in front of him, my ankle gave way and I had no choice but to grab him by the shoulders from behind in an invasive bear hug to avoid going down like the Lusitania.
“Oh, shit…I mean, darn. Wow, sorry,” I stammered, righting myself and almost knocking him off balance. He braced himself against the table with one hand, and pushed my hip hard with the palm of his other so I’d be upright again. I must have looked like one of those tall-haired, vinyl blow-up dolls waving wildly outside of car dealerships. “Oh, man, I’m just so sorry. Seriously…just, well, apologies,” I said as I turned on my heel, slinking off to look for Posy.
As I turned to make my getaway, he expertly caught my wrist in his hand and spun me gracefully back around to face him as though we’d been taking pre-wedding dance lessons together for months. It left me breathless. I pretended it didn’t.
“I’m not sorry. Who are you?” he demanded loudly in his broad-voweled Mid-Atlantic accent, Grecian-blue eyes boring into mine like he owned me. I got the feeling he thought he owned everything he laid eyes on. Those same eyes then took the liberty of skimming my cleavage, (hoisted up and presented in an Agent Provocateur bra), my hips, and the outline of my legs in the filmy dress, only to come back up to rest on my lips. He was still holding my wrist tightly, and the edge of his wedding band pressed into the bone. After Stephen, I’d been working hard on never again letting a man control me. Sure, I could be a servant, but I had tonight off.
That didn’t stop my body from betraying me. When his eyes left my lips and came back to meet mine, they were searching for an answer to more questions than “Who are you?” Oh my God. My brain ricocheted off the inside of my skull. He wants to have sex with me. I hadn’t had sex since Stephen. In fact, I hadn’t had sex before Stephen, so imagining a strange man wanted me for sex and sex only sent me reeling. My belly dissolved into hot liquid and my breathing went shallow and quickened. For God’s sake, Juliet, I admonished myself. Pull it together. He was the worst kind of man in my book and the champagne had obviously clouded my judgment. To him, you’re a cross between a cater-waiter and a call girl. He must be ten years older than you are. Just like Stephen. Angry with myself, I directed it at this American and answered him.
“I’m really nobody. Nobody you need to know,” I said flatly, extending my spine ballerina-style and making a point of looking down at him. He’s slightly shorter than I am. I felt like I was in a play that I hadn’t rehearsed. “Again, very sorry. Goodbye.”
With all the concentration I could muster, I turned and walked away without tripping or wavering. This was a monumental feat considering A) I was drunk, B) I was hopped-up on pheromones, and C) the waves of light projected over the floor made me feel swimmy. I could feel him watching me leave and was careful to keep my behind in check, with no hint of swishing or swaying. From the corner of my eye, I saw a man pull himself up from a violently red love seat shaped like a pair of fish’s lips, lankily extend himself to full height and cross the room to fall in step with me.
“Have a nice trip?” the stranger teased.
I was in no mood for laddish pranking. Wanting to get out of there, I searched the room for Posy. I spotted her holding court in the far diagonal corner near a tank of sea turtles. There was a teenage boy, and old man, and a Fran Lebowitz lookalike, all hanging on her every word. I arrowed toward them, the stranger still walking shoulder-to-shoulder with me.
“Go away,” I said, not even turning to look at him. I had dropped my party manners a while back and since he wasn’t being nice, I didn’t feel the need to be, either.
“You’re American?”
“None of your business,” I said.
“I saw the whole thing back there,” he said, cornering me against a shiny, chrome room divider. It was cool on my bare shoulders. “You have to admire the old Casanova. And I suppose, you, too. I’m tough in the courtroom, but I don’t have the bollocks to put Jasper Roth in his place.”
Jasper Roth, I thought to myself, filing away the name. I’ve read about him. “Don’t you have anything better to do than watch me?” I asked my pest. “In some circles, you’d get arrested for that.”
“’Fraid not, my ladyfriend has abandoned me for the social climbing, leaving me to the Miniature Feasts. I was told there’d be a meal…I’ve popped about 200 of those little bites into my mouth and I’m still ravenous. All the waiters know my name and I believe their managers have given them instructions to stop feeding me. I’m like one of those seals on the flat-screens behind you, barking and clapping for morsels. Nothing bite-sized about a nice big girl like you, though, is there?”
I raised my hand, thinking of giving him a slap in the face when I realized he wasn’t criticizing me, he was eyeballing me with appreciation. “I love a woman my height,” he said sincerely, though in fact, he was about two inches taller than I was, even in my heels. “I also like a bit of meat on the bones. There’s something cold and hard about these rich, skinny chicks.” He nodded in the direction of a pinched-looking stickbug in a gown that cost more than my car, whom I took to be his ladyfriend. “Like bedding down with a bicycle.”
Despite myself, I relaxed and took him in. Nice smile, slim, in a well-cut suit with crisp white shirt and no tie, Gucci loafers, hair thinning a bit on top but appropriately cut, very short with perfectly fashionable sideburns, and…his eyes. One was brown and the other was blue. I’d never seen anything like it except once in an Australian herding dog and I couldn’t stop staring.
He leaned in and whispered, “I’d kill for a massive plate of pasta bolognese, smothered with an unseemly amount of grated Parmesan cheese.” Face to face, he had the nerve to push his knee ever-so-slightly in between my legs. Looking back on it, it wasn’t exactly a promising start if I was looking for a stable, marrying type, since he was there with a date. Maybe it was all the French wine, or possibly the residual humming in my cells left over from the electricity between Jasper Roth and me. Or, maybe a small part of me had wanted a one-night stand with a powerful married man, but this seemed more honorable. None of it mattered. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “You’re in luck. I’m the best chef in London. Your kitchen or mine?”
****
“Still deckin’ the halls,” Barry said to me, coming back through the entrance from the pantry to the kitchen with a fresh armload of branches. I didn’t turn around from my pot. “If you have anything that needs deckin’, let ol’ Barry know.”
I turned around and started after him with my spoon. He swung through the oak door, quickly. That swinging door played a huge role in my life at The Hall. When it opened, there was a corner of the vast, cherrywood farmhouse kitchen table that those in the adjacent dining room and hallway – namely the family and their guests – would get a glimpse of. Whatever was on the corner of the table would signify what was going on in the kitchen. Therefore we staff “planted” items there as a comfort to our employers, a sign that all was well and under control in the kitchen.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу
