‘I’ve got ten minutes,’ I said carefully, looking at my watch.
‘Great,’ Margot said. ‘I just wanted to update you with the schedule for Friday as it stands at the moment.’
Margot, I had to concede as I flicked through her paperwork, had done a good job with the schedule. I told her as much and was met with a frightening seahorsy smile.
‘Thanks for your time,’ she said, ten minutes later. ‘Isn’t it great to be working together again?’
I watched her and her nasty short skirt slink out. And felt a little chill.
Wednesday arrived, the day of my dinner with John. And at seven that evening I simply got up and walked out of my office, explaining to Cassie that John and I had a last-minute meeting in the city centre. ‘I’ll call you a car,’ she said. Margot, who was walking past with exaggerated slowness, stopped completely. ‘Who’s the meeting with?’ she asked pleasantly. I hadn’t left the office before ten p.m. all week.
I ignored her. ‘No need,’ I said to Cassie. ‘John’s PA’s already organized a car for him and I’m going to drive. See you tomorrow, guys!’ I all but Olympic-sprinted out of the door.
As I turned out onto the A1 and started heading towards town, I realized my hands were actually clammy on the leather steering-wheel. ‘Sort it out, Lambert!’ I snapped. It was only John, after all. I’d known him for seven years! And wanted to hump him pretty much every day for that seven years, my brain added. I shook my head as if to dislodge the thought. It was a dinner. Nothing more. I’d promised myself no more fantasy about men who weren’t interested and that was that. Especially men who weren’t interested and had a history of playing games with me and were now married.
I forced my thoughts towards First Date Aid. Shelley had accepted William’s opera tickets with a nonchalant email (‘Don’t you dare tell him how excited I am,’ she had boomed) and, date number two now sorted, Sam and I had agreed we should take it back to light banter until Shelley was home from New York. This morning, on my recommendation, ‘William’ had emailed to ask her about her family. ‘Men talk about themselves far too much,’ I’d told him, as I ran around the kitchen eating Weetabix while sending emails, trying to find my notes for this morning’s meeting and ironing a cardigan. ‘Girls always notice when a man doesn’t ask questions.’
I straightened my new Stella McCartney dress as I slid out of my car in the New Town. I had spent a long time choosing it: smart enough for work but, once I’d shed my cardigan, tight and, well, sexyish enough for a date later on. It did not look like I’d bought a new slutty dress with which to impress John.
‘Lambert! You’ve bought a new slutty dress to impress me!’ John said delightedly, as the waiter seated me opposite him. We were sitting by a floor-to-ceiling window at Oloroso with a candle burning seductively in an orange glass tube between us, a Manhattan-like sea of red leather spreading away towards views of the castle. Through the window at which we were seated it seemed as if night had fallen, but off to the north I could still see a distant pinkness clinging to the firth. I gazed across at it for a few seconds, trying to filter some of that relaxed twilight energy into my otherwise racing brain.
‘It’s not slutty and it’s not designed to impress you,’ I said, as calmly as I could. ‘I’ve had it a while.’
‘Nonsense, Lambert. It’s new. And you look ravishing in it, my dear.’
I looked him squarely in the eye. ‘John, stop it. I am your director of communications.’
There was a charged silence while we both processed this statement. Did I see myself only as his comms director? Probably not, if I were honest. John smiled. And to my fairly experienced eye it was a smile that was born out of more than just pleasantry. I got the distinct impression that he didn’t see tonight as a dinner with his head of comms. I breathed slowly and deeply, scrabbling for control. He’s married, he’s married, he’s married.
‘Sorry, Lambert,’ he said. ‘The problem is, I have a fatal weakness for powerful women.’
A waiter came over and poured Bollinger into my glass.
I smiled lightly. ‘Well, it’s lucky you just married one,’ I remarked.
‘Ouch,’ John murmured. His eyes bored into me with the impossibly attractive and knowing smile that had made me fall for him in the first place.
‘So,’ I said brightly, opening my menu. ‘To what do I owe this rather unexpected pleasure? You’re not about to resign or anything, are you?’
