Dead Romantic (22 page)

I’m just checking my mobile in case Professor Hamilton has sent a message when there’s a hammering of knuckles on the front door. Grabbing my bag I fly down the stairs to answer it – and then almost fall down in shock when I see who’s on the doorstep.

Now I understand why Alex was so desperate for me to get dressed and put some make-up on.

“Hello, Cleo Rose Carpenter,” says Rafe Thorne softly. “Can we start again?”

Chapter 19

“What are
you
doing here?”

OK, so this isn’t the most gracious way to greet a visitor but I can’t help myself. The last person I’m expecting to find on the doorstep is Rafe Thorne. For a split second I’m tempted to slam the door in his handsome face and bolt back upstairs and burrow under the duvet.

“Don’t be mean,” says Alex bossily over my shoulder. “He’s made an effort to come all this way to see you. The least you can do is be polite.”

Rafe has made an effort; it’s true. Yesterday’s stubble has been shaved away and his black hair is freshly washed and glossy as it brushes the shoulders of his battered leather jacket. He smells good too, of something citrusy and sharp, which is a distinct improvement on Eau de Stale Booze. A scarlet scarf is wound around his neck, and he’s wearing faded blue Levis and brown biker boots; the obligatory shades complete the casual rock-star-about-town look. When he pushes these back onto his head and stares down at me I notice that his striking violet eyes are no longer bright with anger but thoughtful.

I guess that’s an improvement.

“I hope I haven’t disturbed you? I thought about breaking in and creeping around but there’s no way I can compete with your cat-burglary skills,” Rafe teases. As he speaks his eyes crinkle at the corners, lines starring out towards his temples – reminders that there was once a time when he probably smiled a lot. “Catherine Zeta Jones in
Entrapment
has got nothing on you. By the way, why didn’t you wear the leather suit?”

I ignore his teasing and fold my arms across my chest. Rafe might be amused and Alex is laughing like a drain, but I’m not finding it funny. When I think about yesterday’s meeting I feel hot all over. “I didn’t break in. I used a key.”

“Of course. Forgive me. You used a key to
let yourself in totally uninvited
. I’m slightly more old-fashioned. I like to be asked in, or at the very least ring the doorbell.”

“He’s just kidding,” Alex says hastily. “Rafe’s got a very dry sense of humour.”

“Do you see me laughing?” I shoot back.

Luckily Rafe assumes I’m talking to him.

“Look, I’m ever so grateful really. Even though you were
trespassing
.”

See. You try to do somebody a good turn and what do you get? Grief and hassle. No wonder I prefer being left alone in the museum.

“Sorry,” I say stiffly. “I apologise for thinking you might have been in trouble and in need of help. I should have left you there.”

Rafe raises his eyes to heaven. “Cleo, I’m teasing you!”

“Don’t bother, fam,” sighs Alex. “She’s got no sense of humour some days.”

Yep. And this day is one of them.

“Look,” Rafe continues, stepping forwards and smiling at me, a slow smile that makes my insides knot even though I’m annoyed with him after yesterday. “I’m grateful, I really am. Nobody’s been bothered about whether I’m all right for so long now that I guess I’m out of practice. I don’t understand why you were there or how you’ve suddenly reappeared after all these years, but I’m touched you wanted to help. And I’m sorry I was less than receptive. I’ve come to thank you.”

Yesterday’s embarrassing episode is now spooling through my mental cinema on a loop and I’m cringing more with every second that passes. I just want to draw a line under all this.

“And I brought this back,” he adds, reaching into his pocket and pulling out my green hat. He holds it out at me hopefully. “You left it behind. I had to return it.”

Thanks a lot, bobble hat. If it wasn’t for you I could still be slobbing around in my Snoopy tee shirt and doing my best to forget yesterday. Or maybe booking myself in for some intensive psychotherapy? Anything but standing face to face with Rafe Thorne.

“Thanks,” I mumble, rather ungraciously. “You really shouldn’t have bothered though. It’s only from Primark.”

Rafe grins. “Hey, don’t knock Primarni. Our stylist used to swear by the place.” He pauses and his brow furrows thoughtfully. “I have to ask, did you leave the hat behind on purpose?”

I snatch it back. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I didn’t. Why would I?”

Rafe shrugs. “So that you had an excuse to come back? Fans do the weirdest things.”

