Читать книгу Valentine's Day - Nicola Marsh, Allison Leigh - Страница 28
ОглавлениеMay
Wednesday night salsa dancing was an education—a great way to discover she had three left feet and not just two. Georgia danced with a raft of partners of various coordination—some more patient than others—but never Zander. He was always careful to share the love around with strangers, favouring the much older or much younger and discouraging the interest of anyone in the middle.
Her, most especially.
She’d only made the mistake of asking him once.
We’re here to work, he’d said.
Right.
This was the side of him his staff saw. Officious. Distant. Work-centric. That other side of him that she’d glimpsed only lasted as long as it took him to tire of the novelty of following her to endless courses and classes and experiences. The more they did together, the less civil he became.
So maybe she’d been demoted to minion in his mind?
The only blessing was that the segments he was producing from their time together in class didn’t reflect any of his impatience and ennui. She’d moved past her instinctive cringe at hearing herself as others heard her and let herself enjoy reliving the classes through Zander’s eyes. His ears. His art. Because while they were commercial by necessity, they were also pretty good. Floating out across the airwaves once a month.
And she’d busied herself finding things to do in class that didn’t amplify this awkward...blech...between them.
Thursday night was Michelin-starred restaurants night and she’d become adept at pretending she didn’t know the handsome man at the next table. And at eating alone. There was a certain loveliness that London’s service staff reserved for a woman taking a meal by herself. At first she worried that it was pity, but then she realised they just wanted to make her solo experience as nice as possible. She got twice the smiles and extra free bread that Zander did. That pleased her to an unnaturally high degree.
Friday night wine appreciation was at least a blessing because it meant their minds and mouths were both fully occupied and so conversation between herself and Zander really wasn’t an option, anyway. But at least the wine class provided quality alternatives in the shape of other men to talk to. And women—but they never got much of a rise from Zander. It was the men that really got up his nose, presumably because it was impacting on the quality of their Year of Georgia project.
She wasn’t supposed to be on the hunt. She was supposed to be discovering who she was. And it was working; it turned out she was a woman who liked to goad surly, silent executive types.
She turned to Eric on her left and laughed loudly at something he said. Even he looked surprised to have been that amusing. He developed software apps for a living and he and his techie-mate Russell, on her right, had decided their circle of friends really needed to include someone other than the pair of them. And preferably with the X chromosome.
Hence the wine appreciation.
The three of them developed a healthy symbiosis—they honed their flirting skills on her and she let them. It felt good being appreciated by someone and not just tolerated by Zander. Buoyed by their company, she sniffed and she sipped and she spat and she was careful never to quaff in front of Zander. And, it turned out, she had a pretty good nose and palate for identifying wine types. Unlike cooking, which she’d still not really mastered at all. Though, she wasn’t above quietly taking the mickey.
She agitated the wine in her hand until it made large circles in the balloon glass and its aroma climbed. She waved the whole lot under her nose.
‘Truculent. With undertones of—’ she looked around for inspiration and her eyes fell on the earrings of the woman across from her ‘—amber and—’ she searched again and her eyes fell on Zander ‘—oak moss.’
Because that was what he always smelled like to her. One of her forests.
Russell’s eyes narrowed. ‘Really?’
Eric just laughed. ‘She’s lying.’
She leaned closer to both of them. ‘Truly, it just smells like good red wine.’ She tossed her sample back. ‘Yep. Good.’
All three of them laughed and she turned to place her empty glass onto the cleaning tray, but as she did so she lifted her eyes and encountered Zander’s, intense and assessing.
As usual.
Class wound up not long after and she farewelled her friends happily. They always asked her out with them after class. She always declined.
‘You can go,’ Zander said, suddenly close behind her as Eric and Russell left. ‘You’re off the clock.’
She bit down her retort. How typical that about the only thing he’d said to her all evening was boorish. ‘If I wanted to go I would go. I wasn’t waiting for permission.’
‘It’s Friday night.’
