tell me you’ve been bulk buying them as presents for all your female relations?’
‘Thus saving on time, effort and shoe leather? Isn’t that what you advised?’
‘Not quite.’
Somehow he had known that there would be precious few Brownie points for admitting to such a lack of imagination. The truth at least had the virtue of being surprising. ‘No, well, actually, I bought that copy for myself.
‘Oh, sure,’ she said. ‘You’re a new man through and through.’
Her scepticism was beginning to irritate him. ‘The idea amuses you?’
‘You don’t really expect me to believe that you cook for yourself, Nick?’
‘Men have to eat too, you know.’
‘In my experience they usually manage that by getting some poor woman to cook for them.’
‘Really?’ Some of the women who had wanted to cook for him had been a long way from poor, but he didn’t think she was referring to their fiscal status. He wondered why she so despised domesticated women. Did she think they were letting the feminist side down? ‘Maybe you should try a better class of man,’ he advised.
‘Is that an invitation?’
‘An invitation?’
Without thinking he stood back to let her precede him through the door. She didn’t appear to notice this lapse or, if she did, she let it go, but once she was in the corridor she stopped and turned to face him.
‘An invitation to dinner, Nick. I’ve never met a man who could cook before. To be honest I’m still not sure that I believe you can—but I’m prepared to be convinced. I’m free on Thursday evening, if you’ve a space in your diary?’
Not by so much as the twitch of a muscle did Nick betray his surprise. Was that all it took to melt the ice-lady? A little home cooking? Or was it simply that she couldn’t resist the opportunity to catch him out in a lie? Did she think he’d wriggle and squirm to get out of it?
‘Well, there’s an evening track meeting at Crystal Palace that I’m supposed to attend. We’re sponsoring one of the events.’ He waited while her face arranged itself into the superior kind of smile that suggested she had expected some feeble excuse. Then he shrugged and grinned. ‘But I don’t imagine I’ll have any trouble finding someone to go in my place. Shall I pick you up at around eight?’
It was her turn to be surprised, but if she was she didn’t let it show either. ‘Won’t you be occupied with your sauces?’ she asked, making a little stirring gesture.
Frankly, he hadn’t a clue. He had no idea what making a sauce entailed, but he knew it couldn’t be difficult—his mother could do it for heaven’s sake.
‘I won’t know until I’ve decided what to cook. Perhaps I’d better send a car for you.’
Her enigmatic look faltered slightly as she realised that he was serious. Then she lifted one elegantly clad shoulder a fraction of an inch. ‘At eight? Why not? What have I got to lose?’
‘Your waistline?’ he suggested, recalling Cassie’s comments about calories.
She gave him a disbelieving look before returning his book and heading for the meeting, one hundred per cent businesswoman again, her entire being focused on the launch of a new line in ladies’ golfing equipment.
Yet once when he looked up from the projected sales figures he was quoting to the team he caught her looking at him, her forehead creased in a slightly puzzled frown, and it was all he could do to stop himself from smiling.
Every woman had a weak spot. Even if it was only the desire to see a man make a fool of himself. He wondered about Cassie Cornwell and what her weak spot was. Not that kind of cynicism, he was prepared to bet any amount of money. She had the kind of eyes that would melt at a litter of puppies. Or the sight of snow falling on Christmas morning. Or a new baby grasping at her finger...
‘Nick?’
He started at the sound of his name and glanced up to discover half a dozen pairs of eyes looking up at him expectantly. It took a moment to clear the appealing image of Cassie Cornwell and puppies and Christmas in front of a log fire from his brain. What did it was the distinctly predatory look he surprised in Veronica Grant’s eyes.
It was a momentary expression, almost instantly replaced by the cool, slightly distant look she normally adopted. He might have imagined it. But it gave him the uncomfortable feeling that she wasn’t in the least bit taken in by his ‘new man’ act. And that if she caught him out in a lie he’d never be allowed to forget it.
Cassie had been cooking since she was old enough to stand on a chair and knead a piece of dough at her mother’s side and she always found the beating, the kneading, the careful combining of ingredients as she prepared a favourite recipe therapeutic.
But ever since she had turned down Nick Jefferson’s invitation to lunch nothing, not even the creation of a new pasta dish, had been able to shake her of the conviction that she had made a mistake. And it infuriated her. She slammed down the dough on the work surface in her kitchen and proceeded to take her feelings out on it. Nick Jefferson was not her kind of man and never would be. In a hundred years. And she certainly wasn’t his kind of woman.
His kind of woman was tall as a tree, with sucked-in cheeks and a bone structure that showed. The kind of woman who lived on carrot juice and a few leaves of lollo rosso. The kind of woman who wouldn’t dare to take three boisterous boys on a visit to an ice-cream factory in case the calories somehow managed to seep in through her pores. Remembering the hard work she’d had to put in at the gym afterwards, she had to admit that it was a distinct possibility.
She’d certainly be a woman with more sense than to offer to take those same three boys camping...
And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, her brother-in-law had ridiculed the campsite she had picked out...the one with civilised plumbing, hot showers, a swimming pool and a camp store as well as organised activities with trained counsellors...
‘That’s not camping, that’s a holiday camp,’ Matt had scoffed. And her heart had sunk like an undercooked sponge as she had listened to his rose-coloured memories of his own boyhood camping trips. He had waxed lyrical about how they had fished and canoed and swum naked as the sun came up. And Mike and Joe and little George had listened too. At least Joe and George had. She had seen their ecstatic little faces absorbing every last detail. Mike had been quieter. She was worried about Mike.
‘You can’t expect my sister to take the boys somewhere like that,’ Lauren interjected irritably. ‘We’ll have to take them with us to Portugal.’
Matt had no trouble in equalling his wife’s irritation. ‘I thought the whole point of this holiday was to get away from the children...’ Mike got up and left the room. ‘Mike!’
‘Oh, let him go,’ Lauren said. ‘Having him around is like living with a permanent headache.’
Cassie glanced after the boy, wondering if he’d heard. But it was her sister who was worrying her most. She had a pinched look about her mouth and angry eyes. She was looking for
