“Bloody hell!” I say, as we crash back down. “You’re going to—”
I break off. Shit. He’s heading toward the ditch. Except he can’t see that it’s a ditch because it’s covered in long grass and reeds.
“Slow down,” I say tensely. “Slow down!”
“Slow down? Are you nuts? This is the best thing I’ve done in my l-aaaaaargh!”
The Defender lurches down, and for a terrifying moment I think we might roll. My head has crashed on the ceiling. Alex has bumped himself on the open window frame. He frantically floors it, almost willing the Defender upward out of the ditch.
“Go!” I’m screaming. “Go!”
With an almighty whirring of wheels and growling of the engine, we manage to get out of the ditch, career bumpily along for a few hundred meters, then stop. I look at Alex and gasp. There’s blood all over his face, dripping down his chin. He turns off the engine, and we stare at each other, both panting.
At last I say: “When I said, ‘Knock yourself out,’ I didn’t literally mean knock yourself out.”
Alex gives a half smile, then frowns, eyeing my face closely. “I’m fine. But are you OK? You got a real bash there. I’m sorry, I had no idea—”
“I’ll live.” I touch my forehead, which is already sprouting a bruise. “Ouch.”
“Oh God, sorry.” He looks shamefaced.
“Don’t be.” I take pity on him. “We’ve all done it. I learned to drive in this meadow. Got stuck in the ditch. Had to be pulled out with a tractor. Here.” I reach in my pocket for a tissue. “You’ve got blood everywhere.”
Alex scrubs the blood off his face, then peers through the windscreen. “Where are we?”
“The meadow. Come on, let’s get out.”
It’s a pretty stunning day. It must be after one o’clock by now, and the sun is high in a cloudless sky. The grass is long and hay-like; the air is still and quiet. All I can hear are the skylarks singing, way, way above us, in their endless streaming ribbons of sound.
I get out the blanket we always keep in the back of the Defender and spread it over the grass. There’s a box of cider we keep there too, safely moored under its netting, and I take two cans out.
“If you want to know about Somerset,” I say, throwing a can to him, “then you need to drink our local cider. Only, watch ou—”
Too late. He’s exploded the can all over himself.
“Sorry.” I grin at him. “Meant to warn you. They’ve had a bit of a shaking.”
I open my own can at arm’s length and for a few moments we just sit there in the sun, sipping cider. Then Alex gets to his feet.
“OK, I do want to know about Somerset,” he says, his eyes glinting. “What’s that hill over there? And whose house is that on the horizon? And what are these little yellow flowers? Tell me everything.”
I can’t help laughing at his intensity. He’s so interested in everything. I can totally imagine him cornering an astrophysicist at a drinks party and asking him to explain the universe.
But I like it too. So I get to my feet and follow him around the meadow, telling him about the landscape and the farm and the flowers and whatever else catches his eye.
At last the sun is getting too hot to keep striding around, and we settle back down on the blanket.
“What are those birds?” asks Alex, as he stretches out his legs, and I feel a tiny satisfaction that he noticed them. He didn’t have to.
“Skylarks.” I take another swig of cider.
“They don’t shut up, do they?”
“No.” I laugh. “They’re my favorite birds. You get up early and you step outside and…” I pause, letting the familiar sound wash over me. “It feels like the sky’s singing to you.”
We’re both silent again, and Alex seems to be listening intently to the birdsong. Maybe he’s never heard skylarks before. I have no idea what his upbringing was.
“I called you a city boy before,” I say tentatively. “But are you? Where did you grow up?”
“Try ‘cities boy.’ ” He tilts his head as though recalling. “London, New York, Shanghai for a bit, Dubai, San Francisco. L.A. for six months when I was ten. We followed my dad’s work.”
“Wow.”
“I’ve had thirty-seven addresses in my life. Been to twelve schools.”
“Seriously?” I gape at him. Thirty-seven addresses? That’s more than one a year.
“We lived in Trump Tower for a few months; that was cool….” He catches my expression and winces. “Sorry. I know. I’m a privileged bastard.”