‘And this class is my Friday night activity.’ Poor effort though it was. She slid her coat more firmly on and headed onto the street.
He stuck to her heels. ‘They’re going to go off you if you don’t give them something.’
She turned and glared. ‘Something? A bit of leg? A flash of cleavage?’
‘Not what I meant.’ He glowered.
‘I know what you meant. I’m not interested in anything beyond their company in class.’ And—just quietly—the impact it had on Zander. Getting his blood up was at least better than stony silence. ‘This isn’t about dating, remember.’
‘I was wondering if you did.’
She spun and huffed in equal measures. ‘I have to talk to someone. You’re the only person I know and we’re strangers here.’ And increasingly everywhere. ‘Some of them are going to be men. It’s not dating strategy.’
He just grunted. ‘This is my Friday night, too, you know.’
She stared. ‘I do know.’
‘So it would just be useful to keep everything professional. On mission.’
On mission? ‘I’m not allowed to have a good time, at all? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?’
‘The purpose is you getting back on track. Learning new things. Reinventing.’
A month of standoffishness took its toll. ‘I’m not sure that you appreciate how hard some of this is for me. Walking alone into a room full of people I don’t know. Striking up friendships. I would so much rather be at home curled up with a good book.’
His eyes clouded over. Was he thinking? Or just bored? ‘How hard?’
‘It’s...difficult. I’m not social, like you. I like to meet people, find out about them, but I’m just not really good at it. It’s work.’ And developing those skills was part of her twelve-month plan but it was a case of chicken and egg. She needed the skills to be able to walk into any social situation, but she wasn’t going to develop the skills unless she kept walking into those situations.
He looked truly astonished. ‘I didn’t realise. You make it look so easy.’
Was he kidding? ‘It’s exhausting.’
‘Would it be easier to have a friend along?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let’s do that, then. This isn’t supposed to be punishment. We can tweak the budget.’
It felt like it some nights. She let out a long breath and added yet another humiliation to her very many. ‘I don’t have anyone to bring. Not every week.’ She could probably get any one of her friends away from their parenting responsibilities once, maybe twice. But weekly? Sometimes twice weekly? Not a prayer. This was the sort of thing she used to rely on Dan for.
Her social handbag.
The great mess that was them struck her again. Imagine if he’d said yes...
‘I’m here anyway,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it.’
Her heart flipped like a fish. ‘You wanted to remain impartial.’
‘The situation has changed.’
‘You know you’ll have to speak to me. Not just interview me or record me talking to others.’
Impatience leaked out of him. ‘I’ve been trying to keep things professional.’
‘What’s unprofessional about having the occasional conversation?’
‘If you’re talking to me then you’re not talking to everyone else.’
It was a valid point. She was just as likely to talk to him all night given half a chance. But it didn’t make it feel any better. ‘I promise to multitask. If you promise not to scowl at me the whole time.’
‘I don’t scowl.’
‘You’re doing it now. That’s just going to scare away anyone that comes close enough to talk to.’
‘They’ll just assume I’m one of many dates who are there under sufferance.’
‘A date with a digital recorder?’ He’d started bringing them along to the second and third sessions of each activity. The first was pure reconnaissance.
‘That reminds me. I’m going to start recording next week. We have permission.’
‘Make sure you get Eric and Russell. Maybe a bit of fame will increase their chances with the ladies.’
He grunted. ‘I don’t think anything will increase their chances.’
‘They’re nice men.’
‘They try too hard.’
‘Doing this is hard. For a lot of people coming to one of these things is either last resort or a kind of admission of failure. That you can’t be cultured and interesting without help.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Is that how you feel?’
She studied him, wondering if she could trust him. She would have told Zander off a month ago, no problem. But corporate Zander wasn’t anywhere near as approachable. Then again, the Year of Georgia was all about taking risks.
‘I’m smart, I have a good job, excellent work ethic, property. I’m passable-looking. So what’s wrong with me?’
