Come Away With Me

by Maddie Please

  We didn’t do ten circuits of the ship but we had our lunchtime drinks just the same. And a brie and cranberry panini. And a bowl of fries. Never mind fitting into my bridesmaid’s dress, I’d have trouble fitting into my car at this rate.

  ‘I want to be a writer, just like Marnie,’ India said, her eyes focused on her future fame, riches and book signings in Foyles. ‘I mean how hard can it be? Really? Marnie can do a book a year and the last one sold over half a million copies. If she only got one pound for each book that’s half a million quid. I could do that.’

  ‘What are you going to write about?’ I said.

  India began to look misty-eyed. I bet she was imagining herself in a few years stepping out from Marnie’s shadow as a writing expert and celebrity with designer clothes and sharp little shoes.

  ‘I’ll think of something. I’m going to write down a plot this afternoon. I’m going to devote every single waking moment to it from now on.’

  India usually had trouble finishing writing a shopping list so I thought this might be a stretch too far but I wasn’t going to dampen her enthusiasm.

  ‘That would be really good,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not going to let anything or anyone distract me until I’ve got it done.’

  India crammed the last two fries into her mouth and mopped up some salty crystals with her finger.

  ‘But I thought we were going to Fruit Platters to Delight Your Friends at two-thirty?’ I said.

  I’d decided to join India at this event as she had complained about being ‘abandoned’ yesterday evening, and we’d missed the Fabergé talk. Plus it was worth trying to mend fences with her. We weren’t going to have any excursions to distract us from our issues for the next few days, so it would be better if we got along.

  ‘Well, after that obviously,’ India said, linking her arm through mine. ‘I’m not going to turn into a complete bore. And anyway I might want my main character to provide a fruit platter to delight her friends at some point in my book. So it’s research actually.’

  ‘You’re right, good thinking.’

  *

  The fruit platter thing was really good I have to admit. The chef was another of the inscrutable-looking ones with a towering white hat and I don’t think he spoke much English apart from saying very good or yes. There were large mounds of fruit of every colour, shape and size, and some small oval dishes for us to use, and we were shown how to arrange all sorts of things in an attractive and enticing way. Afterwards we were encouraged to take our platters back to our cabins but by then India and I had eaten most of it anyway so we didn’t bother. I thought it unlikely we would be doing it again any time soon if I was honest; well, not without a good dollop of ice cream.

  ‘I think I need a nap,’ I said, feeling distinctly full and a bit tired. But then I’d had a bad night’s sleep what with one thing and another so it wasn’t really surprising.

  ‘Well, I’m going to the library to write out my plot,’ India said, looking industrious, and I realised I hadn’t seen her this fired up about anything other than the wedding in a long time. It was good for her, and for me.

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  ‘Don’t you want to come with me?’ she asked, a bit puzzled. ‘You can be a bestselling writer too.’

  ‘I’ll have a nap first,’ I said, stifling a yawn, ‘and then I’ll join you.’

  I went to get the lift up to the eleventh floor. I reached my cabin and was about to close the door behind me when Gabriel’s door opened.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ he said.

  We stood and looked at each other for a moment, my heart thundering.

  ‘What have you been doing?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Fruit Platters to Delight Your Friends,’ I managed to say, just before he reached out and touched my mouth with one finger and I shuddered.

  Then he took hold of my hand and I went willingly into his cabin. ‘Come in here and tell me about it.’

  He locked the door behind me and started unbuttoning my shirt. I watched his hands, busy on the little buttons, before I reached out, grabbed his belt and pulled him towards me. I could feel the heat from his body.

  He leant over me, his eyes hovering over mine for an excruciatingly long second, before he kissed me. ‘You taste of strawberries. Fruit Platters to Delight Your Friends?’

  ‘I think we could delight each other,’ I said, as the wanton part of me I’d just discovered took over.

  I saw his eyes flash, before he lowered his head and softly bit my shoulder. ‘I think we could too.’

