“You’re not asking, I’m offering.”
Temptation wrapped her sticky fingers around my neck and tugged me forward. “If you’re sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble . . .”
“Will it make you happy?”
“Unbelievably happy,” I admitted, already dreaming of getting my hands on the precious manuscripts and preserved letters and menus from Tudor feasts . . . all of it. “Ecstatic, even.”
Satisfaction glittered in his crystalline eyes. “Then it’s no trouble at all.”
Now that I’d given in, I wanted to be at the museum already. Charging down Primrose Hill, it took me a moment to realize that I’d left both my dog and my incredibly unlikely benefactor behind.
Looking back up the hill, I caught a glimpse of an expression I couldn’t name on Ian’s face. No, that wasn’t true. I could name it—I just could barely believe it.
Ian Hale was looking at me, and he looked . . . predatory.
Everything low in my body tightened in a rush. Flooded with heat, my center pulsed a rapid beat in time with the drumming of my heart. I watched him walk toward me, the loose roll of his obscenely trim hips and waist and the sway of his wide, muscular shoulders. He didn’t walk, he prowled. His face was still and intent, set in lines of fierce concentration, and his stare never left my face. Ian Hale was hunting.
And I was the only thing in his sights.
As unbelievable as it seemed, maybe my sister was right. Maybe he was into me. I could hardly let myself even think the words without shying away from them, but the look in his eyes . . .
He came to a stop in front of me and I shuddered all over with the uncertainty of it. Part of me wanted to run, to deny that I’d ever even imagined a moment like this. But another, smaller part of me wanted to be brave. To see what might happen if I ignored the voices of the past in my head, telling me I wasn’t pretty enough or sexy enough or thin enough to be wanted.
Ian Hale wouldn’t look at a woman the way he was looking at me unless she was sexy enough to set him on fire.
Taking heart from the heat in his eyes and the way he leaned in toward me, like we were magnetized together, I lifted my chin and closed my eyes. I could almost taste his kiss.
This was it. It was really happening. I breathed in his scent of brine and smoky leather. I felt a drop of rain hit my forehead and trail gently down my temple. And I waited.
“You should go home,” he grated in my ear. “Get dry, change clothes. I’ll meet you at the museum in an hour.”
My eyes flew open, but all I saw was a repeat of yesterday’s view—Ian Hale’s magnificently muscled back, striding away from me.
Not. Again.
Chapter Three
It was four in the morning in New York. I couldn’t do that to my sister. Besides, she’d only give me more terrible advice about how I should absolutely, one hundred percent believe someone like Ian Hale could ever be romantically interested in someone like me.
But as I numbly washed my hair and soaped up my shivering body, I promised myself I was done. Done with that silly daydream, done with believing in fantasies.
I was done. As long as I ignored the fact that in only a couple of brief encounters, Ian Hale had turned from a fantasy to a flesh and blood man who looked at me as if he’d never seen anything he wanted more.
But not enough to stick around and do anything about it, apparently. So eff him. I was here in London to write a book. A challenging book I’d been planning for a long time, and Ian Hale was going to help me do it. That was all this was. And once I’d graciously accepted his help at the museum today, I would thank him with a note in the acknowledgments and we would never see each other again.
And if that thought was like acid in the back of my throat, well, that was probably just heartburn from all the heavy English food. Which I happened to love. I mean, sausages wrapped in puff pastry and dunked in grainy mustard? How could anyone argue with that?
I zipped up my pencil skirt and got the blouse tucked in and all my various curves strapped down into uncomfortable professionalism. Then I had to spend at least a few minutes pretending I knew what the hell to do with my eyeliner and blush.
I didn’t, but I felt that the effort should count for something.
My hair, my one point of vanity, was going to be a frizzy mess in this humidity no matter what I did, so I wound it into my usual topknot and used a few extra bobby pins to try and secure it.
When I was done, I stared at myself in the mirror for the space of a single heartbeat before walking out of my bedroom. Neat and clean. I wasn’t shooting for more than that at this point.
