My office, he’d written. 12.30?
As you know, I’m a highly important, super busy person, she tapped in, gleefully. But if I jiggle my diary I may be able to fit you in.
Jiggle your diary?
It’s a technical term.
Then he sent a screenshot of his business card, Because you wouldn’t take it the first time.
Thank you, she’d texted back, adding, Serial killer and a smiley face.
The lift pinged expensively and the door glided open with a luxurious swish. Sweeping before her was a huge chrome and glass reception desk. Yup, just how she had imagined Richard’s office. She approached. The girl on reception was, of course, young and beautiful.
‘I’m here to see Richard Stoughton,’ said Imogen, her heels sinking satisfyingly into the soft, pale green carpet.
‘Oh, yes,’ said the beautiful girl, ‘he’s expecting you.’ She rose from behind the desk and beckoned for Imogen to follow her through a large, open-plan office. Workers at desks looked up at them as they strutted past. The girl had hair you could see your face in and a tiny, pert bottom, which wiggled cutely under her tight, navy power dress, but Imogen was not jealous in the slightest. Why would she be? She was having lunch with the most gorgeous American in London.
They reached a heavy wood and steel door, the girl pushed it open and Imogen stepped inside. Richard’s office was massive. About twenty feet from her was a huge desk, a large leather chair and a dazzling backdrop of the London skyline framed in the Gherkin’s iconic windows – floor to ceiling but triangular in shape and latticed like a magnificent pie. The room was jaw-droppingly stunning. Bright and light. Corporate and streamlined. Cushioned underfoot with expensive, pale grey carpet. It smelled of efficiency and a subtle Jo Malone-y fragrance. She wrinkled her nose. Sandalwood and pomegranate?
Between Imogen and the desk was a small square table laid with an artfully draped white tablecloth, which was origamied beautifully at the corners. Imogen stepped towards it. The table was adorned with gorgeous dishes of amazing-looking food, all on dinky white plates and bowls: salmon and tuna sashimi, tiny goats’ cheese and tomato bruschetta, shiny black and red grapes, prosciutto and slivers of brie, cute custard tarts and miniature doughnuts. Plus two tall champagne flutes and champagne on ice in a silver bucket to the side, all lit up in the sun, which was streaming in from those amazing windows. Everything was perfect. Richard had really gone to town.
Actually, where was he? He wasn’t here.
‘Would you like to take a seat?’ gestured the girl, to the table. ‘Mr Stoughton won’t be a moment.’
‘Thank you,’ said Imogen, ‘I’ll stay standing. I can have a little nose around.’
‘Mr Stoughton’s work is highly important,’ the girl said haughtily, drawing her perfect breasts up. ‘I don’t think he’d appreciate it being nosed at.’
‘I’m joking,’ said Imogen. ‘I’m not a corporate spy or anything. I work in the entertainment industry. I’m an agent.’
‘Oh!’ said the girl, now looking like a bad smell had been thrust under her nose. She turned her back and walked smartly out of the room.
Imogen didn’t want to be sitting when Richard came in. She feared her skirt would crease and her stomach would muffin-top unattractively over her waistband, not that it was massive – it had shrunk to nothing over the past few weeks. Still. She wanted to be upright, smoothed down, composed.
She wandered over to the window and looked out at the view. Then she approached Richard’s desk. It was so tidy! Some of the high-flyers she’d been out with had been messy so-and-sos. She picked up an exquisite-looking pen, flicked it on and off a couple of times, then put it down again. She tapped a key on Richard’s PC, hoping to see his screen-saver. All that popped up was a screen full of figures. Boo, boring, she thought, but all the same she felt slightly relieved. She’d had a sudden dread of seeing photos of a wife and children, even though he’d definitely told her at their dim sum dinner he wasn’t married.
A door to the right of the desk opened, making Imogen jump, and Richard entered the room. Bloody hell. Immediately, that room was filled. He was tall, broad. White shirt, grey suit and plain navy silk tie. Sexy eyes and mouth. Shiny shoes, salt and pepper hair. He was utterly sublime. She’d had that thing all month, where she couldn’t remember exactly what he looked like. That thing you get with people you fancy that never happens with normal people. She could remember bits and bobs, but not the whole. And now the whole of Richard was in front of her she was almost floored.
