His smile was slow and, deliberately, he made it reach his eyes. It was the smile he used when he was determined to get something and it was rare enough to stop people in their tracks. Women sometimes called it his killer smile. ‘Not here and not now—not when you’re working,’ he said—a wave of his hand indicating the rows of copper pans which she kept so carefully gleaming. ‘Why don’t we have dinner together tonight so we can talk about it in comfort?’
‘Dinner?’ she echoed, with the same kind of horrified uncertainty she might have used if he’d suggested they both dance naked in Phoenix Park. ‘You’re saying you want to have dinner with me?’
It wasn’t exactly the way he would have expressed it—but want and need were pretty interchangeable, weren’t they? Especially to a man like him. ‘Why not?’ he questioned softly. ‘You have to eat and so do I.’
Her gaze fell to the collapsing mixture in her bowl. ‘But I’m supposed to be making a cheese soufflé.’
‘Forget the soufflé,’ he gritted out. ‘We’ll go to a restaurant. Your choice,’ he added magnanimously, for he doubted she would ever have set foot inside one of Dublin’s finer establishments. ‘Why don’t you book somewhere for, say, seven-thirty?’
She was still blinking at him with disbelief, her pale lashes shuttering those strange amber eyes, until at last she nodded with a reluctance which somehow managed to be mildly insulting. Since when did someone take so long to deliberate about having dinner with him?
‘Okay,’ she said cautiously, with the air of someone feeling her way around in the dark. ‘I don’t see why not.’
THE AIR DOWN by the River Liffey offered no cooling respite against the muggy oppression of the evening and Lucas scowled as they walked along the quayside, unable to quite believe where he was. When he’d told Tara to choose a restaurant, he’d imagined she would immediately plump for one of Dublin’s many fine eating establishments. He’d envisaged drawing up outside a discreetly lit building in one of the city’s fancier streets with doormen springing to attention, instead of heading towards a distinctly edgy building which stood beside the dark gleam of the water.
‘What is this place?’ he demanded as at last they stopped beneath a red and white sign and she lifted her hand to open the door.
‘It’s a restaurant. A Polish restaurant,’ she supplied, adding defensively, ‘You told me to choose somewhere and so I did.’
He wanted to ask why but by then she had pushed the door open and a tinny bell was announcing their arrival. The place was surprisingly full of mainly young diners and an apple-cheeked woman in a white apron squealed her excitement before approaching and flinging her arms around Tara as if she were her long-lost daughter. A couple of interminable minutes followed, during which Lucas heard Tara hiss, ‘My boss...’ which was when the man behind the bar stopped pouring some frothy golden beer to pierce him with a suspicious look which was almost challenging.
Lucas felt like going straight back out the way he had come in but he was hungry and they were being shown to a table which was like a throwback to the last century—with its red and white checked tablecloth and a dripping candle jammed into the neck of an empty wine bottle. He waited until they were seated before he leaned across the table, his voice low.
‘Would you mind telling me why you chose to come and eat here out of all places in Dublin?’ he bit out.
‘Because Maria and her husband were very kind to me when I first came to the city and didn’t know many people. And I happen to like it here—there’s life and bustle and colour on the banks of the river. Plus it’s cheap.’
‘But I’m paying, Tara,’ he objected softly. ‘And budget isn’t an option. You know that.’
Tara pursed her lips and didn’t pass comment even though she wanted to suggest that maybe budget should be an option. That it might do the crazily rich Lucas Conway good to have to eat in restaurants which didn’t involve remortgaging your house in order to pay the bill—that was if you were lucky enough to actually have a mortgage, which, naturally, she didn’t. She felt like telling him she’d been terrified of choosing the kind of place she knew he usually frequented because she simply didn’t have the kind of wardrobe—or the confidence—which would have fitted into such an upmarket venue. But instead she just pursed her lips together and smiled as she hung her handbag over the back of her chair, still pinching herself to think she was here.
With him.
Her boss.
Her boss who had turned the head of everyone in the restaurant the moment he’d walked in, with his striking good looks and a powerful aura which spoke of wealth and privilege.
She shook her hair, which she’d left loose, and realised that for once he was staring at her as if she were a real person, rather than just part of the fixtures and fittings. And how ironic it should be that this state of affairs had only come about because she’d told him she was leaving, which had led to him bizarrely inviting her to dinner. Did he find it as strange as she did for them to be together in a restaurant like this? she wondered. Just as she wondered if he would be as shocked as she was to discover that, for once. she was far from immune to his physical appeal.
So why was that? Why—after nearly six years of working for him when her most common reaction towards him had been one of exasperation—should she suddenly start displaying all the signs of being attracted to him? Because she prided herself on not being like all those other women who stared at him lustfully whenever he swam into view. It might have had something to do with the fact that he had very few secrets from her. She did his laundry. She even ironed his underpants and she’d always done it with an unfeigned impartiality. At home it had been easy to stick him in the categories marked ‘boss’ and ‘off-limits’, because arrogant billionaires were way above her pay grade, but tonight he seemed like neither of these things. He seemed deliciously and dangerously accessible. Was it because they were sitting facing each other across a small table, which meant she was noticing things about him which didn’t normally register on her radar?
Like his body, for example. Had she ever properly registered just how broad his shoulders were? She didn’t think so. Just as the sight of two buttons undone on his denim shirt didn’t normally have the power to bring her out in a rash of goosebumps. She swallowed. In the candlelight, his olive skin was glowing like dark gold and casting entrancing shadows over his high cheekbones and ruggedly handsome face. She could feel her throat growing dry and her breasts tightening and wondered what had possessed her to agree to have dinner with him tonight, almost as if the two of them were on a date.
Because he had been determined to have a meal with her and he was a difficult man to shift once he’d set his mind on something.
She guessed his agenda would be to offer her a big salary increase in an attempt to get her to stay. He probably thought she’d spoken rashly when she’d told him she was leaving, which to some extent was true. But while she’d been getting ready—in a recently purchased and discounted dress, which was a lovely pale blue colour, even if it was a bit big on the bust—she’d decided she wasn’t going to let him change her mind. And that his patronising attitude towards her had been the jolt she needed to shake her out of her comfort zone. She needed to leave Lucas Conway’s employment and do something different with her life. To get out of the rut in which she found herself, even though it was a very comfortable rut. She couldn’t keep letting the past define her—making her too scared to do anything else. Because otherwise wouldn’t she run the risk of getting to the end of her days, only to realise she hadn’t lived at all? That she’d just followed a predictable path of service and duty?
‘What would you like to drink?’ she questioned. ‘They do