a job here, I jumped.’
Stella was silent. How that must have infuriated his wife. He wouldn’t leave London for her, but he could make that sacrifice for their daughters.
‘It’s been tough,’ Nick added, confirming Stella’s instincts. ‘In so far as any divorce is ever amicable, you could say that ours was. There was nobody else for either of us but it’s still hard splitting after twenty years. The hardest part was telling our daughters.’ His face was bleak as he spoke.
‘We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,’ Stella said hurriedly.
He shrugged. ‘We don’t have to, but it’s a good idea to get to know each other, for, you know, future dates.’
It was Stella’s turn to look uncomfortable.
He stared at her. ‘I’ve messed things up, haven’t I?’ he asked. ‘Telling a prospective girlfriend all about the traumas of your divorce is not the way to impress her. I told you I wasn’t that clued in about modern dating,’ he said.
‘Forget it.’ Stella wanted to make it better. So what if he wasn’t dating material because he had more baggage than a jumbo jet. He was a nice man. ‘Let’s talk about something else. How about films, the big issues of the day…’
‘Like politics and religion?’ he interrupted, amused.
‘I take that bit back,’ Stella said, wincing. ‘Forget the big issues of the day. I’m fed up discussing politics and religion and you can’t talk about either without a row. No, let’s go for serious subjects, like which is your favourite James Bond.’
Nick gave her a grateful smile as he leaned forward and poured her more claret.
They were the last to leave the restaurant after a mild tussle over who’d pay the bill.
‘Let me,’ insisted Stella.
‘But I asked you out.’
‘No, really, let me.’
The waitress stood patiently to one side while they argued.
‘You could always make a run for it so nobody would have to pay,’ she suggested.
Both Nick and Stella looked up in surprise.
‘Or split the bill,’ the waitress added.
They split it and soon found themselves outside on the street where the sky was undecided over whether to send down snow or sleet. A sheet of something white began to fall as they walked along and Stella shivered in the icy wind.
‘Let’s get out of this for a moment,’ Nick suggested. They sheltered in a shop doorway, watching the snow fall onto the wet street and disappear.
‘At least it’s not sticking,’ Stella said, still shivering.
Without saying anything, Nick took off his coat and draped it over both their shoulders so that Stella was warmed by an extra layer. She had to stand close to him so they’d both be covered, and the sensation of being that close to another person felt strangely good. No, she thought, not just another person. Nick. Standing close to Nick felt good and somehow right.
‘I don’t think it’s going to stop,’ he said.
‘No,’ she agreed, pasta and claret churning inside her in excitement. She couldn’t believe she was standing in a doorway with this man; a man she found unbelievably attractive.
‘You’ll freeze.’
‘Body heat’s a wonderful thing,’ he smiled at her.
Stella smiled back, feeling a little nugget of heat inside her despite the cold. His coat slipped and Nick pulled it back over her, his arm momentarily round her shoulders. She kept staring at him. The arm didn’t move, staying wrapped round Stella, who found herself leaning in closer towards him. His mouth was just a few inches above hers and Stella wondered if she was supposed to give him a signal that he could kiss her. Was that how it worked nowadays? Maybe she should have read Aunt Adele’s despised copy of The Rules to find out. Without waiting for any signal, Nick’s mouth lowered onto hers. Then both his arms were around her and they lurched against the doorway, like lovelorn teenagers stealing a forbidden kiss, bodies tight together as the kiss deepened into fierce, hard passion. Tasting the sweetness of his mouth, holding his body tightly, Stella didn’t care who saw her. All she wanted was Nick; Nick kissing her face and her throat, murmuring endearments and making tender love to her…
Nick broke away first, his olive eyes shining, his breath ragged. ‘We haven’t had the fifty dances yet and there’s no chaperone,’ he said.
‘You’ve got one foot on the ground, haven’t you?’ she replied.
‘Yes, just about!’
This time, Stella kissed him and went on kissing him until they were no longer cold and until the snow was swirling around their doorway like a blizzard.
Only when a police car drove carefully down the street, blue light illuminating doorways, did they stop and step onto the street, laughing like kids and holding Nick’s coat over their heads.
‘I’d hate to see the papers if a respected lawyer and a respected businessman were arrested for obscene behaviour,’ chuckled Stella.
‘It was only a kiss,’ said Nick.
Their eyes met and they both grinned. What a kiss.
He helped her into the first taxi they saw and then took her hand and softly kissed the back of it. Stella smiled at him with affection. From anyone else, such a gesture would have seemed corny but not from Nick.
‘I’ll phone tomorrow.’
He shut the door and the taxi drove off into the night.
For a brief moment, Stella thought about men and phoning. Everyone from Vicki to Tara said that men promised to phone but rarely did.
It was a game, Vicki insisted miserably. To ring or not to ring.
But sitting in the back of a taxi, feeling the car’s heater slowly warm her bones, Stella allowed herself to smile happily. Nick wasn’t like that. He’d phone. She knew it.
‘Rose, have you seen my waterproof jacket?’ Hugh roared up the stairs.
Rose, on her hands and knees on the upstairs landing as she did an emergency sort-out of the airing cupboard, rolled her eyes. She’d left Hugh’s waterproof on the kitchen chair nearest the hall door. Unless he was walking round the house with his eyes closed, he couldn’t miss it.
‘It’s in the kitchen,’ she yelled back, suppressing the desire to add, ‘stupid.’
‘Where in the kitchen? I can’t see it?’
Rose got creakily to her knees. The cold,
