Sleeping with the Soldier

She nodded.

‘It’s a one-bed studio. There isn’t much space but it’s in such a perfect location for my shop. The time I’m saving by living so close kind of makes the lack of space worth it.’ She nodded towards the sofa. ‘Have a seat. I’ll make some tea.’

‘And what exactly is it that you do?’ he said, picking his way through the clutter to the overstuffed sofa. It was covered in a brightly coloured patchwork throw and he had to move a huge pile of silk and lace remnants before there was room to sit down.

She was clattering about in the tiny kitchen area in the corner. There was a doorway at the side of the room with a length of some filmy cream fabric hanging across it as a curtain. He narrowed his eyes, trying to get his bearings. Her bedroom must be down there on the right if it really was situated underneath his, as she claimed. He shook his head lightly because he had absolutely zero interest in how she spent her nights.

This was a means to an end, nothing more, a marginal step up from waiting it out in the hallway upstairs. He had no desire whatsoever to find out more about the infuriating woman from downstairs. He sank onto the sofa, shifted to one side uncomfortably and tugged out a pale pink feather boa from underneath him. For Pete’s sake.

‘I design and make my own line of boutique lingerie,’ she said.

It was impossible to miss the faint trace of pride in her voice.

‘Knickers, camisoles, nightgowns, slips, bustiers, basques. You name it.’ She counted them off on her fingers. ‘Vintage inspired, Hollywood glamour, that kind of thing. I like to make the most of the female figure.’

His mind reeled a little. She might as well have been speaking in some foreign language and he’d felt enough of a fish out of water already in the past couple of weeks, thank you very much. After living at close quarters with soldiers for the best part of the last few years, much of that time in the roughest of conditions, moving in with a group of girls was like living with a gaggle of aliens. Everything was scented. Everything. There was girly underwear hanging over the radiators. The fridge was full of hummus, low-fat yogurt and other hideous foodstuffs that filled him with distaste, the topics of conversation mystified him and the bathroom was full of perfumed toiletries. He’d grabbed the opportunity when Poppy’s friend Izzy had moved rooms a few weeks ago to draft in male back-up in the form of his old schoolfriend Isaac, but in reality it had made little difference because Isaac was hardly ever there. Alex was out of his depth as it was, and now he was catapulted into a room full of lingerie.

‘I’ve been selling from market stalls for ages now, building up a customer base,’ Lara was saying. ‘And I have a blog—“Boudoir Fashionista”.’ She made a frame in the air with her hands as if imagining the title on a shop sign.

‘A blog?’ he repeated. The conversation was becoming more surreal by the minute. He leaned his head back against the sofa. His headache seemed to be intensifying.

‘Mmm …’ She continued to clatter about in the kitchen, not turning round. ‘I showcase my lingerie, blog about fashion and beauty. I’ve been wanting to expand the business for a while, try my hand at retail, but it’s such a gamble in terms of cost, you have no idea. And then I started looking into pop-up shops.’

He didn’t answer. Her voice was sweet, melodic even, pleasant to listen to. He closed his heavy eyes to ease the thumping headache, a side effect of his crazy off-kilter sleep pattern that seemed to be becoming a regular thing.

‘It’s just a short-term thing, so less risk. There are places that advertise opportunities. You take on empty premises, sometimes even just for a day. I couldn’t believe it when I found the place on Portobello Road—it was like a dream. I’ve got it for the next couple of months. Perfect timing for me to take advantage of the run up to Christmas and long enough to see if I can make it work.’

Lara gave the tea a final stir. Busying herself in the kitchen was an autopilot way of taking her mind off how much tinier the already minuscule flat suddenly felt with him in it. Small it might be but it had still been at the absolute limit of what she could afford. Desperate to give everything to the pop-up shop opportunity, she’d quickly realised that living nearby would be a huge advantage. Failure was absolutely not an option.

She’d give him the tea and then try to track down Izzy. The thought of having him here under her feet all day made her stomach feel squiggly. She had tons of work to do and she’d lost nearly an hour this morning already to first his noise and now the follow-up chaos. She didn’t have time to step in as rescue party for neighbours. She turned back to cross the room to him. Three paces in and she came to a stop, smile fading from her face, mug of tea in each hand.

He was fast asleep.

