by Anna Bloom
He waves for the hovering waiter. “What would you like?” Jeez, that gaze is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It makes me want to go home and grab out my paints and churn through them until I’ve found the perfect shade.
I haven’t touched my paints for four years.
“Whisky on ice.”
He raises two fingers to the waiter without saying a word. His other hand rests on my book and I want to snatch it away and run for the door. “I’m sorry about the setting. I don’t know why my mother insists on coming here.”
I sit on my hands because for some inexplicable reason they are shaking. “It’s an interesting choice.”
“Have you sold many pieces, Faith?” His change of direction takes me by surprise.
“Some. Gerard hooked me up with a couple of galleries who’ve sold pieces of my pottery.”
His eyes flick across my face at Gerard’s name and I can’t help but wonder what he knows. Does he know I slept with my lecturer? Did Gerard kiss and tell? I stare back, swallowing painfully.
“What do you prefer, sculpture or ceramics?”
I hesitate as he says ceramics. Most people with no knowledge say pottery.
My shoulders lift and fall. “Either.”
That unsettling blue lands directly on my face, dropping to my lips. “Sure.”
A frown scrunches my face. “Are you saying I’m lying.”
“No.”
Surely this doesn’t need to be so uncomfortable? What’s going on? I want to slap myself. This is the opportunity of a lifetime and I’m screwing it up, and all because his suit fits like it was cut onto his skin and his eyes are sharp enough to slice the surface of my skin. Who cares? It should be his mother I’m meeting.
The waiter brings our drinks, the ice clinking in the glass. I pick mine up as it barely touches the table and take a sip. The whisky is peaty and heady with malt depths. I lick my lips, enjoying the sour tingle on my tongue.
Maybe the alcohol will help me behave like a normal human being. Maybe.
He doesn’t touch his glass. If he’s not too careful, I might shoot it back.
“So can you tell me more? Why a residential? Why my sort of art? Wouldn’t a painter and a painting exhibition have a wider appeal?”
His fingers fan across the table, his right index finger still touching my book. “We don’t want to do something normal, that’s not the point.”
“Is this a royal we?” I smirk and take another sip of my drink. It burns in my veins and I welcome its warmth.
He frowns, his dark brows pulling together. “No, Peter is 18th in line to the throne. I think the chances of him making it onto the throne are slim.”
I watch his handsome face for a crack of humour, but no cute dimple appears. “Sorry, what?”
“Oh, I thought you were digging at the royal succession.”
My eyes widen. “No, I was taking the piss, oh, I mean the mick, uh.” I decide to stop talking, but then another question pops into my head. “Who’s Peter?”
There’s a pause and Elijah Fairclough’s face grows pensive. My hand itches for my paints. “He’s my elder brother.”
“Two of you?” Oh my god, I sound like a wanton lunatic.
“Three of us. Me, one older brother, and one baby sister.” His face hardens into an unreadable mask.
“And your mother is a baroness?”
He nods, but his gaze lingers on the pristine tablecloth.
I lean forward. I’ve never met a member of the aristocracy before. “And Peter is going to be the baron as well as in line for the throne?”
When Elijah meets my gaze, I’m sure I catch a flicker across his lips. “It’s an unusual succession, quite old and embroiled in tradition.”
“And you’re the sibling who got lumbered meeting me today?” I take another sip. “Shame for you.”
Finally, he picks up his own glass, and I watch mesmerised as he allows the iced liquid to slip between his sumptuous lips. Sumptuous lips? Someone shoot me now. “Something like that.”
I glower. “Maybe I should meet your mother when she’s back from her trip?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay.” I go to get my stuff. Honestly, I can cope without sitting at a table in a poncy over-priced bar with an egotistical prick who doesn’t want to be there.
“What gallery sells your work?”
“What?” I turn back to face him. He doesn’t seem to realise I’m leaving.
“What gallery sells your stuff?”
“Uh, Whitlocks in Whitechapel; they are only small.”
He nods.
“You know them?”
“Yes, I’ve bought a few bits from there.”
“You have, or your mother?”
He smiles, enigmatic. “I like you. You’re sharp, different.”
He doesn’t know how different; he doesn’t know that under my silk oversized blouse I have a multitude of secrets written on my skin.
“How’s your final piece for the year?”
“Sorry?” I’m going to get a migraine if this conversation carries on this way.
“You must be working on a final project? Next year will be the big pieces, right?”
“How do you know so much about it?”
Another shrug. “So how’s it going?”
“Terrible.” There’s no point in lying.
“Maybe you’ll let me see?”
I shake my head. “Not a chance.” Finding the will to move my stubborn legs, I step up from the table. “This has been different.”
He stands and holds his hand out again. His mummy must have trained him well. “We don’t seem to have got along.”
I chuckle a small laugh. “No, I’d say not. Maybe your mother can call when she gets back and then we can see how this might work. I’m guessing you have other people to see, maybe your meetings will go more smoothly with them.”
He inclines his head. “Maybe.”
“Good bye, Elijah,” I straighten my shoulders and swing my hips for the door, keeping my head held high.
That was fucking weird.
