Falling for Mr. December (7 page)

‘Exactly. Guilt's a really tricky question,' Nick said. ‘As I said, it's important that all the facts are known so the jury reaches the right verdict. Both sides have to be heard for the system to work properly.'

‘You really love your job, don't you?' she asked. She could see his passion for it in his expression and hear it in the way he talked about it.

‘Guilty as charged,' he said with a smile. ‘Though not everyone gets that.'

If you had workaholic tendencies, it could play havoc with your relationships if your partner didn't understand how important your job was to you. Sammy knew that from experience. Was that why Nick was single? Because his girlfriends got fed up with coming second to his job all the time? Not that it was any of her business. She wasn't going to be pushy and ask. ‘I really love my job, too,' she said, smiling back. ‘There's nothing wrong with that.'

‘I'm glad you get it,' he said softly. ‘And there's something else I wanted to show you.' He took her back through to the maze of buildings.

‘Old-fashioned street lamps,' she said with delight when they came to a stop in front of one. ‘They're gorgeous. I love that shape—like the lanterns you see on Christmas cards. I can imagine people bustling past wearing top hats and capes and crinoline dresses.'

‘Absolutely right, because this is the Victorian bit. These are working gas lamps,' he said. ‘It's really atmospheric at night—like being back in Dickens' time. In fact, there are several bits of Middle Temple that he described in his books.'

With the stucco-fronted buildings and the narrow passageways, she could imagine it. ‘This is amazing. You work in such a beautiful area, Nick.'

‘I'm very privileged,' he said. ‘And I promised you good coffee. Do you think it's too early for brunch?'

Sammy glanced at her watch. ‘Whoops. Sorry. I had no idea I'd spent so much time photographing things. I'm afraid I can get a bit carried away. I...' She blew out a breath. ‘Sorry.'

‘Hey, no need to apologise. It was my idea to bring you here, and I'm really glad you liked it as much as I hoped you would,' he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

‘Coffee and brunch,' she said, ‘is a great idea. And, remember, we had a deal. It's my bill. No arguments.'

He looked as if he wanted to protest but, to her relief, he nodded. ‘OK. Let's go this way.'

* * *

Nick had had a feeling that Sammy was going to be stubborn about paying her share. So had her ex been the controlling type who never listened to her? He couldn't think of any reason why someone as vibrant and gorgeous as Sammy Thompson would still be single, other than that someone had let her down. Badly.

His own track record wasn't great. And he didn't believe in love. So it wasn't fair of him to let this continue, see where things took them—because the chances were that she'd end up hurt. They'd have lunch and then he'd find a nice way of saying goodbye. Because, after all, it wasn't her fault;
he
was the problem.

He walked alongside her, half lost in thought. His hand brushed against hers once, twice, making his skin tingle. The third time, he ended up catching her fingers loosely between his. She didn't pull away, but she didn't look at him or make a comment, either.

Shy?

Weirdly, he felt the same. Like a teenager holding hands with his girl for the first time. And it was a very, very long time since anyone had made him feel like that. Enough to make him rethink his earlier decision. Would it be so bad, seeing where things went? Would it necessarily mean that one or both of them would get hurt? Could he take the risk?

Eventually they reached the café he'd had in mind. ‘Is this OK with you?' he asked.

She looked at the menu in the glass case by the door. ‘Very OK, thank you. Though it's going to be quite hard to choose, because I like absolutely everything on the menu.'

Again, he found her attitude to food so refreshing; his last couple of dates had been with women who were so focused on watching what they ate that they forgot to enjoy it. Meaning that he hadn't enjoyed his food, either. And he'd made polite excuses not to see them again.

The waitress greeted them as they walked through the door, showed them to a quiet table for two, and took their order for coffee while she gave them time to browse through the menu.

In the end, Sammy sat back in her chair and sighed. ‘I just can't decide between the hazelnut waffles with berries and Greek yoghurt, or the eggs Florentine—or the scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and sourdough bread,' she finished, looking rueful. ‘And I don't quite have room for all of them.'

