Practically Perfect (17 page)

There were a few of the boys they’d known at college there, too, and Zara, who had a good memory, introduced everyone. ‘And this is Anna,’ she said. ‘Interior Design, same year as me. I don’t think you ever taught her,’ she added, to Max Gordon.

‘Oh yes I did,’ he said softly. ‘She was the one who got away.’ And looked at her with something that even she had no trouble in recognising as approval.

Zara regarded Anna with her head on her side, silently accusing her of being a dark horse. Anna looked down. Actually being in Max’s presence after dreaming about him for so long was almost too heady for her.

The exchanges of achievements took up most of the conversation. Anna didn’t join in. If anyone asked her directly what she was up to, she would tell them. For now she was just happy to be in the orbit of Max Gordon. He had always been smart, but in a dinner jacket he was stunning – even more so now, she thought, than he had done at their Graduation Ball.

‘I want to dance!’ said Zara. ‘Come on, Max.’ Gaily, she dragged him on to the floor. He didn’t seem exactly reluctant.

Following Zara’s example, the others paired off and headed for the area set aside for dancing. Anna and a couple of the other boys stayed sitting at the bar. While she did manage to keep up a reasonable flow of conversation, Anna’s mind was dizzy with thoughts of Max. She could ask him to dance, of course. It wouldn’t look strange, forward, or presumptuous. They were equals now. He had remembered her. But it had all gone so wrong the last time. It would probably go wrong again! Yet she knew she had had to come, no matter how the evening turned out.

Couples drifted to and from the dance floor, but still Anna sat, wishing she did have the nerve to drag someone off to dance, if only to stop herself looking such a wallflower. It was quite hard to keep an expression of polite enjoyment fixed on her face.

Max and Zara came back, Zara looking very cheerful.
Anna
wondered if she’d done more than dance with him, and knew that if she had, they’d all hear about it in the taxi back. Anna couldn’t look at her watch without taking her gloves off, and that would be a bit of a palaver. How soon could she go home without looking like a party pooper?

‘Come on, you.’ Max’s voice jerked her out of her daydream. ‘You haven’t danced yet.’

He took her hand and she trotted after him, wondering if one could actually die of ecstasy. By the time they’d got to the square of parquet she’d decided he was only asking to dance with her out of kindness, and she shouldn’t regard it.

He didn’t bop about like most men, he took her into his arms in the old-fashioned way and, somehow, she managed to follow his lead. She thanked the gods for making her watch that series about ballroom dancing – at least she could make the top half of her look right, even if her feet were all over the place.

‘Right,’ he said, when the track came to an end. ‘That’s the formalities over, let’s go where we can talk. Why didn’t you ring me?’

Chapter Ten

MAX LED ANNA
to a part of the hotel she hadn’t been to before. The music was still audible, but not so loud as to preclude conversation. There were sofas and chairs set around a low table, but no one else was there.

‘Would you like a drink?’ Max asked.

‘Mm. Sparkling water please. I’m quite thirsty.’ She was also determined not to drink any more alcohol. She didn’t want her senses remotely befuddled: this was her moment, the one she’d been dreaming of for so long. He
had
remembered her; he’d asked her to dance; and then he’d taken her somewhere away from the others so they could talk. She could be in the portal of heaven. She settled back in her chair, trying to prevent a blissful smile from creeping over her face.

He came back with her water and something short in a glass for himself. ‘Here you are. I hope you like it. It’s the best brand they had.’

‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ she said, and took a sip. Now she would have to make conversation. She took a breath to do this but he interrupted her.

‘Now, tell me why you didn’t ring me.’

Although she’d rehearsed this explanation in her head a million times, she hadn’t expected to have to deliver it. She took another breath.

‘I was devastated,’ he went on, before she could speak.
‘I
really thought we had a connection.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘We did, didn’t we?’