Zander opened his mouth but she barrelled onwards. ‘Maybe he would have liked me more if I was sportier, wittier, prettier. Maybe there’s a whole range of things that other women out there can do that I can’t.’
‘This is about Daniel?’
‘No. Daniel is Everyman, he’s just a symbol. But he was a man so like me I thought we were a perfect fit, so to not even be good enough for him...’
‘I thought you were doing this for you. The Year of Georgia.’
She glared at him. ‘First—as you’ve so carefully pointed out—I’m doing this for you. Because your contract says I have to. But right behind that is me. And part of me is wondering why I’m not more popular with men. Or with other women. Why I don’t have more friends. Or a family yet. Or a better job. Or why my life isn’t like other people’s.’
He shook his head. ‘What do you imagine happens in other people’s lives that’s so special and different?’
‘I don’t know. Cool stuff. Busy, interesting, challenging stuff?’
‘That’s just dressing. Most people’s lives are exactly the same underneath. The same worries about finances, their careers, the same family dramas. Only the outer coating changes.’
‘What about you—rich, popular, respected, in demand, powerful? You can do whatever you want and go wherever you want whenever you want. That’s not the same as everyone else.’
He stopped again and faced her. ‘I haven’t had a holiday in five years because the network believes the station will collapse if I walk away from it for a moment. I have a big, expensive house that someone else decorated and I can go weeks without even going into rooms that aren’t my bedroom, bathroom, and study. I have parents who live in a perpetual state of warfare. That power you covet means people either shy away from me or suck up to me. So my life is riddled with its own hassles but I don’t dwell on it and I certainly don’t voice it. I just get on with it.’
Such a confession, after weeks of standoffish Zander, struck her deep. Was that really how he felt about his life? Maybe the trappings of success and popularity really were just that.
‘Are you saying I should just suck it up?’ And shut up.
Maybe that was exactly what she needed to hear? Perhaps her self-reflection was just self-indulgence in disguise.
‘I’m saying all the classes in the world aren’t going to make your life better, because life isn’t something you apply like make-up. It’s something you grow and tend. Like a garden.’
Her present life would make a pretty straggly, restricted garden. But a life filled with makeovers and clubbing and movie premieres wasn’t all that brilliant, either, unless you happened to discover a new passion. They were just flashy statues amongst the weeds.
She blinked. Thought. Smiled. ‘That’s kind of profound. We should have recorded that.’
‘I have my moments.’
‘So am I wasting my time?’ Because she certainly hadn’t discovered a hidden passion for anything they’d done so far.
‘Not if they’re things you’ve always wanted to do.’
They weren’t, really. They were things she thought she should do. Things EROS’ listeners might like. Things that she felt Zander might have expected her to do.
‘How locked in is the schedule?’
He squinted one eye. ‘Some of them are all booked and paid, some transferable. Why?’
‘I think I need to tweak them. To be more...me.’
He smiled. ‘OK. Just talk to Casey.’
Just like that? How strange that she felt so uncomfortable asking for what she wanted. When it was so straightforward.
They walked on.
‘So, how come you don’t fix your life, then?’ Her words came out as mist on the cool air. ‘Make changes? If you believe so much in the garden of life.’
He shrugged. ‘Not everyone wants a garden. Or the hassle of tending it. Sometimes a single focus is just easier.’
His work. Of course. ‘But you love running. Your weekends are always full. That’s at least a small garden bed, surely.’
‘I don’t do it because I’m passionate about it.’
‘Why then?’
‘For the silence.’
Hours and hours of silence as his machine of a body put foot in front of foot. ‘Just you and the voices in your head, huh?’
He smiled. ‘Right. That’s all the company I need.’
Suddenly she felt very self-conscious to be standing here taking up his silence. Although she suspected he’d only be working anyway. Fortunately, a tube entrance loomed.
‘Well, I guess I should—’
‘I have a garden,’ he blurted. ‘An actual one, I mean.’
She figured that the big house in Hampstead Heath came with a big plot of land. ‘OK.’