It’s only when I’m on the sweaty bus home, I realise I’ve forgotten my portfolio.
Shit.
Chapter Five
“I can’t believe you sent me out to the lion’s den like that.”
Gerard has his hand on the front door of the studio, but I’ve got my foot against the door. I’m too cross to be making small talk with him at the moment.
Bloody Elijah Fairclough. Gah, the gall of the man. ‘We don’t seem to have got along’.
I don’t know why it’s burned under my skin so bad. Let’s be real, he’s not the first guy to say those words to me. Normally, though, I like to say them first.
“It was The Ritz, not London Zoo, Faith.” Gerard tries to peer around the door. I know he wants to see my project, but right now he can kiss my arse.
“Tell that to Elijah Fairclough, the guy is seriously lacking in social skills.”
Gerard snorts loudly despite the fact he’s standing in the hallway. “Says you.”
I narrow my gaze and then swing the door in his face. I can hear him sigh through the wood. “Get my portfolio back,” I shout after him, before walking back into the studio and staring at the tragic mess I’ve made.
It’s unsalvageable. I’m going to have to order new materials. Turning slightly, I stare at the canvas covered in blue.
Fuck. It’s been an obsession the last two days.
Blues everywhere in everything. I even bought a blue orchid today. Not that I can afford fancy flowers or have the ability to keep them alive.
It’s all shit.
I can’t stop thinking about the pensive expression on his face as he watched me across the table. I can’t stop remembering that low rumble of his voice, or the way his body packed out that expensive suit.
So, in fact, I can’t stop thinking about him.
Player, he’s a player, Faith. A rich one.
But he seem
ed so serious. There was this quiet something about him. I can’t work it out.
Like, if I didn’t want to be there in The Ritz talking to him, then he really and truly didn’t want to be there either.
Maybe he didn’t like my outfit. Maybe he just didn’t like me. Maybe he wanted to be off shagging someone and I was an inconvenience.
Maybe.
I thought I might have heard from the baroness herself. Perhaps an apology for standing me up and leaving her arsehole son in charge. But I haven’t.
So, tonight I’m going to look for a bar job. I can’t leave it any longer, and obviously the summer installation has fallen through.
My phone beeps and I can see Abi’s face, but my mood is black—dangerous.
The phone rings off and I crank on the shower to clean up. Before I climb in, I flick through the small wardrobe I keep at the studio as the water runs through warm.
With a decision of black harem trousers, a black skinny vest, and a leather jacket, I choose my outfit for my mood. With no blue in sight.
The shower does little to settle me down, so after I’ve dried off, I fling on my clothes and tip my head upside down and scrape my fingers along the damp strands of hair, dragging them into a high ponytail which I twist and secure with pins.
My phone rings again but I ignore it. People should know by now if I don’t answer the first time, the chances of me picking up from that point on dramatically decrease.
I grab my purse and keys and open the door. It’s time to get drunk, find a job and hopefully find some indiscriminate screw who can help me forget the colour blue.
“What the actual fuck?” I curse as I swing into a hard chest the other side of the studio door.
“Miss Hitchin?”
God, no! It’s the gem deep eyes of loserville.
“Fairclough.” I snap. “What are you doing here? My eyes, they won’t stop or behave themselves and they rove all over his chest, over the muscles straining against the tight stretch of his T-shirt. He’s wearing dark jeans and sliders. The short hair and casual combo give him a rugged edge that’s kind of hard to stop staring at. Two days ago, he was suave and icy. Today, he’s beach bum, rough and ready chic.
“I thought you might need this.” He lifts the black book containing every documented precious item I’ve ever produced and holds it out. I grasp its edges. That baby is mine, and it needs to come home. He holds onto the spine though, and I stare up into his face. When I meet his gaze, my tummy tightens. No, Faith, that is not an indiscriminate screw. “Also, we got off to a truly awful start, and I was hoping we could try again,” he says.
I glare at him, but he spreads the most charming smile across his handsome face. And crap if it isn’t the most handsome face I’ve ever seen. Sharp cheekbones and soft lips—and those eyes. “Totally my bad.” He steps back from the door and lets go of my book. “I can leave if you think my failed attempts at interviewing are past redemption.”
My lips twitch with an annoying urge to smile. “The single worst interviewing skills I’ve ever come across,” I reply.
He nods sagely, the little dimple on his right cheek growing. “It’s as I thought. I suck.”
“So much so I’m about to go searching for bar work.” My eyes narrow as I scrutinise him. He could not be more different than the man I met in The Ritz. I’m wondering if he’s a twin, and this is some weird sibling game called “let’s fuck with the girl’s head”.
He holds his hands to his heart, knitting his fingers together like a child begging. “Don’t let me be the one to set you on the path to inhospitable working hours and drunken leering old men.”
“Maybe I like drunken, leering old men.” I smile, just a little.
“Oh, well, in that case we have many of them at Bowsley Hall, you will be inundated.”
“Inundated? Now you’re talking.”
For a moment we stop and stare.
Then he spreads his hands to his side and raises them up. His arm muscles flex—not that I’m noticing. “What do you say, Faith? How about we go for a drink and attempt a half normal conversation?”
