They looked across at one another in silence, his mouth curled into a smile for so long that the air crackled across the table.
Andy felt as though a small thermonuclear device had just been planted somewhere low in her stomach and was threatening to emerge as a girly giggle.
She did not do giggling, simpering or anything that came close. Not even for hunky hotties like the one sitting opposite her nonchalantly drinking his coffee as his gaze stared into hers, waiting to see how she responded. Maybe this was some sort of test?
‘I’ll drink to that,’ she replied, with a smirk. ‘Although it does make me wonder.’
‘Wonder?’
‘What were you planning to do with the hazelnut cookies?’ she replied in a flash, and pressed both of her lips tight together before sitting back in her chair, her head tilted to one side.
He roared with laughter. A real laugh, head back, shoulders shaking, holding onto the flimsy table, making it rock as his whole body joined in the joke, and this time she could not help herself. And for the first time in a very long while, Andy Davies laughed. Really laughed. Laughed until the tears were running down her cheeks and she was starting to wheeze.
She never laughed like this. Ever. And it was wonderful.
Even if people on the other tables had started to give them furtive glances.
Oh, Nigel would have been so mortified if she had made this kind of a scene on the few times when he was with her.
Nigel. Andy felt as if a bucket of icy water had been thrown over her head, and she instantly sat up straighter in her chair and tried to clear her head.
Stupid girl. She was not here to flirt and laugh with Miles. No matter how much he had brightened up her cold, wet evening. She was not ready to flirt and laugh with anyone.
She glanced up into his smiling face and a small shiver of disappointment and regret fluttered across her shoulders.
This was a horrible mistake.
It should be Elise sitting here, not her.
But he was worth meeting. If anything he was more open and extrovert than his emails had suggested. She couldn’t lie.
Andy’s gaze slid over to his long, muscular, tanned arms and she inhaled slowly.
Men like Miles stood at the helm of sailing ships and jumped off mountain peaks with only a pair of skis strapped to their legs. They did not do executive buffet lunches with mini canapés and fizzy pink water, which Elise specialised in.
It was time to call a halt to this embarrassing charade and make a quick getaway.
Stealing a secret smile, Andy was just about to make her excuses and leave when her view was blocked by the long cream designer raincoat of the most notorious gossip in Nigel’s office, who was standing right in front of her.
Leering.
Andy reared back in horror, a fixed smile cemented onto her face. She had walked out of Nigel’s office in tears six weeks ago and this was the first time that she had met any of the people she used to work with.
Worse. There were two of them. The second most feared, time-wasting gossip in the whole office building was glaring at Miles, her mouth hanging open in shock and lust.
‘Hello, Andy,’ the gossip whined, her eyes flicking from Andy to Miles and then back to Andy again. ‘Fancy seeing you here. I heard that you were working nights somewhere.’
‘Oh. Just taking an evening off,’ Andy replied, in a casual voice, refusing to get involved in any kind of conversation with these two. ‘You?’
‘Thought we would catch a movie,’ came the casual reply. Then her lips twisted into a knowing smirk. ‘Amazing who you meet on the way.’
‘Isn’t it? Have a good time at the movie. See you around,’ Andy replied with a quick wave of her hand, then her fingers clamped around her coffee beaker instead of the girl’s neck.
Sniffing at being so obviously dismissed without being introduced to Andy’s mysterious date, the two shuffled over to the only spare table, which thankfully meant that they were facing away from Andy, but from the sly sniggering glances they were giving her it was obvious that their lives were now complete.
Who needed a movie when they had just found out that Andy Davies was out with a hunky bloke in a coffee shop? Just think! Who would have thought she had the nerve, after Nigel had made such a fool of her?
It would be around the office in five minutes. In fact, they were probably texting all of their pals and her colleagues on their mobile phones at that very minute.
‘Friends of yours?’ a male voice asked from across the table.
She opened her eyes and blinked. Not only was Miles still there, but he was smiling at her and had started work picking out the whole hazelnuts from his cookie. She had been so absorbed in her own dilemma that she had forgotten about him.
‘Girls I used to work with in my last job. And no, they certainly are not my friends. Far from it. I despise them.’
Now why had she said that? It wasn’t their fault that she had fallen for all of the lies Nigel had told her so that she would work on his business proposals for nothing, night after night, while all the time he was living with the boss’s daughter and taking the credit for her work. And she was the only one who was not in on the joke. The rest of the office had been laughing behind her back for weeks. Just waiting for Nigel to dump her the second he got his promotion. And he had. Oh, yes. And in public. And in style.
That familiar cold dark blanket of humiliation and bitter disappointment wrapped itself around Andy’s shoulders, and she shivered inside her thin suit jacket.
‘I see. They tell me that girls can be hard to work with. I’m sorry if my being here is going to cause you a problem back in the office.’
‘Problem?’ She whimpered and slumped down. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’ Then she caught his change in breathing, and saw a flash of concern in his eyes. Tossing her head, she ran her fingers through her hair and smiled. ‘Sorry. It’s fine. Let’s try and ignore them. They have nothing to do with my life now.’
He rested both elbows on the table and leaned forwards until his fingers were almost touching hers, and nobody else could hear what he was saying, his back to the room. ‘None of my business but in my mind there are two ways to deal with office gossips. You say so what, and shrug it off. Or …’ He picked up Andy’s hand and started playing with it.
‘What are you doing?’ Andy snapped, trying to pull her hand away, but he was holding it in a vicelike grip. ‘They’re looking this way and taking photos on their cell phones,’ she groaned in a strangled voice, as if things could get any worse.
‘Excellent,’ he replied, in a low calm voice. ‘So let’s try the other option, and give them something to really talk about.’
There was something in his voice that should have warned her that actually things were going to suddenly get a lot worse, but her gaze was locked on his mouth as he licked his lower lip with the tip of his tongue.
Then without warning his entire body moved in one single continuous motion, so that as he lifted slightly from his chair his right hand reached back and cradled the base of her head.
And then he kissed her.
Not just a peck on the cheek. Oh, no. His warm, full, moist lips moved gently across hers in a kiss so tender and so loving that her eyes instantly filled with tears and she had to blink them away as she closed her eyes and tilted her head so that he could kiss her again.
Only this time it was deeper and she felt just the slightest tingle of his tongue, chocolate and coffee on hers before he slid his mouth away, leaving her staggered, wobbly and unable to speak and attempting to breathe