When she looked back he was striding across the restaurant, nearly at her table, his hand outstretched.
And then he was there. In front of her, holding her hand in his, though she didn’t remember offering it.
‘Jane,’ he said, his head tilted slightly to the side, his smile digging creases into the side of his mouth. His voice was deep, soft, and friendly.
The sound of her name in his mouth did something to her blood because she felt as if she had too much of it, heating her skin, pumping her heart harder, tingling in her fingertips and chest.
‘Yes.’ She stood on weak legs, hearing her voice shaky and realising, somewhere in the back of her boiling brain, that she should really try to control her behaviour before she made herself look like an idiot. But this man …
‘You look different from your photographs,’ she said.
‘I really hope so,’ he said, and the warmth in his eyes and his hand made her swallow, hard.
‘Dude, you found her!’
A man in a white linen suit burst out of nowhere. He clapped the gorgeous man on the shoulder and kissed Jane on both of her cheeks. ‘Hey, Jane, great to see you, babe. I see you know Jay already.’
‘Thom,’ she said, in confusion, and then realised that she was still holding the model’s hand. ‘It’s great to meet you, Jay,’ she said, giving his hand a shake, trying to inject some professionalism into the gesture that was, for her, quite frankly sensual.
His hand enfolded hers, warm and dry, and it was as if she could feel every line of his palm, every print of his fingertips against her. It was more than a handshake. She felt as if she knew him.
She met his eyes again and he was smiling as if he shared a secret with her.
He knew. He knew he made her feel this way.
‘I’m glad to meet you too, Jane,’ he said, and his voice was knowing, too. ‘It looks as if we interrupted your emailing.’ He glanced down at her BlackBerry, where her emails had loaded.
‘Oh, not at all,’ she said, dropping his hand at last and scooping up her BlackBerry to close it down. She couldn’t help glance back up at his face, though, and when she did, he winked at her.
Winked. As if they were already friends, as if he were flirting with her. He stepped behind her and pulled out her seat for her—not that she needed it, she had just stood up—and before she could sink into it, he whispered, ‘You look even better than I thought you would.’
Oh-h-h. She got it, now. He was a charmer, someone who thought that his good looks gave him the right to flatter and flirt with every woman.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and if her attraction to him meant that she couldn’t quite inject her reply with the requisite coolness, he seemed to understand some of it, because he retreated to the other side of the table and sat down next to Thom.
Her body was disappointed. Her body, traitor that it was, wanted Jay to sit next to her and stay close to her. Her mind, however, registered that if she was sitting across from him, she’d be able to look at him for the entire meal, which was quite bad enough.
‘Jay’s very excited to be working on the Franco campaign with you,’ Thom was saying, and if it hadn’t been so weird she would have sworn that Thom dug an elbow into Jay’s side. ‘Aren’t you, Jay?’
‘Very,’ he said, and he caught Jane’s eye again. Jane couldn’t figure it out. It was as if he were trying to communicate some other message to her, something beyond the normal chit-chat of a professional meeting, something even beyond what must be, for him, routine flirting.
But what else would he be trying to say?
‘So how long have you been modelling, Jay?’ she asked brightly.
The look he gave her was wry, almost rueful, which didn’t make sense either, because if he was a charmer who relied on his looks, wouldn’t he be into his modelling career?
‘Not long,’ he answered. ‘Thom’s an old friend and he conned me into it.’
‘It’s not my fault if the camera loves you, dude,’ Thom said.
Jane dropped her gaze briefly to look at Jay’s body, what she could see of it across the table. She could see why the camera loved him. He was all lean, strong lines. His clothes were comfortably loose on his body, but she could tell from the bit of chest exposed in the V of his shirt and his dark-haired forearms that he was slim, but packed with muscle.
Some models, even the male ones, were too skinny, but Jay had a body that looked good in real life, too. They’d chosen him partly because Giovanni Franco wanted somebody masculine, who looked more like a man than some of the boyish models on the catwalks.
‘I’m not so sure I love the camera,’ Jay was saying to Thom. ‘And you only think modelling is a great profession because you haven’t been forced to look brooding under hot lights for hours on end.’
She dragged her eyes away from that V of tanned skin at the base of his neck, and sat back in her seat, trying for a semblance of ease. ‘Don’t you think that’s a fair turnaround for the years that women have been objectified by the media?’ she said.
‘Ha!’ cried Thom. ‘She’s got you there, bud. You’re striking a blow for feminism by being a sex object. Think of that next time you’re posing in your underwear.’
Jay threw back his head and laughed, and she could see the texture of his skin. He was tanned and he hadn’t shaved this morning, so a slight rough stubble shadowed his well-formed jaw and around his beautiful mouth.
She wondered what it would feel like on her neck. Under her lips.
A menu appeared in front of her and she took it without looking at the waitress who offered it. Instead, she looked at Jay’s hands as they accepted the menu. They were as lean and strong as the rest of him.
He smiled at her over the menu and the pulse of desire that ripped through her was so strong that she nearly gasped.
‘Would you like something to drink, some wine?’ she heard a female voice say, and Jane tore her gaze away from Jay to look up at the waitress, ask for the wine menu, take charge of this situation instead of letting her libido do it for her.
And this time, she did gasp, as her body temperature went from overheated to zero.
‘Oh, crap,’ she said.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS Kathleen. Big-breasted, tousle-haired, full-lipped Kathleen.
‘You’re a waitress?’ Jane said.
‘Oh.’ Kathleen stood stock-still, the wine list in her hand. ‘This—is awkward.’
‘Thom,’ Jane said, her voice much calmer than she would have thought possible, ‘would you mind choosing the wine? I’ll be right back.’
‘Sure,’ she heard Thom reply, but she didn’t wait to see what he thought of her behaviour. Instead she walked straight across the restaurant and into the ladies’ room.
It was empty. Jane kicked the marble base of the sink. She didn’t know what to do, so she washed her hands. She wished she could wash out her mouth, too. Or wash the last five minutes away.
‘He left me for a waitress,’ she said to her reflection, and then turned the water back on to wash her hands again.
She heard a soft knock on the door. ‘Jane?’
She went around the sink to the door. It was open a crack, and she could see a hand and half a face. Blue-eyed, jaw rough with brown stubble. Jay.
‘Jane? Are you all right?’