It Had to Be You (30 page)

The girl didn’t even check. ‘Mr Anderson is waiting in the bar. Would you like to go through?’

The room was already buzzing with Friday-night diners. Elliot was sitting by himself at the bar, staring off into an unseen place beyond the spirit bottles. The tense body language was more indicative of someone about to face the electric chair than have an intimate tête-à-tête.

Lizzy walked up behind him. ‘Hello,’ she said awkwardly.

It seemed to take him a second to realize who she was. ‘Hi. You found it OK?’

‘Yes, no probs.’ She clambered up on the stool next to him, a perilous exercise in her heels and dress. By contrast, Elliot was dressed in jeans and a sober navy blazer. Lizzy felt like a Christmas decoration that had accidentally blown into January.

‘What can I get you to drink?’ he asked.

The sweet, funny, nervous Elliot that Lizzy had last seen standing on her doorstep was gone. Stiff, formal Elliot was back in his place. Lizzy’s heart began to sink. Had he been having second thoughts?

‘Glass of white wine please.’ Lizzy was about to commit the cardinal sin – drink white wine on a first date and on an empty stomach – but she needed the Dutch courage.

At least there was the spectacular view to get distracted by. Thousands of lit-up windows looked back at Lizzy, twinkling like a starry night. Dominating it all was St Paul’s Cathedral, pushing up out of the sharp metallic landscape like a giant mushroom. The Shard was off in the far distance. How Lizzy wished she was over there right now instead of this slow-motion car crash she was a front-seat passenger in.

‘It’s amazing here, how did you get us in?’

Elliot drained his beer. ‘I know one of the guys who owns it.’ He gestured to the barman. ‘Can I get another one of these?’

Things didn’t improve when they sat down.

‘How’s work?’ she asked.

‘Fine,’ he muttered. ‘For the third time.’

Lizzy gazed desperately round the restaurant. Everyone else was getting on like a house on fire. They might as well have employed a band of travelling minstrels to dance round their own table singing: ‘Look away now! Awkward first date!’ Or, even worse: ‘These two should have stayed as mates!’

A merciful intervention was provided in the form of their waiter. Handing Lizzy and Elliot a menu he started to reel off their specials. Unable to remember the specials at the best of times, Lizzy didn’t take a single word in.

Elliot seemed to be suffering from the same predicament. ‘What did you say the cod loin came with?’

The waiter looked down at his pad. ‘Pancetta, puy lentils and sun-dried tomatoes.’

‘Would you say the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable?’ Elliot asked him.

The man looked rather surprised. ‘It’s a vegetable, isn’t it?’

‘You see!’ Lizzy said triumphantly. ‘I’m not the only one in the world!’

‘My friend here gets a bit mixed up with her fruit and vegetables.’ Elliot had a familiar gleam in his eyes.

‘
Technically
a tomato may be a fruit,’ Lizzy said loftily (she’d since Googled it), ‘but that’s just semantics. You don’t get pear and tomato tart, do you? Or a tomato crumble and custard?’

Elliot crossed his arms. ‘It’s a fruit, give it up.’

‘It’s a bloody vegetable!’

The waiter arched an eyebrow. ‘Tell you what, I’ll leave you two to fight it out and I’ll come back when you’re finished?’

It was like someone had suddenly taken a bottle stopper out of the evening and released all the tension.

‘You’re so annoying,’ she told Elliot. ‘I’m going to make you a tomato crumble now and force you to eat it.’

The waiter came back and took their orders. Elliot was the wine expert, so Lizzy let him choose. After extensive deliberation he decided on something unpronounceable from the Rhône Valley.

Wine poured, they sat back and faced each other again. ‘I have to say, you don’t scrub up that badly.’ He was back to his normal bullish self.

‘I don’t normally wear dresses. You’re very lucky.’ Lizzy took a sip of her wine. It was deliciously heady.

‘Black suits you. It makes you look very …’

‘Elegant?’ she prompted.

Amusement flashed in the green eyes. ‘I’ll give you elegant. Although I’m still expecting you to pull out a clutch bag in the shape of a frog or a parasol with poodles on it.’

‘You can talk. I’m not the one with the duck-print onesie.’

‘
Your
duck-print onesie,’ he corrected her. ‘And it was an emergency. An emergency that you took great pleasure exploiting, might I add.’

