Web of Lies by Sally Rigby (classic novels for teens txt) 📗

new, and she’d been dying to wear them somewhere special.

‘Spot on,’ he said.

‘You couldn’t bring yourself to dispense with the tie, I see. Or is that your definition of smart casual?’

‘It’s what I would usually wear for work,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Plus, I hardly had any clothes with me when I arrived, as I had no intention of staying this long.’

‘I’ll take you shopping after the interview if you like? Make you all trendy?’

He glanced at her, an unreadable expression on his face. ‘Thanks, but I’m okay.’

‘I didn’t have time for breakfast,’ she said, changing the subject.

‘That’s a surprise,’ he said, giving a wry smile. ‘We don’t have time to stop at whatever café you were thinking of.’

She laughed. It was going to be a fun day.

They made it to the station in under ten minutes.

‘See, we’ve got plenty of time to park and get our tickets,’ she said.

‘Actually, I got them online,’ he said. ‘If I’d told you, you’d have been even later.’

‘That’s so not true,’ she said, scowling and refusing to admit he was right.

‘You’ve now got time to buy something to eat from the café while I park. I’ll meet you there.’

She jumped out of the car and headed into the small café inside the station. She stood at the back of the short queue and opened her bag. Crap. She’d left her purse on the bed, after taking it out to make sure she’d got everything she needed.

She left the café and went towards the main station entrance to wait for Seb. After a few minutes, she could see him heading in her direction and so ran outside to meet him.

‘I forgot my purse. Can you buy something for me, please?’

‘That’s a new one. How many more excuses do you have lined up to get me to pay for your meals?’ He arched an eyebrow.

‘Shut up,’ she said, flicking him on the arm. ‘You can charge it to expenses.’

‘You do know that I’m not being paid, so who exactly will be paying these expenses?’

‘Details. Come on, we don’t have much time.’

He strode off in the direction of the café and she tried to keep up, but with his long legs it was impossible. She ended up jogging to catch him up. They went in and she picked up a bag of crisps and ordered a hot sausage roll. She caught the look in his eye.

‘Don’t tell me you had muesli with skimmed milk, topped with a couple of strawberries,’ she said, tilting her head to one side. He looked away. ‘Ha. You did, didn’t you?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with fruit and muesli. Although I have to admit, it does smell good.’ He nodded at the sausage roll which she was now holding.

They headed over to the platform. ‘I’ll eat it on the train,’ she said, more to herself than to him.

She didn’t want the other travellers staring at her chewing, not least because she was bound to make a mess. Eating a sausage roll wearing decent clothes probably wasn’t the best of ideas. She’d have to cover herself with serviettes while eating.

The train came in on time, and when they got on it was full, as it had come from Nottingham via Leicester.

‘Let’s find a seat,’ Seb said, as they walked through the first carriage but finding no empty seats.

‘I have to sit facing the way the train is going, or it makes me feel sick.’

They ended up walking through three further carriages until finding two seats facing the front.

‘This will do,’ he said, stepping to the side so she could sit by the window. How did he know she wanted to sit there?

Once seated, Seb pulled out a book.

‘You’re going to read the whole journey?’

‘Do you object?’

‘I don’t mind what you do. What book is it?’ She peered at the book in his hand.

‘The latest Harlan Coben. What about you, are you going to catch up on your sleep, as you had to get up early on your day off?’

‘I might just do that. But first of all, it’s breakfast time.’ She held up the paper bag containing her sausage roll, pulled out the three serviettes she’d taken from the counter and covered herself with them.

They sat in silence while she ate, and he read. The journey into St Pancras took just over an hour, and from there they took the Tube to Sloane Square and then walked the fifteen minutes to Battersea, on the south bank of the Thames.

‘We’ve still got plenty of time, let’s go for a coffee,’ Seb said.

‘That works for me. The more caffeine the better.’

They found a small café close to the studio and ordered two coffees.

‘Why are you always late?’ Seb asked once they’d found somewhere to sit.

She was always getting bollocked for being late, but he was the first to ask why it happened.

‘Habit. Leaving everything to the last minute. I don’t know. It just happens. I don’t deliberately do it.’

‘What time did you get up this morning?’

‘Eight forty-five. Why?’

‘Even though you knew I was picking you up at nine-thirty? No wonder you missed breakfast. If you set your alarm half an hour earlier than you really need you’ll never be late,’ he suggested.

What he said made perfect sense. Except, knowing her, she’d sleep through the alarm.

‘It’s not such a big deal. I was ready on time, today, wasn’t I? What’s a few minutes, anyway?’

‘I’m only trying to help. You’ve been getting in trouble at work for being late, don’t you want to fix it?’

‘It’s just a thing. It doesn’t affect how I do my job.’

She couldn’t explain it, but she’d always been like that. When she did reflect on it, she’d decided it could be because her parents were always on time for everything, often early. In fact, they were obsessive about it. She wanted to be different. And it wasn’t as if she could have inherited the we-must-always-be-early gene because she was adopted. Her timekeeping was proof.

‘That’s debatable. It might not have affected the way you do