This Could Change Everything(114)
‘Does this mean you’re ignoring me again now?’
And when she looked across once more, he was smiling. With his beautiful mouth.
‘What are you saying? That it’s fine for you not to speak to me, but I’m not allowed to not-speak to you?’
He inclined his head and replied gravely, ‘I’m sorry. I apologise. I didn’t mean to be rude earlier, but I clearly was. And now I feel doubly guilty. May I at least offer you half of my drink?’ He hadn’t poured his wine out; it was still in the mini bottle. When she hesitated, he indicated her ruined top and said, ‘May as well risk it. What’s the worst that can happen?’
Clemency held out her empty glass. ‘Well, the plane could crash.’
Sometimes, just sometimes, you decide you really don’t like someone, then they go on to confound you by turning out to be about a million times nicer than you ever suspected.
His name was Sam, he lived in London and he owned and ran an IT company that involved a lot of flying around Europe visiting clients. As soon as they were allowed to unfasten their seat belts, he indicated Clemency’s top and said, ‘If you give that a soak before the wine dries, there’s a chance of saving it, isn’t there? Do you have something you can change into?’
She shook her head. ‘All my clothes are in my big case. It’s OK.’
Sam leant down and unzipped the bag he’d stowed beneath the seat in front of him. He pulled out a navy V-necked sweater and handed it to her. ‘Here you go, you can wear this. Don’t worry, it’s clean. Give your top a rinse in the sink and you might be able to rescue it.’
The sweater was incredibly soft to the touch. It also smelt amazing, Clemency discovered shortly afterwards in the toilet cubicle as she pulled it over her head and pushed the sleeves up in order to rinse her yellow top in the sink.
‘Well?’ said Sam when she returned.
Clemency dropped the wrung-out top into the sick bag he was holding open for her and tucked it under her seat. ‘I think it’s beyond help, but we’ll see. Thanks for letting me borrow your sweater.’ The smell of the soft wool was intoxicating; seriously, she kept wanting to bury her nose in it. Except that would look weird.
Sam’s tone was genial. ‘Not a problem. It suits you.’
‘As soon as we get our cases back, I’ll be able to change into something else.’ Clemency stroked the wool fondly. ‘It’s lovely, though. You know, I once nearly died a horrible death because of a sweater like this.’
‘How so?’ Sam looked quizzical as she took a careful sip of the shared wine.
‘It belonged to my sister and I borrowed it without asking. She caught me wearing it and tried to wrestle it off me, and I ended up hanging backwards out of my bedroom window with the sleeves tangled round my neck.’
Sam laughed. ‘In that case, I promise I won’t try to wrestle mine off you.’
‘That’s a relief.’ The rogue thought that such a scenario might actually be quite exciting flitted through Clemency’s brain. Ooh-er.
‘And how old were you when this happened?’
‘It was just the other week.’ She waited, then broke into a grin. ‘No, our wrestling days are behind us now. This was back when we were sixteen.’
Sam’s eyebrows rose. ‘You were both sixteen? So you’re twins?’
Now that they’d turned towards each other and were having a proper conversation, she could see, up close, that his eyes were brown with flecks of gold radiating from their centres and a black outer ring around each iris. His lashes were black too. There were faint violet shadows beneath his eyes and a tiny mole on his right temple. And as for his mouth . . . well, it was still beautiful.
In fact, getting more beautiful by the minute.