Dempsey and Makepeace re-entered the pub and headed to the bar to order more drinks. Phillipa spotted Harry and mouthed,
"You okay?"
Harry nodded and smiled.
Dempsey was a little disappointed to see that Makepeace's friends were still there but he made a conscious decision not to dwell on the fact. After passing Makepeace another glass of wine he sat on a bar stool with his back to the bar, picked up his bottle of beer, swept an arm around Makepeace's waist and pulled her back into the circle of his arms. He linked his hands possessively in front of her and waited to see if she would protest. To his surprise she didn't protest at all but placed her free hand over his and sipped her wine.
Makepeace could sense Spikings just a few stools away from them but she daren't risk a look in his direction. Instead she focused her attention on Fry's crowd but was a little disconcerted to see that many of the officers were watching Dempsey and her with great interest.
Dempsey's attention was only on one person however, Dan. He was stood a little way from them, leaning against a pillar, with Phillipa and Simon chatting to his left. Dan was not listening to the conversation around him though, he too was only focused on one person, Dempsey. His eyes moved from Dempsey's hands around Makepeace's middle to Dempsey's face. Dempsey's eyes were slightly narrowed, a cold, emotionless look about them as he stared steadily back at Dan. Dan was by no means put off by Dempsey's glare and he continued to hold eye contact with him. With his eyes still on Dan, Dempsey moved his lips to Makepeace's ear and whispered something. She smiled and he nuzzled her neck a little before taking another swig of his beer and moving his eyes back to Dan. Dan's expression hardened and, although he still refused to break eye contact with Dempsey, he lifted his glass of whiskey to his mouth, drained the contents, handed it to Simon and disappeared into the crowds. Dempsey watched him go and strained to see in-between the people, keen to know where Dan was moving to. It wasn't long before Dempsey spotted him by the exit. Dan opened the door, hesitated and turned to take one more look in Makepeace's direction before turning again and leaving the pub.
Unbeknownst to Harry or Dempsey a broad grin spread across Spikings's face behind them.
Makepeace turned around to look at Dempsey. "He's gone now, hasn't he?"
Dempsey nodded but looked slightly unsure of how this would make her feel.
"So are you happier now?" she asked.
Dempsey wasn't sure if she was angry with him all of a sudden and he was finding it difficult to know how to reply.
She smiled at him. "Well if even if you're not, I am!"
He laughed. "Yeah well I aint exactly gonna miss him!"
She smiled again and reached forward to kiss him on the cheek. "I'm going to go and have a quick chat with Pippa now."
"Sure," he smiled.
Harry was surprised to see that Pippa had apparently vanished, leaving Simon standing on his own.
"She hasn't deserted you has she?" Harry said to Simon.
"Not exactly, she's gone to powder her nose," he replied.
"Ah. Think I'll join her," Harry said, pushing her way through the crowds to the ladies rooms at the back of the pub.
******************************
Dempsey joined Spikings and observed the glass of whiskey in his hand. From further down the bar Chas noticed that Dempsey had moved and headed in their direction.
"You got the right whiskey now then boss?" Dempsey asked.
Spikings looked at his glass and frowned. "It's not the best in here but it's either stay and drink this or go home to the wife and she's having a meeting tonight with a coven of old crones from the WI. The whiskey seems like an entirely more satisfactory proposition at the moment."
Dempsey smiled but then looked a little confused. "Aint you seen Chas yet then?"
Chas just about reached Dempsey in time and jostled him sharply as he walked past, giving him a purposeful glare when Dempsey turned around.
"I see you're getting used to the house whiskey now Sir," Chas said to Spikings.
Spikings looked from Chas to Dempsey with suspicion but then he reminded himself that he was off duty now and so he was better off not knowing what they were rattling on about.
********************
Makepeace found Phillipa in the ladies room reapplying her lipstick.
"Harriet," Phillipa began when she saw Harry, replacing her lipstick in her handbag and turning away from the mirror to speak to her. "I was worried about you when you ran out of the bar earlier. Is everything okay now?"
