AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No way was she losing track of him now. Not after following him all the way from Aldo’s school in Notting Hill Gate through two interchanges on the tube in the middle of the Monday morning rush hour all the way to St John’s Wood.
Maybe her super-secret mission was a bit nuts. But after days of full-on flirting with the guy, she needed an answer to the burning question: where the bloody hell was he disappearing to every day?
Because just like a guy, despite her less and less subtle probing, he was not giving up the information. Or even any useful clues.
Given that she couldn’t just ask him, because—duh—she would totally expire from embarrassment, what other choice did she have but to take affirmative action? And turn her morning jog into a spot of top-secret surveillance work.
Trey glanced to the right as he stood at the zebra crossing. Lizzie ducked behind the low wall that edged the shrubbery in front of the station, her heart kicking her tonsils. A city worker tripped over her and shot her a stern, disapproving look. She glared back at the nosy bugger, but her heart glided back down her throat as she peered over the planter, to see Trey crossing the road, still oblivious to his tail.
He headed down a side street.
She crossed the main road and headed after him, keeping a safer distance.
If he spotted her, it would be a lot worse than embarrassing. As in completely mortifying. With possibly devastating consequences. She didn’t want him to think she was a stalker and never talk to her again.
But Trey spotting her was a risk she’d have to take.
Because she needed to know what he was up to. Had a right to know, in fact, unless she’d totally misinterpreted all those hot looks he’d been giving her whenever they were alone now.
Yesterday had been the last straw, when they’d ended up in the pantry, fetching stuff to make pasta for Sunday dinner. She’d made a quip about sun-dried tomatoes being an aphrodisiac—not exactly subtle, and also complete bollocks—but even so his gaze had hit her mouth, the potent I-want-to-kiss-you vibe alive in those warm brown eyes. And everything inside her had melted like one of her mum’s dark chocolate soufflés just out of the oven—making even the air around them feel hot and decadent and sinfully delicious. But he hadn’t made a move. So she’d sent him her best please-stop-pissing-around-then-and-do-it vibe back to encourage him.
And … waited.
And … waited.
And … nothing.
Not even a peck. Just several more never-ending moments of gut-melting tension followed by a meal of sun-dried-tomato-pesto spaghetti that was completely indigestible thanks to the fir
eball of unrequited lust burning in her belly.
There had to be some kind of impediment he wasn’t telling her about. Because sun-dried-tomato-pesto-gate wasn’t the first almost-snog they’d had. And they both knew his I’m-your-mum’s-employee excuse had become totally redundant about ten almost-snogs ago.
What if he had a girlfriend? Or a wife and child? It wasn’t impossible. Her mum and dad had had her when they were younger than Trey.
Who cared if following him for half an hour across most of West London was borderline insane behaviour, worthy of a restraining order if she got caught? It had to be done.
She hung back, realising the tree-lined street he’d entered didn’t provide a lot of camouflage because it was empty apart from the two of them, and a couple of Japanese tourists wearing Beatles T-shirts whom she guessed must be planning to snap a picture of themselves on the Abbey Road crossing round the corner.
Her steps faltered. No. Never. Surely Trey couldn’t be lame enough to be a Beatles fan? He was old before his time, but he wasn’t that ancient. Her panic eased, though, when he carried on past the turning.
Wherever Trey was going, he looked absorbed in the destination. His stride was measured and purposeful if unhurried. Frankly, she ought to get a medal for managing to follow him this far without being spotted. If only she’d been this proactive with bloody Liam, she would have discovered just how skanky he was before she’d caught him with his dick down Amber’s throat.
Lizzie’s pulse hit maximum velocity when he stopped abruptly twenty yards ahead.
Had he reached his destination? And what exactly was she supposed to do if he just walked into a flat? Or a house? What would Kim Possible do in such a situation? Or, better yet, James Bond?
Damn, if only she’d watched more Bond movies with Aldo.
But there weren’t any houses nearby. The red-brick monolith of a hospital built in the Victorian era took up the whole of their side of the street, its historic design ruined by the grey pollution stains running down the elaborate cornices and the clumsy addition of a disabled ramp.
But all his attention appeared to be concentrated on the sleek modern two-storey building on the opposite side of the road. Large windows and a flat white frontage gave it a striking mock-Georgian appearance to match the grandeur of the leafy North-west London suburb’s genuine Georgian architecture. Blue block lettering on one side of the entrance declared the building to be part of the same NHS hospital, St John’s and St Elizabeth’s.
Trey buried his hands into his jacket pockets and crossed the street.
A hospital? Was he sick? Or visiting someone? Is this where he had been going every single day? For hours?
Lizzie suppressed the pulse of panic as the large automatic doors slid open and Trey disappeared inside.
