200 Harley Street. Lynne Marshall

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      ‘YOU’RE LOOKING VERY pleased with yourself,’ Ethan commented as Leo arrived at the Hunter Clinic.

      ‘Have you seen some of the donations raised?’ Leo said, and gave a brief nod to Lizzie, who was trying to remember how she usually acted when Leo was around.

      Oh, yes—blushing and on edge! Strangest of all, now that she’d slept with him she was neither of those things.

      ‘How did you enjoy the ball?’ Ethan asked, as Leo headed for his office.

      ‘It was great,’ Lizzie answered, then excused herself, but she felt a little like she had when her father had asked questions when she’d first gone out with Peter.

      ‘I’m allowed to be concerned, Lizzie,’ Thomas had said. ‘I know his type and I just don’t see any good coming from it.’

      Ethan didn’t need to be concerned, Lizzie told herself.

      She knew what she was getting into. If anything, there was less tension between Lizzie and Leo, there was no flirting, it was all very business-like now.

      Until home time.

      Lizzie was wrapping her scarf around her neck and chatting with Rafael about her parents as Leo walked past.

      ‘I’ll go and see them at the weekend.’

      ‘You go each weekend?’ Rafael asked.

      ‘Not every weekend,’ Lizzie said, but there was guilt, because the build-up to Christmas had been crazy and then between moving and starting her new job, she hadn’t been going so much lately.

      Leo headed for his office and tried to ignore what he was thinking because he had been hoping to see her again at the weekend. While, of course, Lizzie had to do what was right for her, it just left no time for them, unless …

      ‘Night, Leo.’ Lizzie smiled and walked past his office.

      ‘ Night, Lizzie.’

      She wanted him to call her back.

      He didn’t.

      She got home and peeled off her coat and then ran a bath and ate a bowl of cereal for dinner. Exhausted, and seriously so, after the most incredible weekend of her life, it was blissful to slip into bed and finally catch up with her thoughts.

      Leo.

      She waited for guilt, for self-recrimination, for common sense to make her bolt upright with an anxiety attack. Instead she lay in bed actually smiling, laughing, just on the crest of a wave and riding it, wherever it might take her. Such was her sudden longing for him it came as no surprise when her phone rang and it was Leo.

      His apartment was lit by the moon. On coming home Leo had scanned the apartment for a piece of Lizzie, but the cleaners were thorough and very used to tidying up after one of Leo’s weekends.

      ‘Loser,’ Leo muttered to himself as he found himself picking up her deodorant can and spraying it.

      What was the problem again? Leo checked.

      That’s right, her weekend was taken.

      ‘Hi, there …’ He was almost brusque when he called her.

      ‘Hi, Leo.’

      “What are you doing?’

      ‘I’m in bed.’

      ‘It’s eight.’

      ‘I’m tired.’

      ‘About the weekend …’

      ‘I’ve got plans.’

      ‘I know that,’ Leo said. ‘What about Thursday?’

      ‘I’ve got drinks with friends,’ Lizzie said, which was true—it was her friend Brenda’s birthday. They’d shared a flat when Lizzie had first arrived in London and they got together now and then. Though not one of her friends would mind in the least if she stood them up for such a glorious cause.

      ‘What are you wearing?’ Leo asked. ‘And if it’s one of those awful all-in-one things you have my permission to lie.’

      ‘I’m not,’ Lizzie said.

      ‘Good.’

      ‘I’m not wearing anything.’ She waited, closed her eyes and almost willed his reply.

      ‘Well, I’d suggest you amend that,’ Leo said. ‘I don’t want you scaring my driver.’

      It was the serious bonking time of a new romance, Lizzie told herself. That time when you just can’t bear to be apart.

      And they used every minute.

      It was dizzying, enlightening, freeing, and between steamy encounters as they waited for rancour to hit and for both of them to admit to it all being a terrible mistake, sometimes they actually managed to talk.

      ‘You were at the airport?’

      Leo was watching her get ready for birthday drinks with Brenda. It had meant another trip to her flat to get more of her things and very soon she would have spent more nights at Leo’s than her own home. He had suggested they go to Paris for Valentine’s Day, which was looming, and Lizzie was explaining why she didn’t like to be too far away.

      ‘Yes,’ Lizzie said, pulling down her lower eyelid and applying black kohl on the inner rim. ‘We were going to travel for a year—see the world.’ They had spoken about exes and, as innocent as Lizzie was compared to Leo, it had come as a surprise to both that neither had lived with another person. Not that they were living together, both had hastily agreed, it had been just little while after all.

      But it was heading into record time for Leo.

      The lack of condoms was already a new record.

      So too making plans that fell into next month.

      He lay on the bed, half listening, half thinking, as Lizzie spoke on.

      ‘My neighbour called and said that Mum had fallen,’

      ‘What did Peter say?’

      ‘Not much,’ Lizzie admitted, putting down her eyeliner, remembering that awful time. She had been so excited about her trip but also so nervous to leave her parents—sure that something would go wrong. And it had. She hadn’t even made it onto the plane. ‘Mum had fractured her hip and was going to Theatre. Peter seemed to think I should ring and see how she was doing when we landed …’

      ‘Clearly, Peter didn’t know you very well.’ She turned and gave a pale smile at his comment because in the short time they had been seeing each other Leo seemed to understand her more than anyone else ever had.

      ‘He said that it was him or them. That if I didn’t get on the plane …’

      ‘Hadn’t he heard of rescheduling?’ Leo drawled. ‘Didn’t you have flight insurance?’

      ‘It was a bit more complicated than that,’ Lizzie said, but he did make her giggle about even the most serious thing.

      ‘So you chose your parents?’

      ‘Of course,’ Lizzie said. ‘I could never have gone away knowing my mum was about to have surgery. Now do you see why I don’t want to go to Paris?’

      ‘No.’ He came over and looked at her. She was all dressed up and ready to go out and her freshly painted lips really begged to be made naked by his mouth. ‘If anyone should have a hang-up about going to Paris then I win—my mother died in a helicopter crash, coming back from a party there.’ He took her cheeks in his hands as she gave a shocked gasp. ‘Does that mean I’m supposed to boycott France?’ Despite the dark subject matter, he still made her smile. ‘Only take the Euro Tunnel just so that history never repeats itself?’

      ‘I