by M K Farrar
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t know that. How awful.” She resisted adding, I love bacon.
He maintained eye contact. “So, you’ll have the salmon instead?”
“Oh, I ... Yes, well, the salmon looks delicious as well.”
He smiled, and she was relieved when he finally looked away. “Excellent.” He lifted a hand and signalled over to the waitress. “Two salmon Carpaccio, and we’ll need a good white wine to go with that.”
“I shouldn’t drink,” she said. “I have to get back to work.” Her job was important to her, even though being an estate agent often meant she was the butt of jokes, and she didn’t want to do anything to mess it up.
“Nonsense. You can’t have lunch without white wine. It’s practically law.” He flashed her that perfect white smile, and she found herself agreeing. One glass of wine wasn’t going to hurt. She’d drink plenty of water with it, and chew some gum before she got back into the office.
The waitress returned with the bottle of wine, but just set it down with the glasses, rather than making them go through the awkward tasting routine. Michael removed the bottle from the cooler and poured them both a glass.
“To second dates,” he toasted, and they clinked glasses.
“Is this our second?” she asked, tilting her head to one side as she smiled at him. “Does Saturday night count as a first date?”
“Oh, absolutely. And I hope I’ll get a third and forth date, too.”
His phone, which sat beside him on the table, buzzed, and he glanced down at it, a frown marking his brow, his lips pinching.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yes ... Well ... Yes, it’s fine.”
“If you need to make a call, I don’t mind.”
He glanced up at her, and she could see he was anxious. Perhaps he didn’t want her to think he was being rude, but then she didn’t want him to think she was completely uptight. This was a lunch date in the middle of a working day. She hoped if something urgent came up, he wouldn’t mind her making a call either.
“Honestly, it’s fine,” she encouraged. “It’s work. I get it.”
“Are you sure?”
She waved a hand at him. “Absolutely.”
Relief relaxed his features and his shoulders dropped. “Thank you. I’ll be as quick as I can.”
Michael pushed back from the table and got to his feet. He gave her another apologetic smile before striding across the restaurant, already swiping the screen of his mobile phone to bring up a number before putting it to his ear.
Olivia took a sip of her wine and waited. She checked her phone, quickly scanning social media for anything exciting, and made sure she didn’t have any messages of her own. She’d sneaked out of work, after all, to have this lunch date. Her boss wouldn’t be too happy if he found out she’d left early to get here.
Their food arrived, the waitress slipping the plates onto the table. At least the meals were chilled, so she didn’t need to worry about the food getting cold while she waited. She twisted around in her seat to see Michael pacing the street, the phone still clamped to his ear.
Should she start? She didn’t have any viewings that afternoon and was only working on more paperwork. Not that she normally needed to drive, anyway. The agency had a car which the staff were able to use if one of the properties they were managing was out of the way, but mainly they either walked to the location or caught the Tube. That was the thing about working in London—most of the time it was faster and cheaper to just catch the Tube rather than sitting in traffic and going through the nightmare of trying to find somewhere to park.
She took another sip of the wine and realised she’d almost finished the glass already and she hadn’t even eaten anything yet. The warm buzz of alcohol made her mind cloudy, but it didn’t take away from the fact she was feeling awkward and out of place. The waitress kept glancing over, perhaps wondering if she should take the food away.
Olivia busied herself with buttering a piece of bread and taking small bites, alternating with some sips of water. She almost laughed. She was out at a fancy restaurant and was dining on bread and water.
The time ticked by both painfully slowly and equally too fast. If she didn’t get back to work at a reasonable time, Tony was bound to start asking questions. She didn’t want to get in trouble.
