Chapter Fifteen

Three at a Table for Two

When Dominic got home that evening, before ten, just to be on the safe side, he crept into his flat and then crept out again. He stood in the hallway, listening.

Nothing. No sound from upstairs. But then he hardly ever heard her moving around up there except when she left or returned to the flat – the open and close of the front door, her footsteps on the stairs, then the muffled slam of her flat door. Slowly and silently, he made his way up to the first-floor landing. Once there, he placed a careful bundle outside her front door.

No more old lady magazines and corner shop chocolates. This time he’d really put some thought into it, tried to work out what a woman like Claire would like.

It was almost one a.m. when he ventured outside his flat door again. He looked on his doormat for a familiar crisp envelope, but there was nothing. He crept upstairs to see if his gifts and letter had been accepted. Claire’s doormat was also empty.

So far, so good, he supposed, although he’d have preferred a more immediate response from her. Patience – at least when he was away from his camera – wasn’t one of his strong suits.

However, when he surfaced the next morning, he found what he’d been waiting for on his doorstep. He grinned to himself and ripped the envelope open. He hadn’t really paid that much attention to the stationery before, but now he noticed the thickness of the paper, the tissue lining of the envelope. It probably said something about Claire Bixby, but he wasn’t exactly sure what.

He unfolded the creamy paper and read the note inside:

Dear Mr Arden

I appreciate your effort at a truce and agree that we need to find a way to coexist harmoniously. Thank you for the flowers and chocolates. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to emulate your kindness and pass them on to a friend who is in need of a bit of cheering up.

Best wishes,

Claire Bixby

He frowned. It was hardly gushing, was it? Not exactly what he’d been expecting. This latest letter still had a hint of the tone of the starchy headmistress, and he guessed that if this had been a piece of homework the words ‘could try harder’ would be neatly inscribed in red pen at the bottom.

That was always the silent message he’d got from Erica when they’d been going out. He should have paid attention to that, really, especially before he jumped in with both feet and asked her to marry him. That had been his most spectacular fall from grace, one he quickly realised the relationship would never recover from.

But surely every relationship was a compromise? Why couldn’t she just have accepted that he wasn’t good at that kind of stuff? He’d loved her in every way that mattered.

He grunted slightly and went off to his computer and opened up a lengthy article on the breathing techniques free-divers used. Why did he keep harping back to Erica at the moment? The relationship was over. Had been for a long time.

What really puzzled him was how other guys succeeded where he’d failed. Even Pete, of all people, had managed it. It was if all the other men his age were clued in to some big secret that they were keeping from him. It wasn’t fair.

And Claire’s dismissal hadn’t been fair either. He had tried harder this time. Nice flowers – not from the corner shop but a modern-looking bouquet from Waitrose – and the truffles from Hotel Chocolat had cost an eye-watering amount. It didn’t matter. Operation Good Neighbour obviously needed a rethink.

Thank goodness the second prong of his plan, Operation Charm Offensive, was still up and running. Or it would be when he followed up with Claire after their meeting at the party. Grinning, he pulled the small business card Claire had given him from his wallet.

*

It wasn’t hard to find the little travel agency. Dominic saw it the minute he stepped foot inside Old Carter’s Yard. Paying virtually no attention to the surrounding shops, he marched straight for it. Through the large bay window at the front, he could see Claire, alone in the shop. He mentally punched the air and, grinning, because he just couldn’t seem to help himself, he knocked on the door.

A host of expressions crossed her features when she spotted him standing there – polite interest at first, then confusion and surprise as she recognised him – but they all ended up curling themselves into a welcoming smile. She was pleased to see him too. Even better.

She got up from her desk as he opened the door and walked inside. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, puzzled but still smiling.

‘What do most people come to a travel agent’s for?’ he asked. ‘I want to book a holiday.’

The smile dimmed a little, which was a bit surprising. He’d have thought she’d be pleased about that.

‘Oh?’ she said lightly. ‘I didn’t think you liked to use travel agents.’

He gave her a playful smile. ‘Well, you’ve got to try everything once.’

‘I suppose so,’ she replied, looking a little wary. ‘Why me?’

Later, Dominic would realise this was the moment where he went wrong, that he should have just told her it had been an excuse to see her, but, in the moment, he was so caught up in not revealing he was her downstairs neighbour before he could win her round, he chose another tack. ‘After looking you up online …’ A lie. He’d meant to before he’d left the house that morning but had run out of time ‘… I decided I need the specialised kind of help only you can provide.’

She nodded. The smile had completely disappeared now. She even looked a little bit sad. What was it with this woman? Every time he tried to get one kind of reaction out of her, he got exactly the opposite. It was like being in a dream world where none of the usual rules applied.

‘Of course,’ she said, her tone professional and flat, and then she bustled around behind her desk for a moment and sat down in her office chair, the great slab of furniture between them. Even though this was the most logical arrangement if they were going to chat as agent and client, he got the feeling this was a bad thing. He sat down in the chair opposite.

She messed around with her computer for a few seconds then looked him in the eye. ‘I’m very happy to share my specialist knowledge with you. I take it you want to book a romantic trip?’

