CHAPTER 2

          Not again! Not another damn time! Cheryl kept walking forward. If she kept walking, she wouldn’t think. Wouldn’t think she’d just lost her job… again.

“Am I doomed to keep losing jobs? Am I so dumb, so stupid? All I had to do was to carry a tray and that was that” she whispered woefully. “Seriously, Cher, you have to stop being like this. You can afford to keep going ahead in this matter.”

          It had been her own fault, obviously, and she couldn’t blame them for firing her. She’d let herself be distracted in a fatal way by that incredible man. If she hadn’t been staring at him so stupidly, like a high school girl, she’d have been more aware of what was going on.

“But, no! Miss Cheryl Richards had to just stand there like an idiot, gawking at that powerful demi-God! Really, girl, you should learn to be more discreet and perhaps more attentive.”

          Well, this time she had a little excuse why she couldn’t help herself. The way he was looking was absolutely incredible! He was just dreamy! It really was the only word for him.

          She had never seen a man that gorgeous, who had that kind of impact on her. Tall, dark, and handsome! In the few moments, she’d looked at him, she hadn’t really been able to take in any specific details, but the overall impact had been just amazing.

          And when he’d met her eyes… Cheryl just felt again the whoosh that had knocked her in that breathless moment, when she’d felt the impact of those dark, long-lashed eyes holding hers. There had been something in them as he’d looked at her that had left her without oxygen for a few seconds.

          Then his girlfriend had wanted water, and the moment had passed. And then… then the tray disaster. Mr. Hodges had stormed into the staff locker room and threw her away from the gallery.

‘I never saw someone like you in my entire life… All you had to do was to carry that tray. You’re incredibly lucky,’ he’d told her, ‘not to have to pay for the woman’s dress you had ruined. You know well that dress would easily have cost hundreds of pounds.’

          Even so, she’d been fired without being paid, to cover the cost of the specialist dry cleaning Mr. Hodges had said would be required to clean that snob’s dress. Well, at least now she could get a daytime job and not just the evening work that she’d been restricted to up until now.

          Her eyes shadowed. She’d only been in London for three months and had been glad to get away from her home… get away from the grief and the anguished memory of her father’s final days. Glad, too, to get away from everyone’s sympathy, not to mention the kindly meant offers of financial help that she could never accept.

          Here, in this vast city, she was all but anonymous, and Cheryl wanted this way. When she was pretty little, her parents left the States for work reasons and came to live in England.

          She visited London numerous times, when she was little, and coming to live here all alone had been a huge step for her. Cheryl didn’t like the city so much. London was a bleak place, certainly when finances were as straitened as hers were.

          Just keeping her head above water was hard, but it had to be done… at least until the summer was over and she could go home again, to Watford, and resume the life she knew, painful though it would be without her father.

          Casual jobs here, at least, were overflowing, but it was relentless and grinding, and in three months she’d had no time off for herself and no money to spare for anything beyond the bills and groceries.

          There was another aspect about working in London she didn’t like. It was filled with gross men... Not all of them, but a huge chunk of them was just repulsive. That was what had cost her the first job she’d lost.

          She’d been working in a bar and a customer had slid his hand up her skirt. Shocked and appalled, she had hit his hand away violently. The man had complained about her and Cheryl had been fired. The woman at the job agency had been unsympathetic.

‘With your looks, you should get used to it… and you should learn how to handling it,’ she’d said dismissively.

          ‘Well, I won’t, thank you very much!’ Cheryl thought miserably.

          No one behaved like that in the world she was used to, nor had any interest in doing so. Their minds were focused on other matters, much more important and, sometimes, vital stuff. Matters that could save lives and o a lot of good to this shitty world.

          It was hard to be subjected to that kind of treatment, or even just to be looked at the way men did here… so blatantly, so sleazily. Well, it wasn’t sleazy when that incredible man looked at her…

          A memory flashed through her again hotly. No, sleazy hadn’t been the word. Not in the slightest. The way that man had looked at her had made her feel… breathless, unique, special… Like they knew each other in another life, so long ago.  

          She felt the tightness in her chest again as she recalled the way his eyes had locked with hers. He really had been amazing! The sort of fantasy man a girl could dream about.