She glanced over her shoulder again, hoping to catch Michael’s eye and get some indication about what she should do. If he made a gesture to tell her to start, at least she wouldn’t feel as though she was being rude by eating without him, but he continued to pace, not even glancing in her direction. Her awkwardness was building to panic now, her stomach tightening, so she wasn’t sure she’d even be able to eat when he did eventually come back into the restaurant. All she wanted was to be out of the situation, but indecision pinned her to the spot. She couldn’t even escape to the toilet, knowing it would look strange to leave two untouched meals sitting on the table. The staff would probably think she’d left without paying.
Simply to have something to do, she picked up the bottle from the cooler and poured herself a second glass of white wine.
“Everything okay with your meals?” the waitress asked as she wandered past the table, clearly sensing something was wrong.
“Oh, yes, fine. My date’s got caught up in a business call. I’m sure he’ll be done soon.”
Liv drank the second glass too quickly. She was feeling a little drunk now, and she picked at the fish. It looked too raw, and her stomach lurched.
There was a flash of movement near the table, and Michael slid back into the seat opposite. He immediately picked up his fork. “I am so sorry. I had no idea that was going to take so long.”
“Everything all right?” she asked, hoping her words didn’t come out slurred from the wine.
He grimaced. “Could be better.”
He took a couple of mouthfuls of the salmon and washed it down with the wine. “You should have started without me.”
“It’s okay. I wasn’t that hungry, anyway.”
She forced herself to eat something, but her anxiety had taken hold now.
“I hate to do this to you,” he said, “but I’m going to have to take off. I’ve got some stuff back at the office I need to deal with.”
“Oh, right.” Her fuzzy brain told her she should be having more of a reaction, but she couldn’t quite muster the energy.
“Let me make it up to you, one evening this week. No work phone calls, I promise.”
Olivia forced a smile. “Sure, that would be lovely.”
She went to stand up with him, but he put his hand out. “Stay where you are. Finish your meal.” He slid some notes under a saucer. “That should be plenty to cover the bill.”
“I can pay for my own meal,” she protested.
“Not at all. I wouldn’t hear of it.”
He leaned in again and kissed her cheek. “I really am terribly sorry about this, Olivia. I feel wretched.”
“It’s fine,” she said again, only wanting him to leave now, so she could escape as well. She’d gone from feeling excited and nervous, to being slightly drunk and deflated. She only wanted to go and hide somewhere no one would be able to look at her.
“I’ll call you, then.”
“Great.”
She watched as he turned and left. The moment he’d vanished from the restaurant and turned the corner, she bent to gather her bag. Wooziness washed over her, and she straightened again, clutching the edge of the table to steady herself, the tablecloth white and starched beneath her fingertips.
“Everything okay?” the waitress asked her, and Olivia looked up to see her standing in front of her, a concerned expression on her young features.
“Oh, yes, fine. Something came up.” She pushed the notes Michael had left across the table toward her. “Keep the change.”
Liv got to her feet and hurried from the restaurant.
Chapter Four
Four Weeks Earlier
&
nbsp; SHE DIDN’T KNOW WHY, but she didn’t want to tell everyone at work what had happened during the date.
No, she knew why she was reluctant to say anything. They’d tell her Michael had been out of order to leave her sitting alone for so long, and she shouldn’t see him again. Perhaps she shouldn’t, but he hadn’t been able to help it. He’d apologised and offered to make it up to her. Still, that didn’t change how he’d made her feel by leaving her sitting on her own the entire time.
Did she even want to see him again? It had been a long time since someone of his calibre had been interested in her, and she knew nothing about his job—it could have been something seriously important. The situation had been far from ideal, but was it worth writing him off just because he had to make a phone call?
“Are you okay?” Ellen asked her that afternoon as she sat at her desk, trying to focus on the mountain of paperwork that seemed to have doubled in size since the morning. “You seem a little quiet.”
“Just tired. I had a glass of wine too many over lunch.”
Ellen gave her a wink. “He was worth it though, right?
“Absolutely,” she agreed.
Ellen wedged her backside onto the edge of Liv’s desk and folded her arms. “So, when are you seeing him again—assuming you are seeing him again?”
