‘And I thought being young was all about being reckless,’ Theo drawled. With a spurt of surprise, he realised that he was having fun. Not quite the same fun that he normally had in the company of a woman, but he felt invigorated. Maybe his jaded palette needed novelty more often.
Heather lifted one shoulder dismissively. ‘Maybe it is, if you can support a reckless lifestyle. Anyway, I’m not a reckless kind of person.’
‘Then perhaps you should reconsider your job with this man…’
‘Tom?’ She looked at him in surprise. ‘What’s so reckless about working behind a bar a few nights every week? Just so long as I laugh a lot and chat to the punters, Tom will be more than happy with me.’
Theo looked down and did a rapid rethink on his original assumption, which seemed ridiculous now that he thought about it. ‘Long hours?’ was all he said, and she nodded.
‘Very long and very tiring, which was why I turned down his offer all those months ago. But needs must. There aren’t that many jobs a girl can do at night, and I can’t fit anything else into my days.’ She sighed. How helpful it would have been if Claire had been true to her word and sent back some of that money she had borrowed all that time ago. But it had been two months since she had spoken to her sister, and a lot longer since they had physically met up. It would be crazy when contact was so limited and precious, to start asking for her loan back.
‘Anyway, no point moaning about all of that.’ She smiled. ‘The food was delicious. Thank you. I’m glad I came.’
‘Even though you couldn’t bear the thought of everyone staring at you?’ He poured her another glass of wine, finishing the bottle, and wondered whether he should order another. If novelty had been what he was after, then he had certainly found it in this woman who was prepared to eat and drink without fear of the consequences. He also realised that it would be no hardship to prolong the evening a bit. After all, his current girlfriend was no longer around, and issues of work would wait until the morning, when he would return to his office to complete what he had started.
‘More wine?’ he asked, signalling to the waiter as he waited for her response.
Heather’s face felt flushed. In fact, she felt quite warm, and would have removed her jumper but for the fact that the old tee shirt she was wearing underneath was even more of an eyesore than the thick grey sweater she had hurriedly stuck on when she had left the house earlier in the evening.
‘Aren’t I keeping you from something?’ She looked at him earnestly.
‘Like what?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Don’t you have somewhere to go? A date or something?’
‘My date cancelled on me when I told her that I was running late.’
So that had been the urgent phone call which she had glimpsed out of the corner of her eye. Heather felt a rush of guilt and she reddened.
‘That’s awful!’ She half stood up but he waved her back down, nodding at the waiter to pour the wine he had ordered. ‘I can’t be the cause of a row between you and your girlfriend. I’m sorry.’
‘Sit back down,’ Theo ordered, amused at her attack of conscience. ‘You simply helped along the inevitable, if it’s any consolation. Sit! People will stare. You don’t want that, do you?’
Heather grudgingly took her seat, but her eyes were still anxiously focused on his face. ‘What do you mean?’ She gulped a mouthful of wine and then pushed the glass away from her.
‘I mean—’ he leant towards her ‘—I can see the group of people behind you, and they’re just waiting to see if you’re about to commit social suicide by causing a scene…’
‘That’s not what I meant!’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘Oh!’ She pushed some flyaway hair out of her face. ‘Then what did you mean? About me helping along the inevitable? Were you going to dump her?’
‘Sooner or later.’ He sprawled back into his chair, folded his arms and stared at her transparently distraught face. Who would have imagined that the girl cleaning his office would have proved such a refreshing companion for the evening? He could hardly believe it himself.
‘Oh.’ Heather fell back on the single word. ‘Why would she break up with you just because you were running late?’ She frowned, puzzled. Yes, relationships could be transitory, but wasn’t that taking it too far? She herself had only been in one long-standing relationship and even when they had both reached the point of recognising that things weren’t going anywhere between them they had still taken many long evenings to finally cut the ties. ‘And why would you have dumped her sooner or later? Weren’t you serious about her?’
That, as far as Theo was concerned, was one question too far. He called for the bill and then leant forward, resting his elbows on the table.
