After that she’d become his go-to ally for social engagements—a purely platonic date that he could count on for intelligent conversation and professional behaviour. She’d become a trusted contact. And in return he’d accompanied her to family dinners and events like this one today, sympathising with her exasperation at her slightly crazy family while not really understanding it. Surely better to have a slightly crazy family than no family at all?
He’d never been dumped before. It was an odd novelty. And certainly not by a real girlfriend. It seemed being dumped by a fake one was no less of a shock to the system.
‘It’s been good while it lasted,’ she was saying. ‘Mutually beneficial for both of us. You got a professional plus-one for your work engagements and I got my parents off my back. But the fact is—’
‘It’s not you, it’s me?’ he joked, still not convinced she wasn’t messing around.
‘I’ve met someone,’ she said, not smiling.
‘Someone?’ he said, shaking his head lightly and reaching for the air-conditioning controls. For some reason it was suddenly boiling in the car. ‘A work someone?’
‘No, not a work someone!’ Her tone was exasperated. ‘Despite what you might think, I do have a life, you know—outside work.’
‘I never said you didn’t.’
He glanced across at her indignant expression just as it melted into a smile of triumph.
‘Dan, I’ve met someone.’
She held his gaze for a second before he looked back at the road, her eyebrows slightly raised, waiting for him to catch on. He tried to keep a grin in place when for some reason his face wanted to fold in on itself. In the months he’d known her she’d been on maybe two or three dates, to his knowledge, and none of the men involved had ever been important enough to her to earn the description ‘someone’.
He sat back in his seat and concentrated hard on driving the car through the London evening traffic. He supposed she was waiting for some kind of congratulatory comment and he groped for one.
‘Good for you,’ he said eventually. ‘Who is he?’
‘He was involved in some legal work I was doing.’
So she had met him through her job as a lawyer, then. Of course she had. When did she ever do anything that wasn’t somehow linked to work? Even their own friendship was based in work. It had started with work and had grown with their mutual ambition.
‘We’ve been on a few dates and it’s going really well.’ She took a breath. ‘And that’s why I need to end things with you.’
Things? For some reason he disliked the vagueness of the term, as if it meant nothing.
‘You don’t date,’ he pointed out.
‘Exactly,’ she said, jabbing a finger at him. ‘And do you know why I don’t date?’
‘Because no man could possibly match up to me?’
‘Despite what you might think is appealing to women, I don’t relish the prospect of a couple of nights sharing your bed only to be kicked out of it the moment you get bored.’
‘No need to make it sound so brutal. They all go into it with their eyes open, you know. I don’t make any false promises that it will ever be more than a bit of fun.’
‘None of them ever believe that. They all think they’ll be the one to change you. But you’ll never change because you don’t need to. You’ve got me for the times when you need to be serious, so you can keep the rest of your girlies just for fun.’
She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap.
‘The thing is, Dan, passing you off as my boyfriend might keep my family off my back, and it stops the swipes about me being single and the comments about my biological clock, but it doesn’t actually solve anything. I didn’t realise until now that I’m in a rut. I haven’t dated for months. All I do is work. It’s so easy to rely on you if I have to go anywhere I need a date that I’ve quit looking for anyone else.’
‘What are you saying?’
She sighed.
‘Just that meeting Alistair has opened my eyes to what I’ve been missing. And I really think our agreement is holding us both back.’
‘Alistair?’
‘His name is Alistair Woods.’
He easily dismissed the image that zipped into his brain of the blond ex-international cycling star, because it had to be a coincidence. Emma didn’t know anyone like that. He would know if she did. Except she was waiting, lips slightly parted, eyebrows slightly raised. Everything about her expression told him she was waiting for him to catch on.
‘Not the Alistair Woods?’ he said, because she so obviously wanted him to.
He stole a glance across at her and the smile that lit up her face caused a sorry twist somewhere deep in his stomach. It was a smile he couldn’t remember seeing for the longest time—not since they’d first met.
The glance turned into a look for as long as safe driving would allow, during which he saw her with an unusually objective eye, noticing details that had passed him by before. The hint of colour touching the smooth high cheekbones, the soft fullness of her lower lip, the way tendrils of her dark hair curled softly against the creamy skin of her shoulders in the boat-neck dress. She looked absolutely radiant and his stomach gave a slow and unmistakable flip, adding to his sense of unreality.
‘Exactly,’ she said with a touch of triumph. ‘The cyclist. Well, ex-cyclist. He’s in TV now—he does presenting and commentating.’
Of course he did. His face had been a permanent media fixture during the last big sports event in the UK. Dan felt a sudden irrational aversion to the man, whom he’d never met.
‘You’re dating Alistair Woods?’
He failed to keep the incredulity out of his voice and it earned him a flash of anger that replaced her bubbling excitement like a flood of cold water.
‘No need to make it sound so unbelievable,’ she snapped. ‘You might only see me as some power suit, great for taking on the difficult dates when one of your five-minute conquests won’t make the right impression, but I do actually have a dual existence. As a woman.’
‘How long have you been seeing him?’ he said.
‘What are you? My father?’ she said. ‘We’ve been out a few times.’
‘How many is a few?’
‘Half a dozen, maybe.’
‘You’re ending our agreement on the strength of half a dozen dates?’
‘Yes, well, they weren’t dates in the way you think of them. He hasn’t just invited me out for an impressive dinner as a preamble to taking me to bed. You can actually get to know someone really well in half a dozen dates if you approach them in a more...serious way.’
The thinly veiled dig didn’t escape him and indignation sharpened his voice.
‘OK, then, if he’s so bloody marvellous, and you’re so bloody smitten, why the hell isn’t he on his way to look at your brother’s wacky paintings and meet the parents? Couldn’t you have dumped me on the phone and saved me a load of time and