When the sides of the lips she was admiring curved upwards, she flushed. He might not be traditionally handsome, but he sure as hell was sexy.
‘“Honey”? You and Jacques...you’re dating?’
Kyle interrupted her perusal, and Lily felt her tongue stick in her mouth when she realised that Kyle knew Nathan’s brother—Jacques.
You should have thought of that, Lily admonished herself.
She knew that Kyle was here because Nathan worked in Kyle’s family’s law firm. Nathan loved his job, and hadn’t wanted to upset the prestigious Van der Rosses by not inviting the man who would one day become his boss. Caitlyn had assured her it was the only reason Lily’s ex-fiancé had been invited.
‘Yes, we’re dating.’
The smooth baritone of Jacques’s voice sent shivers down Lily’s spine, and she struggled to shake the feeling.
‘For how long?’ Kyle said, and she turned back to see the smugness disappear.
It bothered him, she thought, her heart accelerating in an instinctual response to Kyle’s anger. But then she paused, and told herself she didn’t have to be worried about him lashing out.
She didn’t have to worry about him at all any more.
‘Almost six months now,’ she said as Jacques moved down a step to stand beside her. He was a full head taller than she was, and she tried to ignore the awareness that realisation brought.
‘Six months?’ Kyle repeated, and she saw his eyes flash.
They’d broken up a year ago, and clearly he thought six months was too short a time for her to mourn for him.
‘It doesn’t feel like six months, though,’ Jacques said, and she shifted her gaze to him. ‘I barely feel like I’ve scratched the surface with you.’
So he did have a sense of humour, she thought, and smiled. When he responded with a smile of his own her breath caught and she thought something crackled between them. Her heart thudded when Jacques wrapped an arm around her waist, and for a moment she forgot that it was all a game and lifted her hand to brush at a piece of his hair.
‘How did you two meet?’
Kyle’s voice punctured the tension in the air and she looked at him with a foggy mind. It took her a minute, but when she came out of her Jacques-induced haze she noted the grim set of Kyle’s lips. He really didn’t like this, she thought, and waited for the panic. For that quick rush of trepidation that anticipated that she was about to be put in her place.
But nothing came. And somehow she knew it was because of the easy strength exuded by the man at her side.
‘I’d love to tell you all about it, Kyle, but we were up there for far too long.’
Lily shot a flirtatious glance at Jacques, and briefly wondered how deep a hole she was digging when she saw a flash of heat in Jacques’s eyes.
‘We should probably spend some time with the happy couple. Enjoy the rest of your evening.’
Taking Jacques’s hand, she hurried down the stairs, weaving her way through the guests. She only stopped once they were outside on the balcony, and then she immediately let go.
‘I’m so sorry about that,’ she said hurriedly, her chest suddenly tight.
Just breathe, Lily, it’s over now.
‘Care to explain?’
There was a slight breeze in the air and Lily walked to the edge of the balcony, turning her face towards the wind. It helped steady her, and when she opened her eyes—when she saw the view in front of her—that did, too.
Nathan’s new house stood at the top of the Tygerberg hills in Cape Town, and she could see Table Mountain and most of the city from where she was. It reminded her of how small her problems were.
Even the after-effects of a bad relationship.
‘How about we start with an introduction?’
Her words were said a little breathlessly, and she cleared her throat. Nerves had replaced panic, and she glanced around. No one was paying attention to them. That helped.
‘Lily Newman—best friend to the bride-to-be.’ She offered a hand.
‘Jacques Brookes—brother of the groom-to-be.’
He took her hand and it was like touching the coals of a fire. It made her want to break the contact immediately, but he held on, shaking her hand slowly. The heat went up her arm, through her chest...
Before it could move any further she pulled her hand away. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said, and folded her arms, constraining the hands that suddenly wanted more of the fire. ‘It probably would have been better if that had happened before the whole debacle inside.’
‘I don’t know,’ he answered with a sly smile. ‘It was much more interesting than the way I usually meet girls.’
‘I’m sure you must mean women, because clearly...’ She gestured to herself, and then flushed when she saw appreciation in his eyes.
But he only said, ‘Touché,’ and made her wonder why she’d said those words.
They’d made her sound sassier than she was. As if she was in his league. As if she was used to playing the cat-and-mouse game of flirtation. She almost laughed aloud at the prospect of being in any league.
No, she thought as she took in how effortlessly Jacques’s muscular body wore his suit. He was way too attractive to be interested in her. Someone who looked like him spent time with models and actresses—definitely not with women who had more than twenty-five per cent body fat.
She distracted herself by offering the explanation he’d asked for earlier. ‘Kyle’s my ex-fiancé—’
She broke off when he lifted a hand, and she saw that his ring finger was a little crooked.
‘The one who dumped him a month before the wedding?’
‘Yes.’
‘I always thought the woman who did that had some balls.’
She smiled. ‘Thanks.’
‘It doesn’t explain why you dated him in the first place.’
It was the same thing she’d asked herself when she’d realised how poorly he’d treated her. But that realisation had only come at the end—when she’d been forced to see the truth. She’d been blinded by how charming, how handsome he was at first. And at all the times when he’d switched it on again sporadically throughout their relationship.
But the simple truth was that the blinkers had been kept in place because he’d been interested in her. It had been intoxicating—until it hadn’t been. And then she’d found him with a naked woman and regained the gift of sight. It had grown clearer with each hour that had passed after she’d ended it. With each phone call Kyle had made. With each threat...
She was ashamed that she’d dated a bully—that she would have married him—just because she didn’t think enough of herself. She’d dealt with bullies her entire life—she should have known better. And then there was the guilt, the indignity of her actions after the break-up...
‘Some things you only realise with time,’ she finally answered Jacques.
‘Touché,’ he said again.
She watched him shift his weight from one leg to the other and frowned. The movement was so out of place for a man who clearly had an abundance of confidence. She thought of the conversation she’d overheard, wondered if what she saw was vulnerability, and felt it hit straight at her