Who's Afraid of MR Wolfe? Read online

  Ellie made a point of looking past him.

  ‘Oh, come on, Ellie,’ he said, ‘we’ve got lots of work to do. Which one is your flat?’

  ‘We, Jack?’ Ellie snapped back. ‘Have you forgotten they aren’t my knickers any more? I resigned, remember? Give them to Monikka – you might have to explain what knickers are, but I’m sure she’ll do a good job.’

  Lesley’s eyes flared in surprise. ‘Resigned? Monikka? Feral Monikka? What?’

  ‘I’m really sorry, Lesley,’ Ellie said, putting an arm round her. ‘I didn’t want to just leave a message on your voice-mail. It’s a long story. I’ll explain in a minute.’

  ‘No need,’ Jack said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out Ellie’s resignation letter. He ripped it up and put the torn pieces back in his pocket. ‘Right, that’s sorted, then.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Now, which one did you say was your flat? We need to get cracking. We’re in with a shout here. Think of that, Ellie, all those people with your song in their heads.’

  Ellie crossed her arms. ‘Do you really think it’s as easy as that, Jack? That I’m that much of a pushover?’

  The crowd looked from Ellie to Jack. Lesley looked from Ellie to Jack.

  Ellie raised her chin as if she were waiting for something.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Jack asked. ‘Get down on my knees and beg you to come back?’

  By one in the morning they were all running out of energy. Jack had divided the presentation between the three of them, as Hugo was currently away shooting something feathery in Northumberland. When Ellie asked what Gavin’s involvement would be, Jack simply made an ‘O’ shape with his finger and thumb.

  They had gone back over the storyboards, the song and the business case for the approach, and then they had practised, practised, practised until they didn’t think they could make the presentation any better.

  Ellie surveyed the empty coffee cups and bits of sandwich and grinned as her eyes strayed to the two dirty patches on Jack’s knees. She wondered if he would sack her after the presentation for forcing him to get down on his knees in the street and beg.

  Beside her, Lesley was wilting and every now and then she gave a huge yawn. After a particularly jaw-stretching one she said, ‘Ellie, can I doss down here tonight, save me having to hack over to my place?’

  Ellie nodded and then felt she had to offer Jack a bed for the night too. ‘Stay if you want, Jack,’ she said, ‘but I guess you’ll need to go home and change.’ She stared pointedly at his knees.

  ‘No, don’t need to go home,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’ve got spare clothes and things in the car.’

  Ellie supposed that when you spent as much time as Jack did in other people’s beds, you probably needed to carry most of your possessions around in your car.

  ‘OK, well, you can have the spare bed. Lesley and I will share mine.’

  Jack nodded and got to his feet and Lesley started to laugh. ‘Go on then, Jack, say something.’

  ‘About what?’ he said, a puzzled look on his face.

  ‘About Ellie and me sharing a bed. Most of the other men at the agency usually end up dribbling down their shirts if they find Ellie and me even hugging each other. Or they ask if they can watch.’

  ‘Or they try to get in the middle,’ Ellie added, wondering if it was actually a wise idea to tease Jack.

  Jack studied them both, letting his eyes travel from one to the other. ‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘I won’t be making any comments about that. Not about two beautiful bodies, caressing and pleasuring each other … about soft lips meeting soft lips … gentle hands running over and under and around yielding flesh … No, nothing like that.’

  Lesley and Ellie stood as if bolted to the floor while Jack gathered up the dirty cups and plates and took them out to the kitchen as though nothing had happened.

  ‘Jeez.’ Lesley put a hand on her forehead. ‘That was like being humped by Ted Hughes.’

  ‘Makes a change from Heathcliff,’ Ellie said, and tried to give a dismissive snort. It got stuck in her throat.

  By the time Jack returned, Lesley had skittered off to bed and Ellie was attempting to look engrossed in the task of rearranging the sofa cushions.

  Jack stood in the doorway with his shirt sleeves rolled up and Ellie tried not to think about the way he was watching her. Now he was in her home, he seemed bigger, more real. More man. She fumbled with a cushion and heard Jack move into the room to take his jacket from the back of a chair.

