Something Blue - Emily Giffin [98]
So I was very surprised when, at the end of the evening, as everyone was thanking Meg and Yossi and putting on their coats to leave, Geoffrey offered to drive me home. I accepted, assuming that he was trying to make amends. Clearly this was his way of apologizing for outing me. But the way he rested his hand gently on my back on our walk to his car suggested the possibility of something more. And despite the awkward fact that he had had his fingers in my vagina, I couldn't help feeling a flutter of excitement as he opened the door to his hunter-green Jaguar. After all, he was the most eligible man I had met in London. I told myself that I could always find a new doctor.
I lowered myself into the tan leather seat, catching Geoffrey glancing down at my ankles before he turned to walk around the car and slide in beside me. He started the engine and negotiated his way out of the tight parking spot as he said, "I feel just awful about tonight, Darcy. I am so sorry. That was incredibly unprofessional of me. I just assumed that you had told everyone. A terrible assumption indeed."
"No worries, Mr. Moore," I said, testing the waters. If he let the Mr. Moore stand, then he still saw me only as a patient he had wronged. And I would know that my ride was strictly a pity lift.
But instead he said, "Geoffrey. Please call me Geoffrey." He looked at me with his almond-shaped brown eyes rimmed with thick, dark lashes.
"Geoffrey," I said in a slightly flirtatious tone. "You are forgiven."
He looked over at me, nodded, and grinned. Then, after he had driven the equivalent of three New York City blocks, he asked, "So how are you feeling about… everything?"
"I'm getting used to the idea. Maybe I'm even a tiny bit excited."
"Well, I think little boys are positively marvelous," he said earnestly. "I have one. He's called Max."
"Oh, really? How old is he?" I asked, wondering if Geoffrey also had a wife.
"He just turned four. They grow so quickly," Geoffrey said. "One second you're changing nappies. And the very next, you're watching them go off to school, too proud to even hold your hand." He laughed and then worked in somewhat awkwardly that he was "no longer with Max's mum."
I looked out my window, smiling to myself, knowing now that Geoffrey was definitely interested. And I couldn't help feeling smug. I still had it—pregnant with twins and all.
When we arrived at Ethan's flat, I asked Geoffrey if he'd like to come inside for a drink and talk some more.
He hesitated and said, "I would like that very much."
So a few minutes later, after discovering that Ethan was not yet home, I struck a provocative pose on the couch and engaged Geoffrey in pleasant conversation. We talked about New York and London. My job search. His profession. Identical twins. Parenthood. Then we segued into more personal matters. We discussed Max's mother and their amicable split. We covered Marcus. Even an abridged version of Darcy and Dex. Geoffrey was a bit stiff, but still easy to talk to. And very easy on the eyes.
Then, right around midnight, he asked if I wouldn't mind enlisting his partner, Mr. Smith, as my new doctor. I smiled and said I had been thinking the very same thing.
"Well, then… now that we have cleared up that little conflict, might I kiss you?" he asked, leaning in closer to me.
I said that he could. So he did. And it was nice. His lips were soft. His breath sweet. His hands gentle. All the boxes were checked. His name might as well have been Alistair.
Yet right in the heat of the first real kiss I'd had in months, with Geoffrey, a British doctor, dallying about my newly acquired cleavage, my mind was elsewhere, fixed on Ethan and Sondrine. Was his face buried in her neck or some such spot? Was he falling for her? Was she equally overcome by his spicy, yet subtle, cologne?
* * *
twenty-five
Geoffrey called me before noon on the following