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Jenny had completed her first week at Demonet. She still knew no one and was not at all sure how long she would be sticking at the job. It was easy enough. Call centre work was not terribly challenging, but it was draining. People were hard work, especially customers who felt they had been wronged or slighted in some way.

She needed to meet her rent, and the job paid well enough, and that was probably the only reason she'd made it to Friday at all. She hated doing a job that was beneath her, but that was what you ended up with when you shagged your boss and he turned out to be a total wanker. Jenny wasn't bitter, as such, but she just felt stupid for falling for his bullshit in the first place. Her dismissal was probably part of the reason she'd not approached anyone at her new job, yet-”she was afraid to open herself up to such pain and embarrassment again.

Most days, she took in something to eat. But she'd woken up late and hadn't had time to do anything, so for the first time in the week she would venture up to the canteen for what was jokingly referred to as her 'lunch'. She was working slightly strange hours, and so her lunch didn't come around until nearly teatime. She jumped up as soon as the clock on her computer screen clicked over to 3:00-”she'd been watching it intently for the past half an hour-”and raced from the room before anyone could stop her to run yet another silly errand.

The canteen was very quiet. In fact, there was only one other person in the room, and he was seated in the very back corner. She picked herself up a sandwich and a drink and grabbed an apple and a little packet of biscuits. She paid the lady in pink checks who seemed as eager to finish her working day as was Jenny, and walked over towards the empty tables.

Usually, she was happy to sit alone, but it seemed strange to eat by herself when there was only one other person in the whole room. It was surely only polite to ask if she could join the gentleman in the corner. It would seem very rude to ignore him.

"Erm, do you mind if I sit with you?" she asked as she reached the end of his table.

"No, not at all," he replied. "Take a seat."

His words were friendly enough, but his demeanour seemed to show annoyance. But then she'd found most people carried around an air of irritability in this place, so maybe he was friendlier than she perceived him to be.

"I'm Jenny. I've just started. I don't think I've seen you around."

"No, I'm the server guy. Well, my name's actually Lowell, but most people just call me 'server guy'. I stay down in the basements, looking after the, well, servers, obviously." He blushed and looked down on his usual Friday treat of beef burger and chips with chocolate digestives for dessert. He loved chocolate digestives. He was a little irked someone had broken his quiet, Friday routine, but she was a very pretty young lady, and he was a little intrigued by her.

"Oh my goodness!" Jenny exclaimed. "It's you. You are Lowell Kenyon, right?"

"Yeah, I'm Lowell Kenyon. Do I know you?"

"No, not really, no. I was in the year below you at school. I used to watch you in the football tournaments and stuff." Jenny flushed. She used to watch him all the time. She'd had a massive crush on him, and he hadn't even noticed her, not once. "You look kind of different. I didn't recognise you, at first."

"Yeah, I'm not the same guy I was back in school, not by a long shot."

"I guess I'm not the same, either. I'm taller, for a start." She giggled nervously and was relieved to hear him chuckle, too. "How long have you worked here, then? I thought you were set to be a professional footballer or something?"

"Well, that didn't quite pan out," Lowell said, the pain on his face quite evident. "I've worked here for about four years. It pays well, and I have my own floor. Granted it's the basement, but I like it down there away from the pillocks upstairs."

He looked at her then shook his head. "Oh, I don't include you in that, of course!"

"No, you're right. I'm one of the pillocks upstairs, all right. A real pillock."

"No way. I can tell already you're cleverer than the average Demonet employee."

"You make me sound like Yogi Bear."

They laughed together, and Jenny felt her heart fluttering in her chest. Shit, she could really do without bumping into her school crush right now. She was supposed to be foreswearing all kinds of sex-driven craziness. But at that moment, she was completely smitten again and thrilled that the most popular boy in school was talking to her.

"Well, you don't look much like Yogi Bear, either. Oh God, it really is painfully obvious I don't talk to people very often, isn't it?"

"You're social skills are a little rusty," Jenny replied, "but as with anything, practise makes perfect."

"True, but who's mad enough to let me practise on them?"

"Me," she answered instinctively without really thinking. "It's an 'I've started so I'll finish' kind of thing, you know?" Jenny added, hoping it made her sound a little less stalkerish.

"Oh, I see. I hope you're not planning to go on Mastermind with Lowell Kenyon as your specialist subject. That would be one boring programme."

"Stop being so modest. But no, no plans to talk about you on live TV. Just a desire to get to know you a bit better. You seem lovely, and I always wanted to talk to you back in school, but I was a total dork and never plucked up the courage."

"Well, I wish you had. I bet we'd have gotten on really well, and maybe I'd have been a little smoother. I was cockier back then."

"Oh well, what's past is past. We will just have to start from scratch, now."

"Sure, we can do that. I don't often come up here, though. Just on Fridays for my treat." He looked down at the half eaten meal before him.

"I normally bring my own food in, too. Maybe I could come and visit you downstairs on my lunch."

"Yeah, sure. That'd be nice." Lowell stood up. "I've got to get back. I've been pulled up once already today for being late. It's been great meeting you though, Jenny. See you Monday?"

"Yeah, see you Monday, Lowell. I'll look forward to it."

She watched him as he put away his tray and left the room. He looked back just as he reached the door and smiled as their gazes met.

Jenny was a goner, she knew it. The crush she'd all but forgotten had come back full force and harder. She wanted him, but not just in the way she had as an innocent teenager who longed for a kiss and to hold his hand. No, now she wanted him to do far more than that to her.

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She was both relieved and terrified when he walked into a dark, old, Victorian house and set her down on an antique settee. He didn't put on a light or anything, just dropped to his knees before her and lifted up her , aching ankle.