Fans? He thinks I’m a fan? Of all the bloody nerve! I’m not even going to dignify this comment with an answer, so instead I just glower at him. My glower has made the undergraduates I teach quail and ex-boyfriends quake, and is just about the only thing that makes Susie give in and clean the flat, so it’s generally very effective. Unfortunately though, it doesn’t seem to work on Rafe Thorne, who’s lolling against the doorframe with irritating insouciance.

“You wanted to see me again.” It isn’t a question. “So you left your hat. I must admit a hat makes a pleasant change. It’s normally knickers or bras I have thrown at me, not bobble hats.” The smile widens into a grin. “Although I wouldn’t have complained if you’d felt the urge.”

For some reason I now have a vivid mental image of me in Rafe’s drawing room peeling off my underwear and whirling it around my head like something from the Moulin Rouge, and my face is even hotter.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Rafe says kindly. “I’m flattered. You went to a lot of trouble to find me.”

The fact that he’s taking pity on me is the final straw. There’s only so much humiliation a girl can stand.

“You actually think I’d want to see you again after your behaviour yesterday?” I say incredulously. “Have you been drinking again? What on earth makes you think I’d want you to come here?”

Rafe winks. “Maybe because you typed your address onto my computer? I have to say that’s original, even though I could have done without having my lyrics messed with. I’m having enough bloody trouble writing as it is.” He shakes his head. “I must have been more drunk than I realised not to have seen you do it. Or did you type the address while I was asleep?”

I stare at him. “What? Don’t be ridiculous! Of course I didn’t do that!”

His dark brows lift. “You’re denying it?”

“Of course I’m denying it.
Because I didn’t do it
!”

There’s an awkward throat-clearing noise behind me.

“Err, sorry,” says Alex somewhere behind me, sounding anything but. “That
may
have been me. It took an awful lot of energy. That’s why I didn’t come and find you last night. I was spent.”

Oh great. So now I look completely deranged and there’s no way I can explain myself without sounding even more bonkers.

Rafe pushes a lock of dark hair back from his well-defined face and regards me thoughtfully while I pray for the floor to open up and swallow me, which of course it refuses to do. His lithe body fills the door, his shoulders and chest tapering into a lean waist and hips. I look away.

“OK, of course you didn’t, then,” says Rafe kindly when I fail to reply. He’s acting as if he’s taking pity on a deluded fan, which is pretty galling. “I must have just imagined it and found your address by magic. Yes. It must have appeared by magic.”

“Maybe a ghost typed it?” suggests Alex. Not helpful.

“Well?” Rafe is still waiting for an explanation. I have the feeling that unless I can come up with one I’ll be standing in the doorway for a while. “What’s your suggestion?”

“Oh! My address!” I force a laugh. “Oh yes! Of course! I remember now. I… err… I typed that in while we were talking, remember?”

“No, actually, I can’t say I do.” Rafe doesn’t look convinced. “But then I was very drunk. Look, Cleo, I’m really sorry about yesterday. You didn’t catch me at my best. I’d had some bad news and, what can I say? I hit the Jack Daniel’s.”

“And the Stella and the wine,” I shoot back. I won’t forget that scene in a hurry. The drawing room had looked as though somebody had ransacked Oddbins.

He nods. “I drink too much. I know that and believe me I have tried not to, but sometimes things just get too much, you know? And that’s the only thing that helps.”

“No it isn’t!” Alex yells. He leaps up from the stairs where he’s been slouched listening to our conversation and shoves past me until he’s staring right in his brother’s face. “Drinking isn’t helping, you stupid bastard! It’s making it worse!”

“Brr, it’s chilly here.” Rafe pulls his scarf more tightly around his neck and buries his hands in his pockets. Then he smiles at me, a slow sexy smile that lifts one corner of his mouth. Goosebumps rise on my arms – and not from the cold, either. Suddenly I’m nineteen again and on that railway platform. It’s the oddest feeling.

“I’m doing this all wrong, aren’t I?” he says softly. “Listen, Christmas Girl, I’m really glad you left your address because it’s given me the chance to return your hat and apologise for behaving so appallingly yesterday. I was kicking myself once you’d left. I’ve waited years to find you again and when I do I turn into a tit.”

“I found
you
,” I point out, and in my head I hear Susie groan. If my best friend were here now, apart from having a meltdown because a bona fide rock star was at my house, she’d be telling me to bat my eyelids and enjoy every minute because Rafe Thorne is “sex on a stick”.

Well, sex on a stick or not, he can flipping well grovel. He
did
behave appallingly.

