She gave a little snort of laughter. ‘Same old, I should think. Work. More work. How about you?’
‘Finish my PhD, if I’m lucky. Get a real job.’
‘If you’re luckier.’
He glanced at her sideways and grinned. ‘Exactly.’ He looked down and drew a breath. ‘Aasha. I’d like to see you again.’ He looked up at the sky again and then back at her. ‘You know, in the daytime.’
Her heart skipped. ‘Like a date?’
This time, he looked at her properly. ‘Like a date.’
She hadn’t been on a date since Greg. She hadn’t enjoyed anyone’s company since Greg. Until now. Until sweet and charming Vik. ‘I’d like that.’
His smile was lovely to see. ‘Can I have your number? I’ll call you.’ He pushed away from the wall. Now that he was standing straight, he was close enough to feel the warmth emanating from him.
She fished her phone out of her little bag. ‘Why don’t I call you and you can save it to your phone.’
‘Ah. I left my phone at Aunty’s house.’
‘What’s your number then? I’ll put it in my phone.’
He looked sheepish. ‘Would you believe I don’t know it?’
‘Seriously?’
‘I don’t phone myself that often.’
‘What do you do when people ask for your number?’
‘I usually take theirs and call them so that it comes up on their phone…’ The laugh caught his voice mid-sentence.
Aasha laughed too. ‘This conversation seems to have gone round in circles.’ She pulled out a pen. ‘Have you got a piece of paper?’
He checked his pockets and found nothing. ‘I could go and get a napkin…’ He turned as though to leave, then turned back. He pulled up his sleeve and presented her with his bare forearm. ‘Write it on there.’
She raised her eyebrows at him.
He raised his back.
With a sigh that she hoped sounded exasperated, she steadied his arm with one hand and wrote on it with the other. In the cold night air, his arm felt warm and comforting. She finished the number with a full stop and looked up. He had been watching her write. His face was close enough for her to look into his eyes. The want in them made her catch her breath. They stood there for a moment, too close for friendship. And then he closed the gap between them.
It wasn’t a long kiss, but it was kiss to be remembered. She felt giddy, as though the world had tilted on its axis. Her blood roared and her whole body felt liquid. Aasha brought her hand up to his face, her fingertips stroking the high cheekbone. His breath caught at her touch. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, until their bodies were pressed together. She could feel the heat of his skin through the thin material of her sari. A glow started somewhere in the depth of Aasha’s stomach and warmed her up from head to toe. When they drew apart, she no longer noticed the cold.
Vik started to say something but was interrupted by the sound of a door opening.
‘Aasha?’ Ammi’s voice cut through the night.
Aasha jumped away from Vik. He stepped back and disappeared into the shadows.
‘What are you doing out there, child? You’ll freeze.’
‘I just needed some fresh air.’ Aasha went back in, hoping that Vik had the sense to stay outside and not set off Ammi’s gossip sensors. She’d have a field day if she found out that instead of talking to the nice, well-groomed Sanath, Aasha had been snogging the scruffy student. Ammi’s plan had gone wrong. It couldn’t have gone more wrong, in fact. She would be disappointed when she found out. Aasha almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
‘What were you doing out there?’ Ammi sniffed. ‘You haven’t been smoking?’
‘No!’
‘Whose jacket is that?’
Jeez. Ammi was like a Rottweiler when she was suspicious.
‘It’s mine.’ Vik stepped in, shutting the door behind him.
Oh great. Well, that just ruined everything. What was he doing?
‘We were talking,’ Aasha said quickly. ‘He lent me his coat. Wasn’t that kind? Look.’ She pointed to the coat, hoping that kindness would soften the blow.
Ammi turned towards Vik, who was looking uncomfortable. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked apologetic. Perhaps he was feeling sorry for Ammi too. Except her wasn’t looking at Ammi. He was looking at Aasha.
‘Actually,’ said Vik. ‘There’s something I need to confess.’
