Читать книгу Lindsey Kelk Girl Collection: About a Girl, What a Girl Wants - Lindsey Kelk - Страница 17

It is a little-known fact, but when you combine jetlag and stomach-churning terror, it’s quite possible to sleep through an entire day. When I eventually woke up, the sun was already starting to dip below the horizon. The sky was a soft pale blue painted with broad strokes of gauzy pink and orange, a world away from the cloudy grey sunset I’d watched over the village duck pond just two days before.

It was already almost seven, which gave me just under an hour to get myself together for dinner with Mr Bennett. My first real test. Every time I closed my eyes and every time I opened them, this seemed less and less plausible. The craziest thing I’d ever done was call in sick in 2004 because Amy had tickets to see Justin Timberlake and I was scared that if I didn’t go with her, she would end up in prison or at the very least with a restraining order. Plus it was Justin.

‘All I need to remember is that my name is Vanessa,’ I told the slightly concerned face I saw reflected in the dressing-table mirror. ‘That’s the only thing I need to remember. The rest of it will be easy.’

Ha. Easy.

At five minutes to eight exactly, I picked my way up the torch-lit path to the main house and headed towards the veranda, practising some very steady breathing and rehearsing my key notes in my head. This was just a pitch like any other – I was selling a campaign like I did every day. Except today I was the campaign and Bennett was the client. How hard could it be? I’d pulled my hair back into a tight fishtail braid as I hadn’t had enough time to dry it properly, and there was a very real danger of it turning into an unwelcome afro as soon as I stepped outside, and I’d chosen a simple yellow shift dress, one of only two colourful items of clothing I’d packed, paired with leather flip-flops from my brand-new borrowed wardrobe. I had no idea how fancy dinner would be, but I had a feeling turning up in jeans wouldn’t really be ideal and I was aiming to invite as few questions as possible. Simple outfit, simple hair, as elegant and classy as possible when you were a cack-handed mare with a make-up brush. All I was going to do was show up, eat my dinner, be polite and ask lots of questions without drawing any attention to myself. One of the things I’d learned from working in advertising all these years was that people liked talking about themselves. As long as you made the right noises and kept the conversation going, no one noticed that you weren’t actually saying anything. Between the million questions I had prepared and the fact that I intended to eat until I burst and, most importantly, avoid all alcohol, I didn’t anticipate any major problems at dinner.

Which was, of course, my first mistake.

Kekipi and his great big doe eyes were waiting for me with a glass of champagne at the top of the staircase that led onto the veranda.

‘Miss Kittler.’ He handed me the glass. I took it. I hated to be rude. ‘You look delightful.’

‘Vanessa,’ I corrected him, quietly proud of myself for remembering my new name. ‘Please, just Vanessa.’

Behind my host I saw a table set for someone dressed way more fancy than me, but I refused to be defeated. I knew which fork was which. Most of the time.

‘Mr Bennett wishes me to pass on his apologies. He won’t be able to make dinner this evening, but he has asked that you please stay and eat. The first course will be out shortly.’

Necking the champagne, I nodded and followed him to the table, equal parts relieved and annoyed. It felt the same as prepping for a big meeting and then having your boss call in sick – you didn’t really want to have to go through with it, but you were so psyched up you couldn’t help but be a little bit disappointed. But it was hard to be too upset with a glass of champagne in my hand and a soft Hawaiian breeze blowing around my bare legs. Even a best-case-scenario Monday back in England would be two-for-one at Wagamama’s with Amy. Charlie always had football practice on Mondays. Not that I was thinking about Charlie. At all.

‘Mr Miller is just inside,’ Kekipi said, refilling my champagne. I did not neck this one. ‘Dinner will be served in a few moments.’

‘Mr Miller?’

‘The gentleman who is conducting the interview with Mr Bennett,’ he offered with a smile. ‘He’ll be out in a moment.’

It hadn’t occurred to me that the actual interview would be happening at the same time as the shoot. This was all I needed. Some irritating fashion journo bitching and whining and judging ensembles that weren’t even my ensembles.

I took my seat at the table and waited patiently. Never something I’d been good at. While the painful seconds ticked by, I took a chance to check out Bertie Bennett’s palace. The veranda where dinner was to be served was part of a bigger deck that wrapped all the way round the house. To the left, up a couple more stone staircases, was a huge infinity pool with neighbouring hot tub that looked out over the private bay. My muscles ached and I was dying to sink into the warm water, even if it did seem a bit rude given that the ocean was right there in front of us. To the right was another deck, dotted with squishy armchairs, sunloungers and parasols. I ran my hand down the smooth wood of the straight-backed dining chair and tried not to think about how wonderful it would be to lie back on one of those chairs with a very large cocktail and maybe a little shoulder massage. Poor me – here I was sitting at this beautiful table with a glass of champagne waiting for someone to bring me my dinner when I could be in a hot tub. Life was hard here, but I was pretty sure I could get used to the difficult decisions.

