luli

[laupuntoexe]

Harry Castillo × OFC

(a four-part mini series)

Summary: After four draining days in London, Clara escapes to the Electric Cinema expecting nothing more than a quiet evening. Her plan was simple: watch In the Mood for Love, drink an overpriced gin and tonic, and avoid talking to anyone. Then Harry sits down beside her… and ruins all three within five minutes. The film ends. Their story doesn’t.

Warnings: EXPLICIT CONTENT MDNI (18+), Fluff, Romantic Comedy, Slow Burn, Flirting, Sexual Tension, Smut, Unprotected Sex, Oral Sex, P in V Sex, Alcohol Consumption, Adult Characters, One-Night Stand, Explicit Sexual Content, Explicit Language, Dirty Talk, Praise Kink, Foreplay, Orgasms, Aftercare.

~ NOW SHOWING ~

🎬 Part I • Fade In

🎬 Part II • Close-Up (Coming Soon)

🎬 Part III • Final Cut (Coming Soon)

🎬 Part IV • End Credits (Coming Soon)

[laupuntoexe]

Warnings: MDNI (18+), Romantic Comedy, Slow Burn, Banter, Mutual Attraction, Sexual Tension, Alcohol Consumption.

Author’s Note: a couple of quick notes before you dive in. Clara’s (ofc) internal thoughts are highlighted in purple to make them easier to spot throughout the story. English isn’t my first language, so if you notice any awkward phrasing or grammar mistakes, please be kind. I’m always happy to learn and improve. I really hope you enjoy it. ❤️

Word count: ~7k

London had always felt like the kind of city that smiles politely while judging you mercilessly. Cold, elegant, chaotic, and armed with that uniquely British brand of understated superiority, it somehow managed to make you feel like a southern impostor. It didn’t matter how well dressed you were, how perfect your hair looked, or how much you’d spent on perfume—you still looked like you had wandered into the wrong film, surrounded by an army of trench coats and black umbrellas.

I’d been there for four days for work, helping launch a campaign for a Spanish luxury brand that wanted to “position itself in the UK market.” The client’s exact words.

Four days of endless meetings in conference rooms where someone clearly had a pathological fear of being cold, because the heating was set somewhere between the Sahara and the surface of the sun. Four days of smiling politely when all I really wanted was to roll my eyes so hard they’d disappear into the back of my skull. Four days of speaking English until my jaw actually hurt. And four days pretending I adored this city’s godawful weather, where the rain came at you sideways and sunshine was little more than an urban legend.

I was exhausted. Professionally. Socially. Spiritually. Pick one.

Four days of nodding enthusiastically at creative ideas that should never have made it past the first PowerPoint slide. Working in advertising means applauding ideas you secretly hope will die in the next meeting. Four nights of eating depressing supermarket meal deals on the edge of my hotel bed. Four days of answering emails with my “delighted to help” voice while looking like I was one minor inconvenience away from setting the building on fire.

Mostly, though, I was tired of being Clara. Competent Clara. Pleasant Clara. Efficient Clara. The charming Spanish woman everyone loved working with because she never complained, never lost her patience and always had everything under control.

Apparently “warm Mediterranean energy” is a full-time job. Nobody tells you that when you start your career.

That night, I decided to say to hell with it all and treat myself. I found the Electric Cinema in Notting Hill. They were showing In the Mood for Love.

“Perfect. Two hours of exquisite longing, breathtaking cheongsams, and enough beautifully repressed desire to make my own emotional baggage feel oddly manageable.

Two hours without talking to anyone. No emails. No presentations. No pretending to care about quarterly conversion rates. Just me, an outrageously overpriced gin and tonic and a love story where nothing ever quite happens.

Some people meditate. I watch Wong Kar-wai films and call it therapy.”

I arrived with plenty of time. The cinema was half empty, as you’d expect on a Tuesday evening in February. I bought an outrageously overpriced gin and tonic because if I was going to have a professional existential crisis, it might as well involve good gin. Then I settled into a red velvet seat near the back.

