Claudia Carroll 3 Book Bundle. Claudia Carroll

very protective over you, and God help anyone who tries to have a go at you when I’m around, that’s all I can say.’

      ‘One day I’d like to have that man vaporised, but for the moment …’

      ‘Now you’re beginning to sound a bit more like yourself,’ he smiles, the old twinkle coming back into his eyes. ‘That’s a lot more like the strange and troubled woman I know. So just listen carefully to what I’m telling you. Let. It. Go.’

      I give him a wobbly smile, all while thinking, how do I get our conversation back on track? He sits back down and now we’re back to pin-drop silence, which, for once, Jake misreads.

      ‘Eloise,’ he says softly, ‘don’t get stressed about why Sir Gavin is meeting with git-face Seth. It’s not worth it. Whatever’s going on, I’m sure it’s nothing for you to worry about.’

       No, nothing compared to what I’m about to land on you.

      ‘Besides, if it had been anything concerning you, don’t you think they’d have told you?’

      I nod, though for the minute, I’m not even thinking about Seth and Gavin. Yeah, sure something’s up between the two of them alright, I can practically smell it. Don’t know what, but it’ll only a matter of time before it all filters back to me. Sooner or later everything does. And I’ll deal with it then, and only then.

      I take a sip of the wine that’s finally arrived and look over to him, worry now etched all over his fair, freckled face. Though he’s not half as fecking worried as I am.

      ‘Jake, just to get back to …’

      ‘Please,’ he says, leaning against the window now and looking intently back at me, ‘I know what you’re thinking and I don’t want you to get all stressed about it. You don’t have to. Because I won’t go unless you want me to. I mean come on, me? At some corporate weekend do? Playing golf with gits like that Coleman wanker? Are you kidding me? I’d end up punching him in his smug self-satisfied gob if he as much as looked crossways at you.’

      ‘It’s not that, Jake,’ I shift around uncomfortably in my chair.

      ‘Wish you could tell him the only use we have for golf clubs where I come from …’

      ‘You don’t understand.’

      ‘What? Tell me.’

      Just then, the bill arrives, which Jake very generously insists on paying, then starts getting ready to leave.

      ‘You have to go already?’ I say, stunned. He can’t go, not now, not yet.

      ‘Yeah, sorry I have to rush, but remember I told you I was teaching an English class tonight? In fact I gotta run or I’m going to be late. So what was it you wanted to say to me anyway, before we were so rudely interrupted?’

      Oh God, not now, not when he’s running out the door.

       Shit, shit, shit.

      ‘It was … emm … nothing that can’t wait.’

      ‘You’re stressed out of your mind about this whole corporate weekend, aren’t you? Isn’t that why you’ve been so jumpy all night?’

      ‘Well, partly …’

      ‘What, is it like some kind of partners’ thing, or something?’

      ‘It is, actually …’ But that’s the least of my worries.

      ‘I see,’ he says, thoughtfully. Then after another pause and a good long look at me he adds, ‘and for what it’s worth, I think I do understand what you were trying to tell me. Or rather, what you weren’t.’

      More bloody silence, and for once I can’t think of a single thing to prise out of my mouth that might fill it.

      Next thing, he’s on his feet, pulling his jacket on.

      ‘Jake? You’ve got to leave right this minute?’

      ‘Yeah, or I’ll be late.’

      ‘Oh,’ I say, deflated. ‘So maybe I’ll talk to you afterwards?’

      ‘Listen, Eloise,’ he smiles down at me, ‘if you need company at the corporate piss up, count me in. I’ll be there for you and I won’t let you down. Sure, I’d do anything for you, you know that, don’t you?’

      I give a weak, automatic smile, not wanting him to go, not yet.

      ‘But as for the partners side of it …’ He went on, not quite able to look me in the eye now. ‘Eloise, you’ve been so good to me and I’ll never forget you for that. You were a true pal when I needed one most. But …’

      ‘Yeah?’ Not sure where that ‘but’ could be headed.

      ‘Well then maybe this might put your mind at rest a bit. I was going to tell you, but …’

      But what, I think?

      ‘That girl I met you with in the Green the other day?’

      ‘Yes, I remember. Monique, wasn’t it?’

      Hard to forget the Girl from Ipanema, tall and tanned and young and lovely and the adoring way she batted her two-inch long Bambi eyelashes in Jake’s direction.

      ‘As a matter of fact …’

      And I swear with a journalist’s knife-edge instinct, that I already know what’s coming next.

      ‘She’s been asking me out for a while, so we’re just going out for drinks to celebrate my exams being over at the end of the week. Just as pals, you know.’

      ‘Oh, I see.’

      ‘You and I have always been straight with each other, so I just thought I’d let you know.’

      Me? Straight with you? You don’t know the half of it, sunshine, I think, barely able to meet his open, trusting, blue eyes. So exactly like Lily’s that it would melt a heart of stone.

      ‘Oh absolutely,’ I manage to smile brightly, ‘that’s great news.’

      ‘Yeah, she’s a lovely girl, Monique. She’s twenty-two.’

      ‘Twenty-two?’

      ‘Yup. Teaches Bikram yoga and as you probably gathered the other day, needs English lessons VERY badly.’

      ‘Yoga?’ I repeat stupidly.

      ‘So just in case you were worried about me taking the partners thing seriously …’

      ‘Oh no, no, not at all …’

      ‘But if you want me to go with you as your buddy, you can count on me. You know that.’

      ‘No worries. Have a lovely night and I’ll see you during the week?’

      ‘Sure, I’ll call you once my exams are out of the way.’

      ‘Best of luck!’ I call after him brightly, and two seconds later, he’s gone.

      I knock back the dregs of my wine and speed dial Helen the minute he’s gone, hissing everything that’s just happened down the phone to her.

      ‘You mean you didn’t get to tell him?’

      ‘Couldn’t. I tried my best, I really did, then Sir Gavin and bloody Seth Coleman interrupted us.’

      ‘I don’t believe it!’

      ‘I know, I nearly choked.’

      ‘So tell him before you go away for the weekend then.’

      ‘Can’t.’ I sigh helplessly. ‘He’s got five full days of exams ahead. How can I land this on him on this of all weeks? If he failed, it would be entirely my fault. And he’s worked so hard.’

      ‘The weekend then. You’ll have