Valentine's Day. Nicola Marsh

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СКАЧАТЬ took himself off for a shower. As hot as he could stand it. Desperate to scald himself clean of the sudden tingle of awareness he’d experienced standing in Georgia’s apartment just half an hour before. He’d learned to live with the perpetual hum of sensual responsiveness that resonated whenever she was around, but this was different, this was...

      Interest.

      The prickle of intrigue and the glow of connection. So much more than just sexual. Unexpected, unwanted, and unacceptable. And the slither of empathy, that his words made her doubt herself, made her so defensive.

      He stood under the hot, thumping water and let it stream over his head.

      The crazy cat-lady of trailing ferns.

      Of all the things to suddenly bring this burbling inside him to the surface...that little touch of self-deprecation, her modesty about her lived-in, loved-in apartment, her raw defence of a place that was clearly special to her. That was clearly her. She defended her property and herself with a gentle kind of resignation. As though she knew full well that she didn’t fit the conventional moulds and was reconciled with that.

      And he was there telling her that her mould wasn’t interesting enough for his listeners.

      Then showering himself raw just half an hour later because of how interesting it was to him.

      Hypocrite.

      His life was so laden with false, socially aggressive people, all hungry to climb ladders that they had to jostle for. So full of noise and gloss and professional veneer. He did his best to limit his exposure to it to his working hours, running from it—literally—on weekends, but when you worked as much as he did it had a way of just dominating your consciousness.

      Until you stood in the middle of someone’s small, packed greenhouse of an apartment and felt as if you’d just walked into some kind of emotional resort. Far from everything and everyone.

      Until you breathed in for the first time in fifteen years.

      Zander shut off the water, towelled off, and stepped out into his bedroom. Carefully styled by the owner before him, all beige and tones of brown and harmless neutrals he’d never bothered to change. Then he walked out of the hall, into every room one by one, growing increasingly incredulous.

      Not one single plant, anywhere? Seriously?

      He kept looking, kept not finding one. Until he did. A small cactus in a pot that Casey had given him before she’d twigged to the fact that gifts between them weren’t going to do anything but make their relationship more awkward. He’d plonked it on his kitchen window sill and never given it another thought. It survived only on the steam issued by his coffee maker. And maybe the dishwasher.

      But it survived.

      The similarity to his thorny, parched heart was ironic.

      He flicked a switch and lit up the entire length of his rambling back garden. Did it even count if you paid someone to tend it for you? If the most you did was cut roses to take to your aging mother and the only time you walked through it was on a shortcut back from the local coffee house?

      The fun Georgia would have if let loose in there...

      He killed the lights, plunging the whole garden and that train of thought back to darkness.

      There would be no letting loose. There’d be no more curious visits to her apartment. He’d only gone to assure himself that her home would have been as lacking in personality on the inside as the exterior. As some kind of ward against finding her interesting.

      Well, that had bitten him well and truly in the arse.

      He couldn’t blame his complicated mess of interest and appreciation and affection on her botched proposal any longer. Georgia Stone might have started out as the embodiment of every professional and ethical compromise he’d made on his meteoric corporate trajectory—and he still felt the cuts every time someone praised him for the sensational PR surrounding her proposal—but she was rapidly morphing into something else.

      A living, breathing, haunting reminder of the man he used to be. Before the heartbreak of being jilted by Lara. Before the humiliation that drove him headlong into his intense professional life, and the professional life that drove him headlong into his insane training regime just to balance out all the noise. Before all of those things left no room for an actual life. He missed life. And moments like tonight didn’t help him to keep that longing safely tucked away where it couldn’t gnaw at him.

      But work did. And running did. And he had plenty of both to be getting on with this weekend.

      Neither of which were served by flashes of the sheer contentedness in Georgia’s face as she stood in the midst of her meagre worldly possessions, richer than he could possibly conceive.

       FIVE

      May

      Wednesday night salsa dancing was an education—a great way to discover she had three left feet and not just two. Georgia danced with a raft of partners of various coordination—some more patient than others—but never Zander. He was always careful to share the love around with strangers, favouring the much older or much younger and discouraging the interest of anyone in the middle.

      Her, most especially.

      She’d only made the mistake of asking him once.

      We’re here to work, he’d said.

      Right.

      This was the side of him his staff saw. Officious. Distant. Work-centric. That other side of him that she’d glimpsed only lasted as long as it took him to tire of the novelty of following her to endless courses and classes and experiences. The more they did together, the less civil he became.

      So maybe she’d been demoted to minion in his mind?

      The only blessing was that the segments he was producing from their time together in class didn’t reflect any of his impatience and ennui. She’d moved past her instinctive cringe at hearing herself as others heard her and let herself enjoy reliving the classes through Zander’s eyes. His ears. His art. Because while they were commercial by necessity, they were also pretty good. Floating out across the airwaves once a month.

      And she’d busied herself finding things to do in class that didn’t amplify this awkward...blech...between them.

      Thursday night was Michelin-starred restaurants night and she’d become adept at pretending she didn’t know the handsome man at the next table. And at eating alone. There was a certain loveliness that London’s service staff reserved for a woman taking a meal by herself. At first she worried that it was pity, but then she realised they just wanted to make her solo experience as nice as possible. She got twice the smiles and extra free bread that Zander did. That pleased her to an unnaturally high degree.

      Friday night wine appreciation was at least a blessing because it meant their minds and mouths were both fully occupied and so conversation between herself and Zander really wasn’t an option, anyway. But at least the wine class provided quality alternatives in the shape of other men to talk to. And women—but they never got much of a rise from Zander. It was the men that really got up his nose, presumably because it was impacting СКАЧАТЬ