Despite my best efforts to avoid it, I caught my reflection in the huge window behind the table. Hair looked OK, dress was a little bit bright, but the lights were dim and the sun had almost set. Everyone looked better at sunset. See how much I knew about lighting? I was definitely a natural photographer. Just then the window slid open and a man stepped out.

‘Vanessa Kittler.’

Oh. Of course.

It was the man from the beach.

He walked round the table with an easy grace, dressed in perfectly fitted jeans, bare feet and a white shirt that set off a disgustingly good tan. He had an English accent with a transatlantic lilt, but he obviously hadn’t spent a lot of time in the UK over the past few months, unless that golden glow was a sunbed tan. And I really hoped it was, because that would make him a complete dickhead and that would distract me from how very handsome he was.

‘Hello.’ I cleared my throat, stood up, held out my hand and made a concerted effort not to knock anything over. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘Oh, we’ve met, on the beach this morning? You don’t remember?’ He sat down in the seat opposite me, ignoring my outstretched hand. Hmm, rude. I wished I had a presentation to give. I was definitely a PowerPoint person. Without it, I only had my mouth to rely on, and my mouth was stupid. ‘You dressed for dinner. How thoughtful.’

‘I didn’t know how formal it would be.’ There was a slight stammer in my voice and I felt every inch of my skin burning. I wanted to slap myself. And then him. And then myself again. ‘T-shirt and knickers seemed a bit casual.’

‘Gutted.’ He reached over the table and pulled a sweaty bottle of white out of a silver wine bucket and poured himself a glass. Didn’t even offer to pour me one. ‘I’m Nick.’

‘Nice to meet you.’ I couldn’t stop staring. My blood was up and I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to slap him or shag him. It was not my natural state. I was very confused. ‘Again.’

He inclined his head very slightly. ‘So. Vanessa.’

‘Yes?’ I waited for his follow-up but nothing came.

After almost a minute of silence, I realized Nick wasn’t asking me a question. He was just fucking with me. Instead of filling the air with polite and meaningless small talk like normal people, he just sat there holding his wine glass close to his lips, a small smile threatening to make an appearance on his face. I pushed my champagne glass as far away from me as possible to avoid chugging the whole thing just for something to do. Silence made me nervous. Attractive men made me nervous. Unanticipated situations made me nervous. I was fucked.

‘So how long have you been out here?’ I asked, looking past my dinner companion and into the house. It was a ghost town. A cool glow lit up one of the windows on the top floor for just a moment, but it flickered out almost as soon as I noticed it. ‘Did you get in today?’

Nick didn’t answer me. Instead his smile broadened and he sipped his wine. My breaking the silence meant he had won – it was written all over his face. I pressed my lips together in a tight line and forbade myself from speaking again. I would not say another word. I would just sit here and look at his self-satisfied grin. And his crinkly light blue almost grey eyes. And the perfectly toned forearms that were peeking out of his rolled-up shirt sleeves. I was a mug for forearms and crinkly eyes. It all came off a bit Daniel Craig as James Bond, but with fewer physical beatings and marginally better hair. There was no point pretending otherwise – he was hot. But not my type. My type was, after all, pretty specific.

‘So you’re staying in one of the cottages too?’

The words were out before I realized it. My mouth was such a traitor.

‘I can’t believe we haven’t met before.’ He spoke with a slow, steady voice and I knew right away why he was such a good journalist. Between the baby blues and the slightly gravelly but desperately sure-of-itself voice, I couldn’t imagine anyone holding out on him in any way, shape or form. ‘I know you by, well, reputation.’

‘As a photographer?’ I asked.

‘Sure,’ he replied, unable to keep from laughing. ‘I know your reputation as a photographer.’

Brilliant. I’d escaped my shitty situation in London and stranded myself in a tropical paradise with a hot, rude man who thought I was a slag. And as much as I considered myself a feminist, I couldn’t really blame him. Vanessa was, to be fair, a bit of a slag. Silence seemed like my best defence, so I reached over to my champagne, tried to sip slowly, and prayed for dinner to come out quickly. I was starving.

