Skinny Dipping (31 page)

“Asking you to pretend to be my boyfriend. Sorry about that. Not very professional,” she swallowed. “Nor friend-like, to put you on the spot like that.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding his head. He released a large sigh. “But you must admit it was a definite perk?” He tilted his head to the side, a question crossed his face.

“Ha, ha.”

“You can’t tell me you’d never imagined it?” he said. “I quite liked it… our kiss… Did you?”

“Oh,” she said suddenly flustered. Heat on her cheeks, and up the back of her neck. She wasn’t sure of how to respond. For a girl who was supposed to be good with words, she was suddenly at a loss. He was so forward. So direct. So straight to the point. She usually preferred a softer approach. This all felt a little confronting. “I guess you’ll have to let me know if you ever want me to pretend to be your girlfriend.”

He bit his lip, and his eyes almost turned black. “I just have one thing to ask before we pretend anything further… Are you still hung up on Derek?” He did it again, was so direct, so personal.

She held onto the straw so tightly, she practically broke it. She focused on the drink, her lips coming around a straw and she sucked the liquid quickly, trying to think fast.

This was Matthew. Yes, they had kissed, and the kiss had been incredibly nice. Admittedly he’d been rather touchy feely, holding her hand a little longer than he should have afterward. But it was all an act, for Derek. Wasn’t it? What did he want from her? The truth? A relationship? Both?

She didn’t know what was going on between them. His head came down to the skull cup and they were both sucking on their straws, his words penetrating her thoughts. She continued to drink, wanting the alcohol to relax her emotions, free the right words, so she could make everything normal. She stopped slurping for a bit, and took a breath.

“Ah, you see. Well… Derek,” she said, trying to phrase that although she had felt her heart beating quite quickly when she saw Derek was at the ballet, she didn’t care about Derek anymore. No one who loved her, treated her in the manner Derek had. The longer she thought about it, the more she realised, he treated her very badly. She didn’t deserve that. She was now open to seeing other people. Maybe she should tell Matthew that. Somehow. Just be honest. That wouldn’t confuse things would it?

“Yes, Derek,” he replied, and shook his head. “I get it.” He sighed, and almost as if she imagined it, the spark around them disappeared. His blue eyes were blank, like the glittering stars had forgotten to shine. His mood evaporated.

He turned away, looked out toward the dance floor. He moved away from her, sitting almost at the edge of the booth. “Derek sure doesn’t know what he lost, you’re a real ten-out-of-ten type of girl,” he muttered.

“Oh,” she said. “Well… I don’t know what to say. I mean, about Derek.”

He waved his hand. “It’s okay, you don’t have to explain and I don’t really want to talk about Derek tonight.” He then sucked hard on his drink. “We might as well finish this off.” He avoided eye contact with her.

She suddenly felt the urge to explain. The need to explain. She was getting over Derek, of course it had been a shock to see him, but she was healing.

The skull cup emptied and in silence Matthew played with the straws, made an animal shape. “Why are we custodians of the table again?” he grunted.

Without waiting for a reply he stood up, exiting the booth and walked to the dance floor, leaving her sitting alone, at the table.

Matthew danced with almost every girl in the club, except Sophie. He didn’t even bother to say goodbye to her at the end of the evening. She felt a pang of regret. Would she get another opportunity to explain over Christmas, or had she left it all too late?

Chapter 24

Sophie felt flat as she loaded her red Volkswagen Beetle with presents for Christmas at the cottage. Things had been very tense, every time she spoke to her mother, since the discovery of Roger’s redundancy and Sophie’s involvement in covering it up.

The only consolation was, at least the news was now out in the open. The family could move on.

Sophie had left driving to the cottage until the last minute. Carol’s departure to her parent’s place the night before had left Sophie feeling alone as Carol chatted excitedly to Josh on the phone. They were together, and so very happily in love.

Sophie felt quite single. Single and alone because Christmas was, after all, a day of rituals, a day of family. It would be tiring. Also, since she was almost thirty without a boyfriend in sight, her single status was surely to be a hot topic of conversation. She hadn’t told her sister Edith about the split with Derek yet; and her niece Annie would definitely quiz her on what happened. And while there was nothing really stopping her, she just wanted to avoid the endless questions. They all treated her life like she lived some dramatic romantic comedy. But there was never a happy ending. Sophie preferred to avoid the topic altogether, if possible.

