‘Will, are you OK?’
God. Gritting his teeth and biting back the urge to snap, Will jerked his head round to see Rosie glancing up at him, a tiny frown creasing her forehead.
‘Fine,’ he muttered as he always did, then plastered a smile to his face and put a hand on her back to propel her after the waiter.
Sooner or later he’d get over it, wouldn’t he? Frankly, he had to, because if this tension continued he’d shatter and God only knew what would happen then. Besides the fact remained that he had asked Rosie out and she didn’t deserve him to be sitting there all grim and fierce and monosyllabic.
In the vague hope that focusing on the tranquil white walls of the restaurant and the gentle music that oozed from speakers in the ceiling might soothe his poor beleaguered brain, Will let his gaze sweep around the room and with every step felt the tension ease a little.
Until his eyes landed on the couple sitting at the table next to the empty one the waiter was weaving towards.
As recognition slammed into him Will stopped dead and froze and just like that the tension rushed back. The breath shot from his lungs as if he’d been thumped in the solar plexus and the floor tilted beneath his feet.
Bloody hell.
It was Bella. With a man. Laughing and chatting and looking extremely cosy. All hope of tranquillity and peace vanished and his heart began to thud with something he couldn’t identify.
The conversation he and Bella had had over the phone slammed into his head. She’d told him she had plans, hadn’t she? So was this why she’d cancelled their date? Because she’d had another one?
Will’s eyes narrowed as they zoomed in on the man she was with. Something inside him snapped and before he could stop it a shaft of white-hot jealousy scythed through him. And then a sudden burst of anger swept through him, hot on the heels of the jealousy, and both began to churn around inside him in one seething explosive tangle.
Because hadn’t she said she wasn’t involved with anyone else? Hadn’t she sounded outraged when he’d made the suggestion in the first place?
Well, she and whoever he was looked pretty close. Pretty damn involved.
So had she lied?
Dimly aware that he shouldn’t care less if she had, Will felt his blood begin to boil. After all the lies and deceit he’d grown up with he simply couldn’t help it.
‘Will, is something the matter?’
Rosie’s voice cut through his volatile thoughts and brought him careering back to his surroundings. ‘No,’ he growled, and gave her a quick smile to mitigate the tone of his voice.
She peered up at him. ‘You’ve gone rather pale.’
‘Just seen someone I wasn’t expecting to,’ he said tightly, forcing himself to calm down because it was fine. He was fine. And Bella, happily chatting and smiling away at her date, was certainly fine.
‘Do you want to go over and say hello?’
Will frowned as his pulse picked up.
Did he?
Why not? He had no intention of leaving, and he could hardly spend the entire evening avoiding Bella and her date when they were sitting a couple of feet away. Going over and saying hello would be the mature and sensible thing to do.
Plus he’d get to see how she reacted and that would be … interesting. ‘Why not?’ he said coolly.
And because, despite trying to convince himself it was simply the sting of rejection, he had been disappointed when Bella had turned him down, and because right now he felt anything but mature and sensible, maybe not just hello.
‘So how do you know Phoebe?’
Bella glanced up from the menu, rather grateful for the break. She’d spent the last few minutes trying to decide what to have and had so far narrowed it down to a choice of three. Every dish sounded too delicious for words and while Sam might have told her to order anything she liked, she doubted he’d meant everything she liked.
‘I met her at a party about a year ago and we became friends,’ she said. ‘Then I started providing the gems for one of her clients who designs handbags, and now she does my PR.’ Bella tapped the menu against her chin and thought that Phoebe did a lot more than just her PR. ‘Actually she’s more like a good friend than a colleague.’ She gave him a quick smile. ‘How do you know Alex?’
‘We’re looking at doing a joint venture together,’ he said. ‘Backing a start-up. Exciting if you’re into that sort of thing.’
Bella grinned. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’