Читать книгу Just Between Us - Cathy Kelly - Страница 13

Stella’s fellow solicitor and colleague, Vicki, was insistent that she suffered from SAD. ‘Seasonal Affected Disorder,’ she repeated for Stella’s benefit. ‘It means I suffer from depression caused by not enough light. And look,’ Vicki gestured out of the office kitchen window where a square of foggy January sky could be seen through the grubby glass, ‘look at that weather.’

‘It’s called winter,’ Stella said, taking the milk from the fridge. Full fat, she realised, putting it back and reaching for the skimmed. Why had she eaten all those chocolates over Christmas? Her camel trousers, normally slightly loose, were biting into her belly reproachfully.

‘I hate January,’ Vicki moaned, pouring hot water onto her low-calorie chocolate drink. A statuesque redhead who was five foot nine in her fishnets, Vicki was always on a diet until about noon, when the thought of nothing but crispbread and low fat yoghurts made her abandon hopes to slither into a size fourteen.

‘Join the club,’ Stella said with a sigh.

Vicki looked at her friend in surprise. Stella was normally so cheerful. Nothing got her down: not torrential rain when they were rushing back from lunch with no umbrella, not clients from hell who demanded double attention and were late paying their fees, not even Mr McKenna, one of the senior partners and a creep who could put even Vicki off her food for a week with one lascivious leer down her blouse at her 38DDs.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she asked.

Stella shook her head. ‘It’s just January blues,’ she murmured, moving aside to let someone else into the kitchen. A mere cubicle tucked away beside the post room on the ground floor, it was barely big enough for two, never mind three people. Of course, the partners never ventured into it: they had tea and coffee delivered by their assistants whenever they felt like it. Stella, who was the most senior of the conveyancing solicitors, Vicki and another lawyer named Jerry Olson all shared an assistant and, theoretically, could have ordered tea and coffee with abandon. But Lori was run off her feet as it was answering their phones, without making them coffee as well. Or at least, that was Lori’s excuse.

They took the lift up to the fourth floor which was where the property department was situated. Property or conveyancing wasn’t seen as the sexy part of law: the hot favourite at the moment was the family law department and Lawson, Wilde & McKenna handled many of the highest-profile divorces around. The family law offices were huge. ‘Lots of space for exes to scream and hurl things at each other without actually injuring an innocent bystander,’ explained Henry Lawson whenever anybody remarked on the vast conference rooms on the second floor.

Conveyancing, which ‘earns LW & M a fortune’ as Vicki said furiously, was relegated to the less prestigious fourth floor, in the grand-looking but unmodernised part of the building where draughty windows, elderly heating and prewar plumbing reigned.

The fourth-floor conference room was the nicest part of their floor and was decorated in some style with a vast pink-veined marble fireplace, a mahogany table almost big enough to play tennis on, and exotic Indonesian silk wallpaper that had survived decades of cigar smoke. The staff called it the Gin Palace because the maroon-coloured walls made it look like the sort of room where colonial types would have sipped gin slings and moaned about the natives.

‘Two calls holding for you, Vicki,’ announced Lori cheerfully as they emerged from the lift into the 1930s splendour of the fourth floor. ‘I told them you were yakking in the kitchen and would be along later when the mood took you.’

‘Ha ha,’ said Vicki, who was used to Lori’s sense of humour. She picked up her messages with one hand and, holding her coffee in the other, shoved open her office door with one stiletto-ed foot.

‘Bad news, Stella,’ Lori added, ‘Jerry’s wife has just phoned. He’s been on the bog all night. Dodgy prawn vindaloo. He’s got two meetings today and they can’t be cancelled. Sorree.’

As the second most senior person in the department, which included five lawyers, three legal executives, a law clerk and a panel of apprentices, Stella merited the biggest office. (The Partner in charge had a large office on the third floor and a golf handicap in single figures.) In return for her big office, Stella also got the flak when anything went wrong and had to juggle appointments when somebody was ill. Jerry had an apprentice named Melvyn working with him for the year, and while Melvyn might be able to keep an eye on things in Jerry’s absence, he wasn’t qualified to deal with serious issues on his own.

‘What time’s the first meeting?’

‘Half ten. The second one’s in the afternoon. I’ll get the files for you.’

‘Thanks,’ said Stella sighing. That was all she needed. It was only half eight and already she was behind. And she was feeling miserable, although she’d lied to Vicki about it being January blues. It was the Missing-Amelia-Blues. Glenn was home from the Middle East and Amelia was staying with him in his mother’s house in Cork until Sunday night, five whole days away. It wasn’t that Stella begrudged Glenn a week with his daughter, or even that she worried about Amelia when she was there: Glenn’s mother, Evelyn, was a marvellous granny and would take the best care of Amelia. It was just that Stella missed her daughter so much.

Her interoffice line buzzed. ‘Oh Stella.’ It was Lori. ‘Forgot to tell you, the plumbing’s gone in the ladies’ loo. It’s like Niagara in there when you flush. I rang Martin in maintenance but he’s still on his Christmas holidays. What should I do?’

By ten, Stella had the beginnings of a Grade A headache, not to mention a list of backed-up phone messages as long as her arm. She still hadn’t had time to cast her eyes over Jerry’s client’s file except to glance at the name on the top: Nick Cavaletto. It sounded glamorous but names could be so deceptive. She and Vicki had once laughingly argued over who got a client called Joaquin d’Silva, both instantly thinking of the handsome Spanish dancer Joaquin Cortes, only to find that their Joaquin was many continents away from his namesake in looks. Mr D’Silva had been short, over-hairy and over-friendly, a bit like a dog. Vicki had said she kept waiting for him to lift his leg on the furniture.

‘Lori, could you hold my calls for half an hour?’ Stella asked.

‘Sure.’