‘You think you’re up to this job?’ Nick leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘Seriously?’

‘Do you think you’re up to this job?’ I bounced the question back, classic holding technique. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yes,’ he replied without missing a beat. ‘I’m the best at what I do. That’s why I’m here. Are you?’

‘If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here,’ I said as confidently as I could. ‘Would I?’

‘You’re here because Dan Fraser, Oliver Voss, Erica Ishugruo and at least five other photographers, as far as I’m aware, were already booked and this was the only week in the next six months Bennett would give us.’ Nick didn’t flinch, didn’t pause, didn’t look away. ‘You’re here because your agent has the editor of Gloss in her pocket. You’re here because no one else could be.’

‘Right. Brilliant.’

That was me told.

‘And just repeating my questions back to me won’t work,’ he said, rolling up his shirt sleeves a tiny bit further. ‘I’m a journalist. I ask questions professionally.’

‘Right. Brilliant.’

I pressed my lips together, making my mouth into a terribly attractive tight little line, and stared back at the man across the table. He was really, really starting to piss me off.

‘It would have been easier if I had taken the photos myself.’ Nick’s voice was low enough that I couldn’t quite tell if I was supposed to be able to hear him or not.

‘You’re a photographer as well as a writer?’ I asked with forced brightness.

He raised an eyebrow and stared me down.

‘No.’

Breathing out forcefully, I rubbed my thumb along my fingernail, feeling the ragged edges where I had bitten it on the plane. Didn’t help. I prayed for Kekipi to bring out some food for me to shove in my face before I put my fist in Nick’s. His gaze was unwavering and I was completely unsettled. Mostly because he looked like he was really enjoying himself. The more awkward he could make things for me, the happier he became. I grabbed a bread roll from the basket in front of me and tore off a chunk, turning towards the horizon and ignoring the fact that I couldn’t seem to sit still while I was looking at him. Stupid vagina – it wasn’t the boss of me.

‘Tell me about yourself, Vanessa.’

Of course he waited until I’d stuffed a fistful of bread into my gob before asking me the world’s most annoying question. I chewed, coughed, swallowed and held a hand in front of my face.

‘Not much to tell,’ I replied. It wasn’t a lie, per se. Compared with the people he must have interviewed, I had to imagine that even a newly minted compulsive liar such as myself wouldn’t be terribly interesting.

‘Favourite book?’

‘Um. I don’t know.’

‘Favourite record?’

‘I like all sorts.’

‘Favourite piece of art?’

‘Do most people have a favourite piece of art?’

‘Favourite film?’

‘Top Gun,’ I answered in an instant.

‘That’s your boyfriend’s favourite film,’ he replied just as fast. ‘What’s your favourite film?’

I replied with a stony stare. My turn not to play fair.

‘Oh.’ He sipped at his wine again. ‘Recent break-up, is it?’

With absolutely no idea how to respond, I shoved another pawful of bread into my mouth and chewed slowly. My forced silence didn’t seem to have the same impact on Nick as his had on me. In fact, it appeared to have completely the opposite effect. He was grinning right at me.

‘Dinner is served.’ Kekipi strode out of the main house followed by a small army of waiters, each one laden with a platter of joy. I let the sight and smell of the food distract me from Nick’s ridiculous questioning and tried to decide what I would eat first while wondering whether Bertie Bennett always had a small army of waiters at his beck and call. I assumed he did. ‘Can I get you anything else?’

‘We’re fine, thanks, Kekipi,’ Nick answered for both of us before I had a chance. Another thing to go on the List of Reasons to Punch Him in the Face. ‘This looks spectacular.’

‘Mahalo, Mr Miller,’ Kekipi replied with his professional smile. ‘We’ll just be inside. Please ring the bell if you need anything at all.’

Nick did not tell Kekipi to call him Nick. Dickhead.

‘Wait, there’s a bell?’ I couldn’t quite believe it when Nick held up a small golden hand bell.

‘Fuck me,’ I breathed.

‘Maybe after dinner,’ he replied, carefully placing the bell back on the table far out of my reach while I choked on absolutely nothing. I blushed and quietly pinched myself under the table to check this was actually happening. What an absolute dickhead.

For as long as I could possibly manage, we ate in silence. I piled mounds of pork, chicken and fish onto my plate and attempted to balance it out with a respectable amount of salad for appearances. I was never going to eat that salad. After my second helping of kalua pig, I caved.

