by Jules Wake
With a shake and a rattle, the train pulled out of the traditional Victorian station with its painted white wrought-iron and pretty hanging baskets, sliding away from the view of industrial yards and workshops into open countryside in a matter of minutes.
I sneaked a few glances at the man across the way. If he weren’t such an arrogant git and didn’t have such a pissed-off expression on his face, I might have thought him quite good looking with his almost golden skin and the unusual coloured eyes, which were heavily fringed with lashes most girls would envy. The severe haircut didn’t suit his thick black glossy hair but I liked those dark heavy eyebrows that framed a very attractive face with a square, almost movie-star, chiselled jawline.
As if he felt the silent study, he glanced up and glared at me. I dropped my eyes to his crotch; that dark stain across the waistband and down his mid-grey trousers really was quite unfortunate. I shot him a small smirk. Okay, so I wasn’t being very nice but all my attempts to be helpful earlier had been rudely rebuffed.
His lips hardened and he stared at me. A hard stare. Shades of Paddington. Well, two could play at that game. I would stare back at him until he dropped his gaze. Unfortunately, he was made of sterner stuff and held my gaze without a trace of self-consciousness or any sign of backing down. I stiffened and sat a little taller, which made his lips curve very slightly with a touch of derision, as if this were some small sign of weakness. I took this as a direct challenge and lifted my chin. I raised an eyebrow, which gave me what I knew was a haughty air. Ros had told me off on more than one occasion for using this, saying it made me appear horribly superior, which I thought wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
He raised one of his eyebrows as if to say, is that the best you’ve got? It was almost cute. He was almost cute. A little ping of recognition went off in my chest. I very nearly caved and smiled at his sheer arrogance and self-confidence. He was gorgeous and he knew it, but… no; I forced my mouth to firm into a straight, uncompromising line. He really did have the most amazing eyes and at the moment I had carte blanche to study them. It was rather liberating. The colour was almost sea green but with a touch of whisky. Now his cockiness had been replaced with sheer determination. Again, I nearly crumbled. I could almost see the testosterone boiling up. He was hell bent on winning this challenge. Well, so was I. I quirked my lips in an answering satisfied smirk, as if I knew something he didn’t. As I did, I was aware of the older man sitting next to him putting down his paper and tuning in to the show. It was like a domino effect, and now, in my peripheral vision, I could see the other commuters one by one turning to watch the silent battle of wills.
Oh dear God. What have we started?
There was a heavy, charged atmosphere in the carriage and my skin prickled in awareness of the glances flicking back and forth between me and this random stranger. I felt the flush heating my cheeks which made the cocky git smile, his wide mouth curving up to reveal a flash of white teeth. Nice mouth.
Oh yes, go the whole hog Claire. Imagine what it would be like to kiss him because that’s really going to help.
Yes, very nice mouth. His lower lip is full, sort of biteable…
Seriously. I’d really said that in my head. I was really thinking that. I sank my teeth into my own lips, imaging it a little too vividly.
From the sudden flicker of his eyes, I must have given myself away. He was a hunter. The sort that thrived on the chase. My heart fluttered, an honest-to-God flutter, and almost as if he sensed it, his eyes narrowed.
Oh heck, what is he thinking now? Does he know?
Does he know that I’m imagining bad things, inappropriate things? Wholly-inappropriate-on-a-packed-train things. Like taking that white shirt off.
I sat up smartly. This was not train behaviour. It wasn’t normal behaviour. Certainly not my normal. Despite all this weird stuff going on in my brain, I held his gaze.
It hadn’t been too difficult at all at the beginning to see exactly what he was thinking.
I’m going to win. I’m going to beat you. I’m going to grind you to dust under my superior staring skills.
Now he was warier and – I was pleased to see – a little bit impressed.
Yeah, sunshine. Not so arrogant now, are you?
He does have lovely eyes though…
The train pulled in to the next station and new people crowded into the carriage. One man was even grabbed and held back by a passenger to prevent him standing in front of us. Everyone was watching us, craning their necks to keep us in their eyeline. Oh God, we were the star attraction on board. There was no way either of us could give way now.
