Page 52 of A Summer Scandal

‘No,’ she said, too fast and too sharp. ‘You’re good as you are.’

He folded the newspaper and stood up. ‘I’ll make some eggs.’

Violet sat at the small dining table nursing a glass of wine as she watched Cal move around his kitchen. She’d offered to help but he’d shooed her over to the table, and to give him his due he seemed perfectly at home in the kitchen. Vi was mildly surprised. He seemed more of a takeaway or dinner-out guy; she couldn’t imagine him spending many nights alone in here cooking.

‘Do you cook much?’

He shrugged, tipping the whisked-up eggs into the butter sizzling in the frying pan. ‘Not massively. Enough to get by. Breakfast stuff mainly.’

‘You mean there isn’t going to be three courses?’

‘Toast. Eggs. Wine. There you go, three courses.’ He looked along the kitchen counter. ‘Oh, and popcorn for dessert. That’s four.’

‘Practically gourmet,’ she said.

He looked pleased with himself as he slid the toast and eggs onto the plates and carried them across.

‘Voila,’ he said, taking a seat opposite. ‘Oeufs.’

‘All this and you speak French, too,’ she said. ‘So much talent for one man.’

He nodded gravely. ‘Où est la piscine?’

Violet swallowed her eggs, summoning any random schoolgirl French she could think of. ‘Sous la table.’

He leaned back and glanced under the table. ‘The swimming pool is under the table?’

Violet pushed her glass towards him. ‘Plus de vin, s’il vous plaît?’

Cal topped her glass up. ‘Do you like to swim, mermaid girl?’

Violet pushed her eggs around her plate, because the intimacy of his nickname made her stomach flip. ‘Yes. I love the water. I just don’t get to go much these days.’

‘Me too.’

They cleared their plates, both hungry after their long day.

‘So, what kind of movie do you fancy?’ she asked, laying her cutlery down. ‘Action? Funny? Weepie?’

He looked horrified at the idea of a weepie. ‘Definitely a no-tissues-required option.’ He paused, and then looked freshly mortified. ‘I mean as in a tear-jerker, not, well, as in porn.’

Violet paused, and then shook her head, catching up with his teenage-boy-style mistake. Picking up the plates, she put them in the sink, grabbed the popcorn and then led the way back through to the living room.

‘That was one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen,’ Violet said, eating the last of the popcorn from the bowl between them on Cal’s oversized leather sofa.

‘Hot Tub Time Machineis an all-time classic,’ Cal said. ‘I can’t believe you’ve never seen it before.’

Violet shook her head. ‘Never even heard of it.’

‘Everybody needs a bit of random comedy sci-fi in their lives every now and then,’ Cal said, laughing.

Vi couldn’t argue. ‘Up to my arrival in Swallow Beach, my life didn’t include much in the way of random in any aspect,’ she said.

‘And now it’s one big random party?’

She looked down into her almost empty wine glass. ‘Something like that.’

He looked at her levelly. They were on either end of the sofa, feet up.

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