A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger (35 page)

‘Your contact called to say he was running a little late.' She smiled at Sam, ignoring me completely. ‘But if you'd like, you can check into your room while you wait?'

I explained that we were not guests, but she smiled and handed me a smart white envelope. Inside was a printed message:
I felt bad about bullying you into staying in London. Have a room on me. Shelley.

Speechless, I showed it to Sam. ‘Sweet Mother of Jesus,' he said, face white. ‘CHAS! You lucky fucker!'

The receptionist was clearly in love with Sam already, but she tore her eyes away from him and smiled at me. ‘Welcome to the hotel, Ms Lambert,' she said kindly. ‘I'll get someone to show you up to your room right now.'

The room was incredible. The bed was larger than my flat and the views over Hyde Park were stunning. Were I with the man of my dreams, this would have been the best hotel room I could have asked for. And, sadly, I
was
with the man of my dreams, but he was whispering sweet Shakespearean nothings into the elfin ear of a wispy-dressed slag.

‘Can I bounce on your bed?' he asked, breaking my thoughts.

‘Yes,' I replied. And then: ‘Christ, Bowes!
Look
at it!'

Sam bounced on my bed while I wrote Shelley a grateful message of thanks and then went through an elaborate pretence of calling the Joneses and asking them to look after Malcolm for me. Perhaps after a luxurious sleep and the greatest breakfast ever, I'd feel sufficiently fortified to leave this Sam stuff behind in London.

Perhaps.

‘Let's go and meet the investor,' I said tiredly. Life could be very cruel at times.

Down in the super-sleek bar we made idiots of ourselves by asking three different businessmen if they were here to invest in us. None, embarrassingly, was.

I called Shelley when it got to seven thirty. ‘HANG ON,' she roared, even though she appeared to be in a silent room. ‘I'LL CALL HIM.'

A few minutes later she called back and informed us, somewhat awkwardly, that Mr Investor from Holden Steiner was terminally delayed. He would be in his offices in St James's until at least midnight. He was sorry. ‘Jolly bad luck,' she muttered loudly. ‘Have dinner on me. Put it on your room bill. I feel very bad about this, Charlotte.'

I hesitated. Sam and I had snuck out of the Edinburgh investment event without so much as a handshake with an investor. All we had done was throw food around the room, giggle like knobs and nearly steal a napkin. I felt uncomfortable accepting such an extravagant gift. The
restaurant was run by Heston Blumenthal, for Pete's sake! It'd cost a fortune!

‘No, we'll sort ourselves out,' I started to say.

‘DINNER IS ON ME,' Shelley roared. ‘YOU STAYED IN LONDON BECAUSE I TOLD YOU TO.'

I caved in quickly. I'd have had to be very odd to turn down a Heston dinner and I had a strong feeling that Sam would never forgive me if I said no.

By some stroke of outrageous fortune there was a cancellation in the restaurant, and soon after Sam and I found ourselves sitting in a spare, beautiful dining room, staring at menus that sounded like they'd been invented by a nutty nineteenth-century professor.

‘Seriously?' Sam said, after a few minutes' silence. ‘Pigs' ears? Cockle ketchup?' He looked at me, bewildered. ‘What the
fuck
?'

I shrugged. ‘It's Heston Blumenthal,' I said. ‘People go mad for this stuff.'

Sam looked depressed. ‘I'm tired,' he said childishly. ‘I want a vindaloo with naan bread and poppadoms.'

For no obvious reason I felt convinced that this was all my fault. ‘Well, then, get a curry,' I snapped defensively. ‘I'll enjoy this world-class, award-winning food and you can eat a bucket of takeaway rubbish on a bench. Deal?'

We had a face-off, which Sam broke first. ‘Sorry,' he said. ‘I'm being a twat.'

I smiled back. ‘Sorry. I'm being bossy.'

Sam's eyes narrowed and I knew he was scheming. I loved his scheming face: it had the subtlety of a jumbo jet. ‘Are you tired, Chas?' he asked me, after a short pause.

I nodded. I'd got up at six to get the train to London.

‘So do you
really
want to sit in a formal restaurant and eat dinner you don't understand?'

Damn him! Of course I didn't. Reluctantly, I shook my head.

‘And when you called the majestic curry a “bucket of takeaway rubbish”, were you just being petulant?'

I nodded even more reluctantly.

