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As if he wanted any other girl.
What the hell was he going to do?
Around seven hours later and still vaguely hungover but looking phenomenal—if he did say so himself—in a Thom Sweeney slim cut tuxedo, Jay presented himself at a large and elegant hotel in Harrogate.
An usher at the door directed him across a marble-floored foyer to a pair of open double doors, decorated all around with white roses, classical music coming from the ballroom beyond.
Poor Sophia. It was just as he had suspected. Her mother and Rose Orton-Grey had together conspired to channel the spirit of a regency debutante ball. And while Sophia might well be a diamond of the first water, he knew for sure that she would rather be listening to eighties metal, probably alone in her room, than here in this stuffy, chintzy, boring-as-shit excuse for a birthday party.
Or maybe, if Simon was there, Sophia didn’t care about any of it. Maybe she only had eyes for him.
Jay walked through the ballroom, weaving his way between round tables covered in white tablecloths, vases of white roses at their centres. There were white roses everywhere: on every surface, up the walls. Tiny white fairy-lights twinkled among them.
It was all purity and innocence and utterly, dreadfully characterless.
He thought back to Biffy Shilstone’s wild birthday bash a few months ago that had spilled over into a week or two on the south coast of France. He’d had his own twenty-sixth birthday at some point during those debauched two weeks. He hadn’t bothered to tell anyone. He’d already been doing what he would have chosen to do, which was drink too much and do inadvisable things in the company of beautiful people. It might even have been his birthday itself the night he met that crazy expat Tom Brewerly in a Monaco casino. The man now texted him occasionally, grumbling half in French and half in English. Jay barely had any idea what he was on about, but he gathered the man was now in Scotland and not very happy about it.
Froid! Mouillé! Misérable! (Cold! Wet! Miserable!)
Perhaps Biffy’s party had been too much. But the stultifyingwhitenessof Sophia’s was too little. There had to be a happy medium.
Jay crossed the room, keeping his eyes peeled for alcohol. Someone had to be serving it somewhere. He scanned the room as he walked, and of course he was really looking for Sophia.
Then he saw her. He stopped walking for a moment. She was on the other side of the room with a small group of people, but even from that distance she was breathtaking.
Her dress was black and silver, some sort of sleeveless bodiced design—Jay didn’t know the terms—but it left her shoulders bare and hugged her torso skin-tight before flowing in a long elegant line over the curve of her hips to the floor.
Her golden hair was up, save for a few tendrils that touched her neck as though designed to draw attention to all the bare, honeyed skin and the full swell of her breasts in that corset top.
She looked like fucking heaven.
Lucky Simon.
Jay tore his eyes away and turned a little desperately towards a black clad waiter. “Is there anything to drink here?”
“Of course, Sir. Prosecco is on that table there or you’re welcome to order at the bar.”
Jay downed a glass and strode purposefully towards the bar, his hangover protesting feebly. He stood with two hands on the polished walnut bar top then took a breath and turned back to where Sophia was standing.
Or where she had been standing. Because suddenly she was in front of him, taking his hands in hers and smiling up at him.
“Jay! I’m so glad you’re here.”
He couldn’t quite speak to start with. His mouth felt a little stupid. His brain was busy relishing the touch of her hands on his, and his eyes were fighting a losing battle not to dip below her chin and check out the view down there.
“Sophia,” he said at last, somehow forgetting to smile. “Happy birthday.”
She frowned up at him, looking from his eyes to the set of his jaw. “Are you OK?”
“Fine. Well, hungover.”
She glanced at the bar behind him. “Hair of the dog? There’s Prosecco over there. I know it’s not quite vintage Krug.”
Jay, for some reason, said nothing. There were too many things to say and yet only a ringing silence in his mind.
Drinking would help.
Surely.