Five minutes later, Stella had just scanned through Mr Cavaletto’s file and was fast coming to the conclusion that Jerry’s handwriting was illegible. Scribbled notes in the margins of the file made no sense whatsoever. The whole thing actually looked quite straightforward, as Mr Cavaletto had power of attorney for his elderly mother and was intending to sell her home for her. The only difficulty appeared to be a problem involving stables which had been built and for which no planning permission had been given. Stella grimaced. She hated planning permission problems. She shut Mr Cavaletto’s file briskly. For his sake, she hoped he was on time.

He was early.

Stella’s internal line buzzed at twenty-five past ten.

‘Mr Cavaletto’s here,’ breathed Lori in a much more husky voice than usual.

‘Put him in the Gin Palace,’ Stella said. ‘And tell Melvyn he can sit in.’

‘Of course,’ said Lori, again in that husky voice.

She normally said ‘right-oh mate,’ in a breezy manner that no amount of discussion about correct behaviour for a legal office could remove. What was with the proper assistant carry on? Stella wondered. Lori must be hoping for a raise.

‘Will I order coffee?’ Lori added in her new sexy growl.

‘Er, yes,’ said Stella. Definitely a raise.

The whole place was losing its marbles today.

It was more than five minutes before she left her office to walk to the conference room.

‘Coffee’s in there,’ said Lori. Twenty-something and a vibrant brunette with a liking for va-va-voom clothes, she looked altogether overexcited for some reason. She’d even applied a fresh splash of hot pink lipgloss.

‘Thank you,’ said Stella, opening the door to the Gin Palace. ‘Sorry for keeping you, Mr Cavaletto,’ Stella added conversationally, dropping her files onto the polished mahogany. She looked up smiling, her hand extended in a professional manner. And then she realised why Lori was behaving like a cat on a hot tin roof. Mr Cavaletto lived up to the glamorous name and then some, although he was not classically handsome. A big leonine man with grey-streaked dark hair, his clever face had too many crags and hollows in it to ever be called handsome. He had a granite hewn jaw and a firm mouth that gave the impression he was used to getting his own way. But that wasn’t it. He was more than the sum of his parts. Presence, charisma, whatever it was, it drifted off him in great waves. Tara might be able to describe him, to capture what it was that made him so attractive. Stella couldn’t put it in words.

He’d been staring out the window and now crossed the room swiftly and shook her hand. ‘Nick Cavaletto. Thank you for seeing me at such short notice.’

‘No problem,’ she said, adding, ‘I’m Stella Miller.’

Heavy-lidded muddy green eyes, the colour of gleaming Mediterranean olives, locked with hers. Unlike other men, his gaze didn’t flicker up and down, quickly assessing her. What Vicki dismissively called the classic man’s ‘would I or wouldn’t I?’ glance. His eyes stayed locked with hers until Stella, feeling that this intense gazing thing had gone on for too long, sat down abruptly.

‘Please, take a seat,’ she said.

He sat down too, not beside her, thankfully, but in a chair at the top of the table, a few feet away from her.

‘Er…now I’ve been looking over your file and er…’ She opened the file but couldn’t seem to lay her hands on the cover sheet. She’d just been looking at it, where the hell was it? Clumsiness swept over her like a rash and she felt her temperature rise rapidly as she fumbled through the pages. It must be the heating. Either that, or the powers that be were pumping hallucinogens through the system, Stella decided wildly. Only that could account for the level of madness on the premises.

‘I’m sorry you’ve been thrown in at the deep end,’ Mr Cavaletto said. ‘Your receptionist said Jerry was unexpectedly called away…’

Stella glanced up to see if Lori had imparted the prawn vindaloo information, but was relieved to see that Mr Cavaletto’s craggy face held no amusement.

‘Yes, something unavoidable,’ she murmured, trying to pull herself together. Well, being glued to the bathroom was probably unavoidable in Jerry’s case.

She looked back at her papers, sensing that he was still gazing at her. She wished he’d stop it.

‘Now.’ She cleared her throat and finally found the cover sheet.

‘Shall I pour you some coffee?’ he interrupted.

She looked at him.

‘It’s just that you seem a little harassed and I feel responsible. You could do without having an extra client dropped onto your lap today, I’m sure.’ He looked so earnest, so genuinely apologetic, that Stella decided that he wasn’t trying to unnerve her. He was just being nice, after all, Stella sighed to herself. She was jumpy today and it wasn’t fair to take it out on him.

She sat back in her chair. So much for detoxing. ‘I’d love a cup. But I’ll get it,’ she added, getting up. He was the client after all.

He waved her back into her seat.

‘That doesn’t seem right,’ she said.

‘Let’s buck convention, shall we?’ he said.

‘Why not?’

He poured coffee while Stella watched him with interest.

He was tall, which she liked, and she liked the way his hair was carelessly swept back from his high forehead, as if he used an impatient hand to rake it into place far more often than a brush. He wore nice clothes, slightly casual but expensive. And he looked clever, too. Shrewd intelligence burned behind those eyes.

She idly wondered was he married? Then, shocked at herself for even thinking such a bimbo-esque thought, she sat up straighter in her chair.

‘Milk and sugar?’

‘Just milk, thanks,’ she said. Would he chance a hackneyed comment about her being sweet enough already?

He passed the test by saying nothing.

‘There’s nothing worse than one of those days when you have to take the flak for other people’s absences,’ he remarked. ‘Colleagues imagine that managerial positions mean nothing more than a bigger salary, but it’s a hell of a lot more than that.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Stella. ‘I’m trying to sort out Jerry’s client list, my own, and deal with some disaster in the ladies’ loo because the maintenance men are out.’

‘Maybe I can help with the latter part?’ he said.

‘Are you a plumber?’

He grinned. ‘No, I’m in the engineering business, actually, but I know my way round the u-bend.’

