by Jill Mansell
He grew serious. ‘We wouldn’t have wasted the past year.’
It hadn’t been wasted. She had found Alex. Still, Poppy held her breath.
‘We might not have got on.’
‘You felt the same way as I did. How often does that kind of thing happen?’
Helplessly she said, ‘So… what now?’
‘We make up for lost time.’ His dark eyes were intense. ‘We aren’t going to eat this, are we? I’ll get the bill.’
‘But… this girlfriend of yours.’
Tom shrugged. ‘It’s over.’
‘Oh God, won’t she be upset?’
Taking Poppy’s hand, he drew her to her feet and kissed her full on the mouth. Almost instantly he pulled away.
‘No, not here. I can’t kiss you how I want to kiss you. Of course she’ll be upset. I imagine your chap was upset when you called off the wedding. But you and me… when these things happen, they happen.’
Quivering, Poppy said, ‘Yes, but—’
‘Don’t argue. It’s destiny. I’m not going to lose you again.’
Tom settled the bill. Outside, he hailed a cab. It was still raining.
‘You don’t have to go back to work, by the way.’ He brushed droplets of rain from her flushed cheeks. ‘Jake’s given you the rest of the day off.’
‘That’s even more of a miracle than you turning up,’ Poppy joked feebly.
The cab had drawn to a halt in front of them.
‘I know how I’d like to spend the afternoon,’ said Tom as he helped her in, ‘but say if it’s too soon. I don’t want to pressure you.’
‘Are you kidding?’ Poppy was practically melting with lust. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’
‘Right, it’s make your mind up time,’ said the world-weary driver. ‘Your place or his?’
So the nosy cabbie couldn’t hear, Poppy whispered, shamefaced, ‘I’ve only got a single bed.’
Tom squeezed her hand. ‘That’s nothing. I’ve got a girlfriend with a key to my flat.’
***
The house was empty when they reached it. Claudia was at work and there had been no sign of Caspar for days. Poppy, who knew what a state the kitchen had been in when she’d raced out of the house that morning, took Tom straight downstairs.
‘Welcome to my rabbit hutch.’ She gestured around the tiny, messy room. ‘If I’d known you were coming I’d have made the bed.’
Tom took her into his arms.
‘Are you nervous?’
‘Of course I’m nervous. Would I be making this many bad jokes if I wasn’t?’
‘Sshh.’ He pulled her closer. ‘No more jokes. Time for that kiss I couldn’t give you earlier.’
The one good thing about horrible clothes, thought Poppy, was you couldn’t wait to get them off. And they made your body look better by comparison.
‘You are beautiful,’ said Tom. ‘I mean it.’
‘Don’t sound so surprised.’
‘Well, you never know. Some girls look stunning until you see them naked. Then you realize it was all industrial-strength knickers and Wonderbra. One minute they’re up here, the next… whoomph. Talk about a letdown.’
Poppy glanced at her own modest breasts. ‘I don’t have enough to let down.’
‘I said no more jokes.’ His dark eyes softened. ‘You’re perfect.’
‘Well,’ said Poppy an hour later, ‘that was definitely perfect.’
‘Not to mention long overdue.’
She lay in his arms and gazed around her room, seeing it as Tom must see it.
‘Sorry. This place is such a pit.’
‘Never mind, I’m here now.’ He raised himself up on one elbow and planted a necklace of kisses around her throat. ‘I’ll take you away from all this.’
‘That won’t help.’ Poppy closed her eyes, squirming with pleasure as he ran warm fingers across her bare stomach. ‘I can be untidy anywhere. It’s pro rata. The bigger the space, the more mess I make.’
‘Sshh.’ Tom kissed her again. Then he made love to Poppy a second time, slowly and thoroughly, until overcome by the events of the day she sobbed with joy.
A sheen of perspiration covered Poppy’s body. The duvet cover was sticking to her hips.
‘A bath.’ She reached over Tom, peering at her wristwatch on the bedside table. ‘That’s okay, only four o’clock. Claudia won’t be home for ages yet.’ She double-checked the time. ‘How amazing.’
Tom seized her arms and pulled her down on top of him.
‘What?’
