The Birthday Present

by Lizzy Grey

  “So why did you dance with me last night?”

  “Amanda told me to.”

  Freya rolled her eyes. “Anthony, we’re being set up.”

  “Because we’re ‘suitable’?” His face creased in disgust. “Bloody hell, Freya.”

  “I’m sorry. Now that I’m well again, Mummy wants to see me settle down.”

  “Well, not with me.”

  “No.” She smiled. “Pour me half of that cup of coffee, will you, please? I’ll have it with no sugar and just a little milk.”

  “I do love you Freya,” he told her as he divided the coffee into the two cups and added milk. “But as a ‘sister’. Not like… that. Never like that.”

  “I know.” She accepted a cup from him and kissed his cheek. “I just needed to hear it from you. I love this apartment,” she added, taking her cup across the living room to the huge floor-to-ceiling windows and gazing down at the River Thames. “I’d love my own apartment. Maybe not on this scale, but it’s time I moved out of Mummy and Daddy’s.”

  “What are you going to do, then?” he asked as she sipped the coffee. Yuck. He’d put far too much milk in it and the coffee was cold. “Job-wise? I don’t mean to be horrible, but you’re thirty now and you’ve never had a proper job.”

  “I don’t know,” she replied simply, turning and giving him a sad little smile.

  “I’m sorry.” His face fell. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s all right. I don’t even have a proper CV. I mean, I know I’ve got a fantastic degree, but how do I tell a prospective employer in a bank that I’ve had a heart transplant without them thinking, ‘I’m not hiring her – she’ll never be able to handle the stress – she’s far too much of a risk.’”

  “Just live for a bit and see what happens?” he suggested.

  “I need to stand on my own two feet now but to do that I need a job and money. Oh, God, I’m sorry. This is the last thing you need first thing on a Sunday morning.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He smiled. “Anyway, who was the man you were talking to last night outside the toilets?”

  “Oh.” She hoped he couldn’t see her blushing. “Just someone I collided with and was apologizing. He liked my dress.”

  “Every man there liked your dress.”

  “But not enough to approach me.”

  Anthony pulled a sympathetic expression. “You’ll find someone, Freya.”

  “Someone who isn’t terrified of huge scars?” Someone like Simon.

  “You’ll find someone,” Anthony repeated softly.

  Her route back to the underground station brought her within two streets of the escort agency Simon belonged to. Making a spur of the moment decision, Freya turned down a street in its direction, suddenly curious to see it. It wasn’t as if she’d bump into him again, or anything.

  Standing across the street, she gazed up at the office building. It was nothing out of the ordinary, just an ugly concrete monstrosity built in the 1960s. A little disappointed, she walked away and went into a coffee shop a few doors along the street, eager to rid her mouth of the taste of Anthony’s cold and milky coffee. Buying an Americano, she brought it to a corner table and sat down.

  This was ridiculous, she thought, stirring milk into the coffee. You shouldn’t be anywhere near here. It was two hours of fantastic sex but you’re never going to see him again. Just drink your coffee, go home, and make a decision on what you’re going to do with your life.

  “Samantha?” Hearing the voice she jumped and looked up. It was Simon – a rather scruffy Simon – heavily stubbled and dressed in a grey hooded sweatshirt, faded blue jeans, a newspaper under his arm, and holding a cup and saucer. “What are you doing here?”

  “I, er, I was visiting a friend who lives nearby.”

  He pulled a sceptical expression and she stirred her coffee again, noting how her hand was shaking a little with embarrassment. She’d wanted to see him again but now she just oozed crazy stalker.

  “Can I join you, Samantha? Or, should I say, Freya?”

  She froze. How had he found out? “Yes.”

  Placing the newspaper and the cup and saucer on the table, he pulled out a chair and sat down. “There’s a picture of you in one of the tabloid newspapers. ‘Freya Thompson at her thirtieth birthday bash at the plush Connaught Palace Hotel.’ Do you like slumming it with the likes of me?”

