“Yes, please.” I held up the phone. “I just need to answer this. He gets emotional if I don’t reply.”
He nodded as if it were perfectly reasonable.
Me:Yes. I’m dying. Tellme.
James:I know who the new owner is. Notgood.
A cold fizz ran over my forearms.
Me:Who?
James:Well, put it this way. Monish saw Gerald saying Guten Tag to the bathroom mirror, so money’s on the ancient Germanbillionaire.
Fuck. It was him.
Me:Not Wilhelm vonRoth?
James:The fossilized frankfurterhimself.
The man opposite filled my glass.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. Just… work stuff.”
Perhaps Gerald had a mini break to Berlin lined up. It was meant to be very popular with middle-aged men rediscovering techno.
I lifted the glass and the ice clattered like a maraca. Involuntary table percussion—perfect. I set it down and sat on my hands. Maybe I needed something stronger than water.
“So,” I said quickly. “You know my name, but I don’t actually know yours.”
“Oh, I normally wait for at least two shared disasters before I give that up.” He smiled. “What if you turn out to be a stalker?”
The waiter appeared. “Ready to order?”
“Don’t happen to serve paninis, do you?” Chesty smiled in my direction.
“Actually, sir, we do.” The waiter rattled off options.
“I’ll have the cheese and tomato,” I said. “And a plate ofchips, please.”
“Same for me.” He reached for his glass and took a sip.
“I thought you said you weren’t hungry?” he said, after the waiter left.
“I thoughtyousaid lifts don’t fall?”
He huffed a little laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah, yeah. Touché. It seems I oversold the safety mechanisms.”
Apart from the ruffled hair and mascara smeared across his T-shirt, he looked obscenely together considering what we’d gone through. It was hard to imagine I’d had my face smooshed into that chest just over an hour earlier. I could still remember how he smelled. Cotton T-shirts. Summer skin. Cocoa? Something I definitely shouldn’t know.
I tugged at the sides of my skirt under the table and attempted to cover my legs. Nope. It was still too small.
“It’s Liam, by the way,” he said. “Before we hit disaster number two.”
Liam.
He had a posh sort of way of speaking that didn’t really fit his personal trainer vibe. Probably one of those high-end fitness gurus who charged two hundred pounds an hour to tell people their glutes were lazy.