She felt even worse, because whatever happened with Matthew in the night club, she felt slightly irritated and she hadn’t been expecting that. She’d obviously offended him greatly. After the night out, she’d sent him a text message, apologising if she’d overstepped boundaries asking him to be a pretend boyfriend, or if she’d said something wrong. He hadn’t bothered to reply or make any type of contact with her. She felt foolish for even opening up the lines of communication on this bizarre topic. After all, they hadn’t gone on an official date, so what was his problem after all? Or was she again, in denial?

Sophie pressed the trunk of her car shut. That ought to do it. She jumped inside, ready to drive to the cottage. On the bright side, at least she would be able to talk to her Dad – they hadn’t spoken for about a month. She put her key in the ignition. The car lurched, then stopped still. She turned the key again, the engine spat, then stopped.

A rapping on her car window made her gasp.

“Merry Christmas.”

She froze. Startled and sighed gratefully as she saw Matthew standing on the pavement. “Merry Christmas,” she replied, practically flinging herself out of the car at him, stopping only inches from his body. He grinned boyishly, and she accepted the implied invitation, throwing her arms around his neck into a large hug. His body felt warm, and she could smell his aftershave.

He laughed and she felt his arms circle her waist. She shut her eyes, tight, holding him, realising she felt like she’d almost lost him. He’d been so good to her. He was at her place, on Christmas day. Surely it was a sign. She was delusional. Something was going on.

“I thought you were angry at me,” she said into his neck, recalling how he’d barely said good-bye to her after the dancing, where he practically ignored her for most of the night.

“Course not,” he whispered, and she felt his breath on her neck. A feeling of joy danced through her body, and she felt giddy with excitement. He must have forgiven her. She could explain about Derek. She didn’t love Derek. Not anymore.

She released Matthew from her grip, suddenly awkward at the way she sometimes was too enthusiastic and overstepped boundaries. Like she had done on the first time she’d met him, out in front of the hotel. Matthew and Sophie hadn’t really been the hugging type of friends or professionals or whatever they were.

“It’s good to see you,” she mumbled, trying desperately to shake her feelings of embarrassment. Why was she so touchy-feely around him?

He wore a sheepish expression on his face. “I tried to call your phone, but you weren’t picking up.”

A thrill went through her. “I’ve been packing. I must have missed it,” she said with animation.

“I wanted to catch you before you took off. You said the other night you were leaving this morning. So I just came by…”

“Yeah. Almost ready to go. Got to get this baby running, though. It doesn’t seem to want to cooperate this morning.” She tapped the Beetle’s bonnet lovingly. She loved her car. Loved the fact it played up when she needed to go places, so now she was standing in front of Matthew. If her car had have been reliable, she’d have missed him.

“Want me to take a look?”

“Would you mind? I don’t know what I’d do if it won’t start.”

“I could drive you, if you wanted?”

She cocked her head to the side, ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t want you to have to do that. You’d be late for your own Christmas dinner. Your Mum would hate me.”

“I’m sure she’d love you if she met you. Although, she hates people being late to her roast dinner, including me. We couldn’t have that.” His eyes twinkled at her, playfully.

“Let’s think positive, the car
will
start,” she said with a serious note in her voice.

“Yes, positive thoughts.” He nodded and jumped into the car, his muscular body a little too large for her small car. “Can you hold this please?” He handed her a package, meticulously wrapped. He focused on the ignition, turned the key. Almost instantly, the car buzzed into life and he turned his head toward her.

“It started,” Sophie said, feeling somewhat embarrassed.

“The engine was probably just cold, I think….” He got out of the driver’s seat and stepped back onto the pavement.

She sighed with relief. “Thanks,” she exclaimed. “Thanks so much,” she said, handing him the present back. But with a wave of his hand, he wouldn’t take it.

“It’s for you. Merry Christmas. That’s why I’m here.”