Sam slapped his leg triumphantly. ‘That's my girl! Right, we're going to get an Indian takeaway and eat it in your fucking ginormous palace of a bedroom with surround-sound TV and shit.'

It was a very appealing thought – I was exhausted just from sitting at this table – but I felt very anxious about leaving. ‘You can't just walk out of a Heston Blumenthal restaurant!' I whispered.

Sam studied me. ‘Swear on your mother's life that you wouldn't prefer a cuzzer,' he said, ‘and I'll stay.'

I glared at him.

‘Cuzzer or cockle ketchup,' he said softly, on the edge of a giggle.

‘Go on, then.' I sighed. Sam grabbed my hand and squeezed it. ‘Sterling work, Chasmonger!' he said. ‘You go up and I'll nip out and find a takeaway. See you in a bit.'

And with that he sped off, leaving me to explain to an astonished waiter that actually we weren't going to dine after all. ‘Are you quite sure, madam?' He looked like he was going to faint. I just grinned apologetically and fled.

As soon as I arrived back in my room, I realized that the prospect of spending one-on-one time with Sam was terrifying, particularly in a room designed to encourage
luxurious lovemaking. It didn't matter that we'd had a million meals together in my flat over the years. Things had changed. So I ordered a bottle of room service wine at my own expense. I didn't care about being unemployed: being sober was not an option. And while I waited for Sam to return, I had a couple of pre-mixed vodka tonics from the minibar, which meant that, when the phone rang twenty minutes later, I was able to see the funny side in what was happening downstairs.

‘Hi, it's Catrina in Reception,' said an incredibly well-spoken woman. ‘I have … a man here saying he wants to come to your room. He's carrying a plastic bag containing takeaway curry. Is this correct, Miss Lambert?'

I sniggered, covering the mouthpiece with my hand. I could just imagine Bowes strolling in, whistling casually, and the surprise on his face as he was apprehended.

‘Er …' I began, then had to laugh again. I pulled myself together, not without effort. ‘Yes, he's my friend,' I said. ‘And he's not staying over. We're just, um, dining.'

There was a silence. ‘Very well,' Catrina said. ‘Please feel free to call us to remove your empty wrappers so that you do not have to sleep in the smell of takeaway curry.'

I winced to my very core and promised Catrina I'd do just that.

‘Bad times!' Sam said merrily, as he arrived. ‘They think we're chavs!'

‘We are, Bowes. We're eating takeaway curry in the Mandarin Oriental.' He got busy laying out boxes of beautiful-smelling curry on a shiny table, which he pulled over to the window so we could sit on the floor and eat while watching the horses on a floodlit Rotten Row. Sam
was very relieved to see my wine. ‘Thank God, brother,' he said. ‘I bought a bottle but it cost two ninety-nine. It's probably just meths.'

I poured us both a large glass.

Thankfully, soon after, I began to relax properly and also to remember why I enjoyed Sam's company so much. It was just so
easy
.

Providing we kept things light.

The conversation turned to my parents' middle-aged backpacking adventure and Sam seemed enthralled by their tales. ‘They're volunteering at a tiger sanctuary at the moment,' I said. ‘Mum said in her last email that Dad keeps trying to take baby tigers home with him.'

Sam chuckled. ‘Oh, Christian. I'm so glad he's OK again. He's a proper legend, your old man.' He stuck his naan bread into my masala.

I was pleased that Sam loved my mad dad. Dr Nathan Gillies had pointedly misunderstood Dad on the two occasions he'd deigned to meet my family. And even though I'd only been with John for five minutes I knew I'd have been uncomfortable taking him to the ramshackle madness of my childhood home.

Later on Sam – as if reading my mind – asked how I was feeling about John. For a second my heart leaped.
Yesssssss!
I thought wildly.
He's jealous!
But then I remembered that Sam was in the Most Beautiful Couple in Theatreland. He was asking about John because he was my friend.
My friend, my friend, my friend
, I chanted to myself.

Maybe in a few months (years?) I'd start seeing Sam as my friend again. Because I certainly didn't see him as a
friend at the moment. What sound-of-mind woman wanted to passionately kiss her friend the way I wanted to passionately kiss Sam? I couldn't bear how relaxed and beautiful he was, sprawled against a heavy armchair, one finger absently poking about in his ear, his eyes following the horses below us.

