Celia looked at her sister with fond exasperation. ‘He’s not a cad like they have in those mouldy old books of yours, Neevy,’ she said witheringly. ‘He’s a twenty-first-century manwhore, bless him.’
‘Yeah, he’s a tart with a heart of gold,’ Yuri added.
Celia dug Neve in the ribs. ‘Anyway, enough about Max. You’re not going to meet any men stuck here in the corner.’
‘But wouldn’t you say that just leaving the house and being in the corner of a club is progress? Baby steps … Please, Celia, stop manhandling me!’
Celia had one hand wedged into Neve’s armpit and with Yuri’s help she hauled her sister to her feet. ‘We’re going to mingle. It will be fun,’ she said with grim determination.
It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t even a little bit fun. Neve switched to spritzers and stayed glued to Celia’s side, apart from the times when she held her bag while Celia was throwing energetic shapes on the dancefloor or wheeling over a steady stream of men who all looked the same with their skinny jeans and skinny tees and hedge-trimmer haircuts. Like Martyn from the subs desk, they were all monumentally uninterested in Neve but were vague and polite because she might put in a good word with Celia.
One more spritzer, then I’m definitely going home, Neve vowed to herself as Celia dragged her over to the bar. ‘Now, standing at the bar is a great way to meet a man,’ Celia told her. ‘Especially if there’s a queue,’ she added, using her elbows to negotiate her way through the crowd waiting to be served. ‘You look around and make sure you catch a fit bloke’s eye so you can share a smile about how long you’ve had to wait. Then you’ll get served first, because hello, you’re a girl, then you offer to get his drinks and because he thinks he has a chance, he’ll pay for yours and you’re in there.’
‘I’ll be sure to remember that,’ Neve muttered, but Celia was already commiserating with the man standing next to her about how long he’d been waiting to be served.
‘Oh, poor Neevy, you look so miserable,’ she cooed, when they were finally clutching a free drink each, courtesy of Celia’s superior flirting skills. ‘Tell you what, we’ll sit down for five minutes, before we start Operation Manhunt again.’
‘I’m not calling it that. I’m calling it Operation Light Flirtation,’ Neve insisted, as she followed Celia over to a shadowy alcove where there were a couple of sofas and a pair of easy chairs arranged around a low table.
‘Whatever. We’ll just scooch in here.’ Celia was already clambering over people’s legs to get to a patch of unoccupied sofa. She sat down and patted the three inches of seat next to her. ‘Come on. Plonk your arse down.’
Neve didn’t clamber over people’s legs so much as trip over them and apologise profusely, which was nothing compared to how profusely she apologised to the girl who scowled and got up rather than be squashed against Neve and the arm of the sofa.
Celia checked her phone for messages as Neve tried to surreptitiously yank at her tights and knickers, which were at half-mast again.
‘Are you sure neither of you are models?’
Neve and Celia grinned at each other, Celia’s nagging and Neve’s moaning instantly forgiven as they shared an eye-roll, then looked over at the corner where the infamous Max was living up to his reputation.
Neve had imagined Lotharios to look a lot more suave. Max was handsome enough, with wide-spaced dark eyes framed by outrageously long boy-lashes, pronounced cheekbones and a pillowy, pouty bottom lip, but his face was saved from being too pretty by his nose, which was slightly hooked and bent as if it had been broken by someone’s boyfriend, and the hair that he kept pushing off his face looked like it could do with a good wash. He was wearing a crumpled black shirt, a pair of herringbone tweed trousers with frayed hems and a bashed-up pair of Converses.
It took Neve less than five seconds to give Max the once-over and decide that he wasn’t her type. And she certainly wasn’t his, judging by the two blonde girls he’d been talking to earlier who were now perched on his lap and giggling wildly as he tried out another line on them. ‘Well, at least tell me that you’re twins, then? I’ve had triplets before but never twins.’
Celia snorted with mirth. ‘Hysterical, isn’t he?’