Dominic’s grin popped back into place. She was the one to have brought up romance. That had to be a good sign, didn’t it, if that was the first thing that popped into her head when she looked at him? He might be halfway to winning Pete’s unintentional challenge already. ‘A romantic trip sounds good to me.’

However, if anything, Claire looked even more grim. ‘Will it just be a romantic getaway, or is there a special reason?’

Dominic lifted his eyebrows. Once again, Claire Bixby was making no sense to him. He should probably just try to go with the flow.

She frowned. ‘It’s not a significant occasion? Like an anniversary or—’ she broke off to swallow ‘—a proposal?’

Crikey, she liked to move fast. He’d only been there for five minutes and she was already talking marriage? Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all! He shook his head. ‘No. Why would I …?’

He trailed off, looked around the inside of the office. There were picture of couples everywhere, even a bunch of fake flowers and a couple of helium balloons saying ‘Just Married’. Either Claire Bixby was a woman with a serious wedding obsession or …

The slogan at the bottom of a flyer lying on the desk jumped out at him and caught his eye. ‘Far, Far Awaythe specialists in romantic travel.’

Oh, hell. He’d done it again, hadn’t he? Gone marching in without paying attention to the details. It was just he’d been so focused on seeing Claire again he hadn’t thought about anything else. He blamed his father. It was a trait than ran through all Arden men – the inability to take a moment to look a little bit deeper, to go further than a first impression. His mother never let his father do the grocery shopping any more, not since she’d sent him out for basmati and he’d come home with pudding rice. He’d looked at her helplessly when she’d challenged him about it. ‘I just saw something that said “rice” on the packet and picked it up,’ he’d explained.

And that was just how Dominic felt now, a little foolish, and desperately scrabbling to work out how he could salvage the situation. Claire was looking at him. Waiting. He knew he needed to say something next, he just couldn’t work out what.

‘Well,’ she eventually said, rescuing him. ‘The trip is obviously for two people …’

Dominic almost made a quip along the lines of, Well, you never know … but decided against it. He had a feeling Claire wouldn’t find it very funny at the moment.

‘And how long for? A weekend? A couple of weeks?’

He said the first thing that fell out of his mouth. ‘A week.’

She nodded, scribbled something on a pad. ‘And what about destinations? Do you have anything in mind?’

He shook his head. Nope. Especially since he hadn’t expected to have to pick something romantic. This was a crucial moment, wasn’t it? If he was going to prove to Claire, Pete – and maybe even himself – that he wasn’t the loser in love that everyone thought he was, he was going to have to pick well. Oh, this would have been so much easier if he hadn’t got so carried away with Operation Charm Offensive and had just told her he wanted to book a flight to visit Auntie Pat on the Costa Brava.

‘I thought I’d see what suggestions you had.’

Good. That was good. He’d deflected that one for now. Claire didn’t seem very pleased, though. That little line he remembered from before appeared between her bunched brows. ‘A city break? Or a beach? Or would you prefer mountains or countryside? You must have some idea.’

She seemed to be getting a little irritated with him. He’d probably broken one of those mysterious female rules, the kind that only women knew about, but still prosecuted guys for relentlessly when they broke them.

She sat back in her chair, folded her hands in her lap. ‘Is this trip a surprise?’

He let out a rough bark of laughter. ‘You bet it is!’ he said, and then realised what she meant. Oh. A surprise for her, the non-existent woman he was supposed to be going away with. ‘Why do you ask?’

She gave him an ‘isn’t it obvious?’ kind of look. ‘Well, if it wasn’t, I’d assume your girlfriend would be here with you.’

Great. Now he’d saddled himself with a girlfriend. This was so not how he’d envisaged this meeting going. If he asked Claire out now, she’d think he was a total and utter slimeball. He sighed. Just for a moment, he wished the non-existent girlfriend was real. Then she’d be able to answer Claire’s rapid-fire questions and he’d have a chance to think. That was the reason he’d backed himself into this corner in the first place.

‘Good point,’ he said, even though he’d already forgotten what she’d just said. There had to be some way to talk himself out of this, hadn’t there?

‘Well, if you don’t know what you want,’ Claire said, ‘and this is supposed to be a special romantic trip, perhaps you need to think about what she would want?’

Now she just didn’t seem mildly irritated, she was getting a little snippy. Instantly, he could hear the same voice in his head as there had been when he’d read the notes she’d left on his doorstep.

‘I’m kind of stuck,’ he mumbled, meaning that he’d dug himself into a hole during the last five minutes, one he was becoming increasingly fearful he was never going to scramble out of. Claire, however, took it another way. The expression on her face softened a little. Odd. When he tried to charm her, she just clammed up, but when he let a little bit of the desperation underneath show, it had the opposite effect.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. Her voice was gentle, understanding, but there was a distance in her manner too. ‘Lots of men get paralysed by the pressure of a romantic holiday. We’ll take it step by step.’

‘Just the men? Don’t the women feel the same way?’

She shook her head. ‘Nope. They pretty much have it all worked out. Women tend to pay attention to stuff.’

‘What kind of stuff?’

