Chapter Seventeen
I’d put so much focus on potentially being rejected that I hadn’t even thought about what I’d do if he didn’t blank me and did actually reply.
I clicked into the chat. Sure enough, there were two new messages from an overseas number, and next to them was a photo of none other than Lorenzo…
Lorenzo
Hi, Sophia
Lorenzo
Prof here…
I took my plate of food out of the microwave and carried it along with my phone into the living room, sitting down on the sofa.
I glanced down again at the screen. Yep. His messages were still there, and he was still online—perhaps waiting for me to reply. Now might be a good time to snap out of this daze and do exactly that…
Me
Hey there, teacher…
The double ticks on my message turned blue. He’d read my reply…
Lorenzo
How are you?
As tempting as it was to say, I’m missing you like crazy and want to fly back over to Florence right now and rip your clothes off, instead I simply settled for:
Me
Good, thanks. How are you?
His reply came quickly:
Lorenzo
Good, thanks…new group tomorrow, so early start.
I fired a message back:
Me
Oh, that’s a shame.
Right. Enough of the niceties…
Me
So, are you just messaging me to say hello or something else…?
* * *
Lorenzo
typing…
typing…
Come on. What’s taking so long?
Getting impatient, I put my feet up on the chaise longue and plumped up the cushions behind my back. I guess I had to remember that English wasn’t his first language.
Lorenzo
Yes…to say hello
Lorenzo
And to give you a kiss
We’re getting warmer. Still, best to play it cool.
Me
Awww
Lorenzo
I am working on some new recipes too
Me
Wish I could taste them. You’re a great chef. I tried making the tagliatelle yesterday. It was good, but I don’t think my pasta was rolled thinly enough. It’s not the same without your help.
Lorenzo
Don’t worry
Lorenzo
I will help you soon
Me
Are you offering me another lesson?
Lorenzo
typing…
Stop teasing…hurry up and answer.
Lorenzo
More than one
Me
Lesson 1 or Lesson 2?
Lorenzo
typing…
Lorenzo
One more one
Lorenzo
But after a lot of number two
I definitely liked the sound of that…
Me
Looking forward to it already…
And with that, he read the message and then logged off.
Shame he’d stopped messaging so soon. I was enjoying that. I looked at the time at the top of my phone. It was now 10.30 p.m., which meant it’d be 11.30 p.m. over there. Fair enough if he was working on new recipes, and he did say he had an early start.
I lay back on the sofa and started to think of him. The flashbacks of him kissing my breasts flooded my brain. Oh my God…
It was now Sunday. Almost five days since I’d been back, but it felt like five hundred.
I’d spent Friday and most of yesterday either thinking about Lorenzo, staring at photos of him on his Facebook page or sleeping to avoid thinking about him and staring at his Facebook page. It was very unhealthy. Thank goodness I was going to have dinner with my parents tonight. Lord knows I needed a distraction.
I hadn’t heard from him since Thursday and was desperate to. So after deciding that three days was enough time to elapse and not appear too keen, I made the first move again and sent him a message. As before, I tried to keep it light and breezy:
Me
Good morning, how are you? How’s the new group?
You’d think that messaging would have helped. It didn’t. With every single second that passed, I started overthinking about what I’d written, wishing I’d said something better, funnier or sexier and wondering whether I should have messaged him first or waited for him to make the first move.
I know there’s a million rules about this shit. Hundreds of articles have been written about the importance of the man instigating everything and the woman not messaging first three times in a row, or is it twice? I couldn’t keep up with all these theories.
In fact, now that I thought about it, did I really want to? All this ‘playing it cool’ and ‘not being too keen’ was actually exhausting. Surely if there was a magic formula, then everyone would follow it and men and women would understand each other perfectly? I’d try just going with my gut, and if I felt like messaging, I would. Hmmm. But it’s hard to be strong when you’re ‘lost in the sauce’, which my niece Jasmine informs me is the ‘hip’ way of referring to someone who is lust-sick.
The next stage of my downward spiral caused me to log on and off WhatsApp every five minutes just in case he’d messaged and I’d missed the notification. What the fuck was wrong with me? The combination of having time off and being in lust was clearly kryptonite for me. I knew what I was doing was stupid, yet I couldn’t seem to help myself. I looked at the message again. The ticks were still grey, so it wasn’t that he was avoiding me. Just that he hadn’t read it yet.
If I took a moment to think logically, I’d realise that it was around 11.30 a.m. their time, and he’d already told me that he was working with a new group, so he must be busy showing them how to make lunch or something. It wasn’t realistic to expect a reply now.
I attempted to pull myself together, put my phone down to one side and went back to sleep. Yes. Again. If sleeping was an Olympic sport, this weekend I would have won gold. When I woke up two hours later, I made a beeline for my phone.
There was a WhatsApp notification. He’d replied with two messages:
Lorenzo
Not as nice as yours
Lorenzo
And no beautiful girl
What does he mean by the second message? Is he disappointed because there’s no beautiful girls there?
