‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry,’ Pav said, his voice back to soft as he walked towards her slowly with his hands held up in front of him like he was approaching a wild animal. ‘But … what’s got you so stressednow?’
‘What do you mean?’ Millie asked, her voice rising with disbelief. ‘Of course I’m stressed. I don’t have my clothes. I washed my hair with your shampoo. I don’t have any make-up with me. I’m wearing your dressing gown. I … I … ofcourse I’m stressed.’
Pav looked confused and honestly Millie understood his pain. To a man like him, who actually lookedmoreattractive tousled after sleep, her concerns over her appearance must seem bonkers.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘It’s really important to me to look … to look …’
‘Perfect?’
Millie shook her head. ‘No, not perfect but … just not … me. I need my make-up. I need the stuff El picked out for me to … to …’
‘To hide,’ Pav told her, and she blinked. ‘You need it to hide. You need a mask.’
Millie had never really thought about it that way, but it made a lot of sense. She nodded slowly. ‘And … to be in control,’ she added in. ‘I … when I was a child I didn’t … I didn’t prioritise the way I looked. In school I was a few years ahead of myself. The children in my classes largely ignored me as I was so much younger. The kids my age … well, they didn’t always ignore me. Which was …’ She looked away for a moment, imagining Pav at school: good-looking, outgoing, intelligent in an approachable way. ‘I wish they had ignored me,’ she whispered after a long moment, and his hands gave hers a squeeze.
‘You were bullied.’
Millie shrugged. ‘By the time I left school Iknewappearance mattered. I tried during my first degree but the results were disastrous. I met Eleanor when I was eighteen.’
‘You had enough money for a personal shopper when you were eighteen?’
Millie nodded. ‘I had enough money to buy myhousewhen I was eighteen. I have … a lot of money.’
Pav smiled. ‘Clearly.’
‘It’s not my money. I mean, it’s Gammy’s money. My Grandpa owned a lot of property, most of it in London. When he died most went to my father but Gammy was left a hotel. A very nice hotel in central London. She sold it and put it in trust for me, one I could access from eighteen. She wanted me to be able to … she wanted me to be financially independent … from my parents.’
‘From your parents? But why –’
‘Look,’ Millie cut him off. She was in no fit state for a discussion about her parents. Her head was still banging and she had to find her clothes. How was she going to get home? ‘I really need to get going and …’
‘Right,’ Pav said briskly. ‘Breakfast for you I think. And painkillers. But first.’ He reached for her and before she knew what was happening she was being held in his strong arms against his warm body. He was hugging her. It was one of the few spontaneous hugs Millie had ever had and she could feel her nose stinging in response.
‘It’s only me here, okay?’ he muttered into her hair. ‘You don’t have to worry about looking a certain way.’
Millie breathed in his scent mixed with the washing-powder smell of his T-shirt, and sighed. Usually physical contact like this made her anxiety worse. But with Pav it was like his warmth was seeping though her skin and into her bones. The sound of his strong, steady heartbeat sent a wave of calm over her and she began to feel the stress lift away.
‘And I think you look beautiful in my dressing gown,’ he said.
‘Liar,’ Millie whispered, but she was smiling despite herself. She even found her arms coming up to hug him back.
Chapter 17
This is me
Pav made her pancakes.
Millie hadn’t eaten pancakes since Gammy made them for her on a Shrove Tuesday ten years ago (luckily Millie had managed to fire one down before her mother threw away the mix, muttering about carbs and ‘religious nonsense’). The Martakis Pancake-Making Process seemed to involve every bowl, whisk, and pan Pav owned and covering most of the surfaces in his kitchen with flour, egg and milk. Millie tried several times to help clean up, but was ordered to sit back on the breakfast-bar stool, where she continued to watch the destruction in abject horror. When Pav triumphantly placed a pile of pancakes covered in bits of banana and hastily-applied Nutella, he laughed at the look on her face.
‘This is killing you, isn’t it?’ he asked, sweeping his arm out to the kitchen war zone and then kissing her on the nose. She looked at her pancakes and then back and up at him. For some reason she found it was becoming easier to meet his eyes.
‘Please,pleaselet me clean this up now,’ she begged. ‘It is genuinely causing me physical pain.’
‘Nope,’ Pav told her through his cheeky grin, which together with his dishevelled, flour-sprinkled hair and sparkling eyes made him almost unbearably attractive. ‘You are going to get some calories down you along with some ibuprofen. Only way to cure a hangover. I’ll tackle this lot later.’
Looking around the flat Millie could see that there was a fair amount of mess that Pav had no doubt been meaning to ‘tackle later’ for a while. Urology journals were scattered over a good amount of the available surfaces, empty mugs sat on side tables, a pile of what looked like clean washing was sitting on one of the chairs. She bit her lip and he laughed again. ‘Think of it as therapy.’
‘Therapy?’ Her eyebrows went up and he laughed even harder.