  ‘So, Jack, let me show you where you’ll be sleeping,’ she said as breezily as she could.

  He stepped to one side to let her pass, but she was still acutely aware of where he was in relation to her. ‘Along here,’ she said, her voice sounding too high and too loud even to her. It was the voice of a nervous woman and she thought she saw Jack palm a smile at her discomfort.

  Why did he have to walk so close behind her?

  Ellie opened the door of the spare room and pointed in the direction of the bed. ‘There’s a towel for you there, and you know where the bathroom is. Do you need anything else?’ She folded her arms defensively and then quickly unfolded them in an effort to look nonchalant.

  Jack shook his head and did not speak.

  ‘Well, night, then. See you in the morning,’ she said very quickly.

  ‘Ellie?’ he said suddenly, his voice a whisper.

  She raised her eyes to meet his. ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘Try not to make too much noise, will you?’ He jerked his head towards the room where Lesley and she would be sleeping. ‘I’m a very light sleeper.’

  Ellie moved away from Jack as if she’d been burned and was in her own bedroom in seconds. She leaned against the door, her heart hammering in her chest. Very funny, Jack. And he’d had the last word.

  ‘You OK?’ Lesley said in a drowsy voice from the bed.

  ‘Yeah, fine. Fine. Getting a bit nervous about tomorrow.’

  She stood there for a while longer, thinking about going to the bathroom to clean her teeth, and then decided against it. You never knew what was prowling around out there.

  In the spare room, Jack was still laughing softly to himself as he got undressed. He chucked his clothes on a chair, narrowly avoiding causing a landslide to one of the many piles of books stacked up on the carpet. He ran his finger down the spines of a couple of paperbacks and smiled ruefully. She’d actually read them. Yeah, every one he picked up had little tell-tale creases.

  That shouldn’t surprise him, should it? As she’d said herself, that’s what he paid her for, to be good with words.

  As he slid himself under the duvet, he thought about the way Ellie had insisted that he kneel in the street to apologise to her. He had expected to find it humiliating. Instead he’d found it kind of erotic. His mind went back over what he had said about Ellie and Lesley sleeping together and he suddenly felt very aroused.

  He lay down and closed his eyes and soon he was back at work and Ellie was in front of him. Very gently he bent her face down over his desk, pulled aside those pale-gold knickers and pushed himself into her over and over again.

  But somewhere in his dream a cold foot was touching his leg and then someone started to scream. Jack sat upright in bed, his heart hammering. It was pitch black, and what was that smell? Gin … and … and … mothballs? Over the high, warbling scream he heard footsteps and the sound of a door opening. A light came on and Jack winced and closed his eyes.

  He heard Ellie shout, ‘Edith, what on earth are you playing at? What time do you call this to turn up?’ and the screaming stopped.

  Jack opened his eyes to the sight of an extremely old lady in a thermal vest snuggled down beside him in the bed. In the doorway, Ellie was standing with her hand over her mouth. Behind her, Lesley was doubled over with laughter.

  ‘Well,’ the old lady said, running her gaze over his broad shoulders and bare chest, ‘you’re rather a fine physical specimen, aren’t you?’

  It had taken E
llie a while to persuade Edith that she could not keep on sleeping with Jack. Ellie set about making up a bed for him on the living-room sofa and listened to Edith chatting on in the bedroom. At one point she heard Edith say, ‘You’re not at all like Mr Magoo,’ and then laugh. She couldn’t make out what Jack said in reply.

  Ellie was not sure that if she were in Edith’s position, she would be so unselfconscious. Sitting up in bed, his hair all messed up and in his eyes, Jack had not, indeed, borne any resemblance to Mr Magoo. She tried not to dwell on the way the duvet had been pushed down round his waist to reveal a chest that had made Sam’s rugby-honed one look completely puny.

  She realised that she was standing looking at the sofa and biting the skin down the side of her thumbnail, so she took a deep breath, smoothed down the sheet and tucked the edges under the sofa cushions. She supposed he’d got muscles like that from doing press-ups over all those women.