          He was probably rich, too, because all the guests at the gallery had been… or at least well-heeled. He’d had a very rich look indeed about him. There’d been something about him, something more than just his fantastic dark looks and what had obviously been a hand-made suit and a silk tie. It was about some sort of assurance, arrogance, even, as if he was the Lord of the Universe…

          Cheryl gave a twist of her mouth. Whatever he was, he belonged to the London that she didn’t! The one she only saw from the other side of the bar or the table or through the door, where people like her served people like him, and remained anonymous and unremarkable.

          Misery hit her again, and Cheryl quickened her pace, unconsciously hunching her shoulders, feeling bleak and lonely. Though she saved money and got exercise by walking, there was still a good long way back to the small flat in Paddington that was all she could afford.

          Suddenly she stopped. A car door had just opened in front of her, enough to block her path and require her to swing around it. Then, as she gathered her wits to do just that, a voice spoke.

“Are you alright?”

          Cheryl’s head turned. The voice, deep, and with a foreign accent, came from the interior of the car. As she looked at the person talking, her eyes widened involuntarily. It was… her dreamy man, the incredible-looking man from the gallery, whose girlfriend’s dress she’d soaked.

          Apprehension stabbed at her. Was he going to demand money for the dress? She didn’t have all the money, not even half of it, even just for cleaning it. And if he told her she had to replace it, she would be completely stuck.

          The prospect was so daunting that she just froze. The man was getting out of the car, and Cheryl took a few steps back hurriedly. He seemed taller than she remembered, and even more incredible looking. She couldn’t help reacting to it, even though it was the stupidest thing in the world to do.

“Is… uh… is it about the dress?” Cheryl blurted, gripping her bag by its shoulder strap out of sheer tension.

          A frown pleated his eyebrow momentarily. It made him look even more forbidding than the dark, severely tailored suit and his air of wealth and power did.

“I mean your… Your girlfriend’s dress? The one I spilled the juice over?” she continued.

          The man ignored her question.

“Why are you not still at the gallery?” he demanded.

          Cheryl swallowed. It seemed more like an accusation than a question, and she could only say, ‘I got fired’. The man said something in a language she didn’t recognize. He looked foreign…that dark tanned skin and the darker eyes were the proof.

“Were you fired?” he demanded.

          Again, it sounded like an accusation. Cheryl could only nod and clutch her bag more tightly.

‘I’m really sorry about the dress. Mr. Hodges said he’d use my wages to dry clean it, so I hope it will be alright.”

          The man made an impatient gesture with his hand.

“Don’t mind that… The dress is taken care of,” he said in a dismissal tone. “But I was wondering if you’d like your job back? If you do, I will arrange it. What happened was clearly an accident.”

          Cheryl felt her cheeks heat with acute embarrassment.

“N-no… Please,” she stammered. “I mean… thank you. Thank you very much for offering, but I’m alright. And I’m really extremely sorry about the dress. I really am,” Cheryl finished quickly.

          Then she made to start walking again. Her elbow was taken.

“Allow me,” the man said, “to offer you a lift to wherever you’re going.”

          His voice had changed somehow. She didn’t know how. It seemed smooth… not abrasive, the way it had been before. Then what he proposed just hit her. Cheryl could only stare at him, feel his hand on her elbow like a burning brand.

“A lift?” she echoed stupidly. “N-no, thank you. I’m fine walking.”

          Something flickered in the man’s eyes. If she hadn’t known better, she would’ve said it was surprise.

“However, allow me, please. I insist…” he said.

          The smoothness was still there but reinforced now by something else.

“After all, it is the least I can do to make amends for you losing your job.”

          Her eyes widened even more.

“But it wasn’t anything to do with you!”

“Had I been quicker off the mark I could’ve steadied your tray,” he said, in the same smooth tone. “Now, where would you like me to take you? Where do you live?”

          The hold on her elbow had tightened imperceptibly, and Cheryl felt herself being inexorably guided towards the open door of the car.

“No… Please, it’s not necessary. I like walking.”

          Nor, she knew with strong female instinct, would his girlfriend welcome the presence of the waitress who’d ruined her dress.

“Nevertheless, I would love to escort you home. You should get in the car since I stopped in a spot that might put me in trouble with the traffic police.”

          The voice was still smooth, but now in its place was something like impatience. Cheryl looked and realized that cars were backing up, unable to get by easily. Without realizing how, she found herself being handed in to the car, looking apprehensively for the brunette snob from earlier. But she wasn’t there.

“Um… Where’s your girlfriend?”