Page 10 of Sleep

“Jonny, get your skinny butt down to the restaurant next door. I will ring them now and tell them to expect you. I want a three-course lunch in that stomach of yours within the hour. I will also demand they send me the receipt.”

“Checking up on me again?” I teased. She laughed in my face.

“Of course. You’re hopeless, Jonny. You need to find a life partner. Or a live-in housekeeper. It’s your choice.”

“You tried that before, remember? You got me a trainee butler. It was highly inappropriate.”

“Miki was twenty-five and a fully trained chef. He hoovered like a god and made you food. He was also there to teach you to lipread. He was a great butler, and you were a terrible student. I was gutted when he left.”

“I was thrilled.”

She laughed. I did too. It had been years ago and the worst summer of my life. My house had been clean, my meals served on a plate by the most annoying man I’d ever met, who’d also forced me to sit and practise lipreading. Staring at his mouth for hours on end had given me palpitations. I had stayed in a hotel for the last month of his contract, just to avoid going home. It hadn’t been good, despite the best of intentions being there.

“Go. Go eat,” Jenny nagged. “You look pale and drained. If I was there, I’d put you down for a nap.”

“And serve me chicken nuggets and little peas.” I could see the remains of her children’s lunches on the table behind her. Multitasking like the pro Jenny was.

“You know it.” She smiled. Then she hung up.

I did as I was told and pottered down to the now-familiar restaurant next door. I didn’t even have to open my mouth before they had me seated and poured me a glass of water. And here was my least-favourite waiter, mumbling into his apron and not looking at me.

“You again. Are you ordering off the menu or shall I just tell Chef to feed you?”

Curt. Kurt. Whatever. He grated on me, and I was tempted to mimic Jasper and throw him off with a dismissive wave.

“Is Donovan back yet?” I took it all back. I was as bad as Jasper. Just paler and skinnier and with a beard that needed trimming. Perhaps I should have looked in the mirror before going out. I hadn’t, and now I wondered what I actually looked like, though I could tell my brown mop of hair was all over the place without a mirror.

“They are actually. Would you like a word?”

Would I? Perhaps I would. Mabel hadn’t been around for the past week, which was why I’d not eaten much or ventured down here. Instead, I’d sat up in my bird’s nest and sulked, avoiding Kurt and his colleagues like the plague. Totally irrational, I knew that, but…well. I wasn’t social. And I needed…

Sunshine. The warmth thawed my frozen chest as a vision of yellow floated through the room. A dress. I couldn’t help smiling. Heels. A face full of make-up to accentuate the perfectly coiffed hair. Their own, not a wig. I could tell, and it was…

“Mr Templar,” came out of that perfectly pink pout. I blushed, I couldn’t help it. This was what I’d craved, the warmth that spread through my body as they took a seat next to me, hands folded neatly in front of them on the table.

“Donovan,” I said politely.

“Mabel,” they corrected me. “Donovan sounds like I work in corporate sales and have just bombed the deal of the century.”

“That bad?” I tried to be professional and not smile like a loon.

I smiled like a loon.

“Mr Templar. I’m sorry I have neglected you this past week, but I had some personal affairs to see to.” A small smile.

“That young waitress filled me in the other day. You lost your home and had to move back in with your parents. Your mother is unwell. Your father is apparently appalled.”

They laughed. I loved that they did, and I had no idea why. This was only the second time I’d talked to them, and here I was, behaving like some lovesick fool.

Before I could offer an apology for my forwardness, they held their hand up to stop me.

“I have nothing to hide, and my staff have loose lips. My skeletons are often thrown at our unsuspecting diners before I have any say in the matter. But my staff member summed that up pretty well. I need to find a new place to live this week and remove myself from my father’s kitchen table before he evicts me. Don’t worry, my parents adore me, but they have no time for me bumbling around the house pretending my life is over.”

“Your life is nowhere near over.” I was surprising myself here, both with holding a conversation and the easy smile on my face.

“I’m forty-three, single and unloved, a trail of broken hearts in my wake. Still, I need a place to live, and I also need to work, something that is currently hindered by my commute to the fine town of Newbury.”

“Newbury?” I grimaced. I really needed to control myself. “The Newbury down the M4?”

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