ILLUMINATION BOOK CHAPTERS (UPDATED LIST OF CHAPTERS HERE) … ROMANTIC COMEDY — QUIRKY ROMP — CO-STARS MOOCHER THE DOG
‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ — Chapter Twenty-One
Sex Kittens R Us
But she chickened out of doing it straightaway when she remembered she’d nicked Hugh’s wallet to make him come back. Liz telephoned him and sure enough, he said he’d come round straightaway as it contained the office swipe cards.
She met him at the door and grabbing his arm, she walked hastily away from the house. “Hugh, would you come with me for a coffee to that new café? Not Cakehole — the other one. I’m just waiting for Tony to move out and I’d rather not be in the house, but I’d rather you were there when I get back just in case he hasn’t gone.”
Of course, he fell for it. It wouldn’t occur to him she’d been underhand, and she wasn’t usually, but she felt the need to see him again soon. If he thought someone needed help he was a bit of a sucker. She’d bet a new kitchen that was how Charity got him in the first place. Damn, Liz didn’t want to think of her when she was about to try the alluring thing. He must have found her alluring once. Maybe he would again.
So they went off down to the café and settled themselves in its noisy, trendy depths. It had an awful lot of children in it, but then, mothers with small children made up the bulk of their trade. For a moment she became quite misty-eyed to think that when she managed to get Hugh to see sense it could be her in here with a chic three-wheeler this time next year, dunking her marshmallows in her cappuccino, gossiping with others who were doing the same, her terribly well-behaved, clean and quiet child patiently waiting in its conveyance. Oh, yes, she could see it all now.
The coffee arrived and dragged her out of her daydream. Hugh had ordered a freshly baked chocolate and pear muffin. She had declined because being in love takes it out of you so you don’t have enough energy left to have an appetite — that was one good thing about it — it would help with the weight loss, not that she needed to lose that much, but she thought just maybe there was something in Melanie’s assertion that she’d been comfort-eating for a couple of years in unconscious bereavement from losing Hugh.
She knew she was the one who had chucked him out, but we all make mistakes.
His chocolate confection did look scrummy. And she wasn’t back with him yet. Maybe she needed just a little more comfort-eating. He started in on it with every appearance of huge enjoyment. He didn’t look at all like a man mangled beneath the shredding blades of lost love.
Liz wondered just how Charity had entangled him. She thought it would be just like him to have found himself in that position and before it had really sunk in, suddenly it’d been broken off. Maybe it hadn’t really registered at all, although Liz knew he’d have gone through with it if he’d given his word, and then Charity would have ended up with all his worldly goods and disillusioned him, too. It didn’t bear thinking of.
And then Liz saw Tortoise-woman. And Pink and Fluffy. They sat in a corner of the café by the window in deep conversation. There was even a pet basket on the bench next to Tortoise-woman. She looked up as Liz stared, and smirked at her. Liz hoped it was her poker face in place as she gazed blankly back, trying to pretend she hadn’t seen her.
It occurred to her to wonder how come the tortoise got out so much. They must be very careless with it.
“Do you know, Tortoise-woman, Hugh?” she asked, suddenly struck with an odd idea. “She’s sitting over there with her two little girls.”
He didn’t even turn around to look. “Oh, yes. I discovered she’s Charity’s cousin and has been spying on me, especially when I came round to see you, which was how Charity knew so much. I wasn’t best pleased. We had words. Why would she spy on her fiancé? I found it quite distasteful.”
He seemed genuinely puzzled and savagely squashed a chocolate sponge crumb on his plate before continuing: “She kept the tortoise in the basket. She could go anywhere and then produce him as though she’d just found him. The two little girls aren’t hers, either. They’re borrowed from a friend and earn pocket money pretending to be hers as extra cover. Why would someone feel the need to do something as underhand as that?”
Another crumb got mashed. “I was going to stop coming round so much, too, because she’d already said it made her feel insecure. I thought she’d get used to it later. We all have friends, don’t we? She’d have got used to it.”
Bit naive Liz thought, but sweet.
“Charity’s got men friends,” he said. “Her last fiancée was still a good friend of hers, always round there cooking up schemes and laughing together. I didn’t begrudge her any friends.”
This was information Liz wasn’t sure she wanted. He’d said it innocently enough, but she wondered if he’d thought they were in league together to fleece him, which was immediately what she thought when he painted a picture of Charity and her previous love being quite so friendly.
Liz realised he was watching her, and having caught his eye she found it difficult to pull her gaze away. His eyes were dark and warm and tender and lovely. He must be wondering if they could make a go of it. She consciously made her own gaze more melting, more alluring. She narrowed her eyes a little so her eyelashes fanned out more sexily, subtly changing into a temptress, a siren, indeed a regular honeypot.
So she wasn’t surprised when in the middle of this loud, aromatic and busy café Hugh lowered his voice to a throbbing murmur and said, “Liz…”
“Yes?” she said, leaning forward slightly and placing her hand close enough to his hand — the one that didn’t have a half-eaten muffin in it — for him to take in his moment of revelation. Her heart knew something was about to happen and started to skip with excitement making her blood leap about her veins with eager anticipation.
“I wonder if you need glasses?” he said.
“What?” she asked, rudely snatched from her delicious fantasy.
“Glasses,” he said in a tone of voice that suggested that maybe she needed a hearing aid as well. “I wonder if you need glasses.” He paused. “Spectacles, Liz. Glasses to see things with…”
“I know what you mean,” she snapped, trying very hard not to sound as sulky as she suddenly felt. “What makes you say that?”
“It’s the way you keep looking at me as though you can’t really make out my face,” he said, thus shattering, for all eternity, any idea that she might make a successful sex kitten.
In what she hoped was a completely natural, accidental way she found herself looking at her watch. “Ohmigod! I have a client turning up. How could I have forgotten? I must go. I’m so sorry.” She stood up and grabbed her jacket. “I’ll be in touch.”
“I thought you wanted me to come back with you to see to Tony,” he said, but she pretended she hadn’t heard and gave him a cheery wave from the doorway before disappearing out of his line of sight and stopping to wipe the sweat of embarrassment from her brow.
It was some time later before she realised she’d left him to pay for their coffees, too. The coffees she had invited him to share. Oh, great — blind, deaf and running out on the bill as well.
Chapter Twenty of ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ is here!
Chapter Twenty-Two of ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ will be here next week!
All ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ chapters to read are here.
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‘White Lies and Stakeouts’ follows on from ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’, although, it too, can stand alone.
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