“Half normal, are you sure you can manage?”
The left side of his lips quirk into a smirk and he runs a hand through his cropped dark hair. I wonder what that feels like? “I can try.”
An unsure hesitation roots me to my doormat. He is extremely attractive. Staring at his face for a couple of hours wouldn’t be a hardship. But then he does seem to be a complete arse… and there’s the fact I’m desperate for a screw. That wouldn’t be a good idea. Not at all. Terrible. Also, did I mention the fact he is extremely attractive, in a panty-melting, I’m-going-to-smile- that-underwear-straight-off-your-body kind of way?
His eyes sweep behind me into the studio. I could invite him in, show him some of my more successful work. Obviously not the pile of marble dust I’ve created. This way I might still stand a chance at the Bowsley summer job. I don’t though. I don’t even know if I want him seeing inside my studio; it’s strangely intimate.
Then I notice his gaze has settled on the exposed row of roses I have displayed across my collarbone. He doesn’t say a word, and I refuse to shift my jacket to cover them up. He’s the one who turned up unexpectedly, ruining my chances of getting laid.
“Okay let’s go.” The words escape before I have any chance to think on them further. Which is probably a good thing. I could have stood there analysing all night.
He flashes me that dimple and cute smile.
“Not The Ritz, though. You could come out of that place in a wooden box.” I slide my portfolio across the floor of the studio. There’s a low snigger, and he shoves his hands in his jean’s pockets, the epitome of casual cool. He could have fallen off the front page of GQ. I wonder how many people have tried to take his photograph.
“I think I can manage something better than where my mother goes for a glass of sherry.”
“Nothing fancy, though. You don’t want to make me uncomfortable.”
His eyes settle on my face, and I melt under their weight. “No.” He pauses. “No one would want that.” There’s a flicker across his lips, but I don’t know what it means so I start to walk down the hallway to the stairwell with him trailing behind. It’s all I can do not to fall over my own feet.
Out in the narrow street, the day is winding down. The streets are noticeably emptier of people, no doubt home now their day is done. I hadn’t realised how late I’d been murdering that piece of rock. “Walking?” I stop and wait for him; the pavement could lead me in two different ways.
He slides his hand out of his pocket. “I drove,” he shrugs sheepishly. “I didn’t know if you were going to repel me.”
“Repel you? Are we in an Austen novel?”
“Repel me with your cantankerous bad attitude.”
His eyes challenge me, so I switch things and grin. I can’t help it. I know he could mean a job for the summer. I know being on the right side of his family could mean more exposure than I could spend the next ten years trying to build. But I can sense a game building, a challenge.
I also know he’s damn annoying. “Lucky for you, I’m feeling friendly today.”
I could be very friendly towards him. I could tug him back into the alleyway behind and show him just how friendly I could be.
He laughs. I’m sure he knows what I’m thinking.
“Your carriage, my lady.” He steps up to a navy car. Smart and sleek, its trim is a gleaming silver.
My mouth falls open. “You have an MG Roadster?” I step up, completely forgetting myself, and run a hand along the immaculate paintwork. Oh my god, this car looks like it’s just out of the factory.
“Yeah?” He can’t disguise his surprise.
“What is this, a nineteen sixty-six, mark one?”
His mouth falls open, which is all levels of funny, but I’m too taken with the car to use it to my advantage. “Yeah, how do you know?”
“My dad used to have one.” The words s
lip out before I can contain them. A sharp slice cuts me some place around my chest.
“Nice.”
I can’t breathe, though. For a long moment, standing here in this shady Islington street I’m lost in forgotten memories. Faith, don’t put sand all over the leather. A squeal of laughter echoes from the past.
“Would you rather walk?”
I glance up into Elijah’s face. There’s a frown between his eyebrows.
“No.” My answer wobbles. “No, it’s okay.”
He opens the door and I slip onto the leather, sinking deep.
“Where are we going?” I try to switch it back on. Switch the me of now back on.
“I know a good pub, if you fancy a pint somewhere?”
“It’s London, there are thousands of good pubs.”
He doesn’t answer but fires the ignition and coaxes the car out into the weave of black cabs and post rush hour traffic.
As we sit in the car, silence laps between us. “Did you have nothing better to do than come and give me back my portfolio? You know you could have given it to Gerard.”
His head flicks in my direction. He drives sexy. Confidently weaving in and out. Strong fingers flick the indicator and shift the gears.
Stop it, Faith.
“That wouldn’t be very gentlemanly.”
“Are you always a gentleman?”
He flicks those blues onto me again. “Sometimes.”
Yikes.
“So where are we going?”
“The Green Man.”
“Could you narrow it down? There are at least a hundred and fifty Green Man pubs in London.”
“Have you counted them all?”
I’ve got to laugh. “Not personally, but I have it under good authority.”
He laughs too and the car fills with the sound of our mingled mirth. “How do you enjoy London?”
“It’s okay.”
“And you were in Brighton before?”
I cast him a side eye. “Have you been stalking me?”
“No. My mother found out when she was talking to Gerard about you.”
I blush a little. That makes so much more sense than him stalking me.