Meet Me in London

by Georgia Toffolo

  Although—given the way she’d looked at him last night with sex in her eyes—he wasn’t so sure.

  Which was another reason why he shouldn’t be here. The last thing he needed was to have this arrangement spilling into the personal, no matter how much his libido piqued whenever she was near.

  “Oliver. Hello.” She beamed at him and, on cue, his libido jumped. “Girls, this is Mr. Russell. The man who has very kindly offered us the first-floor fashion department in the new store next door as a runway for your designs. What do we say?”

  His heart thumped against his rib cage. He only hoped they weren’t going to hit him with technical questions. Runway. Clothes. Space. That was all he knew.

  “Thank you! Thank you, Mr. Russell. Cheers. Mint.” One of the girls raised her fist. He looked at it. What the...? But she grinned and extended it towards him. “Thanks, Ollie.”

  Ollie? So soon? Got to love kids. The hallowed boardroom etiquette he was used to was refreshingly missing here. “Oh, yes. Right.” Laughing and feeling the tension shrink slightly he closed his fist and bumped it against the girl’s. “Thought I’d pop in to see how you’re doing.”

  Victoria walked towards him, eyes and smile bright. “We’re creating our spring-summer collection. The theme is sustainability. In that spirit, and basically because we can’t afford anything else, most of the fabric we’re using has come from secondhand and charity shops, but there’s also the stuff I got cheaply from Betsy on Saturday.”

  “In the famous cardboard box?” How strange to think it was that that had led to this.

  “The very one.” She bent and picked up the soggy remnants of flattened cardboard and showed him. “We’ve used absolutely everything.”

  “But surely there wasn’t a need for the bunnies?” He couldn’t stop looking at her, all breathless and flushed and sharing their own private joke.

  “Actually, there was.” The light in her face was ethereal. In this private world of hers she shone. She walked over to fist-pump girl. “This is Jasmine. She’s creating a collection around modern-day fairy tales and how they’ve changed over the decades from wanting a handsome prince to save us to being self-actuated and independent. Jasmine, you can explain your ideas better than me.”

  Fist-pump girl nodded, her neat braids swaying as she talked enthusiastically. “Yeah, miss, er...sir, like, we’re not just shaped by things around us, but we have power, you know? We have agency and we’re doing the shaping.”

  “That’s right.” Victoria nodded. “Also, it’s a look at how urban living and fast fashion has transformed our dreams and desires into something temporary and fleeting. We want it, we get it, then we discard it. The tire marks on the bunny ribbon is a very dramatic and apt representation. Right, Jas?”

  “It’s well peng, miss.” Jasmine nodded and bent to secure some bunny ribbon loops around the armholes of a dress on a mannequin dummy. “See? City people laying waste to nature. We want new fairy tales where we save ourselves and the world.”

  “Peng?” He mouthed to Victoria over Jasmine’s head. Was this a technical design term?

  Victoria gave him a thumbs-up. “Great.”

  It means great? He looked at the dress. “Excellent. Peng indeed.”

  Jasmine giggled. “You’re getting the hang of it, sir.”

  “I try.”

  “Actually, Mr. Russell, can you just stand still for me?” It was one of the other girls, she had a tape measure in one hand and a very mischievous look in her dark eyes. She stretched the tape up to his shoulders. “How tall are you?”

  “Six foot three. Why?”

  “I want to see how this measures up on you.” She held something made out of the skull-and-crossbones fabric against his chest. “Careful. Pins. Thanks, right. Needs shortening. Don’t suppose you’d be our model on the night, sir?”

  He took a step back. “Absolutely not.”

  The girl’s shoulders sagged. “Just, we can’t get enough guys to help us out. No point making clothes if we can’t see how they drape when you’re walking or moving.”

  God. What to say? She had a point, but he was not the guy for the job.

