Note: As always, big thanks to the guest reviewers whom I can't thank in person. Cheers, folks!

Carrot Cake

Chapter Three

Belle's phone rang, jerking her into consciousness rather suddenly. She peeled her face off the 'Japanese for Beginners' book that she'd fallen asleep whilst studying and blinked a few times, looking at the clock on the TV. It was three in the afternoon; no-one rang her at three in the afternoon because she was generally at work. But today was Thursday, her day off, so it wasn't completely unreasonable. The phone was still trilling persistently, so Belle decided to stop trying to work out who was ringing her and simply find out by picking up and answering.

"Hello?" she said groggily.

"Finally!" Ruby exclaimed. Belle's brow furrowed. Despite her vehement tone, her friend sounded as if she was whispering. "I thought you'd never pick up!"

"I was asleep."

"At this time of an afternoon?"

"Yes, Japanese was proving less than thrilling."

"I'll never understand your obsession with trying to learn Japanese. But leave that aside for the moment, this is important! You'll never guess who just walked in for tea and carrot cake!"

Belle's heart leapt to her mouth. Surely not. Not today. Not when she had spent the entirety of her Wednesday shift looking out for him, the first words out of Emma's mouth to her when she arrived at twelve o'clock being 'he hasn't been in'.

"Go on," she managed.

"Your Golden Wonder himself! And I've got a bone to pick with you, Missie. Two, in fact. Firstly, why didn't you tell me he had that voice?"

"I, erm…"

In the background, Belle heard Astrid laughing.

"You've got your psychiatrist, Ruby," the other waitress said.

"I know that! I don't want the man, I just want his voice. You know how I've got a thing for Scottish accents."

"Ruby, why are you whispering?" Belle asked, trying to distract herself from the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Because I'm hiding under the counter trying to keep an eye on him through the cake display case. He's sitting at Ashley's usual table so I can just see him past the flapjacks if I get the right angle."

"You mean you're phoning me whilst he's still there?" Belle yelped.

"Belle, I was dialling your number before Astrid had even taken his tray over."

"Tell me she didn't drop it." Belle crossed her fingers.

"You have no faith in our little Butterfingers," said Ruby. "Of course she didn't drop it. She did, however, nearly slice her thumb off making sandwiches earlier. Oh, enough of that, you're distracting me from being mad at you! Why didn't you tell me that you'd spoken to him? Don't deny it, Missie French, because he asked after you. By name."

Belle's stomach performed an impressive loop-the-loop with integrated double somersault.

"He did?"

"Yes, he did. He came in, looked around a bit, and asked 'is Miss French in?' to which I replied 'no, Thursday's her full day off'. Then he ordered and said no more about it. What I want to know, Belle, is how come he knows Miss French if you've never spoken to him."

"Erm…"

"There are customers waiting, Belle. Astrid can't deal with them all on her own and I am not moving from behind the flapjacks until you tell me."

Belle had to relent, and gave a succinct account of Monday night.

"You devil," said Ruby plainly. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I didn't think it was all that momentous," Belle murmured. "Especially compared to your dog-saving exploits."

"Momentous!" Ruby positively exploded. "You had a conversation with the man! Verbal contact is always momentous! Oh, Belle, you are hopeless. I'd give you a lecture on the subject but there's a queue building up. I'm going now, but this conversation isn't over! Bye."

"Bye, Ruby."

Belle hung up and looked down at Japanese for Beginners. He had been in. Mr Gold had come into the café and she hadn't been there. Absolutely typical. Why had he had to pick Thursday, of all days?

She slammed the book shut in a fit of pique but stopped short of tossing it on the ground, one of the ultimate sins when it came to books as far as she was concerned. Belle slumped face down on the sofa with a groan. A small part of her, the niggling part that undermined her self-confidence on a regular basis, told her that he'd planned it; that he'd chosen Thursday specifically because he knew she wouldn't be there and he could avoid her. Perhaps catching her outside his office had unnerved him just enough.

