Posy and Verity still weren’t back at lunchtime. Posy texted to say that they’d barely scratched the surface of their stationery needs.
‘Well, I’m only going to pop out for a sandwich,’ Tom said sanctimoniously. ‘As it’s just the two of us.’
‘I’m not going to pop out at all then,’ Nina said, because two could play at that game. ‘I’ll just get something from the tearooms and eat it behind the till. But it’s all right, Tom, off you go. I can hold the fort for ten minutes.’
Tom hissed as he got his coat and shut the door behind him in what was practically a flounce. Nina heard a soft chuckle behind her and whirled around to see Noah, as if it could be anyone else, leaning against the office door jamb.
‘Is he always that keen?’ he asked.
‘Hardly ever,’ Nina said tartly. ‘No, don’t write that down!’
‘I don’t write down everything,’ Noah protested, his brows furrowed at the suggestion.
Most of the time Nina avoided looking at Noah. Just the mere suggestion of his presence was enough to irritate her but now when she glanced over at him, she was struck once again by the sensation that she’d seen him before.
She still couldn’t think where. She didn’t tend to hang out with business people and she’d certainly remember Noah, what with the hair – it was really a glorious colour when Noah was caught in a patch of sunlight as he was now – and the freckles; he wasn’t the type of person you forgot. Especially when he smiled at Nina as he was doing now. The smile transformed his face so he stopped being a geeky business analyst in a navy-blue suit and became quite an attractive man. He had good cheekbones too.
It seemed that Noah was softening so it would be a pity not to take advantage of it. ‘You write down most things.’ She came around the counter so she could sidle closer to him. ‘Go on, let me have a little look.’
Noah clasped his iPad to his chest. ‘At what I’ve written? That would be a violation of ethics, don’t you think?’ This close, his eyes weren’t just green but had a ring of hazel around each pupil. ‘Though if you come any closer, I will have to write that down.’
Was that a threat or a joke? Nina couldn’t tell.
‘I’ll make it worth your while,’ Nina said in her huskiest voice. She batted her eyelashes and quivered her bottom lip. If she hadn’t been wearing her hated Happy Ever After T-shirt, which sadly hid her cleavage, she’d even have used her breasts as part of her deadly arsenal.
Noah, however, was unmoved. Though he did smile again. ‘Where’s the famous sexual harassment book?’ he asked. ‘I think what I’m about to write down would be more appropriate there.’
‘We don’t actually have a sexual harassment book,’ Nina said. ‘The only person that Posy, Very and I could possibly sexually harass is Tom and he’s not worth the effort.’
‘Or Tom could sexually harass you?’
‘He wouldn’t dare,’ Nina laughed delightedly at the thought of Tom sexually harassing anyone, and Noah must have thought she was smiling at him because he smiled at her. Again.
Nina smiled back, it seemed the polite thing to do, which meant that she and Noah were locked into a whole smiling back and forth thing like they were having a moment.
Which they weren’t. No moments were being had here.
‘Look, if you’re nipping over to the tearoom for lunch, then I could come with you?’ Noah suggested because this was what smiling at people got you. ‘I’m still working my way through the savoury selection. Is there anything you’d recommend?’
‘Well, Mattie makes this amazing pork-and-apple sausage roll flavoured with harissa,’ Nina replied, because Noah was a sort-of-colleague and it was just idle lunch chat. It wasn’t like she was being friendly or anything. ‘It’s not for the faint-hearted.’
‘Sounds great,’ Noah said enthusiastically. ‘I love spicy food.’
‘Except I can’t leave the shop until Tom gets back,’ Nina pointed out because there was no way she wanted to be lunch buddies with Noah. Not if he wasn’t even going to let her sneak a peek at his iPad. Although if she could get on his good side, he was sure to give her a glowing performance review and that would serve Tom right.
Talking of which, the shop door opened with great force and Tom stood there in the doorway. ‘Nina! What are you doing?’ he said.
‘Nothing!’ Nina protested, side-stepping away from Noah. How had she got so close?
‘Didn’t look like it,’ grumbled Tom. ‘Anyway, I need a word with you.’
