Not that her underwear should matter. Because this was just dinner – right?
She looked at her reflection in the scroll-edged upright mirror. Her hair had behaved itself for once, the unruly waves lying softly over one shoulder.
Did she really think a man like him, on his own for the night in a luxury hotel, would ask a girl he didn’t know to dinner with nothing more in mind than eating a meal? Her stomach gave a slow and delicious flip at the thought and she pressed her hands hard against it to make it stop. Rubbish. Why the hell was she reading any more into it than just dinner? And wasn’t it irrelevant anyway? What mattered was the alternative – sitting alone in the restaurant at a table for two surrounded by couples playing footsie.
Whether he expected something in return or not, she didn’t have to give it. She could have dinner with him, enjoy an evening of flirting and then walk away with her self-esteem happily boosted.
Unless she wanted more.
Item nine on her GET-OVER-THE-BASTARD LIST pranced through her mind. Don’t get even, get even better…
She sat down hard on the bed. Where had that come from? By the time they reached the end of compiling the list, she and Shauna had been pretty drunk. A one-night-stand had been added as more of a laugh than anything, because of course they both knew that Izzy Shaw didn’t do that kind of thing.
She shook her head lightly to clear it. Dinner didn’t have to lead anywhere. She was safe, dependable play-by-the-rules Izzy. Impetuous flings with strangers were not part of that remit.
Because of course that remit had really worked for her in the past. Not.
The fluttering in her stomach was back with a vengeance.
****
A tiny heart-shaped chocolate made up the centrepiece of each place setting in the candlelit dining room, soft piano played in the background and the set menu was a special romance-themed selection.
Oliver stared at the pink embossed menu, eyebrows raised.
‘Romantic Getaway Three Course Menu For Two…’ he read.
Her cheeks felt a little too warm and she didn’t look up. Instead she picked up her heart-shaped chocolate and dropped it into her purse. After a pause, she added his chocolate too. With no need to diet ever again, she could scoff them at leisure.
‘Like I said, it’s a package deal break. Dinner, bed and breakfast for one all-in price.’
Oliver beckoned the waiter and issued swift orders for a bottle of champagne and the standard menu while she tried to control the mad squiggling in her stomach.
‘Like I said, sod the knocked-down package break.’ The waiter returned and handed her the full restaurant menu. ‘Choose whatever you like.’
****
Oliver watched her as she tucked into the main course of roasted sea bass with celeriac and truffle with obvious enjoyment. She’d finished every bite of the starter, too. He liked her uninhibited delight in the food. And he liked her relaxed outfit. She wore her hair loose, and just a touch of makeup highlighted the grey-green eyes and long eyelashes. Her lips looked peachily softer than ever with a touch of gloss. He was used to high maintenance – glossy, manicured women who picked at their food and obsessed about their appearance. So used to it in fact that it had become the norm. Being with her was like eating a sharp sorbet after a very cloying main meal.
‘You said this place is convenient for work,’ she said, between mouthfuls. ‘What is it that you do?’
‘I’m a lawyer,’ he said. ‘I travel a lot, but I’m based in London. This hotel is close to my office.’
She frowned.
‘Why the need for a hotel then, if you live in the city? Don’t you keep a house here?’
He thought of his beautiful new house, supposed to be finished a week ago to a stunningly high spec. His irritation at the delay seemed to have dissipated a little in her company.
‘I have a house, bought it a few months ago, in Highgate.’
He didn’t miss the brief widening of her eyes. Highgate was one of the most exclusive and beautiful suburbs of the city.
‘Lucky you,’ she said.
‘I would be, if I could move into the damn place,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s been gutted and refurbished from scratch,’ he said. ‘The whole thing needed stripping back. So redecorating, floors laid, kitchen and bathroom installation, everything. I’ve been away because of work so I’ve missed the worst of the disruption. It was meant to be finished a week ago. That’s why I’m staying here, because my building team have overrun.’
‘Do you have a project manager?’
He shook his head.
‘I’m in control of it myself.’
‘That’s why it’s overrun then,’ she said. ‘It would be like me handing over the plans for a garden and just letting the project cruise along rudderless. Things just don’t get done sometimes if you’re not there to kick butt.’
The implication that the delay was down to him irked a little and he made himself ignore it. To be fair, she had a point. He might have total focused control over his work but leaving things to chance in any other area of his life was clearly also a bad move.
‘It should be finished in a day or two,’ he said. ‘And it’ll be great to have somewhere to stay that feels like home,’ he said. ‘When I’m in London at least.’
‘So you stay in hotels a lot then. For work?’
He thought he picked up a slight edge to her tone, but her face hadn’t changed.
He nodded.
‘I’m pretty good at living out of a suitcase. After a while it becomes second nature, luggage gets pared down, you start to use the same places in the same cities. It gets to be a way of life.’
‘Doesn’t it get lonely, being away like that?’
Something in that sentence touched him, and he paused for a moment to sip his drink and rationalise it. Loneliness was just a word. It meant focus and drive. It was a positive not a negative if you wanted success. And he could always find company if he wanted it, a non-committal brief encounter was easy to come by on the international hotel circuit.
‘It helps if you like your own company,’ he said. ‘Sometimes you come across the same work contacts. It varies. Sometimes you meet new people. It doesn’t have to be isolated if you don’t want it to be.’
She sat back a little in her seat, her gaze holding his, a hint of knowing in the grey-green eyes that he couldn’t fathom.
‘Like tonight, you mean. Like me.’
He
