by Julie Caplin
‘No,’ bitterness roughened Bella’s voice, ‘but he doesn’t believe people from very different backgrounds are compatible. That’s why I’m too chicken to ask him out.’
‘You still haven’t done it, then?’
‘No, because I know what will happen. Last year I invited him out here and that’s when it all went balls up.’
‘Ah, and was he was a bit uncomfortable when he saw the house? I guess that’s natural, if you’re out of your comfort zone.’
‘You’re kidding, the concept of a house in the Hamptons freaked him out. He refused to set foot out of Brooklyn with me. Dunderhead male.’
‘Harsh, Bels,’ interjected Todd.
‘No, he’s an idiot. Said we were too different. But I know he still likes me. Too freaking proud. His loss.’ Bella’s bravado didn’t quite ring true. Suddenly she changed the subject. ‘So how come Todd knows?’
‘Yes,’ Sophie frowned. ‘How do you know and why didn’t you say anything?’
‘You never mentioned it, so I didn’t.’
Sophie’s eyes narrowed. ‘When? And how …?’
‘Work. Your visa paperwork. Trudy mentioned it in a meeting. Ages ago.’
Sophie groaned, putting both hands over her face. ‘Does everyone know?’
‘I’ve never heard anyone else mention it and there were only four of us in the meeting. Trudy, Paul, me and a woman from HR.’
‘Paul knew.’ Sophie grimaced and rocked back on her heels. Now some of his comments made sense. No wonder he’d been so unexpectedly keen. Him and his seven-year plan. He probably thought her name could open a few doors.
‘Sorry,’ mouthed Todd. She gave him a sad smile. He might not do commitment or long term, but at least he was honest about it. She knew exactly where she stood with him. She didn’t need to trust him because she wouldn’t be making an emotional investment. From now on, she was keeping things light and fun.
Chapter 22
Thanksgiving had been put to bed at the magazine and come Monday morning Sophie was plunged into Christmas, even though the temperatures outside had touched the high forties.
Going to work was suddenly a challenge. July had hit big time. Walking along the streets was a hot sticky business, whereas going into the subway was like plunging into an icy fridge. This, combined with the more bearable temperature in the offices, meant that deciding what to wear was fraught with difficulties.
By Friday, quite frankly, Sophie was crabby. And … she knew exactly why. Since Sunday there’d been absolutely no sign of Todd. It was as if he’d vanished. She hadn’t received a single text from him. He’d been absent from his desk all week, which was doubly irritating because Sophie was still fielding calls from Amy, Cherie and Charlene.
They’d travelled back from the Hamptons on Sunday morning to beat the traffic. When Todd pulled up outside Bella’s, he’d handed Bella her bag outside Sophie’s door. Her grumpy stare in response had had Sophie hiding her smile. ‘The treatment only goes up one floor, does it?’
‘Be grateful it went this far. Last year I dropped you outside and as I seem to recall, you were more than happy to get a lift home.’
Bella hefted her bag over her shoulder. ‘Behave, kids. I don’t know who to warn off first.’ With a comical grimace she’d looked from one to the other, wagging a finger. ‘If you can’t be good, be careful.’
‘Bels, get lost.’
‘Going, going, gone.’ Like one of the seven dwarves with a heavy load she trooped off up the stairs.
When they’d stepped over the threshold to her apartment, Sophie had held her breath, fanciful that she might startle the air. The apartment had that still, stopped-in-time feel, as if not even so much as a dust mote had moved while she’d been gone.
Sitting here now at her desk, she allowed herself a little smile at the memory of Todd dropping her holdall, letting it land with a graceless thud.
‘Come here, you.’
He’d pulled her into his arms, saying, ‘So much for the nice leisurely journey home I’d planned without my cousin cramping my style. Lunch in West Hempstead and I wanted to take you to this great little coffee shop.’ He dipped his head and grazed her lips with his. ‘And I’d factored in a lot of kissing.’
‘A lot of kissing?’
He nodded solemnly. ‘An awful lot of kissing.’
‘Ah, so you’re behind now.’ Sophie linked her arms around his neck.
‘Very behind. Any suggestions?’
