Valentine's Day. Nicola Marsh

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СКАЧАТЬ have to keep my fitness up, so I run every morning and I do long runs or hikes every weekend.’

      ‘Every weekend?’

      ‘Pretty much.’

      Wow. ‘Just running. For hours on end?’

      ‘Or hard hiking. That’s why it’s called endurance.’

      ‘Sounds lonely.’ But also kind of...zen. Kind of what she did when she wandered deep into the dark heart of forests.

      ‘I don’t mind the solitude,’ he murmured.

      ‘Is that why you do it?’

      His answer was fast. As if he’d defended himself on that point often. ‘I do it for the challenge. Because I can. And I do my best thinking out there.’

      Fifty kilometres. That was a lot of thinking time.

      ‘Just...wow. I’m impressed.’

      ‘Don’t get too excited. In competition we can do that in under four hours.’

      Georgia shook her head. ‘Put marathon running on the list.’

      He looked up sharply. ‘You want to run a marathon?’

      ‘God, no. I have two left feet. But I’ve never seen one. I can just watch you. Help you train.’

      Intense discomfort flooded his face.

      Once again she’d managed to misread a man. This wasn’t a friendship. They weren’t bonding. This was a business arrangement with the sole purpose of tracking her activity. Why on earth would he want her around during his private time? He probably had a raft of friends actually of his choosing to hang out with—and many of them women.

      ‘I...uh...’

      She’d stuffed up big enough to actually make a man stammer. World class.

      ‘You know what?’ she breezed, not feeling the slightest bit breezy. ‘I’ve changed my mind. Me watching you run would make terrible radio. Scratch that off the list.’ Was she a convincing liar? They’d find out. His pen was still frozen over the page and so there was nothing to scratch out, so she said the only other thing that came into her head.

      ‘Another drink?’

      * * *

      The list grew as long as the evening. They hit the Internet for ideas of cool things for her to do in London. Pretty soon they had learn-to-dance classes, movie premieres, and a royal polo match.

      ‘Aquasphering!’ she said, a little bit too loud. ‘Whatever that is.’

      ‘Really? That’s your kind of thing?’

      ‘None of it is my thing—isn’t that the point? Pushing myself out of my comfort zone.’ Wa-a-ay out of it.

      ‘Can we afford a seat on a commercial spaceflight?’ she blurted, tapping the tablet’s glossy screen. ‘That would be exciting.’

      He smiled. ‘No. We can’t. And we don’t really have the time for it to become more mainstream.’

      ‘Pff. You suck.’

      Zander stared at her. Assessing. ‘I think I need to get some food into you.’

      ‘I told you I didn’t do this for the soup.’

      ‘I was thinking of something a little more solid than soup.’

      Judgement stung, low and sharp. She sat up straighter. ‘I’m not drunk.’

      ‘No, you’re not. But you will be if you keep going like this.’

      ‘Maybe the new me drinks more often.’

      He gathered up their papers and his tablet and returned them to his briefcase. ‘Really? This is how you want to start the Year of Georgia? By getting hammered?’

      She stared at him. Thought about that. ‘Have we started?’

      ‘First day.’

      ‘Then we should leave.’ Because, no, she didn’t want to start that way.

      ‘Let me feed you. I have somewhere in mind. We can walk. Clear your head.’

      ‘Why isn’t your head fuzzy? You’ve been matching me drink for drink.’

      He shrugged. ‘Body mass?’

      She relaxed back into the booth and smiled happily. ‘That’s so unfair.’ Then she sat bolt upright again, her fingers reaching for her phone before her mind was even engaged. ‘I should ring Dan. I need to explain.’

      Zander caught her hand before it could do more than curl around her phone. ‘No. Let’s not do that on an empty stomach. Let’s go get some food.’

      He was right. She needed to talk to Dan face to face, not over the phone. She stood. ‘OK. What are we having?’

      ‘We could start your cooking lesson tonight. Something informal.’

      ‘I live miles from here.’

      He smiled. ‘I don’t.’

      And just like that—bam!—she was sober. Zander Rush was taking her back to his place. To feed her. To teach her to make food. Something about that seemed so...intimate.

      ‘You know what?’ she lied. ‘I have some things to do tonight before work tomorrow. I think maybe I should just head home.’

      ‘What about food?’

      If she was clear-headed enough to lie she was clear-headed enough to catch the tube. ‘We’re one block from the station.’

      His smile grew indulgent. ‘I know. You drove us here.’

      ‘It’s on the same line as Kew Gardens. I used to catch it home all the time.’ So she knew it well.

      ‘At least let me walk you to the station, then.’

      She shot to her feet. ‘That would be lovely, thank you.’

      He shook his head. ‘Still so courteous.’

      She shrugged. ‘Old-school upbringing.’

      ‘Traditional parents?’

      Her laugh was more of a bark. ‘Definitely not. My gran raised me mostly. To give me some stability. My mother really wasn’t...well adapted...to parenting.’

      He threw her a sideways look. ‘I’m the youngest of six to older parents so maybe we were raised by a similar generation?’

      It took just a few minutes to walk down to the station and something in her speech or her steady forward movement or her riveting, non-stop chatter about СКАЧАТЬ