John looked surprised. ‘Of course not! I plan to become a fat cat, Lambert. An enormous hairy tabby with a cigar habit and a Bentley. At present I’m only a slightly overweight farm cat. Long way off.’
I tried to keep a straight face, but it was impossible. ‘Oh, John, the tubby farm cat,’ I said, laughter spilling out of me. ‘Poor you.’
John also failed to keep a straight face. I fancied him most when he became overwhelmed by his own hilarity. ‘Yes. Just a feral farm cat still,’ he said, chinking my glass. He reached up and loosened his tie a little and, try as I might, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his neck. Damn him.
‘No, Lambert,’ he said eventually. ‘I wanted to have dinner with you tonight because I wanted to have dinner with you. We’re far too bloody busy and I miss having you to myself.’
‘You’ve never had me to yourself,’ I said, to my fork. I never knew what to do when John stopped being naughty and started being affectionate.
‘You know what I mean, Lambert. I miss being able to have lunch with you in the canteen. I was very fond of our lasagne dates,’ he added, in a sad voice.
I refused to take the bait. He’s married, he’s married, he’s married. ‘But we’ve been planning this launch for ages … Of course we’re busy. The big moment’s arrived!’
John snapped his menu shut. ‘Lambert,’ he said. ‘Stop it.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I said, stop it,’ he repeated, with that impossible smile. ‘I don’t want to talk about work.’
I began to panic internally. What else is there to talk about? I thought. I don’t have anything to talk about beyond work! I’m dull! He’ll be disappointed!
‘OK,’ I said, as confidently as I could. I buried myself in the menu and prayed for inspiration.
While we ate a complicated asparagus starter, John quizzed me about Granny Helen. ‘I can pull strings, Lambert,’ he said earnestly. ‘If she needs the best private medical care, I can make that happen.’ He looked searchingly at me, perhaps keen that I take him seriously for once.
‘Thanks. But she’s ninety-one and she’s had a stroke. I don’t think there’s much that anyone can do.’
‘I’m sure your father doesn’t see it that way,’ John said mildly. ‘Sounds like the poor chap is devoted to his mother. The offer of help is there, Lambert. You can call me twenty-four hours a day.’
I paused, an asparagus tip halfway to my mouth. ‘Thank you,’ I said, genuinely touched. I felt a slight shiver. It would be dangerously easy to let John get close to me if that was what he was trying to do. I looked at him: tall, immaculately dressed, unbearably handsome and suddenly quite … real. Not the smoothly caricatured Sexy Boss but a person, a normal, decent person with feelings of his own.
Be careful, I reminded myself.
Over main courses the conversation steered towards John. I discovered he had a brother; a fact of which I had been wholly unaware. Dear God, I thought. Two naughty MacAllisters roving Scotland? Lock up your daughters.
I was just cutting into a piece of turbot, beginning to unwind, when he dropped the bomb. ‘You haven’t asked me about Susan,’ he said.
‘I … Sorry,’ I replied, going instantly crimson. ‘Er, how is she?’
‘Having an affair,’ he announced. ‘She left me last week. She’s packing up her stuff and flying out to the States this weekend.’ He sliced off a piece of fish and chewed, watching my face.
With a huge effort, I managed to look unfazed. ‘Oh, John, I’m sorry,’ I said calmly. ‘Are you OK?
’
‘Fine,’ he said, shrugging and spreading his hands wide. ‘Really, I’m fine. She left her rich American husband for this tubby farm cat sitting in front of you and clearly she must have missed the platinum cards she used to have access to … because she’s now run off with an even richer American.’
I watched him, mute. I hadn’t the faintest idea what to say but fortunately he didn’t seem to need me to talk. ‘It began while we were on our little honeymoon in California, actually,’ he said, with a wry smile. ‘We were invited to dinner by the owner of a wine estate and she met him there. He’s a funny shape, Lambert. Normal except for a huge beach ball shoved under his shirt. I sort of wanted to prick him with a pin to see if his stomach deflated.’
I snorted into my napkin.
‘I didn’t prick him with a pin, of course. I felt fairly resigned about it. I married Susan because I thought that having a ring on my finger would help me get over you, but it turned out that the ring did not have the desired effect.’