It was a blessed relief to step away from Noah and stop smiling. ‘Are you finally going to admit that there was no footnotes emergency, then?’
‘What? No! Let it go already.’ Tom shut the door. ‘That’s not what we need to talk about.’
Suddenly there was a hand on Nina’s arm. Warm fingers covering Cathy and Heathcliff as they embraced against the gnarled old tree. ‘Should I wait for you? Or do you want me to get you one of those sausage rolls for your lunch?’
‘I’ve already got Nina lunch,’ Tom said with a little edge to his voice, like he doubted Noah’s intentions. ‘A smoked-salmon bagel from Stefan and a cinnamon bun for afters. Now, if we could have that talk … alone,’ he added pointedly.
Noah looked a little put out as he walked around the counter. ‘Actually I could do with some fresh air before that sausage roll,’ he said and Nina found herself smiling again.
‘It does get a bit stuffy in here,’ she commented as Tom glared at her.
He waited until the door had shut behind Noah then seized Nina’s hands in a very unTom-like way. ‘Am I going to have to write you up in the sexual harassment book?’ Nina asked, tugging her hands free.
‘No fraternising with the enemy,’ Tom said and Nina was about to point out that Noah wasn’t an enemy so much as an unregistered alien, when Tom took her hands again.
‘I wanted to say sorry about before,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
Nina shook herself free again. ‘You mean your “employee of the month” routine? Honestly, Tom, I didn’t know you had it in you to be such a little bitch.’
‘Neither did I,’ Tom agreed. ‘I’m quite ashamed of myself. I say united we stand, together we fall, right? Shall we just do what we normally do when that Noah is around?’
‘God, yes! But maybe not quite as normally as usual,’ Nina suggested. ‘Probably less backchat when Posy and Verity are being particularly bossy.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’ Tom handed over a brown paper bag from Stefan’s Deli as if he’d been planning to withhold lunch if Nina had refused to stand in solidarity with him. ‘Also it was exhausting being so efficient. I can’t keep the act going for another minute longer.’
‘I am surprised you managed to last a whole morning,’ Nina said with a grin.
‘Although you and Noah looked quite cosy when I interrupted you,’ Tom remarked as he unwrapped his own bagel.
‘Interrupted implies we were in the middle of something and believe me, we weren’t in the middle of anything.’
‘I just wondered if … no … forget I brought it up …’ Tom shook his head.
Tom often did this. Started saying something tantalising and then clammed up so that Nina had to work really hard to ferret out a piece of juicy gossip or a spectacular example of bitchery.
‘What?’ she asked. ‘Don’t leave me hanging.’
Tom took his sweet time chewing a mouthful of bagel before he answered. ‘Really, it’s nothing.’
‘Tom!’ Nina growled.
‘I was just wondering, if you were cosying up to that Noah anyway …’
‘Hardly cosying up,’ Nina said indignantly.
‘Well, it certainly looked as if you were employing your feminine wiles,’ Tom said because he did like to sound like a nineteenth-century novel.
‘I would never do that,’ Nina said, although she had just been doing that. ‘I’m shocked at your low opinion of me, Tom.’
‘Of course you wouldn
’t do that,’ Tom hastily agreed. ‘But if you were flirting to find out more information, going behind enemy lines, on behalf of the both of us, Verity too, then it would be for the greater good.’
Nina couldn’t believe what she was hearing. From Tom. Of all people. ‘You want to pimp me out to Noah? When he’s absolutely not my type. In his suit. With his business solutions. Ugh!’
‘I’m not suggesting that you have sex with him, but you are very attractive,’ Tom said quickly, fluttering a hand in Nina’s direction. ‘Just a little bit of flattery and sticking your breasts in his face. You know, that kind of thing.’
‘Tom!’ Nina was genuinely shocked. ‘What kind of girl do you think I am?’
Tom’s face was so red that it looked like he had third-degree burns. ‘I think you’re a lovely, altruistic woman who loves to stick her breasts in people’s faces anyway, so you might as well have a good reason for it.’
Well, when Tom put it like that … Nina always found it hard to resist a challenge. But Noah?
‘Bit too close to home for my liking. You do know that he’s friends with Sebastian, right?’
