Straightening his lapels and then fixing his shirt collar, Dan looked over at her and gave her a faint smile. ‘You’re welcome.’
‘You were amazing.’
‘Not half as amazing as you. Did you really think up all that stuff on the spot?’
‘The general premise I borrowed from my sister and her ex, but some of the details might have got a bit distorted.’ The feelings were all her own though...
‘Well, in a weird kind of way it was fun.’
‘Yes, it was, wasn’t it?’ She smiled. ‘You really didn’t have to propose, though.’
‘I thought it rounded things off rather nicely.’
‘It did.’
He tugged at the cuffs of his shirt beneath the sleeves of his jacket and glanced up at her. ‘So was it worth it?’
‘The whole charade thing? I don’t know yet. I guess I’ll have to process it all and see.’
‘It doesn’t seem to me that they’re worth wasting any more energy on.’
Hmm. ‘Were you bullied at school?’ she asked.
‘No.’
Of course he wasn’t; why would he be? ‘Then it’s easy for you to say.’
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and shrugged. ‘Maybe. But my sister was. Bullies are generally cowards and Samantha’s no different.’
‘She’s a bitch.’
‘She is. She’s also jealous of you.’
/> A moment’s silence fell as Zoe stared at him in speechless astonishment. ‘She’s jealous of me?’
He nodded. ‘Deeply.’
‘What on earth would she have to be jealous about?’
‘Well, you’re beautiful, brainy and successful, so there’s a start.’
Once again Dan’s words struck her dumb, only this time it wasn’t astonishment that flooded through her but delicious languorous warmth. Did he really think her all that?
‘I should also think she’d give her eye-teeth to have half your entrepreneurial spirit,’ he continued with a little conspiratorial smile that did even crazier things to her temperature, ‘because I happen to know that the Shipley Estate is broke.’
‘Oh dear, is it?’ she said, knowing that even without the distraction of the heat swirling through her veins she’d have failed to drum up much sympathy. ‘Badly?’
‘Stonily.’
‘Hah,’ she said instinctively then blushed. ‘Sorry. That’s not very charitable, is it?’
‘But entirely justifiable.’
The conspiratorial smile deepened and his eyes kind of twinkled and her head began to swim at the realisation that for the first time in longer than she could remember someone was wholly on her side. He’d been on her side. Pretty much all evening.
So determinedly putting Samantha and her cronies from her mind, Zoe took a deep breath and braced herself because they might not be worth wasting her energy on but Dan very possibly might be.
‘Look, Dan,’ she said, sounding far cooler than she felt with all the stuff hurtling round inside her, ‘would you like to go for a proper drink or get a bite to eat or something?’