by Anna Bloom
Another shrug. “No names.”
“Sorry, it sounds wrong.” God. Kill me.
Oh wait…
A quick internal body sweep ensures my heart isn’t about to give up within the next hour or two. That would be a damn shame, he really is gorgeous, and it’s been a while since I’ve been for dinner with a man. The truth is, if I can sit here with a complete stranger with a beautiful smile, crinkles around his eyes, and hair that might tickle, it means I don’t have to go home. Don’t have to face a stark reality that I don’t want to be mine.
The bartender clears his throat. “Table by the window.” He points, flicking an accusing gaze over me again that says—I remembered your drink and now you’re going to have dinner with that beast of a man, how’s that fair? In response, I drag my gaze away from my unexpected dinner date and grimace an awkward smile which says in return—it’s okay. I’ll be back for another depressing appointment in hell next week and I promise I’ll drink all your Pinot.
“Thanks. I think,” I say, already distracted by Man Mountain turning back to his paper. Without a sign of rushing, and with a surprising delicate touch, he folds it neatly back down the crease and folds it again in half.
Now that is how a newspaper should be treated. Not scrunched into the trash; left abandoned on the Tube; or worse, wrapped around fish.
I could fall in love with him just because he knows how to fold a newspaper.
Okay. I am definitely in shock.
Without a sound, he gets off his stool, and I crank my neck to look up at him. He truly is a mountain made of man. Wide shoulders and narrow hips wrapped in a tan belt against his sharp cut suit. Wowser. I don’t want to get off my own stool. I’ll only come up to his nipples.
A steady gaze on my face, he holds his arm out to help me down. “After you,” he says in that gloriously seductive sounding accent.
My feet plop down onto the floor like an elf next to a yeti. “Thanks.” I put my neck out to look up as I start to cartograph an ordnance survey of his face just in case I ever forget I saw it.
Does he know how beautiful he is? How did I end up sitting next to him in a bar? The worst day of my life and I end up having dinner with a face like that. Wait till I tell Liv.
The universe is a strange thing.
His lips flicker into a smirk and I know he’s assessing how incredibly small I am.
I can’t help it, small is good. I get to wear kid’s trainers at half the price. I also get ID’d every time I buy alcohol and at twenty-nine, I’m no longer offended.
Across the room, in an awkward silence, Man Mountain waits for me to sit, his hand hovering on the back of my chair, angling it slightly and pushing it in as I bend my legs to sit.
My heart gives a little flutter. No one has ever helped me sit down before. I think my vagina just fluttered too.
This is crazy right? I should be on the Tube. Going to Olivia’s so we can whisper about my exceedingly bad news over wine at her kitchen island while my niece runs riot like a wild animal, and my nephew cries with the inflamed passion of a six-month-old that hasn’t been given milk in the last five minutes. That was the way today was going to go.
Almost on cue my phone rings again.
Man Mountain’s gaze reads my face. “I don’t want to be rude,” he says, and I want to tell him he could never be rude because his accent makes it almost impossible. “But your phone has been ringing the whole time you’ve been here.”
I fiddle with the fork a waitress puts down in front of me. Her attention is solely on my dinner partner. Who can blame her? She’s human, not a robot.
“It’s my sister.” I peek up to look at his heavenly face. Glory to God, what a face. And it’s sat opposite me at a cosy table for two.
“And you don’t want to answer?” He steeples his fingers into a cathedral arch, staring at me over the spire.
“Not right now, no.” My shoulders drop. “Sorry, that probably sounds awful.”
He shrugs, before flashing me a brilliant dash of white in his smile and dismantling his cathedral, in preference to holding his palm out to me. “Shall I answer? Tell you’re out for dinner with a handsome stranger.”
Yes! Do that! “Tempting, but she’d likely think you were a rapist and/or murdering bastard trying to pretend I was still alive.” I squint my eyes at him. “You aren’t, are you?”