He was monstrously good-looking. The whole package, and just the kind of package she liked: out-of-this-world looks, great personality, with a dash of corporate power. You’ve been here before, she thought to herself. Well, she had, literally; she’d once dated someone ten floors down. She’d certainly been with this kind of man before: charming, good-looking, rich and powerful. Oh, she’d dated dozens of them. She’d even had one or two on similar-looking desks (yes, the old secretary/boss role-play routine. She once had to flick her hair down from a bun and everything.) And they’d all, with monotonous predictability, turned out to be either dull, disastrous or dishonest. Or all three. Big disappointments. Why she was putting herself back in that well-worn, slightly grubby saddle again, she didn’t know. Especially as she had the feeling this man may not turn out to be a disappointment at all, which petrified her.
Then Richard smiled, and she knew.
‘Hello, Imogen,’ he said.
Oh good God, that accent. She couldn’t bear it. It was like molasses dripping down a stack of pancakes, a punctured eggs over easy oozing over a muffin – all American, sexy-sounding clichés. He made it impossible to avoid them. As she smiled back she did one of those embarrassing nervous involuntary swallows, which she prayed he hadn’t noticed. Highly uncool. ‘How are you?’
‘Good, thanks. You?’ God, her voice was all weak-sounding; she had to clear her throat slightly.
‘Just great,’ said Richard and he stepped forward to kiss her on the cheek. She took him all in at this mouth-wateringly close range: face, suit, shoes (oh shoes! Immaculate!), citrusy cologne, the warmth and wonderful smell of his face. Bloody, bloody hell.
‘You look nice,’ she managed, her voice barely above a whisper. Ugh! She really had to snap back to sassy. Her texts had been great, all month. She’d been on fire. Now this man was actually in front of her again, she’d fallen apart. She was close to becoming a wreck and needed to pull herself together, sharpish.
‘You too.’ He smiled and looked her up and down, his eyes resting on hers when they came back to her face. Intent, suspense and bare, delicious lust hung in the fragrant, air-conditioned air.
Quick! Think of something else to say. ‘Champagne at lunch?’ she enquired in what she hoped was a cheeky manner. There. That was better.
‘Who doesn’t like champagne?’ said Richard. His mouth was doing that sexy, curling up at the corners thing again. She wanted to step forward and lick it.
‘I thought you Americans were super conservative,’ she said. ‘Not like us Brits. If we can help it we’ll take a four-hour lunch and come back to the office at 5.pm. absolutely rat-arsed.’ Her words were fun and flippant – much, much better – but her voice now had that slight waver to it that signalled a raging, inner sexual fire. Luckily, it didn’t seem to register with him. He laughed.
‘Rat-arsed? You are an education, Imogen.’ God, that bloody, bloody voice. Keep talking, mister, she thought, and I’ll be gone. Your staff will have to slap me round the face and drag me out by my ankles. ‘Shall we?’
He pulled back a chair that had been swathed in white fabric, like one at a wedding. It just stopped short of having a giant bow at the back. Had this whole ensemble been hired in? She wouldn’t be surprised. Richard seemed the sort of man who would click his fingers and have things happen. She sat down and could immediately smell the freshness of the linen.
‘Help yourself to whatever you fancy.’
; You, she thought. She wondered, if she casually suggested it, whether he would care to take her there and then, on his desk. She had a hair band in her bag; she could do a bun.
He shook out his napkin and put it on his lap. ‘Oh,’ he said teasingly, ‘do we need to say grace or something first?’
‘Grace,’ said Imogen, with a smirk. ‘She’s one of my best friends, actually.’ Grace! For God’s sake don’t think of Grace! She’d have a fit if she knew what you were doing, letting the side down spectacularly. ‘No, no need. I’m not of a religious persuasion. I’ve hardly been a nun, in my life!’ She laughed shrilly. God, she was nervous. Calm down, she told herself. Why are you talking about nuns? Don’t let him think you’re a slut! Say something cultural, intelligent. ‘And we’re very much a secular nation these days. God-fearing went out with the Tupperware party and the landline phone.’
