‘Client gift. Unless you ate it as well last night.’
‘Oh my God. he’s going to love it here. Ridiculously overpriced fishy weirdo food is exactly what he likes.’
Carmen looked at her phone thoughtfully. Actual Champagne? Twice in a week? She smiled at her sister.
‘This is how you get all these great jobs and stuff, isn’t it? Just bulldoze people into it.’
‘If I have to,’ said Sofia, levering herself up. ‘Right, get the good glasses. And don’t drop any.’
He did, Carmen thought, look very, very well, the snowflakes settling on his dark locks, which she realised for the first time were rather too long. Maybe he thought it gave him a distracted, scholarly air, she thought.
He was still wearing the new jacket and the tweedy waistcoat, and it suited him. And he was carrying a bottle of Champagne. Smoothie.
Of course Sofia had instantly ordered her into a dress and to put on some make-up. She had refused the dress – how obvious could you be? – but had relented to some eyeliner and lipstick.
It’s not a date, she kept telling herself. This isn’t a date. It’s just a set of circumstances.
On the other hand, it was a lot closer to a date than she had had in a long time.
Sofia, somehow miraculously restored by the prospect of fancy company, hoofed upstairs, but of course the guest bedroom was already in perfect condition. Carmen followed her in – she hadn’t even been in here on the whistle-stop tour of the house. It was a gorgeous room overlooking the garden, with an immaculate hotel-style en suite with underfloor heating, a brass bed with white linen and an old-fashioned patchwork quilt. A few recent hardback novels had been placed on the bedside table, several of which Carmen wanted to read and none of which she could afford. She snaffled two on the way out while Sofia refreshed a water carafe and put on the small bedside lamps.
‘What?’ said Carmen. ‘Seriously, why am I not sleeping here?’
‘Well, we thought you’d like your privacy – our room is right next door.’
‘Yes, but your room is the size of an aircraft hangar.’
It was. It took up the entire side of the house and had two bathrooms and a dressing room. It was bigger than the entire flat Carmen had rented back home, and that had had four people living in it.
‘Anyway, play your cards right and you might be.’
‘Are you pimping me to Blair Pfenning?’
‘I’m just saying, he’s, like, I mean, he is really, really rich.’
‘You are!’
The bell rang and they looked at each other and grinned.
‘You get it,’ said Sofia.
‘Can I pretend it’s my house?’
‘No.’
‘Can I pretend I live here all the time and that’s normally my room?’
‘If you want to share it with him, sure.’
‘You super pimp!’
And that was how he found her, still giggling merrily, a little flushed from the wine and indubitably happy to see him, which was just how he liked it, and for a fleeting second he wished he’d brought some mistletoe. On the other hand, the bottle of Veuve Clicquot seemed to make up for it.
‘I was expecting some complete slum!’ he said, taking off the spanking-new brogues he had nipped back in for the previous afternoon. He thought this Monarch of the Glen look might be his new thing and was wishing there was a MacPfenning tartan. ‘You work in a shop!’
‘I much prefer it when you do that fake charm thing you do with people you don’t know,’ grumbled Carmen, stepping back.