He laughs. Pure fucking magic. “No.”
“That’s a relief. Could have got awkward.”
The trill of my phone disturbs the moment as we stare at one another. For God’s sake, Olivia. Get with the programme; I’m not answering.
“May I suggest switching it off?” He pours a glass of water for himself and takes a sip. I pout my lips into a little kissy shape as I watch him slide his against the glass.
“You could, but it would only make it worse. If I switch it off the police will be out scouring for me in a matter of minutes.”
“Oh really?” His eyebrow lifts again. Most people’s eyebrows are just furniture on their face. Not his. He uses it as a method of communication, I’m sure of it. “That sounds very…” he rolls his hand, “dramatic.”
Shaking my head, I rub at my cheek—tears by the Thames seems an age ago, but I’ve just realised my makeup would have washed away in salt water. “I had an…” I go to point in the direction of the hospital, but then stop myself. “Do you know what? Doesn’t matter. Liv, Olivia, my sister, she thinks she has to mother me all the time, when the truth is she can’t help me right now. I don’t think anyone can.” Unless they have a spare heart just lying around in a cooler box waiting to be inserted into my chest cavity. Said chest cavity gives a little boombababoom, just to remind me off the current issue at hand.
“No?” His head tilts to the side, all teasing evaporating from his face. Instead of the smirk, a beautifully carved relief of concern settles on his features. “Most things are important, no, and it must be important if she wants to take care of it for you?”
“What’s important to you?” I ignore the water I should drink and pick up my Pinot.
He shrugs. “Various things.”
“Like?” I take another sip, drowning myself into the deep sea of his eyes. My toes can’t touch the sand and I know I should start treading water.
“People.” He nods to my bag with the endless phone ringing. “Siblings.”
“Why are you here by yourself?” This man I’m pretty sure isn’t alone often. Even if he wants to be, women probably herd around him like cattle around a trough.
I’ve just realised I’m the cattle in this scenario. Suddenly, I have a wild urge to moo.
The smirk creeps back across the soft upturn of his mouth. “Business.” His sigh mellows my bones. It’s a sigh that says—I don’t want to talk.
“What do you do?”
The dark-blue gaze twinkles. “I sell cheese.”
Unfortunately for me I’ve taken a large gulp of reconstituting wine.
At least it’s not my standard Shiraz because that would have made a spectacular mess across the white cotton of his shirt. As it is the ejected droplets absorb and spread.
“Oh my, fuck.” My cheeks burn with the heat of the earth’s core as I leap from my seat, napkin in hand and start to press the tissue against his chest.
Wow. What a chest.
I keep patting and it has nothing to do with clearing up my mess.
He clasps his long fingers around my wrist, holding it still, turning so his lips are just millimetres from where my face is lowered towards his pecs. “Please, no need.”
My legs wobble.
“I am so sorry,” I say with needy little pants. My hand is on his chest. His face is near my lips, his breath on my skin.
He gives a small shake of his head, but his hand still holds mine. “So… cheese,” I fluster, as he turns those luscious lips up at the edges in response.
“It doesn’t normally have such spectacular reactions, ma petite.”
I narrow my gaz
e, standing up to my full five foot two. “You just called me little.” Thank you Madame Schmidt for GCSE French. I make a mental note to tell Olivia all was not wasted at school.
He shrugs and lets go of my wrist. “A statement of fact, no?”
Ugh. French. Every answer is a question.
“Sometimes stating facts isn’t polite,” I grind out.
He shrugs again. “But still, there they are.”
So actually, beautiful Man Mountain might be rude. I should probably leave.
I glance out of the window at the dark January night. What am I going home to? Homemade Pot Noodle for one and a farting cat? Or worse, a quick detour via my sister’s place to break her heart.
Giving it some sassy hip swing, I stomp back for my seat and flop back down. His smirk grows.
“Brie?”
He laughs and it’s rolling hills of sheer pleasure, all green and covered in morning dew. “A little more compleecated than that.”
