She gave him a careless smile, determined not to let yesterday spoil this evening. For Stella’s sake. ‘And running late,’ she rushed on. ‘I assume that’s why you’re here?’ Why else?
One eyebrow rose and she knew he wasn’t impressed. ‘You had some people concerned.’ He said it as if he didn’t count himself amongst those people—where had yesterday’s twinkle gone?—while he stepped inside and scanned the dining room table covered in the hand-made goat’s milk soaps she’d been working on.
‘You weren’t answering your phone.’ His gaze swung back to hers again. ‘Not handy when people are trying to contact you.’
Her smile dropped to her feet. Was that censure in his voice? ‘This from the guy who was too busy at his other business to answer his own mobile yesterday?’ she shot back. ‘You do realise I had to pry the info as to your whereabouts from your PA?’
He nodded, his eyes not flinching from hers. ‘So she told me. I apologise for the inconvenience, and for any embarrassment I caused you.’
Emma drew in a deep breath. ‘Okay.’ She forced her mature self to put yesterday’s incident to the back of her mind for now. ‘As for me, I have no legitimate excuse for forgetting the time, so it’s my turn to apologise that you had to be the one to come and get me.’ She tried a smile.
He nodded, his dark eyes warmed, and his whole demeanour mellowed like a languid Sunday afternoon. ‘Apology accepted.’ He leaned down and brushed her cheek with firm lips, and she caught a whiff of subtle yet sexy aftershave before he straightened up again.
Whoa. Yesterday’s tingle was back with a vengeance, running through her entire system at double the voltage. ‘So … um … I’ll just go …’ Feeling off-centre, she backed away, ostensibly towards the tiny area sectioned off by a curtain which she used as a bedroom, but he didn’t take the hint and leave. ‘Look, you go on ahead. I’ll be ready in a jiff and it’s only a ten-minute drive to the restaurant.’
He shrugged, stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘I’m here now.’
Slipping off her flats, she glanced about for her heels. But her eyes seemed drawn to him as if they were on strings. He dressed like a million bucks these days. Still, those threadbare jeans he’d worn way back when had fuelled more teenage fantasies than she cared to remember. She watched him wander towards her table of supplies. With his hands in his pockets, drawing his trousers tight across that firm, cute butt …
No. Sleazy club-owner. Dragging her eyes away, she scoured the floor for her shoes. ‘There’s really no need to wait …’
‘I’m waiting. End of story.’ She heard the crinkle of cellophane as he examined her orders. ‘Your hobby’s still making you some pocket money, then?’
Irritation stiffened her shoulders. She glared at him. ‘It’s not just a hobby, and it’s never been about the money.’ Unlike others who shall remain Nameless. Exhaling sharply through her nose, she swiped up a black stiletto and slipped it on. ‘I have to wonder why it is that helping people with skin allergies seems to you to be a waste of time.’
‘I never sa—’
‘Why don’t you go while I …?’ Calm down. ‘Find my other shoe.’
‘So uptight.’ He tsked. ‘You really need to get out more, Em. Always was too much work and not enough play with you.’ He scooped her shoe from beneath a chair and tossed it to her. ‘Maybe the wedding’ll help things along.’
She caught it one-handed, dropped it in front of her with a clatter and stepped into it, then bent to do up the straps. She’d had it with people telling her how to live her life. Get out more? She let out a huff. She had familial obligations. Had she told him what she thought of the way he was living his life nowadays? No.
She finished fastening her shoes and straightened, pushed at the hair that had fallen over her eyes. Forget his uninformed opinion. Forget him, period. She had her un-fabulous job at the insurance call centre—but it paid the bills—and she had just finished her Diploma in Natural Health. And if she chose to fill her leisure hours working on ways to help people use natural products rather than the dangerous chemicals contained in other products these days, it was nobody’s business but hers.
‘So how’s … what was her name …? Sherry?’ she asked with enough sweetness to decay several teeth as she slipped open the top button of her lab coat. ‘Will she be missing you this evening?’
His brows rose. ‘Who?’
‘The one …’ draped all over you ‘… at Stella’s engagement party. Stella mentioned her name,’ she hurried on, in case he thought she’d actually asked. Which she had. But he didn’t need to know that.
‘Ah … You mean Brandy.’
She shrugged. ‘Brandy. Sherry. She looked like more of a Candy to me.’ With her suck-my-face-off lips and over-generous cleavage. And everything else Emma was lacking. ‘You didn’t say hello and introduce us. Was that because she was one of your exotic dancers?’
‘You and your date left as we arrived. Was that just a curious coincidence?’
Jake watched her cheeks flush guiltily and felt an instant stab of arousal. Hell. He kept his expression neutral, but something was happening here. And the hot little fantasy he’d had last night about what she’d been wearing beneath that red coat yesterday wasn’t helping.
And now she was undoing the second button of that lab coat, revealing a pair of sexy collarbones and putting inappropriate ideas into his head.
He ground his teeth together as images of black lace and feminine flesh flashed through his mind. ‘Are you going to get ready or what?’ The demand came out lower and rougher than he’d have liked. Then he held his breath as she shrugged out of the coat, tossed it over the couch.
‘I’m ready already.’ She flashed him a cool look. ‘I use the coat to protect my clothes when I’m working.’
His gaze snagged on her outfit—a short black dress shot through with bronze, hugging her slender curves to perfection. He swallowed. The legs. How come he’d never noticed how long her legs were? How toned and tanned? He did not imagine how they’d feel locked around his waist.
Cool it. He deliberately relaxed tense muscles. He’d wait outside, get some air.
But before he could move she picked up an embroidered purse from the couch and walked to the front door. ‘Shall we go?’
He walked ahead, opened the door. ‘We’ll take my car.’
‘I’m taking my own car, thanks.’ She locked the door behind them, then headed towards the hatchback, her heels tapping a fast rhythm on the concrete.
He pressed his remote and the locks clicked open. ‘Hard to get a parking space anywhere this time of night,’ he advised. ‘And we—make that you—are running late already. Stella and Ryan are waiting.’
Swinging her door open, she glanced back at him. ‘Better get a move on, then.’
He started to go after her, then changed his mind. She was in a dangerous mood, and he was just riled enough to take her on. And it might end … He didn’t want to think about how it might end. Because he had a feeling that anything with Emma would need to be very slow and very, very thorough. If you could find your way through those thorns, that was. ‘I’ll see you there.’
She clicked her seat belt on, turned the ignition and revved the engine. ‘Ten minutes.’
Emma’s stomach jittered. Her pulse raced. Trouble. She’d seen more than enough of it in Jake’s hot brown eyes. As if she was performing some sort of striptease. She’d not given