ELEVEN
In the event, Sophia stayed over Sunday night in Devon and took an early train to London on Monday, which got her to the office mid-morning. Her mother, who had spent Saturday night in hospital, had been released on the Sunday and was showing no serious symptoms from her stroke. Fortunately, it appeared to have been a minor episode, and besides plenty of bedrest the doctors had told her to eat plenty of fruit and green vegetables, and to avoid alcohol and coffee. They had also prescribed her minimal medication, in line with her wish to avoid drugs as much as possible. Once up and about, she had been asked to do at least 10,000 steps a day and to spend as much time in the fresh air as possible - not a hardship, living as she did in one of the most beautiful parts of England.
When she got to the office, Sophia needed to see various people and attend a meeting at noon, which meant it was only after lunch that she was able to get around to properly reading her work emails. As she was doing so, she received one from an address she didn't recognise. Intrigued, she opened it at once and found that it was from Noah Russell, the larger than life Texan who had initiated her into the mile-high club.
Noah would be visiting England in just a couple of weeks, together with his wife Taylor. He very much hoped they would be able to meet up. He said he and Taylor would be staying in the Ritz (naturally). He didn't say how long he was planning to stay or the nature of his visit. Sophia imagined it would have more to do with business than leisure, as January in London didn't hold many attractions. She and Peter had already discussed the merits of buying a place in southern Europe to escape to during the winter - not for a while, but maybe in ten years' time, if they had attained enough seniority in the respective jobs to work from home. Peter preferred the south of France - perhaps he saw himself as a latter-day F Scott Fitzgerald - while Sophia would love to be able to explore the architectural and artistic gems of Tuscany.
Sophia decided she'd talk to Peter about Noah's visit that evening. In the meantime, she decided to Google Noah and Taylor Russell, in the hopes of finding out what this Taylor looked like. The answer wasn't long in coming, as they were very active in the Corpus Christi social scene. And the answer made Sophia all the more desirous of meeting Noah's wife. Considerably younger than him, she looked like a poster girl for the all-American female. Big teeth (well, a big smile, not buck teeth), big hair, long legs and big boobs. She could still easily pass for a college cheerleader, Sophia thought, with a tinge of jealousy. In several of the photos Sophia looked at, she was wearing a ten-gallon hat, which became her very well.
Sophia mentioned the visit to Peter when they were relaxing in the sitting room before dinner, saying that Noah was an American cattle baron she had sat next to on her flight to Bangkok. If he had any questions about her precise relationship with the Texan, he kept them to himself. In fact, it never crossed his mind at this point that they had become lovers. Perhaps it was because he was more concerned about what he had got up to with the au pair in her absence, and any conversation on a different topic was something he was keen to encourage.
When Sophia mentioned that Noah would be travelling with his wife and staying at the Ritz, Peter perked up still further, saying that he had heard good things about the restaurants there. Sophia said she'd let Noah know they'd be happy to meet up, and then told her husband about her trip home and the encouraging news about her mother. Peter had always got on well with his in-laws and said he would call Bridget after dinner to see how she was doing.
While he was doing that, Sophia responded to Noah, telling him that Peter and she would be delighted to meet up, and hoping they would be free one evening to have dinner together. Noah replied within ten minutes, suggesting they met them at the Ritz and took it from there. Sophia and Peter were welcome to suggest a place to eat, if they knew somewhere nearby; otherwise, they could dine in the hotel. Sophia let him know which days would be best for them, and Noah said he'd be in touch again once his schedule had been confirmed. In the end, they settled on the Friday after next, and, with a little prompting from Peter, it was agreed that they'd eat in the hotel.
During the interim of ten days or so before then, Sophia looked for signs that Petsi had changed, but could discern nothing. At this point, she had no idea that Ulf was off the scene, so she assumed that she would still be spending the weekends with him. Peter was his normal self with the helper, helping her clear away the things after dinner before joining his wife in the sitting room, and spending time with the kids on those occasions when he got home early enough to catch up with their news and read them their bedtime story.
Because they had arranged to meet the Russells at eight o'clock, both Peter and Sophia left work a little early that day, so they could shower and change and go to the hotel together. Because it was the Ritz, Peter dressed in a fawn coloured suit with a dark brown tie and matching shoes, while Sophia opted for a sleeveless side-ruched knee-length blue cocktail dress, which gathered to a faux silver ornament at the side, with silver sandal heels.
When they met the Americans in the bar, they were both blown away by the apparition that confronted them. Of course, Peter had no idea what to expect, while Sophia had been careful to conceal the excitement that had been building up inside her since the date was arranged. Taylor was quite simply a vision! Sophia reckoned she must have spent most of the afternoon in the salon, as her long brown hair cascaded in well-coiffured waves over her shoulders and a good way down her back. She was wearing a camel-coloured leather minidress, with a high neckline and cut-off sleeves, set off by sparkly dangly earrings. Stiletto-heeled brown suede over-the-knee boots completed the mouth-watering ensemble.