Neve could think of a few other words to describe him but she’d only got as far as ‘popinjay’ when she felt something cold, hard and wet hit her squarely on the chest. She squealed in shock as the ice cube slid down her cleavage and into her dress. ‘What … you … how dare …’
‘Hey, dickwad, did you just chuck something at my sister?’ Celia snapped at Max. Neve tried to fish the cube out of her tight bodice but it melted fast against her hot fingers and all she got for her trouble was an icy trickle of water that only stopped trickling when it reached the insurmountable barrier of her firm-control tights. ‘What is wrong with you?’
Max glanced at Neve, then his gaze skittered away as if she wasn’t even worth looking at for more than a second. ‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ he said breezily, turning to Celia and flashing her a smile that seemed to come with its own lighting rig. ‘Was meant for you, Brat. Don’t suppose you speak Russian or Polish or something like that. Not sure these girls speak the mother tongue.’
‘No, I don’t.’ Celia made a big show of trying to wipe Neve down, even as Neve wriggled to get away from her because, really, this was humiliating enough without Celia treating her like a messy toddler who’d just had an accident with a ketchup bottle. ‘This is my sister, Neve, whom you just assaulted with an airborne missile.’
‘Shut up,’ Neve hissed out of the side of her mouth, her every molecule throbbing with mortification. Not that Max noticed; he was giving Celia his rapt attention, even as he nuzzled the neck of one of the giggling, not-English girls on his lap. ‘You’re making everything worse.’
‘I said I was sorry. Look, is there an app for the iPhone that one of them can giggle into that will tell me what language they speak?’ Max asked earnestly. ‘And then I need an app that will translate what I’m saying into that language, because I’m wasting my best lines here.’
He was absolutely poisonous, Neve thought as Celia joined in with the giggling. Obnoxious. Shallow. A nasty piece of work who wouldn’t even acknowledge the presence of a woman who didn’t measure up to his clichéd standards of female pulchritude.
‘Celia, I’m going home now,’ Neve said in her iciest voice, but Celia was now happily consorting with the enemy and wittering on about how she wished there was an iPhone app that would tell her if she was about to purchase an item of clothing that one of her friends already owned. ‘Celia!’
‘OK, OK, keep your hair on,’ Celia grumbled, getting to her feet. ‘There’s only half an hour before we get kicked out, might as well stay to the end. See you later, Max.’
Max didn’t even deign to reply because he was neck-nuzzling again, so he just waved one languid hand in their direction.
‘What a horrible, horrible man,’ Neve said when they were free from the sofas. ‘It was like being back at Oxford and having bread rolls lobbed at me by vile posh boys.’
‘If it’s any consolation, Max is much nicer when there aren’t scantily clad blonde women about.’
‘Well, it isn’t.’ Neve sighed, then stuck out her lower lip.
‘I’m off. I don’t want to miss the last tube.’
‘OK, but will you hold my bag for a second – just want to have one more dance,’ Celia said, not waiting for Neve to reply but shoving her clutch at her sister.
Chapter Two
It wasn’t until they stepped out on to the street half an hour later and the cold January night threw a hundred icy daggers at her face and she gave a comedy stagger that Neve realised she wasn’t exactly sober. Not drunk either. But somewhere in between. She stood outside the club shivering in her winter coat and fretting about catching the last Piccadilly line train while she and Celia waited for Yuri to get her skateboard out of the cloakroom. Yuri never went anywhere without it, though Neve had never actually
seen her ride it.
‘Come on, we’re going to Soho House for an after-party,’ Celia said, tucking her arm into Neve’s. ‘Grace is going to sign us in.’
Grace was more important than Celia in the Skirt fashion food chain; she was also the sulkiest-looking girl that Neve had ever seen, although she did manage a wan smile in their direction.
‘I’m going home,’ Neve said firmly, disentangling herself from Celia. ‘I’ve had quite enough excitement for one night.’
‘You’ve barely had any excitement,’ Celia said, pouting. ‘It will be fun.’
‘I’ve exceeded my fun quota for the month,’ Neve told her. ‘Now before I go, can we make sure that you or Yuri have your keys, because I don’t want you ringing my doorbell at three in the morning.’
‘That only happened once …’
‘I think you mean once this month. Show me your keys.’