‘I’d like you to see it.’
‘Why?’
He paused before answering. ‘Because it’s lovely. It should be appreciated.’
The man who didn’t even use the rooms in his house? She couldn’t picture him getting out in the garden. But maybe this whole contract arrangement had some kind of implied reciprocity that she hadn’t considered.
Or maybe this was some kind of peace overture. If it was, she’d take it.
‘Sure. I’d like to see it.’
‘Maybe you can give me some tips on what to do with it.’
‘I’m not a landscaper—’
‘I’m not looking for shape, I’m looking for soul.’ Surprise flooded his face, as if he’d never considered that before.
‘A soulful garden. Well, I’m sure I can at least give you some tips.’
‘Don’t underrate yourself. Look at what you do in your back yard. The life you’ve invested that three square metres with.’
She considered that. ‘When do you want me to come by?’
‘How about next Saturday?’
‘Aren’t you running?’
‘I’m doing a night run. I have all day free.’
All day? ‘Just how big is this garden?’
He smiled and ushered her onto the tube steps. ‘You’ll see.’
* * *
Enormous was the answer. Gi-flipping-gantic. At least four times the size of the house sitting like a stone sentry on its western edge and that was already very big.
Georgia turned a slow three-sixty from her spot in the middle of the garden’s first chamber and surveyed the extraordinary, neglected space. Not physically neglected—the turf was mowed and the pruning regular. But Zander was right: this garden lacked any kind of soul.
‘This is amazing.’ She looked at him. ‘Do you truly not use it?’
‘I shortcut through it from the main street.’
Sacrilege. To have a garden like this, to have it be all your own and then never use it.
‘There’s a lot you could do here.’
‘I have brown thumbs.’
‘You have something better. Deep pockets. You could hire a team.’
‘I don’t want a team. I want you.’
She glanced at him.
‘Someone like you,’ he rushed on. ‘Someone with passion for it. To look after it.’
The awkwardness of the moment flailed around between them. I want you. She’d practically given herself whiplash snapping her head around to look at him.
‘I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding someone to do more than just mow and prune. I could give you some names if you like.’
Hers would have been at the top of the list for anyone but him. What she wouldn’t give to get to tinker in this garden.
‘That would be great.’
She basked in the heat coming off him in the cool mid-morning air. Maybe carb-loading turned you into a furnace. Whatever the cause, she caught herself swaying towards his warmth.
She turned the unintentional move into a full body spin before he noticed it and looked again at the magnificent potential all around her.
‘I have hedgehogs,’ he murmured.
Her eyes fluttered shut. Of course he did. That was just the final nail in the coffin. ‘This is wasted on you,’ she said, bleak. But her soft groan must have communicated her affinity for the space because he didn’t take offence.
‘Because I don’t use it?’
‘Because you don’t love it. This garden—’ she turned back to the west ‘—this stunning house... These should be in the hands of someone who worked hard their whole life to have it. Not someone who only uses the garden for short cuts and who uses just two of the rooms.’ Yet paid a premium for them. ‘Why do you stay?’
She’d asked him before but he hadn’t answered.
‘Come on in,’ he hedged. ‘I’ll show you inside.’
Maybe she’d been rude to say it like that—out loud, to his face—but she truly didn’t understand how someone could have all this and not want to spend every waking moment in it.
Inside was the carefully styled twin of outside. Perfectly maintained, but utterly soulless. Like a short-term executive rental.
‘Where’s your study?’ She could hardly ask to see his bedroom, but she was desperate to get a sense of him. Of who Zander Rush really was.
He led her up a sweeping, curved staircase to the upper floor and along a spotless landing. It struck her then that he’d be better off closing off the unused rooms and throwing cloths over all the furniture. She suggested it.
‘No. I don’t want to live like that. It doesn’t take my cleaner long to dust and vacuum. This way it’s ready if people come over unexpectedly.’
She slid her eyes sideways. ‘Does that happen often?’
