Page 49 of Too Busy for Love

‘Goodness.’

‘Exactly. And do you know the one thing he has never, ever done?’

‘Wear aftershave?’

‘That, and he’s never bought her flowers. Her nose is a sensitive instrument, so they don’t have any distracting odours in the house.’

‘That’s a bit extreme. Anyway, Abby works in construction so I don’t think she’s going to have the same sensitivity.’

‘Ha. Building sites are no place for a woman,’ Rosa declares, shrugging her shoulders expressively.

‘Nonsense, Rosa. This is the twenty-first century; I think we’ve left those kinds of attitudes behind.’

‘I can’t help being traditional.’

The smell in my room is intoxicating when I go to collect the flowers just before dinner, and I pause for a moment, breathing in the heady scent. I like a glass of wine as much as the next person, but I’d happily smell this over all the stuff James was discussing with the people at the bodega. The guests are all enjoying their pre-dinner drinks on the terrace, so I take a circuitous route to place the flowers in the bucket by James’ chair. The bouquet really is enormous, and I need both hands to carry it. One thing is for certain – Abby is not going to be in anydoubt how James feels about her. I just hope she lets him down gently if she decides she’s not interested.

The decanter with the wine is already waiting, so James has obviously been here before me. I carefully place the bouquet into the bucket, but it takes a few goes before I feel confident enough to let it go without the bucket tipping over. We’re going to have to split it across several vases once he’s delivered his grand gesture.

I normally steer well clear of the control room unless I have a specific reason to go in there, but Gus has asked Rosa to serve the date-night tables tonight so I can watch, given how much effort I’ve invested in James and Abby today. Chris and Tim are in front of their enormous monitors, which are showing live feeds from every camera. Gus, Dom and Raquel are standing behind, watching and occasionally requesting a particular feed be made full screen so they can see it more clearly.

‘Ah, here’s our matchmaker,’ Gus comments with a smile. ‘There aren’t any spare headphones I’m afraid, so you’ll have to lipread if you want to know what they’re saying.’

‘It’s OK. I reckon I’ll be able to pick up what I need to from their body language.’

The table is currently vacant, but James and Abby appear after a few minutes. He’s very solicitous, I notice, holding her chair for her while she sits down and helping to push it in. The conversation appears a little stilted, which is hopefully just down to James’s nerves.

‘Give her the flowers,’ I mutter under my breath.

‘Patience,’ Gus laughs.

I watch as he pours a glass of wine from the decanter for each of them and wait for him to start swirling it around and sniffing it like he did this afternoon. This could be make or break; if he goes into wine-bore mode, he’ll lose her at the first hurdle. To my astonishment, however, he merely chinks his glass againsthers and they each take a sip. I see her eyes widen as the liquid hits her mouth and, from her expression, I think she’s being complimentary about it. A few sentences pass between them before he reaches down and lifts the bouquet out of the bucket.

If Abby liked the wine, I think it’s safe to say the bouquet has blown her away. She’s beaming as she takes it from him and sticks her nose in for a good sniff.

‘Oh, he won’t like that,’ I murmur.

‘Why?’ Gus asks.

‘It’ll upset all her olfactory nerves and probably ruin the taste of the wine.’

‘I didn’t know you were a connoisseur.’

‘Oh, I’m not. It’s just something Rosa said.’

Gus looks perplexed but obviously decides not to delve any further into Rosa’s and my supposed wine knowledge. On screen, Abby has carefully laid the bouquet on the grass, got up from her seat and planted a smacker of a kiss on James’ cheek. He looks as if all his Christmases have come at once. From that point on, everything seems to go swimmingly. The conversation appears to be flowing naturally, and they demolish the wine between them. At the end of the meal, Abby picks up the flowers but, like me, needs two hands to hold them. To my delight, James offers to carry them for her, cradling them in the crook of his arm as they stroll hand in hand back towards the terrace and the rest of the group.

‘I’d better go and take those off him,’ I say to Gus. ‘Rosa’s waiting with some vases so we can split them up and put them in her room.’

As if on cue, James appears with the flowers just as I exit the control room.

‘Happy?’ I ask him.

‘Ecstatic. It couldn’t have gone better.’

‘I was expecting you to do the swirling and sniffing thing with the wine. I’m glad you didn’t.’

‘Of course I didn’t!’ He looks amused. ‘That kind of thing is fine when you’re tasting a wine, and I did check it when I was decanting it, but not when you’re drinking it. Anyway, she really liked it, and that’s the main point. Can you do the necessary with these?’

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