‘Is everything OK with your meal?’ our waiter asked, appearing suddenly at my elbow. He had the shiniest shoes I’d ever seen, which I stared at as if my life depended on it.
‘GREAT!’ I screamed. ‘AMAZING!’ Had John just said that? Had he? It was the sort of thing I’d wanted to hear him say for a very long time but now it was out there I was paralysed.
John, who’d been looking a tiny bit vulnerable for the first time in our seven years’ working together, relaxed and smiled affectionately at me. ‘Steady on, old girl,’ he murmured.
I looked at him, and then at my lap. My heart was hammering; I was enthralled and terrified by what John would say next.
‘I long for you,’ he said quietly. ‘As much now as I did before I became a married man.’
After a pause, during which I felt both euphoric and disbelieving, I muttered something.
‘Sorry?’ John said, leaning in.
‘I said, you long to sleep with me, John. That’s all.’
John laughed. ‘Yes, well, that’s a given,’ he said. ‘And you want to sleep with me.’ I started to protest but he held up his hand and carried on. ‘Sex is irrelevant,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘You and I have never been just about sex. We’re a meeting of minds, Lambert, and you know it.’
I thought about this. I wanted to see us as a meeting of minds; I loved that idea. But were we? We’d never even properly talked! Until a few minutes ago I hadn’t even known he had a brother. In a rather unsteady voice, I pointed this out.
John shook his head. ‘I’d argue that we avoid “talking”, as you call it, Lambert, because it would lead us quickly into dangerous territory. Like this territory right here.’
I didn’t know what to say, so I ate a tiny forkful of designer champ. Was he right? I was too shocked by what he was saying to know.
‘We are a meeting of minds, Lambert. Sorry, I should call you Charley. We’re cut from the same cloth. We want the same things and we go after them the same way.’
‘But … you don’t really know me, John. You don’t know what my values are, or how much I –’
‘Oh, let’s not wank on about values. We like to work hard so that we can live well, Charley. End of story. I bet I could describe your kitchen, my dear, because I bet it’s the same as mine. I watch you at work and it’s like I’m watching myself, only with a better pair of legs. You’re me, I’m you.’
I thought back to our first meeting, seven years ago. Me, terrified in a cerise blouse; him, cool as a cucumber in a perfectly pressed white shirt open at the collar.
‘I remember that day, too,’ John said, watching me. ‘I saw how scared you were but I also saw the tremendous strength and courage you have, and that was it. I was gone. I’ve wanted you every day since then.’
I opened my mouth to say something but nothing came out. ‘At least swallow your champ before gaping at me,’ John said mildly.
For crying out loud, I told myself. This is what you’ve been waiting for for seven long years! Pull your bloody finger out! But something didn’t ring true. I put my cutlery down. ‘John, we met more than seven years ago. If this is honestly how you’ve felt ever since – and I’m not convinced I believe you, by the way – then why are you telling me now?’
‘For the same reason you’ve never done anything about it,’ John replied simply. ‘I’m a businessman. I’m determined and ambitious. And us being together would cause trouble at Salutech. Bradley Chambers would probably sack the pair of us out of spite. He’s always fancied you, the dirty old bastard.’
I batted this away. I did my best to ignore Chambers’s slimy advances.
John’s face softened. ‘There were so many risks attached,’ he said. ‘And I just wasn’t prepared to lose you from my team. You’ve transformed our public profile. Literally transformed it. You’re a miracle.’
I rather loved this but there was still a problem with what he was saying. ‘Your feelings can’t have been particularly intense if you were happy to put Salutech first, John. People risk their careers all the time for The One.’
I expected a wisecrack, but John nodded pensively. ‘I’ve often asked myself the same thing,’ he said. ‘Am I insane? Am I a cold, half-dead monster who puts my company before the woman of my dreams?’
I choked slightly.
‘Oh, Lambert, no drama,’ John said. He was actually beginning to blush. ‘The point is, I’m the CEO of this company. All bucks stop with me. The pressure those bastards in Washington put me under is quite intolerable at times and I suppose … I suppose I let that get in the way. But you can’t sit on your feelings for ever, Charley.’ He looked suddenly tired and drained. ‘I can’t ignore it any more. I’m prepared to risk my job.’