Stella laughed. ‘That’s better than me. I’ll attempt any DIY that involves paint, a hammer or tubs of plaster, but don’t ask me about plumbing or electricity. Seriously,’ reality reasserted itself, ‘I can’t ask you to look at the ladies’.’

He got to his feet and made for the door. ‘Come on, show me. I might be able to tell you what the problem is.’

Stella followed, feeling surprised and amused.

Lori jerked her head up from her computer keyboard when Nick marched out of the Gin Palace.

‘Hello again,’ she breathed huskily, batting her recently mascara-ed eyelashes at him.

‘Mr Cavaletto needs to visit the ladies’ loo,’ said Stella gravely.

‘What?’ demanded Lori in her normal voice.

‘You’ve a problem in there, I hear,’ Nick said.

‘You mean you’re going to fix it?’ Lori said, batting furiously again.

Stella grinned. Clearly, Lori was one of those women who went limp at the idea of men who knew what to do with power tools. She’d never made such an effort for the firm’s maintenance man, but then, he didn’t look like Mr Cavaletto.

‘That’s wonderful,’ Lori said, as she led the way, explaining the problem as solemnly as if she was a doctor describing some hideous illness to a consultant.

Stella followed again, feeling like a third wheel in this adoring little procession.

Nick didn’t look like the sort of man who did much plumbing, she thought. Not unless plumbers were going in for fine tweed jackets, of the Milanese palazzo variety.

He reached into his pocket and took out a pair of frameless glasses, which added to the professorial, brain-the-size-of-a-planet effect.

Lori glanced back at Stella and made swooning motions.

Stella glared at her to stop.

Nick crouched down to examine the gushing loo. Both Stella and Lori admired his broad shoulders and the way he stroked his chin thoughtfully.

‘It’s a leak in the cistern,’ he said finally.

‘You’re so clever, we would have never worked that out,’ sighed Lori.

Stella began to feel irritated. Just because none of the fourth-floor staff had their plumber’s apprentice certificates, didn’t mean they were witless little women incapable of changing a light bulb. And why was Lori giving poor Nick Cavaletto the full treatment? Honestly, he was Stella’s client. Well, Jerry’s really, but Stella was dealing with him. Lori would get eyestrain if she kept batting her eyelashes seductively up at him.

‘Do you have a wrench somewhere? I’ll close the stopcock, which should solve things until your maintenance men get a chance to look at it,’ Nick said, seemingly unaware of the effect his presence was having on Lori.

‘There are tools in the maintenance office in the basement,’ Lori volunteered, then looked at Stella, as if to say that she certainly wasn’t going to leave Mr Cavaletto to trail down to find a wrench when it was far more fun to stay here.

‘I have to answer the phones, I can’t go,’ she announced.

For some reason that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, Stella found that she didn’t want to leave Lori with Nick. They’d probably be engaged by the time she returned.

‘One of the apprentices can go,’ replied Stella. She would kill Lori for being so blithely insubordinate but she couldn’t say anything in front of Nick.

‘Great idea. You better tell them; I have no authority over the apprentices,’ Lori added sweetly.

‘Right,’ said Stella and marched off, furious, to find one.

She dispatched one of the apprentices to look for a wrench and returned to find Lori perched demurely on the edge of her desk, ignoring the phone ringing off the hook.

If Nick thought this was strange, he didn’t say anything.

‘I’ll just wash my hands,’ he said. ‘In the men’s toilet, I don’t want to startle anyone.’

‘Mm, what a guy,’ said Lori when he was gone. ‘He can look at my plumbing any time.’

‘Don’t drool, Lori,’ said Stella, irritated. ‘You’ll ruin the carpet. And he’s not that gorgeous.’

‘Hello! Earth to Stella!’ said Lori incredulously. ‘You so need to get your eyes tested.’

‘He’s too old for you,’ Stella added, crossly. ‘You’re twenty-five.’

‘Older men are in,’ Lori said in a dreamy voice. ‘I’ve never gone for anyone older than thirty-five before but I could make an exception in his case.’

‘He’s forty-five if he’s a day,’ snapped Stella. ‘Far too old for you.’ She stalked off into the Gin Palace.

‘She’s quite a character, your receptionist,’ Nick commented when he reappeared.

‘I suppose you want her phone number,’ Stella said sourly.

His gaze caught her by surprise.

‘Actually, I’d prefer yours. I’d like to ask you out to dinner tomorrow night.’

Stella sat down quickly on the hard chair, landing painfully on her coccyx. ‘Ouch,’ she yelped.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Was that totally out of order?’

‘Er, well…’ Stella stammered.

If only Nick hadn’t been looking at her, Stella might have drummed up her standard answer whenever men attempted to chat her up: ‘Thanks but no thanks.’

But before Stella the Sensible had a chance to say anything, at the precise moment she’d made her mind up to turn him politely down, in spite of everything, he suddenly moved the goalposts. He gazed at her, hopefully. And when Nick Cavaletto’s intelligent, warm eyes bored into hers, she’d had no option. Sensible Stella faltered and the long-buried Romantic Stella shoved her out of the way like a shopaholic on sale day.

‘I’d love to.’ Had she really said that?

His face creased up into a smile. ‘I was sure you were going to turn me down.’

To hide how jolted she felt by the entire experience, Stella tried to sound light-hearted. ‘I was just about to but you looked so forlorn, I hadn’t the heart to say no.’

His craggy face looked even better when he grinned broadly. ‘Forlorn? Nobody’s ever accused me of that before. But whatever the reason, I’m glad.’

For a full minute, they stared at each other, Stella holding her breath for some bizarre reason. Then Melvyn rushed into the room, stammering apologies for lateness, and Stella instantly picked up a document to give herself something to hide behind in case he picked up on the charged atmosphere.