She looked down at the gift, her heart racing. “You didn’t have to. Did you like my gift? Have you opened it yet?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Besides, you told me not to open it until Christmas.”

“But it is Christmas – today,” she said pointedly.

“Well, then, I’ll report back to you as soon as possible,” he said. “But you need to open this here, in front of me.”

“Okay,” she said slowly looking at his blank expression. She undid the ribbon, her hands slightly shaking. Something small was wrapped in the paper, and like a child she tore the wrapping apart, revealing a Ted Baker box. “Ohhh,” she gasped, pleasantly surprised. Ted Baker was a very expensive brand and not one Sophie could usually afford.

“Do you like it?” he asked, a look of amusement flying across his face.

“I don’t know yet.” She peeled off the lid. “Ah a wallet.”

“I know you like leather.”

“I do. Thank you.” He’d remembered their first meeting. Overwhelmed with happiness she leaned over, and kissed his cheek. “You remembered. Thanks for remembering.”

He shrugged. “Open it up, look inside,” he insisted.

She opened the wallet and inside was a piece of paper. She removed the paper from the wallet and opened it up.

“It’s bad luck to give someone an empty wallet, so instead of cash I thought I’d give you something that you might like better.”

“A voucher to the Jamie Oliver restaurant,” she exclaimed holding the piece of paper. “Oh my God, how did you know?”

“I don’t know. You seem to have this thing about Jamie. You’ve asked me about him at sometimes weird times.”

Sophie laughed. “I guess. Want to come with me? Use these vouchers?”

“If you’re sure.”

“Hell yes. I can book something. You’ll love his restaurant! It might take one month to get a booking.”

“That’ll be ages away until we go together,” he mused. “I better get going but I was hoping to catch you sooner than one month so… I was going to ask…, you said you were possibly going to Brighton?”

“Not for Christmas, for work.”

“Ah,” he said, looking down at the pavement. “I’m throwing a New Year’s Eve party at our Brighton Hotel. About two hundred people are going. It’s friends and colleagues. Loads of people. It’s a Silver thing that we do. Eve and Josh are going, and some mates from school. It’ll be fun. You should come.”

Hmmm. Brighton sounded interesting, but just with Matthew?

“Brighton sounds different from what I’d ordinary do.”

“Carol and Mickey of course are invited and Artie can come, too. Just let me know because of the catering and the rooms and everything.”

“I could ask them.” It was certainly the most interesting invitation they had on offer.

“You must,” Matthew said. “There will be fireworks down by the water. Why don’t the three of you girls stay in one of the suites? I don’t think the hotel is booked out; unfortunately, the bad reviews are killing it. The three of you can have some drinks, relax, and then join the party if you want to. No cost to you. The suite’s empty anyway; I’ll just reserve it.” His face appeared eager, and she didn’t know whether it was for her attendance or for the party. “No pressure.”

“I’d love to go. I’ll talk to them. I’m sure they’ll be in. I was going to Brighton to do some work, shoot the location; maybe I could do that beforehand.”

“Is the work for me – my campaign – by any chance?”

“Yes.”

“Did you want me to help you out, go with you?”

“Sure, if you want to. If it’s okay with you?”

“Very okay.” He nodded.

Her chest constricted, and she realised she was smiling.

“I’ll meet you earlier that day, and we can go over all the professional work-stuff. But we can separate that completely, the work from the personal stuff. After all the work, you can do what you want, meet up with the girls, whatever. And you and I can meet later – at the party, if you like – and take it from there. How does that sound?”

“Great.”

“Great. I’ll call you to work out the details of the day.” Matthew leaned over, and she held her breath as he kissed her softly on the cheek. “Merry Christmas, Sophie.” His eyes were round, his gaze intense.

“Merry Christmas, Matthew.” Oh how she wished there had been mistletoe hanging over their heads at that moment.

***

Sophie drove to the cottage in a blissful, dreamlike state, unaware of the traffic and honking horns, oblivious to any congestion. Christmas day traffic was bumper to bumper with cars. She’d get there when she got there. Matthew Silver asked her, her Sophie Smart, to his party in Brighton. What did that mean? The very thought sent shivers flying up her spine. And what was she going to wear?