I was dumbstruck. He seemed 100 per cent genuine.
‘For the record,’ he continued, ‘I think about our little sojourn in the broom cupboard every single day. It was glorious, until that bloody granny turned up. Dirty woman.’
In spite of myself, I giggled. ‘That granny didn’t shove a mop up your arse and force you to start an affair with Susan,’ I pointed out. ‘You did that all on your own.’
John slammed down his wine glass too fast; a splash escaped over the top and spread silently into the tablecloth. ‘Dammit, Charley, I’ve told you why I got together with her. I’d not even sat down to breakfast the next morning when I had Bradley cunting Chambers on my mobile screaming at me about something. It was like he knew I was about to start an affair with the star of the company. So I just grabbed the nearest woman.’
‘Star of the company?’ I asked, surprised.
John burst out laughing. ‘See?’ he said. ‘See? We’re the same! I’ve just poured my heart out to you and yet the only thing you can hear is that Bradley Chambers calls you the star of the company. We’re cut from the same cloth, Charlotte Lambert!’
I looked at him, still uncertain. I so wanted to believe him. Trust him. Get close to him. The longer I’d spent back in the saddle at Salutech, the more him-and-me had started to make sense again. But I didn’t have one more broken heart in me. I had to know he was serious. And I certainly needed to be sure that his marriage was over.
A ringing sound was coming from my handbag. I scrabbled round for my phone, mortified. ‘Bugger, sorry, John …’
John smiled. ‘Be my guest,’ he said. ‘Answer it!’
So I did, just like I did everything else John told me to do.
‘HELLO?’ I probably sounded like Shelley.
‘Er, Chas?’
It was Sam. Dammit! Why had I answered the phone?
I shimmied out from under the table and strode off towards the bar. ‘I can’t really talk, I –’
‘No problem.’ He yawned. ‘I’ll ask you later.’
‘Ask me what?’ I could hear him smiling.
‘I thought you couldn’t talk.’
‘Go on.’ I was enjoying watching John as he stared across at the Forth, looking impossibly handsome.
‘
Oh, it’s just about William and Shelley. You asked about William’s family in the last mail and I wanted to know more about Shelley’s family before I replied. Just in case there’s any similarities that I can impress her with.’
I watched John top up our champagne glasses. ‘The only thing I can think of is that Shelley’s brother also works at St Mary’s where William works. He’s some sort of researcher.’
‘OK. Brother … researcher … St Mary’s …’ Then he stopped. ‘Hang on. How do you know William works at St Mary’s? I never wrote that!’
I blushed. I knew, of course, because I had stalked William.
‘You stalked William, didn’t you?’ He chuckled. ‘Chasmonger!’
I was too embarrassed to speak. Sam was laughing properly now. ‘Ha ha! You properly loved William!’ He giggled. ‘You loved me, Chas! Ha ha ha!’
I couldn’t take any more. ‘I’m on a date with John,’ I cut in.
Sam stopped laughing. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yes. I have to go.’
Sam whistled. ‘I wondered about that foxy dress. Well, enjoy yourself. And don’t let him sleep with you on the first date.’
I smiled. ‘Roger.’
‘Definitely none of that! You’re a fox! Make him wait! And hang on a second. Isn’t he married?’
‘It seems not. His wife is flying to America this weekend to start a new life with some bloke she met on their honeymoon.’
Sam whistled. ‘Mental.’
As I approached the table again I began to feel excited. I was a fox in a foxy dress and the man I’d wanted for seven years was begging me to give him a go. What wasn’t to love?
‘OK,’ I said, as I sat down. ‘First, can you prove to me that Susan’s left you? I need to be sure about that.’
John watched me for a few seconds and then pulled his phone out of his pocket with a resigned expression.
‘Do you want to call her?’ he asked. ‘Or to read the text message she sent to tell me it was over? Because that’s how she ended it. With a text message. Very modern, don’t you think? She’s already gone, Lambert. She’s coming this weekend to get her stuff and then I’ll probably never see her again.’
A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger Page 20