‘You didn’t seem to mind being exploited. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a male over the age of five look so comfortable in an avian-themed romper suit.’

They pulled childish faces at each other. Lizzy felt a familiar glow of warm delight.
This is more like it!

‘Well, you could have made more of an effort,’ she said.

‘What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?’

‘You look like you’re going boating.’

Elliot picked up his wine glass. ‘This from a woman who bases her sartorial style on Doctor Doolittle.’ He looked down his nose at her. ‘On second thoughts I don’t think I do like you in a cocktail dress. You’re even more full of yourself.’

Starters and main courses came and went. The food was utterly delicious and for some reason, instantly forgettable. All Lizzy could concentrate on was the infuriating, tousle-haired, freckle-nosed man sitting opposite her.

They shared a salted-caramel chocolate tart for dessert. Elliot was being surprisingly agreeable, although Lizzy didn’t suppose hitting your companion over the knuckles with your fork was de rigueur in a five-star restaurant.

Their waiter came back. ‘Can I get you coffees, any liqueurs?’

Lizzy glanced round. To her surprise most of the other tables were empty. They must have been there for hours.

‘Coffee?’ Elliot asked her.

Coffee = coffee breath
. ‘I’m fine thank you.’

He looked back at the waiter. ‘Can we just get the bill?’

When it came Elliot insisted on paying again. ‘The owner owes me a favour.’ The gleam in his eye hinted they might have got the table through the means of blackmail.

They made their way through the restaurant. Lizzy was in front and she suddenly felt rather exposed and self-conscious. Was Elliot checking out her bum and legs?

The door back out to reception was wide enough for them both to get through, but Elliot stepped aside. There was no reason to touch her, but as Lizzy went through the door she felt Elliot momentarily put his hand on the small of her back. A shock surged up her spine and splintered off into the rest of her body.
This is crazy!
the rational part of her brain thought.
How can Elliot suddenly have this effect on me?

There was only one girl left at the reception desk. ‘I’ll just get your coats.’ She disappeared off through a discreet doorway.

Alone for the first time that evening, the easy camaraderie drained away. The subtext that had been hovering on the sidelines all evening finally forced its way to the front.
Hello! It’s me! Sexual tension! You might as well acknowledge me because I’m not going anywhere!

Lizzy had suddenly become acutely aware of every detail of Elliot’s physicality: his height, the broadness of his shoulders, the way he always stood slightly back on his heels as if he were assessing something. There was a triangle of smooth pale chest behind the undone top button of his shirt. She had an insane desire to reach out and stroke it.

They stood looking at each other. ‘What do you want to do?’ he asked.

The sentence was so loaded it could have started firing off rounds.

‘I d-don’t mind,’ she stuttered. ‘We could go to a bar …’

The words caught in her throat as Elliot took one of her hands and held it in both of his. His warm firm fingers encircled her wrist.

Lizzy’s heart rate accelerated from first gear straight into fifth. Elliot’s thumb moved up a fraction to lightly stroke the fleshy bit of her palm. A chain reaction went off inside Lizzy’s body.

‘What do you want to do?’ she whispered.

His gaze was electric. ‘Take you back to mine.’

They’d left their hot, stolen moment in the reception on the tenth floor of the building. Now they were back into fresh air and real life again.

Somehow Elliot had managed to regain his normal composure. ‘Are you going to be OK?’ he said, looking at Lizzy’s heels. ‘It’s a bit of a walk, but the river is stunning this time of night.’

Lizzy was fine to walk. All normal feeling had vacated her body. She was electric. She felt as light as a feather. She could have danced all the way to Timbuktu in these bad boys.

Other couples were walking past, arms wrapped round each other. Elliot kept his hands in his pockets as he walked alongside, but still close enough to brush against Lizzy’s arm every now and again. She snuck a look at his profile. Was he feeling the same as her?

‘Are you cold?’ he asked suddenly. ‘I can give you my jacket.’

‘No, I’m fine.’ Lizzy didn’t feel cold. She couldn’t feel anything except the slow
dur-dur dur-dur dur-dur
drumming of her heart.