He looked completely out of place among the frills, ribbons and lace that festooned the sofa. He had the most tightly honed muscular physique she’d ever seen outside a glossy fashion magazine, his shoulders were huge, his abs perfectly defined. One huge hand rested against his chiselled jaw as if he’d been propping his chin up when he nodded off.

She watched him for a moment. In sleep the defensive expression on his face when he’d given her his half-arsed apology for the noise was nowhere to be seen. The dark hair was dry now, the short cut totally in keeping with his military background; she could easily imagine him in uniform. The face below was classically handsome. His cheekbones were sharply defined, followed up with a firm jawline and strong mouth. Her eyes roamed lower and she caught her breath in surprise.

The upstairs landing was pretty shadowy and he’d been turned away from her for much of the time. Add in the fact that she’d been making a heroic effort to keep her eyes from wandering below his neckline and as a result she only now got a proper view of his body. A twist of sympathy surged through her.

The left-hand side of the tautly muscled chest was heavily puckered and ruched with a web of scar tissue. She pressed her lips together hard. Of course she’d heard from Poppy that Alex had been injured in action but, having heard and seen the evidence of his sexual prowess, she’d assumed whatever had happened to him must have been pretty minor.

Whatever had happened to cause that scarring could most certainly not be pretty minor.

She put the two mugs down on the edge of the sewing table and moved closer to him, hand outstretched towards his shoulder to shake him gently awake, and then her eyes stuttered over the shadows beneath the dark eyelashes. He looked exhausted, and no wonder. From what she knew of him, he barely ever slept. His breathing now was rested and even. She withdrew her hand. Why not let him sleep? Yes, she could try and contact Izzy or Poppy, but really she’d wasted enough time today already on this situation.

She tugged the multi-coloured patchwork throw from the side of the sofa. Her foster mother had made it for her and it was deliciously huge and comforting to snuggle into. She tucked it gently over him. He didn’t even stir.

Five minutes later and she had her own mug of tea at her elbow as she got back to her sewing. She had the finishing touches to do on fifty-odd pairs of silk knickers. And that was just for starters.

It felt as if hours had passed when a moan of distress made her foot slip from the pedal of the sewing machine. She’d been so engrossed in her work that she’d almost forgotten she had a house guest. The room had grown dark now in the late afternoon; the small light from the sewing machine and the angled lamp above her workspace were the only sources of light. She stood up and looked curiously at Poppy’s brother, sprawled in the shadows on the sofa. Deciding she must have imagined it, she moved to sit back down.

He twisted in his sleep.

She frowned. Abandoning her chair, she took a step towards him. His hands were twisting in the throw she’d draped over him and he let out another cry. Almost a shout this time, enough to make her jump. She watched his face as it contorted. Sympathy twisted in her stomach as she caught sight again of his scarred chest in the dim light. Where was he right now in his mind? In the middle of some hideous battle?

His body twisted sharply again and she couldn’t stand it any longer. She reached out to shake him awake, to take him away from whatever horror he was reliving.

First there was the vague impression of something stroking his upper arm. Tentative, not rough. And then there was the scent, something clean and flowery, like roses. It reminded Alex vaguely of his mother’s dressing room back at their country home, with its antique dressing table and ornate perfume bottles and he flinched at the thought. It had been years since he’d visited the family home and he had absolutely no plans to do so in the foreseeable future. Why would he? For a place filled on and off with so many people, so many offshoots of the family, it had been bloody lonely for a kid.

He opened his eyes, disorientation making his mind reel.

He struggled to place himself in a panic. Not his army quarters. And not his room in his sister’s flat, with its calming military organisation. Instead he was in a room that could only really be described as a boudoir. And it was getting dark.

He struggled to his feet, his mind whirling. Of course, he’d been locked out of Poppy’s flat and the downstairs neighbour had offered to make him tea. That was the last thing he remembered. He looked down at himself as the quilt covering him fell away and saw that the towel around his hips was hanging askew. He snatched it closed again. Horrified, he realised he’d been sleeping here in a stranger’s flat with his scars on show for her to view at her leisure.