Don't be ridiculous, said the logical part of her brain that was so often overlooked in favour of the irrational. Why would he come into Granny's at all if he was worried she was stalking him? And if he had been watching her closely enough to be able to know when to avoid her, well, that sort of behaviour was even more worrying than her own.

She tried to see it as a good omen – he had been in today to try and see her but hadn't found her, so maybe he'd be in again. Still mentally kicking herself, Belle picked up her book again. Teaching herself Japanese had been a spur of the moment idea when she'd made her New Year's Resolutions, and she wasn't quite sure why she'd done it. She'd probably been a little worse for wear – she'd been out with Ruby so it was more than likely. So far, she could say hello and goodbye and knew her colours, but that was about the limit. Perhaps Japanese wasn't for her.

It certainly wasn't holding her attention today. Belle sighed and shut the book again before getting up and determining to do something useful, like her laundry. She emptied the basket into a holdall, checked she had enough change and set off hauling a week's worth of clothes up the hill towards the laundrette. She was saving up for a washing machine and planned to have a party on the day it arrived. Flopping onto one of the hard plastic seats once her washing was on, Belle closed her eyes and let herself indulge in a momentary flight of fancy. All was not lost, she told herself firmly. The boundary had been crossed, even if she hadn't been there to witness it. Now, things could begin to move forward. The only question was how.

X

Gold rested his head on his desk with a groan. That had gone spectacularly not according to plan. Of all the days, he'd had to pick today, when she wasn't even in. On top of that, he'd made the mistake of asking after her – just in case she was in and hidden in the kitchen doing the washing up. Now, her colleagues would definitely think he was stalking her. The girl who had served him had been watching him through the cake display case for the entire time that he'd been there, and he was pretty sure that she'd been on the phone for most of it, no doubt warning her workmate that the sad old man with the dodgy leg from over the way was trying to make a play for her. Gold sighed. Up until an hour ago, he'd been feeling reasonably good about the whole thing, but now he was on the verge of giving it up as a bad job. For some truly inexplicable reason, the easy confidence with which he conducted his working life seemed to vanish when Belle crossed his mind. He supposed it was because he'd been on his own for too long; he'd forgotten the whys and hows and wherefores of dating and beginning a relationship. And after all, since the… incident, he'd always been content to be alone for more years than he cared to remember.

Until the first morning of his tenure at Guildhall, when he'd seen her watching him through the café window and they'd exchanged a smile. He'd tried to put her out of his mind after that, although they still continued to acknowledge each other through the glass on occasion. He must have been at least fifteen years older than her, probably more, and no matter what else, age was one thing he couldn't change. No, he was too old and set in his ways for her; he came with too many demons. He'd said it himself before – he was a difficult man to love, and he'd passed the stage of his life where he was looking for anything else. And yet, something inside him had still wanted to hope that perhaps, just maybe…

Gold looked up out of his office window, located directly above the front door, and thought back to Monday evening, replaying the events in his mind. He'd been working late to try and finish some outstanding paperwork and had wandered over to the window to stretch his legs when he'd seen her hovering outside the door. A thousand and one possibilities had crossed his mind, each as improbable as the last. She'd injured herself at work and needed someone to sue the café for her; she'd been accused of a crime she hadn't committed and needed a defence lawyer. She'd just wanted to talk to him.

Instinct had sent him downstairs to speak to her, just as instinct had told him that she did genuinely want him to visit the café where she spent most (but evidently not all) of her days. He'd fluffed it a bit when he'd watched her round the corner though, and she'd caught him at it, but all in all he'd thought it had gone rather well. Gold had decided that going over the next day would look slightly too eager, even if cake would cheer up the prospect of the bloody hospital (he couldn't think of the building without the prefix) no end. On Wednesday he'd been too busy, and today, well, today had been a non-starter.

