Unsuitable Men (42 page)

‘Jim, did Auntie Lyd say where she was going out tonight?’ I asked, my anxiety levels rising.

‘Relax, Rory,’ he said. ‘She’s meeting Lysander in a restaurant in the Old Town. I already checked. We’re not going to run into her.’

‘In that case here’s fine,’ I said, relieved. He held the door open for me and ushered me through, his hand lightly brushing my back as he led me up to the zinc bar.

A sullen waitress regarded us blankly. ‘Reservation?’ she asked. I was just about to explain that we didn’t have one when the owner appeared, bursting out of the kitchen with
his hands outstretched.

‘
La nièce Devereux!
’ he exclaimed, pushing his waitress out of the way. She pouted crossly behind him as he took my hands. ‘She is better –
la tante
?
Oui? Oh, la divine Lydia.
Such a shock – for us, for you! Tell her she must come to see me – soon, soon.’

I promised I would and he pinched my cheek happily as if I was a toddler instead of a woman of nearly thirty. He beckoned over another waitress, who batted her eyelashes at Jim flirtatiously as
she led us to a table in the window.

The owner brought round a complementary glass of champagne each, although, this being a rustic sort of place, it was served in a chunky tumbler instead of a flute. Even so it made Jim’s
hand look enormous as he held it up to make a toast.

‘To Lydia,’ he said, touching my glass with his own.

‘To Auntie Lyd,’ I said.

Sitting by the window was an unexpected bonus. It was still just light outside and Venn Street was busy with cinema-goers and early evening drinkers. That gave me plenty of opportunities to keep
up a steady flow of chatter by pointing out people walking past, and dogs, and asking him if he’d seen any good films lately; anything to stop him from bringing the conversation around to
anything tricky. I had thought I was doing rather well until Jim put his hand over mine.

‘Relax, Rory,’ he said.

Which of course made me tense up with annoyance. No one likes to be told to relax. It’s like being told to calm down; guaranteed to have the opposite effect. Avoiding Jim’s gaze, I
flicked my eyes up to the clock behind the zinc bar. It was still only seven-thirty. The waitress caught me looking over, and hurried towards us with her pad ready. I hadn’t made up my mind
yet, but was glad that her presence distracted Jim for a moment. I was uncomfortably aware of his eyes on me all the time. I made sure to ask plenty of questions about how things were cooked, and
exactly what was in several sauces, before I made up my mind to have a
steak-frites.
When she’d taken our order I looked at the clock again. Seven-thirty-five. Perhaps there was
something wrong with that clock. Maybe it was running slow or something. I tried to look at my phone without Jim seeing; the display showed that time had not yet stood still. It was
seven-thirty-six.

‘Checking for more sexy texts?’ said Jim, who had of course noticed what I was doing.

‘Jim, I think you’ve got totally the wrong idea about me,’ I said.

‘I’m not judging, Dawn,’ he grinned, and dropped me a cheeky wink that said otherwise.

I felt my face begin to redden again. It was hard to defend myself from implicit accusations of getting about a bit when Jim had been keeping himself more than updated on my stupid excuse for a
love life thanks to the
Country House
website.

‘I’m really not that sort of girl,’ I insisted, sounding ridiculously prim for someone whose very recent sexual partner had been intercepted by Jim the morning after. And then
those awful texts from Luke. Was it any wonder Jim thought I was going to leap on him any second?

He just laughed. ‘So you say.’

‘Look, I know you think I got Auntie Lyd to set this up so you’d have to go out to dinner with me,’ I blurted. My cheeks burned.

‘No, I don’t,’ he said, looking surprised.

‘Yes you do,’ I protested.

‘I don’t.’

‘You do.’

‘No I
don’t
, Dawn. Because
I
asked her to set this up.’

I gaped at him, my mouth hanging unattractively open. ‘You?’

‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you properly for a while,’ he said, his brow furrowed.

Oh God. I knew what was coming. I gripped the sides of my chair.

‘It’s okay, I understand,’ I said quickly. ‘You don’t have to tell me again. I know you’re not interested in me like that. And that’s fine, actually,
just fine.’

‘When did I say I wasn’t interested in you?’ Jim asked. God, he really wouldn’t let it go, would he? Did he have to rub it in quite so much?

‘In the van. In the van on the way home from hospital. You told me it was nothing more than a drunken kiss.’

‘Dawn,’ he said, running his fingers through his hair so it all stood up. ‘You’d just said you were in love with your ex. I didn’t think I should be standing in the
way of that. I didn’t want to confuse things.’

‘But I wasn’t in love with him,’ I said.

‘Well, I know that now,’ said Jim. ‘But I didn’t then. I just said that because I thought I should. It wasn’t just a drunken kiss. Not for me, anyway.’

I looked up at him. ‘Not a drunken kiss,’ I repeated uncertainly.

‘Look,’ he said, spreading his hands out on the table as if he was going to sketch a diagram with his fingers. ‘I’m not saying I was totally sober – I just mean I
didn’t regret it. Well, not the way you think. I was trying to keep my hands off you, I really was. I knew you were all over the place – your aunt in hospital, your ex back on the
scene. But when you looked at me like that, all wide-eyed and with your arms around me . . . I couldn’t help myself.’

‘You couldn’t help yourself—’

‘Jeez, Dawn, are you going to repeat everything I say?’ he said, exasperated. ‘I’m trying to apologize here.’

‘Apologize?’ I said, and he rolled his eyes. ‘Sorry. I just – this is really unexpected.’

‘Rory. Are you going to say anything at all?’ Jim demanded.