His eyebrows were knitted with worry. The eyes that had looked at her with such hunger a few minutes ago, looked wary now. Frightened, almost. Asha had a flashback to last New Year’s Eve. Fear clamoured in her head. What could he possibly have to confess? He was married? He had a girlfriend he was cheating on? At least he was confessing now and not leaving his girlfriend to find a sexy text from the other woman. Was there something wrong with her that meant she could only ever fall for men who lied? Aasha felt her heart slide into her Docs. The cold outside was nothing compared to the chill she felt now.
Ammi turned back. To Aasha’s surprise, she was smiling. ‘I knew it would work. See, I told you I knew what sort of man would be ideal for you.’
Aasha blinked, her thoughts momentarily derailed. Ammi was less painful to deal with than Vik. She moved her focus. ‘Ammi, what are you talking about? I didn’t like Sanath.’
Ammi waved a hand. ‘Oh him! He wasn’t the person you were supposed to meet. I knew you’d be stubborn and refuse to talk to whomever I introduced you to, so I arranged a decoy.’
‘A decoy?’ Aasha looked at Vik. Realisation dawned. She had been set up. ‘Was that what you wanted to confess? You were in on it.’ She looked directly at Vik. He nodded. Annoyance and relief battled it out inside her. ‘But why?’
‘If we hadn’t, you wouldn’t have talked to him,’ said Ammi. She was still smiling. ‘Now come on. The fireworks are about to start.’ She bustled back into the hall.
Vik touched her arm. ‘Are you OK?’
She didn’t know what to think. He had lied to her. But if he hadn’t, they wouldn’t have chatted and had that kiss…that kiss would never have happened. ‘You lied to me.’
He winced. ‘Only a little bit. And I came clean.’ His hand moved down to take hers. ‘It was the only way to get you to talk to me. At least that’s what your mother said.’ He raised his eyebrows, ruefully. ‘And she can be a very persuasive woman.’
This thawed her completely. She knew exactly what Ammi could be like and she’d had a lifetime to learn how to deal with it. Vik wouldn’t have stood a chance. ‘She can.’ A smile threatened to rise to her face. She tried to suppress it.
‘Am I forgiven then?’ He touched her hand, hesitantly.
The thrill of his hand in hers took Aasha by surprise. It was as though her heart and body had worked something out well before her head had done.
‘I wanted to tell you, but we got talking and then it was too late,’ said Vik.
So, he’d lied. A bit. So, she’d been set up. All it really meant was that this man she liked was a man her mother approved of. Anyway, he’d not actually told a real lie. Just left some stuff out. Was that so wrong?
Besides, if just the feel of his hand was making her buzz like this, what would it be like to kiss him again?
‘I –’ he began.
She interrupted him with a kiss. Her lips pressed firmly against his. He kissed her back and the world tilted again. That was not wrong. Oh no. Nothing that made her heart pound like this could ever be wrong. When they parted again, he had a huge smile on his face.
‘Just don’t lie to me again,’ she said, in her most severe voice.
‘I promise.’ He grinned. ‘Shall we go and face the fireworks?’
Aasha handed his jacket back to him and re-entered the room. The smile that had been battling to come out finally made it. As she made her way across the hot room to her parents and the big glass window, she felt, rather than saw, Vik follow her in.
Thathi put a d
rink in her hand. Surprised, she took it. She stood with her parents as the countdown to the new year started. She thought about Vik’s kiss and her lips tingled at the thought. It promised to be an interesting year.
Ammi was chanting the countdown. On impulse, Aasha leaned down and gave her mother a hug. Ammi touched a hand to the side of Aasha’s head and kissed her cheek. To her surprise, she saw tears in her mother’s eyes.
She had been distant from her parents lately. She’d never told them about Greg, which meant there were huge swathes of her life that she’d had to keep hidden from them. In the new year, she would be different. She would make more of an effort. She would call her parents more often.
She sneaked a glance across the room and caught Vik’s eye. He came to stand next to her. Her father noticed and gave him a nod of acknowledgement. Vik smiled back. As Thathi turned back to watch the fireworks, Vik stood next to Aasha. His fingers touched hers, but he didn’t put his arm around her or show any other sign of ownership, like Greg would have done. He understood the need for discretion. It would be a refreshing change to go out with someone she could tell her parents about. Vik’s fingers gently stroked her palm, making a thrill run through her. Oh yes. In the new year, things would be different. Very different. Aasha looked across at Vik and smiled.
