‘No, not that – it was lovely, you’re lovely, but … The timing, it’s all wrong. Look, I’m sorry, I have to go.’
She virtually ran out into the hall.
‘I’ll wait up for you,’ Leonardo called. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
Shit, she thought, crunching along the gravel to the front gates, her head apparently broken into tiny pieces. What the hell am I going to do? Should I throw him out? But I can’t throw him out. Back to London, then. Sell the house. But where will he go? Why should it be my problem? It wasn’t me that got myself mixed up in a load of estate gangland rubbish. But I can’t just throw him to the wolves! I care about him.
These thoughts carried her up the street to the corner where Lawrence was parked.
‘Goodness, penny for them,’ he said, opening the car door and offering his arm.
He looked very eye-catching tonight, in a low-key pair of jeans, tweed jacket and open-necked blue linen shirt. Casually expensive and impeccably groomed. He smelled quite intoxicating too.
‘Sorry?’ She took his arm.
‘I was watching you in the rear view mirror. Your face was like thunder. Are you all right?’
‘Oh. Yes. Fine. Bit tired, you know. It’s been a dusty day.’
‘Dusty?’
‘The kitchen fitters. Stripped everything down and left clouds and clouds of dust.’
‘Ah. You’ll be thirsty, then. Here we are.’
It was a street corner pub, left in quaint pre-war condition, with an old-fashioned snug and an old-fashioned clientele, some of whom still wore flat caps in a non-ironic manner.
‘Ah, there used to be one of these on nearly every street,’ remarked Jenna, accompanying Lawrence to the bar.
‘Yes, I remember. Twenty years ago. Now they’re all converted into flats while big flat-roofed bunkers serve the estates with Sky football and cheap cider.’
‘Oh, they were there all along,’ reminisced Jenna. ‘The Lord Harville got vandalised, and boarded up though. Is that still there?’
‘I think it may have changed its name,’ said Lawrence uncomfortably. ‘What are you having?’
‘Best stick to still water, thank you. My head feels thick as treacle.’
Not just her head, either. Between her legs she still felt a kind of erotic hangover, a heaviness that wouldn’t lift. She could be lying on her mattress with Leonardo on top of her right now.
She shivered. It was a lucky escape, but it certainly didn’t feel like one. It felt like a wrench.
She escaped to sit at a high-backed bench, attempting to get herself in the frame of mind for light chat with added flirtation.
Lawrence was a good-looking man. She watched his back and shoulders as he exchanged pleasantries with the barman, then her gaze drifted down to his bottom, half-covered by the tweed jacket, but not entirely. It was certainly squeezable.
God, Jenna, stop it! It’s as if you’ve gone man-crazy after years of keeping this kind of thing down. You’ll get yourself arrested.
He came and sat beside her, placing her mineral water on the beer mat while he took a sip of his own whisky and soda.
‘Barman recognised you,’ he said. ‘Asked me what you were doing here.’
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘Told him I was your new business partner and we were starting a venture – Bledburn’s very own Talent Team. Turns out he’s a very skilled juggler and he wants to know if we’ll put him on our books.’
‘Oh, you rotten liar.’
‘OK, I didn’t tell him that. It’s a fair question, though.’