If the Shoe Fits (16 page)

“Crap!”

Charming was due to arrive in twenty minutes or so, and Eleanor was a mess. She'd stripped to her underwear so that she could try on the clothes before deciding whether they would be kept or not. The process of trying on at least twenty tops had done untold damage to the dressing on Eleanor's boob, and had long since been discarded, along with her bra. The reflection from the mirror showed a frazzled young woman with a slightly red boob staring back at her. And her legs definitely could do with a shave.

“Damn.”

With only eighteen precious minutes left, and a bath out of the question for medical reasons, Eleanor started to have a mild panic attack. She glanced around the bedroom looking for inspiration. Face brightening, she suddenly remembered the electric shaver she'd had a few birthdays ago and dug around her bedside cabinet to retrieve it. Finding it quickly, she plugged it in and began de-fuzzing her legs with one hand, while she brushed her hair with the other.

Five minutes later — and with only twelve minutes to spare — Eleanor was fuzz-free, but still virtually naked. She checked that her thong was positioned as it should be, admired the smoothness of her legs, and wasted another minute or so trying to work out what to wear.

Of course, the dilemma shouldn't really be too hard because Eleanor wasn't planning to keep her clothes on for a very long time anyway. Still, she knew it was better to dress a present up in order for it to be unwrapped.

With this in mind, Eleanor decided to wear trousers. Jeans made her butt look cute, true; but trousers had the advantage of being easily removed. Likewise, she chose a blouse to team with the trousers, buttons being so wonderfully prone to accidental un-doings. Eleanor fluffed her hair to give it a tousled look, and put a healthy glob of lip gloss on her lips.

“There, subtly sexy,” she said happily.

Now all she had to do was get rid of the cat.

• • •

“I'm not going anywhere.”

“Muse, be reasonable. I'm pretty sure that Max isn't going to like being run off by a cat for two nights in a row.”

Muse sat on her hind legs and blinked slowly. If it were at all possible, Eleanor guessed that the cat would cross her paws, such was her obvious disapproval.

“Muse,
please
. He'll be here any minute.”

“I'll be fine right here,” said the irritating cat. “I won't be a bother.”

“You'll stay in the kitchen?” asked Eleanor doubtfully. “You won't attempt to enter the living room?”

“I have no wish to see you performing unnatural acts.”

Unnatural? Privately, Eleanor thought that the acts she was planning weren't in any way unnatural at all, but perhaps now wasn't the time to mention it.

“I'd like to register my complete disapproval, of course,” said Muse, sitting a little straighter.

“That goes without saying,” muttered Eleanor.

“And I also think that you are going about this in the wrong way entirely. Men like a challenge, you know.”

“Objection duly noted,” said Eleanor quickly, having heard the door. “Now stay here and
don't
interfere.”

Eleanor hobbled to the front door and opened it with a flourish. Max greeted her with a frown and walked right in.

“What now? I swear I haven't been out since I got home earlier.”

His face immediately cleared and he grinned.

“Glad to hear it, but actually I wasn't annoyed at you. I was just mentally kicking myself because I didn't have a key. I was hoping to surprise you.”

Max had given her key back earlier that day, seeing as she wouldn't have been able to get into her house without it.

“Well, it wasn't as if I didn't know you were coming, so a surprise was hardly likely, now, was it?” said Eleanor lightly.

“No,” he conceded. “I have to admit I was hoping to catch you unawares all the same. Especially if you were doing something you shouldn't, like cleaning or some other such craziness.”

“Cleaning is crazy?”

“It is when you're supposed to be resting.”

“So why would you want to catch me doing it, then?”

“Because that would make you a very naughty girl, and I would have had to punish you accordingly.”

Eleanor pondered whether she should reveal her afternoon activities, and smothered a grin. Really, Max was the perfect man for her. His sense of naughtiness was right up her street.

“So, shall I put this on to some plates?” he asked, holding up a carrier bag.

“Ooh, food! Excellent! Why don't I take that from you?”

