Why the hell was he feeling guilty? Pierre had no idea because there was no part of him that felt responsible for his mother’s state of mind. He was a dutiful son and, yes, perhaps he could visit with more regularity, but how many times had he invited her to London? To stay with him? Time and again she had refused. No, he had met Didi more than halfway. Yet…
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Georgie,’ he said abruptly. ‘Turn the lights off when you head upstairs.’
He left with his conscience annoyingly murky, which did nothing to advance the enjoyment of his evening. Worse, he began to wonder whether Jennifer really was a touch on the dull side and found himself mentally counting the number of times she referred to her work.
Which meant that he returned to the house much earlier than he had expected. Too early for Georgie to be in bed, judging from the lights shining in the hall. As he walked into the house he startled her emerging from the sitting room, washed and make-up-free and wearing one of his tee shirts and some old jogging bottoms, which she had belted with one of his ties.
They stared at each other, she in surprise at his early return and he in reluctant admiration for an outfit that looked sexy without trying, and just then the telephone rang…right there on the table next to her…What could be more natural than she should pick it up…?
CHAPTER THREE
OR RATHER, what could be more natural to Georgie? The phone rang, she automatically reached for it. She even did it in her friends’ houses and could only explain it away as a habit formed from spending so much time in a school where taking calls was not delegated to anyone in particular but to everyone in general.#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#
Pierre, in the act of removing his jacket, could tell immediately that she knew the caller. Her face broke into an easy smile, the sort of smile that would, without much provocation, he thought, be accompanied by the sort of infectious laugh that would always make even the most dour bore grin. In fact, thinking about it, that laugh had lodged somewhere in his head because he knew exactly how it would sound.
She placed her hand over the receiver and mouthed, It’s Didi. Divested of his jacket, Pierre frowned and began loosening his tie, then he held out his hand for the phone. His opening words were, as Georgie turned away allowing him privacy for the call, ‘Didi. What are you doing calling at this hour? Is something the matter?’
Then she headed for the kitchen because somehow it felt awkward to be retiring to bed knowing that he was prowling downstairs. Fine if she had been asleep when he had sauntered back, but now she felt obscurely obliged to stay up until she made sure that she formally told him goodnight.
Belatedly, she realised that she had kitted herself out in some of his clothes, but they had been hanging in the spare wardrobe, which sort of implied that they weren’t used, and she hadn’t had the foresight to bring spare clothing because she had jauntily expected to be making the trip in one day. Wildly optimistic in retrospect, which was something else to be said for avoiding too much impulsive behaviour.
Anyway, she wondered, what was he doing back so early? It wasn’t yet eleven! She made herself a cup of coffee and mentally smirked at the notion that his idea of having fun couldn’t involve too much of a courtship routine if he could wrap the entire evening up in under three hours! Perhaps tax lawyers preferred speed over romance!
It was beautifully warm in the kitchen. Beyond the kitchen table was a small area with two squashy sofas and a television, which was where Georgie now removed herself with her mug of coffee, and she was beginning to feel quite drowsy when she heard him enter, although she didn’t turn to face him.
Instead, he was virtually upon her before she noticed his thunderous expression.
‘Okay, okay!’ Georgie sat up and made a conciliatory gesture with one hand. ‘I know I shouldn’t have borrowed your clothes but they were doing nothing in the wardrobe in the spare room so I just assumed they were surplus to requirements. Maybe just in a holding bay before being shipped off to the nearest charity shop.’ He still looked like a volcano on the verge of erupting, which, to her, seemed a bit of an overreaction to her using some of his spare clothes. ‘I’ll take them off if you really feel that strongly about the whole thing.’
‘I don’t give a damn about the clothes, Georgie!’ He completed the unfinished task of stripping off his tie, which he proceeded to hurl on one of the chairs.
‘Oh, that’s a relief,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Course, I’ll take them back with me and return them to you dry-cleaned.’