I took a moment to mourn my previous carefree days researching books at the New York Public Library, where no one looked at me and it didn’t matter if my pants had a zipper or not.
But this was an opportunity, I reminded myself. I was here, in London, to be inspired and broaden my horizons . . . and apparently to fulfill my secret fantasy of meeting Ian Hale.
Charged with anticipation and determination, I gave Pilot a last kiss and locked the door behind me. This time, I hadn’t forgotten an umbrella. So, of course, the rain cleared up as soon as I stepped onto the sidewalk. I gritted my teeth and folded the umbrella under my arm. That was great, I could walk. My hips would probably thank me for getting a little exercise.
Maybe if my hips were more slender, if my whole body were shaped more like those waifishly thin, toga-clad starlets in the Mount Olympus movies, maybe then . . .
Pressing my lips together, I stomped down the sidewalk with my laptop bag over one shoulder and a canvas tote holding his air-dried jacket over the other. It was only a block or two before my feet, shoved into sensible pumps, started to protest the unfamiliar activity.
Thankfully, I didn’t have far to walk. I’d specifically chosen to lease a flat in the Saint Pancras neighborhood, within walking distance of both the British Library and the British Museum. I had my driver’s license, but as a lifelong New Yorker who used the subway to get around, I wasn’t all that confident in my ability to drive on the right side of the road . . . much less drive on the wrong side. The London Tube and I had made friends, but I was still glad to be so close to my two major sources of research.
Today, I wished I’d chosen a flat just a little bit farther away. As I rounded the corner of Russell Square, I saw the tall, unmistakably godlike figure of Ian Hale waiting for me at the museum steps, and I knew I wasn’t ready to see him again yet.
But since I might never be ready, I supposed I might as well suck it up and at least get the intro to the museum curator. Then I’d send Ian on his merry way, with my heartfelt thanks, and that would be that.
Pasting on a determined smile, I marched up the museum steps. It was cosmically, epically unfair that all it took was a quick shower for Ian Hale to look like the movie star he was. He’d ditched the morning’s ripped jeans and Henley for darker jeans and a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up to bare his corded forearms. His perfect dark blond hair and perfect stubble were still perfect.
Whereas I, when I looked down, saw a distinct gap between the top buttons of my shirt where the fabric strained over my inconveniently ample boobs. Very professional.
Fighting down a blush, I thrust the canvas bag at him. “Here, I brought you back your jacket.”
He seemed reluctant to take it. Maybe because the canvas bag I’d randomly grabbed sported hot pink script that spelled out Bitch, please. Whoops!
“You can keep it a while longer, if you need it,” he said gruffly.
“I have coats of my own.”
His shoulders stiffened a little at my abrupt tone. Reminding myself that he was here to do me a gigantic favor, I made an effort to get back on some sort of normal, friendly, but appropriately distant footing.
“Thank you, really. It was very kind of you to lend it to me. But I promise I can take care of myself, even if I seem like a walking disaster.”
I smiled to let him in on the joke, but he d
idn’t seem to appreciate my self-deprecating humor. He frowned down at the bag in his hand while I tried to come up with something else to say.
“So! Anyway. I’m here, all clean and pressed and looking as presentable as I can. I hope I won’t embarrass you.”
He flicked me a searing glance then squeezed his eyes shut. When he huffed out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh, my insides froze.
Oh, God. Was he already embarrassed? Did I really look that bad? My free hand flew to the gap in my blouse, which now in my mind’s eye seemed like it was probably wide enough to show the lacy cups of my full-coverage bra. My hips felt as wide as the rear end of a bus all of a sudden, pressing against the tight black wool of the pencil skirt. I probably looked like I’d been melted and poured into this whole outfit, and I was in danger of bursting out of it at any moment.
“We don’t have to do this,” I said desperately, still tugging at my shirt placket. “Really, you can go home and leave me to it, I’ll be fine on my own. I always am. I prefer it, these days.”
