He took a swallow of his wine before saying, ‘You could set two places in the dining room if you like.’
‘We’re not eating in here?’ The dining room table was enormous for two, besides which the informality of the kitchen was less conducive to a romantic teête-à-teête, surrounded as they were by gleaming pans and kitchen utensils.
‘Is that what you’d prefer?’ And, as she nodded, he said, ‘So be it. Cutlery and everything else you’ll need is in the cupboard to your left.’
They ate the first course almost immediately and it was truly delicious. Nick seemed determined to be the perfect host, making her laugh with one amusing story after another and displaying none of the intuitive and disconcerting probing which had so bothered her during the afternoon.
He wouldn’t let her help with the main course, so Cory sat sipping her wine as she watched him cook the pork strips until they were brown all over, at which point he added the garlic, ginger, spring onions, pineapple chunks and other ingredients.
He was perfectly relaxed and at ease in the kitchen, adding the oyster sauce to the stir-fry with one hand and dealing with the noodles and prawn crackers with the other, whilst talking of inconsequential things. Cory could only marvel at him. She wasn’t too bad a cook when she put her mind to it, but she didn’t particularly like an audience and certainly couldn’t have coped with Nick watching her.
Cory ate the ginger and pork stir-fry in a delicious haze of well-being, only protesting very slightly when Nick refilled her empty glass. ‘This food is so good,’ she said, wrapping a noodle round her fork and transferring it to her mouth. ‘I can’t make my meals taste like this.’
He smiled lazily. ‘The secret is in using fresh ingredients, like the root ginger and garlic. I never buy my herbs and spices in packets.’
Cory gave a hiccup of a laugh and then put down her glass of wine which she had just picked up. She suddenly realised she’d had quite enough. It was deceptively potent stuff.
‘What’s funny?’ he asked softly.
She tried very hard to pull herself together. ‘Just that I never imagined we’d be discussing the pros and cons of herbs and spices,’ she said in a voice which was shaky with the amusement she was trying to quell. ‘You didn’t strike me as that sort of man when I met you, that’s all.’
‘What sort of man did you think I was then?’ he asked lightly.
Cory considered her answer, forgetting she wasn’t going to drink any more wine and taking several sips as she surveyed him through dreamy eyes. ‘A he-man type,’ she stated.
‘And they don’t cook?’
‘I don’t know.’ Wrapped in contentment and lulled into a false sense of security she forgot to be careful. ‘They might do. You do, so other men might, I suppose.’
‘What about William?’ Nick asked softly. ‘Didn’t he spoil you by at least cooking breakfast now and again?’
‘I never had breakfast with William. I’ve never had breakfast with anyone.’ She finished the last of the wine, holding out her glass for a refill as she spoke out the thought in her head without thinking about what she was revealing. ‘I suppose you have to sleep with someone to wake up to breakfast with them.’
There was the merest of pauses before Nick said, ‘It helps.’
There was a quality to his voice which brought Cory back to earth more effectively than a bucketful of cold water.
Much later she realised that at that point she could still have saved the situation if she hadn’t lost her head. She could have made some light innuendo which suggested that bed wasn’t the only place people made love or deflected the assumption she had heard in his voice in some other way. Then maybe—maybe—she might have fooled him.
As it was, she stared at him with wide horrified eyes, the effects of the wine completely burnt up in the mortification she was feeling. She set the wineglass down on the table. ‘Not that I haven’t had lots of offers though,’ she blurted out before realising that made everything ten times worse.
Jumping to her feet she took the coward’s way out. ‘Can I use the bathroom?’
‘Sure.’ Nick was magnificently unconcerned but it didn’t help. ‘First door on your right outside the kitchen.’
Cory fled.
She stood in the bathroom for a good few seconds feeling utterly wretched before her surroundings registered through the maelstrom. Then she glanced about her in awe. The white tiled walls and floor were offset with midnight-blue granite surfaces and illuminated recesses which stored white bath-linen and toiletries, and the massive raised bath, shower cubicle, pedestal basin, toilet and bidet were white with elegant silver fittings. Two exquisitely worked granite sculptures of storks stood either side of the shower cubicle, a mosaic of white and blue taking up almost one wall over the bath.
The stark use of white and blue, the voyeuristic ceiling which consisted totally of glass and the carefully positioned lighting made this a bathroom where modesty would go out of the window. Cory walked gingerly across to the basin, fiddling about for a few moments before she realised it had a thermostat mixer and sensor which was activated when the occupant held their hands beneath it.
But of course it would, she told herself cantankerously. What else? She wouldn’t be surprised if you only had to wish for the bath to fill up and it happened.
She glanced up at the ceiling again when she had dried her hands on the big fluffy towel and then her eyes moved to the huge bath which would easily take two people, if not a whole rugby team. This room had been designed for other activities than merely getting clean. She put her hands to her hot cheeks. Which made what she’d revealed to Nick doubly humiliating. He wouldn’t have any concept of how she felt.
She stayed in the bathroom for as long as she dared but eventually she squared her shoulders and lifted her head. She would have to go and face him and get it over with. She breathed very deeply. But definitely no more wine. No more wine, no more leading conversations, no more of anything!
He was sitting where she’d left him, but now their plates had been cleared away and dessert dishes and spoons were on the table. ‘Hi.’ His smile was easy and unhurried as she joined him. ‘Vanilla parfait with chocolate rum truffle or apricot whisky mousse?’
Cory forgot to be embarrassed as she stared at the two rich concoctions in front of her. ‘You made these?’ she asked in amazement.
‘Almost.’ His eyes drifted over her face. ‘But my local gourmet store helped a little.’
Her smiled was strained. She didn’t want to eat dessert with him in this gleaming super-technological kitchen. She wanted to go home and lick her wounds.
As soon as she had finished her portion of vanilla parfait with chocolate rum truffle, Cory slipped off her seat. ‘I must go home and do that work,’ she said quietly. ‘Thanks for a lovely day. I’ll hail a cab from the end of the street.’
‘Don’t be silly, I’m coming with you.’
‘There’s no need.’
He inhaled deeply and audibly, and let his breath out. ‘I’m coming with you,’ he repeated steadily, rising to his feet.
His tone was exactly what one would use with a difficult and annoying child, and it caught her on the raw. She stared at him and piercingly intent blue eyes stared back. He seemed very big and very dark and Cory couldn’t help looking at his mouth as he stopped speaking. It was a sexy, cynical and purposeful mouth. She swallowed. ‘As you like,’ she said casually, shrugging as she turned away.
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