The keys were finally produced after a frantic search of Celia’s two bags, her coat pockets and her third bag, which Yuri gave her when she finally emerged from the club with her skateboard tucked under her arm.
As Neve was insisting that she wasn’t drunk and actually she had gone home on the tube after dark by herself on many occasions, she could hear a commotion behind her. She turned to see Max surrounded by a gaggle of Skirt girls, as he mournfully proclaimed, ‘Well, I wasn’t sure if they were legal, and neither of them spoke English so I had to make my excuses. Pity, they looked very bendy.’
There was a chorus of ‘Poor Max’ from the cheap seats as Neve turned back to Celia and Yuri. He really was absolutely odious. ‘Don’t stay out too late,’ she reminded Celia. ‘You said you had an early shoot tomorrow.’
Celia pulled a face. ‘Yes, Mum.’
‘Anyway, which one of you lovely ladies is coming home with me?’ Max demanded behind them. ‘Gracie, don’t you think you owe it to yourself to slip between my sheets just once? I’ll even make you breakfast and walk you to the bus stop in the morning.’
‘Hmmm, tempting offer, Max, but I’ve given up shagging manwhores for Lent,’ came the tart reply.
Neve rolled her eyes, as she checked the side pocket of her bag for Oyster card and rape alarm. ‘Right – well, I’m off,’ she said briskly.
‘Celia? Skate Girl?’ He was still trying to drum up business as Neve kissed Celia on the cheek, and she was just about to turn round and head off to the tube when she felt a hand land squarely on her bottom. ‘Or what about you? You’ve got plenty of cushion for the pushing. I like that in a woman.’
Neve let out a furious gasp, her eyes blinking rapidly as tears welled up. ‘Right, I’m going,’ she choked out, as Celia gazed at her in horror. ‘See you.’
‘I take it that’s a no, then?’ Max shouted after her, as Neve scurried to the safety of the other side of Dean Street and scrubbed one gloved hand furiously at her watering eyes. Max wasn’t a cad. A cad would never treat a woman quite so badly. Max was, quite simply, the lowest of the low. Exactly the same as those well-bred, boorish boys at Oxford who’d only ever noticed Neve when they wanted to have a cheap laugh at her expense.
She paused for a second, to take a deep breath and gather herself. She still felt ungathered as she started to walk again, but at least Neve didn’t feel as if she might burst into tears. Not all men were like Max, she knew that for a fact, and she shouldn’t let that … that manwhore get to her, even if he had drawn everyone’s attention to the size of her bum and physically assaulted her.
Though it was a bitterly cold night, Neve had to side-step throngs of people smoking outside pubs and bars. It was well after midnight and she wished she was snuggled in bed under her winter-weight duvet with her feet resting on a hot-water bottle. Just the thought of it made Neve quicken her pace, especially when she realised that someone had fallen into step beside her. She was just working up the courage to say, ‘No, I don’t want to get into your unlicensed minicab, thank you very much,’ when she saw that it was Max.
‘God, you walk fast,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’ve been trying to catch up with you since Wardour Street.’
‘You needn’t have bothered,’ Neve ground out, as she came to a halt so she could stand there with her hands on her hips and glare at him.
In the glow of the streetlamps and the glare of neon signs, Neve could see that his hair wasn’t dirty but a glossy dark brown, and his skin had an olive tinge that suggested he’d tan at the first sight of the sun. Which wasn’t important right then. It didn’t matter how pretty he was when he had such an ugly soul.
Max spread his hands wide. ‘Look, I’m sorry I slapped your arse. It was inexcusable and it’s been pointed out to me in no uncertain terms that most women don’t have the same relaxed attitude to inappropriate touching as the girls in the office do.’
It was a really poor excuse for an apology. ‘You implied … you said …’
‘To be honest, I don’t know how cushiony your bum is, it was just a line. I really didn’t mean to upset you.’ Max sounded sincere and he was looking at her with a furrowed brow.
‘Fine,’ Neve said, though it was a very huffy kind of ‘fine’. ‘Apology accepted, I suppose.’
She started walking again. So did Max. Walking alongside her, as if they were friends.
