Chapter Eight

I was surprised at how much I missed Luke. In little over a week I’d somehow come to rely on his presence every evening, his phone calls every morning. The lack of these things made his absence more profound.

‘Are you falling in love with him?’ Katie asked. She and Jazz had joined me for our weekly Friday night drinking session and were gaining any amount of vicarious pleasure from asking deeply personal questions such as this. ‘I mean, you haven’t really known him very long.’

‘And you haven’t shagged him yet,’ pointed out Jazz. ‘No point in getting all droopy-eyed over the guy if he turns out to be hung like a vole.’

‘Oy, size isn’t everything. And, no, I’m not “falling in love”. I just miss him, that’s all.’

‘I read somewhere’ – Jazz took a deep mouthful of his Guinness while we expressed shock and surprise at the fact that he could read – ‘that you can make someone fall in love with you, just by being in contact with them at the same time every day.’

‘In that case,’ Katie retorted, ‘the barman in here must absolutely adore you.’

‘Maybe he does,’ Jazz replied evenly. ‘I’m only saying, that’s all.’

‘You are so cynical. I think it’s lovely that Will has got herself a gorgeous bloke, and if I didn’t have Dan I know I’d be raving jealous. That Luke is a real ride.’

Jazz and I stared at her. ‘Is there something you want to tell us?’ I said, eventually.

‘About how you know he’s a good ride?’ Jazz put in.

‘Oh, sorry. I was slipping into the Irish vernacular there, guys. I meant ride in the sense of being a shaggable bloke.’

We forgave her for not being British and ordered more drinks. Despite my newfound wealth, Jazz and Katie shared the round buying, which showed that the status quo was still exactly as it had been.

‘Have you told the others yet about the money?’ Katie asked, over another bottle of white wine.

‘Um. No. Not yet.’

‘Don’t you think you ought to?’

You see what I mean about the personal questions? ‘I’m still trying to think how to put it. Bree should be fine. She’s a senior partner at her law firm and Paddy earns enough to buy Mexico. I don’t think Ocean will be bothered, as long as no books were harmed in the making. Flint’s got bootloads of cash from doing whatever it is he does for foreign banks.’

‘And what about Ash?’

‘He’ll probably scratch your eyes out.’ Jazz snorted. ‘Or ignore you very ostentatiously.’

‘Ash is very definite about not wanting money. It “ties you down and makes you conformist” apparently. Although I have heard that he’s just got some sort of bonus for doing that motorbike tour around North Korea last year and I didn’t notice him sending it back, which goes to show how much notice we can take of him and his ideals.’ I drained the bottle into Katie’s glass. ‘Anyway, I can’t tell him anything at the moment, he’s off somewhere again.’ I presumed it was work related, I’d heard the bike start up ridiculously early one morning during the week, lots of running up and down stairs and slamming of doors, after which Ash hadn’t been seen. It was like living with a thirty-two-year-old poltergeist.

And then Saturday morning arrived and Luke turned up at the door in the Morgan, wearing a scrumptious blue shirt which made his eyes look purple. I Audrey Hepburned down the front path (skipping slightly, swinging my bag in a girlish fashion in kitten heels) and Luke opened the car door for me.

‘Had a good week?’

‘You cannot imagine.’ I grinned. ‘How was yours? How was New York?’

‘Big. Noisy. But I did some great deals, I hope.’

‘Did you go up the Empire State building? Or round Central Park?’ I’d had a quick Google of ‘things to do in New York’ when I was in the office and those had come up as ‘essentials’. I’d let my imagination picture Luke, alone in a kind of slo-mo amid the blurring crowds, sightseeing and wishing I was there beside him. It had been a very romantic five minutes, broken by Neil and Clive arguing over the last sherbet dab.

Luke gave me a look I couldn’t define. ‘Er, no. Just business.’ Then he seemed to make an effort to smile and change the subject. ‘Fingers crossed everything will pan out all right, just as long as the cash flow holds up. Anyway, let’s not talk shop. We’re going to have a great weekend. Ever been to the Lakes?’

I had, just once, on a family holiday when I was ten, and my memories of crowded streets with brief glimpses of water, torrential rain and Ocean coming down with chicken pox had rather prejudiced me against returning. However, returning in a convertible next to a stunning man was altogether a different matter.

It was a long drive, via some stupendous scenery Luke wanted me to see and lunch in a little bistro in Keswick, so it was dark when we arrived at the hotel. This alone was worth the journey, crying out for the adornment of a couple of huge hairy dogs and a squire with a shotgun asserting his droit de seigneur with the housemaids.

‘Is this all right?’ Luke asked as our bags were carried into our room. I felt my heart speed up, as I tried not to react when the porter opened the door to reveal the canopied double bed looming in the middle of the room like a small bungalow.

‘It’s beautiful.’ I walked over to the huge open fire flaming away in a stone grate.

‘No, I mean’ – he waved an arm to take in the bed – ‘this.’

‘Oh. Yes. I think … yes. It’s fine.’

