Page 23 of All I Want for Christmas

He shrugged. ‘I’m just happy to hear that was the reason for your hesitation and not something I did or said last night to put you off.’

‘No,’ she said, trying to look puzzled by the mere suggestion. ‘Of course not.’

‘Good, because I enjoyed last night; I really wanted to see you again.’

‘Yeah. It was fun. I’d not been to Brønnum before.’

‘You liked it there? Well then when I get back, I’ll take you to Bazaar. That’s even better.’

‘Really?’ She swallowed, already bored. The conversation felt hollow and fatuous compared to the few words she’d exchanged with Max, in which everything had felt charged and loaded.

‘They’ve got a ten-month waiting list for a reservation – they turned away Brooklyn Beckham and his wife not long ago.’

‘Oh.’ She ran her hands through her hair, but no amount of root lift could override a day without sunlight and she hoped she didn’t look as jaded as she felt. She had pulled a ten-hour shift in the archives only to make her way through a grand total of...three boxes. ‘So then, how would we get in?’

‘My father’s friends with the owner, so I can always get us a good table.’

‘Is he in the hospitality business then, your father?’

‘...No.’ He laughed, bemused. ‘You know, your Danish may be excellent but I can tell you’re not from here if you don’t know who my father is.’

‘Should I?’

‘He’s a pretty big name in the city. He set up his commercial property development business twenty-five years ago and it turned over 125 million krone last year; he started with nothing and now he’s a donor to the Venstre party, knows everyone, is respected by everyone. And now he’s grooming me to take the helm of the company when he retires in a few years.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Darcy swallowed, feeling a budding resentment in the pit of her stomach at the casual nepotism he clearly expected her to admire. Her own father was a geography teacher at the local sixth form college back home in Berkshire and her mother a GP receptionist; she felt every bit as proud of them as he was, only she suspected he would see nothing to admire. Money and status were important to him, and his choice in women was no doubt intended as a reflection of his high self-worth. She supposed there was a compliment in there somewhere. ‘Well, that sounds like an amazing opportunity for you.’

Erik shrugged. ‘My father’s an incredible man.’

She took another sip of her wine, trying not to think about whether her own father would be disappointed to see her having dinner with such a spoilt man-child.

‘Yeah. This deal we’re putting together in Dubai is actually my first solo.’ Erik sat back in the club chair, pressing his fingers together. ‘I made the pitch, won it, and now I’m going out there to drill into the detail with the client. The budget is AED 90 million.’

‘Gosh.’ She wasn’t quite sure how to respond to the boast. ‘...That is a lot of dirham.’

He looked surprised that she knew of their currency. ‘Have you been?’

‘To Dubai? No.’ She shook her head. ‘But I stopped off at Doha once, en route to Bali.’

‘It’s incredible there too. Even just the airport is a spectacle.’ He pinned her with an intense look. ‘You never know, if things continue to go well between us, you could come out with me on the next trip. I could show you the sights,’ he winked.

‘Oh, no...I don’t think that would be necessary.’

His self-assured look slipped and she wondered if she’d been too blunt.

‘I mean, if it’s a work trip, you need to concentrate,’ she explained quickly.

‘Don’t you worry about that; there’s plenty of time on these things for workandplay. I think we’d have a lot of fun together.’

He held her gaze at the not-so-subtle intimation and she forced herself to smile back. It was why they were both here, after all: two single, consenting adults looking for something light and casual. She definitely didn’t want another relationship so soon, and there was no doubt he was an attractive man; she had caught plenty of women checking him out as they passed by the table. Clearly, they were incompatible on apersonal level – but how personal did things really need to be? She was here to havefun, as per Freja’s instructions.

And yet...

‘Well, it’s not really my scene anyway.’ She heard the rejection in her own voice.

There was a missed beat. ‘No? Why not?’

‘Well, look at who goes there – it’s full of oil barons, property developers, TikTokers, social media influencers andLove Islandpeople. Everything there’s soshinyand my life is more...dusty.’

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