The place smelled of old wood, overpriced popcorn, and that unmistakable London damp that felt like it had signed a lifetime lease on the building. I sank into my seat, closed my eyes for a moment, and let out the kind of sigh that resets your nervous system. Pure bliss. A few seconds later, I felt the seat beside mine dip under someone else’s weight.

I frowned. There were five completely empty rows. Apparently, personal space was no longer a universally shared concept. I glanced sideways. Rookie mistake. I nearly spilled my drink.

“Fuck. If someone was going to ignore five completely empty rows to sit beside a stranger, they really had no business looking like that.”

He was tall. The sort of man who somehow occupied more space than physics could reasonably justify. He wore a dark jacket over a black sweater that fit him far better than was strictly necessary. His hair was slightly tousled, he had the kind of stubble that looked entirely intentional, and he had the deeply unfair face of a man who looked permanently exhausted and somehow only became more attractive because of it.

He smelled of cedarwood, expensive cologne, and the quiet confidence of a man who had almost certainly never bought shower gel on offer.

“Relax, Clara. You’re thirty-five. You have two degrees, a master’s, a decent salary and an impeccable tax record. You’re not about to lose your dignity because an absurdly attractive stranger decided to sit next to you. Even if he does smell criminally good.”

I forced myself to look straight ahead and crossed my legs with a dignity I definitely wasn’t feeling. Unfortunately, my brain had already abandoned any pretence of behaving like a responsible adult.

I’d come here to have an elegant existential crisis while watching In the Mood for Love. Instead, the universe decided to sit a dangerously attractive man right next to me. Somewhere, it was laughing its head off.

Then he turned slightly towards me.

“Hi,” he said, his voice low and just rough enough to be unfair.

He smiled. It looked like the sort of smile that had ruined perfectly sensible people before.

“Hi,” I said.

There it was. A complete sentence. Remarkably, I’d managed to sound like a fully functioning adult instead of someone who’d just forgotten how breathing worked.

“Easy, Clara. You’ve negotiated six-figure budgets. You’ve survived clients who use the word “disruptive” without irony. You can survive twenty seconds of polite conversation with one obscenely attractive man...

Or not.”

His eyes dropped briefly to my gin and tonic before finding mine again. He had a curious way of looking at people. Never too much. Never too little. Just enough to make you feel as though, for those few seconds, you were the only person in the room. It was deeply inconvenient.

“Excuse me,” he said with disarming politeness. “Can I ask where you got that drink?”

I smiled, oddly grateful that the universe had handed me a completely neutral topic of conversation.

“Right over there.” I nodded towards the little bar. “In this lighting it looks like a portal to another dimension, but I promise it’s real. And they make a surprisingly decent gin and tonic, which, in London, already feels like a minor miracle.”

He laughed softly.

“Thanks.” Another smile. Slower this time. “I reckon it’s already looking up.”

He got up with that same unhurried ease that seemed to define everything he did and came back a couple of minutes later with a pint in his hand. As he sat down, his knee brushed against mine. Neither of us moved. He took a sip of his beer without taking his eyes off me.

I smiled back with the precarious composure of someone making a heroic effort to appear perfectly normal while slowly becoming aware that the warmth creeping up her neck had absolutely nothing to do with the gin.

“Thanks. I needed that,” he said, his voice somehow even lower than before.

“Cheers.” I lifted my glass towards him. “Let’s hope the pint lives up to the evening.”

A quiet laugh escaped him.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” he said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “But it’ll certainly improve my chances.”

Then he looked at me again. Calmly. As though, in a cinema full of empty seats, there genuinely wasn’t anywhere else he’d rather be.

“Fantastic, Clara. You came here to switch off after four days of meetings. It’s been, what… six minutes? And you’re already wondering what it would feel like to kiss a complete stranger. Outstanding work.”

The film began, and for the first few minutes, I actually managed to pay attention. The cinematography was so beautiful it almost hurt to watch. Almost. Because ignoring the man sitting beside me was rapidly becoming a full-time job. Every small movement he made had the deeply irritating ability to pull me out of the film for a split second.

