‘Fine. I’ll be over first thing in the morning to collect it—just in case you have plans for Boxing Day.’
Did she? Victoria would be going to her family in Gloucester for three days, an invitation which he had declined due to his workload. Naturally she had understood perfectly, because she, herself, could hardly spare the time for the short break, but her own absence, she had told him, would be unforgiveable. He had a selection of parties from which he could choose, but he didn’t relish any of them. Champagne cocktails, smoked salmon and lots of City talk. Just the kind of thing that Megan had scornfully told him he should have gone to today, instead of imposing his presence on her fun-loving crowd of friends.
No, he would fetch his jacket and then have a quiet day in the company of his computer.
Or rather he would send a taxi to bring Megan and his jacket to him. He found that that was a much more satisfying option.
‘No plans to speak of,’ Megan was now telling him slowly. ‘I shall probably go to the pub with Charlotte and her boyfriend for lunch.’ She yawned. ‘Anyway…’
Her voice trailed off and he took the hint. He said goodbye and hung up, but even though she had gritted her teeth and spoken to him on the phone, she still wasn’t rewarded with a peaceful night’s sleep.
She awoke the following morning with a groggy head and an urgent feeling that she had to get ready as quickly as possible, so that she would be ready and waiting at the door with the jacket.
Every time she saw Alessandro she could feel her peace of mind being chipped away—a gradual erosion that frightened her and made her hark back to the days when all he’d had to do was snap his fingers to have her running to him. She would make sure that she was standing at the door when he arrived, with the jacket in one hand and the doorknob in the other, just so that he didn’t get any ideas of a pleasant cup of coffee and some more of his killer chit-chat before he headed off. It was a measure of how much he had forgotten her that he could look at her and talk to her and try to set her straight on the facts of life with the polite detachment of a well-meaning but essentially indifferent ex-boyfriend.
Alessandro. Indifference. Was there anything more hurtful than indifference? And was there anything more infuriating than trying to be indifferent and failing?
Megan bolted down a very quick breakfast of some leftover quiche washed down with a cup of tea, and was ready, as planned, when the doorbell went at a little after nine.
She strolled to the front door, opened it, and had a polite smile pinned to her face. She was wrong-footed to find a taxi driver grinning back at her.
‘Sorry.’ Megan dropped the polite smile and frowned. ‘I was expecting someone else.’
‘I’ve been asked to collect you and a jacket, I believe, miss?’
‘Here’s the jacket.’
‘My instructions were to bring you as well.’
‘Sorry. No can do.’
‘Can’t return without you, miss. But you can take as long as you like making your mind up ’cos the meter’s running. I would really appreciate it if you came, miss, as I’m promised a very generous tip—enough for me to get back home to my family and not be out here on Boxing Day trying to pull fares.’
Megan clicked her tongue in disgust. Alessandro was either too busy or too lazy to run this boring errand himself, and too suspicious to entrust his measly jacket to a taxi driver, even a black cab driver, a notoriously honest species. No, he would see nothing wrong in dragging her out of her house on Boxing Day, just so that she could chaperon a jacket to his fiancée’s house and save him the effort.
‘Give me ten minutes,’ she said in a seething voice.
She was still seething fifteen minutes later as she sat in the back of the cab with the precious jacket on her lap, bitterly regretting her decision to phone him when she should have just stuffed it back in its cubbyhole and waited for Charlotte to make the discovery. Which she would have. In due course. Possibly after a month or two.
London was a different place when the roads were clear and the pavements relatively free of pedestrians. In an hour or so when some of the big stores opened, people would once more venture out of their houses in search of early sales bargains, but at the moment it was possible to appreciate the graceful symmetry of the buildings as the taxi took her away from Shepherd’s Bush and towards Chelsea.
She had no idea where Victoria and Dominic lived, but she wasn’t surprised when the cab pulled up outside a tall, redbrick house with neat black railings outside. The value of the property could be guessed by the quality of the cars parked on the street outside, and the peaceful, oasis-like feel of the area. This might not be a rural idyll, but it was London life at its most elegant.