  She flushed as a woman at the next table began to eavesdrop shamelessly. “Could you please lower your voice?” she asked him.

  “Why?”

  “Okay, I’ll just let everyone here know how you don’t like having your cock in my mouth.”

  The woman at the next table inhaled her coffee and began to cough but Simon didn’t even glance in her direction and Freya met his blue eyes defiantly.

  “All right,” he said finally. “Outside.”

  “What?”

  “I think we should sit at one of the tables outside. Come on.” Getting to his feet, he put the newspaper back under his arm and picked up his cup and saucer, then walked out of the coffee shop.

  Following him outside, with her own cup and saucer, she put it down on the aluminium table and hung her handbag over the back of the chair before sitting down.

  “A friend?” he began sitting in the chair opposite hers. “You have a friend who lives around here?”

  “Yes, Anthony. He’s just moved into one of the new apartment blocks overlooking the Thames. Mummy wants me to be a good girl and marry him. I’ve just been round to tell him it’s never going to happen. He was relieved.”

  Simon frowned. “Relieved?”

  “He’s the brother of one of my best friends,” she explained. “He’s practically a brother to me. The whole idea makes me cringe.”

  “So your mother wants to see you settled down?”

  “Yes. But it won’t be with Anthony. Anyway.” She took a sip of coffee, reached for her handbag and went to get up. “It was nice seeing you again.”

  “You’re going?” he asked. “But you haven’t finished your coffee.”

  “No, but—”

  “Stay.” Reaching out, he laid a hand on her arm. “Please.”

  “But you must think I’m a crazy stalker or something.”

  “You were the last person I expected to see here, but now that you are here, please stay?”

  “All right.” Hanging the strap of her handbag over the back of her chair, she sipped her coffee. “I just wanted to see where you worked,” she admitted. “Well, not worked…” Tailing off, she squirmed.

  “The office is across the road. But it’s only an office. Look,” he said. “The first thing I need to tell you is that my name isn’t Simon. Simon is a fiction – a fantasy – an act. He isn’t me. My name is James Watson – Jamie – well, James. I’m getting a bit old for Jamie.” Shaking his head, he reached for his cup and took a gulp of the black coffee.

  “Oh.”

  Putting his cup down, he gave her a humourless smile. “Please don’t tell me you were naïve enough to believe that Simon was my real name?”

  “You seem to be quite annoyed that I’m not called Samantha.”

  “Touché.” He laughed.

  “Well, you are, aren’t you?” she asked. “Anyway, I didn’t give your actual name much thought, I just wanted you to fuck me. And you did. And I loved it. Anyway, I like the name Jamie and, yes, I suppose it is safer for you to use a false name. Like it was safer for me to use a false name. You must have encountered women even crazier than me.”

  “I don’t think you’re crazy.”

  “Just a bit weird?” she suggested and they both smiled. “I must get it from my weird inbred family.”

  “I went home and looked you up on the internet after I saw the newspaper photo of you in the newsagents. Daddy a Conservative Member of Parliament. Mummy the eldest daughter of an earl. Educated at Oxford and the London School of Economics. Had the heart transplant operation in a private hospital, which ruffled a lot of feather
s.”

  “I still had to wait for a heart to become available like everyone else,” she informed him. “Just because I’m a spoiled little rich girl doesn’t mean I was automatically entitled to one.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he replied and she could hear the humour in his voice. “So, what now?”

  “Now?”

  “Are you looking for a bit of rough or something?” he asked as she raised her coffee cup to her lips and took a sip.

  “I hadn’t had a bit of anything until you. Or rather, Simon. And he didn’t come across as rough. I don’t know a thing about you. Are you a bit of rough?”

  He began to laugh. “Yes, I am compared to you. I live around the corner in a one-bedroomed apartment. I do own it, though. Owning my own home is very important to me.”

  “I still live at home,” she mumbled.

  “Well, that’s understandable in the circumstances. Freya, Simon doesn’t exist. With me, what you see is what you get.”

