If I Never Met You(36)

‘Oh, we’d make sure it was obnoxiously romantic,’ Jamie said. ‘We’d blow Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan out of the water. We’d make Sleepless in Seattle look like a Ken Loach film.’

‘Hahaha. Hmmm. I mean, if I wanted to mess with Dan’s head … it’s certainly not what he’s expecting …’

Laurie knew that this urge to hurt Dan, to get his full attention again, was beneath her, and unhealthy. So what, though? Life, she had realised fully, was extremely unfair.

‘I don’t know Dan Price very well but I do know male psychology,’ Jamie said. ‘Was he ever jealous?’

Laurie nodded vigorously. ‘A lot. Very.’

She wanted this known. She had mattered, once.

‘Then I promise you, he can be again. We could help each other.’

He fixed his gaze on her steadily and Laurie knew she was getting a variant of his seduction routine. Laurie had never met a proper ladies man before, only gobby lads who fancied themselves as busy scorecard shaggers and weren’t worthy of the title, really.

She was anthropologically curious. To other women this must be magic, and to her it was a card trick. She’d quite enjoy doing a Penn and Teller on his act, deconstructing it.

She looked at Jamie’s intense dark blue eyes and glowing skin, the light sweat on his brow, that thick dark hair you wanted to push your fingertips into, and wondered what age he was when he discovered how beautiful he was, and the power he wielded over women.

Awareness of that power, plus having a quick wit and no heart of his own – a dynamite combination. His laidback manner, his playful sense of humour, his ability to focus exclusively on you – these were the ingredients, Laurie figured, that added up to a man who made husbands jealous. He should ditch the law and become a high-class gigolo, working La Croisette in tennis whites for diamond-rattling divorcees.

Had fortune and fate vomited him into her lap, at precisely the right time?

‘It is mad. And yet. It appeals,’ Laurie said, hesitantly.

Jamie broke into a broad smile. He had her.

‘You’d have to meet up with me every so often to create our dynamite content, but apart from that. We need to set terms and conditions for this showmance. Text me your personal email and I’ll message you over the weekend.’

They agreed they were both awash with drink and needed to head home to find food, and Jamie insisted he’d see Laurie into a taxi.

As they stood on the pavement, Laurie’s teeth chattering, her arms folded tightly across her body, she said, ‘I have a question.’

‘Yes?’

‘You were told that Eve was off limits. You want this major promotion. You still took her out to talk work. Why? I mean, the risk versus reward doesn’t seem to stack up.’

Laurie knew what she thought had happened, and nothing he was going to say would persuade her otherwise. She was curious at how he’d explain it away.

‘She asked me out, not the other way round, and so technically she took me out. Eve’s no wallflower.’

Laurie tilted her head. ‘Still …’

‘Ack, I got very annoyed with the idea her sixty-two-year-old uncle gets to choose who she’s allowed to socialise with. I can be like that sometimes. An obtuse little twat. Yes, it was a risk, but if I’d given in to their rubbish I couldn’t have lived with myself.’

‘You were, in fact, respecting her agency and autonomy?’

‘Precisely,’ Jamie said, grinning. ‘And, she’s going places. I was networking, if you want the unvarnished version. That was the incentive.’

‘With a twenty-four-year-old?’ Laurie raised a sceptical eyebrow.

‘I’m not kidding, she’s ferocious. Photographic memory, doesn’t miss a thing, would leave any of us for dead without checking for a pulse. She told me her nickname is Eve of destruction. One day she’ll have her name above the door, of that I’m sure.’

‘Yet you didn’t close the deal?’

She could tease Jamie that Eve wasn’t into him, but Laurie remembered the body language from the night in question.

Laurie wouldn’t have dared be this personal and lairy if she wasn’t hammered. But this was her professional training. Pursuing something until you felt you understood it. You couldn’t advocate for someone without it.

‘I know it runs contrary to what you think of me, but I’m perfectly capable of enjoying female company without it having to end in bed.’

To be fair, Laurie had felt that herself, only hours previous.

‘Plus she was, as said, way too young for me.’

‘How old are you?”

‘Thirty-one.’

‘I thought you were younger!’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment, though I bet you meant immature. How old are you?’

‘Thirty-six.’

‘I thought you were younger,’ Jamie said, tip of his tongue in corner of his mouth.

‘Thanks!’ Laurie huffed.

‘I thought it was a compliment when you said it?’

Laurie rolled her eyes.

‘Here you go,’ Jamie flagged a Hackney. ‘I’ll email you over the weekend?’

‘Yes! Thanks.’

It was only as the cab pulled through the streets that Laurie noticed the pitfall in this plan, the part that didn’t suit her, at all – she hated being a scandal. She was an intensely private person, maybe because her parents, in different ways, were such a show.