Take a Chance on Me: Blind-Date Marriage / Saying Yes to the Millionaire

‘I used to.’

‘Not any more?’

‘Well … I pick it up now and again. I’m very rusty. I just don’t have the time.’

‘Play me something.’

Jake shifted in his seat. Ridges appeared on his forehead. ‘You don’t want to hear me twanging away after listening to your old man. I wouldn’t compare favourably.’

‘Pass it here, then.’

‘Yes, Miss.’

She sat the guitar on her lap and, one at a time, pressed the fingers of her left hand onto the strings. It took all her concentration to strum the few bars of the only song she knew. It was about as comfortable and familiar as bungee jumping. She stopped mid-verse and looked at Jake. His eyebrows were hitched halfway up to his hairline.

‘That has to be the worst rendition of “Scarborough Fair” I’ve ever heard.’

She bowed slightly in acknowledgement. ‘The musical gene obviously took one look at me and decided to leap-frog a generation.’

‘Not a carbon-copy of your father, then?’

‘I don’t think you’d find me half as attractive if I was.’

He laughed. ‘You’re right there!’

She clapped a decisive hand against the front of the guitar. ‘Anyway, my point is this: anything you produce can only be a step up from my paltry efforts.’

He thrust out a hand. ‘I don’t think I can resist you in anything.’

She passed him the guitar and settled back into the sofa as he reprised the song she’d just butchered.

‘You’re good,’ she said, when he had finished a verse and a chorus.

‘I’ll take that as a compliment, from a woman who knows what good guitar sounds like even if she can’t reproduce it.’

‘Did you ever think of taking it further?’

‘A career, you mean?’

‘I suppose.’

‘Not really. I needed to be sure I could earn a living so I could get Mum and Mel off the estate. Accountancy won out over music in that respect, no question.’

‘Do you ever wish you’d had another choice?’

He shook his head. ‘My life is exactly what I planned it would be. I wouldn’t change a thing.’

His answer made her heart sink a little. She knew she wanted safe and predictable in her future husband, but a wayward part of her still hankered after the creativity and verve of an artistic temperament.

Yes, and look where that has got you in the past! Stomped on, taken for granted and broken-hearted. Don’t even go there!

While she had been arguing with herself, Jake had started strumming the guitar again. He was staring into space, not even watching his hands, yet they seemed to remember the chords of the haunting tune he played all on their own. She closed her eyes and let the gentle thrumming wash over her, until it petered out a few minutes later.

‘That was beautiful. What was it?’

‘Just something I wrote when I was younger. I’ve messed around with it for years, but I can never seem to find the right way to finish it.’ He shrugged and slipped the guitar over the edge of his chair to rest against the bookcase. ‘Guess I never will.’

‘Don’t stop. It’s very relaxing.’

He swung the guitar back onto his lap and started picking away at the strings. She sipped her coffee and watched him lose himself in the rise and fall of the melody his fingers were weaving. He looked different while he was absorbed like that. Less polished, more vulnerable. A tingling feeling flared inside her as she realised she was seeing a side to Jake he normally kept well camouflaged. An imaginative, creative side that was totally at odds with the conservative suits and accounts ledgers.

Then it hit her like a kick in the stomach. This accountant had the soul of a musician!

It was at that exact moment Serendipity felt the familiar slap of a right hook out of nowhere.

‘Jake, I’m scared! I don’t know where we are!’

‘All will be revealed shortly.’

She liked surprises as much as the next girl, but being dragged round half of London with a woolly scarf covering her eyes was too much. Jake had insisted on securing it round her head while they were in the taxi he’d hailed outside the restaurant. As if dinner at a Moroccan restaurant, sitting on cushions and feeling pampered and exotic, hadn’t been enough, Jake now had something else up his sleeve. Something she was starting to wish would stay tucked up there.

She prised her fingers from the metal railing and let him guide her down a never-ending flight of stone stairs. It took all her resolve not to grab the rail and hang on for dear life. Every other step she felt she was falling, but Jake’s warm strong hand was there, steadying her, making her feel safe.

Finally her feet reached a large, blessedly flat area. ‘Can I take this off now?’

Jake’s hand swatted her fingers away from the knot behind her head. ‘Not yet.’

The scent of his aftershave clung to the fibres of the scarf, overloading her nostrils. It was as if he was wrapped around her. Apart from the odd twinkle of what she presumed to be streetlights through the weave, she could see nothing. The gentle slap of waves against stone told her they were somewhere near the river—probably the Thames embankment.

Jake’s arm circled her waist and he propelled her forwards into the unnerving clatter of footsteps that swirled around them. Wherever they were, it was busy. After a minute or so, he came to a halt.

‘Wait there. I’ll only be a couple of steps away.’

‘No! Don’t let go!’

‘You’ll be perfectly safe. I just need to have a word with this young man over here.’

She clutched onto him with her gloved hand, but he pulled away gently.

‘Trust me. I’ll be with you in less than a minute.’

She heard him take a few steps, and his murmured voice mixed with another. She shuffled slightly in his direction and bumped into someone.

‘Sorry!’ she exclaimed, not even knowing whether she was talking to the person she’d barged into. She didn’t dare move again, so she just stood there, letting the crowds eddy past her.

His arm enclosed her again. ‘This way.’

The hard stone beneath her heels gave way to a clanging metal ramp. Where on earth were they? Soon they came to a stop. Jake steered her to face a certain direction.