Page 84 of The Plot Twist

‘I agree with anything you say.’ Will squeezed her waist. ‘How long are you staying?’

‘How long doyouhave to stay?’

Will looked around the room. ‘Think you can entertain yourself for half an hour while I check everything is OK? My van is parked round the corner, I could meet you there?’

Allie’s smile couldn’t get any bigger. ‘Absolutely,’ she said.

* * *

For Allie, the next half an hour was one of the longest of her life. She caught a glimpse of Will a couple of times and each time she did her heart did the sort of thump that would have made her worry she was having a heart attack if she didn’t know with complete certainty that it was the promise of meeting up with Will later that was having that effect. She didn’t want to be the annoying party guest who constantly checked her watch and as she knew she was on thin ice with Verity she wanted to be seen to be politely chatting to fellow authors, enquiring about the lives of the publicity team, who never seemed to ever get asked those sorts of questions and always seemed so surprised to even be thought of, which made Allie feel uncomfortable, given these were the people who consistently anticipated every author’s need. But she was all out of oohs and aahs, having been subjected to dozens of baby photos from a publicity manager who appeared to be fresh back from maternity leave and wasn’t yet comfortable with being more than arm’s length from her child. Happily, the death of the publicist’s phone battery coincided with the half hour being up and so Allie left the poor woman to frantically go searching for a charger so that she could check in one more time with her presumably long-suffering partner at home. Allie secretly thought that the partner might be quite relieved not to be subjected to constant demands for updates on the sleeping/feeding/pooping of their baby.

Allie was halfway down the stairs that led from the private function room down to the street-level public drinking area when she came face to face with Dominic, and so surprised was she that she put out a hand to stabilise herself and found it resting on his chest. She quickly moved it, but not before she noticed a rather smug, pleased-with-himself expression cross Dominic’s already shiny face.

‘Dom!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’ She quickly thought back to Jess’s words of warning and not for the first time wondered whether the universe was conspiring against her.

‘I thought it would be a nice surprise.’

Allie wondered how best to phrase the proper response, which should have been. ‘Well it’s not, please leave,’ and, because she really couldn’t help herself she politely settled for an ambiguous, ‘Erm, OK, it’s a surprise certainly.’

‘And I brought you this.’

Allie peered at the item that Dominic was now brandishing towards her.

‘Whatisthat?’

‘Tweezers.’

‘Tweezers? Why did you bring tweezers to a party to surprise me with?’

‘They’re yours.’

‘They are?’

‘Yes, I forgot to put them in that box I brought round the other day, so I thought I ought to bring them to you. And as I knew you were going to be here…’ Dominic tailed off, and he looked from Allie to the pair of tweezers he was now holding limply in one hand. If he had more self-awareness, Allie might even begin to think he was realising how ridiculous his excuse sounded.

‘I also thought you might want some support. I thought if I came along about now you might be ready to leave and I could give you a good excuse to do so.’ He paused. ‘You are leaving, aren’t you?’ His face brightened. ‘See? Perfect timing. I can get us an Uber.’ He reached in his pocket for his phone.

‘Will they be driving a red sports car?’

‘Allie, I said I’m sorry.’

‘Yes, and I hadn’t said I’d forgiven you.’ She thought back to her conversation with Will earlier that evening. How loaded it had been with attraction, how easy it had been and how far it was from this awkward exchange with Dominic, which was loaded only with recriminations and an eye on the closest available emergency exit.

‘Well look, Dom, I wish you’d told me you were thinking of coming, because I would have told you not to.’ She watched him try to digest this news and then compose his features accordingly. Dominic had never been the sort of man to not have the world arrange itself in ways solely to please him. ‘And if it was about the tweezers I could have just told you that I bought another pair.’

‘I thought we could go get dinner, you and me?’ He raised an eyebrow as he suggested this and once again Allie couldn’t help but compare this to the effect that Will had on her when he raised his eyebrow.

‘Dominic. No. I think you got the wrong end of the stick when I invited you in the other day. I don’t want to go for dinner with you, I don’t want to get back together with you and I really don’t need rescuing tonight.’ She started down the stairs past him, keen to put as much distance between her and Dominic as possible and wishing that Georgian-era builders had the foresight to build slightly wider staircases, so that one wasn’t forced to make bodily contact with ex-boyfriends when trying to leave parties. ‘Sorry, excuse me,’ she said as she awkwardly navigated Dominic’s body, which could have been a metaphor for the entirety of their sex life.

‘Come on, let’s just go get a drink?’ Dominic’s tone was switching from authoritative to plaintive.

‘No, Dom. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have just turned up here for many, many reasons. Firstly because I didn’t invite you, and second because … to be honest, this is going to be awkward.’ By now Allie was stood on the pavement outside the pub, Dominic hot on her heels. She looked around for Will’s van, wondering where exactly he had parked and whether she could shake Dominic off before she had to make incredibly uncomfortable introductions. Or whether it might be possible just to jump in the front seat of the van and shout ‘drive’ at Will, leaving Dominic spluttering in a cloud of exhaust fumes. But even that would require an explanation, and given she still felt she was on shaky grounds with Will in regards to being upfront and honest, she didn’t feel keen to pretend that Dominic was an overzealous marketing manager, who was desperate to try and get her to record bonus material for the audio book.

On all these points she needn’t have worried, because she quickly spotted Will’s van, parked as he had said it was on the corner of the side street. Except it wasn’t really parked, it already had its lights on and the engine running and was now beginning to pull away from the curb. Allie put up a hand to attract Will’s attention, he must be going round the back of the pub to collect more things, or perhaps he was looking for a better parking space. Because, yes, that space that the van was now rapidly exiting did look like it might be too small. But now the van was speeding up, and now it was pulling into the main road and going just a little too fast to beat those lights and to get as far away from the pub outside which Allie was standing and outside which she had arranged to meet Will.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, wondering what to make of this new development.

‘That’s the caterer’s van. Looks like he’s finished for the night.’

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