“It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t—” I break off, biting my lip. I need to tackle something that’s been bothering me ever since I saw him again. “Listen, I’m sorry for what I said at the office. That your famous daddy gave you your career.”
“It’s fine.” He gives me a wry smile, which tells me he’s heard it said a lot of times.
“No.” I shake my head. “It’s not fine; it was unfair. I don’t know anything about how you started out, if you had an advantage—”
“Well, of course I had an advantage,” he says calmly. “I watched my dad my whole childhood. I went into the office, the studio…I learned from him. So, yes, I had an advantage. But what was he supposed to do? Not share his job with me? Is that nepotism?”
“I don’t know.” I feel confused now. “Maybe not exactly. But it’s not…” I trail off.
“What?”
“Well,” I say awkwardly. “Fair, I suppose.”
There’s silence. Alex lies back and looks straight up at the endless blue sky, his face unreadable.
“You know the names of birds,” he says. “You lived in the same house all your childhood. You have a two-hundred-year-old farming background keeping you stable and grounded. Your dad loves you more than anyone could love anything in the world. You can tell that in thirty seconds.” He pauses. “That’s not fair either.”
“My dad?” I say, taken aback. “What do you mean? I’m sure your dad loves you too.”
Alex says nothing. I survey his face, sidelong, and it’s motionless except for a tiny twitch at his eye. Have I stumbled on ground I shouldn’t have? But, then, he’s the one who brought it up.
“Doesn’t your dad—” I stop dead. I can’t say, Doesn’t your dad love you? “What’s your dad like?” I amend.
“Super-talented,” says Alex slowly. “Awe-inspiring. And a total shit. He’s very driven. Very cold. He treated my mother badly. And, for what it’s worth, he didn’t get me my first job.”
“But you had your name,” I say before I can stop myself.
“Yes.” His face crinkles as though in humor, but he’s not smiling. “I had my name. That was half help, half hindrance. My dad’s made a lot of enemies along the way.”
“What about your mum?” I ask tentatively.
“She has…issues. She gets depressed. She withdraws. It’s not her fault,” he adds at once, and I can see a sudden boyish defensiveness in him.
“I’m sorry,” I say, biting my lip. “I didn’t realize.”
“I spent quite a lot of my childhood being scared.” Alex is still staring up at the sky. “I was scared of my dad. And sometimes of my mum. I spent most of my childhood like a fish. Weaving and darting. Trying to avoid…stuff.”
“But you don’t need to weave and dart anymore,” I say.
I’m not even sure why I say it. Except that he suddenly looks like someone who’s still weaving and darting. And is maybe a bit exhausted by it. Alex turns onto his side, rests his head in his hand, and looks at me with an odd, lopsided smile.
“Once you’ve got into the habit of weaving and darting, it’s hard to stop.”
“I suppose,” I say slowly. My mind is still reeling at the idea of thirty-seven addresses. It’s dizzying just to think about it.
“Whereas your dad…” Alex interrupts my thoughts, and I roll my eyes.
“Oh God. My dad. If he tries to sell you a bathroom suite, do not say yes.”
“Your dad’s lovable,” says Alex, ignoring me. “He’s strong. You should tell him the truth about your job, you know. This whole secret thing you’ve got going…it’s wrong.”
It takes a moment for Alex’s words to hit home, and when they do, they make me inhale sharply. “Oh, you think so?”
“How’s he going to feel when he realizes you’ve been keeping such a huge secret from him?”
“He might never have to know. So.”
“But if he does? If he realizes you felt you couldn’t come to him when you were in trouble? He’ll be crushed.”
“You don’t know that!” I can’t help lashing out a little. “You don’t know anything about my dad.”
“I know he brought you up pretty much on his own.” Alex’s steady tone is relentless. “Biddy told me all about it, earlier.”
“Biddy told you?”
“I guess I quizzed her a little after I’d realized you lived here. I was interested. She told me how she came into your family and saw the way your dad loved you and thought if she could just get a fraction of that love, she’d be happy.”
