‘Shall we carry on with our evening? Seeing as it’ll probably be the last?’ She kept smiling and chatting as she busied herself adding the final touches to their meal. She wanted him to keep asking and yet she knew that her answer would be the same however much he asked. She felt his dark eyes on her and her body tingled and burned, but when she finally turned to look at him, she was still smiling and there was nothing there to give her pain away.
Nico was sitting at his desk three days later, frustrated with himself because things couldn’t have been more normal between them and yet the normality, which he should have welcomed, felt like a shard of glass that wouldn’t leave him alone. He looked at her down-bent head as she did what she always did, made notes on her iPad of things to do, and he pictured her naked beneath him...on top of him...looking at him over her shoulder...her cool eyes turning him on in ways he’d never been turned on in his life before.
When she wasn’t in his presence, he thought of her. He couldn’t concentrate. Images of her kept surfacing, interrupting him when he was desperate to focus. It got on his nerves.
Was this preoccupation of his to do with the fact that she had been the one to end things?
Surely he couldn’t bethatshallow?Thatself-centred?
They hadn’t slept together after she’d told him to get lost. On the surface, they’d reverted to what they had been before, two people with a successful working relationship. The boss and his secretary. Gradually, conversation had returned to work and the passion they’d shared had been papered over.
By the time they’d touched down in London, it had felt as though the intimacy that had been so real had vanished like dew in the summer sun.
He swivelled his chair to stare through the window and was frowning and gazing out when he heard her clear her throat.
‘Am I interrupting?’
Nico swung the chair round, pushed it back and resisted the urge to scowl. Instead, he bared his teeth in something resembling a smile. A ferocious, slightly terrifying smile.
Naturally the frothy summer clothes had gone. She was back to the serious stuff. Today was a pale grey knee-length skirt and a white cotton top and a cardigan, which she had yet to remove even though it was mid-afternoon and the office was warm.
Hestillwanted to touch her. Hestillhad an insane urge to rip off the prim and proper layers and get to her nakedness, feel her bare body, her nipples, the dip of her belly button. Hestillwanted to hear her whimper as he got between her legs and teased her with his tongue.
He emphaticallydidn’twant to hear her ask him about some legality on some merger of some company.
‘Not at all,’ he drawled, vaulting upright and moving towards the pale leather sofa where his jacket had been tossed earlier in the day. ‘It’s Friday. It’s been a roller coaster couple of weeks. I suggest we both knock off early.’
He paused and wondered whether she would pick up on the ambiguity, but she tilted her head to one side, tucked her hair behind her ears and smiled politely.
‘Have you got exciting plans for this evening? For the weekend?’
‘Not at the moment. But I intend to.’ He slung on the jacket and thought, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, that he could have plans if he chose to pick up the phone to any number of women he knew would happily go out with him wherever he chose to take them.
Hell, why shouldn’t he?
And why shouldn’t she know what his plans were?
Hadn’t they returned to their previous working relationship? The one where she knew him like the back of her hand? The one where she knew what all his plans were because she arranged them on his behalf?
‘See if you can get me a table for two tomorrow at that little French restaurant I like in Pimlico, would you?’ He didn’t look at her. He looked at his phone, began scrolling through it.
‘French restaurant?’
‘You know the one. Candles and vases of flowers on the tables and waiters with French accents pretending they don’t understand a word of English.’
Grace knew the one.
Of course, he wouldn’t have waited long before he picked up where he’d left off with his fan club. He was a guy who moved on. She knew that but it didn’t help. Every pore and fibre in her body hurt with a pain that was indescribable. She smiled with frozen politeness and nodded.
‘What time?’
‘Hmm...’ He glanced at his Rolex. ‘Eight sounds about right. We can loosen up with a drink at the pub opposite before.’ He dealt her a slashing smile. She returned with a brilliant, thousand-wattage one of her own.
‘And you? Hectic weekend fun?’
Grace hesitated.
She would be seeing Tommy the following evening.