‘Just some light flirting,’ Tom persisted. ‘I mean, you nearly got down and dirty with that awful Piers. Taking one for the team, you called it. Verity told me.’
Piers had been a dastardly but quite hot property developer who’d come sniffing round Nina but only because it was all part of his nefarious plan to buy Bookends and turn it into a luxury block of flats. It hadn’t ended well. In fact, it had ended with Piers locking Posy in the coal hole under the shop and flinging grey paint around the shop two days before they reopened, then Sebastian turning up to rescue Posy and beat Piers to a pulp.
It had all been quite thrilling actually but also a timely reminder, not that she really needed one, that Nina had terrible taste in men. ‘That whole Piers thing was very complicated,’ she offered weakly. ‘Anyway, I’ve decided that I’m not going to waste any more of my precious time flirting with randoms. I want a soulmate, not a—’
‘Soulmates only exist in the pages of the books we sell. Anyway, Piers was evil and this Noah doesn’t seem evil at all, but how will we know for sure unless we have someone on the inside?’ Tom asked plaintively. ‘For instance, he might recommend that we become a solely online business and you know how impressionable Posy is. We’ll definitely be let go if that happens.’
Tom had a point. They could be very annoying but Nina enjoyed dealing with the general public in a face-to-face kind of way and if they became an online business, then Verity and Posy could easily manage between them.
‘Just a little light flirting, you say?’
‘Exactly,’ Tom said, patting her arm. ‘You know it makes sense. And it’ll give you some practice for when you find the right chap. Your “soulmate”,’ he added with airquotes and a smirk.
When Noah got back to the shop half an hour later, it was to find Nina creating a Valentine’s-themed window display, which featured a hell of a lot of red paper hearts and should have been done weeks ago. As it was, Nina stared down at the red card she was carefully cutting as she could hardly bring herself to look at Noah, much less shove her breasts in his face.
Tom was sitting behind the till reading Bridget Jones’s Baby and barely looked up as Noah came through the door. ‘Research,’ he muttered.
But Noah was not alone; two women followed him into the shop. ‘Yoo hoo! Tommy, dear! Have you missed us?’
Nina looked up just in time to see Tom’s face drain of all colour. He jumped down from his stool, opened his mouth, shut it again then dived for the safety of the office, door slamming shut behind him.
‘Does that mean that Tommy won’t climb up the ladder to get books down for us?’ the older lady asked, eyes gleaming behind a pair of diamanté-studded spectacles. ‘I particularly wanted something from the top shelf.’
‘I bet you did,’ Nina said, rising up from her kneeling position and shaking out her skirt so that tiny red-sequinned hearts rained down on the floor like confetti. ‘Wanted to perv at our Tom’s bottom, more like.’
‘Us? But we’re God-fearing ladies on our way back from church,’ the second lady said, and with her tight grey curls and sensible beige anorak, slacks and lace-up shoes, she did look as if she was more likely to be communing with the Lord than exhorting Tom to stretch a little further than was decent. ‘We would never perv.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Nina said fervently, not that she believed them. ‘But Tom’s very busy so I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with me.’
Their faces fell, but only for a moment. Then they caught sight of Noah who’d been watching this exchange with a look of horrified amusement.
‘Nina, you naughty girl! You didn’t tell us you had a new man on the staff!’
‘We do still need a book getting down from the top shelf!’
Nina was tempted to throw Noah, who was clutching his iPad with white-knuckled hands, on their not-so-tender mercies but that would be unfair. Hilarious, but unfair, and not even a little bit like light flirting.
‘He’s not on staff and he’s terrified of heights,’ Nina said. She didn’t know if Noah was scared of heights but he looked the type who’d be scared of any activity that might crease his suit. ‘Anyway, you don’t need a man because I’ve already put some books aside for you. Janet, you said you were after medical romances and Hilda, I ordered some inspirational romance in just for you.’
‘Oh!’
‘Praise be!’
Noah was forgotten as the two ladies hurried to the counter and Nina produced the small pile of books she’d weeded out for them.