  “It’s the same with me.”

  His eyes dropped to her casual but hugely expensive white shirt and blue jeans. “I doubt that very much.”

  “I don’t understand?” She frowned.

  “Well, are you going to bring me home and introduce me to your incredibly rich and well-connected parents and tell them how we met? How a man using a false name took your virginity in a hotel room, and how you now love being fucked?” She began to cough and he sat back in his seat. “I thought not. I don’t date clients, Freya.”

  “Not even ones you’re attracted to? Ones you love fucking? Or was that an act, too?”

  “I’d never slept with a client before until you,” he told her instead of answering. “I did it for the money – a huge amount of money. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Is it? Unless you are also an Oscar-winning actor, I know you enjoyed it. You enjoyed it so much you were completely freaked out. I thought it was my scar but it wasn’t the scar at all. You couldn’t keep your hands off me down at the Embankment. I made you come with the tip of my tongue, then you couldn’t wait to lift my dress and get your hand between my legs. You were the first to mention getting a room. We fucked in that hotel room for two whole hours.”

  “It was a fantasy, Freya,” he reminded her. “We were both pretending to be someone else.”

  “So, what now? Do you want me to get up and walk away?”

  “Do you?”

  “No,” she replied quietly and saw relief flood into his face.

  “I’m glad because I don’t want you to either.”

  “So, what now?” she repeated. “What can we do?”

  “We forget the fantasy and start again?” he suggested. “I give you my number? And maybe you could give me yours?”

  “Are you married?”

  He shook his head. “No. And I’m not seeing anyone at the moment either.”

  “If you’re caught with a client will you get fired?”

  “Yes, but the booking was made in your friends’ names and your name was given as Samantha.”

  They swapped phone numbers then sat silently for a few moments finishing their coffee.

  “Would you like me to call you James or Jamie?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what do your parents call you?”

  Sighing, he ran a forefinger around the rim of his cup. “My parents are dead,” he told her in a flat voice. “They died when I was four so I have little or no memory of them. I was a care home kid and I was fostered out from time to time.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said and he shrugged.

  “It’s just the way it was. My parents were heroin addicts and they both died of an overdose. Because of it all, I don’t even like taking aspirin for a headache.” He gave her a little smile at her shocked face. “I can delete your number if you want?”

  “No,” she replied firmly. “No, don’t. Can I call you Jamie?”

  “Yes. I’d better get used to calling you Freya now.”

  “It’s a bit pretentious.”

  “No.” He smiled. “I like it. I didn’t think Samantha quite suited you.”

  “Liz and Amanda came up with the name,” she explained. “I think they got it from the Sex and the City character.”

  “I’ve never watched it. Look, if, at any time, you just want to walk away, just do.”

  “Why would I just walk away?” she asked. “I’d never just walk away,” she added, realising as she spoke that, from a child, no-one had wanted him. “If we feel that it isn’t working, then, we’ll discuss it like adults. I’d never just walk away,” she said again.

  “Thank you.”

  “Can I see your apartment?”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  Her heart sank. “Why?”

  “Confession time, Freya. I’ve never wanted to see a client again until you. There’s just something about you and I don’t you what it is – your vulnerability maybe – and the fact that I was the one who took your virginity. But I’m so fucking attracted to you that it’s scaring me and if we went back to the apartment, I know exactly what would happen.”

  “But I want that to happen,” she admitted.

  “I know you do. And I know you want to make up for lost time, but I don’t want to just fuck you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you want a relationship? Or do you just want sex?” he asked and she stared at him. Couldn’t she have both? “No, you can’t have both. We can either have a proper grown-up relationship, which includes sex. Or we can just meet up to fuck each other. I want to have a relationship with you. I want us to try and get to know each other.” Lifting his cup, he drained it and got up. “Think about it and call me when you make a decision.”

  Open-mouthed, she watched as he picked up his newspaper got to his feet and walked away from her.

