um, lovely.’
‘But?’
Obviously it was written all over her face. She gave him a rueful smile. ‘I was just wondering why you’d bought me flowers.’
‘Because I’m feeling guilty about being late,’ he said.
Even if he said no to helping her, at least this late meeting had thawed the ice between them. And she was grateful for that.
‘I bought them from the supermarket on the way home from the office. Sorry I’m late,’ he said again.
‘It’s not a problem. You gave me as much notice as you could. Come and sit down in the dining room; dinner’s almost ready. You’ve obviously had a tough day.’
‘You could say that.’ He didn’t elaborate, and Emmy wasn’t sure enough of herself to push him.
She poured him a glass of wine, then served dinner.
He frowned. ‘This is a bit posh. And we normally eat in the kitchen. Is it some sort of special occasion? Your birthday?’
‘No-o,’ she hedged. ‘I just wanted to make a bit of an effort, that was all.’
Except the second she took her first mouthful she realised that something had gone wrong. Really, really wrong. Instead of the nice, tender fish she’d expected, it was rubbery and tough, and the potato cakes she’d made were a bit too crisp at the edges.
‘Oh, no—I’m sure I followed the recipe to the letter. I must’ve had the oven up too high or something.’
But Dylan didn’t look annoyed, just rueful. ‘Well, it looked nice.’
‘And it tastes vile.’ She grimaced. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t worry. Tell you what—get rid of this, and I’ll order us pizza.’ He took his mobile phone out of his pocket and tapped in a number.
She took their plates to the kitchen and scraped the food into the bin. Right then, she wanted to burst into tears. She’d ruined dinner. How could she ask him a favour now?
‘Hey, it could easily have happened when I was cooking. Don’t worry about it,’ he said, coming into the kitchen to join her.
She wasn’t worried about the food.
When she didn’t reply, he rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘Emmy, what’s wrong?’
She took a deep breath. ‘I was going to ask you a favour. I can’t now.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because, instead of giving you a decent dinner, I served you something disgusting.’
He waved a dismissive hand. ‘It’s not a problem, Emmy—though maybe in future it might be an idea to stick to stuff you actually know how to cook?’
‘I guess so,’ she said ruefully.
‘So what did you want to ask me?’
She squirmed. ‘There isn’t an easy way to ask.’
‘Straight out will do.’
‘I got a call from one of the big glossy magazines. They want to do a feature on up-and-coming British jewellery designers and they want to interview me.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ he asked.
‘Ye-es.’
‘But?’
She sighed. ‘But they want me to make some jewellery and their deadline’s massively tight. My guess is that someone dropped out at the last minute and I was a second choice, and I think there are another two designers they’ve asked as well, so there’s no guarantee I’ll be included anyway.’
‘But they still asked you, and that’s the main thing. How tight is the deadline?’
This was the deal-breaker, she knew. ‘They’ve asked me to create something totally new for them. So I need to spend the next four days working solidly to get the pieces made on time for their shoot.’
‘So you need me to take over Tyler’s care for the next four days?’
She nodded. ‘But you had an emergency project meeting tonight, so you’re clearly up to your eyes and it’s not doable.’
‘I can delegate.’
‘I’ll just have to pass and ask if they’d consider me in the future. If I tell them about Ty, maybe then they’ll be understanding and won’t think I’m too lazy and just making up feeble excuses.’
He placed a finger over her mouth, making her skin tingle. ‘Emmy, were you listening? I said I’d do it. I’ll delegate.’
* * *
Her eyes went huge. ‘Really?’
‘Really,’ he said softly.
Then he dropped his hand, before he did anything stupid—like moving it to cup her cheek and dip his head to kiss her. That kiss was still causing him to wake up at stupid o’clock in the morning and wonder what would happen if he did it again. He needed to keep a lid on his attraction towards Emmy. Now.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I—well, I feel bad about asking. Four days is a lot.’
‘This is your big break, Emmy. And we’re a team. Of course I’ll do it.’
‘Thank you.’
He couldn’t resist teasing her. ‘I will be exacting repayment, of course.’
Then he wished he hadn’t said it when she blushed. Because now all sorts of things were running through his head, and none of them were sensible. All of them involved Emmy naked in his bed. Which would be a very, very bad idea for both of them. Hadn’t he spent the last week or so trying to get his feelings under control and forcing himself to think of her as just his co-guardian?
‘I mean, I want four days off in lieu,’ he said.
She dragged in a shaky breath, and he had the feeling that her thoughts had been travelling along very similar lines to his own. ‘That’s a deal,’ she said.
The doorbell rang, and the pizza delivery boy saved him from saying anything else stupid—such as suggesting they sealed the deal with a kiss. He made sure they had the full width of the kitchen table between them when they sat down to eat. Maybe, just maybe, his common sense would come back and do its usual job once he’d eaten. He needed carbs.
Sharing a house with a woman he knew he shouldn’t be attracted to was turning out to be much harder than he’d expected. Though he knew that at least work was a safe topic. ‘Tell me about the magazine,’ he invited.
‘It’s one of the biggest women’s monthly magazines, glossy and aspirational stuff.’ She smiled. ‘It’s not exactly the kind of