As business resumed, Stella managed to continue a professional conversation, all the while wondering if she was mad. He was a client. Well, no, he wasn’t actually her client and if Jerry hadn’t been ill, she never would have met him. But he was a man she knew nothing about, apart from the fact that he needed to sort out a property issue for his elderly mother. He could be married with ten kids for all she knew.

Stella cast a suspicious glance at his left hand. There was no ring but that meant nothing. She’d have to ask.

‘Jerry’s so very sorry and I’m sure he’ll be in for your next appointment,’ apologised Melvyn as Nick was leaving.

‘That’s good,’ said Nick, a faint smile hovering about his mouth. ‘Prawn vindaloo poisoning can be fatal.’

Stella smothered a snigger. She would have to have several words with Lori. So much for saying Jerry had been unavoidably kept out of the office.

‘I’ll show Mr Cavaletto out,’ she added smoothly.

She walked him to the lift, ignoring the looks Lori shot at them.

‘Just one question,’ Stella said, pitching her voice low so nobody could overhear. ‘Are you married?’

‘Divorced with two children,’ he replied, just as seriously. He held up his left hand. ‘Look, no ring.’

‘Did you wear one when you were married?’ Stella inquired.

Nick threw back his head and laughed. ‘No. And did you ever think of becoming a barrister? Your skills at interrogation are wasted here. About dinner, how about Figaro’s?’

Stella decided it was time to reassert her independence. Nick was calling all the shots here and she refused to be a pushover. ‘Figaro’s, I don’t think so,’ she said. She’d never been to Figaro’s but that wasn’t the point. Surely there was some modern rule of dating that said only pushovers cooed yes to the first suggestion.

‘You pick somewhere you like,’ he offered. ‘I’ve been out of the country for so long that I don’t know the good spots.’

Stella thought hard, storing away that snippet of information about his time out of the country. The only restaurants she knew were ones suitable for business lunches, girls-only get-togethers or meals with seven-year-olds. It had been a long time since she’d done the eyes-meeting-over-the-candlelight-at-a-table-for-two thing. Years, in fact.

Casting around wildly for an intelligent suggestion, a snippet of something she’d heard about a review of a new restaurant came to mind. Something about The Flying Carpet, a new restaurant on the quays. She hadn’t seen the review herself but from the bit of the conversation she remembered, the place sounded good, she was sure of it. ‘Mussels to die for’ or something.

‘The Flying Carpet,’ she said confidently. ‘At eight.’

‘May I pick you up or would you prefer to meet me there?’ Nick asked solicitously.

You’ve already picked me up, Stella thought mischievously.

‘I’ll meet you there,’ she said. ‘If there’s a problem, I’ll phone you. Your number is on the file.’ And it was a land line, she remembered. If he was married, he’d instantly give her a mobile number to phone instead. But Nick just nodded in agreement.

‘Till tomorrow,’ he said.

He turned to go.

‘Oh, Mr Cavaletto, you forgot something,’ Stella called.

‘Yes?’

Stella whispered so her voice wasn’t audible to the receptionist. ‘Divorced, one daughter. Just so you know.’

Again, the intense green eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘Goodbye, Ms Miller, it’s been a pleasure.’

A pleasure, thought Stella dreamily as she took the stairs up to the fourth floor. She certainly hoped so. After six years on her own, well, longer really, as you could hardly count the last year with Glenn as actually being with anybody, she was utterly unprepared for the prospect of going on a date.

She went back to her office.

‘Isn’t he lovely?’ said Lori dreamily. ‘Sort of Sean Connery-esque with a hint of Michael Douglas in there somewhere.’

‘You’ve got to stop reading Movieline,’ Stella said, biting her lip to stop herself beaming idiotically.

‘He was gorgeous, though. Come on, Stella, even you can see that.’

Stella felt a quiver of electricity shoot through her at the thought of Nick’s smile. ‘I suppose you could call him attractive,’ she said.

‘Who?’ demanded Vicki, appearing at her door. ‘Have I missed something?’

‘Vicki, can I talk to you for a moment?’ Stella asked. She had to tell someone and if she told Lori, there was a fair possibility of being stabbed with Lori’s trademark silver-ink pen.

Vicki’s jaw dropped when she heard the news.

‘Lucky you,’ she sighed. ‘They say that lots of love stories begin at work, but it’s never happened to me.’ Vicki suddenly looked thoughtful. ‘Can we search through Jerry’s client list and see if there’s anyone else gorgeous coming in today?’

By half twelve, Stella had raced through her workload at twice her normal speed. She felt inspired and excited, as though she’d had ten espressos and no breakfast. She’d been asked out on a date and she’d said yes! What would she wear, what would they talk about…?

Her phone rang and she switched into work mode instantly.

‘Hello, Stella?’ said a woman’s voice. ‘It’s Jackie Hess.’

Even through the phone lines, Stella could hear her client’s anxiety.

Without giving her lawyer a chance to speak, Jackie rattled through her problems.

‘If we don’t get the contracts signed by tomorrow, I’ll lose the new house and I can’t do that. I can’t. This is a new start for me and I love that house…’ Her voice rose almost hysterically.

Stella had heard enough. Calming people was one of her many skills, a vital one in the business of legal conveyancing, although nobody had mentioned it in college. There hadn’t been any lectures on dealing with real, agitated clients who were splitting up with their husbands and hoping to buy new (smaller) houses in order to start again.

‘Jackie,’ soothed Stella, ‘we’ll sort it out, I promise. Please leave it with me.’

Jackie was quiet, as Stella knew she would be. When Stella Miller told you she’d sort everything out, you believed her.

There was something about the low, measured voice that calmed even the most highly-strung client; something about her serene, smiling face with its kind dark eyes that made anxiety seem silly. More than one person had seriously considered taking up yoga after learning that the tranquil Stella was a devotee.

‘Are you sure everything will work out…?’ Jackie asked more quietly.