I’d let that one slide and just keep it light-hearted.
Me
Ha-ha! Well, our group was pretty cool
Me
I’ve not seen any hot Italian guys in London either
Now I was back to the waiting for him to reply. This was driving me mental…
No. I wasn’t going to do it to myself. If I couldn’t be trusted not to look at my phone, I was going to leave it in the bedroom and go into the living room and watch a film to take my mind off him.
Two hours later, I couldn’t resist any longer, so I went into my bedroom and pressed the home button to wake up my phone. There was a reply from him, but it seemed to be just an emoji. I went into the app and clicked on his name to open the chat, and sure enough it just had the winking face with tongue emoji:
WTF? Was that it?
No I miss you? No flirting? Just an emoji? What the hell was I supposed to make of that?
I knew he was working, but I hated all this. I hadn’t had to do all the will he/won’t he call/message crap for over fifteen years and certainly didn’t miss it.
I was out of my comfort zone again. I clicked on Fran’s image and messaged her, as she seemed to understand a lot about men and how their minds worked.
Me
Hey, Fran, how are you?
She replied almost instantly.
Fran
Good, hon. You? Heard much from Lorenzo?
That was the kind of quick messaging I liked. No waiting around for a reply…
Me
Well, not really…if I mess
age him, he’ll message back (but he’s not very verbose). Otherwise, if I don’t message, I don’t hear from him. I can’t work out whether it’s because he’s genuinely busy and I’m being paranoid/expecting too much or if he’s just not interested…
Fran
Well, with men, if you don’t know what to say or do, it’s best not to do anything…
Me
Very true
Fran
You can either put it down to experience and enjoy the memories or do the whole long-distance thing, which won’t be easy, especially as he still seems to have issues, notably with his ex, so worth taking that into account too…xxx
Me
Well, I’m not completely crazy, so not considering the long-distance thing. That wouldn’t work for a million reasons.
Me
I’ll give it some more thought and decide how I’m going to play it. I know we didn’t get to chat last week, so can I still call you if I need another perspective next week?
Fran
Of course, hon xxx
It was amazing how comfortable I felt speaking to someone I had only known for a week. Although we’d only messaged briefly, somehow, I had greater clarity on the situation.
The long-distance relationship thing wouldn’t work. But I wasn’t quite ready to consign everything to the memory bank yet either.
That evening with Lorenzo had been amazing, but we had unfinished business. I wanted to progress to lesson two. I needed to know what it felt like to have him inside me.
I was at least a decade behind the curve. I was essentially a MARGIN trying to navigate my way around this man-minefield. But if we had a dirty weekend together, then I’d feel like we’d at least finished what we’d started. I would have had a more comprehensive experience, got some great practice in and would be ready to go out there and date more confidently in the real world.
And as well as being talented in the kitchen, after showing me how skilful he was with his hands and those lips, I was convinced that Lorenzo would be an expert in the bedroom too. The perfect professor to teach this willing student.
Yes. A naughty weekend. That’s what I wanted to happen next. Two hot and steamy days and nights of passionate kissing and explosive sex.
And just like on that last night, where I’d set out a plan to make Lorenzo mine, I was prepared to do whatever it took to be with him once again.
Chapter Eighteen
Monday morning. I could not wait to get to the office. Not just because I’d had a whole nine days away (a major miracle in itself), or because I loved what I did, but mainly because I desperately needed a distraction.
I was now thinking about Lorenzo approximately every two seconds—in fact, scrap that. Every second was more accurate. As much as I tried, I couldn’t seem to stop him dominating my thoughts. I had to take control of my mind again, so if I could reduce that to every three seconds at least (let’s not run before we can walk), I’d be making huge progress.
I made my way to the dressing room to pick out an outfit. I felt different. More relaxed. I wanted my clothes to reflect that. To show the new me. Today I was going to dress a little less formally. Normally it’d be all about the structured Roland Mouret dress. But right now I was drawn to the other end of the spectrum. No, not a tracksuit. I was thinking a pair of fitted dark blue jeans, a crisp white shirt and a smart black blazer. I might even wear flats. Very unlike me. Well, very unlike the old me.
I got dressed and gave myself the once-over in the mirror. Yes. I felt great. Was I missing something? Wow. I’d been so used to going au naturel these past few days that I was about to leave without wearing any make-up or styling my hair. How times had changed.
I wasn’t in the mood for a full face of make-up. The time off and the fresh Tuscan air had done my skin good. A little tinted moisturiser was all that was needed. In fact, I was going to keep my make-up light again like I had in Italy. No contouring, blush, eyeshadow, etc. Just eyeliner, mascara and a nude lipstick, finished with a slick of gloss. Done.
Hair? I was going for the loose, effortless, undone ponytail like I’d seen Daniel, our A-list hairdresser client, create hundreds of times at fashion shows. Ironically, it took more effort than it appeared, but I’d tried it in Tuscany and it had looked cool, so time to give it a more public airing.
Rigid, uptight Sophia had gone. And she’d been replaced by a cooler, more fun, younger sister.
