Page 93 of Alice Carver Manifests Her Perfect Life
‘Alice, that kind of statement reminds me of just how young you are. Not that I’m complaining. Not with those thighs. But choosing the right wine is an art.’
‘Well, Matthew is certainly into his art.’
‘Indeed,’ said Guy, nodding. ‘A man with a finger in manypies. How much do you know about his other business ventures?’
‘Nothing, really. Why?’
‘I’m interested.’
‘I’m more interested in you. You still haven’t told me how your meeting went last week.’
‘Alice,’ said Guy, ‘if I wanted to be quizzed about work, I’d have brought my wife here.’
‘Well, probably not here,’ I pointed out, ‘to the village I grew up in.’ But I laughed, if a trifle shrilly, because I didn’t want to piss him off.
‘As did Matthew Lloyd?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s certainly done well for himself,’ said Guy, ‘I feel like we’d have a lot in common. And he seems to be a good-looking bastard too, judging by his photo.’
I fleetingly recalled that night in the treehouse and Matthew’s face in the moonlight, almost supernatural in its perfection.
‘He’s okay-looking if you like that kind of obvious thing,’ I said. ‘I personally don’t think he’s good-looking in the flesh.’ I watched Guy across the table and tried not to compare him to Matthew. ‘He’s overdone the muscles. Probably on steroids for all we know, and got a dysfunctional cock.’ Great. Now I was remembering the feel of Matthew’s body beneath mine, before he told me to get off him. It definitely wasn’t dysfunctional. Then I remembered him falling asleep, leaving me lying there awake.
‘Definitely not a hit as far as I’m concerned,’ I continued. ‘My advice is try to avoid him. He’s really fucking annoying. Trust me, Matthew Lloyd is not all that.’
And of course it was precisely then that I felt a little prickle of unease, and even before I heard him, I knew – that yet again, despite drilling his receptionist to ensure that thisdidn’thappen, he’d somehow managed to come in to overhear me attheworst moment possible.
‘So,’ his familiar voice was deep and grave, ‘is this the charming customer who was “extremely” keen to talk to me?’
The woman from reception desk faltered. ‘Yes,’ she said, nervously. ‘I promised I’d let her know straight away if you arrived back early.’
Then she spoke to me directly, just in case I wasn’t aware of the shit situation I was in. ‘Madam, Mr Lloyd has returned early.’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘Thank you so much.’
I could hear blood whooshing in my ears but there was no way out of this one. I turned round slowly in my seat.
There he was, his height and strength emphasised by the shadows. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, his hair was even more rumpled than usual and his expression was inscrutable. We stared at each other whilst the sound of my heart pounding probably reached the nearby customers.
‘Just a thought,’ he said, at last. ‘If you’re trying to avoid me, wouldn’t it be better tonotcome to my hotel?’
He sounded genuinely irritated.
‘Look, I didn’t mean it like that. You caught me at the end of—’
‘Assassinating me?’
‘Maybe I went a little far… ’
Matthew shrugged indifferently. ‘I thought, after Dartmoor,that maybe we were friends. I was even going to share my steroids with you.’
Now he’d brought up Dartmoor, the guilt faded and the resentment resurfaced; it was galling that he had such a physical effect on me, especially considering he clearly didn’t give a shit. ‘Friends don’t walk out without saying goodbye. Or saying anything at all.’
Matthew scratched his jaw. ‘Yeah, okay. That was unfortunate.’
‘Unfortunate?’ My voice was getting louder. ‘How about trying “sorry”? I mean, you managed to speak to Astrid several times since then. You could have sent a text. How rude can you—’