  Twenty seconds later we were naked on the bed together. No preliminary chitchat or would you like something to drink? Tea or Coffee? Iced water? No messing about with how was your day? We didn’t say another word; we just took off our clothes and got down to it. It was fast and furious and fantastic. I’d never known anything like it; it was even better than last night. And I swear, as I cried out, he groaned my name.

  I held his head against my heart and ran my fingers through his hair. A sudden wash of feeling flowed through me. Call it tenderness or care or concern for him. I wasn’t sure. He was kind, clever, passionate, handsome, interesting and successful. How could any woman look for something else when she had this? Suddenly I could sense the sadness within him, the loneliness, the need. A restless searching for something. Perhaps a wish to be valued as a man, for himself. The emotions I had felt in the past were nothing compared with this moment. I was in deep trouble.

  ‘Wow,’ he said at last.

  ‘Mmmmm,’ I agreed and closed my eyes.

  For two pins I would have fallen asleep, but I couldn’t do that.

  I made to get out of his bed, only for him to pull me back, curving his body around mine. I liked the feel of that and gave a little murmur of pleasure.

  Then, without meaning to, we fell asleep, and when I woke up there were people outside in the corridor, going back to their cabin, laughing, someone stumbling and exclaiming, Miranda – these bloody shoes!

  It was a good job I wasn’t going to see Gabriel again after this week because it would have been terribly embarrassing. Everyone knew the rule of unattached sex was for the sex to happen and then you left. No hard feelings and no expectations. But, well, Gabriel had wanted to hold me. So maybe this was different for him too. Oh, God, stop! This was a fling, a holiday romance based on something I didn’t understand. It wasn’t going to blossom into something else, was it? We would not in forty years’ time be interviewed for a programme called Holiday Romances that Lasted a Lifetime on an obscure television channel. I needed to get a grip!

  Never mind; there were many ways to spend an hour in the afternoon and this was undoubtedly the best I’d known. I bet I used up thousands of calories too and it was far more fun than pounding around the promenade deck ten times in an eye shield.

  I couldn’t stay there, no matter how much I wanted to, because of the whole this isn’t a relationship, it’s a bit of fun thing. But also because, if I did, there would be dozens of unanswerable and embarrassing questions from India. I couldn’t think which would be worse.

  ‘I must go,’ I said.

  Gabriel turned his head away. ‘Oh. Why?’

  I didn’t know what to do for a second. Did he want me to stay? Or go? Had he enjoyed me as much as I had enjoyed him?

  I collected my clothes and pulled them on. He pulled the duvet over himself and watched me.

  ‘Alexa.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I want you to know, I –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Marnie …’

  I looked at him for a second but he just shook his head.

  Of course; we were having a fling. He didn’t want Marnie to know. She was his employer after all. I wasn’t expecting him to propose or anything. I mean it was just sex.

  I took a deep breath. ‘You needn’t worry; you don’t need to explain. We’re just having fun, aren’t we? Anyway, I’ll see you.’ I made myself smile at him. ‘That was great.’
>
  Great? What sort of word was that? My whole body was tingling and pulsing with pleasure. I wasn’t sure I could walk straight. Great didn’t nearly cover it.

  He looked at me. ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘Well then. I’d better –’ I made some vague gesture. ‘Sorry about the … you know?’

  The bed looked as though we’d been fighting and his cabin could have been the scene of a burglary.

  Gabriel’s clothes were all over the place. We had knocked a shade off one of the bedside lamps and the fruit bowl had fallen on the floor, the fruit scattered under the bed. A vase of silk flowers had tipped over and the decorative glass pebbles inside were falling down the back of the sofa cushions. The steward was going to weep when he saw it.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said, a smile playing on his lips.

  I checked I had my shirt on the right way round and went back to my cabin. Thank the gods, India wasn’t there. I went into the shower and used all the new selection of toiletries and then sprayed myself with her perfume and sat wrapped in a bathrobe on the balcony, thinking. The thinking process was helped by a very large gin and tonic from the mini bar that I think counted as medicinal.

