Who's Afraid of Mr Wolfe? (21 page)

Mike was slowly tearing up a beermat. ‘Perhaps he’s actually doing it tonight. Proposing.’

‘No, Ian and he are at some graduate fine art thing … some prize-giving,’ Rachel said, putting the magazine back in her bag. ‘I need another drink. Jack getting married, what a bummer.’

Ellie went to sit in the toilets. There was too much noise in the pub and she needed to think. As Rachel had read out her little scoop, Ellie had not been able to stop thinking about that glittering danger she’d seen in Jack’s eyes and how it was soon going to be lavished on somebody else. Permanently. She’d never see it again. Never get the chance to find out if his hair was soft.

The thought of him kissing Sophie and asking her to share his life with him made the tears come and she angrily blotted them with some toilet paper. This was ridiculous. Why was she so upset? Jack hadn’t paid her any more attention than any other woman who worked for him. He’d been worse to her, in fact. It was a stupid, stupid crush and she was way too old for those.

She sat there torturing herself by returning again to that hot, dark look Jack had given her and soon her poor thumb was getting chewed again. She forced herself to go back out into the pub and concentrate on Lesley and Megan’s happiness. When the door of the pub opened again, she steeled herself not to look.

‘Boo!’ a voice behind her said, and she turned round to
see Dave. He seemed shorter than she remembered and his eyes didn’t look quite so brown or his face so attractive. But he was here and right now Jack wasn’t, and even if he was, what on earth would that have to do with real life?

‘You here by chance?’ she asked him.

Ellie saw a look pass between him and Lesley. ‘You want a drink?’ he said, heading for the bar.

‘Large red wine,’ she shouted over the noise. She couldn’t take the news of Jack’s impending marriage completely sober. She watched Dave struggle through the crowd and went to talk to Lesley.

‘You told him to come, didn’t you?’

‘Well, you took his number and you never rang him.’

‘So now you’re all hooked up with Megan, you’re thinking of a double wedding?’

‘Only looking after you. And you’ve got to admit it’s funny, Ellie. All the time I was playing the field, you were settled down, and now, well … I’m giving you a helping hand.’

‘He seems cute,’ Juliette said.

‘Nice bum,’ added Rachel.

Ellie turned back to look at Dave and had to admit that everything they said was true. She should give him a chance. Why not? When he came back, she took her drink from him and he started to tell her what he’d been up to and how well his music was going and how close he was
to getting a chance to pitch for some work for one of the major television companies. Ellie listened and nodded and every now and again tried to tell him about what had been happening to her, but they always came back to talking about him. Ellie gave up trying to get a word in edgeways and decided to relax into her wine.

Then all at once her feeling of wellbeing dissolved and she felt like there was only her in the pub and the man who had at that moment come in through the door. She knew he was there even before she heard Lesley shout out, ‘Hey, Jack, come here! I’ve got some news,’ and she waited for the first sight of him. Charcoal suit, black choppy hair, long legs, broad shoulders. He was only inches away from her. Even in here she could smell him. She saw him look down at Lesley and Megan and then bend to kiss them. She tore her gaze away, only to bring it right back to watch him go to the bar. He moved through the crowd easily, gracefully, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

‘Penny for them,’ Dave said, grabbing back her attention. Ellie tried to concentrate very, very hard on what he was saying, but when he was in full throttle again her eyes sought out Jack and at that moment he turned round at the bar and stared right back at her. It felt as if he was removing every item of her clothing.

She saw his eyes flicker over her and then over Dave and she had the urge to push Dave away from her and pretend she wasn’t with him. Then someone got in her
sightline and Jack disappeared from view. The next time she saw him he was handing a bottle of champagne to Lesley with another kiss.

Dave was telling her about his newest guitar and Ellie shifted slowly so that she was facing away from Jack. Get him out of sight and out of mind. But it didn’t matter which way she was facing. She knew exactly where he was. He moved to chat to a group off to her left and she still managed to look straight into his eyes. He wandered over to talk to Mike and Rachel and the same thing happened again.

The effect of the wine had worn off and she felt trapped and distracted. It was as though she were listening to Dave in some kind of fog. Her body might be standing in front of him, but all her senses were tuned into Jack. How come nobody else in the pub could hear the crackle of tension between them?