And the cockiness was back – he’d also realised that we were the centre of attention. I was conscious of the bated breaths around us against the backdrop of the noisy rattle of the train.
God, he’s sure of himself.
His eyes bored into mine and there it was again, the tiny trip in my pulse. This was quite sexy. A power of wills. I parted my lips and just touched my upper lip with the tip of my tongue. I saw the answering glimmer in his eyes, a fractional movement of his muscles. He’d noticed all right. I shot him a sultry smile which did more harm than good because his eyes widened ever so slightly, and if I hadn’t been staring so intently at him I wouldn’t have seen it.
Bad move.
This man was not backing down from a challenge and now I’d ramped it up. No, he wasn’t going to give way, not now I’d added sex into the mix. His brows rose again and he gave me a mocking smile, with enough kilowatts of sexiness to knock me back into my seat.
Whoops, big mistake. Huge.
But a thrill of adrenaline burst through me; I felt edgy and alive. Aware of my body. Aware of the sexual buzz that thrummed through my veins.
With a sudden jolt, the train came to an abrupt halt, sending the people hanging onto the rails pitching forward. A woman in a lightweight pale blue mac lost her handhold and tumbled forward, almost landing in his lap. Instinctively he glanced her way, his hands moving to steady her.
Ha! He’d lost. He looked away first. When he turned back to me, I gave him a small grin of triumph and with a lift of my brows, shuffled my papers and made much of going back to my presentation as if he was no longer worthy of my time. I was dying to sneak a peek at him but the challenge had been won. There wasn’t going to be a rematch. I ignored the voice in my head, all for being fair and honest, arguing the case that my victory was by default.
A few minutes later, after the train lurched forward again, it slowed into Leeds City station. Standing up, startled a little by a burst of regret, I waited until he raised his head and met my eyes.
‘Good luck with your meeting,’ I said with a victor’s smile and sauntered off the train.
I’d never noticed him before on my morning commute in the last six months of walking across the park to the station. Churchstone was a relatively small place, with a population I was sure I’d read somewhere of only thirteen thousand people – a hell of a lot smaller than I was used to, given the nearly half a million that lived in Leeds, where I’d spent the previous six years.
Part of me wanted to turn back and see where he was but I resisted. Would I ever bump into him again? Although, I could do without the ‘bump’ part. I glanced down at my coffee-stained chest and groaned inwardly.
Halfway down the platform, I felt a prickling down my back and a second later he pulled level. My heart leaped at the sight of his dark, handsome face.
‘I’d have won if it hadn’t been for the interruption,’ he said.
‘Ha, you’d like to think so.’ I felt a burst of pleasure. ‘Only losers look for excuses.’
‘Excuses?’ he all but spluttered. ‘She fell into my lap.’
I shrugged, biting back a grin, as if to say, not my problem.
‘Are you always this contrary?’ he asked as we mounted the stairs.
‘I’m not contrary,’ I said indignantly. ‘Most people think I’m lovely.’
Surprising me, his mou
th curved into a sudden grin which did the whole clichéd transform-his-face thing, but it really did. Those eyes really were something and he had the most perfect teeth, except the bottom ones crossed each other very slightly.
‘Okay, prove it.’
‘How am I supposed to do that?’ I asked.
Like a magician with a quick sleight of hand, he produced a business card between his fingers and pushed it into the top pocket of my suit with an arrogant grin, that did something to my insides. Either there were fledgling butterflies in there or I’d got a bad case of indigestion.
‘Come out for a drink with me. A week on Friday. Here’s my card. Text me.’
Chapter Two
Ashwin Laghari,
Financial Director
When I got to the office I’d flipped the card backwards and forwards over my hand. It had been ages since I’d had so much as a sniff of a date. All work and no play made Claire very dull. And I didn’t want to be dull. He’d sparked something that had lit a little glow of excitement in what was otherwise a fairly barren landscape. While sitting at my desk, something had made me send a distinctly out-of-character, playful text to Ashwin Laghari, of the sexy long legs and unusual, piercing eyes. He wasn’t having things all his own way and besides, on Friday nights I tended to stay late in the office and get as much done as I could before heading home. My reply had been:
Dinner, a week on Saturday. 8pm. The Beech House. Coffee Girl. x
I swallowed as a twinge of nerves flashed in the pit of my stomach. Ashwin Laghari. After a whole day of radio silence, he’d finally responded to my text.