Something told her it didn’t. She had the strangest feeling she was one of only a few people this house ever saw.
Again, criminal.
A house like this should be seen. By someone.
He paused outside a door and looked at her. ‘Welcome to the inner sanctum.’
It felt like that. Privileged. Rare. Something about the air that whooshed out as he swung opened the big timber door. She thought to see some kind of expansive library with ladders and a massive antique desk and dead animal heads lining the wall. Something as grand as the house. She couldn’t have been more wrong. It was small but not tiny. Opulently carpeted, tasteful timber desk at the far end, and an array of antique bookcases of all different sizes and shapes and filled with books.
It was charming. And warm. And personal.
And such an unexpected thing given the rest of the house.
She stepped forward and trailed her fingers along the various surfaces. He watched her silently.
‘It’s lovely,’ she said, conscious that he seemed to expect some kind of verdict. ‘And comfortable; I can see why you spend a lot of time in here.’
Not as much as the garden, if this were her house and not his. She’d build a nest in the conservatory and hibernate in there.
‘I get much more done here at home than at the station.’
‘I’m surprised you don’t work from home more.’
‘There’s only so much alone time a man can take.’ He smiled. ‘Even me.’
She couldn’t imagine a busier or noisier Monday to Friday than working in a crowded radio station. She crossed around behind his desk and studied the carved bust by the window. ‘A relative? Some famous broadcasting type?’
He shook his head. ‘It was in the house when I bought it. I had it moved in here because it seemed a fitting sort of decoration for a study.’
How sad. A beautiful house full of someone else’s memories. She turned and skimmed her eyes over the paperwork scattered around a closed laptop on his desk. None of it interested her, but a colourful mini-poster pressed to the surface of the desk by a chunk of granite did.
His next event notice. Hadrian’s Wall, Gilsland to Bowness. The following weekend. She’d never seen a marathon in progress. And it was a public event...
She conveniently ignored the fact that she’d promised him she wouldn’t ask to go to one of his events. And that not telling him was just plain creepy.
‘Do you cook in your kitchen?’ she blurted, steering her focus—and his—away from the notice on his desk.
‘With fifteen restaurants in walking distance there’s little need, but yes, I have used the oven.’
‘I was thinking more about the kettle. I’d love a coffee while I make that list of landscapers.’
And get a better feel for the man himself, and what might have happened to him in his life to make him such an under-committed, over-achieving workaholic.
* * *
‘Best. Course. Ever!’ Georgia said as she hunkered down on the opposite side of a half-destroyed door, chest heaving and brandishing her heavy artillery up near her face.
Zander chuckled from the darkness beyond the flimsy doorway. ‘I don’t believe it. Have we finally found something you’d have done if you had free choice?’
‘Totally! Who knew I’d be so fast at assembling a gun?’ She tightened the harness crossing her chest until it was snug again.
‘Or cracking a code.’
She leaned back into the artfully decorated set designed to look like a shelled-out building. Less shabby-chic and more...Afghanistan-ic. ‘Makes up for being such a lousy femme fatale, I guess.’
‘Not everyone’s cut out for seduction,’ he threw away in the brief moment he peered his head around the doorway to assess the enemy location.
Some of the joy sucked out of her day. Believing it herself was different from having it pointed out by a man. By this man.
‘Ready?’ he checked.
She shook her doubts free and readied her weapon. ‘Locked and loaded.’
‘On my count...’
God, this was fun. She braced herself against the wall and waited for ‘three’. When it came she surged to her feet and sprinted across the open courtyard, as damaged and rubble-strewn as the rest of the set, with Zander hard up behind her. Halfway across, one of the yellow team popped up out of nowhere and aimed right at them both. Georgia dived to her left, crashing into a fake rubbish skip and sliding around behind it only to come face to face with one of her instructors, kitted out in the garb of the yellow team.
‘Bang,’ he said, popping the barrel of his fake gun hard up to her laser-tag and firing. The lights came on in the arena. He gave her his hand. ‘The good news is, you were the last of your team to die. If that’s any consolation.’