The clock struck midnight and the sky above her exploded into coloured sparks.
The Fairytale Way
Sophie Pembroke
Sophie Pembroke
SOPHIE PEMBROKE has been dreaming, reading and writing romance ever since she read her first Mills and Boon as part of her English Literature degree at Lancaster University. So getting to write romances for a living really is a dream come true!
Sophie lives in a little Hertfordshire market town with her scientist husband and her incredibly imaginative four-year-old daughter.
She writes stories about friends, family and falling in love, usually while drinking too much tea and eating homemade cakes. Or, when things are looking very bad for her heroes and heroines, white wine and dark chocolate.
She keeps a blog at www.SophiePembroke.com which should be about romance and writing, but is usually about cake and castles instead.
The Fairy-Tale Way
‘You need to –’ across the table, Karen made hefting motions with her hands ‘ –boost them up a bit. Shorten the straps, that should help.’
‘Where in your book, exactly, does it say that every fairy-tale princess needs to wear a Wonderbra?’ Glancing around to make sure no one was paying me any attention, I attempted to adjust my bra straps under my dress. Not an easy feat at the best of times, and made considerably more difficult by the fact we were sitting in one of London’s newest and hottest bar-cum-restaurants.
‘Rapunzel, maybe. But with boobs instead of hair,’ Karen replied, after a moment’s thought. ‘No, wait! It’s clearly Cinderella. Making the most of yourself before meeting your prince.’
I gave the book sitting on the table between us my filthiest look, usually reserved for men who tried to grope me on the night bus home. ‘Let me guess. This makes you my fairy godmother.’
Karen beamed. ‘You should be grateful I haven’t sent you out to find a pumpkin and six white mice.’
‘No, just a Wonderbra, a short skirt and a couple of gin and tonics. I can’t help thinking that fairy tale standards are slipping.’
With a frown, Karen picked up the book and held it close to her—also Wonderbra enhanced—chest. ‘Really, Donna. The Fairy-tale Way got five stars in Fresh Start magazine, I’ll have you know. They said it’s –’
‘“The new bible for the newly single,”’ I finished for her. ‘I know. You emailed me the review. Then called and read it out over the phone.’ While I was trying to finalise a work document. I just hoped I hadn’t given my manager a personnel report on Sleeping Beauty.
‘I don’t know why you won’t take it seriously.’ Karen placed the book lovingly back on the table, one hand still caressing the picture of Cinderella and Prince Charming on the cover.
‘It’s about fairy tales,’ I pointed out.
‘It’s about love!’ Shaking her head, Karen reached for her gin and tonic. ‘I think that’s the real reason you won’t give it a chance. You’re too scared to fall in love again.’
Which was patently absurd. Who could be scared of love? Love was wonderful: hearts and flowers and fluffy things. Making a fool of yourself with someone you thought loved you, only to find out that, actually, they weren’t that fussed –now that was something to be afraid of.
‘I’m not scared. I’m just not in a hurry for another relationship.’
Karen drained the last of her gin. ‘Well, I am. And I need a wingman. Or wing woman. Or whatever. It’ll be more fun if we do it together. Besides, it’ll be good for you to get out there and get to know new people.’
Given how awful the last person I’d got to know turned out to be, I wasn’t sure I was entirely ready for new people. Three years with a guy suffering from self-diagnosed commitment-phobia –at least, until he upped sticks and got engaged to a Swedish model –was enough to put you off people for a while. Even princes.
I checked my watch. Gone eleven, and no sign of Prince Charming. Still, it was Friday night and we were supposed to be having footloose and fancy-free single girl fun, not moping about waiting like Rapunzel in her tower. ‘One last gin and tonic?’ I suggested, and Karen nodded.
The queue at the bar, which had stretched to the loos and beyond earlier in the evening, had died down now, and only one lonely bartender was serving. I waited for him to finish mixing cocktails for the guys in suits at the other end, then smiled widely at him as he approached me. I once got a twenty percent discount on my drinks for smiling at a bartender and, while it’s never happened again, I figure it’s always worth a try.