‘I – I,’ I stuttered, unable to speak. I wondered in panic if I had used up all my words pointing out inanities like passing dogs and the strange hairstyles of people going
into the cinema, and now didn’t have any left to tell Jim how I felt.

He gave a small, rueful grin as I opened and closed my mouth silently.

‘Jim,’ I blurted, finally finding my voice. ‘You didn’t scare me off. I thought I was the one who pushed myself on
you
. I thought you were trying to tell me you
weren’t interested. That was why I was avoiding you.’

Jim’s face burst into a smile. His white teeth made him look more than ever like an advertisement. I felt I would have bought whatever he was selling. ‘You seriously didn’t
notice I was interested in you? I mean, Jesus, has a simple plumbing job ever taken so long? I came up with every possible excuse to be at your house all hours of the day. I’ve never got up
so early in my life as I did to make sure I saw you in the mornings.’

‘Well, yes,’ I acknowledged. ‘I did notice you were there all the time. But you know I thought that was to do with Auntie Lyd. And I was always so horrible to you.’

Jim grinned. ‘That’s what gave me hope.’

‘Hope?’

‘Well, Lydia said it showed you weren’t indifferent to me. She said you weren’t ready to go straight into another relationship and told me to keep my distance until you’d
calmed down a bit.’

‘Calmed down?’ I asked, rattled.

‘Stopped shagging buskers and horny teens, that sort of thing,’ Jim teased.

I folded my arms across my chest. ‘Jim, if you think this is the way to woo me, you are mistaken.’

‘I didn’t know what the way to woo you was,’ he said. ‘You were all over the place. Lydia was telling me to keep my distance; Eleanor said I should just go for
it—’

‘And what did Percy say?’ I asked, annoyed. ‘Did you discuss my love life with everyone in the house except me, Jim?’ I had a sudden vision of them all sitting down to a
committee meeting to discuss what to do about their problem resident and her ‘all over the place’ love life.

Jim had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘It wasn’t like that, Rory,’ he said. ‘But they’ve all got eyes; of course they noticed how I felt.’

‘How – how do you feel?’ I asked quietly.

‘Haven’t I been trying to tell you?’ said Jim, throwing his hands up in exasperation. ‘Jeez. Aurora Carmichael, I think you’re gorgeous. I think every time
you’re in the room it’s like there’s no one else there. I think I can’t keep my hands off you for much longer. I don’t know what else I need to say to make it any
clearer to you.’

‘Well,’ I teased, ‘surely Percy had some advice, didn’t you discuss this with him as well?’

Jim rolled his eyes. ‘If you really want to know, Perce gave me a load of advice out of Shakespeare and I didn’t understand a word of it, except something about climbing a balcony.
And I didn’t know if you’d fancy me in tights.’

I laughed, and he pulled his chair in towards the table so that he could lean his face closer. I leaned forward too. I couldn’t stop smiling. It was making my cheeks ache. I thought we
must look deranged, sitting there just grinning at each other.

‘Would you?’ said Jim.

‘What?’

‘Fancy me in tights,’ he said.

‘Jim,’ I said. He twisted his fingers in mine and looked at me intently, waiting for my answer. ‘If I can fancy you in those vile T-shirts, I can fancy you in
anything.’

‘You’re not going to change how I dress, are you?’ he asked.

‘No, but I might stop you getting highlights.’

‘I went on holiday to Thailand!’ he protested, lifting a hand to his hair. He started laughing once he realized I was joking.

‘I wouldn’t change anything about you,’ I said. ‘Not one thing.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. You’re my totally unsuitable suitable man, Jim.’

He leaned across the table and kissed me.

‘Do you think I can get that printed on a T-shirt?’

Reader, I hit him.

Unsuitable Men

Also by Pippa Wright

Acknowledgements

Love and thanks to:

Cath Lovesey, for insisting on reading and advising on a very early and messy draft even when she was mere days away from giving birth.

Lisa McCormack, for carrying around my first book in a freezer bag so as not to damage the cover, and refusing to allow her friends to read it until they bought their own
copies. Also for being a fabulous holiday companion: fish tostadas for ever.

Justin Nicholls, for the loan of his upstairs office space, architectural library and constant supply of chocolate digestives.

Harrie Evans, for generous advice, support and cheer-leading,
Hello!
-reading, Royal Wedding-facilitating and general wonderfulness.

Emily Brooks, who shared with me her brilliant stories of working on heritage magazines, and offered first-draft advice, information and exhibitions of taxidermied kittens.

Nancy Wiese, from whom I first heard the expression ‘pert niece’. She remains the finest exemplar of the form.

Jane Southern, for being the most flexible and understanding of employers, for entertaining gossip, and for sending me flowers saying ‘The end is nigh’ when I
hadn’t left the house or washed my hair for three days.

Thanks to the lovely Macmillan mafia, especially Jenny Geras, Thalia Suzuma, Sandra Taylor, Ellen Wood, Ali Blackburn, Michelle Kirk and Matt Hayes.

Everyone at Aitken Alexander, especially Andrew Kidd, Sally Riley, Liv Stones and Nishta Hurry.

Tinie Tempah (hi, Tinie, I totally know you’re reading this), since I am completely unable to write the words ‘my aunt’s house’ without breaking into a
shoddy version of ‘Pass Out’. Thanks for the theme tune.

First published 2012 by Pan

This electronic edition published 2012 by Pan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-447-20927-0 EPUB

Copyright © Pippa Wright 2012

The right of Pippa Wright to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
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liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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