France is not my bag at all.” I didn’t mention that the only time I’d actually been to the South of France had been on a budget EuroCamp holiday with my family where I’d been ill with diarrhoea and vomiting, spending half the week in the communal toilets. That kind of experience wasn’t anyone’s bag.
“Well that was a close one - the old man’s getting cold feet,” Jack said, handing back Blondie’s phone. “Thanks Stella, I owe you one.” Stella smiled up at him and then rose gracefully out of the chair before brushing off her jacket, just in case a speck of dust threatened to ruin her perfection.
“Look I’ve got to go, but can I have your number?” Jack asked, smiling down at me. I tucked my hair behind my ears and managed a small smile in return.
“Sure,” I said then cleared my throat as my voice broke on the word. He frowned at me and opened his mouth to speak, but I started rattling off my digits and he got distracted typing them into his phone.
“Urvi, it was good to see you,” he told me once he was done. It was only after they’d left that I let a one small tear of humiliation and disappointment make its way down my cheek.
Chapter 3
Not Ideal
Jack
“She’s sweet,” Stella said. It was a few hours after the café. We were back in the office and had only just finished the planning meeting for a campaign about haemorrhoid cream, making her comment more than a little random.
“Uh … what?” I glanced at Stella and raised my eyebrows. The other staff had all left the conference room, but Stella was hanging around as I took down the boards.
“That little barmaid,” Stella said. “You like her, don’t you?”
“Well, I . . . ”
Stella laughed.
“Why on earth did you ask her to work the conference if you like her? Smooth move, Don Juan.”
I paused on the way down to unplug my laptop and looked up at Stella again.
“I didn’t ask her to work on the yacht. Why would she think that? What did she say?”
Stella bit her lip. “Oh dear,” she said. “Bad case of crossed wires then.”
“Let me get this straight. Urvi thinks I want her to come to Saint-Tropez for the weekend so that she can, what . . . be a barmaid?”
“She did seem to be under that impression, yes.”
I raked both my hands through my hair and looked up at the ceiling. “Oh balls,” I muttered.
“You really must let me do more of the talking for you, darling,” Stella told me. As always, her “darling” grated on my nerves. “When left to your own devices with these things you do tend to make the most horrific cock-ups.”
I sat down heavily and stared at the wall for a moment.
“You can’t blame her really,” Stella told me. “It probably wouldn’t have crossed her mind that you were interested in her romantically. She is a lot younger.”
“I’d better ring her, set her straight,” I muttered as I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Before I could dial Stella’s hand wrapped around my lower arm.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she told me.
“Why not?”
Stella took a deep breath and looked away. “Well, I don’t want to hurt your feelings but . . . ” she trailed off and removed her hand.
“I’m a big boy, Stell. Why shouldn’t I ring her?”
She sighed and took a step back. “Well, it’s just she was so happy about a potential job. I think she needs money pretty badly.”
I pictured Urvi’s ancient Converse and the hole I’d noticed in her jumper and nodded slowly. “Yeah, but I – ”
“And she said . . . Look, I’m sorry, but she told me you’re ‘not her type’.”
“Not her type?” I frowned. It may sound arrogant, but so far in my life I had proved to be every woman’s type. Okay, that statement was obnoxious, but not totally unfounded. Women had been hitting on me since I was fifteen years old. One even cornered me in the frozen isle of Waitrose just yesterday, damn it! “Did she really say that?”
“Yes, and she went on to describe her type as more artistic.”
I smiled. “Well I can work around – ”
“Look, Jack, I told her you liked her okay?” Stella cut me off and I felt myself redden. This was like being back in primary school.
“What the hell? You had no right – ”
“I’m sorry but it seemed like she’d got the