(2012) Evie Undercover (30 page)

A wave of anxiety swept ov
er her. Did she sound too keen
?

Tom had started the ball rolling with what he’d said to her, but perhaps she should have been more laid-back
.
Glamour Puss
always said to play it cool if you wanted to keep them
interested
, which she did, y
et she
’d
sound
ed
as if she was gagging
to leap on top of him
.
True, she
wouldn’t
need
much persuading
, if any
– he
looked dead sexy
in
that
pale grey shirt
–
but
maybe
she shouldn’t
have
been
quite so
obvious
.
She bit her lip nervously.

Tom took her hand
. A
shiver of pleasure ran down her spine. ‘I feel exactly the same,
’
he said quietly.

Relief.

So much for
Glamour Puss
–
they obviously hadn’t a clue what they were talking about. Being honest about her feelings was clearly the way to go. Memo to self: bin all of her copies of
Glamour Puss
. Well, perhaps not bin them – that was a bit drastic – but not take everything they said for gospel.

‘Would you care for bread?’

They glanced up and saw
a
waiter standing by the table
,
holding
a basket of bread
. Tom release
d her hand
and
t
he waiter
served
, t
hen Tom
gave him their orders and
chose a bottle of red wine from the wine list
. The waiter left and he
sat back and looked across the table
at
her
,
a warm
smile on his face
.

‘So tell me
,
what
have you been doing this week?
I
’m curious
to hear how you and Gabriela got on. And did it go all right, working for me
part of the week
and being with Gabriela the rest of the time?
You
certainly
seem to have coped with everything I
left you to do
. O
r to put it another way, I didn’t find any
anguished
messages of despair when I got home
,
and
I took this to be a good sign.’

‘It was fine
, thanks
.
Leaving a recording each day of
what
I had to do was
a
cool
idea
.’

He laughed. ‘A second compliment, no less
.
I can see that I’m on a roll here. But whilst I hate to put the brakes on it, I think I’d better own up
–
after all, hones
ty’
s
always
the be
st policy, is it not
?’

She picked up the piece of bread closest to her and bit into it. A lump of the bread stuck in her throat.
Struggling
to swallow it,
she
nod
d
ed
furiously
.

‘
It was the
temps
who
suggested I use the digital dictation
that you find
in most offices these days. I took their advice and it’s worked really well.’ He reached across the table and
took her hand again. B
lue eyes looked deep into hers
, and her toes curled
. ‘But telling you
what to do
in person would have been so much nicer than talking into a machine.’

She swallowed again and the bread finally slid down. ‘And I would have liked you being there in person, telling me what to do.’ Her voice cracked and she coughed to clear her throat.

He leaned closer. ‘You see, Evie
,
that’s another thing we feel the same way about. Although
to be honest,
I’m not sure how much telling there’d have been
.
I suspect that showing you
the way
I felt about you might have jumped to the top of the agenda.’

A wave of emotion welled up in
side
her
and she
could have burst
into tears
. She tried to
laugh
. ‘
I see
we
’re back to lists again.
We never seem to get far from them, do we?’

‘It seems that we don’t,
’
he said
. Their eyes met, and
he gave her
a lazy smile.

T
he waiter returned to the table
with
their starters
, and
Tom
straightened up as
t
he
waiter
poured a little wine into
his
glass
,
stood
back and
wait
ed
while
he
tasted it.

‘
Tha
t’s fine, Pierre.’

‘Will there be anything else,
Mr
Hadleigh?’ the waiter asked as he filled their glasses with wine.

‘I don’t thin
k so. Thank you
.’

Th
e
waiter
moved away.

‘Do you come here
often
? They all seem to know you.’

‘Yes, quite a bit. I like the place very much. The food and service are excellent, and it has a friendly atmosphere – at least, I
think
it
has
; I hope you agree
– and
it’s
a bonus that I can walk here so I don’t have to worry about parking. Or about drinking, for that matter. Obviously tonight’s different
–
I’ve got the car because I
collected you
.’