‘There are two ways of sorting that out,' he said.

‘Which are?'

‘Either we come here for brunch again and the next time we choose whatever we don't have today,' he said. ‘Or we order two different dishes and share them.'

Or, better still, do both. Because, the more he got to know Sammy, the more he liked her and the more he discovered that he wanted to spend time with her. Even though this wasn't the way he normally did things.

‘If we share,' she said, ‘what do you suggest?'

‘The smoked salmon and the waffles.'

‘Done,' she said. ‘And freshly squeezed blood orange juice as well as the coffee.'

‘Sounds perfect,' he said.

When the waitress came back, Sammy ordered for them. Nick wasn't quite used to that, but he rather liked her independent streak.

She sighed happily once she'd taken a sip of her juice. ‘This is almost as good as Venice.'

‘Venice?'

‘When we had breakfast on the Grand Canal,' she said. ‘It was amazing. We sat there watching the gondoliers at the stand next to us. One of them noticed and actually serenaded us—we loved it.'

‘Who's “we”?' he asked.

‘Me, Claire and Ashleigh. Claire and Ash knew each other from school, and I met Claire at art school—she was studying textiles and I was studying photography. We were the Terrible Trio.'

‘Were?' he prompted.

‘They're the ones in the wedding pictures I showed you. The bride and the bridesmaid in Capri—that was Ash getting married last year, and Claire got married in the spring this year.' She shrugged, and gave him a super-bright smile. ‘Obviously I still get to spend time with them when I'm in London. But we won't be going on holiday together any more, just the three of us.'

Something she'd clearly miss. Meaning that Sammy was feeling just a little bit lonely right now? he wondered. He felt lonely, sometimes. When he woke at three in the morning, the bed feeling way too wide and nobody to cuddle up to. And then his father's words from all those years ago would echo in his head.
Love's not reliable, the way work is. Give your job your heart and you'll get to the top. Give love your heart and it'll just cheat on you and break you.

With age and maturity, Nick had come to realise that his father had been speaking from hurt and anger at the disintegration of his marriage. And Edward Kennedy had never recovered from the divorce—he'd buried himself in work, and moved to Brussels to take his career ambitions further when Nick was halfway through his degree. Edward had done well for himself and reached the top of his particular tree, but Nick often thought his father was lonely and there was a gap in his life.

It wasn't the kind of life Nick wanted for himself—all work and no love. He'd wanted to have both. He'd met Naomi and she'd seemed to understand his drive to be the best at what he did. She'd encouraged him. He'd thought he had it all.

But then he'd come home early and found out that his marriage wasn't what he thought it was. His father's words had turned out to be all too true: because she'd cheated on him and broken his heart. Just like the way his mother had done to his father. Or maybe some of that had been his own fault, for paying too much attention to his work and not enough to his wife—even though at the time he'd thought she was OK with the hours he worked.

He pushed the thought away. Not here. Not now.

When their food arrived, Nick noticed that Sammy went straight for the waffles.

‘Aren't you supposed to eat the savoury stuff first and then the sweet?' he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Haven't you heard? Life's short, so eat dessert first. It's a good philosophy.'

He thought of Xander and guessed that she was thinking of her sister. Wanting to push away the sadness, he said, ‘Can I be nosey and look at the photographs you took earlier?'

‘Sure.' She took her camera out of her bag and handed it to him. Again, their fingers touched and adrenalin rippled through him. From the brief widening of her eyes, Nick thought it might just be the same for her, too. Instant attraction. Something he had a feeling neither of them really had time for. And yet something about Sammy made him want to explore this thing between them further. Even though he didn't do love any more. Or maybe it would be different with Sammy, because she loved her job as much as he loved his. And she was direct. He didn't think she'd say one thing and mean another, the way Naomi had.

‘These photographs are amazing,' he said. ‘I'd never really noticed the kind of details you picked out. The stonework, the windows, the ironwork. You've made me see my workplace in a completely different way.'