Then, halfway through, just as Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung passed each other in that impossibly narrow corridor—the one that somehow manages to contain an entire love story in a glance—he leaned ever so slightly towards me. Just enough for me to hear him.

“I had a feeling this wasn’t your first time seeing it.”

His voice, that close to my ear, sent a slow shiver down my spine. I turned just enough to look at him.

“A few,” I whispered. “And somehow it gets more beautiful every time.”

He smiled to himself.

“That’s a good sign.”

“Of what?”

“That it can still surprise you.”

I wasn’t entirely sure why that answer pleased me as much as it did.

“It’s deeply annoying how beautiful this film is,” I whispered, turning my attention back to the screen.

He nodded thoughtfully.

“I always leave feeling like I’ve missed something,” he said quietly. “Even though I could never tell you what.”

I smiled into the darkness.

“And then you go home half expecting to fall in love the moment a Wong Kar-wai soundtrack starts playing.”

A quiet laugh escaped him. The kind that barely made a sound and somehow still became part of the film.

“I don’t know…” he said after a moment turning his head slightly towards me. “I sometimes think the problem is that we don’t pay enough attention to what’s already right in front of us.”

For a second, I completely lost track of whatever was happening on screen. Because, honestly… I wasn’t entirely convinced we were still talking about the film.

“Men who can talk about cinema without disappearing up their own arse are genuinely dangerous. I’d already learned how to deal with the pretentious ones. Brilliant.

Turns out the man with the smile that had almost certainly ruined lives also had impeccable taste in films. The universe remained impressively committed to my downfall.”

We kept talking in whispers for the next several minutes. About the cinematography. The silences. The way longing somehow managed to become the film’s real protagonist. Every now and then we’d fall quiet again, letting the film reclaim our attention before one of us leaned over to whisper another thought. Somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like talking to a stranger.

Every time he leaned over to whisper something, his shoulder brushed against mine, and my stomach immediately forgot it belonged to a thirty-five-year-old woman with a mortgage and two university degrees.

“I don’t usually talk to strangers at the cinema,” he murmured after a while. “I’m blaming the film.”

I glanced at him. In the dim light, his eyes somehow looked even darker.

“Don’t worry,” I whispered back. “I don’t usually talk to absurdly attractive strangers who decide to sit next to me when there are five empty rows to choose from.” I tilted my head ever so slightly. “I suppose we’re both having an unusually out-of-character evening.”

The corner of his mouth lifted.

“Absurdly attractive?” he repeated, casually glancing around the auditorium. “Did someone else come in while I wasn’t looking?”

The laugh escaped me before I had a chance to stop it.

“Oh, for God’s sake…” I muttered, covering my eyes for a second. “That was definitely supposed to stay inside my head.”

“I’m very glad it didn’t.” His smile broadened just enough to betray how pleased he was with himself. “That’s done wonders for my ego.”

I shook my head, laughing quietly.

“Clara.”

“Harry.”

He held out his hand. I took it. His hand was bigger than mine. Warm. The sort of hand that could probably have sold moisturiser in an advert. Unfortunately, my brain was already busy wondering what else it might be good at.

“Focus, Clara.”

He committed the unforgivable offence of not letting go straight away.

“Harry. Of course. Because naturally this man couldn’t possibly be called Dave. Or Mark. Or Steve. No. He had to be Harry. A name that somehow suited a man who looked as though he could undo a bra clasp simply by maintaining eye contact. To make matters worse, he had a voice that ought to be traded on the London Stock Exchange.

And he kept looking at me as if I’d somehow become the only person worth paying attention to. Terrible idea. An absolutely catastrophic idea. Because my brain—never exactly famous for its restraint—had already packed up for the evening.

I was no longer wondering whether he kissed well. That ship had sailed. My imagination, ever the overachiever, had already produced a full-length feature film. The version of Harry living rent-free in my head, incidentally, had considerably fewer manners than the one politely sipping his pint beside me.

To be fair, I’d already managed to mentally undress him with an efficiency I’d never once demonstrated while putting together a PowerPoint presentation. I had absolutely no business wondering what his hands would feel like on my waist. Or whether that voice would sound even lower with his mouth an inch from mine.

