card without comment. A man had to pay for his pleasure, after all, and flirting with Cassandra Cornwell had certainly been different. Whether he could describe it entirely as a pleasure he couldn’t be sure. Except for that kiss. He hadn’t been kidding about the strawberries.
‘Now, where shall we have lunch?’ he asked Cassie. ‘I’m sure you know all the best places.’
Not as well as he did; she was certain of that. ‘I’m sorry, Nick, I already have a luncheon engagement.’ She offered him her hand without thinking...at least, she hoped she hadn’t been thinking. ‘I do hope your sister enjoys the book.’
‘And what about me?’ He was holding onto her hand again, the pad of his thumb pressed against the backs of her fingers in something close to a caress. Cassie retrieved it quickly. She was twenty-seven years old, well beyond the point in life where she was prepared to become just another entry in any man’s little black book.
‘You’ll never open your book again,’ she said briskly. ‘You’ll just stick it on a shelf somewhere, or maybe it won’t even get that far. Maybe you’ll just go back to your office and give it to your secretary.’
‘Not with that inscription, I won’t.’
‘You didn’t think it appropriate? I’m sorry, Nick. Would you like me to give you your money back?’
‘No.’ Then, as she reached for her bag, he added, ‘I can’t wait to read it more closely.’
‘Nonsense. You’ll hide it away in the bottom drawer of your desk and forget all about it. That would be such a waste when I can find a good home for it.’ She opened her purse and began to extract the money to refund the cost of the book.
Nick closed his hand over hers. ‘Put your money away. I promise I shall take your book home with me this evening and study it with the closest interest. Who knows? Maybe you’ll convert me and I’ll be tempted to cook something.’
‘Be careful you don’t make a complete strawberry fool of yourself, Nick,’ Beth warned him as she returned his card and handed him the books in a bag. ‘Give my best wishes to your mother and don’t wait for Helen’s next birthday before you drop in again. You do have to pass the door every day,’ she reminded him.
‘I won’t,he promised, his gaze ligering momentarily on Cassie. Then he stepped through the door and out into the huge airy atrium that rose through the centre of the building.
‘Whew!’ Cassie said, flopping back in her chair as the door swung shut behind him. And she shook her fingers, blowing on her nails as if scorched.
Beth laughed. ‘You’re a cool one, Cassie. I should think it’s a totally new experience for Nick to be turned down for anything, particularly lunch in some fancy restaurant. ’
‘Then I shall take comfort in the certainty that the experience will be a memorable one for him.’ She smiled slightly. ‘Which is more than can be said for the dish of the day—which is all I would have been if I’d said yes.’
‘I see your point. So who are you lunching with?’
‘You. My treat.’
‘You turned down Nick Jefferson for me? Lady, you need to get your priorities right.’
‘Just because the man makes me sizzle, Beth, doesn’t mean I have to leap onto the plate and hand him the mustard.’
‘He does make you sizzle, then?’
‘Only in the same way as your average movie star.’
‘Oh?’
‘You know. You go to the cinema and while the lights are down he’s all yours. Then you go home. Men are safer that way.’
‘Don’t you find safety a touch boring?’
‘Not at all. Besides, you heard the man. He has an incurable weakness for blondes.’
‘I know. Tall blondes at that. The cool Grace Kelly type. One has just taken up residence in the Jefferson Sports marketing department and I hear the guys are laying odds on how long it will take her to succumb to the Jefferson charm. But do you know something? For all the lovely blondes Nick’s chased and undoubtedly caught in the last few years, he’s never actually been tempted to marry one of them. Doesn’t that tell you something?’
‘That they’re smart?’
‘You’re not that cynical, Cassie.’
‘Oh, yes, I am.’ The onlooker saw more of the game and she’d been an onlooker for long enough to know that she’d made the right decision. But she was human enough to be interested in a little hot gossip. ‘He’s never even come close?’ she asked.
Beth shrugged. ‘He bought a lovely cottage just outside town a few years back and everyone got excited about that, assuming he was going to take the plunge.’
‘And?’
‘It turned out he was having fun with an interior decorator at the time. I suppose she just wanted something to practise on and he was inclined to indulge her. Once she’d finished with the cottage she moved on.’ She grinned. ‘Or maybe he moved her on.’
‘That sounds more likely. After all, why would he bother to marry anyone when he’s having such a good time?’
Beth frowned. ‘Nick isn’t like that.’
‘No?’ Cassie shook her head. ‘He’s a good-looking man, Beth, and maybe he’s as nice as you say, but I like a little more bottom to a man.’
‘Bottom? He has the cutest butt—’
‘Substance. Gravitas,’ Cassie interrupted quickly. ‘Nick Jefferson is a cuckoo. A very charming, very beguiling cuckoo, no doubt, and I can see the way your mind is working. But I’m a swan—so don’t even think about it.’
Beth’s forehead wrinkled up into a frown. ‘A swan?’
‘They mate for life.’ It was an excuse that had served her well enough until now, but her fingers strayed to lips still tingling from that unexpected kiss. Then she saw Beth looking at her with an expression that mingled sympathy with just a touch of exasperation, a look that said five years was long enough to mourn for anyone. ‘I know, I’ll probably end my days talking to my cat,’ she said, quickly, before Beth said it for her.
‘Possibly, but that’s no reason not to have a little fun with the cuckoos, or even the ducks, while you’re waiting for another swan to come along. I imagine swans do look for another mate if the first one... It’s not too late to call Nick back and tell him you’ve changed your mind about lunch—’ She began to move towards the door.
‘Stay right where you are, Beth Winslet. Nick Jefferson is not my kind of man.’
‘He’s every girl’s kind of man,’ Beth said with a grin.
‘Exactly. And he isn’t about to saddle himself with one when he can have the whole gallery, now is he? So, where am I going to take you for lunch?’
Beth continued to challenge her for another