  Still, at least now she knew he wasn’t covered in fur all over his body. But even without fur he’d looked disturbing. What was it about him? She cast around for the correct word. It seemed incredibly important to attach a label to Jack, as if by doing so she could pigeonhole him neatly and put him away on a high shelf.

  She picked up the duvet, gave it a good shake and then dropped it on the sofa. No, that word still wasn’t coming. She could settle for ‘powerful’ or ‘intimidating’, but there was a better word out there somewhere and she couldn’t reel it in. ‘Sexy’ would certainly apply, she had to admit that, especially how he looked right now, half wrapped in duvet. But it wasn’t the word.

  She punched the pillows into shape. What was that ruddy word? It had something to do with the way he had been sitting there chit-chatting with Edith and Lesley, completely unfazed by the whole thing. Apart from a confused squinting into the light when he had first realised that Edith was in bed with him, his only other reaction had been to look faintly amused.

  Ellie looked down at the sofa and gave the pillows one last thwack. This was weird; she always had the perfect word on the tip of her tongue.

  Jack would have to stay unlabelled until she could find it.

  Her pre-presentation jitters hadn’t been helped by all this. Pulling back her shoulders, she put on a bright smile and went back into the bedroom to rescue Jack.

  When she finally managed to get Edith to settle down, they all averted their eyes while Jack got out of bed, wrapped a towel round his waist and padded off to sleep on the sofa.

  Except Ellie was not convinced that Lesley and Edith had totally averted their eyes. In fact, when Lesley and she were back in Ellie’s room, Lesley admitted that she hadn’t.

  ‘And let me tell you, Ellie,’ she said with a little giggle, ‘as an objective observer, I can tell you that the bottom half is just as impressive as the top half.’

  Nearly twenty-four hours later Jack was unsuccessfully trying to manoeuvre Ellie out of his car. She seemed all arms and legs.

  Arms and legs made of jelly.

  Apart from the odd passing car, the street was silent and deserted. He guessed the silent bit was about to change.

  ‘Has she always been able to drink that much?’ he asked Lesley.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, falling up the kerb. ‘Sam was a rugby player, so Ellie’s had years of practice – pre-match, during match, after the match. She brought home a supermarket trolley once after a night on the town, you know. Got it up two flights of stairs.’

  Jack pulled Ellie to her feet and she started to sing ‘Barnacle Bill the Sailor’.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Jack, ‘not again. Come on, you.’

  Between them, Lesley and he managed to get Ellie to her front door, and as Lesley started to hunt for Ellie’s key, Edith opened the door from inside.

  ‘Hello, you big hunk,’ she said to Jack. ‘Back for more?’ Then she noticed the way Ellie was being held up. ‘Well, what have we got here?’

  ‘It’s me, Edith,’ trilled Ellie. ‘I’ve had a few little drinks.’

  ‘We had a good presentation, Edith,’ Jack said. ‘It’s more or less a cert they’re going with the idea. So we stopped for a little celebration on the way home.’

  ‘And you’ve been plying these poor girls with drink and staying sober yourself, you devil,’ Edith said in a way that had probably been the cutting edge of flirting back in the 1950s.

  Jack was distracted from replying by Ellie, who was slowly starting to slide to the floor. He lifted her up into his arms as if she was a small child, her head on his shoulder, and carried her over the threshold. Lesley wobbled along behind them, before tripping over and ending up on the floor in a giggly heap.

  Jack tut-tutted, but he was having a job keeping a straight face.

  ‘I’ll put this one on her bed, shall I, Edith?’ he said.

  As Jack laid her down, Ellie’s eyes fluttered open and Jack realised that they weren’t uniformly green, they had tiny flecks of some other colour in them. What was it, brown or gold?

  ‘I had a lovely time today, Mr Wolfe,’ Ellie said softly.

  ‘Felt good, did it, Ellie, being on the winning side?’

  ‘You bet your hootanooty-tooty it did. And you were such an impressive boy … even after a bad night’s sleep on a too-small sofa.’

  ‘Well, I’ve slept in stranger places.’

  Ellie laughed up at him, her hair spread around her on the pillow. And then suddenly she raised a hand and trailed it gently down his face.

