We parted ways.
When I came out he was standing at the entrance to the café, with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, looking stupid with his hat pulled down and his scarf pulled up, but of course his striking blue eyes against his dark lashes and brows, and the bone structure of his cheeks were still visible. I’d bet, even half covered up like that, the women in here thought he was the best-looking man who’d been through here for days. The women in the café were watching him.
‘You owe me big time for making me stand here listening to this merry fucking music.’
The merry music, was now ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham.
‘Can we get something to eat? I’m starving.’
‘Sure, go on then. I’d be mean to make you wait another hour.’
I picked up a tuna-melt for the server to heat up. ‘Are you having something?’
He took a look at what was left in the chiller and chose a pasta salad. Then he shouted over to the girls who were waiting on our order. ‘I’ll have a cappuccino but with three shots, and a skinny, vanilla latte…’ He glanced at me with an eyebrow lift to check that’s what I wanted. I nodded.
When he got to the till he took out his wallet. While he looked out his card, he said, ‘Can you put that sign down for a minute please. I don’t want to see it. Not everyone is happy about that shit.’
The girl made an odd face, then knocked it over. I guess the customer was always right.
He held his card over the machine so it paid on the contactless connection.
‘We’ll bring the tuna-melt over, Ha—’
‘Don’t you dare say it.’
‘Who are you? Scrooge.’
Jack threw the woman a glare.
She flipped up her sign.
I laughed and grasped his arm, pulling him away before he decided to make it a full-on argument.
He picked up a plastic fork to eat the pasta with, and napkins and sugar. I’d never seen him take sugar before, but then he didn’t usually drink cappuccino either.
I took a sip from my latte, watching him as he opened his salad and took a forkful. I liked his hands. He was right, I had watched him a lot at work, but it wasn’t just his face I watched, and his hands were fascinating. I think he actually had his fingernails manicured; they were always perfectly shaped, with no cuticle. He had hands he could model with, his fingers were long and slender, and yet they looked as masculine as the rest of him.
I glanced up. ‘Can I have one of the serviettes?’
He smiled at me, ‘Sure, knock yourself out.’
I took one then leant down to get my handbag; I’d put it by my feet. I couldn’t find a pen, but I had a black eyeliner. I took the lid off and then I wrote on the white serviette.
When I finished, I slid it across the table. ‘Just to make things official.’
Dear Jack
I’m giving you my notice. I don’t want to work for you any more. As of right now, you are not my boss. You’re my lover.
Yours sincerely
Ivy Cooper
He looked up and laughed. Then he folded the serviette and slipped it into his inside pocket. ‘I’m keeping that as evidence that you said yes to me. I might even have it framed and put up in my office.’
‘Don’t you dare.’
He gave me a grin as the woman brought my tuna-melt over.
We’d come off the motorway about thirty minutes ago, and since then the roads had been gradually getting narrower and darker. The place looked like Middle Earth, the little of it I could see in the headlights.
I’d never been this far north before. I hadn’t known what to expect, but it hadn’t been gnarly woods, broad glass-like lakes and tall hills hemming us in on every side as Jack drove through twisty, narrow roads. It really was like something out of the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, even the little whitewashed cottages were like hobbit houses. ‘This place is cool, Jack.’
‘It’s more than picture postcard, isn’t it? It’s knock-you-off-your-feet stuff. Sometimes I just stand around here awed by nature. But you haven’t even seen it in the daylight.’
‘Have you brought anyone else up here?’
‘I brought Sharon here. But she hated it. I’m hoping you don’t.’
He glanced at me, then flicked the indicator on.
‘Are we here?’
‘We are.’ He turned off on to a track that ran across a field. ‘This is the driveway to the cottage and the house that’s next to it.’
I didn’t think I’d dislike it – it looked like I’d love it. ‘I can’t believe how out in the sticks it is.’
‘I told you, it’s my haven. This is where I escape to.’ He smiled, but he wasn’t looking at me.
Then I saw it. The moon had been hidden by clouds most of the way since I’d woken up, but now the clouds parted and I could see a two-storey whitewashed cottage glowing in the moonlight, nestled in a valley, in a meadow amidst the hills. It had a slate roof that glistened when the moonlight caught it. I saw the bigger house behind it, but the cottage was perfect. ‘That’s really awesome.’ Literally, the awe he’d talked about hit me.
‘Isn’t it? At least because Sharon hates it I know she won’t be going after this as part of the divorce settlement.’
I looked at him. ‘I love it.’ My words came out breathless as he pulled up in front of an old- fashioned-looking porch with a wooden carved frame and lamps on either side of it.
Someone had left a light on inside.
He got out of the car and stretched. I got out too.
He looked different; his shoulders had relaxed. He looked as if he’d dumped the weight of work and his problems from London in the car. He looked over at me, waiting for me to come around the car. ‘Thanks for saying yes and coming up here. I think I’d have hated being here on my own this time.’
He sorted through his keys and then held them out to me with one separated. ‘Open up. I’ll get our stuff.’
‘Thanks.’ My heart went bump, bump, bump in my chest. While my stomach was no longer doing backflips, something warm and elemental was stirring within it instead. In this cottage was a bed, and I had come up here to get in that bed with him.
I unlocked the door as waves of surreal washed over me.
Was I really doing this? Who was this Ivy? The bad girl who’d turned Rick down.
‘There should be wine and food in the fridge!’
‘How come?’ I shouted back as the door opened.
‘There’s a woman who comes in and looks after the place. I had her stock it up ready for me!’
The door opened straight into the living room, there was no hall, and on the far side there was a staircase, and to one side a fireplace with a log-burner full of wood, waiting to be lit. But in the corner beside it there was a very bare fir tree. I dropped my handbag into a chair.
When he came in behind me, I turned. ‘You forgot to tell whoever bought the food you aren’t doing Christmas.’