‘It's what I do,' she said simply. ‘The same as you made me think a bit differently this morning, when we talked about people being innocent or guilty.'

‘It's what I do,' he said. ‘Sammy, are you busy this afternoon?'

‘I've got nothing planned. Why?'

He decided to take the risk. ‘Because I've really enjoyed spending time with you and I'm not really ready for that to end just yet.'

‘Oh.' There was the faintest slash of red in her cheeks. ‘Me, too,' she said, her voice ever so slightly croaky.

‘Given that we're just round the corner from Trafalgar Square, I'm tempted to suggest going to the art gallery,' he said. ‘But it kind of feels wrong to take a photographer to an art gallery.'

She laughed. ‘Don't worry about that. I never need an excuse to go to the National Portrait Gallery. That's not work. It's pure pleasure.'

‘And you love your job anyway,' he finished.

‘Like you. And I'm guessing you get nagged by your family as much as I do about overdoing things,' she said.

‘My sister's favourite words are, “You work too hard.”' He rolled his eyes. ‘But how else are you really going to be good at your job and get to the top of your profession unless you put the hours in?'

‘Absolutely. I guess in some areas you could get to the top by nepotism, but it wouldn't mean that you were any good at your job,' she mused. ‘And I want to be the best photographer I can be.'

Her views were so like his own. Nick had a feeling that he'd just met the one woman who might actually understand him. Then again, he'd made that mistake before. He'd thought that Naomi had encouraged his ambitions—to the point where he'd considered easing back on his hours to spend more time with her and start a family. And yet he'd ended up making the same error as his dad and his sister. He'd put his trust in someone who seemed to see things his way on the surface, but had a hidden agenda. Someone weak, who'd lied to get her own way.

‘Nick?'

‘Sorry. Wool-gathering.' He forced himself to smile. ‘Let's go to the gallery.'

When she excused herself to go to the toilet, he asked the waitress for the bill. Except he discovered that Sammy had beaten him to it and already paid it on her way to the ladies'.

‘Thank you for brunch,' he said when she came back to their table.

‘Pleasure. But it was my turn anyway,' she said, ‘because you bought the takeaway, the other night.'

He couldn't argue with that. But it was refreshing to be with someone who believed in fair shares instead of expecting to be treated all the time.

On the way to the National Portrait Gallery, they ended up holding hands again. This time, Sammy slanted Nick a sideways glance, at exactly the same time that he looked at her.

She burst out laughing. ‘Is it just me, or do you feel seventeen again?'

‘Something like that,' he said, and tightened his fingers round hers. ‘I feel as if I should have greasy hair that's badly cut, acne, and be quoting terrible poetry at you.'

She laughed. ‘I bet you were a beautiful teen.' And then she blushed. ‘Um, that's with my photographer's head on.'

‘I'll accept the compliment very happily,' he said. ‘For the record, I bet you were a beautiful teen, too.'

‘Nah. I was very ordinary,' Sammy told him with a grin.

He didn't believe that at all.

They spent the afternoon wandering round the gallery, and Sammy taught him how to read a portrait. ‘The whole point of a portrait is to tell you about the subject. With the older paintings, the background's important and you need to look at what the person chooses to be painted with. In modern photographic portraits, you try to stop the background noise coming through and concentrate on your subject.'

There was a mischievous glint in his eye. ‘I love it when you talk technical.'

She grimaced. ‘Sorry. I can be very boring on my pet subject.'

‘I'm not bored in the slightest. This is totally new stuff to me.' He smiled at her. ‘Besides, I rambled on enough about law earlier.'

When she'd said how she loved her job, too. She'd understood something about him that Naomi never had. And it was crazy that it made him feel so warm inside.

‘Do you have any portraits on display here?' he asked.

She laughed. ‘Sadly, I'm not
quite
in the same league as David Bailey or Lord Lichfield. Maybe one day.'

‘What's your favourite portrait you've taken?' he asked.