I nod. I know all about cheese. And the port that goes with it at Christmas. “Roquefort then?”
That brow quirks again. “You know about Roquefort?”
“Well, I read an article about it once.” Okay, I skimmed an article about it once. “And it tastes really good on a poppy seed cracker.”
He booms another laugh, making people turn to stare, not that he seems to notice. If he does, his concern is right down on the couldn’t-give-a-shit level. He stares out of the window for a brief moment, while I take the opportunity to stare at his profile.
“It’s a family business.” His words are said with a shrug that I think is meant to say more. “It’s a unique process. It costs money, no? But then how do you make money when it costs so much? So, things change.”
I nod. I understand this.
He turns back, smile bright and enigmatic. “And what do you do? Apart from sit on stools at bars oblivious while the bartender flirts with you.”
Cheeks warm, probably staining a dark pink, I choose to ignore half of his question. “I work for a newspaper.” I nod at the carefully folded broadsheet.
“The Times?” The eyebrow does some serious talking.
“Ha! No. A very small press. It’s a satirical paper… On Fleet Street.” I trail off. I hadn’t thought about work after the devastating news bomb this morning. What would I tell Rebecca? Were you meant to hand your notice in? I really knew nothing about this dying business.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh. Uh.” My chest is tight again, my heart pounding unevenly. I grasp the buttons on my black blouse. “Nothing.”
Man Mountain watches me carefully. “You look like the person who loves to have fun but isn’t right now.”
My throat tightens and I incline my head, although I wished his character assessment was halfway true. “No offense to the current company.”
“None taken.”
“How often do you come to London on cheese business?”
Another enigmatic shrug. “Once a month if I can.”
“That’s a lot of Eurostar.”
Shrug.
“Where in France do you come from?”
A wistful smile tilts his lips. “The Pyrenees, a town called Perpignan.”
“Down in the south, right?”
“Have you been?”
“No.” A tug pulls at my chest. How incredibly pathetic that I haven’t even visited the country right next door, not even for the day, or to stock up on wine on a booze cruise. Although saying that, I haven’t been to Wales either, or Ireland. Scotland was only for two nights.
Funny that life is always in such a rush to never really do very much.
Maybe it’s time for a bucket list.
“It’s beautiful. The air is warm, buzzing with bees, and smelling of honey.”
“Not cheese?”
Those eyebrows pull together, but a smile flickers. “The view is a haze of purple heather and wildflowers, the wine good.” He sniffs his shirt and I snort a laugh, holding up my hands in surrender. “The food is easy, simple, the people relaxed and full of sunshine and vitamin D.”
“Sounds like heaven. Vitamin D is in short supply this side of the channel.” I side eye the miserable grey sky outside and he chuckles.
“Of course, now it’s January, so it’s freezing pipes and barren landscapes.”
I smile up at him, warmth spreading from my chest down my limbs until I’m all floaty and golden.
“I prefer your original description.”
“Moi aussi, ma petite, me too.”
The waitress cuts in, angling her hip so she’s directly facing the Frenchman across the table. “Are you ready to order?”
He peeps around her waist, eyes dancing. “My date would like chips, and she doesn’t like to share.”
My cheeks flame, but I can’t help a smile.
“And steak frites for me and a bottle of the 2020 Beaujolais. Mystery woman, would you like anything else?” he asks me and silently I shake my head. I might not manage to eat one chip the way my stomach has tied into knots.
“Eh?” she asks.
“Steak and chips.” For the record it sounds soooo much better in French. I’d roll in the words if I could.
“Date?” I ask once she’s moved away, after throwing a smouldering pout in his direction and glancing over me as if wondering how I became the mystery date woman?
Lady, I don’t know. One minute I was sitting by the Thames considering the end of all things and now I’m staring at that masterpiece in navy.
“Well, it’s dinner. We have wine.”