Yay for her! Last woman standing.
‘What happened to Zander?’ she puffed.
‘The big guy? He got hit by the shot you dodged.’
Her breath caught. Whoops.
Sure enough, the look Zander threw her as she stepped out from behind the skip was incredulous. ‘I can’t believe you let me take that hit!’ he accused.
She lifted her weapon and unclipped her body harness. ‘I would have died.’
‘But I’m your superior.’
She tipped her head back and threw him her sweetest smile. ‘Superior at dying, maybe...’
He snagged her arms and pinned them behind her, stepping in hard against her body and glaring down on her. ‘Isn’t that just like a woman?’
The hardness of his body—all strapped up in military chest plate and pressed up so firmly against hers—stole what little breath she’d managed to recover. ‘The sarcasm or the faithlessness?’ she whispered.
He tightened her hands and his eyes bored down into her soul. ‘Both.’
‘Just because I wouldn’t die for you? Is that what you expect of people?’
A shadow crossed his features and he let her hands go. ‘Is a little loyalty too much to ask?’
He was taking this very seriously for a game. ‘We’re highly trained agents. Loyal to no one but Queen and country.’
He grunted.
‘Besides,’ she breathed, ‘just think how guilty you’d have felt for the rest of your military career, letting a woman die for you. It would eat you up and you’d find yourself a hermit, living in a mountain, loving no one and letting nobody in. All bitter and twisted. Useless to MI6. I saved you from a fate worse than death, Agent Rush.’
Although it occurred to her that the description wasn’t all that unlike the real him. Minus the mountain.
His eyes narrowed. ‘Also just like a woman, spinning it so I should somehow be grateful.’
‘All right, people,’ the instructor shouted over the din, and she stepped away from Zander’s warmth, reluctantly. ‘Great to see that a full day of spy training has taught you all absolutely nothing about field survival...’
Georgia laughed along with everyone else and glanced at Zander. How long had it been since she’d felt this...light? He took her weapon for her and just held it. As though it were her hand.
Of course it wasn’t.
‘Next week we’ll be looking at surveillance gear,’ the instructor continued, ‘and having a go at planting a bug on someone.’
She rounded on Zander, eyes wide, and mouthed, Yay!
He shook his scraggy head, laughing, and stood back to let her pass in front of him back to the classroom. They stripped off their borrowed military accoutrements—very reluctantly on Georgia’s part because she’d been having herself a nice little fantasy about Zander doing that for her—and collected up their belongings.
‘Would you truly have wanted me to take that hit for you?’ she queried as they walked back towards his Jag a little later.
‘It’s nice to think someone would.’
She lifted her eyes to his.
‘Isn’t that what anyone wants?’ he said. ‘Someone to sacrifice all for them.’
‘You don’t seem the type,’ she murmured, sliding into the passenger seat next to him.
‘I’m as susceptible as anyone to grand gestures.’
She laughed as they pulled away from the kerb. ‘And you wonder why your staff are frightened of you.’ And then, at his frown, ‘If death is the only way they can get in your good books. Even metaphorically.’
He stared ahead at the road, letting that sink in.
‘You value loyalty that highly?’ she risked.
He took a moment answering, but when he did it wasn’t with the same light tone that they’d been firing back and forth since the war-games ended. ‘I’ve not had a lot of it in my life.’
‘Who from?’
But of course he wasn’t going to answer that. And no matter how many hours of fun they’d just had, it didn’t give her much of a right to ask.
Instead he turned to her, brightly, and said, ‘Want to grab something to eat on the way?’
No. But she wasn’t ready to go home alone, either. Maybe she could wheedle some clues out of his assistant, Casey. Now that she was a super spy and all. Then again, Casey probably hadn’t stayed as an assistant to a man as exacting as Zander Rush for as long as she had by chatting casually about his private business.
She’d have to be smarter than that.
She matched the brightness of his smile. And the fakeness.
‘Sure.’
