Page 47 of A Dark Fall

I smile back awkwardly and head for the shelter of my office, closing the door tightly behind.I almost gasp at the sight waiting for me on my desk. An enormous bouquet of red roses sits proudly in a vase.

Oh, god, please don’t let them be from Sam. Please don’t let them be from Sam ...

My heart beats wildly as I walk over and open the sealed card clipped into the middle of the bouquet. Handwritten again.

How many other colors do these come in ...? P.S. Thanks for breakfast yesterday—so tasty ... See you soon. J

Heat breaks out across my whole body, rippling and warming my insides. He sent me flowers and an innuendo. He wants to see me soon. It wasn’t a polite brush-off.

I tell myself I never really had any doubt about it, but I feel as if I could jump up and down on the spot with relief like an overexcited toddler. I fish my phone out of my bag and deliberate far too long over the words and the tone and whether I should end it with a kiss. I mean, he made me orgasm four times. He gave me oral sex in my kitchen. A kiss at the end of a text is hardly an overstatement.

Me: They’re beautiful, thank you. Breakfast was ... my pleasure ... A x

Okay, I need to be (partially) sensible here. Think about this sensibly. About what this is. Are we seeing each other now? And is that sensible? I weigh up the pros and cons in my head.

Cons: I need to know I’ll most likely get hurt by him. He certainly doesn’t seem like someone who does relationships. He could break my heart. Except, isn’t that always the case when deciding to get involved with someone? Heartbreak is a serious possibility regardless of who the person is. It isn’t a reason to forgo it entirely, otherwise we’d all be alone with pets.

The potential for heartbreak is a surmountable possibility I will have to deal with when it happens. I have experience in that department. I’ll get over it. Over him.

Pros:He’s gorgeous, charismatic, passionate, and amazing in bed. Okay, of course, I know none of that is enough to sustain a relationship long-term, but this isn’t a relationship. This is a—

A sharp knock on my office door pulls me from my thoughts.

“Yes, come in.”

Sam pokes his head around the door, his shy smile all but disappearing when he sees the bouquet on my desk. Okay, how to explain this one?

Thankfully, he doesn’t ask or make any reference to the roses before he opens his mouth to speak. “So, I had a nice time on Saturday,” he says, a note of nervousness in the way he fidgets ever so slightly with his hands before sliding them into the pockets of his cords.

Oh, so I have to do this now then. Time to be a grown-up, I suppose.

I take a deep breath. “I did too, Sam. But I ... Well, I spent the weekend thinking about how ...”—I don’t want to be touched by anyone except Jake Lawrence right now, or for the foreseeable—“you and I work so well together here. And get on so well—which I think iswhySaturday was so nice. But I don’t think it would be good for work, or the partnership, for us to get involved, you know? Like that. I hope that makes sense.” I hope the look on my face is kind and genuine and not patronizing.

I meant everything I said. I did. It’s just there is also the Jake-shaped side issue on top of it. As I watch him, I try to gauge Sam’s thoughts. His face, normally composed, has a look of slight disappointment, I think. But not animosity.

Sam nods slowly before he speaks. “I totally understand, Alex. It’s fine,” he says with a small nod. “And I had a really nice time on Saturday too.”

I nod, smiling. “And I hope things don’t change—between us, I mean. I don’t want things to be strange between us.”

“Nah, and they won’t be. I promise. A bit of bad timing, I guess.” He shrugs. “No one to blame for that but myself.”

After he leaves, I think about it some more. Though a bit of guilt lingers, I decide not to give it too much space in my head, because even if Jake didn’t come crashing into my house on Saturday night, Sam was never going to be the guy I end up with.

My phone goes off with the text message alert.

Jake: No, baby, it was my pleasure—trust me. So I was going to take you out on Saturday, but I can’t wait that long to see you. I’ll pick you up at 7. J x

I blink. He wants to take me out tonight?Christ, it’s 4:00 p.m. already. Way to catch me off-guard, Lawrence. I have two more appointments this afternoon and my meeting with Douglas and the other GPs at 5:00 p.m.

No, a 7:00 p.m. pick up is far too much of a tight squeeze. By the time I finish up here, get home, and debate an outfit, I won’t have any time to groom myself.

I text back I’ll be ready by 8:00 p.m. To which I receive the response:

Jake: No changing, no moving, no canceling. See you at 7. J x

I should be indignant at his demanding, unreasonable tone, but I’m not. I can’t wait to see him. I have butterflies already. Butterflies a grown woman should be embarrassed about.

I finally get out of Douglas’s office before 6:00 p.m., always somehow being the last to leave as he insists on chatting to me about Dad. They’re old friends and play golf once a month together. The journey home takes me forty minutes because of a contraflow on the A3. While I sit in the jam, I’m tempted to text and try to push him to 8:00 p.m. again, but I decide against it. I will just have to be quick—really quick—and if I’m not ready, he’ll have to wait until I am.