“Beaujolais?” I roll the letters around my mouth. “I’m more of a Shiraz girl.”
He groans, dropping his head into his hands, fingers pushing through the thick dark waves. “New world grapes? I’m guessing, average five pounds a bottle?” He shudders and glances around the restaurant through his fingers. “I might have to pick a different date after all.”
“Hey!”
Laughing, he straightens up and catches my hand in his meaty paw, turning it and examining my palm. My breath hitches and his dark gaze flicks to my face. “Wine is all about the grape, the age of the vine, the water it drinks, the soil it sits in, the amount of sunshine it absorbs.” His gaze zeroes in on my mouth and I shift on my seat like I’m sitting on hot coals. “A Beaujolais is a Gamay grape, young and ripe. It’s picked and processed and then bottled all within the year. It’s a race by vineyards to see who can get their bottle on the shelves first. You never want to drink a bottle that’s older than the year before, otherwise that’s just a bottle of Gamay with a fancy label.” Fancee labbell.
“I’ll try to remember.” God, I sound breathless.
“Then this dinner will have served a purpose.”
I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. He really has no idea. “Believe me, it already has.”
4
One Night
“This has been lovely.”
It really has. So lovely. Let’s be realistic here, I could stare at his face and sit in silence and it would have been lovely. But beneath the stormy eyes, those talking eyebrows, and fuck-me-kissable lips, the man has a brain.
It’s done odd things to my thighs.
I’ve been rubbing them under the table. I hope he hasn’t noticed.
“Definitely a perk to London.” He smiles over his wine glass. I’m jealous of the glass, the way his lips just skim it.
I’m also utterly deranged right now.
I need to go home. Process the shock. Speak to Liv. I don’t know, make a plan for doomsday.
The Man Mountain has made me forget almost everything that has broken my heart today.
“We could have a nightcap.” He lowers his wine glass, gently placing it on the table with such grace I’m mesmerised.
Until he clicks his fingers under my nose. “Are you awake? Or has my concoction finally hit home?” That smirk. It should be illegal.
“What was the concoction?” Are my lips even w
orking?
“Brandy, Chambord, and a dash of grenadine.” His smirk grows into something wolfish while I frown.
“Chambord? That’s berries right?” I don’t know why I remember that being in the teak ‘drinks’ cabinet we had at home growing up. Liv and I must have hit the supply at one time or another. Clearly hasn’t left a mark like the Crème de Menthe did.
Man Mountain chuckles. “What did you just think of? You shuddered.”
I heat up from the inside out and shake my head. “Nothing. Just remembering my sister and me tasting all the random bottles in the drinks cabinet.” I pull a face. “There was a nasty green one.”
“Everyone is sick first time with Crème de Menthe.” I can’t stop staring at his smile. I’ve got a serious lip-obsession going on.
“Even the French?”
He chuckles again, and musical bells ring in heaven. “Even the French. You are close to your sister, no?”
His question makes me rock back in my seat. “Yes. Very much so.”
“But you’ve been ignoring her calls the whole time we’ve known one another.” Something about the way he says this makes my chest hollow. He doesn’t say, since we met… rather… the whole time we’ve known one another… like we could always know one another.
But that’s crazy.
He’s French.
Actually lives in France, apparently in a purple-hued heaven.
And I’m… Well… I’m….
“She’s been through a lot. Her husband left.” I attempt a French-style shrug. “A few months back. They’ve got kids, so it’s not nice.”
“Why did he leave?” Man Mountain’s eyebrows furrow together.
I shrug again, nodding slowly. “Apparently he wasn’t sure about it all anymore.”
“What?”
“Marriage, commitment, monogamy.” I pout at the table before lifting my eyes. “Love. If he ever even did love her.”
The man mountain stares at me, earnestness chiselled into his expression. “Then I would say he’s not worth her being committed too. Marriage ends, but for the right reasons.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying.” I drain the last of my wine. “I really should go; shall we get the check?”