Eleanor took the bag before Max could refuse and ushered him into the living room. She gently pushed him on to the sofa, winked, and hobbled to the kitchen.

“I can do that,” he protested.

“No, I'm fine! I'll be back before you know it. There's wine on the table, help yourself.”

Eleanor pushed the door closed with her bad foot, stifled a wince, and quickly gathered some plates. She dished the food out haphazardly and gave Muse a warning glance as she grabbed a couple of forks.

“Don't forget, you stay here,” she whispered.

Muse affected a glare and twitched her whiskers as Eleanor took the plates from the table and exited the kitchen.

“This is turning in to a bit of a habit,” she said as she sat down. “I could get used to it.”

“Take-out food is the best, isn't it?” said Max. “There's so many other more interesting things we could be doing instead of slaving over a stove.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“You seem to be walking better today,” he remarked, eyeing her foot speculatively.

“It's still sore, but I can get around all right. Honestly, I could easily go back to work tomorrow.”

Max gave her a stern look and she giggled.

“Well, perhaps not,” she said lightly.

They both spent the next few minutes silently contemplating each other as they nibbled on their meals. Eleanor didn't have a clue was Max was thinking, but if it was anything like what was going through
her
mind, it had nothing to do with the food. Would she seem a little slutty if she was the first to mention that she would much rather satisfy a different kind of appetite?

“Um,”

“Eleanor?”

They both grinned sheepishly, and Eleanor gestured for Max to speak first.

“I think I'm right in assuming that you're still of the same mind as last night? I mean, I
hope
I'm right in assuming that.”

Eleanor cleared her throat and took a hefty mouthful of pilau rice in an effort to stop herself screaming a very definite “yes” at him. She contented herself by nodding her head and smiling.

“That's good,” said Max, sighing loudly. “I thought I might have turned you off the idea when I manhandled you into the taxi earlier.”

“To be truthful, it was the manhandling that convinced me that I was definitely making the right decision,” said Eleanor saucily.

“A girl after my own heart,” he replied, grinning wickedly.

Eleanor grabbed a naan bread and proceeded to pull it to pieces. She was pretty sure that she was moments away from being thoroughly seen to — as Jake would call it — and was on tenterhooks.

Max placed his plate on the table and relieved Eleanor of the naan bread. He pulled her towards him and Eleanor brought her hands up to his chest, making sure she slipped a button open on her blouse as she did so. Happily, Max appeared to be of the same mind, because he immediately started on the next button down. Eleanor leaned back to make things easier, and decided that Max's neck looked like an interesting place to start investigating, when suddenly the man in question pulled back.

“Can you smell burning?” he asked.

“No. Wait, I can smell
something
, but I'm not sure … ”

Eleanor was cut off by the screech of a smoke detector, making her cover her ears and glare towards the kitchen.

“I'll bloody kill that cat!”

Max gave her a questioning look, and Eleanor shook her head. She stood up, muttering darkly to herself, and made her way to the kitchen.

“Oh. My. God.”

The stove was on fire. At least, several tea towels, which were piled on top of the stove, were on fire. Muse was sat on the table with a magazine held between her teeth, and was wafting waves of smoke upwards. Max hurried up behind Eleanor and Muse promptly dropped the magazine and jumped onto the floor.

“What the hell? Eleanor, why is your stove on fire?”

“I really couldn't say,” she said through clenched teeth, which was perfectly true because Max would surely think she was crazy if she told him that her cat was responsible for setting her kitchen alight, with the intent of stopping her mistress from losing her knickers.

Max rushed forward and turned the gas off, while Eleanor filled a kettle with water to douse the flames. The fire was put out without much effort at all, but the smoke detector continued to screech for a further ten minutes, by which time both Eleanor and Max had the beginnings of very bad headaches.

“Maybe we should call it a night,” said Max.

“No! I have painkillers! And we haven't finished our meal.”
And you haven't ripped my clothes off!