The blonde neighbour was standing a few feet away, an expression of concern on her pretty face. The sewing machine was lit up on the desk by a bright angled lamp. A neatly folded pile of pink silk lay further down the table. A tentative smile touched the corners of her rosebud mouth.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked. ‘You were …’ a light frown touched her eyebrows ‘… calling out in your sleep.’

The heat of humiliation began at his neck and climbed burningly upwards as he regained a grip on reality. He’d had a nightmare. In full view of her. Had he shouted? What had he said? How could he have been so stupid as to let himself fall asleep here?

‘What time is it?’ he managed, rubbing a hand through his hair as if it might somehow help to clear his foggy head.

‘Nearly six,’ she said. ‘I was just about to wake you. Poppy’s home, I think—I heard her go up the stairs to the flat. So you should be able to get back in now.’

Six?

He’d slept the entire day. He avoided her eyes. What must she think of him, just falling asleep like that? And then having a bad dream, like some kid. He couldn’t quite believe that he could relax enough to fall asleep in a strange place with a strange person. His tiredness must be a lot more ingrained than he’d thought it was.

‘I can’t believe I fell asleep,’ he blustered. ‘You should have woken me.’

‘I couldn’t really believe it either,’ she said. ‘Of course I think my business plan is the most interesting topic of discussion on the planet.’ She smiled. ‘But it made you nod off in the space of about ten minutes.’

He shook his head. What the hell must she be thinking?

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s a joke,’ she said, making a where’s-your-sense-of-humour? face. ‘I’m joking?’

‘Right,’ he said. Awkwardness filled the room, making it feel heavy and tense. He had to get out of here.

‘I was going to wake you,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t have the heart.’

‘Oh, really?’ He zeroed in on that comment. Was this some kind of sympathy vote because she’d seen his awful scars? Or worse, because he’d cried out in his sleep? He didn’t do sympathy. And he didn’t do bursts of emotion either. Nearly thirty years in the stiff-upper-lip environment of his military-obsessed family did that for a person. Stoicism was essential. His father had made that pretty damn clear when Alex was just a kid, an attitude later reinforced at boarding school and then in the army. Emotion was something you stamped on, definitely not something to be expressed among strangers.

‘You looked so peaceful,’ she went on. ‘And you’ve clearly been getting hardly any sleep if your noise pollution is anything to go by.’

There was an edge to her voice that told him she was still narked about that. He didn’t let it penetrate, there was no need to, since he had absolutely no intention of running into her again after today.

‘Cup of tea?’ she asked him. ‘Your last one got cold. Are you sure you’re OK?’

He shook his head, automatically folding the enormous throw and placing it neatly at the side of the sofa. He had no idea how she could live in such a cluttered room without going mad. It jarred his military sense of order.

‘I am perfectly fine,’ he snapped. ‘And I’ve taken up enough of your time. Now I know Poppy’s back I’ll get out of your way.’

He headed for the door as she watched him, a bemused expression on the pretty face.

‘Bye, then,’ he heard her call after him as he pulled the door shut.

A thank-you might have been nice.

Then again, she didn’t have time for niceties. Neither did she give a stuff as long as Alex curbed the disruptive noise from upstairs.

Forty-eight hours had now passed with a definite reduction in noise levels although she’d seen no corresponding drop in the stream of disposable girls visiting. That was the thing about working from home for all waking hours—the comings and goings of other residents in the building amounted to distractions, and she couldn’t fail to notice them. He must have moved his bed away from the radiator because the endless clanking had ceased. Not, of course, that she was dwelling on Alex Spencer’s bedroom activities.

What mattered was that normal sleep quality had been resumed and thank goodness, because the launch of the shop was only a week away now. Just time to fit in a quick shower this morning and then she would head over there to add a few more finishing touches to the décor before she began to move stock in. She’d managed to track down a beautiful French-style dressing screen, the kind you might find in a lady’s bedroom, gorgeously romantic. No run-of-the-mill changing cubicles for her little shop. Still, she wanted to try it out in different positions until she found the perfect location for it.

She rubbed shampoo into her hair, closing her eyes against the soap bubbles and running through a mental list of the hundred-plus things she needed to get done today. A full-length gilt-framed mirror had been delivered the previous day; it would provide the perfect vintage centrepiece for the small shop floor, and she needed to decide where best to put that too. Then there were garlands of silk flowers to hang and some tiny white pin lights to add to the girly atmosphere she wanted to achieve.