Embarrassing. People say maturity brings self-control. What absolute rubbish. All it really gives you is better vocabulary for your fantasies.”

The credits began to roll, but I stayed exactly where I was. I needed a minute to process not just the film, but the fact that I’d just spent the last half hour whispering to Harry as though we’d known each other for years.

“Well done, Clara. You came here for a quiet night on your own and somehow ended up flirting your way through In the Mood for Love with a man who could probably make a Buddhist monk lose his train of thought. Very mindful. Very zen.”

Harry turned to me with that same easy smile. The sort that never asked for attention because it somehow already had it.

“That was even better than I expected,” he said quietly. He held my gaze for a beat before adding,“And I’m not just talking about the film.”

I smiled despite myself. This man was becoming a problem.

“Thanks for indulging my running commentary,” he said, slipping his coat back on. “Most people spend the whole film wondering why they paid to sit next to someone who’s apparently incapable of keeping a thought to herself. So, I think I got lucky.”

I looked up at him.

“Lucky?”

The corner of his mouth lifted.

“Finding the only person in the room who made the film even better.”

I slipped my coat on.

“I talk during films too,” I admitted. “Usually it’s just to mutter passive-aggressive comments about the script like the bitter professional I’ve apparently become. Tonight was a definite improvement. I didn’t even tell anyone to shut up.”

Harry laughed.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

We stood at the same time. For a second, neither of us moved. It was one of those strange little pauses that only happen when two people are both waiting for the other to decide what happens next. Harry looked at me with that same easy smile.

“I’m glad I sat next to you, Clara.”

It wasn’t flirtatious. It wasn’t rehearsed. It sounded like the simple truth. Which somehow made it even harder to answer.

I busied myself fastening another button on my coat. Eye contact suddenly felt like an unnecessarily ambitious goal.

“Careful,” I said, glancing back at him. “Keep talking like that and I’m going to start thinking you’re secretly a poet hiding inside a very expensive jacket.”

A slow smile spread across his face.

“Not a frustrated poet.” He held my gaze for a moment. “I just don’t tend to rush off when I’m enjoying the conversation…”. His smile deepened, almost imperceptibly. ”…or when I find myself in particularly interesting company.”

He didn’t look away. Not even slightly. Which meant he saw the smile before I could hide it.

“Traitor.

Interesting company. Of course. “I just don’t tend to rush off when I’m enjoying the conversation…” Honestly, the man flirted like he had a degree in it.

And there I was, mentally translating every perfectly composed sentence into something with considerably fewer manners. Because where Harry said, particularly interesting company, my brain heard: “I’d absolutely wreck you.” Brilliant. Five more minutes and I was going to need either a cold shower…or a priest. Jury was still out.”

We walked out of the Electric Cinema together. For the first few seconds, neither of us said a word. The heavy front door swung shut behind us with the satisfying thud only old buildings seem capable of producing, and the February air immediately reminded me that London had absolutely no interest in making anyone feel welcome.

Portobello Road was almost deserted. The streetlamps washed the pavement in soft amber light, while the neon signs outside a couple of pubs still stubbornly refused to admit the night was winding down. Without either of us mentioning it, we naturally fell into step. I glanced back at the cinema.

“I loved that,” I said. “This place has actual soul.” I smiled to myself. “Unlike those giant multiplexes where it feels less like you’re going to watch a film and more like you’re checking in for an MRI.”

Harry laughed.

“That’s… surprisingly accurate.” He slipped his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “It’s one of my favourite places in London.” He glanced up at the building as we walked. “It opened as a theatre in 1910. Then it became a cinema. Then a theatre again.” A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “It’s survived just about everything.” His eyes lingered on the old façade for another second. “I like to think places like this hold on to something.” I looked at him. “The people who pass through them, I mean.”

I smiled sideways.

“That’s dangerously poetic for a man who was insisting five minutes ago he wasn’t a frustrated poet.”

He laughed under his breath.