Stop talking, I moaned silently, waiting in an agony of humiliation to hear Ian’s reply.
His frown had deepened, scoring interesting grooves in his cheeks that forecast the rugged beauty we could look forward to as he aged.
“I’m coming in with you. I already called Dr. Georgiana Chesterton, the director.”
My breath stuttered. “The head of the entire museum. Oh my God, Ian.”
“She’s expecting us . . .” He glanced down at the leather-banded watch on his wrist. “Now. We should go in.”
But I was a frumpy, embarrassing mess! Surely there was time for me to . . . what? Get a shirt that fit correctly? I wanted to cry. I couldn’t make my feet move for a full five seconds.
Ian had already started toward the main entrance, and when he realized I wasn’t behind him, he turned. His expression was all determination and purpose, like a general who had decided his troops were going to take that hill, by God, and damn the consequences.
When he saw me rooted to the spot, a spasm of something like frustration crossed his handsome face. “I thought you needed this for your book. Was I wrong?”
The mention of my book anchored me. My book was going to tell the story of women finding independence and renown through cooking. It would explore the ways women historically related to food and its uses, and it mattered to me. It mattered more than my outfit or what my hair was doing or how Ian Hale was probably counting the seconds until his reckless promise of help was fulfilled and he could ditch me.
“Yes.” I took a deep breath, clapping a hand over my stretched boob area as I did so. “I really do need to see the parts of the collection that aren’t on display. It would help me a lot.”
“Let’s have at it, then.”
It was a slightly grim pair that trudged into the soaring Great Court of the British Museum. I’d seen it before, of course, but that space never failed to take my breath away. The diamond-shaped panes of glass that made up the enormous arched dome of the ceiling let in whatever gray light could filter through the rain clouds above. Two grand staircases curved around the outside of the Reading Room, where I’d whiled away many an hour doing research and getting lost in the ocean of information contained in this venerable old institution.
“Did you know there are more than three thousand glass panels up there?” I said, pointing at the ceiling. “And each one is unique because the Great Court isn’t symmetrical. The Reading Room isn’t in the exact center.”
“I did not know that.” Ian stopped with me to stare upward. “It's a bloody big ceiling, all right.”
An amused voice from behind us said, “It certainly is. It takes us more than two weeks to clean the entire thing.”
The speaker was an incredibly poised, regal-looking Black woman not much older than me—or possibly just a woman with a better moisturizing regimen. Her dark brown skin was certainly flawless, stretched tight over cheekbones sharp enough to make a mortal woman weep with envy. Her black hair was coiled in a chic knot at the nape of her long neck. Tall and trim, she held out a clearly manicured yet unpolished hand to Ian. “Mr. Hale, how lovely to see you again.”
The change that came over Ian was fascinating. It was hard to describe—as though he put on a mask and then lit it up. His face relaxed out of the frown I’d grown used to, and into the easy, charming smile that had graced red carpets over the last few years. He took the woman’s hand, utterly at ease, loose-limbed and relaxed . . . and yet, there was something so performative about it. Having seen the other Ian, I suddenly didn’t buy this version at all.
“Dr. Chesterton,” he said smoothly, bowing over her hand in a move that only a movie star could make look cool instead of dorky. “Thank you for meeting with us.”
I tried not to thrill at his use of the word “us.” It didn’t mean anything.
“Yes, thank you! So much. Hi, I’m Mallory Pritchard,” I said, sticking out my hand. “It’s an honor to meet you, Dr. Chesterton.”
She waved that away with an efficient gesture. “Not at all. And please, call me Georgiana. I’m happy to be on a first-name basis with anyone who is passionate about our collection.”
Gracious and gorgeous and she had a PhD. Gah.
Maybe this was why Ian had been so eager to help me by getting in touch with Dr. Hottie here. I resolutely did not think of them going off together arm in arm to have cocktails or something, after they left me in a dark, dank corner of the museum basement. If I did let myself picture it, though, I’m sure they would have looked good together. They matched. They were the same kind of person. The ridiculously accomplished and attractive kind.