“Of course; you found me.” His lips twitch as though he’s laughing, but then a more serious expression settles across that sharp-cheekboned face and he exhales slowly. “I’m so sorry, Christmas Girl, if it wasn’t the reunion you’d expected or hoped for. But I’m not that boy any more than you’re that same girl. Things have happened to me since then. I’ve changed–”

I nod. “Yeah, me too.”

He holds up a hand. “I’ve changed, but there’s one thing that has remained the same for all this time, one thing that I’ve always trusted, and that’s my memory of meeting you. It’s never altered.”

Well that’s just great, given that Rafe’s totally shattered my memory of that snowy Christmas meeting. Seeing him again has only proven to me what a load of twaddle love and romance really are. He’s no romantic hero after all: he’s just a guy with a guitar, a dead brother and more baggage than Heathrow’s Terminal Five. Thank goodness I’ve not been wasting my time dreaming about him but have been busy building a career. A career that I can’t wait to get back to once this lunacy is over. Mental note to self: ring Professor Hamilton as soon as possible and find out when the interviews are.

“Do you still think about it?” Rafe asks softly when I don’t reply.

I do, but I’m starting to wish I didn’t. Some things, unlike artefacts from ancient Egypt, are better left buried in the past.

“It was a very long time ago,” I hedge.

Rafe stares at me and then shrugs. “Yeah, yeah. You’re right. It was.”

An awkward silence falls. We’re both a decade away on the station. Snow is falling like soft feather kisses on my cheeks, and he’s just a heartbeat away. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as close to anyone as I did to him that night. Isn’t it funny how things can change? Funny and so very sad.

“Well, thanks for returning the hat,” I manage eventually.

“That’s no problem. Look, let me at least buy you a drink to make up for yesterday – a coffee, obviously,” Rafe suggests swiftly when he sees my dubious expression. “Please, Cleo? I’m sorry I was so ungentlemanly. I know you were only trying to help.”

Rafe has no idea just how much I’ve been trying to help. My entire life is falling to bits because of it.

“Go on,” urges Alex. “This could be the one chance we get.”

“Please?” Rafe blows on his fingers and pulls a pleading face. “It’s freezing standing here, and if these fingers drop off my career as a musician really is over. Let me at least warm up while you make me grovel.”

I laugh in spite of myself. “You haven’t grovelled nearly enough.”

Rafe plummets to his knees and looks up at me hopefully.

“Come for a coffee with me, Christmas Girl. Please? Look, I’m grovelling!”

“Please go for a coffee with him,” pleads Alex, dancing from foot to foot in a blur of red ghostly Converse boots. “Go on. Where’s the harm? And you promised you’d do your best to help.”

There’s a man kneeling on my father’s doorstep and a ghost begging me to take pity on him. Mrs Lewis from across the road is practically tugging her net curtains down in an attempt to see what’s going on. Even a couple of passersby are looking. “Say ‘yes’, love!” one of them calls. “The poor man’s bloody freezing!”

Oh great. Now it’ll be all round Taply in a nanosecond, and before teatime I’ll be engaged/pregnant/dumped depending on what juicy titbit takes the neighbours’ fancy. No wonder I live in lovely London where you can be completely anonymous.

“The man’s right. Please say
yes
,” Rafe continues, gazing up at me with beseeching violet eyes. “And say it soon!”

“You must be really desperate for a coffee,” I comment.

“No, it’s my knees! They’re killing me,” Rafe winces. “James Brown’s patellas must have been knackered. Come on, Christmas Girl, I’ll be stuck here until spring if you don’t give in soon.”

I can’t help it: I’m starting to laugh at him with this clowning around.

“Stop it, you idiot! OK, I’ll have a coffee with you. Just get off the step.”

Rafe springs to his feet with the lean, powerful grace of a panther. So much for bad knees.

He grins. “Phew, that was touch and go for a moment! I thought my caffeine fix hung in the balance.”

“Why do I feel I’ve been conned?” I grumble as I unhook my jacket from the newel post at the end of the banister. As I put it on I turn my back on Rafe and mouth at Alex, “
You are not invited.
”

He shrugs and winks. “Have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t!” and when I look up from fastening my zip, he’s gone. Now it really is just me and Rafe and I feel oddly shy, which is crazy. It’s one coffee, in broad daylight and with a guy I once knew. There’s absolutely nothing whatsoever to feel nervous about. It’s not as though this is a date or anything. As if. Rafe Thorne dates blonde-bombshell models, not ginger Egyptologists.