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

Once Jackie was gone, Stella made a firm decision to stop thinking about Nick Cavaletto. It was ridiculous for a grown woman to get so excited about dinner with a man. This dreaming and staring out the window had to stop. She worked steadily for the next half an hour, making phone calls and trying to sort out Jackie’s problems. Jackie had split up with her husband of two years and every time Stella spoke to her, she seemed more shell-shocked than the last, muttering about joint credit union accounts and what were they to do with the oil painting of Venice. Was it Jackie’s because her rich old grand-uncle had given it to them as a wedding present or was it joint property? Privately, Stella thought that the distraught Jackie should seek counselling to help her climb out of the dark pit of sudden break-up. She’d hated that painting, she’d told Stella. Yet she was fiercely determined to have it, as if salvaging something that wasn’t communal property, could salvage her damaged soul.

Over the years, as she dealt with clients like Jackie, Stella had come to realise that she’d never loved Glenn enough to feel such emotion over their break-up. Teenage sweethearts who’d married when they were ridiculously young, they’d drifted apart. Their over-riding emotion at the break-up had been apathy for each other, and parental worry over Amelia. She wondered what it would be like to love and hate with such passion that splitting up would destroy you.

‘Lunch?’ said Vicki, peeping round the glass door with her tongue out, her normal signal that starvation was setting in.

‘Lunch. Yes, I forgot,’ Stella said absent-mindedly.

‘How can you forget lunch?’ Vicki wailed, shutting the door and perching on the edge of Stella’s desk. Then, catching sight of Stella’s serene face, she’d grinned. ‘You’re still living off love, then?’

‘It’s only a dinner date,’ protested Stella. ‘I wish I hadn’t told you. If you mention it to anyone else I’ll kill you.’

‘You mean it’s a secret?’ said Vicki, deadpan. ‘I’ve just e-mailed my 100 closest friends, all the LW & M partners and the Law Society with the news. It’s not unethical to sleep with a client, is it? I have such trouble remembering the whole ethics thing…’

‘We’re going to have dinner, Vicki, not rip each other’s clothes off over dessert.’

‘Pity,’ sighed Vicki. ‘Mind you, if it was me, I’d go for the actual dessert instead. It’s so long since I had sex, I can’t remember what it was like, except it was often an anticlimax, which is not something you can say about a double helping of double chocolate roulade with cream.’

‘We’re going for a sedate meal,’ Stella insisted. ‘That’s all. Anyway, you’ve been to bed with someone far more recently than me. I’m the poster girl for celibacy since Glenn and I divorced.’ Stella knew this wasn’t utterly truthful but she wanted to forget the disastrous fling she’d had with an old friend of hers and Glenn’s when Amelia had been a toddler. She’d discovered that even when you’d felt like you’d known someone for centuries, they were just as capable of being a sexual predator as a stranger. After a few weeks, he’d dropped her like a hot potato. Burned and humiliated, Stella had never told Vicki about it and she never intended to.

Vicki was in full flood on the subject of her last lover, a fellow lawyer she’d met at a charity ball. ‘If you’re referring to my encounter with that horrible man from Simpson and Ryan, then forget it. He was a disaster in bed. If he’d wanted to be paid by the hour, I would have wasted my money for fifty-eight minutes.’

Stella groaned. ‘You’re terrible, Vicki. The poor man would be horrified to hear you.’

‘Poor man indeed! He thought he was the last of the red-hot lovers,’ said Vicki in outrage. ‘That was the problem. He thought I’d be grateful, can you believe it? The louse. His sort think all women over thirty-five should quiver with thanks if a man so much as looks at them, never mind brings them to bed. They reckon we’re desperate for any crumb of affection that isn’t battery-powered.’

Vicki was getting into her stride on the women-over-thirty-five theme: ‘We’re on the conveyor belt to single TV dinners and interlock knickers that never come off…’

‘Vicki, you live with your sister,’ interrupted Stella, ‘and you know perfectly well that Craig from accounts fancies you rotten but you won’t deign to notice him.’

Deflated, Vicki sighed. ‘I know but he’s six years younger than me. That’s the last sign of absolute desperation. Imagine what people would say if I started dating a younger man? It’s easier to just sit at home and fantasise about Russell Crowe.’

‘Lunch,’ said Stella firmly. ‘You need your mind taken off men.’

Life conspired against Stella the next day. Jerry was still out sick, leaving Stella to deal with his clients again, which kept her in the office all through lunch when she’d planned to get her hair done. And the lurking demon of pre-menstrual tension paid a visit, bloating her stomach despite her post-Christmas detox.

‘Do hormones know when you’ve got something important happening and deliberately act up?’ Stella raged, as she realised she wouldn’t be able to wear the burgundy jersey dress she’d planned on because it clingfilmed around her stomach and could only be worn on thin days.

‘Yes,’ sighed Vicki. ‘It’s like herpes, which apparently appears on the occasion of any hot date.’

‘You have sex on the brain, Vicki,’ Stella reproved.

‘Don’t be so prim and proper,’ teased Vicki. ‘You don’t fancy him for his mind, do you? I bet you’re going to wear your best knickers too.’

Stella had to laugh. ‘I am, but only because they make me feel good, not because there’s any vague hope of anybody seeing them.’

As she drove home that evening, she remembered what Vicki had said. Vicki wasn’t afraid of the idea of sex, while it terrified Stella. It was five years since she’d felt a man’s arms around her; five years since she’d been to bed with anyone. If sex was like riding a bicycle, Stella decided that she’d obviously gone back to using stabilisers.

Going out with a man could, eventually, lead to sex but Stella wasn’t sure she was ready for that. Celibacy, by choice or otherwise, was easier, wasn’t it?

At home, she washed her hair in an agony of uncertainty. If only she could phone Nick up and cancel the date. Tell him she was washing her hair for the rest of her life.

