A nip and tuck while you’re drying out?’ she said, pulling on her cheeks to stretch her mouth. ‘No problem. A little Botox to smooth away the excesses of a coke habit? Step right in. Once he’s got me there, he’ll probably throw away the key.’
Lucy attempted a careless laugh, but he suspected that she was trying to convince herself rather more than him that she was joking.
He was more concerned why Henshawe would want her out of the way that badly—or why she’d think he would—and when he didn’t join in she stopped pretending and frowned at the phone.
‘How about, I’ll be back!…?’ she offered.
‘Will you?’ he asked. ‘Go back?’
‘To Rupert?’ She appeared puzzled. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because that’s what women do.’
‘You think this is just some tiff?’ she demanded when he didn’t answer. ‘That it’ll blow over once I’ve straightened myself out? Got my head together?’
‘It happens,’ he said, pushing her, hoping that she might volunteer some answers.
‘Not in this case.’
She snapped the phone shut without sending any kind of message and offered it back to him.
‘Why don’t you hang on to it for now?’ he suggested. ‘In case you change your mind.’
She looked at him, still unsure of his motives. Then she shrugged, tucked the phone into the pouch at her belt.
‘Thanks.’
Her voice was muffled, thick, and he turned away, picked up a couple of apples and dropped them in the trolley. Giving her a moment. Sparky she might be, but no one could fail to be affected by a bad breakup. Especially one that had been played out in the full gaze of the media. Tears were inevitable.
After a moment she picked up a peach, weighed it in her hand, sniffed it. Replaced it.
‘No good?’ he asked, taking one himself to check it for ripeness.
‘They are a ridiculous price.’
‘I can probably manage if you really want one. I get staff discount.’
That teased a smile out of her, but she shook her head. ‘Peaches are summer fruit. They need to be warm.’
And, just like that, he could see her sitting in the shade of an Italian terrace, grapes ripening overhead, her teeth sinking into the flesh of a perfectly ripe sun-warmed peach straight from the tree. Bare shoulders golden, meltingly relaxed.
Her lips glistening, sweet with the juice…
‘I get why you ran out of the press conference, Lucy,’ he said, crushing the image with cold December reality. ‘But, having dumped the man so publicly, I don’t understand why he’s so desperate to find you.’
She swallowed, managed a careless shrug. ‘I thought you didn’t want to know.’
He didn’t. If he knew, he would be part of it, part of her story. But, conversely, he did, desperately, want her to trust him and the two were intertwined.
‘I have something of his. Something he wants back,’ she admitted.
The file, he thought, remembering the glossy black ring binder she’d been holding up in the news clip. That she’d been carrying in her bag.
It wasn’t there now, he realised.
‘Maybe you should just give it back,’ he suggested. ‘Walk away.’
‘I can’t do that.’
Before he could ask her why, what she’d done with it, she was distracted by the sound of voices coming through the arch that led to the butchery.
‘It’s just one of the cleaning crews,’ he said quickly, seizing her wrist as panic flared in her face and she turned, hunting for the nearest escape route. ‘Good grief, you’re shaking like a leaf. What the hell has he done to you? Do you need the police?’
‘No!’ Her throat moved as she swallowed.
‘Are you sure? What about this?’ he demanded, releasing her wrist, lifting his hand to skim his fingertips lightly over the bruise darkening at her temple.
She stared at him. ‘What? No! A photographer caught me with his camera. It was an accident. Nothing to do with Rupert.’ She looked anxiously towards the archway, the voices were getting nearer. ‘Please…’
‘Okay.’ He wasn’t convinced—he’d heard every variation of the bruise excuse going—but this wasn’t the moment to press it. ‘We’re done here,’ he said, heading for the nearest lift.
‘You can’t take the trolley out of the food hall,’ she protested as the doors opened.
‘You want to stay and pack the groceries into carriers?’ he asked, stopping them from closing with his foot.
A burst of song propelled her into the lift. ‘No, you’re all right.’
‘Doors closing. Going up…’
‘What?’ She turned on him. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Believe me, you’ll be a lot safer on the top floor than the bottom one,’ he said quickly. ‘There’ll be no security staff. No curious cleaners wondering why you look familiar. Where they’ve seen you before.’
She opened her mouth, closed it again, her jaw tightening as she swallowed down whatever she was going to say.
‘You’d never have got away with it, Lucy.’
‘You don’t know that,’ she declared, staring straight ahead. ‘And it would test your security staff. If they found me you’d know they’re as good as you think they are.’
‘Believe me, they are. And you’d spend the night in a police cell.’
‘Oh, but—’
‘They don’t call me when they find intruders, Lucy. They call the local police station and then the game would be up. If you’re so sure that the cleaners would recognise you, I think it’s a fair bet to assume that whoever turned up to arrest you would, too.’
She slumped back against the side of the lift. ‘You’re right, of course. And the elf costume would confirm everything that Rupert was saying about me. That I’m one sandwich short of a picnic.’
‘It wouldn’t look good,’ he agreed. ‘But if you really do have your heart set on spending the night in a tent, I’ll go and fetch one of those pop-up ones. You can set it up on the bedroom floor.’
The lift came to a halt. ‘Tenth floor…Customer services. Accounts. Doors opening…’
‘Bedroom floor?’ She frowned. ‘I thought