  It was getting chilly and I knew I wouldn’t stay outside for long, but I wanted to be there in the cold air, knowing Gabriel was only a step away in the next cabin. Maybe he was asleep, still with my sweat on his body, or he could be showering. Either way I would have given a lot to be in there with him.

  I thought back to what we had been doing and blinked a bit. I’d never been like this in my life. I mean when I was with Ryan we had done a bit of role-play to try and spice things up, but the outfit he had bought me was nylon and very scratchy so I couldn’t wait to get it off. And while we’re on the subject, would anyone else in the Western world find dressing up their girlfriend as a nuclear power station worker sexy? No, I didn’t think so either.

  But this? Chucking myself at someone I hardly knew? What on earth had come over me? Apart from an exceptionally attractive and sexy man I mean.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Atlantic Breeze

  Light Rum, Apricot Brandy, Galliano, Pineapple Juice, Lemon Juice

  I got dressed and went to find India. She was supposed to be in the library but that was full of Americans looking for Sudoku books and jigsaws of the Titanic and buying souvenir keyrings and baseball caps with Reine de France embroidered on them. I eventually found her sitting in the bar next door in a big leather armchair with her feet up on a footstool, her laptop open. She had a cocktail and some salted peanuts on the table next to her. I flopped down in the adjacent chair.

  ‘Oh, hello. I was wondering where you had got to,’ she said. ‘I’ve got on so brilliantly you wouldn’t believe it. I’ve got the whole story mapped out and I’m just trying to think of names for my main characters. It’s not as easy as you might think. Have you had a nice nap?’

  I hesitated, thinking about it, and then realised one of the waiters was already homing in on me, rotating a round tray balanced on his outspread fingers. Now was neither the time nor the place to go into details.

  ‘A nice nap? Absolutely!’

  The waiter flipped a paper coaster down on the table in front of me and waited, his head tilted politely.

  ‘What are you drinking?’ I said.

  India looked at her drink. ‘An Atlantic Breeze – it seemed appropriate.’

  I turned back to the waiter. ‘I’ll have what she’s having,’ I said and then of course was convulsed with giggles remembering that scene in When Harry Met Sally.

  ‘Are you quite all right?’ India said, giving me a hard stare.

  ‘Yes, great.’ I mopped my eyes with a paper napkin and tried to calm down.

  India carried on typing for a few seconds and I took some deep breaths and tried to wipe my mind of the rather startling images of Gabriel and what we had been doing with each other less than an hour previously.

  ‘Your drink, madame.’ The waiter was back, all sloe eyes and snake hips. He put my luminous cocktail down on the coaster and fussed about with a napkin and a bowl of nuts. I think he was trying to send me an engaging look but I didn’t have the energy or inclination to respond.

  ‘Can I get you anything else, ladies?’ he said with a definite hint of seduction in his voice. ‘My name is Pascal. You only ’ave to ask. I am at your service.’

  It was five-thirty; I had a rather nice glass of rocket fuel in front of me, the prospect of another fine dinner ahead. I might need a lot of things but a flirtatious episode with a rather oily French waiter wasn’t one of them. And I was not at home to Mr Suggestive, thanks all the same.

  Pascal wandered off with a dissatisfied Gallic pout.

  ‘So what have you been doing? Did you find out about the talk on the Titanic?’

  ‘Hmm? What? No, I forgot.’

  India sighed in exasperation. ‘I did ask you to find out. We’d better not have missed it. I’m sure it’s sometime tomorrow. Someone told me it’s really interesting.’

  ‘Liam, I suppose?’

  ‘No,’ India said with an exaggerated eye-roll, ‘forget about him.’

  ‘Yes, well, you’re spoken for. I’m supposed to be looking after you. And protecting you from people like him.’

  ‘Oh, beak out of it,’ India muttered.

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t be flirting.’

  ‘I wasn’t, believe me. The day I take advice from you on how to behave is the day I throw in the towel.’