‘Have you met Mr Bennett before?’ I tried to keep my voice light and casual and not give away the fact that I’d spent almost as much time trying to work out what was a safe question to ask as I had trying not to spill a load of pig down my dress. I hoped I’d done a better job of the question than I had of getting food safely into my mouth.

‘No.’ Thankfully, Nick decided to play nice and just answer. ‘He doesn’t give interviews. This is kind of a big deal.’

‘Have you interviewed lots of fashion people?’ I pushed on while I was on a roll. And eating a roll.

‘Not many.’ He shook his head, looking as though he’d eaten something unpleasant, which I knew for a fact he hadn’t. ‘I talk to people with actual stories. There are very few fashion people with real stories.’

‘Surely everyone has a story?’ I asked. ‘Like how they say everyone has a book in them?’

He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose before replying.

‘Not everyone does have a book in them. Some people don’t even have a Post-it note.’

‘It’s just something people say,’ I sniffed, wiping greasy fingers on my heavy napkin and feeling guilty about the greasy finger marks. ‘You really don’t think it’s true?’

‘You do?’ Nick asked. ‘Take you, for example. According to you, you don’t have a favourite book, a favourite band, a favourite movie. What story would you write?’

‘For all you know, I am a fantastic writer,’ I said, starting to get a bit angry again. Fuelled by the overconfidence of far too much food, I slapped the table. It hurt. ‘How do you know I’m not writing an amazing novel about a dystopian society where a reanimated Henry VIII falls in love with a squirrel?’

‘Well, look at you and your completely insane imagination.’ He laughed a little and for the first time it didn’t sound patronizing, even if his words were. ‘I should get your back up more often if you’re going to come out with gems like that. And you should write that book. I’d read it.’

‘Whatever.’ I was annoyed. He was a game player and I hated playing games. That was one of the many wonderful things about Charlie. He was easily as handsome as this douche nozzle, if not more handsome, but he didn’t mess people around. He never fell for girl tricks and he never said anything just to provoke a reaction. Not that I was thinking about Charlie.

‘You’re really not going to tell me about the break-up?’ Nick asked, pushing a bowl of vegetables at me. ‘It was that bad? You should try those, they’re good.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I replied, heaping some carrots on my plate and pretending they were still healthy even if they were dripping with butter. ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’

‘So there was a break-up.’ He flashed his eyebrows up and down and I stared at my plate. Tricksy bastard. ‘How about a deal. I’ll ask you a question and then you can ask me a question. Sound fair?’

‘Not really. You’re a professional question asker,’ I replied tartly, ‘and I’m a photographer.’

‘Well, I can tell you’re not a wordsmith, anyway,’ he rallied. ‘Professional question asker?’

The wordsmith in me winced. One week out of my job and I’d already lost my grasp on the English language.

‘Question: where do you live?’ I asked before I lost my temper.

‘I have a flat in London and an apartment in New York, but I wouldn’t say I live anywhere,’ Nick replied. ‘I do like a girl with an appetite. Nice. My question: what do you value most above anything else?’

‘Oh, I, um …’ I was stumped. And still trying to work out if he’d just called me fat.

‘You don’t get to think, you just have to answer,’ he said, clicking his fingers over and over and over. ‘Come on, Vanessa.’

‘My friends.’ I shook my head. ‘My best friends. Best friend. Amy. My turn: how old are you?’

‘Thirty-six,’ he said. ‘I know, I look great. Question two: what’s your proudest achievement?’

‘I …’

‘No hesitation.’

‘Getting my first job before I graduated.’ I waved my hands in the air, trying to slow myself down. ‘Before I was a photographer. Full-time photographer. Me again: do you have a girlfriend?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t,’ Nick replied. ‘And that’s two questions for me.’

I wasn’t nearly as good at this game as he was. Over the next ten minutes, I answered every one of his abstract, nonsensical questions. I told him what colour I felt like, I told him I would never move back to where I grew up, I told him I preferred birthdays to Christmas and preferred the city to the country, the country to the beach and that I had never, ever cheated on anyone. All I managed to learn about Nick was that he was born in London, he had lived in New York, Paris and Argentina, that he didn’t have a driving licence, was a night owl rather than an early bird, and his favourite colour was blue. He was right – I was not a professional question asker.

‘Is this what you do in difficult interviews?’ I asked, all out of questions. I sat back in my chair and mournfully nursed my food baby as Kekipi and the gang came to clear the table. There was still so much left, it was beyond wasteful. I wanted to parcel it all up and send it back to poor, jobless Amy. She would have decimated the leftovers in seconds. ‘I ask you, you ask me?’