No, she decided finally. That would be the coward’s way out. She’d go out and tell him that it was a mistake, that she was sorry. And she’d pay for dinner. If that wasn’t the way to stay in control, she didn’t know what was.

The restaurant was empty. So empty that Stella momentarily wondered if she’d got the time wrong. Starkly designed in black and white, there were no tablecloths on the black tables, and no other diners either.

The waitress inside the door fell on her with ill-concealed delight.

‘Good evening, lovely to see you, can I take your coat?’ she said joyously.

‘Yes.’ Stella surrendered her coat. ‘Miller for two.’ Why had she worried over booking?

‘Your guest hasn’t arrived…’ began the waitress.

‘He has now,’ supplied Nick, shutting the door behind him. His eyes were flatteringly appreciative as he looked at Stella, all dressed up in her faithful cranberry red shirt and a long black suede skirt she’d had donkey’s years but which was happily back in fashion again.

‘Nice to see you,’ he said, and leaning forward, he kissed her on the cheek. Stella felt something inside her go ‘ping!’ with excitement.

‘Nice to see you too,’ she said and, just as a test, proffered the other cheek for a double kiss. There it was again. Ping!

‘You look beautiful,’ he said, his eyes caressing her face.

Ping, ping, ping!

‘Will I show you to your table?’ asked the waitress.

Nick shrugged out of his coat, giving Stella a chance to admire him. He’d swapped the casual look for a steely grey suit worn with a pale pink shirt that only the most masculine of men could get away with. Nick got away with it.

‘Ready?’ He turned around and Stella rapidly averted her eyes, not wanting to be caught staring. But wow, could he fill a suit in all the right places. Nick didn’t look as if he needed a detox but then you could never tell with clothes on and…

Stella shocked herself. What was she doing thinking about Nick with his clothes off? Vicki was right: she was losing the run of herself. She gave herself a stern talking to while they were led to a table for four at the back of the restaurant. The waitress gave them menus and left them alone in the bare expanse of the restaurant.

‘It’s odd that we’re the only ones here,’ whispered Stella, leaning forward.

Nick nodded solemnly but there was a flicker of amusement in his eyes.

‘What?’ Stella asked.

A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.

‘Tell me,’ she demanded.

‘If you need any help with the menus, please ask,’ said the waitress, appearing beside them. She flitted off again.

‘Do you come here often?’ Nick asked blandly.

‘Never been here before in my life,’ Stella said. ‘What is it?’

‘I wanted to know if this was your favourite restaurant, that’s all.’

She was puzzled. ‘What’s that got to do with the lack of customers?’

A party of six people arrived and the waitress flew to the front desk to usher them in. Despite the increased noise from the new arrivals, Nick still whispered.

‘I mentioned to a friend that we were coming here and he told me they’d had a write-up in one of the papers recently.’

She nodded. ‘I knew I’d read about it somewhere. Mussels to die for…Ah.’ She got it. ‘It wasn’t a good review, was it? In fact,’ she looked for confirmation in his face, ‘it was a Very. Bad. Review, wasn’t it?’

‘Bad is not the word,’ Nick said. ‘Horrendous fits the bill more successfully. Apparently, the reviewer had mussels and ended up cancelling his holiday because he was so sick. Mussels you’d die from was the tone of the review, I’m afraid.’

The whole situation suddenly struck Stella as hilariously funny. Trying to prove that she was a coolly independent modern woman, she’d inadvertently recommended a restaurant rocked by a food poisoning scandal.

Laughter bubbled up inside her and she bit her lip to stop it erupting. It was no good. She burst into laughter at exactly the same time as Nick. They both roared so loudly that the newly-arrived customers stared at them curiously, interested to see what was so amusing.

‘It’s not funny for them, but it’s hilarious really,’ she howled, leaning over the table and clutching her stomach with the intensity of her outburst. ‘I knew I’d heard something about this place but I couldn’t remember what and I didn’t want to say yes to Figaro’s instantly because I didn’t want you to think…’

Their waitress appeared, looking anxious. ‘Is…is everything all right?’ she asked.

‘Wonderful,’ squawked Stella. ‘Joke, that’s all.’

Nick composed himself.

‘Just another minute, please.’

The waitress drifted off.

‘You didn’t want me to think you were a pushover,’ finished Nick.

Stella grinned. ‘Got it in one.’

‘We can leave if you want to,’ Nick added, ‘although I’d prefer to stay now that we’re here. It might be hard to get a table anywhere else at such short notice, and our waitress would be so upset if we did leave.’

That did it. Stella smiled at him in admiration. Any man who was so kind would be worth a proper date. She could always say she couldn’t see him again at the end.

‘I don’t think I’d have liked you if you’d wanted to leave,’ she admitted. ‘The mussels could have been a once off and it would see so mean to leave now, when the dear waitress was so thrilled to see us.’

‘I agree. And there’s pasta on the menu, anyway, so less chance of fatal illness there.’

Stella erupted again.

‘Are you ready to order?’ inquired the waitress, once again materialising out of nowhere. Was she on roller skates? Stella wondered.

‘Yes,’ smiled Nick.

They ordered quickly – no fish – and agreed on a bottle of claret.

‘I am very out of practice at this date thing,’ Stella confessed when they were alone after the waitress had served the wine. ‘I’m sure that even saying that contravenes modern dating standards, but I can’t help it. I did all my dating when flares were in, the first time. I’ve forgotten the rules.’

‘I didn’t know there were rules,’ Nick replied. ‘See what I know about women. I thought I had to fill in your dance card, and after fifty dates, we were allowed out without chaperonage as long as I kept one foot on the floor at all times.’

Stella giggled. ‘Let’s skip a bit. I left my dance card at home, anyway. I think we have to tell each other our histories. That’s what they do in those articles in the paper when they set people up on blind dates.’