She gave a small smile and glanced away, as though suddenly interested in the stack of references she’d been going through. “He’s going to take me out for dinner one evening. He said he’ll call to arrange it.”
“This week? Wow, he’s keen.”
“Yeah, I guess.”Liv didn’t fill her in on how this was an apology dinner to make up for the disastrous lunch date. “Anyway, I really need to get on with this, especially after taking the extended lunch break.”
Ellen held both hands up and straightened. “All right, Miss Conscientious. I’ll let you get on. Tell me if you hear anything else, though.”
Luckily, her boss Tony hadn’t noticed her gone for so long, so she drank a strong coffee and tried to focus on work instead of men.
The afternoon dragged by, and she checked her phone too many times, wondering if Michael would send another text to say sorry, but there was nothing. He was busy, and she needed to stop caring so much. She didn’t even know the guy, but he seemed to have wound his way into her thoughts. Why was that? She didn’t normally let a man affect her in such a way. Normally, she was content with a one night stand and never needing to see the man again. Getting involved with someone meant too many questions she couldn’t answer, and she’d learned from experience that things got complicated. Far easier to get what she wanted in the bedroom and not even bother to exchange phone numbers. She’d discovered most men were quite happy for things to go that way as well.
But not this one. Something was different about him.
A HEADACHE HAD BEEN building all afternoon, lodging right behind her eyes and thumping with resilience. Several large glasses of water and a couple of pain killers had done nothing to shift it, and now Liv only wanted to lie down and sleep for the rest of the evening.
She pushed open the door to her flat to discover her flatmate Tammy slamming around. Liv’s heart sank.
“Everything okay?” she called tentatively.
“Why does this fucking flat have to be such a mess all the time? I leave it perfectly fine on Friday morning, and by Monday it’s a fucking tip again.” Tammy picked up one perfectly positioned cushion and slammed it back down in exactly the same place.
There hadn’t been anything wrong with the state of the flat when she’d left first thing that morning, so unless someone had broken in during the day and made a mess of the place, she figured Tammy was overreacting.
“It’s fine, Tammy. There’s nothing wrong with the flat.”
“Only because I’ve been back here for the last hour cleaning up. There were dishes in the sink, and I bet you haven’t hoovered all weekend.”
The ‘dishes’ she was referring to were that morning’s cereal bowl and a mug which she’d drunk her tea from. She’d been running late, and so had simply rinsed them and left them in the sink to finish later. She should have known it would cause a fuss.
“It was one bowl and one cup, Tammy. And actually, I did whip around with the hoover on Saturday morning.”
“That’s two days ago!”
She didn’t have the patience for this. “Not everyone vacuums every day. If you want to, you should be here to do it.”
“I’m not making the mess!”
She gritted her teeth, doing her best to keep her temper. “There is no mess. You go out partying every weekend, and then come back on a downer and wanting to pick a fight. The flat is perfectly tidy. Now, I have a stinking headache, so I’m going to lie down, in my room, in my mess.”
She turned her back on Tamsin and went straight to her room, shutting the door behind her. Tammy was normally fine, except for on a Monday. Too many recreational drugs Friday to Sunday made her OCD tendencies flare up, and she liked to take it out on Olivia.
The roar of the vacuum cleaner sounded outside her door, and she knew Tammy was doing it deliberately. Liv gave a growl of frustration, threw herself on her bed, and picked up her pillow. She jammed it over her head to try to block out the noise. If Tammy was going to continue like this, Olivia was going to find somewhere else to live. Change always made her nervous, thinking they’d ask for too many references and check too far back in her history, but she’d end up killing her flatmate if this continued for much longer.
ANOTHER DAY PASSED, and she didn’t hear from Michael. She told herself it was a good thing. She didn’t need some workaholic man in her life, and it wasn’t as though she’d had fun the last time she’d seen him—quite the opposite. Yet she still found herself checking her phone more than normal, and her heart raced each time she had a message, and then plummeted again when it wasn’t from him. Ellen and Callie had both enquired into whether or not he’d called again, but after a couple more times of telling them he hadn’t, they stopped asking.