  Victoria took the tape measure from the girl’s hand. “I’m sorry, Nisha, but Mr. Russell is going to be very busy that night. It’s the store’s official opening and he has a lot more to worry about than just us. We’ll find some male models from somewhere. Or we’ll just have to commandeer your brothers, right? I don’t suppose your dad will let them have a night off work?”

  The girl shook her head. “He’s already got them roped in to do the pop-up stall.”

  “Nisha is Aziz’s daughter,” Victoria explained. “From the restaurant last night.”

  “Fantastic. Tell your dad I’ll be wanting a regular order of that chicken tikka masala.”

  It was all fitting together. Victoria was right; he’d moved his business into a tight community where people helped each other out. It was something he’d never really considered when placing a store. Sure, he’d been on community boards as a rep for the Russell & Co. firm, but he hadn’t ever really contemplated getting involved on a deeper level. Now he was faced with another challenge; he wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he wanted to make the runway a success for these girls.

  “We’ll work out something for your models, don’t worry.”

  “Mint.” Jasmine laughed. “Or we could teach you how to wiggle your bum and walk in a straight line at the same time.”

  “Oh, no. No. There is not a chance in hell you will get me on that catwalk.”

  “Come on. It’s easy, sir.” Nisha put the fabric onto the table and started to stalk across the floor wiggling her hips in an exaggerated fashion. When she got to the end of the—very short—makeshift runway she stopped, put her hands on her hips and posed first to the left and then the right. Then she turned, walked back and grabbed Victoria’s arm. “Come on, miss. Show him how it’s done.”

  “No way!” Screeching, Victoria shook her head. “I can’t do that. I have no idea how it’s done.”

  “Yes, you have, miss. You showed us last week.” Jasmine’s eyes were wide and glittering. “Come on.”

  He couldn’t think of a better thing to see. “Come on, Victoria, how else will the girls learn? You need to show us how it’s done.”

  If looks could have killed he’d have been struck dead. She was shaking her head, but it was more out of frustration than refusal.

  “Aww, miss. You did it last week.” A third girl who this far hadn’t said a word, suddenly piped up. “You not shy of the guy?”

  “Not at all, Billie.” Victoria’s back stiffened and he could see the indecision in her eyes. Why not do exactly what she’d been doing for weeks in front of him? Then there was the slightest hint of a smile on her lips. It grew, her cheeks flushed. Her eyes danced. Eventually, as the noise level rose with the girls chanting Miss, Miss, Miss, she raised her palms for silence. “OK, just once. Then it’s time for you all to pack up.”

  She looked at them all in turn, gaze lingering just a second longer as she looked at Oliver. Her hair was now falling around her face, enhancing her eyes and the smooth curve of her cheek. Her mouth opened slightly, her tongue darted out to lick her bottom lip as she asked him, “Deal?”

  Bring it on. He gestured to the small space in front of her, wishing there weren’t three other people in the room and thinking of all the things he’d like to do to her and with her and said, “Deal.”

  “OK. Watch and learn.” Victoria threw her head back, slid her hands low onto her hips and stepped her right foot in front of the left. Her hips swayed to the left, then the right, then the left. He couldn’t draw his gaze away and only did so as she turned one-eighty degrees and stopped. She stepped left and right, twisting her body slightly, then walked forward. He was mesmerized. Enthralled. His peripheral vision blurred as he narr
owed his gaze to her. To her eyes. To her. She was beautiful. Elegant. Demure yet strong. Fun. Kind. And sexy as hell.

  His skin felt tight, his jeans felt tight, he had an urge to whip her into his arms. An ache to touch her as she strutted across the room back and forth, wiggling her backside wearing the defiant sexy expression of the hundreds of models he’d seen in magazines. He’d dated some of them, God knew, but none of them had captured his interest as much as she did. He wanted her.

  But the spell broke as she clapped her hands. “Right, the show’s over. Time to go home, you horrible lot.”

  “Naw, miss.” Jasmine pouted.

