Now all she had to do was stop thinking about his big body, his mouth and how his hands would feel on her body, on her breasts, between her legs.
Lex pulled up to the blackened windows of the restaurant and peered through the darkness at the small gold plaque on the side of the closed door. Snell’s. It was a good indication that you were a fine-dining restaurant when all you needed as advertising was a twelve-inch black square with gold writing.
‘Thank you,’ Lex told him when she switched the ignition off. She nodded at the restaurant. ‘I hope you have a good meal.’
He looked at her, his expression a little annoyed. ‘What will you do while you are waiting for me?’ he enquired.
In the boot was a bag containing her laptop and her study notes. She’d noticed an all-night café attached to a brightly lit garage on her way in and she’d thought she’d wait there and study until Cole was ready to be picked up. But she was just a car door down from the restaurant entrance and there were security guards outside and at each end of the brightly lit street. She would be perfectly safe waiting for him right there.
‘I’m going to stay here and, when you’re done, I’m going to drive you back to your hotel.’
Because that was her job for now. It wasn’t for ever. In two years she’d have her degree and would look for work in her field. Time flew by quickly and, one day, working as a chauffeur—and as a maid and as a coffee barista...she’d done both—would be a distant memory.
‘One of the reasons I hate having a chauffeur is that I loathe knowing people are waiting around for me,’ Cole muttered. He undid his seat belt and Lex reached for her door handle, about to hop out and run around the car to open the door for him. His hand on her arm stopped her progress and she felt an electrical buzz skitter up her arm. ‘I’ve agreed to you driving me, but if you open one door for me I will fire you.’
Her lips twitched, amused and surprised by his lack of snobbery. She tipped her head to the side, knowing this was a battle she wouldn’t win. ‘I’m going to get out of the car and get a laptop bag from the boot,’ she told him. She lifted her hands in mock surrender. ‘I promise I won’t come anywhere near your door.’
‘Smarty pants,’ Cole muttered. ‘Stay there.’
Since the heavens were dripping again—this time it was a fine, persistent drizzle—Lex opted to wait in her warm seat, and within a minute Cole opened her door and dumped her laptop bag in her lap. ‘Will you be okay?’ he asked. Lex swallowed at the concern in his voice. When had someone, outside of her sisters, last wondered whether she’d be alright? She couldn’t actually remember.
She nodded, conscious that the rain was darkening his grey suit to black and dampening the waves in his hair. ‘Cole—sorry, Mr Thorpe—I’ll be fine. Go inside,please.’
He narrowed his eyes at her and poked his index finger into her thigh. ‘Calling me anything but Cole would be another fireable offence.’
All righty, then. Cole slammed her door shut and walked over to the black door, and the security guard whipped it open for him. But, instead of walking inside, he reached for his wallet and pulled out what looked to be a high-denomination note. He nodded at the car, then at her, and when Lex saw the bouncer nodding in agreement as he took Cole’s money she knew she had her own private security guard.
Sweet, she thought. And thoughtful. Two things she hadn’t expected Cole Thorpe to be.
‘Snell’s was voted as the world’s fiftieth best restaurant in 2021,’ Jude said, sitting opposite him.
It was good to be with Jude, Cole decided as he looked around the restaurant, taking in the surprisingly warm industrial space with a busy, open kitchen in the middle of the long restaurant. They’d attended university together in London and Jude had gone on to inherit the Cape Town based Fisher Holdings, a well-respected hospitality and leisure empire.
Cole looked up at the cloud of steel discs hanging from the ceiling, and idly wondered how many of the world’s best restaurants he’d eaten at over the past ten years. Twenty? Thirty? More?
He’d eaten sushi made by the master Jiro Ono at Sukiyabashi Jiro, eaten duck at Noma, Copenhagen, and Massimo Bottura’s ‘Five Ages of Parmigiano Reggiano’ at his restaurant in Modena.
But the worst of it was that he knew, without thought or hesitation, that no meal he’d ever eaten would hold the complexity of Lex’s mouth. She would be, as the French said,bonne bouche, a delicious mouthful. He wanted, more than anything else, to feast on her.
He understood sexual attraction—at thirty-six, he should—but he couldn’t work out how she’d slipped under his skin with such ease. She’d invaded his thoughts and, because he couldn’t stop thinking about her, he felt a little panicky and angsty. And annoyed.
He didn’t have time for distractions, damn it. Why here? Why now? Was his reaction to her a consequence of the stress he’d been under lately and the denial of his revenge against his father? Were his emotions, frustration and disappointment, leaking out of the steel vault he’d locked them into and masquerading as need and interest? It had been such a weird time lately that anything was possible.
Not recognising himself, frustrated by his strange thoughts—he never gave any woman this much space in his head, ever—he tossed back his whisky. When he opened his eyes, he saw Jude looking from his glass to his face and back to his glass again. ‘Tough few days?’ he asked.
Cole dug his thumb and index finger into his eye sockets, rubbed hard and shook his head. ‘No more than usual,’ he lied. He’d only nearly kissed—ravished—his chauffeur an hour after he’d met her. And, despite never having employed a driver, he now had one.
Jude called the waiter over, ordered the tasting menu and leaned back in his chair, his eyes on Cole’s face. They’d become friendly while playing for the same university based social rugby team seventeen years ago and somehow, despite their insane schedules, had remained friends. As students, they’d taken a skiing holiday every January and they’d kept up the tradition, carving out time to do something they both loved. When they’d been young, they’d saved hard to spend a week on the slopes. These days, they still stayed out all day, alternating between snowboarding and black diamond runs, but instead of returning to a youth hostel they enjoyed private suites and had immediate access to steam rooms and experienced masseurs to work out the kinks seventeen years had put into their muscles.
‘Did you ever get hold of your brother?’ Jude asked.
Cole shook his head. ‘No, and I’ve been told not to expect him to make contact. As I’ve recently discovered, he’s been practising Buddhism for years and often expressed a wish to join a monastery. Nobody took him seriously until he did.’
Jude leaned back in his seat, his narrowed gaze penetrating. ‘Are you very sure you want to get rid of the Thorpe assets, Cole? You are dismantling your family’s century-old business.’
His family—the one he’d never been allowed to be a part of? His first memories were of being confused about why his father wouldn’t pay him any attention, why he only ever focused on Sam. His parents had divorced when he’d been four, and he’d spent his childhood wondering what was wrong with him, and why Sam had got to spend time with their mum while he’d never seen his father.
He’d frequently asked his mum for an explanation and had been told that his father was ‘funny that way’, and that once his mind was made up nothing would change it. When he’d mentally divorced himself from his father, he’d vowed he’d make a fortune to rival that of his father’s, and that he’d do it for himself, by himself. But he’d still craved their attention. What better way to get that than by taking control of their empire?