Muse chose that moment to have a fit of spitting. Doing her best imitation of an irate cat, she hissed, growled, and generally made a lot of noise in Max's direction.

“Your cat definitely doesn't like me,” said Max warily.

“Nonsense!” said Eleanor weakly. “She's probably a bit hyper because of the fire. You know what animals can be like. Very sensitive.”

Max looked doubtful at this, while Muse gave Eleanor a look that could only be described as mocking.

“I'm sure she'll be fine in a few minutes,” said Eleanor. “
Won't
you, Muse?”

Max held a tentative hand out towards the cat, and almost got it bitten off for his trouble. Muse hissed a bit more for added affect, and Max stepped back, holding his hands up in defeat.

“Why don't we try this again? I'm busy tomorrow night, but how about Thursday? Third time lucky?”

Eleanor opened her mouth to protest, but Muse was still spitting and she knew she was out-maneuvered.

“I'll take you out instead,” said Max firmly. “And maybe we could go back to my place afterwards?”

“I suppose so,” said Eleanor grudgingly, fixing Muse with a glare worthy of Medusa. “
You
don't have a cat, do you?”

“No,” snorted Max. “Definitely not.”

Muse gave one last hiss at this remark, and sauntered into the living room. By the time Eleanor had said goodbye to Max — and goodbye to any night-time naughtiness along with him — Muse had settled herself on the sofa and was grooming leisurely.

“I'm. Going. To. Strangle. You. You promised!”

“Now, now, Ella, don't be silly. I promised I'd stay in the kitchen, which is exactly what I did.”

“Don't split hairs, you know exactly what I mean!”

“I never promised you anything except that I would not enter the living room. I kept my word.”

“So the tea-towel burning thing was a complete accident, was it?”

“Of course. I would never do something as silly as starting a fire. Goodness.”

“I imagined you waving last week's
Hello
in the air then, did I?”

“I was merely swatting a fly, dear, that's all.”

“You do realize that you completely ruined my evening, don't you?”

“Really? Oh dear. Though I must say, although I would certainly never do anything as underhand as purposely spoiling your plans, I'm rather glad this little accident happened.”

“I just bet you are.”

“Don't pout, Ella, it isn't becoming.”

Eleanor bit her tongue and silently entertained herself with various images of how to take a cat's life. All nine of them.

Having decided that going to work would not be a very good idea, Eleanor had the luxury of waking up naturally the following morning. Muse, who usually greeted Eleanor with a good kneading on her back, was noticeably absent, which probably meant that she was avoiding her. This was fortunate, because Eleanor was still pretty ticked off at her cat for ruining her plans from the previous evening. Not for the first time, Eleanor wished that her cat was a plain old
normal
puss, who didn't talk and give silly advice about Happy-Ever-Afters.

Muttering under her breath, Eleanor stepped out of bed and was happy to discover that her foot throbbed only minimally. She tested her full weight, and realized that as long as she was careful, she should be able to walk quite easily.

A quick shower, followed by a hasty breakfast later — with Muse still out of the picture — and Eleanor found herself contemplating what to do with her extra time off. Just what
could
you do at ten o'clock on a Wednesday morning, anyway?

She wandered into the living room and flicked the TV on, surfing the channels listlessly. She had a choice of
Jeremy Kyle, Dora the Explorer
and re-runs of
Catchphrase
. Not really a choice at all, if she was honest. She turned the TV off in disgust and dug through the pile of magazines that were piled haphazardly under the table. Maybe there was a page or two that she had missed on her first perusal.

She was just re-reading a particularly juicy piece of celebrity gossip when her phone rang. Leaning over the chair, she picked the phone up and threw the magazine back on the pile.

“Hello? Incredibly bored person speaking!”

“Ella, darling! I'm
so
glad you got your phone fixed!”

“I didn't,” she replied in surprise. She'd forgotten all about it, actually. “Maybe it was just an area fault or something. Anyway, what's up, Jake?”

“Darling, I'm in hiding,” he said frantically.