His fingers were cold, long and wonderfully gentle. He stroked over the swollen flesh tenderly and smiled up at her.

"You're right. It's only a sprain. I shall see if I have any ice. Wait here."

"I know it's a sprain," she mumbled. "I am a bloody doctor."

"Okay, Doctor. I'll go and get you some ice," his voice echoed through from the corridor, and Elizabeth's cheeks warmed. She hadn't said that so very loud, had she?

Why was she worried about offending some weird, abductor type anyway? Sure, he said he was going for ice, but she was sure he actually meant a knife or some rope or some other tool of death. Now was her chance, she decided. She heaved herself off the sofa with a wince and a sharp intake of breath. She took a step, and it hurt-”oh holy hell it hurt-”but she had to carry on.

He had left the door open so she managed to get out into the corridor. The kitchen they'd come through was to the left, and a front door was to the right. She went right. It might be a longer distance, but he could be in the kitchen and she would be in trouble. She hobbled down the corridor as quickly as she could manage. She'd only gotten a few steps when his voice startled her from just over her shoulder.

"As a doctor, you should know walking on that ankle is not a clever thing to do."

"Oh, I was just, erm, testing it a little you know and, ah, admiring the paintings. This one is stunning."

She could make out a smiling woman in a long, red dress that cascaded down to the floor. She clasped a small posy of flowers in her hand.

"Well, thank you. That is a portrait of my mother…my mother's mother. Yes, she was a beautiful woman indeed."

"She's your grandmother, then? She was stunning. I love her dress, too."

"Yes, well, come on." He grabbed her by the elbow and led her back along the corridor.

Her heart sank.

"Let's get this ice on your ankle."

She was thoroughly surprised when he actually produced a tea towel filled with ice.

"I'm afraid it's not much. It's all I could chip out of the freezer. I didn't have anything else."

The cooling effect was soothing, but the stranger's presence did nothing to relieve Elizabeth's fears.

"Now the storm is fading." Elizabeth hadn't heard any thunder in a while. "Do you think you can take me back to my campsite?"

"I don't think so," he replied. "I don't think you can look after this ankle properly in just a tent. You'd better stay here tonight."

"Oh, well, I really wouldn't like to intrude, and I am sure I'd be fine in my tent. It's got all I need, and it's very comfortable." She panicked. She wanted out of this old, musty house as quickly as possible.

"It'd be no trouble." The tall stranger turned, and the full length of his suit coat became obvious.

"Are you going to a wedding?" she asked, his suit looking like something a groom or a best man might wear.

"No, what makes you-”oh, my coat." He turned and smiled at her. "No, I wear this all the time."

"Sorry, I didn't realise."

"It's okay." He turned back towards the large mantel piece and lit the two tall candles there to help alleviate the gloom on that dark, cloudy evening then he dropped to his knees. In very little time, he had a fire burning in the grate. "The joy of an English summer." He smiled. "You never know when you might need to light a fire."

"It was such a beautiful morning, too. I've had such a lovely walk."

"You're on holiday, then?"

"Yes." Elizabeth watched him as he walked towards her. She was no longer scared, but she was wary. She was also aware of how handsome this man was and how hot he looked when he smiled.

"I thought I hadn't seen you before." He sat beside her on the sofa. "It is a little foolish to go out into the countryside on your own these days, miss. You never know who might be out there."

"I know, but I do so enjoy the solitude. I shall carry my phone with me in future, switched off mind, but at least then, I will have it in cases of emergencies like this. Then I won't have to rely on passing, tall, dark strangers for help."

He smiled. Elizabeth blushed then she shivered.

"Stupid me," he cursed then reached out to touch her arm. She was ice cold, and he tutted, "You're wet and cold. We need to get you changed. I'll be back in a moment, and please, please, stay where you are this time. I promise I won't harm you, and I am a man of my word."

He did have some funny turns of phrase. Sometimes he sounded as if he were as old as the house she sat in.

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"I don't know how you manage to work here day in and day out. I'd be eating all the stock," I said. "Just the delicious smell is enough to make my mouth water."

The air was dense with vanilla, cream and chocolate with that special light air of sweet baking that any baker will tell you lingers long after the cake in question has been cooked.

"I do my fair share of tasting," he replied, his tongue peeking out to wet his bottom lip. He smiled. "But I enjoy profit far more."

"It seems a crime to eat these. They're all such works of art."

"You flatter me." I was rewarded by the light flush to his cheeks. "I'm not that good."

"Oh, stop with the false modesty. You could display these in an art gallery, and people would pay just to look at them and smell them."

"Ah, but if you do not touch them or taste them you are missing out on most of the sensation."

His eyes seemed to have darkened to the colour of cooked spinach and instead of being focused on his cakes they were fixed firmly on the pale mounds of my breasts.

"Oh, well, yes, they taste divine," I replied, in a fluster.

"I bet the do," he quipped and cocked an eyebrow. I blushed red not just on my cheeks. It leaked down and suffused my chest, too.

"Which is your favourite?" I asked, directing my gaze from his darkened eyes and towards the cake display beside us.

"Oh, it's so hard to choose." His voice purred, but the softness was belied by the sheer power of his tone. "I am a fan of chocolate," he said, "and fresh fruit. I like to mix them with cream and soft sponge and maybe just the sweetest, smallest touch of exotic spice. The new, the exciting, the just discovered are my favourite cakes to create."

"You're very talented." I did not see him take a step, but he seemed so much closer to me when I looked back towards him. Had I moved? I was confused and a little hypnotised by his gaze and just as I thought his lips would fall down to mine, the bell on the door jingled.