“I’ll accept the apology and forgive you but I do need to think about the job.” She told him. “It’s a big decision.”
“I know. I’ll send you the paperwork when I get back to the office so you can look it over and take advice on the contract if you need to.” He flashed her one of his dazzling smiles and then pulled her into a warm and comfortable hug. “I’m glad we talked this over. I’d quite like to spend many more nights drinking good wine on the balcony playing our guitars.”
“Me too. I think I’d like that very much.” They squeezed tightly to seal the deal, clinked their coffee cups and the matter was settled.
Taylor left for the airport just after lunch to fly back to London and Elise decided to head straight home. Her wrist was still aching and she hadn’t been resting it enough because the swelling was getting worse so she wasn’t up to a day out shopping. As it happened it was for the best because her best friend Fern was waiting in her car in Elise’s driveway when she pulled into her little hillside cottage.
“How long have you been waiting?” Elise asked as they hugged and Fern shrugged.
“Not long. Maybe only ten minutes or so. I figured you’d leave at the same time as the mysterious Mr Stone so I checked the flight times for London and calculated from there.”
“You’re far too clever for your own good.” Elise laughed. “I’m glad you’re here though. Would you carry my bag for me – I broke my wrist and my guitar is in the car too.”
“You broke your wrist?” Fern was astonished. “You actually went skiing?”
“No!” Elise blushed. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you when we get in. It’s bloody freezing out here.”
“You get yourself inside and get the kettle on. I’ll empty the car. I brought some milk just in case.” Fern shooed Elise into the house and brought everything in while Elise made a pot of tea and opened some biscuits. Then she told her the whole story of the last 3 days from start to finish. Fern’s eyes were wide by the time Elise was done. “What are you going to do?” She demanded breathlessly and Elise shrugged.
“I don’t know. I mean...it’s Monochrome! It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. But what if I can’t do it? And, if anything, last night just goes to show that it’s a totally alien world to me. Do I really want to work for a guy that would sleep with me just because he’s horny and I happen to be in the room? I could have been any nameless, faceless woman and that’s pretty demeaning.”
“I can’t believe you turned him down.” Fern grinned. “I Googled him. He’s gorgeous!”
“He also wants to employ me!” Elise protested, laughing. “It would have been a disaster. Besides, he told me straight up he doesn’t think of me romantically. It was an aberration. I’ll be astonished if we even stay friends. I’m half convinced he only made the apology this morning because he really wants me to do the feature for him, not because he genuinely likes me. By the time you account for all the hours he spent on the slopes we were only in each other’s company for maybe 15 hours and a few of those were spent at the hospital. You mark my words...I won’t hear from him again.”
Chapter 3
5 weeks later, as she sat on a flight to London, those words came back to haunt Elise. As expected she hadn’t heard from Taylor once. Not one word, not a peep, not a single letter, call or email. The paperwork had arrived with a compliment slip scribbled by another of his secretaries and when she had accepted the position and sent everything back it had been Nikki-of-the-perky-voice who organised her flights and accommodation. As much as it had been expected it still stung slightly and Elise didn’t know how she would react if she actually saw him in the course of her employment.
She had fully intended not to take the job on at all but one look at the proposed salary and extremely generous contract had forced her to realise that she couldn’t afford to turn it down, especially given the clauses that allowed for the term of the contract to be extended to permanent if all went well. She had taken it to a friendly solicitor in town who had looked it over, congratulated her and then taken her to the pub for a bottle of champagne. She’d have been cutting off her nose to spite her face if she’d turned it down because of one silly night where nothing had actually happened.
Nikki met her at the airport and turned out to be just as perky of body as she was of voice and another pang shot through Elise. If he was working with glamorous creatures like this gorgeous sylph-like naiad in front of her then it was no wonder he hadn’t called. She glanced down at her own travel rumpled clothes and felt distinctly like the poor cousin. They didn’t talk much on the way into the city, although Nikki explained that Elise would be staying in one of Mr Stone’s properties.
“How many does he have?” Elise was not really surprised and Nikki shrugged.
“In London or globally?”
“Uh...both?” It really was like landing on a whole other planet.
“In London he has twelve properties personally but he has a few more that he leases to the magazine for exactly this sort of purpose. Globally I’d have to guess at maybe fifty but I’m not really sure. He has a management company that deals with them.”
Fifty? Elise shook her head in disbelief and stared out the window at the passing streets. Who needed that many houses? Sure a lot of them would be used for business transactions, but she suspected a lot of them were holiday homes like the chalet in Aviemore. It made her sad to think of all of that gorgeous real estate just lying empty.
