Page 80 of Shout Out To My Ex

Because now I know this isn’t just one-sided. Leo’s feeling the current of attraction too.

We hastily make our way to the exit – maybe the glaring light of day will douse these feelings – but when we step outside, we’re met with more than sunlight.

‘Lorenzo, who’s the girl?’

‘Where’s Franzia?’

‘Are you cheating on your fiancée?’

The questions come thick and fast as the clump of photographers shove each other for the best vantage point. To photograph me with Leo! As if we were doing something wrong!

‘Lorenzo! Who’s the dolly bird?’

Dolly bird?

It’s only been seconds but it feels like longer when Leo grabs my hand and drags me away from the museum.

‘This way,’ he says, and I trot to keep up with him. The paps follow, shouting questions and commands at us.

I spot a black cab half a block away and tug free from Leo’s grasp to hail it. The cabbie flashes his lights and stops next to us.

The paps continue their onslaught as we climb inside.

‘Who’s the slapper?’ one of them asks.

The slam of the car door plunges us into silence and the cab zips into traffic, leaving the paparazzi behind.

I resist the urge to look back, instead resting heavily against the seat. Leo takes my hand again, gently this time, rubbing his thumb along the back of it.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says quietly.

But it’s too much. The moment in the museum, the paps, being called horrible names… Leo holding my hand.

I snatch it away and rest it in my lap, staring straight ahead.

‘Where to?’ asks the cabbie.

I rattle off my home address without thinking but Leo talks over me, giving a W1 address I don’t recognise. I look across at him. His lips have disappeared between his teeth and he’s frowning behind his sunglasses.

‘Is that the address to your shop?’ I ask.

He turns to me and takes off the glasses, answering my question with a nod.

I watch him closely. Do I want to go to his shop, or fashion house, or whatever it is?Lorenzo– is it a label? A persona? And whose brainchild was it, anyway? Seems wildly out of character for Leo to have created something so flashy.

I add these to the hundreds of questions I have for him, questions I’ve been accumulating since he left London. We could talk for the rest of the day, all through the night, and into tomorrow and I still wouldn’t have all the answers I want – answers Ineed.

But if I don’t go with him now, while I’m emboldened by adrenaline and – let’s face it – the leverage of having just been papped in the name ofLorenzo, I may never have this opportunity again.

‘Will you come?’ he asks, vulnerability evident in his eyes. ‘I still owe you that explanation, and now seems as good a time as any.’

That’s a casual way of putting it, an autopsy of our breakup, I think.

I look out the side window. ‘Yeah, okay.’

I sense him relax beside me as I watch out the window and wonder how much a cab ride through Central London will end up costing. No matter, as it will definitely be on Leo.

25

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