Page 59 of The Payback Plan
‘God, I’m so sorry.’ She shook her head. ‘I panicked. I was a little tipsy and well… look at it.’ She gestured around her. ‘This place is worth knocking over.’
His gaze shifted to the empty wine bottle but he didn’t say anything and silence settled between them. She didn’t like the silence, it made her nervous. There was too much space to fill and only one thing on her mind to fill it.
Their hallway snog-fest.
God, where would it have led had the police not crashed the party? Because she’d been all in, Judas that she was.
‘H… how was London?’ she asked, her voice husky.
He shrugged, looking cool, calm and collected. A far cry from the Oliver who had said her name with such heated intensity. ‘The usual.’
‘Whydidyou come back early?’
‘My business was done.’
More silence. Bloody hell, this was awkward AF. She couldn’t decide if he was waiting for her to say something or trying to formulate something himself. ‘Well… I’ll’ – she pointed to the hallway over his shoulder – ‘just clean up the mess.’
He shook his head. ‘I can do it.’
‘No.’ Her voice was firm. ‘I’m the reason you dropped it all in the first place, I’ll fix it. What is all that paper anyway?’
‘It’s a bunch of research on my father that a friend of his had collated for his own book but he died before he could write it. It’s been gathering dust in the London flat for years and I thought there might be some interesting nuggets amongst it all. It was’ – he looked over his shoulder at the mess before returning his attention to her – ‘supposedly in order.’
Paige blanched at the jumble of paper but hell, she liked a challenge and untangling paper trails and setting up filing systems – bringing order from chaos – were right up her alley. Once she’d patiently Sellotaped a dozen pages of torn up letters back together again.
She loved a puzzle.
It would also give her the chance to enter each article into the spreadsheet she’d already set up for Oliver’s book to keep track of all of the pieces and where they might fit in the timeline of the story of Roger Prendergast. There was a lot of paper – it’d probably take her a while which suited her just fine. A project was exactly what she needed right now.
Oliver had project healthy hamster. And she’d have this.
‘Okay, well, I’ll just put it all back in the boxes and start sorting it tomorrow.’ Paige was proud that she’d managed to move this back onto a businesslike footing. ‘If you’re okay with that?’
‘Ah… sure. Thank you.’
Although he didn’t seem sure. He seemed like he wanted to say more and that was her sign to get moving. Forcing legs that had gone from jelly to lead in a rapid sequence of time, to move, took effort that she hoped he couldn’t see as she passed him by, giving him a wide berth. No way did she trust the pull he seemed to emit so effortlessly.
‘Paige.’
The gravel in his voice stopped her in her tracks, the hairs on her nape prickling as she froze. One word. Just one word inthatvoice and he had her. She didn’t know whether it was meant to be a question or a plea but she was sorting his papers, damn it – she wasn’t goingthere.
‘No.’
Shaking her head, she sought his eyes which smouldered with blue flame, and she curled her hands into fists at the corresponding flare of heat deep and low. She was in no fit state to talk about what had just happened when she couldn’t even bring herself to talk about the first time. She’d been hating on herself ever since and now she’d gone and compounded the situation.
He quirked an eyebrow. ‘We’re going to pretend the hallway didn’t happen as well?’
‘Yup.’ She nodded emphatically. ‘And we’renotletting it happen again, okay?’ Yes, she’d said that before but shemeantit this time. ‘You and I are going teetotal from now on.’
It had to be the booze, right? There was no other explanation for the lowering of their inhibitions. Alcoholwasknown for that, after all.
He nodded his head slowly, dropping his gaze to the floor. ‘Fine by me.’
And Paige exhaled a long, steady breath.
11
Oliver lay in bed a week later listening to the howl of the wind outside, the grey light of morning filtered by the sun-blocking blind. Casper, sound asleep, lay draped across his feet having claimed that position about three days after he’d arrived. Oliver had tried to dissuade the animal but Casper had looked at him with those pathetic stray dog eyes and he hadn’t the heart to kick him out.