You strike a hard bargain. Saturday it is. See you there.
Despite its brevity, I must have read it dozens of times over the last ten days and now here I was on Saturday afternoon, less than three hours to lift off. I’d kept my eyes peeled for him on my daily walk across the park to the train station but hadn’t seen him once. Maybe he didn’t live around here. What if he’d been on his way to work after a one-night stand? What if he was a complete womaniser?
And what if he was? I was overdue some fun. I didn’t get the impression he was a ‘for keeps’ sort of guy. Far too full of himself, but there’d been that definite sexual frisson.
Ashwin Laghari. I kept twisting his name around my tongue. I liked the sound of it. His full name had a melodic feel to it. I wondered if he had any middle names and how they’d fit. I’d have to ask him tonight. And then my sensible gene reared its prudent, forthright self.
For goodness’ sake, Claire, what is the matter with you? He’s a player. You challenged him. He waited a whole day to respond to your text. This is a game. You might have won that round insisting on Saturday instead of Friday but he wants round two. That’s all.
But less-sensible me, who seemed to be determined by my hormones, suggested that maybe he had also felt that sexual frisson and was keen to explore it too.
Armed with his name, I’d done a little bit of research. No more than you’d do before meeting a new business colleague. Not full-on stalking. A bit of LinkedIn, a quick trawl of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Okay, I might have done a search on Google images. Just to remind myself what he looked like, in case after intensively staring at his face for those fifteen minutes I’d forgotten some aspect of his features. He cropped up in all his gorgeousness a couple of times, always in a suit shaking the hand of some important guy. LinkedIn had given me plenty of information. Graduate from Leeds with a first in Mechanical Engineering. Two years with First Direct and then a move to London and stellar promotions ever since and then back north. Clearly, he was a smart cookie.
Why, oh why, had I chosen The Beech House? Intimate, quiet, with perfect ambient lighting. Ideal for a romantic date. I should have selected somewhere swankier, more contemporary and more show off-y where the staff squinted at you as if you were beneath contempt and everything was far too much trouble for them.
The fussy, friendly maître d’ greeted me with a smile of pleasure, briefly dousing my shimmering nerves, which had been making themselves felt ever since I raced into my flat from my sister Alice’s to get ready. I’d managed to fob her off last Saturday but couldn’t avoid it today. An afternoon’s hedge trimming had left me a sweaty, bug-infested mess and now the butterflies in my stomach were manically trying to beat their way out. Why was I so damn nervous?
‘I’ve booked a table for two.’ I paused, wiping my slightly damp palms on my favourite black trousers.
‘The name?’ he asked.
Playing it cool, I hadn’t responded to the last text when he’d asked for my name. Ashwin Laghari only knew me as Coffee Girl. I said it, maintaining eye contact with the man as if this was a perfectly acceptable name and there was nothing out of the ordinary with it.
‘Certainly, madam.’ He didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Allow me. The gentleman has already arrived.’
I followed him, weaving through cosy candlelit tables, towards the back of the restaurant, wishing he’d slow down a little. My legs felt a little unsteady and my tongue had already glued itself to the roof of my mouth. This was ridiculous. I’d met and conversed easily with people from all over the world, talked to conference audiences over a thousand strong and presented to chief executives and board directors all the time and never betrayed a flicker of what I was feeling.
Stiffening my spine and tilting my chin, I sucked in a breath and two seconds later I was at the table and the waiter melted away.
Ashwin Laghari was every bit as gorgeous as I remembered and so was the slightly mocking smile. He stood up.
‘You came,’ he said, his voice deeper and more mellow than I had recalled.
‘I did,’ I said, sliding onto the chair opposite him.