As I strutted through the corridors up to my office, greeting my team as I went, the gasps were audible. Anyone would have thought I’d come to work naked. Well, I supposed they were used to me looking like I’d just had my make-up done for a photoshoot and dressing as if I was about to be interviewed for ITV News. And a ponytail? Undone and cool or not, the Sophia they knew would never dream of having her hair anything other than all down and swooshing around like I was auditioning for a shampoo advert.
Well, people. This was what a bit of time off and some rolling around on a sofa with a hot Italian chef did to you…
I knocked on Harrison’s door. ‘Come in,’ he said as he looked up from his computer and then did a double take.
‘Wow! Sophia!’ he said as I walked over to his desk to give him a hug. ‘Get you looking all relaxed.’ He looked me up and down. ‘No way!’ he said in disbelief. ‘Are those jeans you’re wearing to the office? And hold on…’ he said, walking around to look at the back of my head. ‘You’ve put your hair in a ponytail? And your make-up—you’re wearing make-up, right? Are you? Yes. But it’s more… natural. What happened over there?’ he asked, raising one of his thick, dark eyebrows.
If only you knew, Harrison, I thought to myself. Those were details I wasn’t planning to share with my younger brother any time soon…
‘Ah well, you know,’ I replied coyly. ‘Time off, the fresh Tuscan air…’
‘Well, whatever it was, Soph, I’m loving the new look!’ he said.
‘Thanks, bro. Just felt like trying something new, you know. Switching up my style a bit,’ I added innocently.
‘Well, sis, it suits you,’ he said, standing back to look at me once again. ‘Mum said you seemed different, happier, when you came round.’
‘Oh yeah, how was your reunion?’ I asked remembering that he couldn’t make dinner at my parents as he’d met up with some old friends from uni.
‘It was good, thanks. I hoped I’d get back in time to see you but, you know, it’d been a while since we’d all caught up, so…anyway,’ he said, switching topics. ‘Back to you. I can’t get over it! The power of a holiday, eh? And as you can see, the company is still here, still standing and still thriving, despite you having a few days off. I’ve been telling you to do this for years.’
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ I said, rolling my eyes in anticipation of his I told you so speech. ‘You were right, Harrison. I did need a break and it was wonderful…’
‘I thought I heard your voice,’ said Robyn, walking into Harrison’s office wearing a smart grey knee-length dress which showcased her long, slender legs and skyscraper black heels, ‘but I just didn’t recognise you. You look so different!’
‘Oh…how I love the word ‘different’—not!’ I said, smiling sarcastically. ‘It can mean so many things and not all of them good…’
‘Ha-ha, yeah. I know what you mean, Soph. But in this case, I mean good different. Relaxed, happy, glowing,’ she clarified.
Robyn also looked great as always. Her thick, almost waist-length rich chocolate-coloured hair accentuated her piercing green eyes and her cute doll-like features.
‘Well, thank you,’ I said, smiling. ‘I’ll take that kind of different.’
‘And congratulations,’ added Robyn.
‘Congratulations?’ I asked, wondering if I’d won the lottery but no one had told me.
‘Not only did you manage a whole nine days out of the office, which is technically only five working days, but you also managed to stay off Instagram and all social media. And whilst we saw you reading them, as
far as Harrison and I can tell, you haven’t actually sent or replied to most emails either,’ said Robyn.
‘Yes, I managed to restrain myself!’ I said, laughing. ‘You guys have done an amazing job of taking care of everything. I admit, it was difficult at first, and I was tempted to start replying to everything, especially when I got back home and was just pottering around, but I saw your responses and they were spot-on, so thank you.’
Robyn blushed. I could tell she realised what a big deal me saying this was. She knew how much of a control freak I was (or used to be?), so for me to trust her to take care of things without micromanaging was major.
‘Well,’ she said humbly, ‘that is what we’re here for, Soph. As we’ve been trying to tell you for years, you know Harrison and I, in fact the whole team, we’ve got this. You trained us. I’ve worked side by side with you practically every day for almost a decade. I know how you like things done. I know what this business means to you. It means a lot to all of us too, so we wouldn’t ever want to let you down.’
‘Awww. Thank you again, Robyn. Right,’ I said, clapping my hands together. ‘I’ve got about fifteen hundred emails to sift through, so I’d better get back to work. Can we catch up later re: the MIKA launch and also the numbers for the Exquisite Parfum press trip to Paris that Gail is managing?’
‘Absolutely,’ confirmed Robyn. ‘Although, when you get to email one thousand, four hundred and ninety-nine, sent about ten minutes ago, you’ll see that a full update on the launch, the press trip numbers and all the important stuff has already been sent to you.’
‘I’m impressed,’ I said, smiling. It was great how well Robyn had once again perfectly anticipated my needs. ‘Thank you. Maybe I should go away more often.’
The Middle-Aged Virgin: A Chick Lit, Romantic Comedy Novel: Newly Single And Seeking Spine-Tingles... Page 15