‘Er – yes! I thought so. But I got flu and – er – lost your number. I was devastated, too. I thought about you for months.’ She smiled, pleased with this little lie. It made her sound so grown up and normal.

‘You didn’t go out of my head for years.’

She took a sip of her drink, not sure if she believed him but pleased all the same.

‘So,’ he said. ‘What happened to you after you walked out of my life?’

She giggled a little, feeling more relaxed. ‘I didn’t walk out of your life. As I recall, I was in a taxi.’

His smile gave her butterflies. ‘You walked to get into the taxi.’

‘But you were with me! You put me in the taxi!’ She remembered having to rip herself away from him, like Velcro. She had so wanted to follow her instincts and desires and go to bed with him. Leaving him had taken real moral effort. At that second she resolved she wouldn’t make the same choice again. If he asked her to go to bed with him tonight, she’d go.

‘So what have been doing with your life without me? You didn’t carry on and do architecture, did you? As I remember, you had real potential.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘You stayed with Interior Design.’ He glanced at her sideways, his smile more noticeable in his eyes than on his mouth. ‘Cop-out.’

She sat up straighter, her own smile tugging hard at the corners of her mouth. ‘Did you bring me all the way over here to insult me?’

‘Not necessarily, but if it seems appropriate …’

The twinkle in his eyes made it almost impossible not
to
respond but she was determined not to let him off.

‘Why would it be? Interior Design is a perfectly respectable profession. It’s not lap dancing, you know.’ Not all her indignation was fake; she’d had this conversation before.

‘Let’s face it, it’s thinking up colour schemes for rich women who are too idle to do it themselves. They need you to arrange the scatter cushions.’

Usually these sorts of remarks infuriated her. Now they made her want to giggle helplessly. ‘Rubbish! I don’t arrange scatter cushions! I haven’t even got any scatter cushions!’

He put his head on one side and looked intently into her eyes. ‘So what do you do, then? Don’t tell me you’re actually in IT, or Sales, or something entirely unconnected with your expensive education.’

She swallowed, biting her lip to stop herself laughing. Flirting with an expert was such glorious fun. ‘Not at all. I’m doing up a house, which I shall sell at a vast profit.’

‘Oh, really? You must have a lot of money, then. If you come from a rich family, why didn’t you carry on and get qualified as an architect?’

‘I don’t come from a rich family!’ Her hand flew out to touch him reproachfully but she snatched it back. ‘My sister and I did inherit a bit of money. We bought a flat and sold it at a profit, but that’s all the money I’ll ever inherit.’

‘So how did you get the money to buy a house, then?’

He was being appallingly rude. Why did she find it so attractive? ‘I got a mortgage, like everyone else. And a bit of a loan from my sister.’

‘And have you got good builders?’

‘I’m doing most of it myself.’

The smile danced between his eyes and his mouth. It
might
have been in both places but she could only look at one at a time; both places were utterly fascinating. ‘Nonsense, you’re telling the builders where to put the scatter cushions.’

This time she allowed herself to put her hand on his sleeve. ‘What is it with you and scatter cushions?’

He put his hand on top of hers. ‘I like to see you animated. The colour in your cheeks really suits you. But why won’t you tell me what you really do?’

She sighed, frustrated but enjoying herself enormously. ‘I told you, I’ve bought a house in the Cotswolds, and I’m doing it up.’

‘My mother lives in Gloucestershire. Where is your house?’ Max asked.

‘Amberford. Near Stroud.’

‘Oh, but that’s where my mother lives!’

The words ‘I know’ were bitten back just in time. Anna drank more water, so glad she’d declined alcohol.

He leant forward, very interested now, keeping hold of her hand. She wished she wasn’t wearing gloves so she could feel the heat of his fingers properly. He was probably planning to ask her to design an en suite for his mother, she told herself, fighting to keep her imagination from going into orbit. Or an airing cupboard.

‘So who are your builders?’ he said, almost serious now. ‘I’m looking for someone reliable to work on my mother’s house.’