‘This is what I do whenever I have to interview children,’ Nick replied. ‘Difficult children.’

‘Right,’ I nodded. Just when I’d been starting to warm to him. ‘Do a lot of that, do you?’

‘Nope.’

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘Well, I don’t see what you managed to glean that would be interesting to anyone else by asking me if I consider myself to be a loyal person. Who would say no to that?’

‘This is the thing.’ Nick leaned back in his chair, his features almost vanishing into a silhouette as he pulled away from the candle. ‘I learned a lot more about you from your questions than you learned about me from my answers.’

‘Is that right?’

‘OK, here’s what I know.’ He took a deep drink of wine and then cleared his throat. ‘You grew up in a small village but you were desperate to get out. I know you aren’t close to your family because you value your friends much more highly than your relatives. You are single, which I would know even if you hadn’t mentioned the break-up earlier because you were so quick to tell me how proud you are of your professional achievements. If you were hopelessly in love, that would have come out in your answers, whether you wanted it to or not. Also, the only friend that you mentioned was Amy, which is very Sex and the City of you but it also tells me that you aren’t in love with anyone. Or at least you’re determined not to be. I’ve got to assume you’re unhappily single because so many of your questions to me were about my love life, and since you asked so many questions about my job and where I’d travelled to, I’ve got to assume that even though you use your job as your main source of validation, you haven’t travelled very much even though you’d like to. Which is weird for a photographer.’

Disconcerting was not the word.

‘Is that all you’ve got?’ I needed more wine and I needed it immediately.

‘Probably go out on a limb and say you’re worrying about your age since you asked me mine,’ he shrugged. ‘And your questions were a bit banal and depressingly literal but somewhat creatively grounded, what with the favourite colour and everything, so I’d say you’re someone who likes to solve problems but in a creative way. That makes more sense for a photographer, I suppose.’

Or for a creative director in an advertising firm, I thought to myself. He was quite possibly the best professional question asker I’d ever come across.

‘You’ve gone a bit quiet,’ Nick noted as Kekipi re-appeared with half of his gang and several platters of dessert. Thank God this dress had plenty of eating room. I was going to go back to England the size of a cow. Two cows, at this rate. ‘I’m right?’

‘About some of it,’ I admitted. ‘But it’s not like I didn’t learn anything about you.’

‘Go on then,’ he said as one of the waiters poured out two coffees. I hoped they were decaf. ‘Stun me with your insight.’

‘I suppose what I noticed most was that you were just really vague.’ I added cream to my coffee and tried not to look at Nick while I was talking to him. Too distracting. ‘Favourite colour, driving licence, yes and no questions, all really easy, but the rest of it … I don’t think you like people knowing too much about you.’

‘Interesting theory,’ he commented. ‘Go on.’

And so I did. ‘I don’t know. I mean, I’m not the journalist, obviously, but just all of it – the quick comebacks, the bare feet, the black coffee. Single at thirty-six, can’t commit to a city, nowhere you call home. Maybe you can’t commit to anything?’

‘I don’t think you’re breaking any new ground suggesting a single man in his thirties might have commitment issues,’ Nick said with forced boredom. I glanced up from my coffee cup. He might have sounded bored, but he looked really annoyed. Amazing. ‘Although you realize commitment issues were invented by women? No man has commitment issues. When a woman says that, what they really mean is, “He doesn’t want to commit to me,” It’s a little bit sad.’

‘Wow,’ I replied, leaning towards the candles to get a better look at him. ‘Are you angry at all women, or is there just one who really pissed you off?’

‘Oh, that would be original, wouldn’t it?’ He moved back out of the light and I couldn’t quite see his face. ‘Wounded, damaged and heartbroken, I spend my days writing the stories of others so I never have to think about my own. Constantly trying to outrun my feelings until one day I meet the woman who changes everything?’

‘I never said heartbroken,’ I said quietly.

‘Well.’ Nick tapped his fingers on the table and smiled down at the tablecloth. ‘Well, no, I suppose you didn’t.’

The pretty evening breeze rustled the palm trees overhead and I busied myself by concentrating on the lights inside the main house and pushed a stray wisp of hair out of my eyes. I wondered how many people lived in there. It couldn’t possibly just be Bertie Bennett – it was far too big.

‘So tell me more about Vanessa Kittler, photographer extraordinaire.’ Nick broke the silence first. Even though I’d been at a complete loss for something to say, I chalked it up as a win. ‘I still want to hear your story.’