‘It’s only four o’clock,’ Poppy sighed between kisses. ‘I feel as if we’ve been in bed together for days.’
Shaking off rain like a dog, Caspar let himself into the house. Getting away from London for the weekend was all very well—he and Babette had driven down to the Cotswolds and stayed in an hotel teeming with golfers in loud sweaters—but his commissions were piling up. Back in the real world he had work to do.
Incredibly, Bella McCloud had decided to forgive him. Now back in the country following a triumphant appearance at La Scala, the diva had instructed her manager to reschedule a series of sittings with the so-handsome young artist who had had the audacity to stand her up.
She was meeting him here in—Caspar checked his watch—twenty minutes. He lit a cigarette, since her manager had already warned him he wouldn’t be able to smoke in La McCloud’s presence. Wondering if this meant opera singers never went into pubs after a hard day’s warbling, Caspar made his way slowly upstairs.
When he reached the first-floor landing he realized the house wasn’t empty, as he had first thought. Something was going on in the bathroom. And whoever was in there clearly wasn’t alone.
Claudia? Had she and Jake got it together at last? Or was she here with her new boss, having sloped out of the office for a naughty afternoon off? Amused by this idea—giving Claudia a lift into work the other week, he had seen her middle-aged boss ogle her across the car park—Caspar listened to the sounds of shrieks and splashing filtering through the bathroom door.
Then he heard Poppy, helpless with laughter, scream, ‘No, no, not the cold water—oh you sod!’
Not Claudia. Poppy.
Caspar’s blood ran cold. What the bloody hell did she think she was playing at? Even more to the point, who was she with?
More giggles and shrieks. Caspar felt his hands curling into angry fists. Of course he knew who Poppy was with. It had to be that prat from the photographs, the lanky one with the inane grin Poppy had so boisterously entertained here while he and Claudia had both been away.
Without stopping to think what he was doing, Caspar marched up to the door and hammered on it. The door, which had been left unlocked, burst open.
Chapter 45
‘Jesus!’ exclaimed a dark-haired, dark-eyed Adonis he had never seen before in his life.
‘Aaargh!’ screamed Poppy, who had streaked along the landing earlier to grab a couple of dry towels from the airing cupboard and forgotten to re-lock the bathroom door. Like a scene from a Whitehall farce, she made a lunge for the nearest towel, which was slung around the Adonis’ hips. He hung onto it. Yelping, desperately trying to cover herself with her hands, Poppy scuttled sideways and snatched the other towel from the rail.
If he hadn’t been so furious Caspar would have found it funny.
‘What are you doing here?’ Poppy shouted, her face burning with embarrassment. She clutched the yellow towel to her chest like a toddler’s security blanket.
‘It’s my house.’
‘How dare you come barging in! You must have heard us,’ she seethed. ‘Couldn’t you have knocked?’
‘I did. I thought you’d have locked the door.’
‘I forgot!’
‘And I heard you screaming.’ Caspar looked pointedly at her companion. ‘What was I supposed to do? How did I know you weren’t being murdered?’
‘Oh, please.’ Poppy’s eyes were like chips of ice. ‘Now I’ve heard bloody everything.
’
‘Look—’ began the bloke in the towel.
‘No, you look.’ Ignoring him, Caspar pointed an accusing finger at Poppy. ‘Listen to me for once in your life. I’m not talking morals here, just plain common sense. Picking up total strangers and bringing them back to an empty house is a dangerous hobby. You’re not stupid, Poppy. You read the papers. Girls get attacked. They get raped, murdered—’
‘You’ve got a nerve!’ Poppy was so agitated she almost dropped her towel. ‘How many girls have you brought back here? I bet you didn’t lecture them about how stupid they were being! Anyway,’ she yelled, ‘I haven’t picked up a total stranger. This is Tom. Tom Kennedy.’
‘Oh well done, you know his name.’ Caspar’s voice dripped sarcasm. ‘He actually bothered to introduce himself. That’s okay then, he can’t possibly be a psychopath.’
But as he spoke, the significance of the name sank in. Tom. This was that Tom. Jake’s harebrained scheme to find him must actually have worked. He was here with Poppy and things were obviously going off with a bang.
Great.
