It was the first time he had ever asked her such a directly personal question and she shivered pleasurably as she shook her head, not wanting, under any circumstances, to let him get the impression that she wasn’t available.
‘Absolutely no one.’
‘You surprise me. What’s wrong with those lads at university? They should have been forming a queue to ask you out.’
Jennifer blushed. ‘I went on a couple of dates, but the boys all seemed so young, getting drunk at clubs and spending entire days in front of their computer games. None of them seemed to take life seriously.’
‘At eighteen and nineteen, life is something not to be taken seriously.’
‘You did when you were barely older than that.’
‘As you may recall, I had no choice.’ Jennifer was the only woman who could get away with bringing his private life into the conversation. She was, in actual fact, the only woman who knew anything at all about his private life and, even with her, there was still a great deal of which she was unaware.
‘I know that and I know it must have been tough, but I honestly can’t think of anyone who would have risen to the occasion the way you did. I mean, you had no real experience and yet you went in there and turned it all around.’
‘I’ll make sure that you’re the first on the guest list when I get knighted.’
Jennifer laughed and pushed the plate of melting ice cream away from her, choosing instead to have a bit more wine and ignoring James’s raised eyebrows.
‘I’m being serious,’ she insisted. ‘I can’t think of a single guy I knew at university who would have been capable of doing what you did.’
‘You’re young. Life shouldn’t be about looking for a guy who can take the world on his shoulders. In fact, it should be about the guy who hasn’t grown up yet. Believe me there’s plenty of time to buckle down and realise that life’s no picnic…’
‘I’m not young!’ Jennifer said lightly. ‘I’m twenty-one. Not that much younger than you, in actual fact.’
James laughed and signalled to the waiter for the bill. ‘You haven’t done justice to those desserts.’ He changed the topic when she would have had him pursue this tantalising personal conversation. ‘I’ve always admired your sweet tooth. So refreshing after some of the girls I’ve dated in the past, who think that swallowing a mouthful of dessert constitutes an offence punishable by death.’
‘That’s why they’re so skinny and I’m not,’ she said, fishing hopefully for a compliment, but his attention was on the approaching waiter and on the bill being placed in front of him.
Now that the evening was drawing to a close, she could feel her nerves begin to get the better of her, although the copious amounts of wine had helped. When she stood up, she swayed ever so slightly and James reached for her with a concerned expression.
‘Tell me you haven’t had too much to drink,’ he murmured. ‘Hang onto me. I’ll make sure you don’t topple over.’
‘Of course I’m not going to topple over! I’m a big girl. I need more than a few glasses of wine to topple over!’ She loved the feel of his arm around her waist as they strolled out of the restaurant. It was August and still balmy outside. The fading light cast everything into shadow but the street lights had not yet come on and the atmosphere was wonderfully mellow and intimate. She surreptitiously nestled a little closer to him and tentatively put her arm around his waist. Her heart skipped a beat.
She was five ten and in heels, easily six foot, but at six foot three he still made her feel gloriously small and feminine.
She could have stayed like this in silence but he began asking her about Paris, quizzing her about the details of her job, asking her what her apartment would be like and reassuring her that, if it wasn’t up to scratch, she was to remember that his company had several apartments in Paris and that he would be more than happy to arrange for her to stay in one of them.
Jennifer didn’t want that. She didn’t want him doing the big brother thing and imagining that she wanted him to take care of her from a distance so she skirted around his offer and reminded him that she wasn’t in need of looking after.
‘Where has this sudden streak of independence come from?’ he asked teasingly, and his warm breath rustled her hair. He was smiling. She heard it in his voice.
They had reached his car, and she felt the loss of his arm around her as he held open the passenger door for her to step inside.
‘I remember,’ he said, still smiling and turning to look at her as he started the engine, ‘when you were fifteen and you told me that you couldn’t possibly get through your maths exam unless I sat and helped you.’
Never thinking that he had better things to do, just pleased to be able to bask in his attention for a couple of hours as he had patiently helped her.
‘I must have been a complete pain,’ she said truthfully.
‘Or a pleasant distraction.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I was buried under work trying to fish my father’s company out of its woeful state of affairs. Helping you and listening to all your school gossip often gave me a much-needed break from the headache of running a company.’
‘But what about your girlfriends?’
‘I know,’ James said ruefully. ‘You would have thought that they would have provided a distraction, but at that juncture in my life I didn’t need their demands.’
‘Well, that was such a long time ago. I can’t even remember any of that school gossip.’
‘And if I recall, you went on to get an A in your maths…
Jennifer didn’t say anything. The restaurant was only a matter of thirty minutes away from the house. In the blink of an eye, they would be back at the cottage and she would be able to show him that she really and truly was no longer the kid who had asked for help with her homework or filled him in on the silly happenings in her life whenever he happened to be down for the weekend. Maybe he wouldn’t be entirely surprised…? After all, he had asked her out on a date!
She replayed that lovely feeling of having his arm around her and resisted the temptation to reach out and cover his hand with hers.
They drew up to the cottage in comfortable silence. Set in the grounds of the manor house, it was originally designed to house the head butler, but it had been annexed years before the Rocchis had moved in by a wily investor who had seen it as an efficient way of making some additional money. It was a happy coincidence that her father had bought the tiny two-bedroom place at around the same time as the Rocchis had moved into the manor house. Her own mother had died when she, Jennifer, had been just a toddler and Daisy Rocchi, unable to have any more children after James, had become a surrogate mother, bypassing all rules and conventions that predicated against two families of such differing incomes becoming close.
‘Dad’s not in.’ Jennifer turned to look at James and cleared her throat. ‘Why don’t you… um… come in for something to drink? You barely had any of that wine tonight.’
‘If I had thought ahead, I would have booked a taxi for us instead of driving myself.’
‘Well, I know there’s some wine in the fridge and I think dad’s got a bottle of whisky in the cupboard. His once-a-month vice, he tells me.’ She wasn’t sure what she would do if he turned down her offer but he didn’t and she breathed a sigh of relief as he said no to the alcohol but opted for a cup of coffee instead.
Inside the cottage, she switched on the lamp in the sitting room instead of the harsher overheard light and urged him in while she prepared them coffee with shaking hands. She was trying very hard to recapture the excitement and confidence