If I know how to press Alex’s buttons, he sure as hell knows how to press mine too.
“I know Dad loves me,” I say in a muffled voice. “And I love him. But it’s not as simple as that. He was so betrayed when I left; he’ll never accept that I’m a Londoner—”
“Are you a Londoner, though?” says Alex, and I feel a fresh stab of dismay. What else from my shaky house-of-cards life is he going to dismantle?
“You think I’m not a Londoner?” I say, in a trembling voice. “You think I can’t cut it in the city?”
“It’s not that!” says Alex, sounding taken aback. “Of course you can cut it in the city, a beautiful, talented girl like you? That’s not the point. It’s just…” He hesitates. “I think you’re more torn than you’ll admit.”
OK, I’ve had enough.
“You barely know me,” I say furiously. “You can’t just come here and tell me about my life—”
“Maybe I’ve got fresh eyes? Perspective?” He cuts me off in reasonable tones, and I suddenly think of him looking at our view and seeing in an instant what was wrong with it. Then I shake my head, dismissing the thought. That was a view. I’m me.
“All I know,” Alex continues, “is that you’ve got your farmhouse, your family, people who have known you forever—and that’s worth something. You know how a rolling stone gathers no moss? Well, that’s me.” He gestures down at himself. “Not a fucking speck of moss. But you? You’re a walking, talking mossball.”
I look away. “That’s irrelevant.”
“It’s not irrelevant. And, anyway, it’s not just your family, it’s…” He pauses. “I don’t know, the way you talk about the land. The skylarks. It’s in you. It’s your heritage. You’re a Somerset girl, Katie. You shouldn’t deny that. You shouldn’t lose your accent, change your hair. It’s you.”
I’m silent for a moment, brewing with thoughts, trying to respond calmly.
“You know why I got rid of the accent?” I say at last. “I was in the loos in my first job in Birmingham and I heard two girls talking. Taking the piss out of me. ‘Farrrmer Katie’ they called me. I wanted to burst out and slap them.” I flop onto my back, breathing heavily at the memory.
Alex absorbs this for a few moments, then nods. “I was in the loos at school one day and I heard two sixth-formers talking. I’d just won the design prize. They assumed my dad had done the whole project for me. I wanted to burst out and thump them.”
“Did you?” I can’t help asking.
“No. Did you?”
“No.”
Alex sips from his cider and I do the same. The sky is at its bluest and stillest at this time of day. There isn’t a sound except the incessant skylarks.
“You don’t have to choose, London or Somerset,” says Alex at length. “You can be both, surely.”
“My dad makes me feel I have to choose.” A familiar strain comes over me. “He makes it this either-or situation….”
“So you need to talk to him even more, surely. Not less.”
“Will you stop being right?” The words burst out of me before I know I’m going to say them. Abruptly, breathing fast, I get to my feet and set off on a circle of the meadow. My thoughts are teeming; my ears are buzzing. I can’t listen to Alex and his voice of reason anymore. But at the same time I’m craving some of his words again. The ones I think I might have misheard.
A beautiful, talented girl like you. Beautiful.
As I turn the corner, I see that he’s stood up from the blanket too. It’s so boiling hot, I can feel sweat trickling down my arms, and impulsively I peel off my shirt, leaving only a strappy, skimpy tank top underneath. I can see Alex blink at the sight; I can see him size up my body with barefaced desire. Ha. So I did read him right in the barn. And now I know for sure: There was a spark between us in London. I didn’t need to apologize or feel embarrassed or any of it.
As I get near to Alex, my own lust levels are rocketing too. Only it’s not as simple as that. I don’t just want him; I want control. To jettison insecure, defensive little Katie with all her hang-ups and humiliations. I want to feel empowered. I’ve never particularly been a first-move kind of girl, but right now I can really see the point.
I head to the Defender, reach for two more cans of cider, and hold one out to him.
