Drive safely.
SEVEN
The
best run of
his life turned into the worst night of his life.
Not the evening—the evening touched on one of the most special
moments he’d ever had. But the night, after Georgia drove off so quickly down
Bowness’s quiet main street... He barely slept that night despite his exhaustion
and even Sunday was pretty much a write-off.
He spent the whole time trying to offload the kiss he had
stolen from her like a fence trying to move appropriated diamonds. Failing
abysmally.
After all these months—even after the stern talking to he’d
given himself after getting all touchy feely with her at spy school—why had he
let himself slip to quite that degree?
Kissing her. Touching her.
Torturing himself with what he couldn’t have.
There were endless numbers of women back in London that he
could kiss. And touch. And sleep with if he wanted. Bold, casual, riskless
women. Georgia Stone was not one of them. She wasn’t made of the same stuff as
any of them. She wasn’t bold or casual. And Lord knew not without risk.
But then she’d walked into his world, the only woman—the only
person—ever to watch him race, to wait with a cold drink and a proud smile at
the finish line, and he’d let himself buy into the fantasy. Just for a moment.
Then one fantasy had led to another until they were lying in the long, cool
grass, tongues and feet tangling.
He’d let himself slip further than any time since Lara.
Worse, to
trust
. And he didn’t do
trust.
Ever.
He’d finally tumbled into an exhausted sleep Sunday night, but
his mood was no better today.
As evidenced by the way his staff were tiptoeing around him
extra carefully. Even Casey, who usually only gave the most cursory of knocks
before walking into his office, actually stood, waiting, until he gave her
permission to enter.
‘Zander,’ she started, lips tight. She looked as if she’d
rather be calling him Mr Rush.
‘What is it, Casey?’
‘I wanted to...’ She changed tack. ‘Georgia just emailed these
instructions, and I thought I’d better run them past you.’
That got his attention. Not just because the sentence had the
word
Georgia
in it, but because his assistant and
their resident scientist were thick as thieves, so Casey ratting her out meant
something big was going on.
She stood across the desk from him. ‘She’s made some changes to
the programme.’
No big news—Georgia changed things around regularly. He was
getting used to it. He stared and waited for more from Casey.
‘Big changes.’ She held out a sheaf of papers.
‘How big?’ But as he ran his eyes over them he could see
instantly. ‘Ankara? Are you kidding me?’ He eyeballed his assistant. She took
half a step back. ‘Ibiza’s already booked isn’t it?’ Their flights to Spain were
in a few weeks. Georgia’s big holiday. Now she wanted it to be Turkey?
‘Actually I can still make changes—’
Not what he wanted to hear.
Casey’s mouth clicked shut. She started backing out of the
room. ‘I’ll leave you to read the—’
‘Stay!’ he barked, though deep down he regretted commanding her
like a trained dog. None of this was her fault.
All of it was his. He’d been stupid to give into his baser
instincts and kiss her. As though either of them could go back from that.
He flipped to the next page. Georgia had ditched the
cocktail-making class in favour of life drawing. She’d dumped aquasphering on
the Thames to go on some underground tour of old London. She’d dropped out of
salsa and replaced it with belly dancing, for heaven’s sake.
‘I see spy lessons made the cut,’ he snorted.
‘Yeah, she loves those—’ Again, Casey’s jaw clicked shut. As if
she suddenly realised she was siding with the enemy.
‘Get her on the phone for me.’
‘I tried, Zander. She’s not answering.’
Right. ‘I’ll take care of it tonight.’ At salsa.
Assuming she went at all.
* * *
‘I
wasn’t
convinced you’d be here,’ he said as Georgia slipped through the dance studio
door, quietly, and joined him on the benches. She smiled and nodded at some of
their fellow dance regulars. Twice as big as the paltry smile she’d offered
him.
‘I wasn’t sure if the change got approved, so I didn’t want to
leave them with uneven numbers.’
‘What’s with the swap to belly dancing?’
She shrugged and glanced around the room. Zander tried again.