The look on his face said he obviously had no idea what she was talking about and neither did she. She ploughed on. ‘I like to bow to my own conscience. Not that of a higher power.’ What gibberish! And her conscience seemed to have disappeared, right at this very moment. Well, since the moment she’d met him, actually. She was supposed to be a man-hating, ball-breaking kick-ass woman who had spurned all men. Not a woman who wanted to bonk this one then cuddle up to him afterwards like a purring kitten. Pfft! That would hardly happen if she continued being so nervous, random and unfunny. Where had the feisty, highly amusing woman from the dim sum restaurant gone? She’d clearly done a bunk, along with all of Imogen’s resistance.
She really, really liked this man.
She tried to concentrate on the food. ‘This is quite a spread.’ Spread. No, not a word she wanted to be thinking of. Good God. ‘It looks lovely.’
‘I hope you’re hungry,’ he said.
She wasn’t. She’d scoffed loads in China Town without a care in the world. Now she didn’t think she could eat anything. Thank God it was what Frankie’s mum famously called ‘picky bits’. She toyed with a goat’s cheese tart then dropped it back on her plate. Champagne. She needed champagne. She threw the bottle a longing glance. Hopefully it would loosen her up. Richard took her hint and poured her a glass. Taking a large guzzle, she felt herself relax a little. She’d have to be careful though; she had a meeting with a casting director later that afternoon.
‘So,’ he said, ‘the new job’s still working out?’
She picked up a black grape and tried to chew it. Damn it, she couldn’t eat and talk to this gorgeous man at the same time. Just look at him! His face was lightly tanned above his crisp white shirt. His eyes were mesmerising. His mouth was tantalising. Everything had an ‘ing’ at the end of it. He just gave off heat, from the other side of the tablecloth. He was the best-looking man in the world. Come on, she thought. Pull out the stops. Wow him with your dazzling conversation and witty repartee, you know you can. Pull it out of the goddamn bag!
‘Oh a blast,’ she said, and after another fortifying gulp of champagne, she began to regale him with tales of agenting and the ML agency and Marcia and her Dictaphone. She quickly got into her stride. Soon she was telling him about the actor who’d come into the office for a meeting with a tree-shaped air freshener in his jacket pocket. He’d forgotten to put deodorant on and had nicked it from a taxi – it had taken them two days to rid the office of the smell of pine. Richard was laughing his gorgeous head off. She loved making him laugh – she could rapidly see it becoming her new favourite thing.
There was a knock at the door. It was the reception beauty.
‘So sorry to disturb you, Mr Stoughton, but Jim Lamb, the new underwriter, would really like to speak to you. It’s kind of urgent. Would it be okay if he came in?’
‘Sure,’ said Richard. ‘He can come in. Thank you, Veronica.’ He laid down his cutlery and rose from the table, leaving Imogen to follow his bum with her eyes and prepare her next funny story.
In shuffled a timid-looking red-faced man. He was young and skinny, the back of his neck was all red and his shoes were too try-hard shiny. He started apologising profusely, his head bowed. Richard put his arm round his shoulder in a fatherly manner – his hand like a big gentle bear paw – and led him to the corner of the room. There was a lot of muffled discussion. The young man actually sniffed at one point, and took a screwed-up, damp-looking hanky out of his pocket to dab at his nose with. Then Richard was seeing him to the door. Imogen could now catch what was being said.
‘Hey, it’s fine, don’t be nervous,’ Richard was saying, in that amazing voice. ‘I’m happy to mentor you personally. Come see me at 9a.m. every morning, for fifteen minutes, and we’ll run through any problems and issues. Get things all straightened out at the top of the day. It’ll all be fine, Jimmy, trust me.’
Jim nodded, looking much brighter, and scuttled out of the room. He reminded Imogen of a young, modern-day Bob Cratchit.
Wow, she thought, Richard was a really nice boss. Caring, understanding, powerful. She nearly swooned, but brought herself up. It could all just have been for her benefit. Perhaps after she’d gone he would call in and bawl out this same employee, reducing him to tears. Demand he get him a coffee then tell him off for making it wrong, before sending him back to his little desk and his flickering candle and his grey, scratchy fingerless gloves…
Richard returned to the table and sat down. He pushed up his cuffs slightly as he prepared to dive into the sashimi. She was pleased to see he didn’t have a stupid watch on. One of those flashy million-pound ones that some men liked to wear – as if all their stupid wealth and power could be displayed in a huge, silly clock face embedded with millions of ridiculous Swarovski crystals. Richard had a nice plain, manly looking watch with a brown leather strap. And sexy hairy wrists.