Nikki glanced at her with something close to pity on her face. “Look, it’s probably not my place to say anything but I feel I should probably tell you, woman to woman...I don’t know if anything happened between you and Mr Stone up in Scotland but down here is a completely different ballgame. He goes through women like most people go through clean underwear. They’re all wealthy and pretty young socialites. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Elise willed her face to stop burning at the unintended slight. She knew Nikki was just trying to be kind but it still stung. “I understand. Nothing happened in Scotland. It was just a job interview. I don’t sleep with my employers.”
“That’s good.” Nikki nodded and turned her attention back to the traffic and they drove the rest of the way in silence.
The apartment they had put her in was near the wharf. It was a huge modern building all shiny with steel and glass and, although it looked beautiful on the outside, on the inside it was so soulless it made Elise’s teeth ache. Her apartment was on the 12th floor and it was fully furnished but, apart from a well stocked kitchen, everything else was empty and the two boxes Elise had shipped down were sitting forlornly in the centre of the palatial living room floor. She parked her suitcase next to them and followed Nikki through to a small study that looked out over the Thames.
“There’s a file on here with all the details on the apartment.” Nikki gestured to the book shelves. “A cleaner comes once a week and there are local business numbers in there too – taxis and takeaways etc. The local tube station is just up the street if you turn right out the front door. Here are your keys and we keep spares in the office. This is an Oyster card for you.” She handed them over. “We’ve set you up with a company lap top that’s linked to the company network. Your email and so on is already set up so you can just click on the office icons. These are the files on the men you will be writing the feature on.” She laid a hand on six grey folders sat on the desk by the laptop. “They’ve all been vetted and are aware of what’s going on. I’ve left names and numbers for all of Mr Stone’s secretaries in the rolodex so if you need anything else just give us a call.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Elise managed a slightly overwhelmed smile. “Just looking forward to getting unpacked and starting work.”
“Excellent.” Nikki swept up a few items of post on her exit and then Elise was left alone in the echoing flat.
Within half an hour she had unpacked her boxes and suitcase so she grabbed the house file from the study, made a cup of tea in
the kitchen with the milk someone had thoughtfully left in the fridge and sat at the breakfast bar to study the folder. As promised there were numbers of taxi companies and takeaway menus but someone had also helpfully printed maps of the area with the nearest post office, grocery store, tube station, hospital and, bizarrely, police station marked in red and green pens. The security code for the wifi was printed neatly alongside the number for the property management company and Elise bookmarked that page for future reference.
With not much else to do and too tired to start looking at the work, Elise finished her tea, took the copy of the map, wrote the address of the apartment in the back of her diary, programmed a taxi number into her phone and left the apartment on foot to go food shopping. It was a beautiful spring day and she took her time meandering into town. It had been a long time since she had last visited London and she had forgotten the constant noise and traffic and heat. With a start she realised she would be able to visit anywhere she wanted in her free time and the thought made her smile. She hadn’t been to the Natural History Museum since she was a child and she’d always wanted to visit the V&A. She could go and have dinner in Covent Garden and watch the street performers, perhaps go to a show. She’d always loved musicals and there were probably a few new ones she hadn’t seen. With a spring in her step she purchased some breakfast and lunch items and carted them back to her apartment.
When that was done it was still early afternoon so she consulted her map once more, stuck some ID into her purse and set back off out to find the local library. It was in a slightly rundown building that smelled like libraries everywhere – paper, plastic dust covers and cheap carpets. She spent a happy hour perusing the reference books before heading into the fiction section. She hadn’t brought anything with her to read and it was one of her favourite pastimes so she selected several books that looked promising and went to register for a card.
“You new here?” The guy behind the counter glanced up and smiled and Elise’s breath caught in her throat. He was gorgeous in a nerdy sort of way – brown curls tumbling waywardly all over the place and warm hazel eyes offset by an olive green T-shirt portraying a band Elise had never heard of. “I’m sure I’d remember a face as pretty as yours.”
“Yeah I just arrived today.” She blushed furiously.
“And you’re already in the library checking out...” he glanced at the book at the top of the pile “historical romances? You must be on your own.”
Surprised, Elise burst out laughing. “Yeah I’m down here for work for the summer.”
“Excellent. Well, we’re not really supposed to give out library cards to people who haven’t lived here for three months but for you I’ll make an exception. Just don’t tell anyone.” His eyes twinkled. “I might get sacked.”
Elise was instantly contrite. “I had no idea. If it’ll get you into trouble then don’t worry about it. I’ll find something else to do.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He waved her concerns away and clacked at the keyboard, entering her name, date of birth and address in. “That is an excellent photograph.” He commented as he photocopied her passport for the library records and Elise blushed.
“Thanks. It must have been a lucky day. My last one made me look like a convict.”
