Page 63 of The Woman Who Said Yes

He glances down to see that it looks as if someone has hurled an entire bottle of Valpolicella across his chest. ‘No, it’s fine. It’s really old,’ he insists.

Lucy pouts and shakes her head, as if he’s a child who’s lied about why his homework hasn’t been completed. ‘C’mere.’ She leans forwards and starts to undo his shirt buttons.

‘It’s fine,’ he protests, but now they are all undone and, in one swift movement, she has tugged it off him and tossed it onto the floor. The shirt from the startlingly expensive boutique Farrah had alerted him to, saying, ‘They’ve got some nice menswear in there, Sam. Maybe check it out? Maybe treat yourself?’ Which he took to mean that he’d developed the air of someone who dressed himself from the pile of rank old garments dumped next to an over-filled clothing bank. So, dutifully, he’d gone and stocked up.

Now he is sitting bare-chested on Lucy’s unyielding sofa. It feels as inappropriate as striding topless into a building society. ‘Hang on,’ Lucy announces, springing up and disappearing for a few moments, then returning with a man’s T-shirt. No, not a T-shirt. It’s a navy and white striped polo shirt with a white collar and three buttons at the front.

‘No, no, really,’ he insists. ‘It’s fine. My shirt’ll dry out. Is there a radiator I could put it on?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ As if she would allow the red wine-soaked garment to come into contact with any of the fittings in this flat. ‘Put it on,’ she commands. Obediently he does so, having clocked the label and wondered briefly what Boden-loving man it might have belonged (or belongs?) to. And – bizarrely – what Andie would think if she could see him now, looking as if he should be on a yacht.

As Lucy smooths down her slightly rumpled hair, Sam quickly checks the sofa, ascertaining that there is no wine spilt there. His shirt must have absorbed it all.

Lucy reaches for her glass from the floor and seems to be studying him as she sips her wine. Unsurprisingly the mood has switched, and Sam still can’t be certain that she hasn’t read all of his thoughts about Andie and Jane and Mary Beard. ‘I’ve gone on about myself tonight,’ she says with a pert smile. ‘How about you? You’ve got that wedding coming up, right?’

‘Erm, not exactly.’ He grimaces.

Her eyes widen. ‘Oh, is it all off? You did say he was dodgy…’

‘No, it’s not off,’ he says quickly. And then, because she appears to be expecting more, he tells her about him and Andie visiting that ‘G’ person whom Lucy had phoned, and her turning out to be Dom’s mother, and that supposedly massive riverside house not being ready in time – if it even exists – and Eva finding out about their snooping.

‘God.’ Lucy presses her lips together. ‘That must’ve come as a shock to her.’

‘About us going behind her back?’ Sam nods. ‘Yeah. To be honest I wish we’d just left well alone⁠—’

‘No, about the big posh house,’ she clarifies.

‘Oh no,’ he says firmly. ‘That wasn’t the main thing for Eva, not at all. That’s not why she was so upset.’

Lucy barks out a laugh. ‘Come on, Sam! What does Eva do for a living again?’

He looks at her, not sure where this is going. ‘She’s a freelance fashion stylist.’

‘Does she do well in that?’

‘Umm…’ he starts. ‘I guess she does well enough.’

‘There you go then,’ she announces, dark eyes shining. ‘Single woman of sixty, scraping a living, and along comes this big shot property guy⁠—’

‘No, honestly – it’s really not like that,’ he insists.

Lucy sniggers. ‘Sam, don’t tell me there’s not been a bit of gold-digging going on.’

He blinks at her. Fucking hell, he thinks – what is wrong with him? He’s sitting here in some other man’s Boden polo shirt having one of his best friends in the entire world insulted. Why is he even here when, actually, there is only one person he wants to be with? Caroline knew it – the Scottish woman he’d dated before Jane who’d wanted him to become a Buddhist. It’s looking out of you, Sam! What was looking out of him, and how could he make it stop? He’d denied it of course. Wasn’t it possible for men and women to just be friends? ‘Don’t come over all When Harry Met Sally with me,’ Caroline had jibed him.

‘Eva’s not a gold-digger,’ he says firmly now.

‘Right, if you say so!’ Lucy shrugs as if to demonstrate that she doesn’t care one way or the other. ‘But you’re uninvited to the wedding, right?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Your friend too? The one who’s into taxidermized fish?’

He is about to correct her but decides that there’s no point. Instead, he gets up from Lucy’s sofa, raking back his dishevelled hair and checking his wrist as if a watch might be there. ‘I think I’d better get going,’ he says.

Lucy gets up too. ‘Fine. No problem.’

He smiles tight-mouthed, apologetically, and pulls out his phone from his pocket. As he orders an Uber, he is relieved when it shows immediately as being two minutes away. Just enough time for him to whip off the polo shirt, retrieve his own wet and crumpled shirt from the floor and pull it on, despite Lucy’s insistence that he can keep it – and to thank her for the lovely meal. ‘It was delicious,’ he says. ‘That sauce. Really good!’ Catching her flat – verging on hostile – stare, he stops short of asking her for the recipe. ‘It’s been really nice getting to know you,’ he adds, all in a rush. ‘But I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m really in the right frame of⁠—’