Page 52 of A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews
His head was obscured by the cupboard door so Mattie had no way of knowing if Tom was joking; his voice, whether he was cracking a funny or lecturing on the evils of capitalism, rarely changed tone.
‘I don’t hateallmen,’ Mattie said. ‘For instance, I don’t hate you. I think that I might even owe you cake on a weekly basis too, like I do Pippa.’
‘Never one to pass up free cake, but you don’t have to do that,’ Tom said with a slow, sweet smile that Mattie had never seen before. It kind of made her want to cry because it was that good a smile. Also, it had been a long day capped off with an emotionally exhausting confrontation and she’d had three glasses of wine and was now heading for her fourth. ‘I meant what I said about you not needing rescuing. You were doing a fine job of standing up for yourself and I was proud to sacrifice two eggs just to see you upend a bowl of batter over his smug head.’
‘But if you hadn’t been here …’ Mattie shook her head. ‘In the end, I might even have agreed to hand over even more recipes just to get rid of him.’
‘You’d have thought of something,’ Tom said. ‘Still, it’s just as well I wasn’t out Lothario-ing my way round London and seducing impressionable young women.’
Mattie’s cheeks had been wine-flushed but now they burned with something a lot closer to shame. ‘Have I apologised for that? I tried, but that email I sent was a bit passive-aggressive.’
‘Just a bit,’ Tom agreed with another one of those ten-out-of-ten smiles.
‘That gingerbread that I dropped was actually meant to be a peace offering …’
‘I think we’re at peace now. Nothing like coming together to defeat an evil villain,’ Tom said with a grin, pulling the cork out of the bottle with an emphatic ‘pop’. ‘Though can I state for the record that I’m not some callous Casanova and I’m not interested in impressionable young women. I like my women to be at least twenty-five and to have their wits very much about them.’
‘OK. I’m glad to hear that,’ Mattie said, as Tom sat back down. If she lived to be a hundred, then she still didn’t think she’d ever be able to figure him out. ‘You’re quite the man of mystery.’
‘I have to be, for the sake of my own sanity and my own private life,’ Tom said and then he pulled loose his tie (a mustard-coloured, knitted affair that was only fit for burning) and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt. The shock of Tom kicking back,relaxingin her company, was so great that Mattie had to hold on to the edge of the table for support. ‘I know I sound a bit like your pal, Pippa, but I do think a work-life balance is important.’
‘Pippa is evangelical about work-life balance. She’s always telling me that I shouldn’t work so many hours and do I want to borrow one of her favourite business self-help books,How to Delegate?’
‘I mean, look at the three of them.’ Tom pointed at the floor. ‘Verity isn’t so bad but Posy and Nina are always bringing their personal lives into work. In fact, there is no distinction between the two.’
‘Well, Posy did end up marrying your Lavinia’s grandson so I can see how work and home have blended together …’
‘Always with the public displays of affection.’ Tom was really warming to his theme and leaned closer to Mattie. ‘Nina has absolutely no boundaries. Once she even made me go out and buy her two litres of cranberry juice.’
‘That doesn’t seem so bad in the general scheme of things,’ Mattie said. Compared to Nina’s usual conversation and demands, it sounded quite tame.
Tom leaned even closer so that Mattie could see that behind his specs, his eyes weren’t simply brown, but had flecks of amber in them. Another glass of wine and she might even challenge him to prove that he even needed to wear them, but not now – not when he was being so sweet to her that she could have him for pudding.
‘She insisted loudly, in a shop full of customers, that I go out and buy her cranberry juice because she hadcystitis, and I quote, “I can hardly bloody walk.”’
‘Oh, Tom.’ At one stage this evening, Mattie thought she’d never laugh ever again, but now the thought of Nina demanding medicinal cranberry juice and Tom’s current outraged expression, complete with flared nostrils, made her snort with laughter. ‘That’s not really a stretch to imagine Nina doing that.’
‘So, you can see then why I try very hard not to reveal any personal details because the three of them, but especially Nina, would never let it go,’ Tom said with a shudder. ‘She’s teased me mercilessly ever since she found out about the topic of my dissertation.’
Mattie put her head in her hands. ‘Again, I’m really, really sorry about that.’
‘Well, you should be,’ Tom said with no sweet smile to take the sting away. Then he sighed. ‘Though it was on the bookshelves in a communal room, so it’s my own fault really.’
‘Is Nina being very mean?’
‘She’s started calling me Doctor Love.’ The corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
‘Doctor Lurve,’ Mattie echoed in a breathy voice as if she was providing backing vocals for a steamy R’n’B track. ‘Though technically, I suppose you did get your doctorate in love.’
‘Well, actually I got my doctorate in literature …’
‘Why did you decide to study romantic fiction anyway?’ Mattie asked, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands so she could gaze intently at Tom as if this time she might finally work out what made him tick.
Tom stared back at her, still with that slight smile. ‘That’s a story for another day.’
‘Spoilsport,’ Mattie said and she stuck her tongue out at him – she really had had quite a lot to drink – and it might have been a trick of the light but behind his glasses, Tom’s eyes seemed to darken.
Suddenly the atmosphere in their cosy little kitchen felt thick and charged. Mattie couldn’t tear her eyes away from Tom and he was staring straight back at her. She swallowed hard, sure that the sound of her nervous gulping was deafening as Tom leaned towards her. They were sitting at right angles from each other at the tiny little table and as he moved, their knees brushed against each other and set off a chain reaction in Mattie. From that one spot on her right knee, it felt as if the tiniest of electrical charges were zapping all her nerve endings.
