Page 31 of The Last Kiss Goodbye

‘I called you as soon as I’d read it. You have a natural talent, Ros.’

‘I’m just glad you don’t think I’m a promiscuous bohemian,’ she said with a sigh of relief.

‘Pardon?’ he said, almost spluttering out his drink.

‘Maintaining that the pill will be a good thing for society,’ she replied quickly, not quite believing that she had referred to herself as promiscuous in her first five minutes of conversation.

‘No, I don’t think you’re a promiscuous bohemian,’ he laughed, looking at her from under those dark, disconcerting eyelashes. ‘Although I do believe you’ve got the potential to be a very astute economist. What was it you said about the pill getting a generation of women to work, putting women in government, on to boards, in power . . . Macmillan will bring its release on to the NHS forward by six months once he reads this. Or maybe not,’ he added with a cynical smile.

He pulled the article from the inside pocket of his jacket and reread it.

‘You didn’t submit a title. Got any ideas?’

‘How about “Women on Top”?’ she suggested, before realising the double entrendre. ‘Or maybe not.’

‘No. That’s brilliant,’ he said, scribbling the words on the top of the feature and handing it back to her. ‘It’s going to get the Capital readers a bit hot under the collar already, so in for a penny, in for a pound and all that.’

Still flushing with embarrassment, Ros skim-read the notes and suggestions that had been written all over the page in red pen. There were so many of them, she thought her piece must have been absolutely hopeless, and it took another minute of reassurance from Dominic before she understood that these were simple editing points.

He took off his coat and sat back in his chair, his arm resting along the top the banquette.

‘So when are you going to write something else for us?’

‘Is that what this is? A job interview?’

‘Something like that,’ he said, not taking his eyes off her.

‘As long as you don’t slot my column next to some dreadful right-wing piece about capital punishment or fox-hunting.’

‘And perhaps I’ll only think about recommissioning you if you stop being so bloody sharp with me.’

‘Girl Guide’s honour,’ she said, trying to shift the conversation on to more light-hearted ground.

She felt the mood shift.

‘Don’t tell me you were a Girl Guide?’ he smiled, pausing to light a cigarette.

‘Why not? It’s a positive social programme based on military principles. Chairman Mao would approve,’ she said more knowingly.

‘He wouldn’t approve of you marching into church carrying the Union Jack every Sunday.’

‘Well, I was exempted from all that church parade nonsense.’

Dominic nodded. ‘Of course, you free-thinkers view religion as the opium of the masses.’

‘Opiate,’ she corrected. ‘It’s not that, though. My dad’s Jewish, and my parents made a pact to observe customs from both religions once they had children. So we have Hanukkah and Christmas, Sunday lunch and a Sabbath dinner. In fact it feels weird being in a pub on a Friday night and not at home eating chicken soup and challah.’

‘Even stranger that you’re with a man you publicly attacked barely a week ago.’

She allowed herself a smile, and folded up her feature and put it in her bag.

‘I reread your piece on Indian repatriation. It was interesting.’

‘Is that an apology?’ he smiled.

‘Let’s just say I don’t generally share Capital magazine’s views, but I was a little hasty with my protest the other day, yes.’

She looked at him and it was as if his grey eyes were dancing. They were certainly teasing her. Men like Dominic Blake were clearly used to women fawning over them, and she didn’t want to be so obvious. But she couldn’t deny that she liked this man.