‘I’m fresh out of ideas, probably,’ she peeked through her lashes at him, her eyes brimming with mischief, ‘because I haven’t been kissed enough.’
Todd had done his very best to remedy the situation and Sophie had done her very best to help. Wriggling in her chair and staring out of the window beyond Todd’s desk, she remembered how things had started to get a little heated.
‘This could go one of two ways. I can carry on kissing you, neglect all my domestic chores, which will mean I go to work commando tomorrow—’
‘Eek, please tell me you don’t really do that,’ Sophie blushed as she looked at Todd’s low-slung jeans and the gap where his T-shirt rode up.
‘Wouldn’t you like to find out?’ His naughty smile almost turned her inside out. ‘But I need to do some catching up. Dinner?’ He stopped. ‘Er … how about Saturday?’
‘Saturday?’ Damn, that sounded like dismay. ‘Yes, yes,’ she collected herself quickly. ‘That would be … lovely,’ she said. Saturday was forever away. Nearly a whole week. Clearly that was the way things were done when you were having a fling thing.
Todd gave her a quick frown. ‘Something wrong?’
‘No. No. Right, I need to get on too.’
It was only when she closed her door and leant against it that she sagged slightly with a tiny plaintive smile. Saturday was fine. Disappointment wasn’t part of this deal. And she was a fool to expect any more. It wasn’t as if Todd hadn’t made the parameters perfectly clear.
And he’d stuck to them, thought Sophie later that morning when she finally said in exasperation to Charlene, on her third call of the day, ‘I think he must have dropped his cell-phone down the loo.’
‘You will tell him I called,’ she said insistently as if Sophie was his PA or something.
‘I’ve left three Post-it notes on his desk,’ said Sophie, ‘but I haven’t seen him since last week.’
‘Has he been in to work?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ replied Sophie, ‘and quite frankly I don’t care. I’m sorry, I’ve got work to do. I’m sure when he resurfaces, he’ll call you.’ She slammed the phone down perhaps a little more forcibly than poor Charlene warranted. Where the hell was Todd? She had plenty to do without answering his phone every five blessed minutes.
With a start she realised it was ten past eleven and she was due to join a meeting to finalise the plans for the Christmas recipe pages. With a heavy sigh, she grabbed her notebook and shot a glare at Todd’s empty seat. She was already pig-sick, quite literally, of Christmas. By then she’d be back home. All this would be in the past. And she didn’t want to think about it.
With a huff, she left her desk. She normally loved everything festive and now she was irritated by the indecision of the editorial team charged with the dessert end of the article, who had yet to decide whether they should focus on Christmas cake or Christmas pudding for the December issue.
She sat down in the board room with an audible thump in her chair, feeling guilty when Paul shot her a warm smile from the other side of the table.
‘Everything OK?’ asked Trudy.
‘Fine,’ said Sophie, clenching her hands into fists under her thighs. They’d discussed this once already and she really didn’t feel they needed to go over it again.
Five minutes into the discussion, when it had virtually been agreed that a feature on a classic Christmas-cake recipe would be the centrepiece of the December magazine, Madison piped up.
‘Don’t you think that’s all a bit old fas
hioned?’ she asked with her usual superior sneer. ‘We should do modern twists on Christmas cakes. People don’t want stodgy dried fruit. They want chocolate cake. Sponges. Only old people want that sort of stuff.’ She looked around the table, flicking her shiny hair over her designer-clad shoulders, reminding Sophie of the weekend and the other guests at Celine’s party.
Immediately she thought of the Artic Monkeys and the refrain, I bet you look good in the Hamptons burst into her head, bringing with it a quick zing of rebellion. With a brief pause, the sort that isn’t quite enough to stop you saying something you know you shouldn’t, she clenched her hands tighter, and then suddenly found herself saying, ‘Actually, you’re wrong. People want nostalgia at Christmas. Tradition. They want to reproduce what their families had. They want a cake to be special, not something they can have the rest of the year. They want to take time and trouble over it, they want it to be made with love. I think readers want to soak their fruit in brandy, I think they want to make their cake over a few weeks. The perfect Christmas cake is almost an antidote to technology and the fast pace we live in. Making it takes time and care.’
