Read Here's Looking at You for Free Online Page B

own, he might approach her, given she was the only point of intrigue in the room. He didn’t want to spectate a Laurence seduction attempt, however.
    ‘I know who she is, she’s the wife of the guy who’s going to punch you in about fifteen minutes,’ he said, brusquely.
    ‘Plus one?’ Laurence asked.
    ‘Of course she’s a plus one.’
    James knew without question this woman was an exotic outsider. She hadn’t gone to his school. No way his libidinous adolescent radar wouldn’t have picked up the slightest incoming blip. Obviously some trophy wife, dragged along reluctantly. And the women here clearly didn’t know her, bolstering the theory.
    ‘Whatever her marital status, she’s gorgeous.’
    ‘Not that hot and not my type,’ James snapped, hoping to shut Laurence down. As James spoke, she glanced over. Mysterious Woman swigged the last of her drink and shouldered her handbag.
    ‘Shit no, Penélope Cruz is leaving? I’m going in,’ Laurence said.

8
    In her twenties, Anna had a few fantasies about running into James Fraser again, and constructed elaborate imaginary verbal takedowns. Bitter excoriations in front of his wife and kids and co-workers about what a completely vicious conceited bastard he was, which usually ended with everyone applauding.
    Now here he was. Over there. The man himself.
    Anna could stride over and say anything she wanted to him. And all she could think was:
yuck.
I never want to share the same carpet square with you ever again.
    He’d kept his looks, she’d give him that. Still the obsidian black hair, now worn artfully mussed, instead of those silly floppy curtains all boys had in the 1990s. And the shaving advert jaw line was hard as ever, no doubt much like his heart. It was a type of ‘stock model in a water filter infomercial’ handsome that didn’t move her in the slightest now.
    He was in a very thirty-something trendy combination of plaid shirt, buttoned up to the collar, grey cardigan and desert boots. What was with this thing of dressing like a grandpa, lately? Anna did a young fogey job but she didn’t go around in orthopaedic sandals.
    The youthful smirk had been replaced with an ingrained look of distaste. Exactly as she anticipated – he was surveying the company with the expression of a Royal being shown the pig scraps bins at the back of a chippy. Why deign to turn up, if he thought he was so far above the company? Wanted to reassure himself he was still top of the heap, perhaps.
    And God, he was still with that lanky Laurence, court jester to James’s king. Laconic Laurence, who once fired off machine-gun-like rounds of quick fire ridicule at her. She felt their eyes move to her. But unlike everyone else’s, their gaze didn’t move on. In fact, when she risked looking back their way, she got the distinct impression she was being discussed.
    A self-conscious warmth started creeping up her neck, like a snood of shame. Had they recognised her …?
    The thought sparked great comets of stomach acid, making her hands tremble. She suddenly felt as if she was nude in the middle of a crowded space, an anxiety dream made reality.
    And at that exact moment, she could perfectly lip-read James Fraser’s words.
    ‘Not that hot. And not my type.’
    Amazing. She’d come all this way, and he still found her wanting. Only this time, he could go to hell.
    She chugged her drink and headed to the door. She was intercepted by Laurence, cutting right across her path.
    ‘Tell me you’re not leaving,’ he said.
    ‘Er …’ once again, Anna felt her lack of a script. ‘Yes.’
    ‘Put us out of our agony and at least tell us who you are. My associate and I have been completely
foxed
.’
    Laurence put a caddish emphasis on the last word, making it clear this was a chat-up.
    Anna glanced over at James, who didn’t look like he wanted to speak to her at all.
    ‘Anna,’ she said, dumbly, as she frantically calculated how to play this. She knew what happened next if she