They made their way through Southbank with its street buskers and food stalls, past the Royal Festival Hall and on to the London Eye. Elliot pointed out various historical and architectural facts to Lizzy along the way, but it felt like a charade they were both going through. London was so beautiful that night, under an almost clear moonlit sky, but all she was aware of was the energy between them and the shower of invisible sparks that went off every time she and Elliot made physical contact.

Even at that late hour the river was busy. Taxi boats chugged past with their last passengers for the night, and a police speedboat swooshed through the dark waters, leaving a tide in its wake. On the other side were Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. It made Lizzy suddenly think of Justin and the infamous thirtieth birthday party. How weird that the worst thing that had ever happened to her had brought her and Elliot together.

They stopped to look at the view. ‘That’s the roof of the Savoy,’ Elliot told her. ‘Did you know it’s where The Queen and Prince Philip went public for the first time as a couple?’

‘I didn’t know. I thought I was supposed to be the one who was up on celebrity gossip.’

‘Do you think they’ll stand in front of the restaurant and say that about us in years to come?’ He gazed down at her and the lights from the river seemed to be shining in his eyes. ‘That was the first official date for Headbutt Girl and that grumpy ginger arse from off the telly?’

Then it happened again. Just like that strange moment at the restaurant in Chinatown where everything around them had stilled. The Thames shrivelled into a thin trickle and the iconic buildings seemed to flatten and dissolve. It was like Lizzy and Elliot were the only people who had ever been in the world.

‘Lizzy,’ he said simply. Cupping her face in his hands, he leant in and kissed her.

A moment later he pulled away. ‘Are you all right?’ he said uncertainly. ‘You seem a little … distracted.’

‘I’m fine,’ she gasped, still reeling from the revelation. Elliot did the holding-a-girl’s-face-thing! Wait until she told Poppet! Lizzy took a breath to collect herself. ‘As you were.’

He gave a relieved grin. ‘Come here, you nutter.’

With that, he grabbed Lizzy by her coat collar and kissed her right out of her shoes.

Elliot lived in a spectacular glass-fronted block overlooking the Thames. His two-bedroom apartment had been designed with sharp minimalist lines and had a view straight out on to the river.

Lizzy had dived straight into the bathroom as soon as they’d arrived and was horrified by the clown-like apparition that looked back at her. Her red lipstick was now smeared all round her mouth. It was Elliot’s fault for being such a good kisser. Who
knew
? she thought in wonder. Who knew that mouth, the same bad-tempered mouth that hurled out insults and general all-round grouchiness, was also capable of such softness and …
sexiness
?

Lizzy pressed her forehead against the mirror. The cool glass was a respite against the burning thoughts that were whirling round her mind.
Oh God
. They were probably about to get naked in front of each other for the first time. What if her body repulsed him? What if he had something hideously wrong with his willy? Would the sex be the disaster zone it had been with Reuben?

‘You don’t have to sleep with him,’ she said to her feverish, glittery-eyed reflection, knowing at the same time that she really, really wanted to.

There was a soft tap on the door. ‘Are you all right in there?’ Elliot called.

‘Coming!’ Lizzy stood up and snapped her clutch bag shut. It was too late to back out now.

When she returned to the living room Elliot was standing by the window. He’d only switched one lamp on, creating a more intimate feel. There was a bottle of red wine and two glasses on the coffee table. Lizzy felt another prickle of anticipation.

It was a beautiful apartment and yet, Lizzy had already noticed, also a very masculine apartment. There hadn’t been any expensive shampoos or eye-creams in the bathroom, and there weren’t candles or fashion magazines lying under the glass coffee table, or any other little signs a woman’s touch might once have been around the place. If there had ever been any evidence of Amber’s existence it certainly wasn’t here now.

It was
weird
how they’d been engaged and hadn’t lived together. At a time when they should have been gleefully feathering the marital nest, Elliot and Amber had been living miles apart, in separate areas of London. Had Amber deliberately kept her fiancé at arm’s length because she’d known something wasn’t right between them?

She realized Elliot was studying her. ‘You’ve got that pensive look about you again,’ he told her.

‘I’m fine. Really.’ Lizzy had kicked her heels off by the front door and now Elliot seemed even taller than ever. His eyes glowed in the half-light, the dark shadows accentuating his high cheekbones. Lizzy felt another lurch deep in the pit of her stomach.