someone to call who would respond so warmly.
‘You’re losing it, Fraser’ he told himself.
The journey was endless. They sat outside Chelmsford for half an hour, held up by a broken-down train ahead of them, and then finally pulled into Ipswich station three quarters of an hour late.
The train lurched as it came out of the tunnel, sending the dregs of her tea cascading towards her. With a startled shriek she leapt up, swiping wildly at the spreading stain on her skirt, and he stood up and blotted her with an immaculate linen handkerchief.
The feel of his hand against her thigh made her blush, and grabbing the handkerchief from him she gave the wet patch a couple more swipes and then handed it back. ‘Thank you,’ she said, kicking herself for sounding breathless and sixteen and totally out of control.
He smiled, the crinkling of his eyes softening the strangely icy colour, warming it.
‘My pleasure. Are you getting off here?’
She nodded, her feet chasing round under the table after her shoes, and finally locating them as the train eased to a much more civilised halt. ‘Yes, I am. Oh, where’s my portfolio?’
She pulled it out from between the seats, scooped up her bag and phone and left, vaguely aware of him following suit in a much more orderly and dignified fashion.
Georgia was past being dignified. Her skirt was soaked, her feet hurt, her baby-sitter would be edging towards the door and Joe and Lucy would be vile by now.
And if her client hadn’t fiddled about and changed his mind for the hundredth time, she would have been on the earlier train and in the bath by now! She ran down the platform and over the bridge, out of the doors and across the road to the car park, fumbling for her keys.
Aha! Finally locating them as she arrived at the car, she let herself in, started the engine and pulled away into the evening traffic. Ten minutes and she could have the wine, if not the bath, the gourmet dinner and the slave! She whipped round the inner ring road, out into the country, and was just turning into her lane when an orchestra struck up in her bag.
She stared at it dumbstruck for a second, then pulling over, she rooted about for the source of the noise and came up with her phone.
No, not her phone. His phone. Hers absolutely never spouted classical music!
She pressed a button and held it cautiously to her ear.
‘Hello?’
‘Oh—hi. It’s Simon here—can I speak to Matt, please?’
She stared at the phone in horror. ‘Um—Matt’s not here. He’s—’ Where on earth was he? ‘Um—he’s busy. Can I get him to call you?’
‘Sure—he knows the number. Oh, and tell him it’s about time.’ And with a chuckle, he cut off and left Georgia staring at the phone. With a shrug, she keyed in her own phone number, and waited…
‘What the hell?’
A familiar and ghastly electronic jingle erupted from his jacket, and as if it were red-hot, he drew into the side of the road and pulled the phone out of his pocket, staring at it suspiciously. ‘Hello?’
‘You’ve got my phone,’ her voice said.
He held the thing away from his face and looked at it, blinking. ‘I have?’ he said. It looked exactly like his own.
‘Yes—and I’ve got yours. They must have got muddled up in the train.’
In the shower of tea, more like. He smiled. ‘Ah—apparently. So what are we going to do about it?’
‘Well, I can’t do anything at the moment,’ she said a little crossly. ‘I’m already late home and my babysitter will be having kittens. Can you make do with mine until tomorrow?’
‘Or I could come to you,’ he suggested, wondering at the eagerness he felt surging in him at the thought. She hadn’t sounded exactly inviting. ‘I expect I’ll get all sorts of calls—it’ll irritate you to death,’ he added, piling on the ammunition.
‘Simon already rang,’ she told him. ‘He said to tell you it’s about time, and can you ring him?’
Simon? About time? About time for what? The only thing his friend ever got on to him about was his single status—and a woman had answered his phone. He groaned inwardly and tried again.
‘So—shall I come to you?’
‘Would you?’
‘Sure.’ He jotted down the address, noted with interest that it was only a few miles from him along the lanes, and pulling out into the traffic, he changed direction and cut across country towards Henfield. He hadn’t had anything else planned for the evening because he’d expected to be in London for longer—it might be rather fun to see where she lived, see if it matched up with the image he had of her.
The word ‘babysitter’ niggled at him, but he ignored it. She had a wedding ring on anyway, so he knew she was out of reach. That wasn’t the point.
He chuckled wryly. He wasn’t sure exactly what the point was, but he was almost sure he was wasting his energy thinking about her. If only he could remember more about the first time he’d met her, but he couldn’t. He might even have been mistaken, but he doubted it. He didn’t usually forget faces or names.
And anyway, he didn’t even know her name. Maybe when he did it would fill in the blanks…
‘Anna’s gone home,’ Joe told her, opening the door and scowling at her as she kissed his cheek. ‘Jenny’s here instead—she said she knew she was early but she’s going to help you get ready. Do you have to go out again?’ he tacked on accusingly.
She stared at her son in horror. ‘Go out? I’m not going out!’
‘Oh, yes you are. The Hospice Charity auction,’ her neighbour reminded her, appearing over Joe’s head in the crowded little hall.
Georgia sagged against the door and wailed. ‘I’m so tired,’ she whimpered. ‘I just want a nice cold glass of wine and a little bit of oblivion. Jenny, I can’t go!’
‘Oh, yes, you can. Go and run the bath, and I’ll bring you the glass of wine. You can drink it while you think about what to wear.’
Georgia dropped her folio in the corner of the hall, kicked off her shoes and headed for the stairs. ‘Where’s Lucy?’
‘In the sitting room, asleep. She was tired but she refused to go to bed till she’d seen you in your party dress.’
‘Oh, damn,’ she said very, very softly, and went upstairs, defeated. Absolutely the last thing she needed was this charity auction, but she’d volunteered her services, and she had to go to be auctioned.
Although why they couldn’t just auction her in her absence she couldn’t imagine. It was her services they were selling, not her body! Still, they wanted her to go along, so she would go.
She ran the bath, threw in a handful of rejuvenating