“I’m still not.” He let the silence settle between us for a moment. “But think about it.” He nodded back towards the cinema. “How many first dates do you reckon started in there?”

I followed his gaze.

“And how many of them ended terribly?”

Harry smiled.

“Probably most of them.”

We walked on in silence. I wasn’t sure why, but that thought stayed with me. So apparently he wasn’t just absurdly attractive. He was also the sort of man you wanted to keep talking to until every pub in London had called last orders.

“This was becoming a serious problem. Good-looking men were supposed to disappoint you within the first ten minutes. That was the deal. Harry, apparently, had missed the briefing.”

Just then, the sky remembered we were in London. It opened. Properly. Rain came crashing down without the slightest warning, the sort of downpour that feels less like weather and more like a personal grudge.

“Oh, fuck…” I muttered, looking up at the sky before turning back to the street.

Portobello, which had looked almost cinematic half an hour earlier, suddenly resembled the opening scene of a very questionable crime drama.

“I’ve definitely seen this street looking prettier,” I said. “Right now it feels like Jack the Ripper’s about to appear round the corner offering you a suspiciously cheap kidney.”

Harry laughed, that deep, easy laugh that always seemed to start somewhere in his chest.

“That’s a shocking lack of respect for British heritage.”

I shook my head without a flicker of remorse.

“None whatsoever.”

He looked up and down the deserted street. I laughed. Far more than the joke deserved. Almost as if London had taken his comment personally, the rain suddenly came down even harder. I opened my umbrella. Harry glanced at it before looking back at me, one eyebrow lifting in quiet amusement.

“Do you always carry an umbrella?”

I smiled with all the self-satisfaction of someone who’d spent years learning that lesson the hard way.

“Always.” I shrugged. “I’m Spanish, not delusional.” That earned me another laugh. “After four work trips to London, I accepted defeat. Professional trauma can be surprisingly educational.”

Harry smiled.

“Then I suppose I’m going to have to take advantage of your excellent planning.” He nodded towards the umbrella. I smiled. “Does that smile mean you’re willing to share it with a complete stranger?”

I pretended to consider it.

“Don’t flatter yourself. It’s an umbrella. Not a marriage proposal.”

Harry pressed a hand theatrically to his chest.

“What a devastating disappointment. I’d already started planning the wedding.”

He stepped in beside me. All at once, the umbrella seemed far too small. His shoulder brushed mine with every step. Our arms bumped together now and then, neither of us making the slightest effort to create more space. The warmth coming off him felt almost unfair against the damp February air. Rain, old timber from the market stalls… and that maddeningly expensive cologne of his. I realised—far too late—that maintaining my dignity became significantly harder when the man in question smelled like that. Harry glanced sideways at me.

“I’m starting to think I’m having an unusually lucky evening.” I turned my head. He was already looking at me. “Not everyone gets rescued by a woman who carries an umbrella…” He paused just long enough for the corner of my mouth to betray me. ”…and who also happens to be particularly interesting company.”

I laughed under my breath.

“Careful. Sarcastic women are dangerous.” I held his gaze for a beat longer. “First we make you laugh…” I tilted my head, unable to suppress the smile tugging at my lips. ”…then we absolutely wreck your peace of mind.”

Harry didn’t answer straight away. Rain drummed steadily against the umbrella, wrapping the two of us in our own little pocket of silence. He kept looking at me. As though he were giving my warning the consideration it deserved. Then, very slowly, he smiled.

“I’ve been making questionable decisions all evening.” A beat. “Funny thing is…” His gaze never wavered. “…I wouldn’t change a single one.”

My stomach did an entirely unnecessary somersault.

“The man flirted with the same effortless ease most people reserved for asking what time it was. Which, frankly, felt like a design flaw.”

For a while, neither of us said anything. The rain softened the world beyond the umbrella into little more than blurred lights and distant traffic. We kept walking. Slowly. Neither of us seemed particularly interested in being the first to end whatever this had quietly become. Harry broke the silence.

“So…” He glanced at the umbrella. “Are you always this prepared…”. A tiny smile. ”…or is this a special privilege reserved for wandering around London alone?”