Janet had spent forty years working in Patient Services for the NHS and yet still had an appetite for medical romances that featured chisel-jawed surgeons and sassy nurses, whereas Hilda loved ‘clean’ Christian romance novels, which seemed to feature an awful lot of mail-order brides, not that Nina liked to judge.
As Noah did his usual observing, Nina good-naturedly answered the two ladies’ questions about her tattoos, stuck out her tongue piercing and waggled it while they shrieked in delight, and admitted that she had yet to accept Jesus Christ as her Lord and Saviour. Then she finally rang up their purchases so they could leave and Tom could emerge from his self-imposed exile.
It was an average afternoon that followed, despite Posy and Verity being MIA. Nina worked on her window display, Tom rearranged the new-releases shelves and in between, they took it in turns to serve any customers who ventured in on what had become a blustery, wet day and all the while, Noah took notes. Nina marvelled at how quickly she’d got used to his presence, like a reality TV show contestant forgetting that there were cameras filming their every move. That was probably why she treated Tom to an interpretative dance to ‘My Funny Valentine’ when he said that the big heart in the centre of her window display was wonky.
Posy and Verity didn’t get back from their trade show until Nina was flipping the shop sign from open to closed. They barrelled through the door, nearly knocking Nina down in the process, both of them pursed of lip and red of cheek in a way that had nothing to do with the chilly evening air.
‘Pub!’ Posy growled, flinging her handbag at the sofa, and didn’t even make it a hopeful question like Nina did. ‘Pub. I need so much alcohol.’ She turned to Verity, who’d shrugged out of her coat and had thrown it on the sofa opposite, an act which went against Verity’s whole brand ethos. ‘You’ve driven me to drink!’
‘Well, I need a lot more alcohol than you do,’ Verity snapped back. ‘Honestly, someone should send you to tote-bag rehab.’
‘How many new tote bags did you order, Pose?’ Nina asked with a grin. Ever since they’d first started planning the transformation of Bookends into Happy Ever After, Posy had been obsessed with tote bags. They currently had five exclusive designs on sale and Verity had banned Nina and Tom from saying anything in Posy’s hearing that might work well as a cute literary slogan on a tote bag. ‘I was thinking only the
other day that the first line from Shirley Conran’s Lace – you know, “Which one of you bitches is my mother?” – would look amazing on a tote bag.’
Posy failed to take the bait. ‘Never mind tote bags. I can’t even buy a book of stamps because Very refuses to hand over the shop credit card. Even though it’s my shop, so really it’s my credit card.’
‘Yes, and it will be your bankruptcy hearing that we’ll all have to attend,’ Verity snapped. ‘Pub! For the love of God, let’s go to the pub so I can drink my body weight in cheap red wine and repress all the traumas of the day.’
‘It wasn’t that bad,’ Posy grumbled. ‘Traumas! I find that very offensive.’
Usually Posy and Verity were such good friends that Nina felt like the third wheel. Still, it wasn’t nice to see them bickering.
‘Pub,’ Nina echoed. ‘And it’s quiz night so if you two must argue, which I wish you wouldn’t, then you can argue in a productive way. Tom? You coming? Or are your footnotes beckoning?’
Tom had been cashing up while all the tote bag sturm und drang had been going on. He had looked quite chipper when Nina mentioned that it was quiz night but his face fell at the mention of the f-word.
‘I really shouldn’t. My bibliography needs tweaking.’ He looked at Nina imploringly. ‘Tell me to go home and tweak my bibliography.’
‘Don’t be so dull, Tom! And you know we need you in case any boring sci-fi questions come up. I’ll be furious if you try and bail on us,’ Nina said because she and Tom both knew that he wanted nothing more than to ditch his bibliography and get quizzing, but he had to pretend that it was Nina’s bullying that put his bottom on a bar stool and not his own free will. ‘Right, come on, people. I’m not getting any younger and there’s a bottle of Pinot Noir and a bag of pork scratchings with my name on them.’
There was a flurry of activity. Posy and Verity retrieving bags and coats from where they’d been flung in temper, Tom switching off the printer and turning out the lights in the back office, while Nina put the cover over Bertha and patted her goodnight.
‘Pub!’
‘Pub!’
Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop Page 6