‘So, where are you heading?’
‘I’m going to the tube,’ Neve said, because she didn’t have the guts to pointedly ignore him.
‘Where do you live?’ he asked casually.
If by some bizarre twist of fate, Max had decided that she’d do for the night, then he was going to be sorely disappointed. ‘Finsbury Park,’ Neve said tersely.
‘I’m going that way too. I live in Crouch End. Do you want to share a black cab?’
Black cabs were an extravagance that Neve couldn’t afford, not this far away from payday, but that wasn’t the reason why she declined. ‘No, thank you. I’m perfectly all right with catching the tube.’
‘OK, tube it is,’ Max agreed, because he was quite obviously emotionally tone deaf and couldn’t sense the huge ‘kindly bugger off’ vibes that Neve was sure she was emitting. ‘You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?’
‘You apologised, why would I still be mad at you?’
‘One day we’ll laugh about this. When little Tommy asks how we met, I’ll say, “Well, son, I threw an ice cube at your mother, then slapped her arse, and we’ve been inseparable ever since.”’
Neve could feel her mouth doing something very strange. It felt as if she was smiling, and when Max smiled back at her she could understand why the Skirt girls forgave him for being such an obnoxious flirt. It was a suggestive smile that stopped just short of being a leer, and when it was aimed in Neve’s direction, it made her feel as if she was sexy and desirable and worthy of it. In fact, it was such a good smile that Neve was powerless to resist its potent charm. ‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to miss the last tube.’
Threading their way through the bustle of Old Compton Street meant that they didn’t have to talk, and soon they entered the welcome warmth of the station. Neve always walked down the escalators (and up them too) so she didn’t even think to see if Max was following but lurched down the stairs, the strumming of a busker playing ‘Hey Jude’ getting louder and louder, until she stepped off with a shaky dismount. Max was right behind her, not quite touching her, but close enough to steer her in the right direction when she got confused between the northbound and southbound Piccadilly line platforms.
‘It’s so crowded,’ Neve complained as they stepped on to the packed platform. ‘It’s as bad as rush hour.’
Max cupped her elbow. ‘Let’s walk down to the end – more chance of getting a seat.’
As they reached the end of the platform, the train screeched into the station. Max had been right; there were plenty of empty seats. Neve plopped down and pulled off her woolly hat. ‘You should never get in the first or last carriage,’ she said. ‘If we had a collision with another train, we’d bear the
full force of the impact.’
‘Well, I’m willing to risk it if it means I can get a seat,’ Max said, sitting down next to her and stretching out his long legs. He gave Neve a sideways look from eyes framed with those outrageously long lashes. ‘So, here we are.’
‘You didn’t want to go to Soho House with the others?’
‘Fancied an early night for a change,’ Max said with a smile that definitely verged on lecherous this time. ‘Normally I’m the last to leave but I have a breakfast meeting at the Wolseley with my agent. The man’s a sadist, always forcing me out of bed at some ungodly hour.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Neve said feelingly. Not about breakfast meetings with agents at very fancy London restaurants, but five days a week her alarm chirped insistently at six. She looked at her watch in dismay. ‘I’ve got to be up in five and a half hours.’
‘Not really much point in going to bed, is there?’ Max shifted in his seat so his arm and leg were pressed against Neve’s. ‘I’m sure we could find something else to do to pass the time.’
He said it lightly and with that cheeky little smirk so Neve decided not to take offence. She smiled instead, secure in the knowledge that there was every point in going to bed, alone, to sleep for a solid five hours. ‘So, why do you have an agent?’ she asked, mostly to change the subject. ‘Do all Editors-at-Large have one?’
‘Only those who write best-selling novels,’ Max revealed with just the slightest edge, like he couldn’t believe that Neve needed any clarification. ‘Well, technically I ghost-write them, but between you and me, Mandy isn’t going to give Iris Murdoch any sleepless nights.’
‘Well, Iris Murdoch has been dead for quite a few years,’ Neve murmured. However, Max was still looking at her expectantly, as if his bestselling novels merited more of a reaction. ‘I’m sorry. Who’s Mandy?’