‘I had no idea you were such a fan of all things eastern. First belly dancing,
then Ankara...’
She brought her eyes back to his. Surprised at his snark,
perhaps. ‘You helped me to see that my list was built out of things I thought I
should be doing more than things I actually wanted to do.’
‘Come on, Georgia. You actually want to belly dance?’
She kicked her chin up. He might as well have waved a red flag.
‘It interests me. It’s beautiful.’
Uh-huh.
It couldn’t have anything
to do with the fact that belly dancing was a solo occupation and she wouldn’t
have to touch him again. ‘And what’s in Ankara that’s of so much more interest
than Ibiza?’
Other than less alcohol, less noise, less crowds.
‘Cappadocia.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘A region full of amazing remnants of a Bronze-Aged
civilisation. You can fly over it in balloons.’
He just stared. ‘And that’s what you want to do?’
Her hands crept up to her hips. ‘Yes.’
‘Why the sudden change of heart on all your activities?’
‘It’s not all that sudden. I don’t want expensive makeovers or
hot stone massages or guidance on how to wear clothes I’ll never be able to
afford to buy.’
The dance instructor clapped them to attention.
‘Is this about the cost?’ Zander whispered furiously. Hoping it
really was.
‘This is about me. Doing things that matter to me.’
It was her money—her year—to spend however she liked. And it
was his job to make even the wackiest list sound like something all EROS’
listeners could relate to. But it was becoming increasingly important that it
helped Georgia to find her way back to feeling whole. He wanted her whole.
He just didn’t know why.
‘Partners!’ the dance instructor called.
They knew the drill. They’d done weeks of this. He’d gone a
little bit crazy getting all the audio he needed, grabs from Georgia, the dance
instructor. That should have been heaps. But he’d interviewed just about
everyone else, there, too. Every single one of them had an interesting story,
their own personal reasons for learning to dance at seventy, or despite being
widowed recently or coming alone. And for every single one of them it wasn’t
about dance at all.
It was about living.
There were thirty interesting stories in this room. But he was
only paid to tell one of them.
The instructor clapped his hands again. He and Georgia were
supposed to partner up. She was supposed to step into his arms, assume the salsa
start position. But the stance they were supposed to assume was the vertical
version of the one they’d found themselves in a few nights ago: lying there in
the long grass as the sun extinguished in the ocean.
A little bit too familiar.
A little bit too real.
She hovered indecisively. And again, this was his mess to sort
out. He was the one who’d failed to control his wandering thoughts and hands
that night. He was the one who’d lacked discipline. Folded to his barely
acknowledged need for human contact.
He stepped closer to her, kept his body as formal and stiff as
he could. Raised his hands. ‘Georgia...?’
Her smile was tight, but she stepped into his hold carefully,
and stood—just as stiff, just as formal—close to his body. As the music began he
did his best not to brush against her unless essential—out of respect for her
and a general aversion to self-torture—and they stepped as they’d been taught,
though nowhere near as fluid as it had been in the past.
It was as clunky as them, together, now.
But it was functional.
The instructor drifted around correcting posture, demonstrating
steps, voicing words of encouragement, but when he got to the two of them he
took one look at their total disconnect, his lips pursed and he said in his
thick accent, ‘Not every day is magic. Sometimes this happens. You will have the
magic again next week.’
No. There would be no magic next week. There would be no salsa
next week. And the guilt in Georgia’s eyes confirmed exactly what he’d
suspected. This sudden change to belly dancing was about
him.
‘I could have just stopped coming,’ he gritted as she moved
close enough to hear his murmur.
She drifted away again. But he knew the steps would bring her
right back. He tried to read her face and see if she was going to feign
innocence or not.
‘I wanted something that didn’t force us to dance together,’
she breathed, her total honesty pleasing him on some deep level. A level deep
beneath the one where he hated what she was suggesting. ‘The only other solo
option was pole dancing. Belly dancing seemed like a decent compromise.’