‘John,' I said slowly, trying to work out how I felt. John was not in a great place, according to Cassie. When his wife had marched into the office and started screaming at him for sleeping with me (I still felt ill to think that I'd slept with a married man, knowingly or otherwise), Chambers had apparently gone completely insane and threatened to sack him. Had he not just lost his director of comms he probably would have done. Now, I heard, Washington were freezing him out and I presumed that his fat-cat plans were in serious jeopardy.

‘I almost feel sorry for him,' I told Sam truthfully. ‘He's messed up on a monumental scale.'

‘But you'd still do him,' Sam stated confidently.

‘No. No way. Not even because he's married. It's just … that chapter is closed, I guess. He's part of a life I don't want any more.'

‘Wow,' Sam said. He seemed genuinely surprised. ‘I never thought I'd hear you say that!'

I smiled ruefully. ‘Me neither. But the longer I spend away from work, the more I realize how much I'd been wasting my life there. John, Salutech, everything. It was all wrong.' I speared a piece of overcooked lamb on my plastic fork and munched contemplatively. ‘I've been quite a fool,' I admitted. ‘A mad, suit-wearing fool.'

‘That's my brother The Chasman you're talking about. Go easy on her. She just needed to sort her shit out.'

By the time we'd finished the food, Sam was obviously drunk because he opened the bottle of wine he'd got at the takeaway, which smelt – as predicted – like methylated spirits that had once had a brief fling with a few low-quality grapes. ‘Cheers,' he said, whipping out two Curly Wurlys from his coat pocket for dessert. I shook my head despairingly – it was only ever with Sam that I ate stuff like this – but decided what the hell.

Funnily enough it was only around Sam that I didn't care so much about things like my figure.

After dinner we hauled ourselves, tubby and drunk, on to the sofa where we sat staring out of the window at the night sky. I was pleased with how tonight had gone. Things had felt quite normal. There had been no flirting – and, sadly, no snogging – but some of the awkwardness that had crippled me earlier today had gone.

So I was very unsettled when Sam suddenly announced that he was feeling weird.

‘Oh?' I said, instantly on guard.

‘Don't you?' he asked. He was staring fixedly out of the window.

I felt a bit cheated. Had I not just congratulated myself on managing to get through tonight without any awkward moments?
I've been feeling weird enough!
I wanted to shout.
Don't you dare throw any more weirdness into the mix!

‘Weird about what?' I asked him. I tried to sound nonchalant in the hope that he'd take my lead.

He didn't. He just looked frustrated.

‘Chas, we bloody well kissed each other two weeks ago. Don't you feel weirded out by that? I do.'

I was floored. A million thoughts exploded. Weirded out in a bad way or a good way? Had Sam been thinking about our kiss? Oh, God! How much? How did he rate it? And how did he rate me, for that matter? Was it good or bad that he looked so uncomfortable he might have been giving birth to a marrow?

I was frozen to the spot and needed to say something. Tell the truth? Lie? Respond in a different language? Arrgh!

‘A
bit
weird, I suppose,' I said brightly, as if this were all a big silly joke. ‘I mean, it's a bit odd to kiss someone to prove you
don't
like them!' Then I panicked. Was that too much? Did it sound like a hint? Oh God, oh God.

‘Very odd,' Sam said. I poured all of the Scotch in my minibar into two glasses and shoved one at him. ‘But, as far as experiments go, it was pretty conclusive,' he continued, putting down his glass of awful wine. ‘Don't you think?'

Damn you, Bowes
, I thought darkly. Don't you throw this back at me and make it my responsibility. ‘Myugh,' I replied helpfully. It was as noncommittal a sound as I could make.

Sam forced out a laugh. ‘Oh, God. Are we going to have to do it again?'

What?
Had he just said that? I looked at him, blood rushing to my face. ‘You said there was nothing there,' I reminded him, in a very odd voice. ‘Why would you want to re-test now?'

Sam started to blush too. ‘No,
you
said there was nothing.'

‘I was saying that for both of us! Don't make it my fault!'

Sam was now puce.

FUCK!
one side of my brain yelled.
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?

There was a pause.
I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!
the other side replied.

Then both sides of my brain ganged up and made me do something completely insane. ‘If you're not convinced then I suppose I don't mind re-testing,' I heard myself say. My voice had gone distant and third-personish, as if I were hearing it back in an echo.