece of the loo paper. “Quite the arsenal.” He nodded toward the gel and pads. “Fortis … ErectaGel,” he read aloud from one packet, like he was at a wine tasting. “Hints of cherry.”
Our eyes met. Neither of us blinked. Without looking away, I angled my foot and began shoving the ErectaGel packets back into the cupboard one squeaky sachet at a time. He stood perfectly still, pretending not to notice the slow-motion cleanup operation happening below his knees.
The air pulled tight. The last silver sachet slid across the carpet, bumped against his shoe, and came to rest there like it had chosen him.
He blinked but didn’t glance down. “This one appears to be quite fond of me.”
My entire body was heat. “It’s not—those aren’t—we just … shoved things in there. Earlier. To tidy up.”
“No explanation required.” He stuck a piece of toilet paper on the bloody cut where it flapped gently, a limp white flag of surrender. “Although I think your cupboard may have been trying to prescribe me something.”
From the bedroom, I heard Eliza’s muffled laughter.
“Your head … I … um … do you want a cup of tea?” I asked.
Tea. I was offering him tea. What the actual fuck, Andrea?
Mr. Darcy chose that exact moment to run into the hallway, dragging his white toy mouse with him by the tail.
Except his toy mouse was gray.
This was a tampon.
He must have pulled it out from the box under the sofa.
Liam looked at Mr. Darcy, then at me.
“I … actually, I think I’ll be going.”
“Probably for the best.”
We stared at each other.
“I’ll be in touch.” His eyes locked onto mine, his mouth tight. “Although … dinner, this week? Say, Tuesday? We still have a lot of things to discuss.”
Oh. He just invited me to dinner. I felt a chill run up my spine and, for some inexplicable reason, into my nipples.
“Yes, okay,” I said, far too quickly, immediately hating myself. “I mean … I’ll check my diary.”
I had tons of things going on, and there was no way I’d be prioritizing Prima von Donna over everything else. This was a business meeting and nothing more. It just happened to be over dinner.
“Great, then,” he said.
“Yes. Well, thanks for coming.” I held out my hand in a way that I hoped kept things professional, ignoring the fact that my pulse had picked up.
He shook it.
“Thanks for having me,” he replied. “I’ll be in touch.”