Boot Camp Bride by Lizzie Lamb Page A

night.’
    ‘What am I supposed to do when she comes out? Secretly film her, or what?’
    ‘No,’ he sighed heavily as though she just didn’t get it. ‘You are to do nothing.’
    ‘Nothing?’
    ‘Although,’ she felt rather than saw his moody grey eyes directed towards her like laser beams in the darkness, ‘I suspect that doing nothing might not sit easily with you.’
    ‘I told you back in the van. I can be anything you want me to be - if it results in getting the story.’ As she uttered, I can be anything you want me to be, she wanted to call back the words. She rather suspected that too many women had been just a little too keen to please Rafa Fonseca-Ffinch. Apparently finding the idea of her pleasing him in a non-work related capacity repellent, he shifted uneasily on the uncomfortable plank. As he did so, his knee grazed against the inside of her thigh where her dress had ridden up, the hardness of bone meeting soft, yielding flesh.
    Anything you want me to be? Now he’d think she was coming onto him and … as if of one mind they sprang apart, scalded and embarrassed by the unexpected, intimate touch.
    Then Ffinch’s iPhone buzzed twice, the screen lit up and he grabbed it as if it were a lifeline. The light illuminated the planes and angles of his face, emphasising the dark circles of fatigue beneath his eyes and the shadows beneath his cheekbones. He seemed far away, as if he was remembering Christmas Eve in a different place and time, and the remembrance saddened him. Then he shrugged off whatever was haunting him, and became suddenly focused and businesslike.
    ‘Okay. We’re on.’ He looped a velvet evening bag over her head. ‘Cigarettes, lighter and a mobile phone. Switch the phone to voice recorder, leave it on the table and record everything they say. Everything. Got it?’
    ‘But, what if -’
    ‘There’s no time for ifs. You were chosen by Sam specifically because you can speak Russian, you’re full of bravado and - correct me if I’m wrong - can blag your way out of most situations.’ If there’d been time, Charlee would have felt almost flattered by the description; but, as it was …
    ‘Okay. Here, help me off with my coat. I can’t …’
    In the confined space of the skip, Ffinch managed to winkle her out of her coat and scarf. Keyed up by the thought of what lay ahead, Charlee almost didn’t notice the way his fingers grazed her collarbone. Or that his hand had brushed against her breasts in the darkness. She’d remember all of that much, much later when she was alone in bed. Now she concentrated on divesting her outdoor things and smoothing the wrinkles out of her black hold-up stockings. Then she shuffled past him, losing her footing and almost sitting in his lap as she tried to avoid laddering her stockings on the side of the skip.
    ‘Oof, Montague, have a care. You almost flattened me,’ was his gallant response as she rested the flat of her hand on his thighs and pushed herself off. Strangely, without her coat, instead of freezing to death, she felt uncomfortably warm. Her cheeks and forehead burned while goose pimples travelled the length of her arms. Excitement, she guessed, hurriedly dismissing the conflicting sensations of hot and cold. That’s all it was. What else could it be?
    ‘Ready?’ he asked in a hoarse whisper, like he was in dire need of the drink she’d packed, possibly with an added shot of rum.
    In one swift movement, he threw back the corner of the tarp, lifted her up and over the high sides of the skip and deposited her on the ground. The back door of the nightclub opened and light streamed out over the smoking area. Charlee froze - then a member of staff poked her head cautiously round the door and placed a glass of red wine on the table. She glanced, once, towards the skip and then withdrew.
    ‘That’s your drink. Go and get it - and remember … voice recorder. Go!’
    As Charlee staggered across the space between the skip and the calico