“Hot day,” I say. “D’you mind if I sunbathe?” And before I can get cold feet, I peel off my tank top.
There. How’s that for a first move? I’ve never done anything so bold in my life, and I feel a slight inner breathlessness.
It’s a good bra I’ve got on—a black lace balconette one, very flattering—and Alex stares frankly at my tits as though he’s in some kind of torture heaven. As I crack open my cider, he starts, then, without speaking, takes his own can and opens it.
The atmosphere is unbearably charged. My head feels muzzy and I can barely breathe. All I can think is, I’m standing here in my bra and I’d better not have misread this and What happens now?
“Maybe I’ll sunbathe too,” Alex says at length, and strips off his shirt. His torso is leaner than I expected, almost boyish, with a strip of dark hair running downward from his navel. I can’t quite tear my eyes away from it. “Plenty of time before Demeter’ll get back,” he adds. His eyes are running over me too, and I feel my breath coarsening in response. There I was, obsessing about the “sizzling chemistry” he had with Demeter. Well, this is pretty sizzling.
“Loads of time,” I manage, my voice sounding blurry to my own ears. “And nobody will disturb us here. We can sunbathe all afternoon,” I add for good measure. “As long as we like.”
“Luckily, I’ve got sunbathing protection on me,” says Alex slowly. His eyes meet mine and I know exactly what he means, and I almost want to laugh, except I’m so desperate.
“So, what factor are you?” I step forward and run a hand down his chest. “Because it’s pretty hot out here.”
In answer, he cups my waist and presses his chest to mine, his hands swiftly roaming below my jeans waistband. As I inhale his scent—part sweat, part soap, part Alex—I feel a fresh, sharp flare of hunger. God, I need this.
Sex has not been on my agenda for a long time, and I can feel my body waking up, like a dragon after hibernation. Every nerve ending. Every pulsing bit of me.
“You know, I wanted to sunbathe with you the moment I met you,” says Alex into my neck, and his lips brush along my skin, making me whimper.
“Me too,” I murmur back, unbuttoning his jeans, trying to move things along.
“But I was your boss. It would have been fucked up….” He hesitates and draws back, his brow crumpled. “Hey, wait. You are OK with this? I mean, you’re not…” He hesitates. “This is a yes?”
When I was at senior school, I studied judo for three years. Without thinking twice, I wrap my foot round Alex’s leg, unbalance him, and pin him on the gro
und, ignoring his startled cry.
I straddle him, looking down at him, feeling more in charge of my life right now than I have done in a long time. I lean down, cup his face, and find his mouth for a long, sweet kiss, and for the first time I think, You. There you are. Men’s mouths are like their personalities, I find. (Which is why I never really took to kissing Steve.) Then I sit up, unhook my bra, and toss it aside, relishing Alex’s instant, unmistakable reaction.
“It’s a yes,” I say, and lean down to kiss him again. “Don’t you worry. It’s a yes.”
We wake up in the early evening, a breeze cooling our skin. Alex glances at me and I see a sleepy smile come to his eyes. Then reality sets in.
“Shit.” He scrambles to his feet. “What time is it? Have we been asleep?”
“It’s the country air,” I say. “Knocks everyone out.”
“It’s six.” I can see him doing calculations in his head. “Demeter might be back.”
“Maybe.” I feel my rosy glow dim a little. I don’t want the bubble to burst. But Alex is already out of the bubble, his face alert, his fingers moving quickly as they do up his buttons.
“OK. We need to get back. I need to—” He breaks off and I finish the sentence in my head. Fire Demeter.
Already, he looks beleaguered and stressed out by the thought. Maybe some bosses get a kick out of sacking people and throwing their weight around—but it really doesn’t suit Alex.
I take the wheel this time, and as we bump back to the farmhouse, I can’t resist speaking my mind.
“You’re not enjoying this prospect, are you?”
“What, having to fire my friend and mentor?” he replies evenly. “Funnily enough, no. And I know she’s going to try to wriggle out of it, which will make it even harder.”