The Man Who Broke Hearts

Yet what she felt for him was different. In her heart Tina was sure of it. Hers was no swooning, giggling admiration. She couldn’t quite define them, but the feelings he let loose in her seemed to reach down to the very roots of her being. And sometimes it scared her. She’d never felt this way before.

Still, she was holding on very tightly to her emotions when they set off together in the company limo. Just don’t make a fool of yourself, she warned herself firmly. You mean nothing to him. He’s just being nice, that’s all.

But nice like Justin could be nice was something Tina had never before encountered. She was only a junior employee, but he treated her like a princess, putting her at ease with that wonderful charm of his, chatting to her and looking after her as though they were on a real date. When they finally left the Dorchester just over three hours later, Tina was feeling as though she must have died and gone to heaven.

‘Did you enjoy yourself?’ he asked her as they climbed back into the Bentley.

‘Oh, yes. It was wonderful. I mean, wonderfully interesting.’

Had he any idea, she wondered helplessly, how her heart was soaring? She’d been on plenty of very pleasant dates in the past with perfectly acceptable young men, but the past three hours with Justin had been a revelation. She’d had no idea she was capable of feeling such ecstasy. She was floating so high, she feared she might never come down again.

Justin was smiling at her. ‘I enjoyed it too. Perhaps we can do it again some time?’

‘Oh, yes. That would be nice.’

‘Perhaps when I get back from Germany? I’m going there on business. I’ll be away till the end of the week.’ He smiled. ‘I presume your home number’s in the office files. I’ll give you a ring and we can fix up something when I get back.’

‘OK. If you like.’

Tina flushed to her hair roots, totally confused now, not knowing what to think. Was this a real date he was proposing? Was he really serious? If she dared to hope, would she be in for a huge disappointment?

she decided she probably would be, but she went ahead and hoped anyway. She was quite incapable of doing anything else.

Waiting for the week to pass was the finest kind of torture. At home, every time the phone rang Tina nearly shot through the ceiling. But she made herself a promise. If he didn’t phone by Saturday lunchtime, she’d call up her friends and make other arrangements for the weekend. It would be masochistic madness to spend it waiting by the phone!

But on Friday evening when she got back to her flat from work the phone was ringing in the hallway.

Breathlessly, Tina grabbed it. ‘Hello?’ she demanded squeakily, not quite managing the cool tone she’d been aiming for. It can’t be him, she was thinking, feeling her heart was about to explode.

But it was him.

‘Hi, Tina. I just got back. How’ve you been?’

At the sound of the deep tones, Tina had to sit down. ‘I’m fine.’ She was burning from her scalp to her toes. ‘H-how was your trip to Germany?’ she stuttered.

‘It went off very well, thanks.’ He paused for an instant. ‘How about if I tell you all about it over dinner this evening?’

‘This evening?’ The room was swimming round her ears. Could she believe what she was hearing or had she gone mad?

‘Unless you’ve got something else fixed, of course...?’

He sounded disappointed. Tina rushed in to assure him, ‘No, I don’t have anything fixed at all.’

‘Then I’ll pick you up about eight. How does that sound?’

Like a dream come true, she thought. ‘It sounds fine,’ she said.

‘Eight o’clock it is. I’ll see you then. Bye for now.’

Tina was shaking so badly as she laid down the phone that she fancied she could hear the bones tattling in her fingers. For a full thirty seconds she just sat where she was, grinning like an idiot and glowing with excitement. Then with a whoop of dalight she leapt to her feet, rushed through to her bedroom and flung open the cupboard doors. What on earth was she going to wear?

Justin was every bit as punctual as she’d expected he would be. At the stroke of eight o’clock his gleaming white Mercedes appeared like a fairytale coach and horses outside her modest red-brick flat block.

‘You look terrific,’ he told her as he held open the passenger door for her and she slid a little shyly into the leather-upholstered seat. ‘But then you always look terrific. You’re just looking particularly so tonight.’

Tina might very well have answered, So are you, but she bit her lip and just smiled at him instead. She was feeling far too nervous to pull off remarks like that!

All the same, it was true—if such a thing was actually possible! He was looking even more terrific than usual.

He was wearing a dark blue suit whose simple clean-cut lines showed off to perfection his manly proportions—the strong, broad shoulders, the lean hips and long legs. And the plain white shirt provided a perfect dramatic contrast to his suntanned skin and the ebony darkness of his hair.

He was a positive feast for the eyes, Tina decided. She wouldn’t need to eat; she could just sit and admire him!

Justin took her to a restaurant in the heart of Mayfair. The most elegant place she’d ever set foot in. You could almost smell the gold credit cards and hear the rustle of designer labels. She was rather glad she’d worn the most stunning outfit in her wardrobe—a chic, long-skirted dress in bright cherry-red.

‘Champagne,’ Justin told the waiter as they were shown to their table. Then he smiled at Tina. ‘Unless you’d prefer something else, of course?’

‘Oh, no. Champagne’s fine.’

She could hardly keep her face straight. Was this really happening or was it all a dream? Would she wake up and find herself in her local Wimpy bar with Vicki?

But at least she was rapidly losing her nervousness. There was just something about being with Justin that felt easy and right. The conversation flowed. There was no sense of strain. As they were being served their first course, she took the initiative and asked him, ‘So tell me about your trip to Germany.’

But Justin shook his head. ‘That was just business. Very boring.’ He smiled that smile that made her heart keel over. ‘What I really want to talk about this evening is you. I want you to tell me all about yourself, Tina Gordon.’

‘Me? There’s not much to tell. I’m just an ordinary girl from Shropshire.’ Tina’s cheeks had turned the same cherry-red as her dress. ‘My parents both work at a local car plant and I have two sisters, one married and one at college, studying French.’

She laughed a little nervously. ‘There! You have it in a nutshell!’ Surely, she was thinking, he couldn’t really be interested?

But it seemed she was wrong. He was shaking his head at her. ‘Ah, but I don’t want it in a nutshell. I want to hear all the gory details. By the end of this meal I want to know all there is to know about you.’

He meant it, too. He plied her with questions, and Tina found herself very happily opening up to him. He wasn’t just being curious. He seemed genuinely interested. Flushed with pleasure, she virtually told him her life story.

She told him about her schooldays back in Shrewsbury, about the friends she grew up with and all the places she knew. She told him about the articles she used to write for the school magazine, about her ambition to work on a national magazine one day and about her wonderful parents who’d encouraged her all the way.

‘You’re an interesting girl.’ Justin smiled at her across the table as he poured them both more wine and finished off his fillet steak—for by now they’d been talking for more than an hour. ‘I knew you would be. You’ve got that spark in your eyes.’

Tina smiled back at him as she took a sip of her Beaujolais. ‘But that’s enough about me. It’s your turn now,’ she told him. ‘Tell me something about Justin Marlowe.’

‘OK. What do you want to know?’

‘Everything! Fair’s fair,’ she laughed. ‘After all, I’ve told you virtually everything there is to know about me!’

And so over the next hour, until coffee, Justin told her about himself. He told her about his own modest upbringing in London and about how he started his first publishing venture with a loan from a wealthy uncle.

‘I owe it all to him,’ he told her, ‘and I’ll always be grateful. I would never have made it without his help.’

‘Oh, I’ll bet you would.’ Tina shook her blonde head at him. ‘It might have taken you a little longer, but I bet you’d have made it.’