Page 8 of Unravelling: Aria & Crispin
Reluctantly, carefully, they stepped back, like the spell between them would shatter if they moved too quickly.
He straightened his tie while she smoothed her shirt. A heartbeat passed.
Then he tilted his head and said, quietly but deliberately, "There's a Lebanese place just off Baker Street. They have grilled halloumi that might change your life."
Her brows lifted. "Grilled cheese as a way into my bed?"
His mouth curved. "I'm a man of many charms."
She didn't answer right away, just watched him with those amber eyes. The rich boy in a perfect suit, asking a cleaner to dinner like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Seven?" he asked.
She pretended to hesitate, but only for a moment. She lived for these moments, though she knew what this was.
"I'll think about it..."
He gave her a look that said he knew she would.
With a shared glance and the barest hint of a smile, they pushed open the door. She exited first, vacuum in tow. He slipped out a minute later, as if he'd just been on a phone call.
No one seemed to notice.
Except the junior accountant down the corridor, who raised an eyebrow at Crispin's tie, which was now suspiciously crooked.
Crispin didn't even glance back.
Chapter 7
Aria
The lemon-scented polish clung to her gloves as Aria buffed the banister, the rhythmic motion a kind of lull. Outside, the garden sloped away into a misty blur, white roses trembling in the breeze.
The Lackenbys' house was all soft light and order. No clutter, no misaligned picture frames, no untamed corners. Every vase held the same flower, trimmed to the same length. Even the silence here felt posed.
She moved upstairs, feather duster in hand, and reached the little alcove at the top landing-a half-moon table, a tray of envelopes, a gilt-edged photograph of the family taken in Italy. She wiped around it, careful not to leave smudges.
Again, her mind wandered. The morning had brought a sense of unease. It was insidious, something that had crept up on her over the last few months.
Crispin and her had danced around each other, enjoying the ebb and flow of attraction.
"Boys can never be your friends, Aria. They always have something else in their mind," Mami used to tell her, even when she was only eight.
At first, they had never defined what they were.
In the beginning, they were somewhat friends. A few stray kisses did not make lovers.
She caught herself lingering, hand still against the polished wood.
There'd been late nights after his work and her shift, dinners where he'd spoken freely about his mother, who was a quiet force behind gallery wings and youth programs, and his father, the Midas-like tycoon who made his fortune through things Aria didn't understand: mergers, capital shifts, billion-dollar concepts.
His family expected him to show excellence and carry on the legacy. There was no room for deviation, or for less.
Crispin had laughed about it once, over kebabs. "Sometimes I feel like a puppet cut from gold. I shine and dance to their tune, but I can never leave the stage."
Aria hadn't known what to say, so she merely nodded. Her own family had been different. Her mother had cooked with love while her father had built bookshelves and furniture.
He had a sister, Alice. Aria got the impression that she was clever but not quite as clever as Crispin, though he spoke of her with adoration. She had joined the company straight after business school. And his best friend, Dorian, was always in the background like a second shadow. They both belonged to that cool, perfumed world of boardrooms and mergers. Aria sometimes felt like a half-finished sketch in comparison.