The torrent of water rinsing through her hair seemed to be losing its force. She opened one eye and squinted through the bubbles up at the shower head. Yep. The usual nice flow was definitely diminishing. And without the sound of the running water she was suddenly able to hear a monstrous clanking noise coming from behind the wall and above her head.

‘What the hell …?’ she said aloud as the water reduced to little more than a trickle. The clanking built to a crescendo.

Oh, just bloody perfect. Naked, covered in bubbles and with her hair a bird’s nest of shampoo, she climbed out of the shower unit and wrapped a towel around her. A quick twist of the sink tap gave a loud clanking spurt of water followed by nothing. She grabbed her kimono from the hook on the back of the bathroom door and shrugged it on as she took the few paces to the kitchen to check the water pressure there.

She didn’t make it as far as the sink. Horrified shock stopped her in her tracks as she took in the torrent of water pouring down the wall of the living room, pooling into a flood and soaking merrily into a pile of silk camisoles she’d left in a stack on the floor.

‘No-o-o!’ she squawked, dashing across the floor, picking up armfuls of her lovingly made garments and moving them to safety on the other side of the room. She kicked the metal clothes rail out of the way as she passed it, the few garments hanging at one end already splashed by the ensuing torrent of water.

She rushed to the cabinet under the sink, found the stopcock and turned off the water supply as she tried madly to rationalise what could have happened, then she stood, hand plastered to her forehead as her mind worked through the implications of all this. Some of her garments had been soaked through—there went hours of work down the drain. The water continued to spread across the floor in a slow-moving pool. She knew instinctively from the clanking in the pipes that this wasn’t going to be some five-minute do-it-yourself quick-fix job. The building was ancient. Behind the glossy makeover of the flat conversion was interlinked original pipework. That much was obvious from the racket they made when the love god upstairs was entertaining.

She had absolutely no money to spare for a plumber. She wondered if any of the rest of the building was affected. Surely it wasn’t just her? In a panic she opened the flat door with the intention of knocking on the door opposite and instead ran smack into Poppy, who was on her way up to her own flat with a chocolate croissant in one hand and a takeaway coffee in the other. Poppy’s mouth fell open at her insane appearance.

‘What the hell happened to you?’

‘My flat’s flooded,’ Lara gabbled. ‘It’s like the deck of the sodding Titanic in there. I’ve got a shedload of stock in the room, my shop launches next week and I’ve got no hot water.’

Poppy didn’t so much as flinch. She exuded utter calm. Maybe it was a side-effect of medical training that you simply became good in any crisis. Lara shifted from one foot to the other while she leaned around her to see into the living room.

‘Have you turned off the water?’

Lara nodded.

‘It seems to have stopped it getting any worse. But just look at the mess.’

Poppy walked into the room and put her coffee down on the trestle table.

‘I see what you mean,’ she said, peering at the enormous spreading puddle on the floor and the piles of silk and velvet clothing now strewn haphazardly on the other side of the room.

‘I need this room to work in and now I’ll be behind with my stock levels,’ Lara wailed.

The full implications of the situation began to sink in. She’d been running at her absolute limit to get the pop-up shop off the ground in so many ways, working all hours, hocked to the eyeballs financially, using her living accommodation as workspace. She had absolutely no back-up plan. Despair made her stomach churn sickly and she clutched at her hair in frustration. It felt matted and sticky from the puddle of shampoo she’d been unable to rinse out.

‘Not to mention the lack of running water,’ she added. ‘I’ll have to stick my head under the tap in the café toilets downstairs.’

‘You rent, don’t you?’ Poppy said, unruffled, crossing the room to look at the huge dark patch on the wallpaper. ‘Have you called the landlord?’

Lara sat down on the sofa and put her head in her hands. She’d been far too busy having a meltdown of major proportions to do anything as practical as that.

‘Not yet.’

‘It will be down to the landlord to get it sorted, not you. You don’t need to stress about cost.’

That was lucky, because cost was one thing she really couldn’t do any more of right now.