  ‘Right! How would you feel if Jerry said the same thing to his friends when he’s enjoying the fleshpots of Wolverhampton?’

  ‘Jerry wouldn’t dare!’ India said furiously.

  ‘Well, nor should you,’ I said. ‘Now tell me about your plot?’

  The situation was mercifully defused and India looked pleased I was showing some interest. I decided I was going to keep a closer eye on Liam in future.

  ‘Well –’ she scrolled back through her notes ‘– it’s going to be about a girl who can’t find Mr Right and has been out with all sorts of unsuitable men. A bit like you. But then she meets a man on the Internet or she might meet him somewhere else. I haven’t decided. And he’s not what he says he is. But then nor is she. He claims to be a solicitor – you see I can get all the legal jargon from Jerry to make it sound realistic – when in fact he is a duke. Or possibly an earl. Which do you think sounds sexier? I can’t think of many dukes who are hot stuff. I’ll have to google them when we get home. Earls sound younger, don’t they? And the heroine is an estate agent because I know all about that …’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Very funny. But she says she’s a party planner because it sounds more interesting. And he asks her to organise his mother’s eightieth birthday party and of course she doesn’t have a clue. He’s expecting a marquee and catering for two hundred and she turns up with some sandwiches in clingfilm and a Victoria sponge with Smarties on the top. And it all goes incredibly wrong but in the end it’s fine. And she in return asks him about problems she’s having with her lease and her shitty landlord and of course he gives her legal advice that’s completely wrong because he doesn’t have a clue either.’

  ‘So what happens?’

  ‘Well, they all live happily ever after of course. And she gets to marry a duke or earl and moves to live in his castle. With a load of servants and a walk-in wardrobe full of really cool clothes.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  India smiled happily.

  I thought about it.

  ‘I read about a duke the other day in the papers. He had to move into a cottage on his estate and open his stately home to the public because of crippling death duties. Your duke doesn’t have a castle with a leaking roof he can’t afford to repair? Or a mad aunt in the attic who thinks she’s about to be married to her fiancé who actually ran off with the housekeeper twenty years ago? And is there a bad-tempered butler who is stealing the family portraits and selling them on eBay?’

  India too
k a deep breath. ‘No, none of those things.’

  ‘I know, he could have a completely crazy ex-wife who lives on the estate in a house at the end of the driveway with seven terriers and an Italian riding instructor?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t –’

  ‘And a rakish younger brother called Piers who is always trying to murder him so he gets to be the duke? But the duke doesn’t realise it and he’s continually allowing himself to be lured out on the lake in a leaking rowboat or up on the roof in force nine winds? He could have a sister called Petula who’s a raving alcoholic and sets fire to the drawing room curtains with a cigarette lighter. ’

  ‘Um –’

  ‘I can see it all now. His mother – the dowager duchess – is the Spanish society beauty Berengaria, who now looks like Maggie Smith in a mantilla. But she’s had oodles of plastic surgery so her face is so tight she can’t sneeze. And she lives in the best rooms in the castle, which by rights should be our heroine’s, but the dowager refuses to move out because the previous duchess made a deathbed confession that she had hidden some priceless emeralds in the room during the war but can’t remember where. So the dowager wanders about at night in her dead husband’s hairy dressing gown looking for the secret panel, and all they can hear is a ghostly tapping. How about this then: the duke is desperate to provide an heir to the family fortunes so he and the heroine spend every other chapter shagging each other senseless in every room in the house, gradually getting more and more rude and experimental. You could add in some spanking and bondage, couldn’t you? Isn’t that what the English aristocracy go in for?’

  India looked confused and a bit annoyed.

  ‘No, that’s not what I planned at all.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  ‘My heroine is going to be called Devon or McKenzie, something really modern, and the hero is Alfred or Arthur or something. And he’s really handsome and looks like Tom Hiddleston with black hair. And he rides a big grey horse round the estate and has a chocolate Labrador called Treacle.’