Aside from the fact he was interested in the story, the job would put plenty of money in the coffers for his next directorial project, and would also provide some useful contacts. However, he needed to be fully fit by mid-July or they were going to have to go with someone else. He had some physio sessions lined up and an appointment with the specialist at the end of June, so he couldn’t say yay or nay until then.
All in all, it meant just one thing. He was grounded. For now at least.
Which also meant he was going to have to play nice with the old lady upstairs. He blew out a breath of frustration. Whoop-de-do. Less than twenty-four hours back in dear old London and he was already having so much fun.
He threw his empty cereal bowl in the sink and headed out to the hallway to collect his bike and stash it back in his spare room. And while he was at it, he really ought to write a note – a not too sarcastic note, if he could manage it – and explain about the milk. That was really going to put him in her good books, wasn’t it?
She had a point, he supposed. She probably wasn’t too steady on her feet any more, and the last thing he wanted was to be responsible for a broken hip because she’d tripped over his bike. He had left it in a pretty stupid place, hadn’t he? So stupid that he’d managed to fall foul of it himself. He shook his head and laughed softly as he lifted it up and manhandled it into his flat. It was only as he was resting it against the wall of his spare room-slash-office that he started to think about exactly just how stupidly the bike had been positioned …
He swore. Quite violently. And he didn’t care if the old bat could hear him!
The bike had been left partially covering his door, hadn’t it? Now he was properly awake, he could remember where he’d left it quite clearly, and it certainly hadn’t been where he’d found it this morning. The old witch! There was no way he could have parked the bike blocking his own front door, no matter how tired he was.
He wasn’t sure whether to have her arrested for assault or admire her for pranking him like that.
Looking at the desk full of unread Video Monthly and HD Camera Pro magazines, he walked over and rummaged for a bit of paper – any bit of paper – and a pen. He was going to write the sweet little old lady upstairs a note all right, but it certainly wasn’t going to be an apology for stealing her milk!
Claire woke with a start and immediately flipped herself over to look at her alarm clock. Sunlight was streaming through her thin floral curtains. Her heart was racing and she pressed a palm against her chest to calm it.
It was okay. It was still only just past seven. She wasn’t late for work. She yawned and collapsed back down into the mattress.
She’d crawled back into bed not long after delivering her note to her neighbour, thinking she might as well be comfortable as she whiled the hours away until she needed to get up, but she must have dropped off to sleep almost immediately. Hmm. It seemed she’d been right – her plan of getting all of those churning thoughts out of her head and onto paper had worked. She actually felt quite refreshed. Even that image of her father in his armchair was receding, getting fuzzier and less insistent.
She stared at the ceiling, her mind drifting, and it inevitably flowed until she was thinking of the letter. She replayed what she’d written inside her head, listening to herself as she read it aloud. After a moment, she pushed herself halfway to sitting, rubbed a hand over her face then through her hair. She’d thought the wording had sounded formal and firm last night. Now, in the mellow sunshine of a May morning, it seemed a little … well … snotty.
It would have been a better idea to just write the stupid thing so she could get some rest, but leave it on her kitchen counter instead of delivering it straight away. She smiled to herself. That was the beauty of actual pen and paper as opposed to electronic forms of communication. It wasn’t permanent, irrevocable, until it was in the hands of its intended recipient. With email that took a split second, but she’d bet her letter was still sitting on the bicycle saddle downstairs. She really didn’t think Dominic Arden was much of a morning person.
Maybe she should just go down and fetch it, have a little read … She could always seal it up in a new envelope if she still thought it was fine, although it did seem a bit of a waste to use two such fine bits of stationery on one such unappreciative man.
She flicked the switch of the kettle on as she passed by the kitchen and headed for her front door. Quietly, still in her love-heart PJs, she crept down the stairs and headed for the bike.
Ah.
Too late.
Damn that man’s nocturnal wanderings. Not only was her lovely envelope gone, but the bike had disappeared too. He’d definitely found it.
Oh, well. The tone might have been a bit sharp, but she stood by what she’d said. She stared at his front door. There was no movement behind the glazed top panels, no sound from inside. She let out a breath of relief. The confrontation would come eventually, but she was kind of glad it wasn’t about to happen right now.
Before heading back upstairs, she turned and crossed the hall to open the front door, but when she stared down at where her glass bottle of milk should have been all she found was a plastic two-pinter with a scruffy note taped to it.
Huh? Since when had the milkman been buying his supplies at Tesco? And why was he sending her notes? She paid her bill online these days.
Frowning, she ripped the note off then hooked the plastic carton over a finger and used her free hand to unfold the piece of paper as she trudged back upstairs.
When Claire was halfway up, she stopped.
Of all the …
Dear Ms Bixby, it started. Thank you so much for your very informative note.
Claire’s stomach dropped. The tone matched that of her letter perfectly, and she’d been right – it did sound snotty.
I’m sure we can all agree … it continued. Claire swallowed and started walking up the stairs to her flat again.
It was written perfectly reasonably and neatly – surprisingly neatly, actually, given that Mr Arden seemed such a pig the rest of the time – but somehow the words oozed sarcasm. Was that how her note had come across? She really hadn’t intended it to. She closed her front door, deposited the milk on her kitchen counter and carried on reading, picking up at the beginning of the paragraph again.
I’m sure we can all agree that you probably don’t need to have your nose quite so far into my business. What I do with my post and what I eat really is no concern of yours.
I will, however, concede that I shouldn’t have left my bike parked where it was last night, but I must admit I (wrongly) assumed that you would be safely indoors and watching Countdown with your cocoa by the time I came home, so I didn’t think it would be a problem. I apologise for that.
Claire bristled. This man didn’t even know her! How dare he start making assumptions about her like that, as if she was a hopeless spinster who had nothing better to do with her life? The fact that some nights she really was home quite early, often curled up watching trashy TV while she did travel research on her laptop was neither here nor there.
He might have hit the nail on the head – accidentally, of course; she couldn’t believe he had a perceptive bone in his body – but he didn’t have to make her sound like a dried-up old prune. She’d get around to dating