‘I’m afraid I never read that stuff,’ Nick said apologetically.

‘Men never do. But the theory is simple: we each get five minutes to tell our life stories.’

‘Five minutes,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if mine will last that long.’

‘I bet,’ said Stella in mock cynicism. ‘OK then, make it shorter, say…twenty words or less. Let’s keep it short.’

‘Twenty words,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘OK. You first or me?’

‘You,’ she said quickly.

‘Right. You keep count of the number of words and when I’ve done twenty, stop me.’

‘More than twenty, and I’ll leave,’ Stella replied solemnly.

‘Forty-four, Irish, two daughters, fourteen and nineteen, married for twenty years, worked abroad, ran engineering company, divorced a year ago, head-hunted home. That’s more than twenty words, isn’t it?’ He stopped and his face had a faint weariness about it.

A hard divorce? wondered Stella with intuition. Or something else?

‘Sorry,’ she apologised. ‘That seemed tough for you, I didn’t mean it to be.’

‘No, you’ve a right to know who you’re having dinner with. Laying your life down in a mere twenty words makes it sound pretty hopeless.’

Stella fiddled with the stem of her wine glass. She wanted to ask why the marriage had broken up but was unsure of venturing into such personal territory. She decided to tell him her story. ‘Age: undisclosed.’

He laughed.

‘A woman’s age, like her weight and dress size, is highly classified information,’ Stella said gravely. ‘If I tell you any of them, I have to kill you. One daughter, wonderful Amelia, who’s seven and absolutely adorable.’

‘You’re using too many words,’ Nick put in.

‘Nick.’ She fixed him with a stern glance. ‘I’m a lawyer.’

He laughed again.

‘One daughter, Amelia, seven. Lawyer, specialising in property, divorced, erm…two fantastic younger sisters, great parents, yoga, perfume bottles, bad at picking restaurants…’ She broke off.

‘That’s good.’ ‘Tell me more about the perfume bottles bit.’

‘I love those little crystal perfume bottles, the ones with silver tops from ladies’ dressing tables a hundred years ago. I have magpie tendencies when it comes to junk like that. And costume jewellery, forties and fifties stuff.’

‘What about the fantastic sisters?’

Stella’s face always softened when she thought of Holly and Tara. ‘Holly’s the youngest and she works in the children’s department in Lee’s. She’s so funny, she’s brilliant, I worry about her, though.’ She didn’t know why she’d said that but she felt as if she could say things to Nick. ‘Tara,’ she continued, ‘is a storyline editor for National Hospital. She’s brilliant too. They just won an award at the television and radio awards.’

‘They sound wonderful. Are you a close family?’

‘Very. We’re like this tight unit. Mum, Dad, me, Holly, Tara, and now Amelia. The Miller clan. It’s all down to Mum, really,’ Stella added. ‘She’s an incredible person, very warm and strong. Mum has no time for family squabbles or long-running arguments. She taught us how important family is.’

Nick was quiet.

‘What about your family?’

‘I’ve a younger brother, Howard, and an older sister, Paula, and of course my mother. Paula lives in the same village as my mother near Wicklow town and she’s looked after her for years. They want to sell both their houses so they can move to a bungalow, which would be easier for my mother to get around. Paula’s artistic – she paints – and she hates sorting out legal matters, so my brother and his wife, Clarisse, have always done that side of things. Clarisse feels that now I’m back in the country, I can take over.’ His slightly wry smile revealed more than he was saying.

‘Clarisse feels put-upon and wants you to shoulder some of the burden?’ Stella offered.

‘You are intuitive,’ said Nick, impressed.

Through the meal, they talked about their jobs, places they’d worked and more about their families. Clarisse sounded vaguely like Aunt Adele, Stella reflected. By dessert, they had discussed every relative except their children – and their exes; a glaring omission.

‘Tell me about Amelia,’ Nick urged.

Stella produced a photo from her wallet. It had been taken the previous summer in Kinvarra, when her parents had held a barbecue for friends and family. Stella’s father had hung a low swing from a sycamore tree, and, in the picture, Amelia was sitting on it, colourful in pink and white shorts and T-shirt, laughing into the camera and with her hair swinging in two jaunty pigtails.

‘Beautiful, just like her mother,’ Nick said examining the photo. ‘What about her father? Do you share custody?’

‘Nothing that ordinary,’ Stella said. ‘He works in the oil business and he’s abroad all the time. Amelia spends time with him when he’s here. She’s with him now.’ Stella didn’t mention how she tried hard not to resent this.

‘I split up with my ex husband when Amelia was a baby. There wasn’t anybody else, we’d just made an awful mistake. I’d like to say we married too young but I was twenty-eight, old enough to know better,’ she added ruefully. ‘How about you?’

The silence seemed to go on forever and Stella would have done anything to claw back the words, but finally, Nick spoke.

‘Why does any marriage break up?’ he said. ‘We made a mistake too; it just took twenty years to figure it out. I was seconded to the company’s office in Stockholm for four months a couple of years ago and it would have been difficult for Wendy and the kids to come because of school. So we agreed that I’d go and come home as often as I could, which I did, every few weekends. Four months became six months and when I got back for good, we found it impossible to live together again. That sounds terrible,’ he said looking at Stella, ‘but it’s the truth. We even went to counselling for a while. It didn’t work. Talking about it made us realise that the only glue keeping us together was the girls. The problem was, Wendy was prepared to put up with that. I knew we couldn’t.’

‘That must have been tough,’ Stella said gently. ‘You’re not over your divorce, are you?’ she added, knowing she was going too far but not being able to stop herself.

His eyebrows shot up. ‘Believe me, I am over my divorce. I’m not over the trauma and hurt that went with it. It was the most personally painful thing I’ve ever experienced and it’s with me every day.’

‘What about the girls?’

Nick’s face lit up.