Extraordinary belonged with extraordinary.
But fine. I was fine. I was fine before I randomly ran into a movie star at the dog park, and I would be fine after he sauntered off into the sunset with Dr. Hottie. I didn’t need him. I was happy on my own. Well, happy-ish.
Though I might need to find a new place to walk my dog.
In the meantime, I pulled out my biggest, friendliest smile and said, “Well, I don’t want to keep you two! Dr. Chesterton, feel free to pass me off to an assistant or an intern. I’m sure they can get me set up in one of the departmental study rooms.”
“Oh, no need,” she assured me, leading the way across the Great Court to a nearly invisible door set into the wall behind the curved Reading Room wall. “There’s a private reading room already earmarked for your use today, and for however long you have need of it. Right this way!”
Gritting my teeth, I resigned myself to a painfully long, polite goodbye. Ian was a silent shadow at our heels, probably counting the seconds until he could be alone with the museum director.
“That’s very generous,” I said as we trooped down a flight of stairs to a deeper level of the museum than was open to the public. We passed several administrative offices before entering a hallway that smelled reassuringly of old, leather-bound books and dusty papers. One of my favorite smells in the world.
“Here we are.” Georgiana pushed open a door on the left to reveal a small, square jewel-box of a room. A sturdy wooden table took up most of the space, and it was topped with a reading lamp and several stacks of heavy books and archival folios that made my fingers itch to touch them.
All the information—the names and places and stories and recipes—contained in those volumes filled my mind in a heady rush. My fingers itched to reach out and touch the dry, brittle pages. The thrill of anticipation almost let me ignore the significant look I caught Ian throwing Dr. Hottie out of the corner of my eye.
“This is amazing,” I gushed, bubbling over with nerdy delight. “Thank you so, so much, Dr. Chestert—Georgiana. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
“Oh, don’t thank me.” Georgiana laughed, a husky chuckle that was simultaneously so sexy and so genuine that I couldn’t hate her. “Thank Ian here. He’s the one who got the ball rolling.”
I swallowed hard and turned dutifully t
o face him. “Thank you, Ian.”
He shook his head helplessly, as if he didn’t want my thanks, but his gaze searched mine like he was looking for proof that I was really happy with the room.
Caught in the strange, suspended moment, I barely noticed when Georgiana slipped past us to pause in the open doorway. “I’ll just leave you to it then, shall I? There’s a buzzer on the desk that rings straight through to the curator’s desk. Do ring if you need anything or have any questions. And I’ll be in my office if you’d like to stop by before you leave, but don’t if it’s a bore.”
And with that, she whisked herself out of the private room, leaving me alone with Ian Hale.
Chapter Four
“Aren’t you going with her?” I blurted out like a fool.
He looked startled for a second, then the lines of his handsome face hardened to stubbornness. “No. I want to stay. I promise I won’t get in your way.”
“But . . .” My head was spinning. I felt like Pilot’s favorite rag doll toy, being vigorously whipped back and forth while clamped in his jaws. All of a sudden, I’d had enough. “Look. What the hell is going on here?”
Ian went into lockdown, his face watchful. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I stalked around the table to dump my laptop bag on the other side. I needed some space and this room was tiny. “Oh come on! No one is this nice to a total stranger! Certainly not someone like you when the total stranger is someone like me.”
“What does that mean?”
“You are Ian Hale, international movie star. And I’m the girl who asked her high school crush to dance at prom and got laughed out of the room. You and I don’t match! I mean, just look at us!” I gestured between his perfect, sculpted body in its effortlessly cool clothes that probably cost more than I was paying to rent my London flat, and my soft, too-curvy-for-fashion body in its too-tight outfit. God, I’d put in so much effort to look nice, and I was still a disaster. While Ian had clearly rolled out of bed looking exactly that devastatingly sexy.
Naughty Brits: An Anthology Page 27