Her shorts, however, lay beneath him. Laura bit her lip. Sprinting back home without them would encourage curtain twitching gossip she definitely didn’t need. ‘Can you shift a bit?’ she said, trying to yank on the inch of fabric she could see.
However Matt didn’t budge. Apart from shooting his hand out to wrap itself round her wrist.
‘Laura, what’s going on?’
‘Going on?’ she said, her eyes jerking to his. Only minutes ago his eyes had been blazing with passion but his whole demeanour was stonier than granite. ‘Nothing’s going on.’
‘So why the hurry?’
‘I have to get going.’
‘A little too wild and uncontrollable, huh?’
She stamped down on the blush that she could feel blooming inside her. ‘Not at all,’ she said, aiming for a nonchalance she didn’t feel. ‘I really do have to go. Like I said, I have plans.’
Matt released her, sprang to his feet and yanked on his jeans. ‘Right,’ he said, his voice ice cold and devoid of emotion. ‘Sure. Then I guess you don’t want lunch.’
With him standing there looking so gorgeous and rumpled in just his jeans, all Laura could think of was how much she did want lunch. With Matt as the main course. ‘Some other time perhaps,’ she muttered, and legged it.
THREE weeks later, Laura had just about managed to wipe Matt and that incredible afternoon from her mind. But it had been one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do.
For days afterwards she’d wafted around in a kind of dreamlike state, not entirely sure whether the whole thing had actually happened or if it had simply been a product of her imagination. It had been so amazing, so mind-blowing and, up until the moment she’d panicked, everything she’d imagined it would be.
Ruthlessly blocking out the way they’d parted, or rather the way she’d scarpered, she’d wallowed in the memories of the hour before, and as a result had got very little done.
If it hadn’t been for the call from the headhunter a week ago she’d probably still be at it. Wandering round her house with a dreamy smile on her face, putting the milk in the bathroom cabinet and the toothpaste in the fridge.
To think that she might have missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime just because she’d been too busy drifting around in a daze …
Laura went cold and shuddered. It didn’t bear thinking about. And neither did Matt. Not any longer. Now she had to focus on her career. Her savings wouldn’t last for ever and daydreaming wouldn’t pay the bills.
This job, however, would not only pay the bills, it would also get her life firmly back on track.
The opportunity to head up the restoration project on the isolated island of Sassania was a dream come true. The country had been closed off to the outside world for years. As the result of a recent coup, the dictatorship had been overthrown and the borders had been thrown wide open.
The island had some of the finest examples of Baroque architecture in the world. Palaces and monuments she’d only ever read about. Palaces and monuments that were currently in a terrible state of repair and needed restoring.
Ideally, by her.
She’d emailed her CV to the headhunter virtually the moment she’d put the phone down, and to her delight had received a reply the next day inviting her for an interview.
Which was why she was now in London, taking her best friend out for dinner in return for a bed for the night before catching her crack-of-dawn flight in the morning.
‘So how is life in the country?’ said Kate, plucking the umbrella out of her cocktail and taking a long slurp.
Dragging herself away from dusty palaces in tiny Mediterranean island kingdoms and back to trendy London restaurants, Laura picked up a fat juicy olive from the bowl and glanced across the table. ‘Quiet.’
‘I can imagine.’
No, she couldn’t, but there was no way Laura was going to elaborate on what she’d been up to. Not when she’d just managed to stop thinking about it. ‘How’s the world of corporate law?’
Kate took another sip of her cocktail and sighed with pleasure. ‘Yum yum. You know, the usual. Nutty hours, problems galore and clients with egos the size of planets. I don’t know why I do it.’
‘Because you love it.’
Kate grinned. ‘I guess I do.’ She tilted her head. ‘Don’t you miss all this?’
Laura glanced around the place Kate had suggested for dinner. A brand-new London restaurant that had shot to the top of the ubercool lists the day after it had opened.
Against the deep red silk lining of the walls hung enormous canvases by some on-the-up artist. Tiny chandeliers hung above every one of the slate-grey tables, casting flatteringly low sparkling light over the clientele. Model-like waiters who were far too sultry and hip to ever crack a smile whizzed around with plates of food that looked beautiful and made her mouth water. The chatter was low, buzzing and probably far more sophisticated than she was.
Not all that long ago Laura had spent many of her evenings and weekends in places like this. Now she felt a bit like a foreigner.
‘Not really,’ she muttered, slightly perturbed by the realisation.
‘I don’t know how you can bear it,’ said Kate with a tiny shudder. ‘I mean, no shops, no bars and all that greenery.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘It’s just not natural.’
Stifling a smile at the irony, Laura shrugged. ‘I muddle along.’
‘But that’s my point,’ Kate said. ‘You don’t have to muddle along. I mean, I know things went a bit pear-shaped, but why you had to run off to the country is beyond me.’
A bit pear-shaped? ‘Yes, well, when your life implodes as spectacularly as mine did you can end up doing all sorts of out-of-character things.’
‘You could have come and stayed with me.’
Kate sounded a little piqued, and Laura gave her a smile. ‘I know. And I did appreciate the offer, but it was something I needed to sort out on my own.’
Plus Kate would have given her heaps of advice, which she’d have insisted Laura follow, and Laura would have been too wiped out to argue.
But not any more. No more taking the easy way out. No more falling in with other people’s wishes all the time. If her afternoon with Matt had taught her one thing it was that going for what she wanted for a change could achieve some pretty spectacular results.
Not that she was thinking about him of course, she reminded herself, picking up a menu and letting her gaze drift over the other diners. The restaurant was packed with some seriously beautiful people. Not a hint of last year’s fashion, nor an un-touched-up root in sight. She was surprised they’d let her in.
And to be honest she was kind of dreading the bill. Laura resisted the urge to slap herself on the forehead with her menu. She’d done it again, hadn’t she? Gulped back a knot of panic when Kate had suggested this place, and said, yes, sure, why not.
Why, oh, why hadn’t she been firmer, and told Kate they’d be going to the little Italian around the corner from her flat?
Feeling her spirits tumble, Laura’s gaze bobbed across the room. She bet none of the people here was quite so feeble. No. They’d all be decisive