He burst out laughing. “My current one makes me look like a convict. I don’t know how they do it. It must be some function they program into the photo booths.” Quickly and efficiently he laminated the card that got printed out and handed it to her with a flourish. “Welcome to London Miss Waterford.”
“Thank you.” She smiled as he scanned all the books for her and put them into a carrier bag.
“Look,” he began as she was about to leave “I know this is pretty forward of me but do you have any friends down here or anyone you know in the city?”
“No. I haven’t been here for years and my family lives in the West Country.” Elise confessed and he nodded.
“Would you like to go for coffee sometime? I can introduce you to some people, show you the local area. It must be pretty lonely being here on your own.”
Elise hesitated but then thoughts of the large empty apartment awaiting her at the wharf surfaced and she smiled. “Are you sure? That would be great.”
“Of course I’m sure.” He fished around in his pockets and produced a slightly battered mobile phone. “What’s your number?” Elise recited it to him and he programmed it in, calling it once he had it saved, and Elise could feel her phone buzzing about in her bag. “Now you have my number too. My name is Nathan.” He stuck out his hand and Elise shook it, smiling so widely she thought her face might crack.
“Elise. Nice to meet you.”
“You too. Pretty name.” He grinned. “I’m off work tomorrow so I’ll call in the morning and we can arrange somewhere to meet.”
“I look forward to it.” Still smiling she headed back out into the crisp spring sunshine and headed back to the apartment with a feeling that the summer might not be so bad after all.
She slept well and was in the study by 10am checking emails and flicking through the folders they had left for her. Everything seemed fairly straightforward and she had several emails from people introducing themselves and explaining the procedures to her. There was still nothing from Taylor which she found a little odd, given that he was now the overall editor of the section she would be working on and therefore her line manager, but Nikki’s words replayed themselves in her head and she sighed. Of course he didn’t have time for the likes of her.
Nathan called just before lunch and they arranged to meet at a small independent coffee house about half an hour’s walk from the apartment. It was another sunny day so Elise walked there enjoying the sights and sounds of the big city. He was just as cute as she’d remembered him and turned out to be surprisingly funny and charming for someone who was so clearly a geek. They laughed all afternoon talking about their backgrounds and hobbies and why Elise was in the city. At six o’clock when they were clearly waiting to close the cafe Nathan took her hand.
“Come on, I don’t think we’ve finished this conversation yet. We’ll have to move on to dinner!” Laughingly Elise agreed and they headed to the tube station. An hour and several changes later they had travelled on the northern line to Colindale and disembarked.
“I’ve never been to this part of London before.” Elise looked around at the industrial buildings and housing estates and Nathan grinned.
“Not many people have but it’s the home of the best Chinese food in the city. There’s a big Chinese shopping mall here, the Yaohin Plaza. It’s a bit of a walk though. Do you want to get a taxi?”
“No, I’m fine walking.” So they strolled hand in hand through the streets while Nathan told her about the other sights in the area. The Air Force museum was in Colindale as well as the headquarters for the Health Protection Agency. Elise was beginning to realise how valuable it was to have a friend who knew the city. She’d never have found this place on her own.
By the time they got to the mall most of the shops were closed but the food courts, restaurants and Chinese food markets were doing a roaring trade and they finally settled at a table with trays stuffed to bursting with freshly cooked food.
“This is amazing!” Elise didn’t know where to start. She had scallops in oyster sauce with cashew nuts, beef strips on black bean sauce, noodles and two different kinds of rice. Nathan had encouraged her to try some of everything and his plate was no less stuffed.
“I would say it’s a good idea to start from the outside and work in.” He advised wisely and she grinned.
“Excellent plan. Don’t expect any conversation for at least twenty minutes.”
He was already tucking in to his. “Girl, you are going to get no arguments from me!”
It was after ten o’clock by the time they arrived back at her apartment. Nathan had insisted on walking her back to the door saying it wasn’t safe for a girl to be out on the streets on her own but there wasn’t any awkwardn
ess as they arrived.
“Thank you for a lovely evening!” He announced gallantly, kissing her cheek. “Well, day really considering what time we started.”
“No, thank you. I’ve had a great time.” Elise grinned at him and he bowed.
“Excellent. I’m going to a barbecue tomorrow night if you want to come. It’s going to be a big group of my friends so it won’t be awkward. We might even go out afterwards.” Elise hesitated and he did the most amazing puppy dog eyes she’d ever seen on a human. “Please say you’ll come, it’ll be a laugh.”
“Okay, I’ll come.” She found herself saying and he grinned broadly, flashing strong white teeth.
“Awesome. I’ll meet you at the tube station at six?”
Summer Loving Page 4
