The Art Guy (18+) COMPLETE, FREE to READ

A Picnic in the Park

London, June 1993

Mick had vanished, just like that. Dee snapped her fingers, and off they went.

The Callie Pearce idea was that he and Callie tour France, sampling food and wine, and cooking on the road. Mick would be doing his Rock 'n' Roll chef thing, Callie was there to add glamour, mystique and that hint of sexual tension.

When he explained it, Katrina held the phone receiver away from her, staring at the mouthpiece in disbelief.

She cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear once more. Mick was still talking.

"...so, we go off to France, and scout about a few places, do some filming. Should nae be away for more than three weeks. Dee really thinks this will work, and that if the ratings for the first series–"

She butted in there. "If."

"Yeah. If. Thanks, Catty."

Ooh, she'd pricked him right where it hurt. The last couple of times they'd been out, he'd called her Katrina, even Kit-Kat. Did that now mean she couldn't say the question she really wanted to ask, AND WHAT THE FUCK WILL YOU BE DOING WITH CALLIE PEARCE WHILE YOU'RE OUT THERE?

She flicked the vee's furiously at the wall in front of her. As anxiety-reducing techniques went, it wasn't nearly as good as it could be.

"I'm no' that fussed about Callie," he said, and she tensed. Having someone read your mind was too disconcerting, even if they were saying what you thought you wanted to hear.

"She's a bloody vegetarian for a start," he said, and that made her laugh. Mick loved fish and meat, and creating dishes that made the most of these ingredients. If Callie couldn't coo appropriately over his seafood dishes dressed with delicate flowers and piquant vinaigrettes, or his steaks topped with rich sauces, Katrina didn't fancy her chances half as much.

"And Dee still thinks it's best if ah seem to be single."

Another point in Dee's favour. Sexual tension was better if the public thought is he/isn't he about the Rock 'n' Roll chef and Callie Pearce. They didn't want to know for sure that he was sleeping with her. And Callie was famous enough for them to need to be circumspect.

Still. They could do ANYTHING in France.

"And," he said now, his voice dropping down to a husky whisper, "by the time ah get back, ah'll have been thinking about you, imagining you naked, and on your back, your legs spread, or on your hands and knees, your arse in the air..."

He was off again, on the cringe-worthy porn script she still found horny as hell.

She told him to have fun, hoping he's interpret that as 'with your clothes on only' fun, and hung up. Congratulations, Katrina Burnett, the wee voice inside her chorused. You made that sound super casual. Nae clinginess at all.

If only she wasn't sworn to secrecy, to Mick and to herself. She could knock on Daisy's door, and run the whole horrible France/Callie/Mick scenario by her.

Oh, it was probably better that she couldn't. Daisy, she knew, would not approve.

A cheer-up came unexpectedly, some weeks later.

"Katrina! 'Ow's the land of the free?"

Alfie, his voice buoyant and cheery, the guttural south London tones of it warming her from head to toe.

"Aye, alright," she said. "Katrina's Cutz is about to take over the world!"

He got that straight away, laughing out loud. Hairdressers of their calibre never, ever used the word, Cutz.