‘You’re right, i
t’s
really nice here,’ she said, picking up her fork and starting on the salad.
‘
It’s certainly a who
le lot different from Wagamama
, which is
where we took Gabriela last night.
I’m afraid we had a bit too much too drink, so I’ll be going carefully tonight. Well,
I
had a bit too much to drink. From what I can remember, Gabriela hel
d her drink
better.
’

Her heart gave a sudden thump of guilt.
She’d had more than just a bit too much to drink
the night before
– she’d had way too much.
If only she
’d
had the same degree of self-control
as
Gabriela
.
For a start, she would
never have opened up to
her
about Tom in the way that she had.
I
t was something private about Tom that should have stayed private. Damn the drink.

The sound of Tom’s laughter brought her b
ack to the present with a jolt.

‘You took her to Wagamama!
That’s priceless
.
I must confess I can’
t see Gabriela in such a place
. Nor having more than an elegant glass of wine
. What on earth did she make of it?’

‘She said all the righ
t things, like it was great fun
and different
, that
they
ought to
have
Wagamama
s
in Italy
,
and so on
,
but what she really thought of it, I wouldn’t like to say. She’s much too polite and self-controlled to say if she didn’t like it
, but
I
’d be
very
surprised if
it heads her list of things
to
do again
. Oops, another list
.
’

‘Who’s the ‘we’ who took her there?’

‘Rachel and Jess came, too. Gabriela seemed to get on really well with them
, and t
hey’re both dying to meet Eduardo
.
I’m not sure how keen she is on that idea
, though
.
I saw the expression on her face when they were joking about it.’

‘I presume that Rachel and Jess own the heads that were hanging out of the window when I
got to your house
earlier on.’

She giggled. ‘Bang on. They were desperate to get a glimpse of you
, which is
why I dashed out of the house before you’d even switched the engine off
.
I was saving
you
from their scrutiny, and
them
from falling out of the window.’

‘Admirable, indeed! But
back to
Gabriela, how did it go
this week?
Did you get on all right?
’

‘To my amazement,
we got on
really well.’ She swept
her hair back from her face. ‘
W
e did
lot
s
of different things,
far more than I thought we’d do.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, for example, we went
round London
on o
ne of those open-topped buses
. I’ve never done that before
–
you don’t when you live
in a place
–
but
it was really interesting. The weather was fantastic, which helped. And we hit the shops – that goes without saying. Gabriela bough
t a
few things, mainly clothes as
she’s not yet decided what she wants to do to her flat. I didn’t
get
anything, but it was fun watching
her
shop
. S
he cert
ainly knows what she wants and she’
s determined to get it.’

‘Did you go to her flat? It’s in Holland Park, isn’t it? I’ve got her address somewhere.’

‘
I think it is.
I haven’t got her actual address
, though
. No, I didn’t go there
. T
here just wasn’t time
and w
e weren’t really in that part of London
. T
he closest we got to her flat was probably when we were in Harrods.’

‘I see what you mean
. T
hat’s
still
quite a hike from Holland Park.’

‘
F
rom what she’s said
,
it sounds very nice
. I expect
I’ll see it
before too long. The more you get to know her, the more
you real
ise
that
she’s
quite
lonely
, which
explain
s
why she’s going out of her way to make friends with Rachel, Jess and me, even though we don’t really have anything much in common with her.
Apparently, she doesn’t
have any close friends in Italy. She sort of explained it away, but we all think it’s a bit
strange
. There’s proba
bly something she’s not told us,
but that’s up to her.’

‘Everyone needs good friends so she was lucky to meet the three of you. I’m glad you’ve been able to take her under your wing this week. If you
speak
to her again before I do, you can remind her that I’ll call her once the case is over. I’ll take her to dinner or something.’

A
vision of Gabriela, clad in something stunning,
smiling across a candlelit table at Tom,
sprang to her mind, and
a wave of emotion
rose up in
her
. She
struggled to
push
it
back.
O
f course he had to see Gabriel
a in England. He’d
said he’d
take her to dinner and he’d
obviously
honour that
promise
. She wasn’t jealous. Not really.