step, and I felt dizzy with excitement, conscious of other diners watching us as we followed the maître d’ to our table. A good-looking man with olive skin and dark smouldering eyes stood up as we approached.
‘Mr Rodriguez, good to see you. This is Miss Russo.’
Mr Rodriguez took my hand and brought it up to his lips. ‘Very pleased to meet with you.’
‘Likewise,’ I said, looking furtively around for his ‘better’ half.
‘Alas, my wife has been called away,’ he said. ‘So, I’m afraid it’s just me this evening.’
I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or not. There was a shred of relief that I didn’t have to make superficial small talk, but that then meant I would have to listen to their business dealings.
Thomas looked at me, as if to say sorry, and ordered a bottle of Laurent Perrier Rosé.
As it turned out, the conversation was actually very enlightening, and if nothing else, I felt my social standing had been elevated somewhat just because I now knew the difference between a Meursault and a Petit Mouton.
‘Who knew wine could sound even better than it tastes?’ I said, as we just made it onto the 23.50 from Waterloo. It was the last train from London to Guildford, so everyone was packed in like sardines, with Thomas and I pressed up against each other.
‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ he said, his face belying the fact that his hands were surreptitiously travelling up under my lace top, and into my bra. ‘I hope you weren’t too bored.’
I closed my eyes and a breath caught in my throat as his fingers deftly teased my nipples. If it wasn’t illegal I would have gladly let him take me there and then, regardless of who was watching.
‘N-no, I mean it,’ I managed. ‘I found it really interesting.’
He raised his eyebrows suggestively. ‘Which part? Was it the juicing of the luscious, ripe grapes, or the fact that you can make thousands of pounds from buying and selling wine? What turns you on the most?’
‘All of it,’ I said as his hand slid down into my trousers. His fingers just reached the lace top of my knickers before I grabbed his wrist and looked at him wide-eyed.
‘What?’ he said, all too innocently.
‘Patience is a virtue,’ I said, in between kissing him. ‘In one hour, all of your dreams will come true.’
Except they didn’t. Instead, we spent the first two hours after we got to my place searching for Tyson, who had, it seemed, let himself out of the back door.
‘But there’s no way I would have left it open,’ I said, verging on hysteria when we still hadn’t found him. ‘I’m sure I would have checked that it was locked before we went out. Don’t you remember seeing me do it?’
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I can’t say that I did, but I wasn’t really paying attention.’
‘It’s the last thing I normally do before I go out,’ I cried. ‘How can I have been so stupid?’
‘Hey, don’t beat yourself up about it,’ he said gently. ‘We’ll find him – he won’t have gone far.’
As soon as the sun was up the next morning, we both headed out in different directions, our breaths billowing in the cold air as we shouted his name. ‘Tyson, Tyson! Come on, boy.’ I choked on the words, furious with myself for the stupid mistake I’d made and terrified of what might have happened to him. ‘Please Tyson,’ I begged. ‘Please come home.’
Thomas and I met again an hour later at the park where I usually took Tyson for his walks.
‘No sign?’ I stupidly asked, willing my dog to be at Thomas’s feet.
He looked at the ground, shaking his head glumly.
‘I need to go to work,’ I said. ‘We should go.’
‘I’ll stay, if it’s all right with you,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a meeting I can push back, so I’d like to carry on looking.’
‘Oh, yes, well, of course that would be amazing, if you really don’t mind.’
I’d not seen him looking quite so sombre. ‘I feel responsible too. If I’d not distracted you, perhaps this wouldn’t have happened.’
I thought back to the night before, when I’d asked Thomas to do my necklace up.
‘This is beautiful,’ he’d said as he admired the delicate diamond hanging from a silver chain.
My hand had instantly gone to it, my fingers feeling its weight.