She was getting ready for work, her hair still wet and wrapped up in a towel turban as she flicked through the clothes in her tiny walk-in wardrobe. She took care of the things she owned, knowing that appearing well put together was one of the things that stopped people asking too many questions about her.
The ringing of her mobile phone snatched her attention from what she was doing, and her stomach lurched. No one ever called. Everyone she knew sent text messages if they wanted to get in touch. Leaving the wardrobe, she went back into the bedroom to where her phone was lying face up on her bed.
The name ‘Michael’ flashed up on screen. It was him.
She hesitated. Maybe she should make him wait? He hadn’t even sent her a text since their disastrous date, but then she hadn’t texted him either, and she didn’t want to play games. Not wanting it to go to answer phone, she snatched up her mobile and swiped to answer.
“Michael, hi.”
She heard him take a breath on the other end of the line. “Hi, Liv. It’s good to hear your voice. I was almost surprised you answered.”
“You were?” she said, trying to play innocent. “Why?”
“Because I left you in such a rush on Monday. I’d half convinced myself you wouldn’t want to see me again.”
“Oh, it was no big deal. I thought I said that.” She winced at her own lie. Why did she feel the need to do that?
“I know, but even so. If the situation had been reversed, I don’t think I’d have bothered to answer.”
She didn’t know how to take that. Was he saying he thought she was more forgiving than he was, or that he thought enough of himself to not waste time on someone who abandoned their date in the middle of a meal?
He must have picked up on her silence. “Anyway, let me make it up to you. Are you free tonight?”
She was tempted to say she was busy, just to judge his reaction, but she did want to see him. Perhaps she was being too hard on him. He did sound li
ke he wanted to make up for the crappy lunch.
“Tonight would be great.”
Chapter Five
Present Day
THE MAN WAS DEFINITELY waking up.
His arms and legs twitched, and his chin lifted from his chest a couple of inches before dropping back down. He let out a moan, but the gag forced between his lips muffled the sound.
She lived in fear of him working the gag free, but for the moment it was tied so tight around the back of his head, the material cut into the sides of his mouth. It wasn’t going anywhere. But she still needed answers from him, and there was only one other way of getting them, and that involved untying one of his hands. It would be dangerous, but not as dangerous as if she let him speak.
Her heart thrummed, beating hard against her rib cage. She needed to keep control of her emotions. If he saw weakness in her, he’d figure out how to use it against her. He’d already done that once, and she wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.
She was ever conscious of time running out. How much did she have left? She wasn’t sure, but with every minute that ticked by, the possibility that the worst might have happened filled her. He was the only one who knew the truth, and she couldn’t let him continue to sleep. He needed to wake up.
On the floor, at her feet, was a plastic bottle of water. She’d brought it down here for herself, knowing this was going to make her thirsty. He was a big man, and though she was tall, she wasn’t exactly muscular. It had taken a lot of effort to get him into a position where he’d been half slung over her shoulder, and then she’d had to push upward and use her other hand to pull his hands up and tie them to the hook hanging from the ceiling. It had been awkward and physically hard. Ideally, she could have done with another person to help her, but that was impossible. Her muscles had been screaming in protest by the time she’d managed to get the first hand tied. Her whole body had trembled beneath his with the exertion, and she knew she’d feel the strain for days to come—should she live that long. At least once she’d done that, she’d been able to take her shoulder away and let him dangle by that one arm while she’d tied the second one up. It must have been horribly painful—that one shoulder joint taking all of the strain—but he’d been unconscious, and besides, he deserved the pain. After everything he’d done, he deserved far more than an aching arm. By the time this was over, she thought there was a good chance he’d have paid for at least a tiny amount of what he’d put everyone else through. He deserved everything he got.