‘I didn’t want you to think … if it’s not all right, there’s a couch, look, or I could book another room, I’m sure they’re not full.’

‘It’s fine, Luke. Wonderful.’

‘So, shall we go down to dinner? Or did you want to change?’

I put my head around the door to the en suite bathroom, which had the largest shower I’d ever seen, a whirlpool bath, and towels the size of Manchester. ‘I think I’ll change first, if that’s all right.’

Yeah, I’d bought enough clothes to spend the weekend with the Queen and I was bloody well going to wear all of them. God knows this was probably the only outing they’d get. Modestly I shut myself in the bathroom to strip off, leaving Luke changing in the bedroom. I couldn’t believe it, I was nervous. Ten years, more, of wishing for a sight of Luke Fry in his underpants, and I’m locking myself in the bathroom like a virgin on her wedding night. What was wrong with me? Apart from the obvious, I thought ruefully, as I dry-retched over the shell-shaped sink.

Dinner was fabulous, although I drank rather more than I should have done, and we lingered happily over brandies in a sofa’d drawing room.

‘Okay?’ Luke smiled at me, draining his glass and putting it decisively on the table.

‘Yes, thanks. Fantastic.’

‘Then, shall we?’ He held out a hand and helped me to my feet, curling a protective arm around my waist. ‘I’m looking forward to that huge bed.’

We rocked together, slightly drunk, up the stairs and into our room. The covers had been turned down on the bed, a handmade chocolate was carefully centred on each pillow and a small, atmospheric lamp glazed the room a light pink.

I was suddenly shy. Here I was, with so many of my fantasies made flesh and, quite literally, solid. Would he live up to them? Could he? Caught by the reflections in the window, I went over and pretended to gaze out into the night, arms along the windowsill, and reasoned to myself that anything would be an improvement on model-plane man and his ten second performance, so I should relax and go with it. How, after all, could a man who looked like Luke Fry did, ever be a disappointment? I felt the hairs prickle on the back of my neck as Luke stood close behind me, his breath swirling the air warmly at my nape.

‘Willow,’ he said, and I turned. Instantly he had me, lips on my mouth, hand entangled in my hair, fingers trembling over the buttons on my shirt. The air came chill against my body as first my shirt and then my skirt fell away, but I was almost unconscious of it. Luke’s heat drove any other thought from my head. His fingers traced my shoulders, then his lips did the same. He kissed me again so hard that the air fled from my lungs. Whispering to me all the time, things he wanted to do, things he had to do or die, teasing me and taunting me. Then, when he had me pinned beneath him, the embroidered canopy of the bed swinging over our heads like the roof of heaven, he began to undress himself.

God, that man was sexy. His body was every bit as stupendous as I had imagined. In fact, it was probably better now than it had been ten years ago, muscled and taut where it had been spare and skinny, a raft of pale hairs drawn between his nipples and down the line of his stomach. As his hand went to his belt, he looked at me quizzically. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I finally found the breath to say, and it was a phrase I was to repeat quite frequently from then on, with variable punctuation. ‘Oh, yes.’

There was a kind of frenzy about Luke in bed – oh, nothing kinky. You’re not getting any tales from me about handcuffs or spanking competitions. (Even if it did happen I wouldn’t tell you. We don’t know each other that well.) A very concentrated approach to sex, as though he was blocking out the whole of the rest of life while he made love to me. It made me feel as if I was the centre of the universe, the most desired, the hottest woman in the galaxy, watching the man I’d always wanted giving himself up to me on waves of pleasure and afterwards collapsing in my arms with sweat glazing his body.

‘So then.’ I lay on my side and traced the outline of his ribs. ‘You were telling me about New York.’

‘Was I? It’s nothing, Willow. Just busy. Loud. Dirty.’ Luke rested on his back with his arms behind his head. ‘Much as you’d expect. Have you ever been?’

‘No.’ I waited for him to say ‘we’ll go together’, but he didn’t. He just smiled into the night beyond the bed. ‘What did you get up to over there, then? Apart from work.’

‘Apart from work, nothing. I’d had the heads-up from James about a car, thought I might be interested in it, so I flew out to take a look, had a bit of a poke round some others while I was there, came back. End of story. So. How was your week?’

He turned his head to look at me, his eyes lazily clouded with sex, and I gulped to prevent dinner reappearing. ‘I … well, I had a good time, actually. I …’ I’d been about to mention my legacy but when he looked at me like that my mind went a complete blank. ‘I … oh God, Luke …’

Later, we tried conversation again. This time Luke initiated. ‘It’s a bloody shame I couldn’t buy that Caddy over in New York, you know. You would have looked absolutely amazing in it. You do have the most incredible breasts, by the way, did I mention?’

‘I think you did say something similar, yes,’ I said, rather breathlessly. ‘Was it not for sale after all?’

Luke began kissing me. ‘Yeah, but I’ve got a bit of a cash shortfall at the moment, until I get the business up and running this end. So I had to say “no” to it. Pity, but there you go, that’s business. Can we just try …?’

The man was insatiable.