Page 60 of Pride and Privilege

“What did your friend Cassie mean when she told you to keep your wits about you? It sounded like a warning.”

“It was. Let me make you a drink, and I’ll tell you. Coffee?”

She paused. Of course she did. After last night, he was surprised she was talking to him at all.

“Tea,” she said. “If you have it.”

She followed him into the kitchen, looking around the dated space in the same quiet, speculative way as she’d taken in the rest of his home. It wasn’t a small kitchen, but it was rather shabby, the ancient cooker practically an antique. Neither Mabel nor Sarah had been fond of cooking. And he wasn’t here enough for it to be worth the hassle of having the kitchen redone. He didn’t even know if he liked cooking. Never got much of a chance to try it. Food was delivered, grabbed on the go, or eaten at his desk.

He put the kettle on, found the tea bags. Poppy looked at the box, then the few packets and things lining the back of the counter. “This is all…normal supermarket stuff.”

“Yeah?”

“But at the flat, you only have fancy stuff. Fortnum and Mason. Harrods. Is that part of the macho bachelor thing?”

“Oh… No, I just… When you moved in, I asked the concierge to order some stuff. And that’s what he sent. I ended up putting it on repeat order. Seemed easiest. And you seemed to like the stuff.”

“But it must cost a fortune!”

“Not really.”

“You could change the order to a normal supermarket.” Her face brightened. “Donate what you save to the food bank or something! There’s no point wasting it on me.”

“It’s not a waste.”

He looked away as the kettle finished boiling. Busied himself filling the mugs, getting the milk. “But OK. I’ll do it. Donate to the food bank. How much do you think?”

“A month?” She shrugged. “Twenty?”

He raised an eyebrow as he took out his phone. Sure, twenty was doable, but…

“Twenty? Every month?”

“Ten?” she suggested. “You decide. It’s your money.”

“I thought maybe two or three…”

“Two or three?” She gave him an odd look. Then her eyes narrowed and she laughed. “Please tell me you’re not talking about thousands. I’m talking about pounds. Twentypounds.”

“Ah.” He grinned. “Sorry. Occupational hazard. Leaving off the noughts.”

“Yeah, occupational hazard of beingyou.”

He tapped away on his phone, filled in the details on the charity’s website. “There. OK. Five. Done.”

“Five pence?” she teased.

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, Poppy. Five whole English pence.”

Poppy thanked Roscoe as he handed her a cup.

Well. This was weird. Being here, in Roscoe’s secret inner life. It ought to have been reassuring, because it had never made sense to her, his sterile show flat, how that could truly be the taste of the man she was getting to know.

This eclectic, vibrant, complicated, and downrightweirdspace was much more in keeping with the person who watched sci-fi shows with her, traded Cockney rhyming slang, ate fried chicken with a groan of appreciation—but not in the street—read economics texts for fun, followed the world news with rabid interest, kissed like sin itself, spotted broken phone chargers, swept damsels in distress off the streets, panicked in bathrooms—and hid the whole beautiful lot under sleek suits and a smooth playboy smile.

Roscoe was real. And very human. And still utterly, utterly out of reach.

It hadn’t even occurred to her that he’d have two properties in London only fifteen minutes apart. Why would it have? Most people she knew would never get on the property ladder at all. Neverhadbeen on it. Lived in council housing for generations. Their entire time on earth spent in borrowed, rented spaces.

---