I turned to look at him. He was still smiling. Not smugly. Just… curious. As though he genuinely wanted to know the answer.

“I’m always prepared.” I tightened my grip on the umbrella. “I have a healthy dislike of pneumonia… and unpleasant surprises.” My eyes drifted over him, slowly enough to make absolutely no effort to hide it. “Although…” I smiled. ”…I have to admit tonight’s surprise is already standing under my umbrella.”

Harry let out a quiet laugh.

“I hope that’s not a complaint.”

I tilted my head.

“The jury’s still out.”

One eyebrow arched.

“Oh?”

“I haven’t decided whether you’re a very good idea…” I let the sentence linger for just a fraction too long. ”…or an exceptionally bad one.”

His smile widened almost imperceptibly.

“And how long does this deliberation usually take?”

I shrugged.

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“How dangerous the candidate appears to be.”

Harry lowered his eyes for a moment, as though genuinely weighing the evidence against him. When he looked back at me, there was that smile again. Calm. Unhurried. Entirely too attractive. His gaze lingered on mine for a beat… before dropping, almost absent-mindedly, to my mouth. Just for a second. Long enough for me to notice.

“In that case…” His eyes found mine again. “I suspect I’ve got quite a lot of work to do.”

I couldn’t help laughing. Just then, headlights appeared at the end of the street, cutting through the rain. An Uber slowed to a stop beside the pavement. Harry glanced towards it.

“I think that’s mine.” He looked back at me. There was the briefest pause before he spoke again. “If we’re heading the same way…”. He nodded towards the car. ”…we could share it.”

He waited. Patiently. No expectation. No awkwardness. No hint that saying no would disappoint him. Just an offer. As though the decision genuinely belonged to me.

“Because apparently being absurdly attractive wasn’t enough. The bastard also knew how to invite a woman into a taxi without making it sound like an invitation.

Sharing an Uber with a man I’d spent the last forty minutes mentally undressing? Objectively… an appalling idea. Was I going to say yes? Obviously.

My judgement had packed its bags and quietly drowned itself somewhere in the Thames about half an hour ago.”

I looked at him, one eyebrow lifting, despite the far less dignified reaction my stomach had decided was appropriate.

“And you?” A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “Do you always strike up conversations with strangers after whispering to them through half a film…” I let my eyes linger on his for just a beat longer. ”…or is inviting them to share your Uber reserved for particularly memorable evenings?”

Harry laughed softly. He didn’t look away.

“Not always.” A pause. “Only when the stranger makes me forget I was perfectly happy going home on my own.”

I smiled despite myself. My eyes dropped for a moment before finding his again.

“You’re making it awfully difficult to keep pretending I’m still undecided.” A smile escaped before I could stop it. “You’re dangerously good at this.”

The corner of his mouth lifted.

“Occupational hazard.”

I laughed.

“And what’s your occupation?”

He held my gaze for another second.

“Improvising…” A tiny pause. ”…when it’s worth it.”

I felt my stomach flip. The man had an infuriating talent for saying exactly the right thing… and then stopping just before he said too much.

“You’re dangerous, Harry.”

I shook my head, smiling, and gave him a light nudge with my knuckles against his arm. His eyes dropped briefly to my hand before lifting to meet mine again. A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“I’m not so sure.” He shifted just enough to keep us both beneath the umbrella. Just enough that his shoulder brushed mine again. “I think you’re the dangerous one, Clara.”

I looked at him in exaggerated disbelief.

“Me?”

A quiet smile.

“I’ve known you for less than an hour…” He paused. His eyes searched mine for the briefest moment. ”…and I’m already questioning how I thought tonight was going to end.”

My breath caught.

“Mother of God. That was blatant flirting. Not even subtle flirting. Actual, full-blown flirting. And the worst part? It didn’t sound rehearsed. He seemed physically incapable of saying anything unattractive.

At this point, my common sense had quietly excused itself… and my libido had very kindly held the door open for it.”