Because you’re bloody well imagining it, Ellie. It’s all in your head, not in Jack’s. Get. A. Grip.

Ellie concentrated on Dave’s mouth in an effort to make out what he was saying and she saw him smile and lean in to her.

‘I feel the same, Ellie. Do you want to get out of here?’

His eyes were shining expectantly and she realised what he meant. It was decision time. She could go with him and see where it led, or stay here, her stomach tilting and pitching, being tortured by a stupid crush.

‘OK,’ she said, and put her glass down on the nearest table. ‘I need to go and say goodbye to Lesley and Megan.’ She didn’t – she could have left and Lesley would have understood – but she desperately wanted Jack to see her leave.

Lesley told her how very much she loved her and how much she loved Dave and of course Megan too and that Ellie was her best, best friend ever. Then she fell sideways off her seat.

Ellie kept her head down as Dave led the way to the door. She was positively not going to look at Jack. She would have managed it too if Lesley’s voice had not boomed out across the pub, ‘Let yourself go, Ellie. Lie back and have a good time.’ Amid the laughter Ellie’s head whipped round to look at Lesley, but she got Jack instead. It sent her stumbling out of the door.

As soon as she was out in the fresh air, she began to feel better. Then as Dave launched himself at her, she felt rapidly worse again. She tried to relax into his arms. She could do this. It was time. He kissed her enthusiastically and she responded, trying to concentrate on the feelings he was stirring up in her.

Except he wasn’t stirring up anything. She felt his tongue poke at her lips and she opened her mouth. Still nothing. He might as well have been checking her teeth. After a while she broke away, expecting him to ask her what was wrong.

‘Wow, Ellie, I’ve been wanting to do that for ages,’ he said, his eyes bright, and before she could object, he had clamped himself back on to her mouth.

After what seemed like hours, he removed his mouth from hers. He had a glazed expression that made her feel intensely guilty that she wasn’t able to summon up any matching emotion.

‘I know you’re going to think I’m pushing you a bit fast,’ he said, sounding short of breath, ‘but I fancy you like mad, Ellie. You want to go somewhere more private?’

What she wanted to do was go home to curl up on her bed and try to make sense of what was happening to her. But that would lead her straight back to thinking about Jack.

‘Why not?’ she said, and then thought of Edith at home. ‘But it will have to be your place.’

‘No problem. It’s a bit of a walk to my bus stop, I’m afraid, and a bit of a walk the other end, but there’s a bus soon.’

‘Couldn’t we get a taxi?’

‘No. Waste of money,’ he said, and started to walk.

Every now and again he would stop to kiss her and she would do her best to be interested. When he wasn’t kissing her, he was telling her more about his music and how he knew he was on the brink of some kind of breakthrough. Ellie let him talk, glad for an excuse to stay quiet. She didn’t have the right shoes on for a long walk and his comment
about taxis being a waste of money was niggling away in her brain. People who were tight with their money were way up there on her personal hate list. She knew she ought to cut him some slack; he was a struggling musician after all. But then there was all this stuff about him, him, him. Not once had he asked her anything about her work.

Did all that matter? Shouldn’t she be like Rachel and switch off her brain and just enjoy it? Plenty of people did. At least he wasn’t intimidating. He wasn’t likely to laugh when she took her clothes off.

But if his horizontal performance was anything like his vertical one, he probably wouldn’t stop talking all the way through, and he wouldn’t care if she was having a good time.

She wasn’t so sure now that she could do this.

He had her in another clinch when his phone started to ring. She saw his eyes widen as he listened to the caller and every now and again he made an enthusiastic little ‘Uh-huh’ noise. At one point he looked at his watch and said, ‘No problem. I can be there by eleven. OK. OK. Bye.’

He switched off the phone and gave a huge whoop of laugher and punched the air.

‘That was Greg Southern. Greg frigging Southern. The guy I’ve been trying to get through to for weeks … head of Lionmark Music. He wants to see me, like, now.’ He reached in his jacket for his wallet. ‘I’m really sorry, Ellie, got to go.’

‘Now? But it’s after ten.’