‘Okay?’ demanded Poppy. ‘Does it all make sense now?’
Caspar was buggered if he was going to apologize.
‘So you met him once before. Big deal. You still don’t know him.’
‘I know enough,’ Poppy countered hotly.
‘Please,’ said Tom, who was far too handsome for Caspar’s liking, ‘could we all calm down? I’m really not a psychopath.’ He turned to Poppy. ‘But you can see Caspar’s point. He only has your best interests at heart.’
‘Like hell he does.’ Poppy glared at Caspar. ‘He’s just pissed off because he thinks he’s the only one around here allowed to have any fun.’
‘Now you’re being stupid,’ Caspar snapped back.
‘If you had my best interests at heart, you’d be happy for me.’ Poppy was startled to find herself thinking that if he’d had her best interests at heart he would never have married Babette Lawrenson. ‘If you really had my best interests at heart,’ she shouted, ‘you’d get the hell out of this bathroom and leave us to get dressed in peace!’
Bella McCloud had a disappointing afternoon. Having looked forward to meeting and being gently flirted with by the famously attractive Caspar French, she was feeling deeply let down. Oh, he had been polite enough, and the preliminary drawings he had done of her couldn’t be faulted—if you didn’t count the fact that he had insisted her hint of a double chin stayed in—but that had been as far as it went. Where was the charisma, the easy charm Bella had heard so much about? Caspar French had been quiet, almost abstracted. He had simply got on with the job. Not a flirtatious grin in sight.
In the back of the cab as it took her back to her hotel, Bella McCloud dug in her bag and flipped through her diary. She tapped a long red fingernail thoughtfully against the number of the Harley Street surgeon all her friends had been raving about. Maybe it was time for that face lift after all.
Tom’s flat was on the third floor of a huge Victorian house in the smarter section of Notting Hill.
‘Well? Do you approve?’ he asked when the guided tour was over. She had seen the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, and both bedrooms.
‘Very smart.’ Poppy ran her hand over the matte black wooden shelving. Recessed lights cunningly illuminated a selection of steel-framed black and white prints. The walls were pale grey, as was the almost futuristic sofa. ‘Very… architecty.’
He looked amused. ‘I don’t like clutter, if that’s what you mean.’
‘I don’t think you and Laura Ashley would have hit it off.’
‘Judith, the girl who lives downstairs, calls it stark. She hates my kitchen, says it’s like being on board a bloody spaceship.’
‘It’s not stark,’ Poppy lovingly assured him, ‘it’s manly.’
Tom put his arms around her. ‘I know. Maybe what it needs is a woman’s touch. I’ve just been waiting for the right woman to come along.’
He’s probably envisaging fresh flowers, thought Poppy; five perfect irises faultlessly arranged in a conical vase. Since her version of a woman’s touch was more likely to be cake crumbs all over the pristine kitchen worktops and blobs of mascara on the bathroom mirror she realized she was going to have to buck up her ideas pretty damn quick.
‘Right, down to business.’ Tom glanced at his watch as the oven timer in the kitchen went ping. ‘Sit down, sweetheart. Make yourself at home. I have a phone call to make.’
Thinking he meant work-type business, Poppy happily made herself comfortable on the grey sofa and chose a magazine from the coffee table. Called Architecture Today, it made her feel jolly intelligent.
She was gazing at a picture of an office block when she realized to her horror that Tom wasn’t phoning the office at all.
‘…no, it’s better if you don’t come over. Jan, listen to me. I’m sorry, really I am, but we can’t see each other anymore. Hang on, let me explain… Jan, please… I’ve met someone else. It’s serious. This is the real thing.’
He was standing with his back to Poppy, looking out of the window. Even from ten feet away she could hear the anguished wail on the other end of the phone.
Poppy squirmed. Tom listened in silence for several seconds. Then he said, ‘Jan, calm down. I know it isn’t fair but there’s nothing I can do about it. Yes, yes, I know that too. I’m a bastard. And a shit. What else can I say? I am sorry. If we could be friends, that’d be great. Look, can I ask you to do something for me? Post your key back? No, just send it in the post…’
Cringing, Poppy watched him listen for a few moments more. When he had put the phone down he turned round.
