Yes it is, I reply.
Sleepover?
My heart skips a beat. Yes, please.
Regent’s Park tube stop at five p.m. tomorrow, by the Starbucks.
Yes, daddy.
Fuck. Say that again.
Yes, daddy.
Good girl.
Chapter Seven
Rufus is wearing jeans for a change and a faded chambray shirt. He’s got sunglasses pushed on top of his head and the hairs on his forearms are golden in the sunlight. He gathers me into his arms for a kiss, right there in front of the coffee shop.
“Hello,” I whisper, my face close to his.
He runs his thumb over my cheekbone. “Hello. You look so pretty.”
I dimple at him, and fan the skirt of my yellow dress. “Thank you.”
Taking my hand, he walks me along the edge of the park and then into Marylebone. It’s a perfect spring evening and the trees lining the streets are a riot of pink and white blossoms.
“I wish they could last forever.” I sigh, watching a blizzard of petals caught on the wind. “But then I guess they wouldn’t be so special.”
We pass some beautiful Victorian terraces and Georgian town houses, and then a series of ugly, squat, light brown apartment buildings. I wrinkle my nose. “I never understood why they put such awful buildings up next to such beautiful old ones.”
“The Blitz,” he explains. “You can thank Hitler for those.”
“You mean every ugly fifties building in London is because of a bomb?”
“More or less. This is me.” He points to a Georgian town house. It’s white with pillars out front and a shiny boot scraper by the threshold. “Top floor.”
We ride the tiny lift to the fourth floor and he unlocks his apartment. It’s lovely inside, white and airy with plenty of natural light. He gives me the tour.
“This is the lounge, and through there is the dining room.”
The two spaces are separated by a large, open archway, and a light fixture hangs low over the dining table. A painting hangs on the far wall, something smudgy and French-looking with hills. There’s a box done up with pink paper and ribbon sitting in the middle of the dining table. He pointedly ignores it and so do I, but I remember my present from the other night and wonder what he’s got planned.
The lounge has a television facing a large, comfortable-looking couch.
“The kitchen is through here, and the bathroom.”
It’s all very modern and sleek and renovated, like something out of a magazine. And it’s neat without a speck of dust anywhere. I should have realized he’d be particular. The kitchen is stainless steel everything and granite surfaces, and the tub in the bathroom is huge.
“This is, I don’t know, the spare room.” He opens a door to a room that has books piled on the floor and a bicycle propped against one wall. “It’s where stuff goes to die. I don’t like those books and I haven’t ridden in years. This down here,” he says, closing the door and moving down the hall, “is the master bedroom.”
I peek in. It’s a big room with wooden floorboards and a sunny window. Outside is a tree covered in blossom. The bed is large with a black cast-iron frame and a white duvet, and a tallboy and a wardrobe stand adjacent in the corner.
“Nice, um, bed.”
“Yes, it is.” He cups the side of my face and kisses me, and I find myself wanting him to take me to bed right now. I want to tell him that I’m not afraid of him, that I’m ready, even though we’ve known each other properly just a short time. But I can’t find the words, and he has other ideas.
He stands back and rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “So, this is me. Will I do?”