‘Well said, Sophie.’ Trudy put her pen down. ‘Actually I think that’s a theme we can focus on for the whole issue. Abandon the cell-phones, reconnect with the family. It’s exactly what people are looking for at the moment.’
When Sophie walked out of the room, heading back to her desk down the corridor, her back positively itched. It wasn’t difficult to imagine Madison hurling a dozen knives her way, but she was pleased she’d said her piece even though it was now down to her to come up with a very traditional recipe that involved steeping fruit for several days and designing a show-stopping topper. Thank goodness for Bella and her icing skills. Sophie would be picking her brains again this weekend.
The sight of Todd on the far side of the office, lounging back on two legs of his chair, brought her to a sudden halt. He looked completely relaxed and at home. With a swallow she bent to touch her foot, as if there was something in her shoe that had stopped her. She bet his pulse didn’t do stupid things when he saw her. In fact, he was probably on the phone with Amy or Charlene right now, fixing up to see them later in the week. Act normal. Pleased to see him. She straightened and carried on, weaving through the desks, pasting a big fat casual smile on her face, one that she didn’t really feel.
Todd smiled when he saw her, and he waved, with the phone tucked under his chin. Being friendly, just like he had in all the weeks previously.
‘Hey,’ he mouthed as she sat down opposite him. Somehow she found herself doing one of those cute little waves in greeting as she drew in her chair and flipped up her laptop.
‘Sure … That would be great … Seven …Yeah … See you there.’
Checking her emails, she studiously kept her head down. She’d got this.
When he put the phone down, she didn’t look up but kept tapping away.
‘Hey English, how you doing?’
‘Good thanks,’ she managed the full-on, twinkly, isn’t-this-fun smile back at him. Not aggrieved, not disappointed. No promises made. The last thing she wanted Todd to realise was that actually, she was a little bit disappointed that he’d not been in touch since Sunday. Not so much as a text or a call. Which was fine, really. Because after all, they’d agreed this wasn’t … permanent. She had no right to feel that way. They’d made it perfectly clear between them. This was a thing, a fling thing. Except … when they were in the Hamptons away from the everyday routine, she hadn’t really appreciated the difficulty of sitting opposite him at work, or equally, the difficulty of him not sitting opposite her at work.
It wasn’t Todd’s fault. He’d been quite clear. She hadn’t done casual before. She’d get used to it.
Treating him like a colleague, she gave him a brief nod and got back to her email inbox which stared blankly back at her. Not a sausage in there that needed dealing with.
‘You OK, English?’ Above the top of his desk, Sophie could see one of Todd’s legs bouncing up and down with nervous energy. Oh lord, could he sense her annoyance with him?
‘Me? Yeah, fine. Busy. Christmas.’ She needed to do better than this. At the moment she was acting as if she expected something from him. Remember the rules, Sophie. ‘Can you believe it? You could probably fry eggs on the bonnets of cars out there, and I’m writing about making Christmas cakes.’
‘You still on for tomorrow night?’ Todd’s forehead was marred by the faintest of frowns.
‘Tomorrow night?’
‘Dinner.’
‘Oh,’ Sophie frowned in puzzlement as if she’d forgotten all about it. He paused for a moment, his eyes searching hers. ‘Yes.’
Now he was the one that looked puzzled.
They worked in silence, strained silence. Sophie didn’t dare look up at him. She’d blown it. Completely blown it. Feeling slightly sick, she tensed in her seat.
‘Hungry?’ Todd jumped to his feet. Before she could answer, he was beside her, putting a hand underneath her elbow, gently guiding her to her feet. ‘I bet you’ve been eating at your desk all week, haven’t you? I told you it’s bad for you. Come on, I’ll take you to a fantastic Mexican street-food stall around the corner and we can eat in the park.’
With a casual shrug, she agreed. Here it was, she was going to get the brush-off. He knew. With reluctant steps she followed him through the desks towards the lift.
They stood in front of the doors and she kept herself ramrod straight so there was no accidental touching. Not that he seemed aware, as soon as they got into the lift he leaned right across her to press the button for the ground floor, brushing his hand across her stomach.