And suddenly his mind was filled with poles and Georgia and
seedy, darkened venues. He forced his focus back onto the key issue.
‘What about the segment?’
‘You’ve got more than enough for a salsa segment. In fact, why
do you have so much? You’ll never use all of that in a two-minute piece.’
Prime-time air was too expensive to dedicate more than two
minutes a month to the Year of Georgia. So why had he spent all that time
recording everyone else in the session as well? ‘The laws of
documentary-making,’ he hedged. ‘Get ten times more than you think you’ll
need.’
‘This isn’t a documentary,’ she reminded him, her breath coming
faster with the dancing. ‘It’s a stupid commercial promotion.’
Stupid.
Nice.
But he was too distracted remembering the last time she’d been
this breathless to argue.
He yanked her towards him as the funky music crescendoed. As
usual the whole room was slightly out of synch so what was supposed to be a
passionate crash of body against body always looked like a vaguely geriatric
Mexican wave.
She pressed against his chest, staring up at him, angry colour
staining her cheeks. ‘I’ve changed my mind.’
‘About what?’
‘My reluctance to have a stranger come along with me. You can
go back to your paperwork and give me the work-experience kid as far as I’m
concerned.’
‘You think our schedules are that elastic? That I can just make
a change like that with no warning? Disrupt everyone’s plans every time you
change your mind?’
‘It’s called dynamism, Zander,’ she gritted. ‘Maybe your
station could use some.’
OK, now she was just picking a fight.
He stopped when he should have twirled her into open position.
She stumbled at his misstep. Then he curled his hand around hers and hauled her
back towards the door. A few eyes followed them, including the speculative ones
of the instructor.
‘Next week!’ he shouted at their backs. ‘Magic!’
She shook free as soon as they hit the cool June air. ‘What are
you doing?’
‘What’s going on, Georgia?’
‘Nothing’s going on. I just realised that I needed to be true
to myself or this whole thing is a crock.’
‘Which part is being true to yourself? The part where you start
switching all our plans around or the part where you’ll do just about anything
not to get too close to me.’
‘Aberration,’
she parroted back to
him. ‘That was your word, Zander. You wanted things back on a professional
footing.’
‘Not at the expense of any civility at all between us.’
Her breath hissed out of her. ‘The changes I’m making are
trying to keep things civil. So they don’t end up like this every night.’
Boundaries. She was stacking them up and he kept knocking them
down. Why? He should be thanking her. He took two deep, long breaths. ‘We just
kissed, Georgia. Heat of the moment, influence of the sunset, romance of the
wall. Whatever you want to call it.’
He had to call it something, otherwise he was just a jerk for
hitting on her while she was still vulnerable from her breakup with
Bradford.
‘Who are you trying to convince, Zander? Me or yourself?’
That was a damned fine question. ‘It doesn’t have to change
anything. We just agree to let it go.’
‘Just like that?’
Sure. He was a master at denial. ‘I have a job to do and you
have money to spend. Let’s just focus on that.’
‘You don’t object to any of the changes?’
‘I don’t care what you do with the money, I just want you to
be—’ he caught himself a half-breath before saying
happy
‘—comfortable with it.’
‘I’m hoping I’ll be more comfortable this way. Forcing myself
to do things way outside of my usual interests was probably a mistake. I was
trying to be someone I’m not.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I thought it was what was expected. What your
listeners would expect. What you wanted.’
Her eyes flicked away and he struggled with the deep
satisfaction that she’d done any of it for him. ‘Listeners are the first to spot
falsity on air. If it’s not of interest to you it’s going to show in the
segments.’
She nodded. ‘Well, hopefully we’ve taken care of that now.’
We
. He liked her accidental use of
the collective. For the same reason he liked coming along to these crazy classes
even though he had much more efficient things to be doing with that time. It
legitimised his being with Georgia. He could play at relationships without
actually being in one. Enjoy her company without the commitment. She was
generous with her wonder and excitement doing new things and he could live off
that for a whole week back in the soul-destroying environment of the
station.