‘Nope.’ I picked up a piece of pineapple from the platter in front of me and used it as a delicious fruity pointer. ‘I’m not the storyteller, you are. Maybe you should be a writer.’

‘Hilarious,’ he replied flatly. Somewhere in the past five minutes, something had knocked the comedy right out of him. Instead of looking bemused by the whole situation, he just looked pissed off. I was ever so slightly pleased with myself. ‘Must have been a terrible break-up,’ I said, eyes wide with feigned innocence. ‘You poor, broken man, you.’

‘Yeah, I think you’ve seen too many films.’ Nick chugged the remains of his coffee and snatched the piece of pineapple out of my hand. ‘And you clearly haven’t read too many books.’

‘I read,’ I snapped back. He stole my fruit! And, yes, there was an entire plate of pineapple, but that wasn’t the point. ‘I read all the time.’

‘The Fifty Shades books don’t count.’ Nick pushed his chair back.

‘I didn’t read them, actually,’ I announced with triumph. He didn’t need to know I hadn’t had the time and had read the Wikipedia synopses and then downloaded the dirty bits instead.

‘Like I said, not a reader.’

With just as much grace but significantly more purpose than when he had sat down, Nick stood up, walked round the table and placed his hands on the armrests either side of me, leaning in close. I jerked backwards, eyes locked on his. They were such a strange colour. He bent down until his lips were right beside my ear, and I breathed in suddenly, his fresh, soapy shower gel and shampoo just barely covering the traces of a darker, warmer scent that made my stomach flip.

‘Goodnight, Vanessa,’ he whispered before pushing away from my chair and jogging off down the steps and back towards the beach.

‘Well.’ A little stunned and incredibly flustered, I grabbed another bit of pineapple and took a big bite, waiting for my heartbeat to resume normal service. ‘That was just rude.’

‘It was a little,’ a voice said in the semi-darkness. It was Kekipi. ‘I think you touched a nerve.’

I laughed self-consciously, happy to have an ally and only slightly embarrassed at being caught talking to myself.

‘How is the pineapple?’ he asked, filling up my coffee and pouring himself a cup before sitting down in Nick’s empty seat and throwing his bare feet up onto the table. I wondered if he was like this with all of Mr Bennett’s guests. I wondered if Mr Bennett had many guests.

‘Bloody delicious,’ I replied, my mouth completely full. With Kekipi as my witness, it was the best bloody pineapple I had ever eaten. The little plastic pots from M&S would never, ever do the job again. ‘Perfection, actually.’

‘Good to hear.’ Kekipi sipped his coffee and sighed. He looked so contented and comfortable, the opposite of my earlier dinner date. ‘They do say you’ve never eaten pineapple until you’ve eaten it in Hawaii.’

‘I’ll have to make sure I eat lots while I’m here then,’ I said.

‘We can ensure that your cottage is well stocked.’ Kekipi gave me a wink and nodded down the hill, where a light flickered on in the cottage next door to mine. Nick was home. ‘Mr Miller was an interesting dinner companion?’

‘I just hope I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew,’ I said, tugging at the end of my plait. ‘I’ve got a funny feeling I’m going to have trouble with that one.’

‘I’ve got a funny feeling I’d like to have trouble with that one,’ he replied. ‘And that funny feeling is right in the middle of my trousers. He would be just my type.’

‘Not mine.’ My eyes were still fixed on the glowing window. He was probably taking his shirt off. Right. That. Second. ‘Never been a blond fan.’

‘I’m sure you could make an exception if you put your mind to it.’ Kekipi heaped a giant spoonful of sugar into his cup and stirred. ‘He is one of those men everyone wants. He’s like pizza and George Clooney. Everyone wants a slice. He’d charm your mother and flirt with your grandmother while impressing your father with his in-depth knowledge of knot-tying and single malt whiskies.’

‘He knows about knot-tying?’ I looked back at Kekipi.

‘Probably.’ He shrugged. ‘I think he might be the least gay man I’ve ever met. I’m trying very hard not to fall in love with him. Can I suggest you do the same?’

‘I promise I will not fall in love with him,’ I said, laughing alone until my chuckles tailed off into awkward silence. Kekipi stared at me with a less-than-convinced expression.

‘I won’t,’ I said, unnecessarily defensive. ‘Seriously. I am not going to fall in love with him.’

‘I’ll remind you of that at the wedding,’ he said.

‘You can be head bridesmaid,’ I muttered, turning my gaze back towards the cottages and watching the little light in Nick’s window flicker and blink before the bay was bathed in darkness.