Page 2 of Pride and Privilege

“You have the advantage of me. I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”

She chuckled, poking the ice in her glass again, seeming to enjoy the act of turning it into a slushy mess. “Of course you don’t know my name.”

“But I’d like to.”

Now she snorted. Roscoe couldn’t help but look over at Aubrey, wondering if his friend had maybe given him fair warning after all. But the man was busy in conversation with one of the willowy blondes from Legal. Roscoe gave them a rather wistful look before turning back to his drunk.

“If I tell you my name…” She paused with a breath of laughter, running her eyes over him as though doubting he was real. She seemed a hair’s breadth from poking him again, just to make sure. “If I tell you my name, there’s something you need to understand first.”

“OK…?”

“I was born in early November.”

He nodded politely, because she said it with the absolute conviction of its importance.

“And my mother is…my mother.”

He nodded again, wondering where the hell that bartender had got to with the water.

“My name…” She paused. Laughed. “My name is Poppy…Fields.”

Roscoe tried to keep a straight face. She held his eyes, watched him lose the fight, her own laugh bubbling over in response. “See?”

“I do see. Yes.” He attempted to smooth out his grin, though the corner of his mouth stayed crooked, not helped by the amused light dancing back at him in her eyes. “Did she just happen to see a midwife wearing a poppy, do you think?”

“It was the registrar!”

He laughed again. “And he didn’t see fit to point out the…ah…full implications of the name?”

“Oh, no, he did. But according to legend—or my grandad, which is sort of the same thing—my mum said, ‘I’m bloody knackered, I’m not coming up with anything else now.’”

“And so the remarkable Poppy Fields came to be,” intoned Roscoe, grinning with her.

For a moment her smiling eyes held his. They were the brightest blue he’d ever seen, even unfocused and hazed with drink. Shockingly blue against the red of her hair. Or that’s how it felt anyway, every time they caught his. Like a small electric shock. Then the bartender finally arrived with a jug of iced water and glasses. Roscoe thanked her. He poured a glass and pushed it in front of Poppy. “I think you should drink some of this.”

She shook her head resolutely. “Never accept drinks from strange men in bars.”

“It’s water, not Rohypnol. Here, look.” He picked up the glass and took a long swallow, then put it down again in front of her. “Just water, I promise. Or I can get you an unopened bottle of mineral water from the bar?”

But she was giving him an amused look, water apparently forgotten. She seemed to be trying not to laugh, her head tilted, eyes darting up to him then away. “Can I…touch it?”

“What?” he asked, startled.

“Your hair. Is it real?”

“My hair? Of course it’s real.”

“It’s just so soft and wavy and luscious and caramel-looking.”

He stared at the woman. He was as vain as any man talking to an attractive woman—any man who knew his body and his clothes and his entire demeanour were all part of the role he played at work. The successful city boy. Not the coke-snorting reprobates of the eighties, but the new breed: competent, smart, collected. Guys who had all their shit together and were perfectly able to handle multi-million-pound portfolios without breaking a sweat. And get in two hours at the gym. And eat well. And dress right. And get on with everyone. And charm more millions out of clients.

Invest with me. I’m made of the right stuff.

But his dominant emotion at that moment was a sort of cringing disbelief. What onearth…?Besides, of the two of them, she was the one with the fantastic hair. A rich, red sheet with a slight wave that tumbled halfway down her back and spilled over her shoulders, vivid against her white blouse. He suspected she wore it up at work, that she was quite literally letting her hair down tonight. How would it look spread over his pillow? Wrapped around his fingers? His eyes traced the wide, high cheekbones of her face, the perfect Cupid’s bow of her mouth, dipped down to her simple white blouse, only the top two buttons undone—

His gaze flicked back up, and she was watching him, still smiling to herself, biting her lip to hold back a laugh as she reached out and pushed her fingers into his hair.

Goosebumps poured down his spine. Her fingertips scraped over his scalp, and he felt it everywhere. She made a small noise, a tiny grunt of appreciation, and he feltthatin the inevitable place. She took her hand away, laughing. “Oh my God, just like I imagined.”

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