She stiffened, but then as the doors began to close he twirled her around, muttering, ‘Been too long, English.’ He was just lowering his head, her heart exploding in a series of mini explosions of relief, when the doors stuttered open again and Sophie looked over Todd’s shoulder to see Madison’s very startled face, her mouth dropping into an ‘O’ of surprise. Then Madison, being Madison, regained her super-cool equilibrium and strode into the lift.
‘Todd. Nice to see you,’ she said, completely ignoring Sophie. ‘I hear you were in the Hamptons at the weekend. I’ve discovered we have mutual friends.’
‘We do?’ asked Todd, turning around with the sort of formal politeness that Sophie now knew was his way of signalling complete disinterest.
Sophie stared down at the floor, as the lift did that into-hyperspace speed-drop downwards.
‘Yes, my friend Stacy Van der Straten was at your party.’
‘Well, technically it was my parents’ party.’ Sophie ventured a look at his face and saw his friendly smile, which clearly reassured Madison, judging by the simpering grin on her face. But Sophie thought smugly that the smile didn’t hold the usual kilowatt twinkle that did funny things to her stomach.
‘Stacy said it was fabulous. Shame I had to stay in the city for my father’s sixtieth. Family do at The Metropolitan Club. I’m sure I’d have had a lot more fun at your place.’
‘Like I said, it’s my parents’ place. They’re in charge of the frivolities.’
‘Maybe next year,’ purred Madison, shooting a look of triumph at Sophie as if to say, because I’ll still be here and you won’t.
With that jolting vibration that signified they’d landed, the lift stopped and as soon as the doors opened Todd marched out of the door, like a man on a mission.
‘Nice seeing you, Madison. Come on Sophie, we’ll be late.’
She had to lengthen her stride to keep up with him as they left the building, walking out into hot soupy air filled with fumes and the sound of sirens and horns tooting. He slowed as the heat hit and took her hand, linking his fingers through hers.
‘She is one royal pain in the ass. Do you know how long it is since I last kissed you?’
A burst of sunshine lit up inside her.
It looked as if most of the office workers in downtown Manhattan had had th
e same idea and almost every patch of shade in the immediate vicinity was taken up, but with unerring confidence Todd led her to an area of grass next to a shimmering expanse of water.
‘Come here you,’ he pulled her into his arms and gave her a thorough kiss that left them both looking a little bemused. He pushed away a stray tendril of hair that had escaped her ponytail, looking into her eyes with a quick puzzled frown, before saying very quietly, ‘I missed you.’
She gave him a quick squeeze in response, not wanting to say anything, as if it might scare him away. He looked as surprised at the revelation as she was.
‘Are you going to feed me or not?’ she asked, popping a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth.
With a quick roll of his eyes he shook the brown paper bag in his hand. ‘It’s always about the food with you.’
They sat down side by side on the grass and he quickly unpacked an interesting array of little plastic trays. He’d insisted on selecting the tapas-style dishes for her at the food stall, so that ‘lunch would be a surprise’.
‘Here you go, English, try that.’ Todd scooped up a tiny tortilla piled with broad beans, chili, coriander and slivers of lime and offered it to her, sneaking in a quick kiss which made her insides flutter, before she put it into her mouth.
Tasting the fragrant combination, Sophie closed her eyes in bliss. ‘Mmm, that is heaven and a nice change from turkey. I’ve been busy putting the Christmas edition together. Seems crazy, doesn’t it, when the weather is like this.’
‘It does.’ His fingers skated over her lower lip teasingly. She stared at his chin while her pulse short-circuited for a second. ‘Where,’ his hand slipped under her chin and he nudged it up very slightly so that she was forced to meet his eyes, ‘do you fancy going to dinner tomorrow – no turkey drumsticks?’ The warmth in his gaze was quickly replaced with flirty mischief.
‘You’re kidding. There is such a thing? They’d be huge.’
‘Oh yes, they’re a thing. So tomorrow? There’s a great Meze place or an Italian which does seriously good pizza.’ He leaned back on the grass next to her, propping himself up on his elbows, lifting his face up to the sun, a slight wariness in his stillness.