had his gym bag slung over his shoulder. His hair was wet and I could see through his white dress shirt where he hadn’t dried himself properly. I had to stop myself imagining that process. ‘How’d it go today?’ he asked me. ‘Have you got a few minutes?’
‘You’re safe, Andi’s left,’ Digby said. ‘She’s hanging upside down in a cave somewhere. Go. I’ll cover.’
It didn’t seem possible, but Andi had been grumpier than usual ever since she had to assign me to work on the party. Not that I was shirking my usual front-desk duties.
Nobody stamped the joy out of life like our boss.
Chuck smiled his thanks at Digby before following me to the events office. Everyone always bunked off by six, so I knew we’d be alone there. Not that we had anything secret to say.
When he touched my arm an electric jolt went through me. ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ he said. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’ He started veering towards the hotel bar.
‘I’m not allowed during work time,’ I told him. It would be a very, very bad idea to try it. Andi might have spies around. She didn’t run a tight ship so much as a penal colony.
‘Then I’ll buy you one when you’re not working. When do you get off?’
‘Not till eight-thirty.’
‘Then I’ll see you at eight-thirty.’
‘Don’t you want to talk about the party?’
He fixed me with his gorgeous blue-eyed stare. ‘Rosie. You don’t really think I’ve been here every day for a month to talk about having white or blue lights on the Christmas tree? I’ll see you at eight-thirty.’
I wasn’t naïve. Of course I wasn’t. At least now that he’d practically hit me over the head with his intentions.
‘We’re having drinks when I get off!’ I gushed to Digby as soon as I joined him again behind the reception desk. ‘I think it’s a real date.’ I recounted Chuck’s words for him to dissect.
‘That’s a date,’ he confirmed. ‘Finally. Now you can stop obsessing over the door every night and do some work. Just promise me you won’t fall in love or anything stupid like that. I need you in Paris with me. I’m not going alone.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m as excited about Paris as you are,’ I told him.
‘When you say excited, you mean shit scared, right?’ His freckled face creased with worry. ‘I’m only going because of you.’
‘We’ll be there together,’ I promised him again.
In a million years, I never thought I’d get that Paris rotation. I’d used up too much luck getting the New York gig. I’d expected my next job to be somewhere like Scunthorpe. Digby had been thinking of trying for San Francisco or New Orleans next, but he didn’t need much convincing when I’d suggested Paris. What might be scary alone would be an adventure together. And I’d applied for San Francisco, just to see what happened.
What happened was we’d both got offers for Paris. Mais oui, we’d be eating croissants in Paris by Bastille Day!
I checked my phone for the thousandth time: 8.41. Chuck was late. He’d changed his mind. Of course he had. Blokes like him didn’t date lasses like me. They dated supermodels and actresses. I couldn’t act for toffee and was about a foot too short to be a supermodel. My face was okay as far as regular people went, but nobody’d ever mistake me for Lily Cole, even if we are both ginger.
When the phone started ringing, Digby and I both stared at it.
‘Well, since you’re not doing anything else,’ he said.
I mouthed two little words as I answered the call. They weren’t ‘Thank you’. ‘Grand Meridian Hotel, Rosie speaking, how may I help you?’
‘Come outside.’
‘Chuck? Where are you?’
‘Duh.’ He laughed. ‘Outside.’ He hung up before I could ask any more obvious questions.
‘I’ll see you later,’ I told Digby. ‘I’ve got a date.’ I couldn’t keep the stupid grin off my face, so I probably looked like a loon when Chuck caught sight of me.
‘For you.’ When he held out a bouquet of pink roses, I wanted to hold that image in my head forever. A man standing on a New York City street with flowers. For me! I’d never seen anything so romantic in real life. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d want to be seen inside fraternising with a client,’ he added. Then he looked at the flowers, which I had awkwardly grasped with one arm so that I could carry my handbag on the other. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think that through very well, I guess. It seemed romantic at the time. Do you want me to carry them?’
‘No way,’ I said. ‘They’re beautiful. I want to bask in their reflected glory.’
‘I love the way you talk,’ he said.
I loved the way he did everything.
Chuck didn’t leave anything to chance. We went to a cosy bar in Midtown where he’d booked an intimate corner table. ‘They light a fire when it’s cold out,’ he said as the waiter brought our manhattans. It seemed an appropriate order given where we were. ‘It’s really nice in here then.’
All I could think about was who’d been there with him in winter.
I was seized by such a powerful jealousy that I could hardly breathe. And the poor woman was only imaginary. I knew I was in deep trouble then.
‘To us,’ he said, raising his glass to mine.
I could feel my face bloom red. ‘To the Christmas party. It’s going to be brilliant.’
‘I’d rather drink to us,’ he said. ‘Might there be an “us”, do you think?’ His smile was so warm, so cheeky, that I wanted to lunge over the table in answer to his question.
No, play it cool, Rosie. Remember what Digby said. Nobody wants everything laid out in front of them. Well, unless it was a cake buffet.
I didn’t want to be a cake buffet. I wanted to be the kind of woman that men fell head over heels for. So far my romantic CV was more self-service than five-star menu. ‘It’s nice to be away from the hotel,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘I know what you mean. I don’t like to mix business with pleasure either. That’s hard to avoid with my job, even though my colleagues aren’t really the kind of people I’d usually hang out with. You wouldn’t believe the alpha culture there. It means a lot of time drinking.’
‘Are you not an alpha?’
He thought about my question. ‘I think I’m more of a delta. Maybe an epsilon.’ His face was so open and friendly. I wondered if they taught that in American schools. We Brits look like a bunch of standoffish gits by comparison.
‘Now you’re probably going to tell me you only go out with the kind of guy who pilots his own plane and wrestles