I knew it, she thought. He’s not remotely interested in me, he just thinks I might be useful. ‘I haven’t got builders! I told you, I’m doing it myself!’

‘Oh, come on!’

Anna regarded him, more confident now and exhilarated by their argument. ‘You don’t believe me?’

‘Frankly, no.’

Some memory of an old film, watched aeons ago by her and her sister one wet Sunday afternoon when they were little girls, flitted into her mind. For all she knew it had Audrey Hepburn in it. She withdrew her hand and sat up straight. Then she started to take off one of her gloves, slowly, fingertip by fingertip, until her hand was free, then she pulled off the rest of it in one moderately graceful movement. ‘Look!’ she said.

He took hold of her hand and held it, inspecting her fingers, her varnished but sorely mistreated fingernails, the scars and scabs and smears of paint.

‘Wow,’ he breathed. ‘You really are doing it yourself.’

Suddenly losing confidence, she snatched her hand away and started to put on her glove again. The touch of his fingers on hers was making her visibly shake. ‘So, what are
you
doing these days?’ she asked, wishing she really was in an old film and had her lines written for her.

‘I have my own architectural practice. We’re very busy.’

‘That’s nice for you.’

‘There’s no need to be so prickly, although’ – he smiled down at her – ‘there is something very attractive about it. I am genuinely impressed by what you’re doing. Tell me about your house.’

At last Anna let herself relax. She pulled off the glove that she’d only half got on and sat back in her chair. Asking her to talk about her house was like asking a new mother to talk about her baby. ‘The staircase is going to be really tricky,’ she finished.

‘And it’s listed?’

She nodded.

‘That’s a bit of a pain, isn’t it.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘And is the listed buildings officer an officious bastard?’

Anna thought carefully. At the outset she had certainly been thinking of Rob Hunter along those lines, but now she wondered if that was fair. ‘Well, no, he’s been very helpful actually, although admittedly he wouldn’t have known about my original plans for the staircase if he hadn’t been in my house for some other reason.’

‘They’re all jobsworths. I would never buy a listed building,’ Max went on. ‘I really cannot stand my aesthetic taste being criticised by people who aren’t even properly qualified.’

‘It’s not quite like that,’ said Anna carefully, ‘and my house is lovely. It would be criminal to put in patio doors, really.’

His lazy smile penetrated deep into her stomach and caused havoc. ‘Oh well, it’s probably a good idea for your aesthetic taste to be criticised.’

Anna touched her top lip with her tongue. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my aesthetic taste, I assure you.’

‘Sorry, I was forgetting, you’re qualified to arrange scatter cushions.’

She threw a beer mat at him and he got to his feet, pulling her to hers at the same time. ‘Let’s dance some more,’ he murmured.

Anna felt like Bambi on ice. It was partly her natural gangliness and partly the effect Max had on her knees. Eventually Max just put his arms round her and she put hers round his neck.

‘That’s better,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘I didn’t wear my steel-toecapped boots this evening.’

‘Nor did I,’ muttered Anna, wishing she could control her limbs a bit better.

Eventually, the music stopped; the evening was over. He led her to the door and the butterflies in Anna’s stomach made a bid for freedom.

‘Sweetheart,’ he said softly, having steered her to a little lobby away from the main foyer. ‘I’ve got an old friend staying so I won’t ask you back for a drink. We’d just have to talk to him and he’s terribly boring. Besides …’

‘What?’

‘I don’t think I could stand spending the rest of the evening looking at you and not …’ His eyes narrowed in a lazy smile.

‘What?’ asked Anna, more insistently this time.

‘I’m sure you know.’ He brushed a lock of hair off her face and behind her ear, then he let his finger trail along the line of her jaw. It stopped at her chin, which he raised slightly, then he outlined her mouth in a way that made Anna’s breath become very short. ‘I really want to see you again. Would that be possible?’