Page 52 of Hate You to Love You

‘Umm… maybe?’ I tell her, rushing away with my platter before she can take one. But Charles has disappeared into the crowd.

I circle the room twice, but there’s no sign of him, and when I cross paths with Elliot, he shakes his head in defeat.

I sigh and turn away to continue the search. Which is when I collide with one of the guests. My platter falls to the ground, metal clanking as the duck pancakes splatter everywhere. My foot catches on the back of someone’s leg as I try to flee, and I slip right into the messy pile of food that I’ve just dropped. With my outfit now smothered in sauce and finely sliced cuts of tender duck, I stare up into the face of man I just collided with.

It’s Charles, his suit also covered in sauce. He’s so focused on the stain on his blazer that he doesn’t even look at me. Without pausing to think, I take the opportunity to slip my hand into Charles’s jacket pocket and retrieve Claudia’s notebook.

Elliot rushes over to see what the commotion is, pushing past the crowd that’s formed around me. Some of the onlookers are laughing, others are recording the mishap on their phones. I meet Elliot’s gaze and grin.

‘Got it!’ I say triumphantly, standing up.

‘Then let’s get out of here!’

Charles frantically spins around at the sound of Elliot’s voice, taken aback. ‘Hey!’

I grip Claudia’s notebook with two hands, and Elliot and I run so fast towards the exit that the crowd parts down the middle. A security guard tries to stop us, but there’s too much confusion about what’s going on, and they both give up as we bolt out of the gallery and back into the bustle of Trafalgar Square.

I try to catch my breath, gripping the notebook.

‘Did that actually happen?’ Elliot asks.

‘No. Yes. All I know is I smell like a duck pancake,’ I reply.

Elliot’s gaze drops down to the sauce that’s stained my shirt. And then we both break out in laughter. Elliot does an impression of Charles spinning around like a Looney Tunes character after he realised we’d stolen the book back, and I dissolve into giggles. But our laughter eventually dies out as we look into each other’s eyes.

‘Uh, so… thank you, I guess,’ Elliot murmurs under his breath.

The way he looks at me is spellbinding. His blue eyes sparkle in the moonlight and draw me into a hypnotic trance. But we stare at each other for too long and, as if caught doing something forbidden, we break apart.

‘Looks like we can work together, after all,’ he says.

For a moment, I forgot just how much pain he put me through. I’ve got to remember that this is just a job for Elliot.

But my thoughts are interrupted by the ding of Elliot’s phone. Looking down, his smile vanishes and a worried expression spreads over his face.

‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.

‘Claudia knows.’

chapter twenty-three

The next day, Elliot agrees to my suggestion to meet Claudia at Greenwich Park. He’s had to go into the Redhouse office for a meeting before taking Claudia out for more talk show recordings tonight. The multi-page spread in her notebook continues to whir away in the back of my mind – like Parlour, there was no way that it didn’t hold precious meaning for Claudia.

After exiting the tube at Greenwich Station, I wander the streets of the neighbourhood and cut through the market until I get to the park. I pass through iron gates and follow the main path until I reach the bottom of a hill. The park is mostly empty besides a cluster of tourists who are dressed up in brightly coloured puffer jackets and rugged up with scarves and gloves. I can’t blame them – I knew February would be cold in London, I just wasn’t expecting it to be so icy.

With ten minutes to wait, I decide to head up the hill. When I reach the top, I look down at the sprawling park with trees perfectly lined along the side. This might as well be a meadow in the heart of the city. At the very bottom sits the elegant Greenwich Park Museum. And just to the side of it, I spot Claudia sitting on a bench underneath a tree. She stands out instantly, dressed in an eye-catching double-breasted red coat and black knee-high boots that appear to shimmer in the distance. I hurry over.

‘Claudia, I am so sorry,’ I blurt as soon as she’s within hearing distance. ‘I think there was a misunderstanding—’

Her expression is stone cold. ‘Can you imagine my surprise when I saw a Redhouse employee waving around one of my old notebooks at a public event?’

‘There’s no excuse—’

‘Let me finish,’ she cuts me off. ‘I was pretty disappointed that you let something like that get into the wrong hands. But I was very impressed with the way you managed to get it back.’

I’m puzzled. ‘You were?’

‘The travel journal is how you figured out why Parlour was so important to me, wasn’t it?’