The Uber pulled up beside us with a discreet beep, breaking a silence that had started to feel dangerously close to becoming something else. Harry raised a hand to the driver before opening the rear door for me.

“After you.”

I smiled as I climbed in.

“What a gentleman.”

“I’m doing my bit to preserve the species.”

As I was about to climb into the car, Harry rested one hand against the top of the open door, stopping me for the briefest moment. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t have to. I looked up. He was already looking at me. Really looking at me. Like he’d forgotten there was anyone else on that street.

“You can still change your mind.”

His voice was quiet. Almost lost beneath the rain. There wasn’t the slightest trace of pressure in it. If anything, it sounded like he wanted to make sure the choice was still mine. I felt a smile tugging at my lips before I could stop it.

“Harry…” I shook my head slowly. “If I’d wanted to say no…” My eyes drifted briefly to the waiting Uber before returning to his. ”…I’d already be in a different car.”

Neither of us moved. For the space of a heartbeat… we simply looked at each other. His eyes searched mine with that same quiet patience he’d shown all evening. Then, almost absent-mindedly, they dropped to my mouth again. Just for a second. Long enough for my pulse to stumble. When he looked back at me, that slow smile appeared again. The one that seemed to arrive only after he’d decided something.

“I’m relieved to hear we’re having the same conversation.”

I climbed into the back of the Uber, making one last heroic attempt to hold on to a shred of dignity. It lasted approximately three seconds. Harry slid in beside me, and the back seat immediately felt smaller. Or perhaps it was simply that the man occupied far more space than should have been legally permitted for the sake of my emotional wellbeing.

The door clicked shut. Outside, rain continued to drum steadily against the windows.

“Evening,” the driver said, glancing at us in the rear-view mirror.

“Where to?”

Harry didn’t answer straight away. He was still looking at me. Not the driver. Me. As though he’d forgotten there was anyone else in the car.

“The Claridge,” he said at last. “Please.”

The Uber pulled away from the kerb, gliding through the rain-soaked streets of Notting Hill. For a little while, neither of us spoke. Not because there was nothing to say. Quite the opposite.

Silence had quietly become another way of talking. Harry turned to me, his expression softer than before.

“Do you know what the strangest thing about tonight is?”

I smiled.

“Go on.”

He held my gaze for a moment.

“I went to the cinema hoping to see a good film…” He paused. His smile was almost imperceptible. ”…and it turned out the best part was the person sitting next to me.”

I felt warmth rise all the way to my cheeks.

“You don’t waste much time, do you?”

The corner of his mouth lifted.

“No.” He gave the smallest shake of his head. “I’m just being unusually honest.”

I held his gaze. Longer than I probably should have. And for the first time that evening… I wasn’t entirely sure which one of us was venturing into dangerous territory.

“That’s even more dangerous.”

The corner of his mouth curved into a slow, knowing smile.

“For which one of us?”

I laughed quietly.

“The committee’s still in session.”

Another one of those deep laughs escaped him. The kind that somehow seemed to settle somewhere beneath my ribs.

“Let me know when they reach a verdict.”

I let my eyes wander over him before meeting his gaze again. There was no point pretending anymore. I was enjoying this far too much.

“I can’t promise an unbiased decision.”

One eyebrow lifted.

“No?”

I shook my head.

“No.”

His smile softened.

“I didn’t get the impression you were an impartial woman.”

“Is that so?”

“Mm.” Barely a second passed. Long enough for my heartbeat to become inconveniently noticeable. “I think you make decisions with your head…” His gaze drifted, almost lazily, to my mouth. It lingered there for just a heartbeat before returning to my eyes. ”…until someone gives you a reason not to.”

His eyes lifted to mine again. Neither of us spoke. We didn’t have to. The silence between us no longer felt empty. It felt… dangerously full of possibilities.

“Mother of God. That was the most shamelessly elegant chat-up line I’d ever heard. And the worst part? He was absolutely right. My brain had been trying to regain control for the past twenty minutes. The rest of me had filed a formal objection.”

🎞️ NEXT SCREENING

Part II • Close-Up (coming soon)