She gave a little shrug. ‘Details. Little snippets of information they store away during a relationship to use later.’

Dominic nodded. He knew all about that. Only Erica hadn’t stored away things that would help her book a holiday. No, what she’d hung on to was every transgression he’d ever made in word or deed, all neatly catalogued and labelled in her memory, so they were readily accessed every time they’d had a fight. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said grudgingly.

Claire nodded. ‘Women remember those little things about their partners – a favourite song or dish, somewhere they once said in passing they’d really like to visit. Men? Well, they tend to be more … oblivious.’

He disagreed with her on principle more than because he actually had a winnable case. ‘No we aren’t.’

She folded her arms across her chest. ‘Then why haven’t you got the faintest idea where, when you’ve got the choice of the whole wide world, your girlfriend would want to go?’

He had to come up with a good idea. Right now. Somewhere seriously romantic. If he didn’t buck his ideas up, she’d think ‘Nick’ was just as much of a loser as her downstairs neighbour and both his plans to win her round would have bombed out in one morning.

Come on, Dominic. You can be romantic if you try! And there’s no one that knows destinations like you. You’ve got to be able to come up with something.

Claire was still looking at him. ‘Any ideas?’

‘Venice,’ he said briskly, almost on reflex. His shoulder muscles unbunched. There. That was a seriously romantic place.

She blinked. ‘Did you say that because it’s really her dream destination, or because it was the first thing that came into your head?’

The momentary soaring feeling he’d had faded. He was so busted. For some reason, he found that really funny. Laughing to himself, his bowed his head, shaking it. When he looked up again, she wasn’t smiling. ‘I panicked,’ he said.

Claire just stared at him. He quickly swallowed his laughter and straightened his features. For some reason that just made him want to laugh all the harder. She could see it too, which only made her eyes narrow.

‘What kind of woman is she?’ Claire asked, starchily, pushing the end of a mechanical pencil so a razor-sharp point appeared. ‘Tell me something about her. That will help me come up with some less obvious suggestions, but if Venice turns out to be the perfect fit, then I’ll help you do Venice in total, drop-dead style. Okay?’ She waited, pencil poised above her pad.

Dominic nodded. Flip, he should have quit when he was ahead. It was bad enough when he’d had to answer questions about places – and he was good with places – but now he had to describe a woman, a thing, according to all sorts of people, he clearly knew nothing about. He might as well confess right here and now to stealing Claire’s milk a fortnight ago.

He tried to picture her, this phantom woman, tried to work out if she’d be brunette or blonde, tall or short, fat or thin, but she just stayed a fuzzy lump in his imagination. He searched the posters on the walls for inspiration, but the women he saw were all flat, two-dimensional creatures and, try as he might, he couldn’t imagine them any other way. And then his eyes drifted back to Claire, looking calm and very three-dimensional on the other side of the desk.

Why not?

She was the one he was trying to win over, after all. What better way to redeem himself in her eyes than by planning the kind of romantic trip she’d like? He looked at Claire. Really looked at her.

For a moment there was only silence between them, then he started to talk.

‘She’s bright and friendly,’ he said, mentioning the first things that popped into his head about her and, surprisingly, instead of having to root desperately around for more words, they were ready and waiting on the tip of his tongue. ‘She’s intelligent,’ he added, his voice firm and decisive. ‘She seems reserved when you first meet her – maybe even a little prickly – but once you get past that, she’s warm and funny.’

Claire’s blank expression thawed. Her brow smoothed and her eyes widened. She cleared her throat. ‘Those are lovely things to say about someone,’ she said, her voice a little husky.

Yes, they were, weren’t they? Dominic was pretty pleased with himself. When Erica had been in one of her Tell me why you love me? moods, his brain had always frozen, and he’d learned the hard way that mentioning great boobs did not go down well. He was good with pictures, not words. He’d known that he’d loved her, had told her frequently. Why hadn’t that been enough?

However, Claire wasn’t wearing that same pinched expression Erica used to have. She had her elbows on the desk, and she was leaning forward, hands clasped, looking at him. He realised that finally, and quite accidentally, he’d said something to impress her.

His plan was working. A warm glow spread inside his stomach. At least, it did until he realised what a doofus he’d been already.

Fabulous, Dominic. Well done. You might be winning her over, but you’ve gone and invented a fake girlfriend she now thinks you’re in love with. He’d really outdone himself in the ‘jumping in without thinking’ stakes this time, hadn’t he?

Well, he might as well book the holiday. At first, he’d just thought about talking it through with her, then he’d realised what he’d said at the party was true: he hadn’t travelled purely for pleasure in a long while, and he had plenty of time on his hands at the moment. Maybe a week away somewhere he would never usually go wouldn’t be such a bad thing. He could relax and let his shoulder finish healing, just like the doc had said. He’d work out what to do about the fake girlfriend later. At least the holiday idea would give him an opportunity to interact with Claire, show her he wasn’t the no-brain caveman she’d taken him for.

‘Can I take one of those brochures?’ he said, nodding at the rack behind her. ‘It might spark some ideas.’

Claire stood, fetched one and handed it to him wearily. ‘Let’s hope.’