Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [96]
`Not bad, though, was it?' Danny sounded pleased with himself. `Did I fool you, just for a few seconds?'
`No.' He had, of course. Right up to the moment when he had begun to describe his below-desk preferences in such vivid detail. Thanks to that deadly accurate machine-gun
delivery, she had actually believed that Jeremy Paxman was calling to invite a hopeless trainee hairdresser from Notting Hill on to his show.
That's how stupid I am, thought Miranda.
Spending the rest of her life in a tin shack on the Outer Hebrides was becoming an increasingly attractive idea. She looked at her watch.
`I have to go. I'm late for work.'
For some reason, this didn't appear to bother Danny. `Dear me, late for work, that would never do.'
`What do you want?' Miranda gritted her teeth. `An
apology, is that it?'
`Don't be daft.' Danny sounded amused. `Although you could thank me, if you like. For doing the gentlemanly thing.'
Hot waves of shame swept through her. She stood there, mortified and unable to speak.
Sadist.
`And don't think it was easy,' Danny went on, `because it wasn't. I was tempted, I admit. Turning down offers like that doesn't come naturally to red-blooded males, let me tell you-'
`Okay, okay,' Miranda blurted out. `Thank you thank you thank you for not sleeping with me, I'm so grateful to you!'
`Calm down, no need to yell.' Now he sounded offended. `I was being responsible. You were upset about Greg, plus you'd had a fair bit to drink. People do daft things when they're pissed-'
Tell me about it, Miranda thought despairingly. Except - damn - he already was.
`-and I didn't want you waking up this morning, flinching at the sight of me and thinking, Oh God, no.' Danny paused. `That's the worst-case scenario, of course. It could have been quite different. You might have been delighted it happened, not embarrassed at all. You might have thought, That was fabulous, why didn't we do it months ago?'
There was an odd note in his voice. Miranda couldn't work it out at all, and she didn't want to try. Her brain kept conjuring up hideous images of her flinging herself at Danny in his car, smothering him with kisses, fumbling with his shirt buttons, yelling, `I want to have sex with you!'
And the pictures kept appearing, over and over again like a video stuck endlessly on Replay.
`Look, I do have to go to work.' She tried huffing her fringe out of her eyes but perspiration had plastered it to her clammy forehead. `But you're right, it would have been disastrous, the biggest mistake of my life. God, just the thought makes me shudder. I must have been out of my tree.'
`Okay.' Danny sounded taken aback, as if he hadn't been expecting quite such a brutal put-down. `Well, that's that out of the way. All forgotten. How about dinner tonight, to celebrate the fact that we didn't sleep together and we're still friends?'
`No thanks.' Miranda couldn't face it, she was too ashamed. It was all right for Danny, he wasn't the one who'd been begging for sex. And she didn't believe for one moment that it would be All Forgotten. From now on, their every conversation would be a minefield, because
she just knew Danny wouldn't be able to resist teasing her, making the occasional sly remark here, the odd dig there, reminding her - God, as if she needed reminding - what an all-time prize pillock she'd made of herself.
`Go on,' Danny urged.
`I really don't want to.'
`What about the video? I was going to bring it over. Don't you want to see it?'
`I'm going to work now.' Miranda had had enough. `And I don't want to see you or your video.' As her patience snapped, her voice rose hysterically. `I just want to be left in peace.'
Feigning cheerfulness for the clients at the salon was something you had to do whether you liked it or not. As far as Miranda was concerned, it was a long and trying day. The only time she cheered up was when she handed the parcel Chloe had given her over to Fenn and watched him open it.
`That's your shirt.' She gazed at it in astonishment. It was definitely the shirt Fenn had been wearing yesterday, now laundered