Page 26 of A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews
Tom looked as if he’d rather undergo a little light torture. ‘I won’t, thanks.’ He seemed to be holding himself very stiff as if he was tensing every muscle. Then he looked down and realised he was holding a thin carrier bag which bulged promisingly. ‘Oh, for you. Rye bread and onion bagels, as requested.’
‘Buying you presents? Think someone’s got the hots for you.’ Phil winked theatrically – he did love to wind Tom up.
Tom scowled. ‘They’re not from me. They’re from Nina,’ he said, coming into the kitchen so he could dump the bag on Mattie’s lap. ‘Shall we go?’
Phil made a great show of reluctantly draining his mug, then standing up. ‘You coming, darling?’
Tom’s scowl was now positively ferocious. ‘Mattie doesn’t like being called darling by strange men,’ he said. ‘Or any men, come to that.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind Phil calling me darling,’ Mattie said. She could see why Phil kept teasing him – Tom reacted so beautifully. ‘But, I won’t come out with you. I’ll let you two boys catch up.’
‘Shame,’ Phil said, as he pulled on his coat and a flat cap, which was going to be no barrier against the chill of the evening when his tight jeans stopped a good two inches above his ankles and he was wearing yacht shoes and no socks.
‘Somehow, I think we’ll get over such a tragedy,’ Tom said, trying to herd his friend out of the kitchen, but Phil stood his ground.
‘We’re having a party on Thursday, me and the rest of the lads from the footie team, a Christmas bash: you should come,’ he said to Mattie. ‘Bring a friend. Or if all your friends are absolute stunners like you, and single, bring the whole lot of them. And if they want to dress up as sexy Santas, all the better!’
It was an automatic reflex to refuse any invite from a single man, so Mattie was just about to decline when she saw the discomfited look on Tom’s face. A lesser woman would have taken pity on him, but Mattie was no lesser woman. Also, she wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity to discover even more fascinating facets to Tom’s character. ‘I’dloveto come. Email me the details,’ she said, handing him a business card that she was suddenly grateful Nina had insisted she needed. ‘And I’m sure I can rustle up at least one single friend. So, this football team – are you on it too, Tom?’
‘We’re going. Now,’ Tom said, taking Phil by the collar of his coat and frogmarching him down the hall.
‘Mattie! It’s been a pleasure,’ Phil called out in a choked voice. ‘Let’s do it again …’
THUD!
The door slammed shut, though Mattie could just make out a muffled, ‘… soon!’
Then Tom saying, ‘Come on, dead man walking,’ as they made their way down the stairs.
There was so much information to process that Mattie ended up taking a two-hour bath, periodically letting out the cooling water with one foot, then turning on the hot tap with her other. By the time she hauled herself out of the tub, she resembled a woman-shaped prune.
As she massaged in her night cream, she wondered what other secrets Tom might be hiding? Verity always insisted that he was a Russian sleeper agent deep under cover and just waiting for his handler in Moscow to activate him, while Nina had invented a wife and four kids that Tom had stashed away somewhere.
Knowing what she now knew about Tom, Mattie wouldn’t be at all surprised if either theory were actually true.
As the last step in her skincare regime, she slathered her face in rosehip oil – slaving away in a hot kitchen always dried out her skin – then came bowling out of the bathroom clad in just her towel, at the exact same time that Tom came bowling in through the front door.
‘Oh my God!’
‘Jesus Christ!’
Mattie clutched her horribly skimpy towel tighter around her. Much, much tighter. ‘What are you doing home?’ she screeched. ‘You’re never home this early.’
She’d been lulled into a sense of false security by the fact that she was nearly always fast asleep when Tom came back from whatever he did every night. Playing football or chatting up really impressionable women or whatever. Occasionally Mattie would briefly wake when Tom came home. She’d check the time on her alarm clock – it was never before one o’clock – then go straight back to sleep. But now it wasn’t even eleven and here he was.
Mattie stepped to her left as Tom stepped to his right, nearly bumping noses and otherthings. Then Mattie stepped to her right as Tom shuffled left, and they nearly collided all over again. It seemed safer to stand exactly where they were and not make any sudden movements.
‘I wasn’t aware that I needed to provide you with a timetable of my whereabouts,’ Tom said, his gaze fixed firmly to the left of where Mattie stood, completely naked under a towel that she knew showed the upper curve of her breasts. Though if she tugged it up, then it would reveal far too much of her thighs. It was quite the dilemma. ‘May I suggest a new house rule?’
‘You may, but be quick about it,’ Mattie snapped, her skin so red with the blush of mortification that she looked like she’d been parboiled.
‘No walking about half naked,’ Tom snapped back, his face flushing as red as Mattie’s half-naked body. ‘I mean, without any clothes on.’ His glasses were completely steamed up from the residual heat from the bathroom, but Mattie still saw him shut his eyes because it was a very small hall. Hardly enough room for the two of them. ‘In a state of undress.’
‘Yes, I understood what you meant the first time you said it,’ Mattie hissed, furious with herself because she never usually wandered about in just a towel. The one night that she forgot to take her pyjamas to the bathroom with her was the one night that Tom came home early. Of course it was! ‘Message received. Copy that.’
‘Good,’ Tom swallowed hard. Mattie had never appreciated how tall Tom was. That he seemed to fill every inch of the small space and she could smell the cold night air on him and the clean, fresh scent that she always associated with Tom. Though by rights he should smell of mothballs, and the musty, fusty aroma of old clothes and old books. He suddenly caught her eye. ‘Are you … are yousniffingme?’
‘What? No! Oh God!’ Mattie took a step back but there was nowhere to take a step back to and she was desperate to dive for the safety and sanctuary of her room, but Tom was in the way. ‘Can I just …?’