He suddenly grinned. ‘Busy on Friday, were you?’
‘No,’ I paused for a minute before giving him a catlike smile; he didn’t need to know that I’d been at work until nine, ‘but I wanted to put you in your place.’
‘Why didn’t I guess as much?’ Those fascinating eyes twinkled at me. ‘Am I allowed to know your name?’
‘Yes, but I’m not sure it’s been worth waiting for. Do you have any middle names, Ashwin Laghari?’
‘I’m always Ash to my friends.’ His eyes dipped to my mouth. ‘Although I like the way you say my name.’
‘I like it too,’ I said, feeling flirtatious and mysterious but not quite enough to dare to say it again.
‘No middle names.’
‘Good,’ I said. I didn’t like the thought of them disturbing the melodic symmetry of his name.
‘When you search for Coffee Girl on LinkedIn, it’s not that informative.’
‘Leeds. First. Mechanical Engineering. Currently at Beechwood Harrington,’ I quipped.
‘Unfair advantage.’
‘Claire Harrison. Manchester. First. Currently at Cunningham, Wilding and Taylor.’ I paused and, unable to help myself, gave him a direct, sultry look and lowered my voice to say, ‘Now we’re equal.’
If only that were true. He was clearly self-possessed and brilliant whereas for the last couple of weeks, no matter how hard I worked, I felt like I was sinking into quicksand. There never seemed to be enough time in the day to do anything.
He smiled back, his voice laden with darkness and said, ‘I don’t think we’re ever going to be equal.’ The knowing look did something to my pulse. ‘I took the liberty of ordering a bottle of wine.’ He gave me another look.
‘What, no champagne?’ I said as he lifted the bottle of very, very expensive red wine.
‘You don’t strike me as a champagne girl. That would be too much of a cliché. I chose something deeper, darker, and smoother.’
I raised an eyebrow at this blatant smooth-talking bollocks.
His face creased into a grin. ‘And it’s a bloody nice wine. Usually the champagne they have in these places isn’t the best. Would you like to try some? I gambled on you drinking red, but if you don’t, I can order something else.’
; ‘Lucky punt,’ I said, lifting my glass and letting him pour a mouthful for me to try. I lifted the glass, swirled, sniffed, and sipped. ‘Nice, very nice.’
‘Of course,’ he said with a lift of one eyebrow.
God, he was one cocky git but I couldn’t help liking his sheer arrogant confidence. Somehow it was reassuring that he was so in command of himself and – I couldn’t believe I was thinking it – quite sexy.
We lifted our glasses in a toast. ‘Cheers,’ I said.
‘To ill-advised meetings,’ he said.
I stared at the rich ruby colour, suddenly a little shy. That almost sounded like… as if he were taking this seriously. I wasn’t expecting this to go anywhere. Gorgeous as he was, I’d pigeon-holed him in the laddish box. For him, this whole date was a challenge. Yes, there’d been sexual chemistry and I suspected he might use it to try and talk me into bed, but he was a work-hard, play-hard city-type. I didn’t expect to see him again after tonight and, to be honest, did I even have the time?
‘How did your meeting go? With the board and the CEO from London.’
I glanced up at him, surprised he’d remembered. He actually appeared interested. Okay, now that was smooth.
‘It went well, thanks.’ In fact, it was ancient history. I was already preparing for the next big meeting. ‘How about yours?’
‘Given that I was wearing a Marks & Spencer suit, very well. Good tip by the way. Thank you. I got my PA to postpone the meeting for half an hour and I was the first customer into the store that morning. Fastest purchase ever, I reckon.’
‘I’m impressed… that you followed my advice.’
‘I think I might have thought of it myself.’
‘Yes,’ I paused, ‘but you might have resisted out of sheer pig-headedness.’ There was another of our direct eye-meets and my lips twitched as he laughed, twinkly-eyed and appreciative.
‘Was I that ungrateful? Sorry, I was a bit stressed that morning. Stupid eh? I can barely remember what the meeting was about now.’ He leaned forward, lowering his voice as if about to impart a great secret, ‘And do you know what?’