‘It isn’t just that,’ Lara said, pressing a hand to her forehead and trying to think rationally. Already there was a musty smell drifting from the soaked wood floor and bubbling wallpaper. ‘It stinks in here—it’ll permeate my stock. I’m hardly going to dominate the market with seductive lingerie that smells like a damp garden shed, am I? Not exactly alluring and sensuous, is it? And even if I could leave it here, there’ll be workmen traipsing through. I can’t risk any further damage. My back’s against the wall with the shop opening next week. And I can’t stay here anyway if there’s no running water.’

She could hear the upset nasal tone in her own voice and bit down hard on her lip to suppress it. She didn’t do emotional outbursts. That kind of thing elicited sympathy and she was far too self-reliant to want or need any of that. But she’d given her everything to this shop project and now it felt as if all her hard work had hit standstill in the space of ten minutes.

Poppy, who clearly didn’t know or care about the not-liking-sympathy thing, joined her on the sofa, put an arm around her shoulders and gave her an encouraging smile and a squeeze.

‘Come and stay with us for a few days, then, until it’s sorted out,’ she said. ‘The boxroom’s free—you’d be welcome to it. It’s pretty titchy, but at least it’s dry. And even better …’ she waited until Lara looked at her and threw her hands up triumphantly ‘… I have running water! Cheer up, it’ll all seem better when your hair doesn’t look like a ferret’s nest.’

Lara felt her lip twitch.

Poppy’s grin was warm and friendly. But still the shake of the head came automatically to her, like a tic or an ingrained stock reaction. Lara Connor didn’t take help or charity. She’d got where she was relying only on herself.

‘I couldn’t possibly impose on you like that,’ she said. ‘I’ll be perfectly fine. I’ll figure something out myself.’

Figuring something out herself had featured in a big way on her path in life. Taking offers of help didn’t come easily to Lara. Relying on other people was a sure-fire route to finding yourself let down.

‘You’ve got a headful of shampoo and no running water,’ Poppy pointed out.

Lara touched her hair lightly with one hand. It was beginning to itch now, and seemed to be drying to a hideous crispy cotton-wool kind of texture. She hesitated. Her back really was against the wall over the shop. She groped for some kind of alternative solution that she could handle on her own but none presented itself. Even if she had enough room at the pop-up shop to store all her extra stock, she couldn’t exactly move in and live there, could she? There was one tiny back room with a toilet, no furniture, no space, no chance.

‘Stop being ridiculous,’ Poppy said in a case-closed tone of voice. ‘It really is not such a big deal. It makes perfect sense. I’ve got a spare room and you’re stuck for a day or two. Where’s the problem?’

‘I don’t like to impose,’ Lara evaded.

Poppy made a dismissive chuffing noise.

‘If you were imposing, I wouldn’t ask you,’ she said. ‘Come on, it’ll be a laugh. Things have been a bit quiet since Izzy moved in with Harry—it’ll be nice to have someone else around for a bit.’ She stood up. ‘You can get straight in the shower and rinse that shampoo out, and then you can ring your landlord and sort out a plumber.’ She made for the door as if the subject was closed.

Poppy made it all sound so straightforward. But then of course she had a proper family background, supportive childhood and, let’s not forget, her big brother on the premises. She had no need to let coping with a crisis be complicated by things like pride and self-reliance and managing by yourself.

‘Just a couple of days, though,’ Lara qualified, finally giving in and following her. ‘Just until the water’s sorted out, and I’ll pay rent, of course.’

With what exactly, she wasn’t sure. But she would find a way. She always did. Being indebted to someone really wasn’t her.

‘It’s only small, I know …’ Poppy said apologetically.

‘It’s absolutely perfect,’ Lara said, wondering vaguely how she could possibly fit all her stock in here. The room was tiny, the only furnishings a small dresser and lamp and the narrowest single bed Lara had ever seen. But in terms of living space, it was a gift. She supposed it might seem small to Poppy and her friends. Lara had heard them talk about boarding school and their families; spacious living was clearly the norm. Lara had had many bedrooms over the years. The dispensable bedroom was part of the package when you were working your way through the care system. She’d lived with a succession of foster families over the years and a room of your own still felt like something to be prized. And after the flood debacle, it really was. ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ she said. ‘All I need to do now is source some storage for the rest of my stock. Until the shop gets going I’ve got a bit of a stockpile. I’ll have a look and see if there’s somewhere locally that I can keep it cheaply.’