  “I know, I know. I love this class too.” But Victoria shrugged. “Same time next week. And you all need to think how you want your work to be described in the brochure I’m having made to hand out to the audience.”

  After another decibel level increase—as they chatted and packed their bags then shuffled off with a chorus of goodbyes—silence fell.

  Victoria closed the door behind them and leaned back against it, her body sagging a little in relief. “I love them to pieces but they’re exhausting. I wish I had that much energy on a Friday night. I remember when I was just starting to get ready to go out at this time, now all I’m fit for is sleep.”

  Oliver glanced at his watch, amazed at how fast time had gone this evening. “It’s only nine o’clock. But yeah...they’re exhausting. And great.”

  Pride shone in her face. “Thank you for coming to meet them.”

  “My pleasure.” Actually, the pleasure was being with her, he realized, not for the first time. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted to see a woman so badly. He watched as she walked across the room and began tidying up the table. “You need a hand?”

  “I just need to fold everything up and pop it back on the shelves. They’re good kids, but they make a hell of a mess.”

  “You should tell them to tidy up after themselves.” Embarrassingly, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d folded anything at all, but he picked up some denim and made the best attempt he could.

  She smiled as she watched him refold it into something that resembled a square. “I just love to see them so excited by their projects, and then time flies and suddenly they have to go home. I don’t want to waste my time with them on tidying when we could be creating.”

  “You’re going to be such a sucker with your own kids.”

  “Never going to happen.” She turned away and put a box onto a shelf.

  “How do you know? They’ll wrap you round their little fingers.”

  Shaking her head, she picked up a fistful of zips in all colors. “Such a mess.”

  And that conversation was closed. No marriage. No kids. What was he missing here? Sure, a family wasn’t every woman’s dream, but she seemed to like her students, maybe it was babies she wasn’t fond of.

  Maybe he should just mind his own business.

  They worked around each other, circling as they bent and folded and stretched to put things back on the shelves. Every time he caught her eye, she gave him a small smile that reached into his heart and tugged. Whereas she’d been the confident teacher a few minutes ago she was shy around him in here. Interesting.

  He was just straightening—after wrestling a bag of feathers onto a full shelf—when he found himself face-to-face with a noticeboard on the wall covered in colorful laminated words like honeymoon and wedding day dreams, and pictures of wedding dresses, beaches, bouquets and smiling couples. It felt deeply intimate and aspirational. And a little surprising given the things she’d said last night.

  He studied it for a while. Were these her wedding dreams? Had she spun him a line about not being the marrying type? “Considering you’re not planning to ever get married you seem to have the wedding dress all picked out. And the flowers.” His eyebrows rose. “And the honeymoon. Hawaii? Does the guy get a say in it? It is his wedding too.”

  She came and stood next to him, arms folded, a smile playing on her lips. “That’s not a wedding vision board. It’s a collection vision board.”

  “And that is?”

  “A design”—she emphasized the word design as if he was an idiot and rolled her eyes in amusement—“collection has a theme, a color scheme, specific shapes and forms that inform the styles and ideas around my dresses for a particular season. I might not see myself doing it, but I do like to think I can make each bride’s wedding day unique.”

  “And Hawaii?”

  “That’s a little dream of my own. I’d love to go there one day.” She beamed as she turned to him, pointing to the pictures of palm trees, white sand and clear blue seas. “I’m not getting married but I’m not saying I don’t put any of myself into my creations. You have to get inspiration from somewhere, right?”

  His gaze traveled along the wall to a large framed photo on a shelf of four young women dressed in long, slinky ball gowns and vertiginous heels. They were laughing at something off-camera and looked freer than he’d ever felt in his entire life. “And this? Special?”

  “My friends.” Her hand stilled as he stepped closer to take a better look.

  “You look like you’re enjoying yourselves. Some kind of celebration?”

  “A summer ball. End of school year. End of school full stop.” She blinked, her body language suddenly closed which was at odds with her words. It was a celebratory picture and yet she was so still and her eyes were suddenly sad.

