‘I thought models starved themselves.’
Ah. ‘That’s fashion models,’ she said, ad-libbing like crazy. ‘One reason why I could never do it. Glamour models are expected to have...’
She dwindled to a halt, kicking herself for engineering such a ridiculous conversation, and he finished the sentence for her.
‘Curves?’ he murmured, his voice lingering on the word and making her body flush slowly from the toes up.
‘Exactly.’
His eyes did drop this time, and she felt the urge to suck in her stomach. She had no idea why. He wasn’t looking at her stomach. He was way too busy studying her cleavage.
His eyes flicked away, and he drained his glass and set it down with a little clunk. ‘Have you eaten? All this talk of cake has reminded me I’m starving.’
She was all set to lie again, but she was ravenous and if she didn’t eat soon she was going to fall off the bar stool. Not a good look.
‘No, I haven’t eaten. Why?’
‘Because I was debating getting something off the bar menu here, or going to a restaurant on my own, which frankly doesn’t appeal. So what’s it to be? Solitary scampi and chips here, or shall we go somewhere rather nicer and work on your curves? It would be a shame to let them fade away.’
No contest. She was starving and her fridge was utterly empty. ‘Just dinner, no subtext,’ she warned, just to be on the safe side after his comment about her curves, and he gave a strangled laugh.
‘Sheesh, I don’t work that fast,’ he said with a grin. ‘So, any suggestions for somewhere nice?’
Nice? Only one really great place sprang to mind, and judging by the cashmere jumper under the battered but undoubtedly expensive leather jacket he could afford it, but James and Connie were at Zacharelli’s, and the last thing she needed was her boss asking questions on Monday morning. And anyway, they didn’t stand a chance without a reservation and they were like gold dust.
His phone beeped and he pulled it out with a murmured apology and scrolled around for a moment. It gave her time to study him, to notice little things that she hadn’t registered before, like the strength in his hands, the fact that he took care of them, the nails clipped and scrupulously clean. His hair was short, but not too short, and his jaw was stubbled, making her hand itch to feel the bristles rasp against her skin, right before she threaded her fingers through that dark, glossy hair and drew his head down to kiss his delectably decadent mouth...
‘Sorry. I’ve turned it off now,’ he told her, shifting his hips so he could slide the phone back into the pocket of his jeans. The movement drew her attention down, and she felt her mouth dry. ‘So, any suggestions?’ he asked.
Her body was screaming with suggestions, but she drowned it out. ‘There’s a nice Chinese restaurant on the front? In fact there are a few good eateries of one sort or another down there, so we should find somewhere with a table.’
‘Well, let’s go and check them out, then.’ He stood up, held a hand out to her to help her off the stool and she took it, struck first by the old-fashioned courtesy of the gesture and then, as their skin met for the second time, by the lightning bolt of heat that slammed through her body at the brief contact.
She all but snatched her hand away, and then a moment later she felt a light touch over the small of her back as he ushered her through the crowd towards the door. She fastened her short jacket but his hand was just below it, the warmth spreading out to the furthest reaches of her body until there wasn’t a single cell that wasn’t tingling.
Oh, why hadn’t she said no? This was such a mistake!
‘Walk or drive? My car’s just round the corner at the hotel if we need it.’
‘Oh—walk. I know it’s cold, but it’s a nice evening for January, and it’s not far.’ And the confines of a car would be way too intimate and dangerous.
‘OK. You’ll have to lead the way. I’m in your hands.’
I wish...
She hauled in a breath and set off towards the seafront, and he fell in beside her, matching the length of his stride to hers as they strolled down through the town centre, their breath frosting on the cold night air.
‘So what’s Yoxburgh like to live in?’ he asked casually, peering through the shop windows as if he could find the answer in their unlit depths.
‘OK. Quiet, mostly, but there’s a lot going on even so and there’s an interesting vibe. I like it. It suits me.’
He turned back to eye her searchingly. ‘You wouldn’t rather be in London?’
No way. She’d lived in London all her life, worked there while she was training, and hated every second of it. ‘No. You?’
‘Oh, no, I hate it. I’ve been working there for a while now and I can’t get away quick enough. I need a seaside town with good sailing like the one I grew up in.’
‘You’d love it here, then. Lots of yachting types.’
He shot her a grin. ‘I don’t know that I’d call myself a “yachting” type, exactly. I just like messing about in boats. I was reared on Swallows and Amazons. Free spirits and all that. I guess I’m just trying to recapture my misspent youth.’
She laughed and shook her head. ‘I bet you were a holy terror growing up.’
His mouth twitched. ‘My parents would have an opinion on that but they didn’t know the half of it. The most important lesson I learned in childhood was that you can break any rule you like, just so long as you don’t get caught. What about you?’
What about her? She’d broken every rule going during her own disastrous childhood, but she wasn’t going into all that with him, and certainly not on a first date. She forced herself to meet his eyes. ‘I had my ups and downs.’
‘Didn’t we all?’ he said with an easy laugh. ‘I got sent to boarding school when I was ten.’
Which just underlined the differences between them, she thought. Not that it changed anything, because as soon as they’d finished dinner she’d make her excuses and leave, and that would be it.
She stopped outside the restaurant. ‘Here we are, but it looks pretty busy.’
‘The town’s buzzing,’ he said, sounding surprised.
‘Saturday night, though. It’s quieter midweek. There’s the café next door if they don’t have a table here—they do great pastries and really good coffee, so we could give it a try—Oh, hang on, those people are getting up. We could be in luck.’
He opened the restaurant door for her, and they were shown to the window table that had been vacated by the couple.
‘That was good timing,’ he said. ‘I’m seriously starving and it smells amazing in here. So what would you recommend?’ he asked, flicking the menu open.
‘They do a good set meal for two, but it’s quite a lot of food. We often stretch it to three. Here.’
She reached over and pointed it out, and he scanned it and nodded. ‘Looks good. Let’s go for that. I’m sure we can manage to do it justice. Do you fancy sharing a bottle of wine as we’re not driving?’
Did she? Could she trust herself not to lose her common sense and do something rash?
‘That would be lovely, but I’ll only have one glass,’ she said, and ignored the little voice that told her it was the thin end of the wedge.
* * *
‘That was gorgeous. Thank you. I’ve eaten way too much.’
‘Nah, you