His phone rang. It had a sensible, normal ring tone. No Rocky theme tunes or Crazy Frogs, thank goodness. She’d heard them all.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I really have to get this. It won’t take long.’
He picked up his mobile from the table and took it over to his desk, where he sat down on the huge leather chair.
‘Hello, Patrick,’ he said, then laughed lightly. ‘Yes, absolutely.’ And he launched into some indecipherable stuff with lots of numbers. Imogen switched off. She was looking round Richard’s office again. There really wasn’t much in it. She supposed all the dull stuff, like photocopying and filing and faxing (did they still fax any more? Telex? Was that still a thing?) happened elsewhere. Only the top stuff happened here.
Richard had a couple of tall, imposing stainless steel cabinets. She wondered if he kept a stack of clean shirts in a top drawer, like in the movies, Gordon Gecko-style. She had a sudden – and not unprecedented – wonder of what he looked like bare-chested. If only he would change his shirt now. She’d love to see it. Should she throw a glass of champagne over him and force his hand, arm, pecs, whatever?
He put down the phone. She decided to wander over and sit down on the brown leather swivelly chair opposite him. She was a tiny bit tiddly now, so she started spinning on it.
‘Since you’re taking a ride on that thing,’ he said, ‘do you want to scoot round here so we’re on the same side?’
Her stomach did an energetic somersault. He waited while she trundled her chair round, feeling slightly silly. Once she’d rounded the corner, he grabbed the edge of the chair and pulled it towards his until they were facing each other, knees touching. She looked down at their knees – his under expensive grey fabric; hers with tan leather stretched over them. It was a new kind of intimacy, and actually more erotic than the bumping of other body parts she had known. Or maybe it was just the man.
She had to fight the urge to stroke one of knees with her hand. Knees, eh, she’d never found them sexy before – now she was irrationally desperate to see at least one of Richard’s.
He was looking at her quizzically, once she’d dragged her gaze upwards, and said, in an amused voice, ‘Is it okay if we touch knees, or is it too much for you?’
&nbs
p; ‘I’ll let you know,’ she said. His face was dangerously close. If she wanted to, she could lean in and kiss him. And she did want to. Usually, by now, she would have done it. She would have played out some seduction routine much earlier in the lunch: crossed her legs enticingly; fed him a grape or two, hitched something up or down, whatever she thought would work best. She may have even done one of her specials – leaning directly across a dinner table and brazenly sticking her tongue straight into someone’s mouth. She’d done it before, sending cutlery and crockery crashing. It had been a very hot night with an ultimately cold fish of a man – another of her disasters.
She was too close to him. She’d drunk too much champagne. She liked him too much. This was all getting too dangerous. What was she thinking? She had to go on the counter-attack and quickly. She had to regain some composure here, some ground. Collect herself. She thought, with shame, of her two friends, their vow to have a year of being single, her supposed new code of conduct. This man could be no good for her. She wasn’t supposed to be falling for anyone.
She shunted her chair a foot away from him. He looked surprised. He looked even more surprised when her voice took on what she hoped was a haughty froideur.
‘You seem to have me all wrong, Richard,’ she said.
He looked totally taken aback. Those blue eyes widened.
‘You think I’m an English ice maiden, don’t you?’ she said. ‘And that with a bit of warm American maple syrup and a dusting of cinnamon, I’ll melt in your arms. So you can have your way. But it’s not a dead cert, you know. I might not melt.’ Champagne favours the brave. Her voice ratcheted up to def con hauteur. ‘I may be sworn off men, for all you know.’ There, she’d told him. ‘I might not want to go near your American hot dog with an English barge pole.’
He roared with laughter, throwing his head back. His throat was sexy. Firm, tanned, with a lovely sprouting of hair at the base of it. It looked like it needed nuzzling.
‘I’m not quite sure what a barge pole is, my English Princess,’ he said, his eyes mocking and gorgeous. ‘And sworn? What, you took an oath or something?’ Christ, that American accent was bloody sexy, she thought, as the champagne continued to take hold. No more booze around this man, she thought. It’s not a safe area.
Year of Being Single Page 14