“My crap day?” He paused to give their orders to the waiter — grilled sea bass for Holly, salmon for him — and turned back to her. “So far, my day’s actually been quite good.”
“No, I meant the other day, when I interviewed you. You called me that night, and said you’d had a crap day.”
“Oh. Yes.” He winced. “Well, I ended up with two new clients that afternoon. Both of them have proven to be very—” he paused “—difficult. And very high profile…”
“High profile?” Holly echoed, intrigued. “Ooh, do tell!”
He looked uncomfortable. “I really can’t discuss my clients with you. I shouldn’t have brought it up—”
“Oh, come on! You can’t say something like that and then leave me hanging,” she protested.
“No, I suppose not.” He sighed. “Let’s just say, one of my new clients is a temperamental — with an emphasis on mental — rock star; the other is a hot-tempered television chef.”
Holly leaned across the table and whispered excitedly, “Wow, so are you saying that Dominic Heath and Marcus Russo are your clients? That’s so cool.”
“No, trust me, it isn’t cool. It’s dreadful. Despite his difficult reputation, Marcus Russo is…even worse. And Dominic…” He paused. “He’s a nightmare in leather trousers.”
“He can be,” Holly conceded. “But under the laddish exterior, he’s actually not that bad.”
“Oh? You sound as if you know him personally.”
“I do,” she admitted, “but not very well. He and Natalie — she’ll be my sister-in-law soon — were together for two years. She blagged me an interview with Dom. That’s how I got my job at BritTEEN.”
“Small world. They broke up, I take it.”
Holly nodded. “He dumped Natalie to marry his ex-wife…who dumped him just before their wedding ceremony, when she caught him shagging the bridesmaid. It was all over the tabs.”
Alex frowned. “Oh, yes. I remember. Quite a stir it caused.”
“And Marcus Russo…he’s a Michelin-starred chef!”
Alex nudged dispiritedly at his tumbler of water. “Yes. Nevertheless, it’ll be a headache to deal with either of them, much less the pair.” He leaned forward. “Enough about me, I want to know about you. Tell me all about Holly James.” He raised his eyebrow. “Sex on a first date? Yes…or no?”
“There you go again, throwing my own questions back at me.”
“It’s only fair.”
She toyed with her fork. “Well, it depends, of course.”
“On what?”
“On…things,” she hedged. “Like whether they — he, and she — are attracted to one another, or not.”
He reached out and picked up her hand. “And if they are?” he asked quietly. “Attracted to one another, I mean.”
Holly met his eyes. God, he was gorgeous, with those dark, penetrating eyes, and those lips, so firm and inviting, and so close to hers…
Just then, the waiter arrived with their lunches. “Who had the sea bass?” he enquired brightly.
“I did,” Holly said, and leaned back with mingled relief and disappointment. She waited as he set their plates down.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Alex observed after the waiter departed.
She picked up her fork and pretended to consider. “I think I’ll need a second date before I’m ready to give you a definitive answer.”
“Spoken,” he said with approval, “like a true politician.” He lifted his glass of water and waited until Holly did the same, then touched his glass to hers. “Here’s to a second date, Ms James,” he added huskily, “and quite possibly, a third.”
“Have you ’eard, Jamie?” the delivery man called out as he backed his truck behind the restaurant and jumped down. “Your restaurant’s about to ’ave a bit of competition.”
Jamie Gordon wiped his hands on his apron. “Yep. I’ve heard.”
Opening a restaurant had been Jamie’s dream from the time he was a student at culinary school in Edinburgh. Seven years on, his dream was finally a reality. Thanks to his half-brother Rhys’s financial stake, Gordon Scots was open for business.
And now Marcus Russo, the popular, potty-mouthed television chef, was about to open a new brasserie right around the corner.
His mobile buzzed. “Speak of the devil,” he muttered as he saw Rhys’s name on the screen. “What’s up, bro?”
“I understand you have a competitor moving in.”
“Yeah. No worries. We’ve had great reviews and we’re busy as hell. Everyone loves the whisky bar.”
“Good. Nat wants you over for Sunday dinner soon. Oh, and she says to bring along one of your chocolate whisky cakes for afters.”
“Sure, let me know when. Give Nat my love. Talk soon.”
The deliveryman began unloading crates of fish from the truck. “That Marcus Russo may be one hell of a chef, but he’s a bastard to work for, and no mistake.”
Jamie glanced up from his inspection of a case of iced salmon. Russo, although notoriously abrasive and short-tempered, had half a dozen successful restaurants to his name, all boasting at least one Michelin star. He put aside the crate and reached for the next.
“I’m not bothered,” he said, and shrugged. “There’s room for both of us, I reckon.”
“Once I was five minutes late on a delivery,” the man said, and shook his head. “My truck was full up. He made me unload the lot, then refused to sign for the delivery. Had to load it all back on the truck. Right pissed off, I was.”
Jamie smiled slightly as he signed off on the delivery. “I bet you weren’t late again.”
“No,” he admitted, and handed down the last crate. “I wouldn’t hesitate to run ’im over with my truck, though,” he added. He slapped Jamie on the back. “See you Monday, mate.”
When Friday lunchtime rolled around, Holly pulled out her handbag and counted her money — barely eight pounds to her name; good thing she got paid tomorrow — and left her desk to run down to the corner shop. Her stomach rumbled as she emerged from the BritTEEN building.
Automatically her glance strayed to the bench across the street. Zoe had gone missing for the last couple of mornings. But today she was back, her rucksack under her feet and one arm stretched along the back of the bench, her face turned up to the sun. A skinny blonde with a neon-pink skunk stripe in her hair sat next to her, legs crossed, smoking.
If they noticed Holly, they gave no sign.
“Hey, Mr Singh,” Holly said to the tall, turbaned man behind the till as she grabbed three Cokes and a handful of chocolate bars and dumped them all on the counter. “Guess what? I might have my first feature interview soon. And I’ve got a mini-interview coming out in the next issue of BritTEEN.”
He rang up the items. “Congratulations.” He raised his brow as she added several Peperamis to the pile on the counter. “You’re very talented. And also very hungry today, I see.”
“No,