‘Jenna is fourteen and Sara is nineteen. Sara’s doing Arts in college and Jenna’s in school; mind you, she looks old enough to be in college. When she’s with her friends, they all look about twenty.’

He took out his wallet and extracted a photo of two girls. It looked like a holiday shot. Sara was fair-haired, lanky and smiled up at the camera with her father’s warm, intelligent eyes. Jenna was smiling too, but she looked more posed, as if she liked the camera. It certainly liked her. She was incredibly pretty with a heart-shaped face, almond eyes and dimples. Even the glint of the brace on her teeth couldn’t dim her teenage beauty.

‘How often do you see them?’

‘All the time, I couldn’t bear not to. But it’s caused some problems. Wendy is from Dublin and she never wanted to live in London, but at the time, that was where the work was. After the divorce, she moved back here with the girls. I missed them so much,’ he said, ‘that when I got an offer of a job here, I jumped.’

Stella was silent. How that must have infuriated his wife. He wouldn’t leave London for her, but he could make that sacrifice for their daughters.

‘It’s been tough,’ Nick added, confirming Stella’s instincts. ‘In so far as any divorce is ever amicable, you could say that ours was. There was nobody else for either of us but it’s still hard splitting after twenty years. The hardest part was telling our daughters.’ His face was bleak as he spoke.

‘We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,’ Stella said hurriedly.

He shrugged. ‘We don’t have to, but it’s a good idea to get to know each other, for, you know, future dates.’

It was Stella’s turn to look uncomfortable.

He stared at her. ‘I’ve messed things up, haven’t I?’ he asked. ‘Telling a prospective girlfriend all about the traumas of your divorce is not the way to impress her. I told you I wasn’t that clued in about modern dating,’ he said.

‘Forget it.’ Stella wanted to make it better. So what if he wasn’t dating material because he had more baggage than a jumbo jet. He was a nice man. ‘Let’s talk about something else. How about films, the big issues of the day…’

‘Like politics and religion?’ he interrupted, amused.

‘I take that bit back,’ Stella said, wincing. ‘Forget the big issues of the day. I’m fed up discussing politics and religion and you can’t talk about either without a row. No, let’s go for serious subjects, like which is your favourite James Bond.’

Nick gave her a grateful smile as he leaned forward and poured her more claret.

They were the last to leave the restaurant after a mild tussle over who’d pay the bill.

‘Let me,’ insisted Stella.

‘But I asked you out.’

‘No, really, let me.’

The waitress stood patiently to one side while they argued.

‘You could always make a run for it so nobody would have to pay,’ she suggested.

Both Nick and Stella looked up in surprise.

‘Or split the bill,’ the waitress added.

They split it and soon found themselves outside on the street where the sky was undecided over whether to send down snow or sleet. A sheet of something white began to fall as they walked along and Stella shivered in the icy wind.

‘Let’s get out of this for a moment,’ Nick suggested. They sheltered in a shop doorway, watching the snow fall onto the wet street and disappear.

‘At least it’s not sticking,’ Stella said, still shivering.

Without saying anything, Nick took off his coat and draped it over both their shoulders so that Stella was warmed by an extra layer. She had to stand close to him so they’d both be covered, and the sensation of being that close to another person felt strangely good. No, she thought, not just another person. Nick. Standing close to Nick felt good and somehow right.

‘I don’t think it’s going to stop,’ he said.

‘No,’ she agreed, pasta and claret churning inside her in excitement. She couldn’t believe she was standing in a doorway with this man; a man she found unbelievably attractive.

‘You’ll freeze.’

‘Body heat’s a wonderful thing,’ he smiled at her.

Stella smiled back, feeling a little nugget of heat inside her despite the cold. His coat slipped and Nick pulled it back over her, his arm momentarily round her shoulders. She kept staring at him. The arm didn’t move, staying wrapped round Stella, who found herself leaning in closer towards him. His mouth was just a few inches above hers and Stella wondered if she was supposed to give him a signal that he could kiss her. Was that how it worked nowadays? Maybe she should have read Aunt Adele’s despised copy of The Rules to find out. Without waiting for any signal, Nick’s mouth lowered onto hers. Then both his arms were around her and they lurched against the doorway, like lovelorn teenagers stealing a forbidden kiss, bodies tight together as the kiss deepened into fierce, hard passion. Tasting the sweetness of his mouth, holding his body tightly, Stella didn’t care who saw her. All she wanted was Nick; Nick kissing her face and her throat, murmuring endearments and making tender love to her…

Nick broke away first, his olive eyes shining, his breath ragged. ‘We haven’t had the fifty dances yet and there’s no chaperone,’ he said.

‘You’ve got one foot on the ground, haven’t you?’ she replied.

‘Yes, just about!’

This time, Stella kissed him and went on kissing him until they were no longer cold and until the snow was swirling around their doorway like a blizzard.

Only when a police car drove carefully down the street, blue light illuminating doorways, did they stop and step onto the street, laughing like kids and holding Nick’s coat over their heads.

‘I’d hate to see the papers if a respected lawyer and a respected businessman were arrested for obscene behaviour,’ chuckled Stella.

‘It was only a kiss,’ said Nick.

Their eyes met and they both grinned. What a kiss.

He helped her into the first taxi they saw and then took her hand and softly kissed the back of it. Stella smiled at him with affection. From anyone else, such a gesture would have seemed corny but not from Nick.

‘I’ll phone tomorrow.’

He shut the door and the taxi drove off into the night.

For a brief moment, Stella thought about men and phoning. Everyone from Vicki to Tara said that men promised to phone but rarely did.

It was a game, Vicki insisted miserably. To ring or not to ring.

But sitting in the back of a taxi, feeling the car’s heater slowly warm her bones, Stella allowed herself to smile happily. Nick wasn’t like that. He’d phone. She knew it.