Page 12 of Wilder at Heart
‘Well, in that case, you should be thrilled with me, because I just made that man very jealous.’
‘I don’t like playing games like that. I don’t want to stoop to his level. When they go low’—she gives a shaky but defiant nod—‘we go high.’
That stops me in my tracks. ‘Did you just quote Michelle Obama to me?’
She gives me aduhface. ‘Yeah. She’s my hero. What’s the problem?’
There is no problem, except the cogs in my mind are picking up steam. In fact, they’re turning so fast they’re probably sparking.
‘Nothing. Tell you what, Belle. You should date me.’
CHAPTER 4
Nora
Theo grins at me. ‘My mum will go bat shit crazy for you. Have you met her yet?’
‘No, but?—’
I stare at him like he’s lost the plot. I’m genuinely fascinated by people like him. People who are so entitled and arrogant, who have such unshakable self-confidence, that they think they only have to speak and their words, or theirthoughts, even, become law.
He just heard me say I want to get Jonathan back, and yet he’s asked me out.
Is he delusional?
The other problem with guys like Theo Montague, aside from the arrogance, is that they’redangerous. I suspected it the second I laid eyes on him, and I knew it for sure once he’d abandoned me against Plodge’s wall to go find someone who’d put out for him. And it strikes me that, a decade on, he’s more dangerous than ever.
I can hardly look at him. Firstly, because he’s—and itkillsme to say this—even more gorgeous than he used to be. He’s grown into his bone structure. His cheekbones are sharper, and the square ridge of his jaw is accentuated by the perfectlyclipped beard he now sports. I mean, I think it’s a beard. Is it? It’s somewhere between long stubble and a beard, anyway, but whatever it is, it works.
However long he spends grooming it, it’s worth it.
He’s a bit like a solar eclipse. You know you’re not supposed to look, for God’s sake, but come on. Knowing you shouldn’t look is like being told not to press the big red button. Or open Pandora’s box. You can’t help yourself.
And when you do look, you remember why you shouldn’t stare straight into the sun.
Because it’s dazzling.
He’s dazzling.
I do what I shouldn’t, and I allow my gaze to rove over him under the pretence of glaring at him scathingly. I drink in those massive, almost liquid brown eyes. The black eyebrows that add gravitas to his face and shadows to his eyes. His mouth, full and luscious and framed by the beard-thing. His tongue, when it peeks out to lick his lower lip…
Sorry. Shit. I allowed myself to digress there for a second. I was supposed to be telling you the second reason I can hardly look at him, and that is because last week, I sat alone in Elle’s gorgeous living room and shamelessly watched (by watched, I mean binged) all six episodes ofCharmed in Chelseaback to back.
I ate my way through epic amounts of Dairy Milk and drank copious rosé, and I watched Theo and other over-privileged fuckwits cavort around Chelsea, trailed by cameras.
Let me tell you this. The show was bad. The lines were poorly scripted, the cast members definitely weren’t naturals at delivering said badly scripted lines (except for Theo, who has the gift of the gab), and the ‘storylines’ were thin. It was abysmal.
Let me also tell you this. I gobbled up every. Single. Second.
Sure, it was escapist waffle, but really, it was Theo. I know the extent of my dealings with him is a single kiss, a decade ago, but come on. It’s pretty fun watching someone you’ve kissed let rip on camera.
Until he did something super shocking, and that’s why I can hardly meet his gaze. He. Um. He hooked up withtwo girls.At the same time.As in, like a… you know what I’m getting at. And they weretwins. And young. Like, early twenties.
And to make matters worse, horrified as I was, I could not. Look. Away.
Obviously, they didn’t air the, um, bedroom bit itself. I don’t know whether Theo saw sense and kicked the cameras out, or whether the editors decided it would be in bad taste to show it (right decision, obviously). But I definitely got an eyeful of Theo kissing them both in a club, and of themall over himin the back of a black cab, and of him taking them back to his flat.
The three of them started getting down to it on the sofa, and it was kind of like watching a car crash, because I didn’t want to watch it, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn it off. I won’t fill you in on exactly what went down (no pun intended), but clothes were coming off before Theo got the girls into his bedroom, and then the footage stopped.
