Falling For You [Tom Hiddleston]

4

Tom's POV

"I don't particularly wish to answer that question," I said slowly, studying the beautiful woman across from me; I'd much rather learn more about Claire than rehash the past. Through some fortuitous placement of the lighting fixtures, the warm light gave her an almost ethereal look, gilding her honey tresses in such a way that all I could think of was burying my hands in it to see how soft it really was.

"I never said you did." She arched one brow imperiously. "But can you at least admit to yourself that you care for her?"

"How did you know?"

She leaned back in her chair, wrapping both hands around her teacup and smiling slightly. "I'm good at observing people. You do realize that a majority of my job is reading people and sorting them out based off of their application - with or without a resumé or CV - and roughly fifteen to thirty minutes of an interview."

"I didn't, actually," I murmured in surprise. She'd said so little about her job tonight - so little about herself in general - that while I knew she was an assistant for one of the HR directors at the Met, I really hadn't the foggiest notion of what her job all entailed.

"Well, it's not all paperwork and emails," she said dryly. "So how long have you been in love with her?"

"Would you care for a biscuit?" I countered, prying the lid off a tin and taking two before passing the tin to Claire. I admired her tenacity, but I wasn't quite ready to just give over. "One of my sisters dropped them off the other day claiming that I needed fattening up again or some similar rubbish."

"My favorite!" She crunched on one happily, a blissful expression on her beautiful face. "I love ginger snaps! Don't think this gets you off the hook, mister; I can't be bribed that easily."

"Duly noted."

"So how did you meet Megan?"

I sighed, accepting the inevitable. "I met Megan Jones shortly after she began working for my dear friend, Sadie Wilson, as her personal assistant. It's been almost a year ago now that I think of it; Sadie and Chris were hosting a small get-together before we all had to leave New York again."

I smiled to myself in remembrance of that night - it had been a most enjoyable experience. Claire nibbled daintily on her biscuit as she waited for me to me decide what else I would say, but as I took another biscuit for myself, I was surprised to find that I really didn't mind talking about this to her. I wasn't sure if that was because Claire was virtually a stranger to me...or because of how attracted I was to her; I suspected it was a little of both.

"I'd recently gotten out of a...relationship and so had she," I continued. "It was good she left him when she did." I still felt angry as I remembered seeing those marks of violence on her arms and hearing what happened from Chris, Sadie and Sebastian. To this day, despite our closeness, Megan had never personally spoken to me of her ex's ill treatment of her.

"Was it just emotional abuse or was it physical as well?"

"Both," I grimaced, taking a drink of my tea. "I'm just glad she got away from him when she did. Long story short, Sadie convinced her to leave him for good and Sebastian offered her a place to stay - and the rest is history."

"Kara got me started on the Roomie Chronicles a while back. They were pretty funny - especially when Megan and Sebastian were pranking each other."

"God, it was a never-ending prank war for a while there," I laughed, remembering some of their crazier attempts gone awry. "But I couldn't ask for better friends."

"So you started off as just friends," Claire recapped. "Was that before or after she met her fiancé?"

"After she met Chris, but before they started dating," I clarified. "I spent time with Megan when I could, but neither of us were quite ready to consider anything more than friends despite going on several casual outings with Sadie and Seb."