to catch her unawares, but he’d bet her surprise was no match for his own at seeing her sitting there. From what he’d learned from his time working for her, Ms Frost had never joined in with the daily staff meal. She’d preferred to keep a professional distance by eating alone in her office, and, with her fearsome reputation as an ice queen, the staff had been only too happy not to have her spoiling their appetites.
Although he wouldn’t go so far as to say the scene in front of him now painted a picture of perfect, cosy contentment, things had obviously started to change since she’d returned to work after the attack. Maybe, with both sides showing a bit more understanding and compassion for the other, Annabel’s frosty outer layers were starting to thaw.
Approaching the table, Aidan said hello to old faces including sweet-natured Donna, the waitress, Jon, the junior barman, and Stu, who’d been taken on as Aidan’s permanent replacement.
‘How come you’ve been such a stranger?’ Tim asked with a theatrical pout as he retook his seat and swiped a hunk of crusty bread around his bowl to collect the last of the thick dark sauce clinging to the sides. ‘You haven’t been in to see us once since you left. Have you moved back to Ireland already and become Lord of the Pile, or do you just not love us any more?’
In his peripheral vision, Aidan could see Annabel still sitting as if frozen. From the moment they’d first met, she’d made it clear that one of her rules was never to mix her business and personal life. What’s more, she’d particularly disapproved of workplace attachments. As a gambling man, he’d found the challenge of trying to make her break her own rules irresistibly attractive, of course, and had relished every moment of the campaign he’d undertaken to make it happen. Some of the tactics he’d employed had been far from fair, he’d be the first to admit, but, no matter how dirty he’d been prepared to play in private, he’d always respected her need for professional discretion. Was their relationship still her guilty little secret, he wondered, even though their circumstances had now changed?
‘Lord of the Rubble Pile, maybe,’ he said. ‘And no, I haven’t moved back yet, but I’ve not been in London much either. Getting this renovation project off the ground hasn’t left me with much time for anything but filling out forms and jumping through planning hoops.’
‘Then sit with us for a moment, mon ami,’ Anton Dubois, Cluny’s award-winning head chef, invited in his thick French accent. He reached to take the lid off a large casserole dish in the centre of the table with a flourish. ‘Have some bourguignon and tell us all your news.’
Aidan shook his head in regret. ‘As delicious as it looks and smells, no, thanks. I’m actually on my way to catch a flight back to Cork now. I had to stop by to see Annabel about something.’ They didn’t need to know that the something was, in fact, nothing; that, rather than heading straight to the airport as he’d intended, he’d given in to a compulsion to come by for no other reason than to see her before taking off for Ireland.
Annabel all but leaped to her feet. ‘Why don’t you come through to the office?’ she said, looking eager to hustle him out of there.
Leaving the rest of the staff to finish their meal, he followed as she took off towards the kitchens as fast as the narrow fit of her pencil skirt would allow. It had been a week since their reconciliation, and during those seven days they’d managed to meet a few times, though not nearly as often as he’d have liked. Trying to work a social life around the long shifts typical of the restaurant trade was bad enough, but with someone as driven as Annabel – who worked over and above what was expected in order to keep up with her own exacting standards – it was harder yet. Still, determined as he was to stick to his promise of dating her properly, he’d managed to pin her down one morning for an early brunch, taken her to a movie on her night off and, as a chance to grab some precious time together before he had to head back to Ireland today, he’d met her for a nightcap at the end of her shift last night.
What they hadn’t managed to do at any point in the week was spend another entire night together. Following the nightmare incident at her place, Annabel had thrown out all sorts of excuses as a way of ensuring they’d both ended up sleeping alone each night in their respective beds. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was actively avoiding the situation for fear of risking a repeat performance.
Ahead of him, she pushed through the doors into the kitchens without breaking her stride. Once he was through, leaving the doors to swing to behind him, Aidan closed the distance between them and reached out to rest his hand at the small of her back as he fell into step beside her.
Annabel sprang away from the touch as though jabbed with a hot poker.
‘Not here,’ she muttered, casting a look back over her shoulder. ‘What if someone sees?’
Well, there was his answer to the question of guilty secrets, then. He tried not to take it personally. ‘Ashamed of me?’ he teased.
‘No.’ Annabel cast him a flustered look. ‘It’s … it doesn’t feel comfortable.’
It was hard to keep remembering that even relatively casual gestures of affection were alien to her. While Annabel was no stranger to sexual encounters, she’d never been in a romantic relationship with a man. It felt good to know he’d get to be her first.
Her only, a growling echo emanated from the man-cave set in the deep recesses of his brain. He quickly blocked, in case any further club-swinging, chest-beating thoughts tried to escape.
‘It doesn’t feel comfortable because you’re not used to it.’ Which was something he intended to rectify. Starting now. He caught her hand and tightened his grip when her automatic reaction was to pull away.
Finding that she was unable to wrench herself free, Annabel settled for picking up speed and towing him across the kitchen instead. ‘Maybe. But I don’t think this is the place for it. Not at work. Not in front of the staff.’
‘Why not? Why shouldn’t they know you’re a normal human being?’ Aidan asked as she rushed him with small, scissoring steps through the rear doorway into the hallway leading to the staff room and her office. ‘I have nothing to do with the place any more, so there’s no threat to your authority, no reason not to have a relationship outside your business life.’
Before she could continue to find points to argue, he decided to nip the issue in the bud. Using his superior strength he pulled her to a stop and swung her to face him. ‘The bottom line is, I like touching you, Annabel. I like it very much. So you’re going to have to find a way to get used to it.’
He meant to reinforce his words with appropriate action right there and then, but before he could gather her close she dodged out of his reach and employed some strength of her own to tug him from the hallway and into the office. She rounded on him then. ‘There’s a time and place for it – preferably private on both counts.’
Private? Now that they were in this room he had the perfect solution to that. ‘How about we go down into the cellar?’ He inclined his head towards the locked door set in the wall behind her desk. ‘Just you and me and your tights. You are wearing tights, I presume?’ When he went to close the distance between them, she stepped backwards. Keeping hold of her hand, he began stalking her retreat across the room. ‘We already know it’s private enough down there that I could do anything I wanted to you.’ Annabel gave ground to his advance until she was backed up against her desk, trapped. He kept moving until there was not so much as an inch of space separating them. Then he released her hand, grasped her by the upper arms and held her firm. ‘Would you like that?’
He saw her wet her lips and swallow before