"Yes, I'm fine. I just wanted to apologise for leaving so abruptly."
"Don't worry about that." Phillipa sighed and looked at Harry guiltily. "I suppose that it was a mistake me bringing Dan tonight. I'm sorry darling, I didn't realise. Why didn't you tell me that you and James are an item now?"
Harry looked a bit uncomfortable. "Well I'm not entirely sure what we are at the moment, if we are an item or not."
Phillipa grinned. "Come on Harriet, you only had to talk to Dan and you should have seen James's face, he was positively green with envy and livid with Dan. And I've known you long enough now to know when you really like someone a lot. Sitting in the middle of a pub with his arms wrapped around you tells me that you like him a lot."
Harry blushed slightly and looked to the floor. "I can't pull the wool over your eyes can I?"
"No you can't and to be honest I don't know why you would want to. Don't make the same mistakes you made with Dan. Okay, I know that he didn't treat you right but I have the feeling that he never really knew just how much you felt for him. If you like this James as much as you say then let him know it."
"It's not that easy with him Pippa. Mostly because I work with him and... well I know that there's something between us but if I tell him exactly how I feel and he doesn't feel the same, I don't know how I could carry on working with him."
"What makes you think that he doesn't feel the same?"
She sighed and ran a hand trough her hair. "He's not that kind of guy Pippa. He's told me himself that he doesn't fall in..." she corrected herself, "...fall for women in that way easily."
Phillipa looked surprised. "Are you sure that's what he said?"
"Well, something like that," Harry said sheepishly.
"Hmm," Phillipa folded her arms and looked at Harry with despair. "I think that you and I need to discuss this further. Come on, let's go and get another drink."
**************************************
Dempsey pulled Chas to one side and spoke to him in a hushed voice. "What was that all about? You aint given the boss his whiskey yet?"
Chas seemed quite flustered. "Err, well it seems as if I've come across a small hitch. Damn, I only wanted to keep him here for a bit longer as them lot kept saying that he never joins in with work social gatherings. He was complaining about the whiskey so I thought that fetching his own whiskey from his office would placate him for a while. Turns out it was a bad idea to get involved."
"Yeah, why? What's the hitch?" Dempsey asked.
"Well luckily Spikings knows nothing about me going to collect his whiskey but if he finds out," Chas made a hand gesture across his throat to indicate what would happen.
"Chas, stay cool. Just hand over the whiskey. I'm sure he'll appreciate what ya did."
Chas shook his head furiously. "No, you don't understand. I've lost it! One of those drunken morons over there has bloody well lifted it!"
Dempsey couldn't help but chuckle. "Well you're a cop Chas, I'm sure you'll catch the culprit!"
Chas went to move away then but Dempsey took hold of his arm before he left. "Chas, about earlier in the office."
Chas grinned.
"Harry's a bit worked up about what you thought n'all but I told her that you'd keep schtum, right?"
Just then a huge outburst of laughter came from Fry's crowd and Chas looked over at them anxiously.
"Yeah, look I've got to go and find that whiskey bottle because the way they are carrying on someone is going to let something slip!" And with that he rushed off.
Dempsey chuckled to himself again and leant on the bar, finishing his beer. He scanned the room and his eyes settled on Harry who was stood chatting to Phillipa. Up until then he'd been so concerned about getting Dan out of the way and making sure that nobody else found out about what happened in the office that he hadn't had time to think about how unbelievably incredible the whole things was. Now, watching Harry from afar looking as sexy as ever, he could hardly believe how far things had gone between them. That is until he had a sudden vivid recollection of her lips on his chest, the soft sound of her moans in his ears, the feel of her silky skin under his hands - he was slowly heating up – her legs wrapped around him, her body pressed so intimately against his.
"Bloody hell, I need another drink!" he mumbled to himself, dragging his eyes away from Harry and catching the attention of the barman. This night was going to be one hell of a challenging one!