  Chapter Four

  Her mother came into the hall as Freya closed the front door an hour later, the aroma of roast beef wafting up from the kitchen.

  “Where ever have you been?” Mrs Thompson demanded. “Lunch is almost dried out.”

  “I went to see Anthony. Mummy, he’s just started seeing someone. Even if he was still single, we won’t be getting married.”

  “Your father and I only want to see you happy.”

  “I know.” Freya kissed her mother’s cheek. “But please let me make my own decisions?”

  “Very well. Decide what you want to wear this evening. Marcus Wakefield and his mother are coming to dinner.”

  She swore as she went upstairs. If she thought she was inbred, then Marcus Wakefield was the epitome of the chinless wonder. “Don’t sit me next to him, please?” she called down over the bannisters. “All he ever wants to talk about is cricket.”

  Naturally, she was seated next to the cricket bore and she tried to appear interested as he explained the leg before wicket rule to her. She gave it an hour after the meal before excusing herself from the drawing room and going upstairs to her bedroom. Her iPhone lay on her bedside table and she saw that she had three text messages. All three were from Jamie.

  Sorry 4 being the 1 2 get up and walk away. Just trying to show a little bit of self-restraint

  How about dinner sometime? Sometime soon? Sometime very soon? Like tomorrow evening?

  Call me? Call me soon? Call me very soon? Like ASAP?

  Wow. She rang his number and he answered after two rings.

  “Your self-restraint is remarkable,” she told him before he had a chance to speak. “It lasted all of one text message.”

  He laughed. “Freya. Thanks for calling. I am sorry for just walking off like that.”

  “It’s okay, I know I probably freaked you out again.”

  “A bit,” he admitted. “I had convinced myself that I would never see you again.”

  “Going to look at the office block and going into the coffee shop were spur of the moment things,” she admitted. “I never thought I’d see you again either.”


  “When I saw you sitting at the table in the coffee shop, I thought I was hallucinating.”

  “I was mortified. I might as well have had ‘crazy woman’ tattooed on my forehead.”

  “Are you free tomorrow evening?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am,” she replied, not too eagerly. “Where can we meet? I’m going to take a cab, I don’t like travelling alone on public transport after dark.”

  “The coffee shop?” he suggested. “It’s The Coffee Bean on Woodbury Street. Seven o’clock?”

  “Yes, okay. See you then.”

  “You, too.”

  Well, that was as clear as mud. Meet him at the coffee shop and not at his apartment. Then dinner. And then what? Home in a cab straight after the meal? Or back to his apartment? What could she tell her mother? What time would she be home? Would she be home?

  And what should she wear? Something to knock his socks off? Or something understated but still sexy?

  Understated was probably best, she decided, pulling a black knee-length dress out of her wardrobe.

  “Freya?” She jumped, hearing her mother’s voice at the door and spun around with the dress in her hands. “This is incredibly rude of you.”

  “Marcus’ mother I can put up with, just about,” she declared. “Him, no.”

  “We can’t always choose our dinner partner.”

  “Mummy, I endured him for the meal and for an hour afterwards. Life is far too short to be stuck listening to an inbred cricket bore.”

  “He likes you, Freya,” Mrs Thompson told her stiffly and her stomach constricted in horror. “I can see it in his face, and his mother all but admitted it to me.”

  “His mother?” Freya shook her head and turned her attention back to the dress.

  “Going out?”

  “Yes, tomorrow evening.”

  “With Amanda and Elizabeth?”

  “Yes.” She hung the dress up on the front of the wardrobe. “I might stay over with them. I’ll ring you if I do. We’re going out for a meal and I’m not quite sure what we’re going to do afterwards yet.”

  Freya surveyed herself in the wardrobe mirror the following evening, waiting for the cab to arrive. The A-line dress had a high neck but wasn’t as figure-hugging as the blue velvet dress and the black shoes she had chosen didn’t have a very high heel. Understated, but still sexy. She smiled and went downstairs.