his order. One hundred roses in five different colours. He could almost see the question taking shape at the back of her mind... Who’s the lucky girl?
Stanley, his driver, was a lot more forthcoming than the florist.
‘Who’s the lucky girl?’
Sergio caught his driver’s eye in the rear-view mirror and thought about ignoring the question.
The roses had been carefully placed in the boot, all neatly wrapped in cellophane with straw bows, their cut stems nestling in little bags of water.
‘The “lucky girl” is the one you dropped home the week before last—not that it’s any of your business, Stanley. In case you’ve forgotten the contents of your How to Be a Good Chauffeur manual, it’s not your place to ask questions about matters that don’t concern you.’
‘Ah. You must be keen. The flowers usually only get pulled out at the end of one of your little flings, sir, and even so...never roses...and never that many!’
‘Just drive, Stanley.’
‘Nice little thing, if you don’t mind me saying.’
‘I’m about to make an important call, and as a matter of fact I do mind.’
‘You’ll need to be careful with that one, sir.’
Sergio gave up. He had employed Stanley for over ten years—rescued him from an inner city project that aimed to rehabilitate petty criminals and chronically out of work men back into the community by training them up in stable jobs.
It was one of the many charities sponsored by Sergio’s vast conglomerate of companies.
Some of the lads went into manual labour. Working in garden centres, building sites, in restaurants... Stanley, aged twenty-eight now, once an expert car thief, had come to work for him, and their relationship had prospered against all odds.
Stanley was irreverent, outspoken, unimpressed by Sergio’s trappings of wealth, and eternally grateful to have been rescued from a life of bouncing in and out of prison. He was a good lad gone bad, thanks to circumstances, and had been waiting for someone just like Sergio to get him back on the right track.
Sergio secretly enjoyed his driver’s lack of due respect. He was loyal, would have lain down in front of a train for Sergio, and he knew cars like the back of his hand.
‘I expect you’re about to tell me why...?’
‘Only if you want me to, sir. Wouldn’t want to overstep my brief.’
‘Spit it out, Stanley, and then focus on the road. I don’t want to end up in a ditch because you’re busy imparting your pearls of wisdom and not paying attention to your driving. Don’t forget that your terms of employment are to drive me and not talk incessantly.’
It was not yet five in the evening, but already dark, with a fine persistent drizzle that made the pavements look slick and shiny, as though they had been covered with a fine layer of oil.
‘She’s not like the other women you go out with, if you don’t mind me saying, sir. This one’s...different... Don’t ask me why—just a feeling I got when I was dropping her back...’
Sergio wondered whether that feeling would be diluted if Stanley knew the circumstances surrounding their meeting—if he knew that the nice little thing had shown up at his restaurant dressed to kill in a tight red dress on a supposedly mystery date with a mystery guy which may or may not have been the real reason for being there in the first place.
‘But I’ll leave you to get on with that important phone call now, sir. Wouldn’t want you kicking me out because I’m not doing my job to Your Highness’s satisfaction.’
He began to hum under his breath, leaving Sergio to get on with his thoughts.
He was being driven to Susie’s house on a mission that included a hundred roses of varying colours and he didn’t really know why—except that he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head. He’d met the woman once, under dubious circumstances, was not convinced that she wasn’t a gold-digger, had not even slept with her, and yet...
Under normal circumstances women did not intrude into his working life. They didn’t show up at his office, they didn’t phone him on his office line, and they never interfered with his thought processes when they weren’t physically around. When he was with a woman he enjoyed her with every fibre of his being. When she wasn’t around she was forgotten. It was just the way he was.
Unfortunately he had spent so much time thinking about Susie that he hadn’t been able to focus. He had found himself drifting off twice during meetings, staring at his computer without really seeing the lines and columns in front of him, having to get his secretary to repeat herself on several occasions because his mind had wandered off.
He had no idea why this particular encounter had left him so distracted. It wasn’t as though she was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on, nor the smartest. Her intentions were open to debate, and she had, frankly, led him up the garden path by giving off all the right signals about wanting to climb into bed with him and then, when his libido was through the roof, backing away and shooting out of his apartment like a bat out of hell.
So here he was. He didn’t know what he intended to say when he showed up on her doorstep. He didn’t even know if he would find her at home. Maybe she had already dry-cleaned the little red dress and was wearing it at some other rich man’s hangout, on the hunt for another billionaire—someone a little less daunting.
He didn’t care for the thought, and rather than spend the trip brooding consoled himself with the very pleasing prospect that if she was at home he would have some fun plumbing the depths of that attraction she had talked about instead of being noble and resisting what was on offer.
He’d never done that before and he’d been a fool to do it with her.
That was probably why he had found himself at the local florist and now here, in the back seat of his car. He was allergic to self-denial.
‘We’re here, sir.’ Stanley killed the engine and met Sergio’s eyes.
‘She lives here?’
Sergio peered through the drizzle to a grim little selection of shops...a newsagent, a fish and chip takeaway, a few more that were already closed for the night and barricaded so securely that it made you wonder what sort of people lived in the neighbourhood.
‘Flat above the shops, sir.’
Even grimmer. ‘Should be fun, transporting the roses up to her flat,’ he mused aloud. ‘Who lives in a place like this, Stanley?’
‘Several of my relatives, sir—and those would be the lucky ones.’
Sergio grunted. ‘Do you know her flat number, or do we have to ring all the bells and hope for the best?’
‘Flat number nine, sir. Saw her up to her front door myself.’
* * *
Susie was barely aware of her doorbell ringing until she turned down the television. The doorbell, like everything else in the tiny flat, was eccentric—sometimes working, sometimes not, and very often ringing so quietly that she had to strain her ears to hear it.
It was Friday evening and she had declined all company. Definitely no more online dating. The daring red number had been cleaned and was hanging at the back of the wardrobe as a reminder of her mistake.
Sergio Burzi.
She had looked him up on the internet—not to read what was said about him, because she wasn’t that interested, but to gaze at the pictures of him...which didn’t do him justice at all.
It amazed her that one random meeting with a perfect stranger had managed to throw her whole life out of kilter.
She daydreamed. She changed