it would have stopped at observing the sharply cut grey suit. Instead he now noticed how slender she was. How had he never picked up before on the striking contrast of her double cream skin with her dark hair? The ripe fullness of her lower lip? When you had reason to look past the sensible work image she was unexpectedly cute. He’d been so busy taking her presence for granted he’d failed to notice any of those things.
Maybe this lunchtime wouldn’t be a total waste of time after all. Dealing with her on the phone had been a bad choice. A face-to-face meeting might be a better approach to talking sense into her.
He picked up his drink and crossed the room towards her. His stomach gave a sudden flutter that made him pause briefly en route to the table—then he remembered that it was lunchtime. He was obviously just hungry, and since he was here maybe he should take the chance to grab a sandwich as well as a drink and a smoothing-over session with her. Not that his appetite had been up to much this last week or so.
‘Dan!’
Her eyes widened in surprise as he slid into the seat opposite her and put his drink down on the table. She glanced quickly around the restaurant, presumably for a waiter.
‘Really glad I bumped into you,’ he said. ‘Just wanted to say no hard feelings about the other night.’
A smile touched the corner of her lips, drawing his eyes there. She was wearing a light pink lipstick that gave them a delectable soft sheen.
‘The other night?’ she said.
‘The charity ball.’
‘I hadn’t realised there could be hard feelings,’ she said, toying with her water glass. ‘It was just a work arrangement we had after all, right? Not like I broke off a date, is it?’
She held his gaze steadily and for the first time it occurred to him that it might take a bit more than sweet-talking for him to regain the advantage between them. His own fault, of course. He was judging her by the standards of his usual dates, who seemed to fall over themselves to hang on his every word. Emma was a different ball game altogether. Taking her for granted had been a mistake.
He gestured to the waiter for a menu.
‘How did it go, then?’ she said.
‘How did what go?’ he evaded.
‘The charity ball?’ she said. ‘No-expenses-spared Mayfair hotel, wasn’t it? Who did you take?’
‘Eloise,’ he said shortly.
She had to bring it up, didn’t she? When what he’d really like would be to erase the entire evening from history.
‘Which one’s that?’
She cranked her hand in a come-on gesture and looked at him expectantly until he elaborated.
‘She’s a leg model,’ he said. ‘You know—tights, stockings, that kind of thing.’
The woman had the best legs in the business. Unfortunately she was entirely defined by that one physical feature. Tact, sense and reliability didn’t come into it.
‘Did you make any new contacts?’ Emma said. ‘Normally charity bashes are great for networking, aren’t they? Perfect opportunity for a shared goal, loads of rich businessmen?’
‘Normally they are,’ he said. ‘But normally I have you with me, oozing tact and diplomacy and class.’
It had been kind of hard to hold a professional conversation with Eloise’s arms wound constantly around his neck like a long-legged monkey. The one time he had begun to make headway with a potential client she’d returned from the bar with two flutes of pink champagne and positioned herself between them by sitting on his lap.
He watched Emma carefully, to see if his compliment had hit its mark, and was rewarded with the lightest of rosy blushes touching her high cheekbones. Hah! Not so easily dismissed after all. A proper in-depth talk about her whirlwind plans and he was confident he could sow a few seeds of doubt. From there it would be a short step to convincing her to stay put, reinstating their working agreement, getting things back to normal.
He was giving her a quick follow-up smile when he realised her eyes were actually focused somewhere over his shoulder and the blush had nothing to do with him. A wide smile lit up her face and suddenly she was on her feet, being drawn into a kiss by a tall blond man with a deep golden tan and perfect white teeth. No matter that he was wearing a sharply cut designer suit and an open-necked silk shirt instead of clinging Lycra cycling shorts and a helmet. He was instantly recognisable—by Dan and by the room at large.
Alistair Woods was on the premises.
The surrounding tables suddenly appeared to be filled with rubberneckers. Clearly basking in the attention, he offered a wave and a nod of greeting to the tables either side of them before sitting down—as if he was a film star instead of a has-been athlete. Dan felt an irrational lurch of dislike for the guy, whom he’d never met before but who clearly made Emma brim with happiness.
Jealous? his mind whispered.
He dismissed the thought out of hand. This wasn’t about jealousy. Emma was clearly star-struck and on the brink of making a rash decision that could ruin her working life and her personal life before you could say yellow jersey. If anything, he would be doing her a favour by bringing her back down to earth.
‘Alistair, this is Dan,’ Emma said, taking her seat again, her hand entwined in Alistair’s. ‘Dan, this is Alistair Woods.’
She glanced pointedly at Dan.
‘Dan happened to be here meeting someone,’ she said. ‘He just came over to say hello.’
She didn’t want him to join them. It couldn’t be clearer.
‘Heard a lot about you, friend,’ Alistair said in a strong American accent, stretching in his seat. ‘You’re the platonic plus-one, right?’
Of all the qualities he possessed that Emma could choose to reference him by she’d chosen that. Just great.
‘Did you get my phone message?’ Emma asked Alistair eagerly. ‘I know it means rejigging our plans a little, but I just can’t let my brother down. It’s his wedding day. And it’ll be a good chance for you to meet my family.’
She was taking Alistair to Adam’s civil partnership ceremony?
Dan felt a deep and lurching stab of misplaced envy at the thought of this guy slotting neatly into his recently vacated place—fake though it might have been—in regard to Emma’s family. OK, so they were opinionated and mouthy, and in her mother’s case that translated as being downright bigoted at times, but he’d never felt anything but welcomed by them, and their simple mad chaos had been something he’d enjoyed.
An unhappy flash of his own childhood rose in his mind. His mother, hardly more than a child herself. No father—at least not in any way that mattered to a kid. Plenty of ‘uncles’, though. He hadn’t been short of those. And plenty of random babysitters—friends of his mother’s, neighbours, hardly the same person twice. What he wouldn’t have given for an interfering nosy mother at the age of thirteen, when babysitters had no longer been required and he’d been considered old enough to be left home alone.