‘She doesn’t want to be friends.’
‘Oh, I feel terrible! That poor girl,’ Poppy gasped. ‘She sounded dreadfully upset.’
‘She’ll be fine.’ Tom’s smile was rueful but dismissive. ‘It just came as a shock, that’s all. She wasn’t expecting it.’
‘Neither was I.’
‘Come on, it’s over now.’ He drew her to her feet and kissed her again. ‘We can’t have you feeling sorry for Jan. It’s not as if it was the love affair of the century. We weren’t even living together.’
‘Why did she have a key?’
He led her through to the kitchen. Through the smoked glass door of the oven, a casserole in the process of being heated up could be seen.
‘It made life easier,’ said Tom. ‘Jan finished work an hour before me. She used to let herself in and make a start on the evening meal. She made this this morning,’ he went on, ‘before she left. Actually, she’s a bloody good cook.’
He was taking plates down from a steel-fronted cupboard. Then he slid open the cutlery drawer and began picking out knives and forks.
Poppy blurted out, ‘I can’t eat that casserole!’
‘Oh God, you’re not a vegetarian?’
‘No! I mean I can’t eat something your girlfriend made for the two of you to share tonight!’
Tom frowned. ‘Ex-girlfriend.’
‘Okay, ex-girlfriend.’ Poppy started to laugh. Men, honestly. ‘Don’t you see? All the more reason why I can’t eat it.’
‘Oh.’ He nodded. ‘Right. Bugger, I’m starving.’
She decided to take the plunge. He was going to have to find out sooner or later. ‘We’ll make something else. Except… I have to warn you, I’m a pretty hopeless cook.’
‘So am I.’ Tom held her face between his warm hands. ‘It doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters, Poppy. I love you.’
‘You’re in a grumpy mood,’ observed Babette. Since emerging scented and revived from her bath an hour earlier, Caspar had hardly said more than two words. She rubbed the last vestiges of moisturizer into the backs of her fingers and glanced at her diary, lying open on the sofa. ‘What was Bella McCloud like, a pain in the neck?’
Caspar stopped pretending to watch whatever was on TV. He gazed across the room at Babette, who had now finished efficiently rubbing in hand cre
am. She fished in the pocket of her white silk dressing gown, clipped her watch briskly onto her wrist and slid the narrow gold wedding ring back into place.
‘Pain in the chin, if anything.’ He shrugged. ‘She was okay.’
‘Well, something’s bothering you.’ Picking up her diary, Babette came over to his chair and draped her arms lovingly around his neck. ‘Cheer up, darling. Look who I’m seeing tomorrow.’ She pointed with pride to the name she had underlined in red, belonging to the owner of one of the smartest galleries in Knightsbridge. ‘He wants me to promote his next exhibition. Is that a coup or what?’
Becoming known as Caspar’s wife had done Babette’s career no harm at all. There had been a flurry of interest in the media, and Babette had handled it superbly, in interviews playing up the differences between the super-organized businesswoman and the laid-back artist. Their marriage certificate, Caspar joked, had been photocopied in triplicate and filed away in her office under M for marital status.
‘Great.’ He forced a smile. She was right, he was being grumpy and it wasn’t her fault. ‘Sorry. Headache.’
‘You don’t get headaches. Come on, something’s up.’ Babette slid onto his lap. ‘Isn’t this what wives are for? You can tell me.’
‘Nothing to tell. Poppy’s taken up with some old flame, that’s all.’ Caspar didn’t want to elaborate; this was close enough. ‘She thinks she’s in luurve. I just hope she isn’t making a horrible mistake.’
Babette checked her watch. It was early yet; if they made love now she would still have plenty of time to work on tomorrow’s presentation.
‘If it’s love, you could soon be losing yourself a lodger,’ she pointed out. ‘That’s good news.’
‘Why is it good news?’
‘No need to jump down my throat! I mean if Poppy moves out, maybe Claudia will go too. You’d get more money renting the house out to a family. Financially, it makes far better sense.’
Caspar grinned. ‘So organized. So efficient.’
Babette shifted position on his lap and began undoing his shirt.
‘Not to mention,’ she said happily, ‘so great in bed.’