Peter did his best not to ogle the brunette, who was attracting the attention of most of the patrons of the bar. She must be around 30, he thought, as the veins on the back of her hands - always an accurate barometer of a woman's age - gainsaid his initial impression, which put her age nearer to 21. Still, veins or no veins, she was something else - and very bubbly with it. Not only that, she showed a keen interest in both his and Sophia's work, her contributions showing intelligence as well as a ready wit. She herself was no kept woman, running her own real estate business in south-east Texas, with a strong online presence as well as outlets in Corpus Christi itself and two of the neighbouring towns - or 'cities', as the Americans called them.
They all got along famously together, contrasting personalities that they were: Peter with his easy charm, Sophia with her no-nonsense approach to life, Noah with his southern (or more accurately south-western) manners and faintly patrician air, and Taylor with her work-hard, play-hard
carpe diem
attitude. It was around nine o'clock that they finally sat down to eat, Noah ordering, as he had done on the plane, a bottle of champagne, which, he said, should keep them going until their food arrived, when he would order the best wines France had to offer. The food was good, the wines better, and the conversation better still, as they chatted like old friends.
Peter sat opposite his wife, which meant that he had an American on either side. From time to time, when emphasising a point, or making a risqué comment, Taylor would touch Peter on the arm - initially on the sleeve, then, as the evening wore on, on the hand - her touch lingering a little longer with each succeeding occasion. Sophia, he noticed, seemed to take this in good part, even if she wasn't receiving similar treatment from either of the American couple. What he didn't realise, of course, is that Sophia was being made to feel special by Noah, whose left hand (like most Americans, after cutting up his food, he used a fork only) was making frequent visits to Sophia's knee - and points north.
After they had finished their entrées, Noah suggested they sampled some of Texas's finest tequila in their room. Peter looked at Sophia, who nodded back to him in a way that he was by now familiar with. Their 'room' turned out to be a suite of rooms, with a drawing room in the classical English manner - all oak and chintz - two bathrooms and, most intriguingly, two bedrooms. Shortly after they had entered the drawing room, while Noah was showing Sophia presents he had brought for her children from Texas, which necessitated a trip to the master bedroom, Taylor drew Peter into an embrace and kissed him on the mouth. She was still wearing her boots, which turned Peter on something rotten. He had visions of her walking across his chest in them. His penis made no attempt to shy away from the American, as she rubbed up against him.
As quickly as she had made her move on him, she moved away again, obeying Noah's summons from the other room to sort the drinks out. It was Tequila on the rocks for everyone, to the accompaniment of traditional jazz music playing through a speaker linked up with Taylor's phone. It was, thought, Peter, a bit like being in a New Orleans speakeasy. As if by pre-arrangement, Noah asked Sophia to sit next to him on the Ottoman, while Taylor patted the spot next to her on the three-seater stuffed leather sofa, which looked as if it had come out of a Dickens novel, but was actually tolerably comfortable, as Peter discovered when he obeyed the summons.
Sophia showed Peter what they had brought for the kids, gushing over the miniature oil well for Ollie and a hand-crafted doll for Chloe. She wondered whether her daughter would consider herself too grown up for such a bauble, but felt the superb workmanship might win her artistic soul over, even if the figurine might not be altogether to her taste. Peter made the appropriate noises, Taylor taking advantage of the general good humour to reinstate her hand on Peter's arm. Peter lent back into the sofa and let out a contented sigh, complimenting Noah not on the excellence of his wife (as he would have liked) but on the excellence of the dinner and the wines.
He needn't have bothered about the omission, as Noah soon made good on it by asking him what he thought of Texan women. Peter laughed heartily, saying that Texas wasn't known as the biggest and best state for nothing. Deciding to up the ante, he added that not all things American travelled well, perhaps preferring their native habitat. Taylor responded to his banter with an 'Oh Peter!' and by placing her hand on his thigh. Noticing this, Sophia bridled instinctively and shot a sidelong glance at Noah to see how her husband was taking her flirtatious behaviour. Noah's response to his wife's advances on
her
husband was telling, as he placed his hand on Sophia's knee, leant across the divide between them and kissed her on the cheek.
Of the four of them, there was no doubt that Sophia was the most uptight. Her first impulse was to shift down Ottoman, and her second was to remove Noah's hand. But these impulses being the product of social convention rather than her own desire, she did nothing apart from stiffening, which had the effect of further fuelling Noah's libido.