  “You all look so young.” She was still the most beautiful woman in the picture. Her arms were wrapped around the waists of a blonde, almost frail-looking girl and a sun-kissed one with wild corkscrew curls. Another dark-haired young woman stood at the end, clasping corkscrew girl in an embrace and laughing.

  “It’s nearly ten years ago. We were all turning eighteen that academic year. Just about to embark on a new phase in our lives. We were excited to be moving on, excited at what we had in store.”

  Why had her manner changed just looking at the picture? Why had she shivered at such a joyful image? “Which was what?”

  “Fashion design school for me. Daredevil Malie”—she pointed to the sporty, wild-haired one next to her—“is half Hawaiian and half English, and moved over to Maui to explore that part of her heritage. She’s still there and teaches surfing.”

  Ah. “Hence the Hawaii honeymoon?”

  She laughed softly. “Two birds, one stone and all that. Zoe is a travel writer who currently lives in Australia but could be anywhere at any given moment and Lily, the only one who decided to stay in Hawke’s Cove”—she pointed first to the willowy blonde and then the woman on the end—“runs a restaurant.”

  Judging by the affection in her eyes they clearly all meant a lot to her. “Invite them to the opening day, as my guests. I’ll make sure they get the full VIP treatment.”

  “I’d love to, but they won’t be able to make it.” She turned back and met his eyes and he saw a world of sorrow settle there.

  “Why not?”

  “They all live in different parts of the world. Lily may be able to come up from Devon, but the others...no. I don’t think so.” She turned away. This seemed to matter to her.

  “They mean a lot to you.”

  “Of course, we went through so much together.” Her hand went to her belly and she looked a little uncomfortable talking about this. “Good and bad.”

  He tried to push. “Those teenage years, eh? I would not live them again if you paid me. So much angst. So much trying to find out who you are and what you want.”

  “And then plans change and along the way you become a different person.”

  Interesting. She’d thrown him a clue. He grabbed it. “How did plans change?”

  “It’s not importan—” She blinked slowly, then took a deep breath. “OK. It’s no secret. That night, a few minutes after that photo was taken, we were in a car ac
cident. It was bad. And it derailed us all for a few months. I deferred my college place for a year.”

  “God, I had no idea. A car accident? I’m sorry.” He checked her closely, as if it had just happened. There were no visible scars, but she seemed shaken at the memory.

  “Not your fault. I’m OK. Look, I’m here. I’m fine.” She gestured to the room as if to show him how far she’d come.

  “But what happened? Were you hurt? Is this what you meant when you said you’d been in shock before?”

  She nodded, her arms moving from her belly to her chest, wrapping tight around herself like a shield, like armor. “We got hit by another car, spun out of control. It was...” She shuddered and inhaled deeply. “The worst thing that ever happened to me. But I’m just fine now. Do I look hurt?”

  Only sad, regretful and trying hard to be pretend she was as fine as she said she was. But something in her guarded eyes told him he couldn’t push her for more details. Yet. He wondered how she’d react if he held her, just to soothe that pain away until the memory faded.

  She’d probably bawl him out, and she’d be right; they had a deal and she was hell-bent on sticking to it. He didn’t need to get any more deeply involved with her. He was just finding it hard not to. “You don’t look hurt, you look beautiful, as always, Victoria.”

  Her eyes closed for a moment and she seemed to be steadying herself, but then she opened them again and smiled. “Thank you, but you don’t have to say that. No one else is here.”

  “It’s the truth.” She was quite simply the most dazzling woman he’d ever met in whichever situation he saw her in—when teaching she was bright and focused and so in the moment with those girls that she hadn’t even heard him enter the room. When pulling pints she was fun and approachable, and when she spoke about her passions in design and making clothes she literally shone. He didn’t have to pretend she was beautiful, he wasn’t trying to live in a fiancé role here, he was speaking the truth.