‘Yeah, brilliant, isn’t it?’ He scanned the road and then rushed to the edge of the kerb and stuck his arm out. A taxi had just come round the corner. ‘This could be the big break, Ellie,’ he shouted back at her as the taxi came to a stop. ‘Give you a ring, yeah?’

Ellie’s annoyance that he had miraculously found money for a taxi battled with her relief that he had gone. Then she gave a little jump: someone had put their hand on her arm and she knew it was Jack.

‘You all right?’ he said, and Ellie felt an electrical storm eddy its way up her arm and right into her body. How was it possible that one man could stick his tongue right down your throat and leave you bored while another could simply put his hand on your arm and make your knees tremble?

‘I’m fine,’ she said, stepping away from him. It was a good move, or would have been if she had not turned her ankle over doing it.

‘Steady.’ Jack caught hold of her arm again as she righted herself and the small electrical storm started up again.

Ellie tried to subtly disengage herself, but he was holding on tight and the look he was giving her was filled with real warmth. No, no, no. She shifted her gaze to his tie.

‘Not very gallant,’ he said, ‘going off like that.’ He nodded in the direction Dave’s taxi had gone.

‘Gallant?’

‘Yeah, abandoning you in the street, late at night.’

‘Well, he had to go, and so do I.’

Jack’s hand was still on her arm and he seemed angry. ‘Him having to go is no bloody excuse. Anything could happen to you in the street at this time of night.’

‘Jack, you’re squeezing my arm really tightly,’ she said, trying to draw away.

He looked down as if he hadn’t realised what he was doing and she felt his grip relax a little, but he didn’t take the hint when she tried, again, to pull her arm free.

Ellie wanted to run, get as far away as possible from the overwhelming feeling that she was going to throw herself at him.

‘I hope you’re getting a taxi,’ he said forcefully.

‘Um …’

‘Ellie, I can’t hear you with your head down like that, and why do you keep looking at my tie? Is there something on my tie?’ Jack put his hand to his tie to check and Ellie took the opportunity of being free of him to take another step backwards.

‘I’m going for the bus. I was going to go when you came along. The bus. Just along here. Bus.’

Suddenly his hand was back on her arm and for the second time he wasn’t being particularly gentle with it.

‘Are you bloody mad? This time of night? It’ll be full of people even more drunk than you are.’

She should have walked away then, when he was mad
at her. She could cope with him being angry. But something made her unable to resist answering him back.

‘I have had three drinks tonight. I’m not drunk. Didn’t take you long to start having a go at me again, did it?’

Jack dropped his hand from her arm. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m simply trying to point out that lurching around London at this time of night isn’t a good idea.’ He reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet. ‘You know the agency has an account with a cab firm.’ He held out a card for her. ‘This is the number. Give them a call.’

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘My mobile needs topping up.’

She waited for Jack to make some sarcastic remark, but he surprised her by laughing softly and then his hand was rubbing her arm. It was a gentle, consoling gesture, but she fully expected to see sparks fly up from her sleeve.

‘Oh, Ellie, what the hell are we going to do with you?’ he said, and there was such tenderness in his tone that she couldn’t help looking directly at him. The tenderness was in his eyes too. It would have been so easy to take a step forward and lower her head on to his shoulder and keep it there.

Jack broke away first. ‘I’ll give them a ring, then,’ he said brusquely.

While he was making the call, Ellie wandered down the road a little distance, aware she was trembling. Actually trembling. Best to put some space between her and all
those out-of-control feelings. Why couldn’t he go away? Her hand strayed to her mouth, but she put it firmly back down by her side.

When he’d finished phoning, he came and stood by her.

‘What are you doing now?’ she said.

‘I’ll wait until it comes.’ He was being gruff and domineering again.

‘You don’t need to.’

‘I know,’ he said, and crossed his arms.

More waiting. More awkwardness. Where was that taxi?

Then she saw him shift his feet. ‘I watched the rough edit of the ad.’

‘Yes. It looks quite good, doesn’t it?’

She heard him sigh. ‘You want to work on that.’

‘On what? Work on what?’

‘That irritating modesty. It’s a brilliant ad. You should be talking it up, not muttering about it being “quite good”.’