The carrot cake had been very good though. Whichever online city guide said that it was the best in town had probably got it right. Gold turned his attentions to the papers on his desk, shutting Belle out of his mind before he got distracted even further and had to explain to his clients why he'd made absolutely no progress with their cases this week. In the main office outside, a phone rang, and he heard Ashley's voice answer it.

"Hello, Mr Glass. Yes. No. No, Mr Glass, because yesterday you told me that you didn't need it and I ought to put it in the archive box." He could hear her patience wearing thin. "Yes, I can get the information for you but I'll have to go upstairs and find it because I don't have the file to hand. Yes, Mr Glass. No, Ms Mills is out visiting a client. Yes. No. Goodbye, Mr Glass."

Gold heard her put the phone down and give a well-deserved howl of frustration. He grinned. Much as he might not make life easy for the secretary that he and Sidney shared, at least he didn't change his instructions every five minutes.

"I'm going upstairs," said Ashley's voice, likely through gritted teeth, to the other occupants of the open office. "I may be some time. If Gold comes out and kicks up a fuss about where I am, he can either accept that I'm being eaten alive by the archive box or shove his walking stick somewhere it really doesn't belong." Gold shook his head with a slight smile; he had no intention of that happening. Presently, the phone on his own desk gave a shrill ring, demanding his attention.

"Hello?"

"Mr Gold, Mr Tillman is here to see you." Kathryn's voice was a clipped and efficient as usual.

"All right, Miss Fox, send him up, thank you. I'll be out in a moment."

The receptionist put the phone down and Gold did likewise, organising the papers on his desk back into their file. Kathryn was a lovely girl and extremely competent, but she did so constantly want to prove herself worthy of her position, in case anyone thought she was there simply by dint of being the senior partner's daughter.

He stood and made his way out of his room to find his client, passing through the main office to get to the waiting area on the landing. The building which housed Guildhall Law was large enough to keep all its occupants comfortably, but the space was arranged vertically rather than horizontally, leading to a rather haphazard arrangement of desks and offices. Fox and Mills, the most senior lawyers in the firm, had their offices on the ground floor, with the secretary they shared tucked away in a corner of Fox's room. Gold and Glass, next in the hierarchy, were at opposite ends of the first floor, separated by the open space that hosted Ashley, another secretary and a trainee solicitor working under Sidney's supervision. The two recently qualified junior partners shared an office and small consulting room on the top floor, even though their secretary was in the room below with Ashley.

(Not that it mattered too much whose was whose. The secretaries knew everyone's cases better than the solicitors themselves did, and were quite able to interchange roles seamlessly at a moment's notice.)

Michael Tillman's was a comparatively simple case. The man had divorced two years ago and been refused joint custody of his two children on account of his erratic working hours. Now he was working regular shifts, and naturally, he wanted more access to his son and daughter. The negotiations were progressing well, and Gold's predecessor Fothergill had handled the original divorce so there hadn't even been an awful lot of background work to do. The meeting over, Gold saw Mr Tillman back out onto the landing and watched him leave the building. Putting his free hand into his jacket pocket, he found a scrap of paper that he was fairly certain hadn't been there before. It was his receipt from the café earlier; he remembered now. The waitress who'd been hiding behind the flapjacks had run out after him as he'd left, pressed it into his hand and run off before he could protest. Gold looked at the receipt and frowned. It was for two toasted sandwiches and a bottle of coke, and therefore definitely not his. Putting it down to a mistake on the part of the waitress, he was about to throw it away when something caught his eye and he turned the slip of paper over. On the back, in her hasty, looping hand, there was a message.

Miss French works all day Tuesday, Friday and Sunday, and on Monday, Wednesday and alternate Saturday afternoons. (She's not in this Saturday.)

Gold smiled, the small hope that had previously deserted him returning. Perhaps all was not yet lost, especially if Belle's colleagues were trying to play matchmaker. Although that particular notion didn't inspire him with an awful lot of confidence, it was good to know that he was in with a chance.

To be continued