‘What can I get you?’ he asked, grinning back. He had a great smile, I realised. The sort that made his eyes crinkle and his face lighten.
‘Two last gin and tonics before bed, please.’ My brain caught up with my mouth a moment too late as his grin grew. ‘Bed for me, I mean –Not you. Because you’ll probably have to close up here –Not that, if you didn’t, I mean –’ I paused for breath. ‘Just stop me. Please.’
He took pity on me. ‘I do, in fact, have to stay and close up tonight: peril of owning the place. When no one else can do it, it always has to be me.’
I watched his tanned hands measure gin into our glasses, and boosted myself up onto the bar stool.
‘You’re the boss, then?’ Even sitting up high at the bar, I had to look up to meet his eyes. Tall, then. Taller than me which, at nearly six foot in my heels, was a rarity.
Putting down the bottle, he reached across the bar. ‘Luke Malone.’
His hand was dry and warm in mine as we shook. A perfectly respectable, ordinary handshake, but something about the brush of his fingers against my palm made my arm tingle.
Dropping my hand quickly, I fished around in my brain for a response. ‘Wow. It’s not every day I get to meet the owner of the bar About Town magazine gave five stars to,’ I gushed. ‘My friend read the review out to me to persuade me to come and try your gin and tonics.’
‘It’s less glamorous than it sounds,’ Luke said, dropping ice into the gin. ‘And I wish they’d told me they were going to print that beforehand. I’d have got some extra staff in.’
‘Been busy, huh?’
He gave me a tired smile. ‘Manic. But, you know. That’s good, too.’
Luke topped the glasses up with tonic, garnished them with lime, and pushed them across the bar to me. I started to fumble in my bag for my purse, but he shook his head. ‘Those two are on me, as long as you toast my surprise success.’
I bit my lip. ‘Thanks. That’s very kind.’
He shrugged. ‘Well, since I can’t help you to bed as you suggested…’
Laughing, I glanced over at Karen. Engrossed in The Fairy-tale Way again. Surely she wouldn’t notice if I talke
d to Luke for a few moments longer.
‘Looks like your friend’s already wishing she was tucked up with her book,’ he said, following my gaze.
I groaned. ‘Oh, that book,’ I said as I took off my cardigan and lay it over the bar stool next to me.
Luke raised an eyebrow at me. ‘What is it? The latest big thing that everyone’s reading?’
He had a good read on Karen already, it seemed. ‘It’s a new dating manual for women looking for Prince Charming. All about how to use fairy-tale rules to play the dating game.’
‘That sounds…absurd.’
‘Pretty much.’ I looked back again; Karen was still reading. ‘But…Karen’s divorce only came through a couple of months ago, and she’s convinced she’ll never find love again so I’m humouring her as much as I can.’
‘You’re not interested in finding your prince?’
I shrugged. ‘I kinda thought I already had. But apparently not.’
‘Ah.’ He winced. ‘That’s tough.’
‘Yeah. I’m ready for a bit of a break from love, to be honest.’
‘Sleeping Beauty?’ he suggested. ‘Asleep in your castle, waiting for the right prince to find you?’
‘Actually, for the time being, I’m happy playing the lady in waiting.’
‘Being a good friend, then.’ Luke smiled. ‘Which fairy tale is that from again?’
‘You’d have to ask Karen. I’m still avoiding reading the book.’
‘Ask Karen what?’ Karen’s sudden appearance beside me made me jump. ‘And what happened to our drinks?’
Luke pushed one glass towards her with a smile. ‘Sorry for the delay. Your friend was telling me all about the book you’re reading, and I found it fascinating.’
Karen gave him a disbelieving look. ‘Really. Well, I’d love to stay and discuss it with you, but I’m afraid it’s getting late.’ With a very obvious look at her watch, she widened her eyes and said. ‘The Cinderella rule, Donna. Remember?’
I picked up my drink and slid off my stool. Apparently my conversation with Luke was over. ‘Um, not really?’
Truly, Madly, Deeply Page 29