‘I think we’ve reached the point where you’re asking about things that are none of your business.’
For a few charged moments Heather glimpsed the man everyone tiptoed around. The man with the steel hand in the velvet glove. She shrugged. ‘Okay. I apologise. Sometimes I talk too much.’
‘Sometimes you do,’ Theo agreed unsmilingly. He settled the bill and, eager to return their last snatches of conversation to a less tense footing, Heather smiled brightly.
‘I would offer to pay my way, but my finances…’
‘Can barely run to a cinema show. I know.’ He stood up and wondered again why such an ungainly girl would wear clothes that deliberately emphasised her girth.
Heather stood up quickly, too quickly, because suddenly the effects of having drunk too much of the very cold, very good white wine took their toll and she teetered slightly on her feet.
The ground had definitely felt more stable when she was sitting down.
And now she had to make her way across the even more crowded room.
‘That’s the problem with good wine,’ Theo said lazily. ‘Too easy to drink.’ He moved over to where she was standing in panicked indecision and slipped his arm around her waist.
That contact seemed to electrify every inch of her body. She was aware of the heated racing of her pulses and a deep, steady throb that began somewhere in the pit of her stomach and flooded outwards, obliterating every ounce of common sense in its path.
A vague girlish crush…one night talking, the briefest of touches that meant absolutely zero to him…and she felt her head spinning like a woman in love.
She barely heard him talking to her as he ushered her through the room and out towards the exit, pausing en route to exchange a few pleasantries with Henri, who had materialised out of thin air and found time for banter even though he clearly had plenty of work to do.
Lord, but she wanted to curve her body into his! Had she ever felt this way with Johnny? She couldn’t remember. She didn’t think so.
As soon as they were outside he released her, and she took a couple of steps back, just to recover from that giddy sensation. The cold air was good. As was the safe, comforting bulk of her coat, which he had somehow managed to get her into.
His chauffeur was parked a few metres up, but before he started walking her towards the car Heather looked at him and gave a watery smile.
‘I’ll be fine to make my way back from here,’ she said, enunciating every word very carefully. She stuck her hands firmly into the deep pockets of her coat and clenched her fists.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Where do you live?’
‘Honestly. I’m fine. You’ve done too much already.’ She was aware that there was just the smallest hint of her words being slurred. When he placed his hand on her elbow she knew that she would capitulate.
‘You’ve gone very quiet…’
‘I feel a bit wobbly…tired…’ As soon as she was in the car she rested her head back and closed her eyes. She was dimly aware of giving Theo her address, and the next time she opened her eyes it was to find that they had arrived at the house which she shared with four other girls, all of whom were out. For the first time she realised that she must be the only person under the age of twenty-five, single and in London, who wasn’t out doing something on a Friday night. Except she had done something!
He walked her to the door, took her bag from her when she couldn’t locate her keys and managed to find them. This after pulling out everything bar the kitchen sink from her voluminous sack. When he stepped inside the house Heather didn’t protest. Yes, he had done his duty, and he was keen to be off, but, no, she didn’t want him to leave. Not just yet. Not when she wouldn’t be seeing him again.
‘Would you like some coffee?’ Heather asked awkwardly.
‘How many of you share this place?’
‘Four.’ She hiccupped, and covered her mouth with her hand.
‘I think you probably need the coffee more than I do. Go and sit down and I’ll make you some.’
Well, Theo reasoned, his evening had gone wildly wrong starting from the moment he’d heard that crash outside his office, so why not wrap it up doing something he rarely did? Waiting on a woman who was the worse for wear and had probably collapsed into a snoring heap on her sofa?
Theo wasn’t a brutish male chauvinist. However, he had been spoilt by the attention lavished on him by members of the opposite sex. His looks, his charisma and his vast wealth had always been a powerful magnetic pull for women who heeded his slightest whim. He had never particularly had to put himself out. In fact, he couldn’t recall the last time he had taken care of a woman in the manner in which he was now taking care of the one who had fallen asleep beside him in the car when he had been in the middle of a sentence.