  A jolt of desire hit Jack squarely in the groin and for one wild instant he was tempted to bend and kiss the soft skin of her throat. He stood up abruptly and stepped back.

  ‘Nunnight, Mr Wolfe,’ Ellie said in a whisper, rolling on to her side and closing her eyes.

  Jack walked slowly back into the hall.

  ‘Lesley has passed out,’ Edith said with a smirk, ‘but if I am not very much mistaken, there will be vomiting and headaches later.’

  Back outside in his car, Jack returned his rear-view mirror to its original position. Lesley had been too befuddled to notice that he’d changed the angle earlier so that he could see Ellie in the back seat. She’d been so animated, so alive. He hadn’t even minded the singing. Quite a revelation seeing her relaxed when he was about. She normally acted as if she was on her guard.

  If he concentrated hard, he could still conjure up how she felt in his arms when he’d carried her into her flat. His hand had inadvertently connected with a breast and he had felt its weight and warmth like an electric shock up his arm. Damn it, she’d looked inviting lying on that bed. And when she’d reached up and touched him, he hadn’t just been tempted to kiss her; he’d wanted to lie on top of her to feel all that softness against him.

  He thought about those flecks in her eyes again and blew his breath out slowly and sat motionless for a while. This was not good. On so many levels. Ellie was someone who worked for him, someone he couldn’t dump in a hurry if things got too serious.

  What was the point in having a perfectly good ‘no mixing work and sex’ rule all these years and then tearing it up?

  Mind you, she’d been great in the presentation today. Fired up, really selling the idea, charismatic. He’d hardly had to do a thing.

  Still a scruffbag, but that was kind of growing on him.

  Hang on. Jack ran his hand down his face. It was ‘kind of growing on him’? Where had that come from?

  Too much adrenalin still coursing around his body, that was the trouble. Probably post-presentation euphoria.

  He reached for his mobile and punched in a number.

  ‘Sophie darling … Yeah, I know it’s late, but I was wondering if you felt like … You do? Right. I’m on my way.’

  Jack ended the call, smiling a thin little smile. Then he threw his mobile on the passenger seat and drove off.

  CHAPTER 14

  ‘I think this would be better if we changed the comma to a semi-colon,’ Jubbitt Junior said, positively hyper-ventilating with excitement. Ellie fumed as he destroyed her
lovingly crafted copy but made sure her ‘You are a complete idiot but you are a client’ smile was still on her face. It had been plastered there for so long it was making her ears hurt.

  Now she was going to have to go back to the agency and knit the brochure copy together tonight if they were to meet the printer’s deadline.

  Jubbitt Junior pored over the brochure again and Ellie let her mind drift back over the week. Things had moved quickly since Pauline Kennedy had rung and green-lighted the knickers idea. They’d already had a preliminary meeting with the animation company, and yesterday Lesley and she had spent the whole day with Dave, the guy composing the original music for the knickers song. They had auditioned ten singers, searching for the best voice for each pair of knickers. It had been a long day, but all in all exactly the kind of experience that had attracted Ellie to advertising in the first place.

  Unlike today. The voice of Jubbitt Junior brought Ellie back to the present for a few seconds as he made a particularly unfunny joke about hanging participles and then she returned to thinking about the way Dave had lunged at her to say goodbye after the auditions were over. Even she, who had spent years out of the dating pool, had recognised that he seemed a bit keen and was probably aiming for her mouth.

  She hadn’t been sure how she’d felt about that at the time and she wasn’t quite sure now either. She still missed Sam, his physical presence around the flat, their easy companionship. You couldn’t simply forget all those years of shared experiences. And the humiliation of being cheated on still felt like a shameful burn somewhere inside her.

  But since the excitement of getting approval for the singing knickers and all the work that had brought, she’d lost touch with those intense emotions she’d felt when Sam had first left her. How could that be possible? All those years together and now, a matter of weeks later, she could only dredge up regret and sadness.

  Ellie focused on Jubbitt Junior momentarily to make him believe that she was actually listening, and noticed with unease that one of his hands was deep in his pocket. Eeew, that was a new trick.