So whatever had happened between Cassie and her ex business partner must have added deeply to her sense of mistrust. No wonder she was like a hot potato dancing in embers trying to make her business a success. She needed something to believe in. To make something hers. Just hers. ‘I’m sorry, really. Wrong subject?’
‘Understatement of the year. Seems we both have private things we don’t like to discuss during a business meeting, Mr Brennan. I asked you about family because it was relevant. I’m not sure at all why you asked about mine. Now, where’s that bill got to?’ Scraping her chair back, she stood, shot him a wavering business smile and scooted to the door.
* * *
After a debate during which they agreed to split the bill—at her absolute insistence—Jack walked Cassie out on to the busy street. The bare skin on her arms shone in the street light. He’d never really noticed a woman’s skin before, unless it was in front of his camera lens. Or the depth of blue in their eyes. Eyes that darkened to navy with anger, that glittered like a shimmering ocean when she laughed. And now he was thinking like a pathetic poet. While pure irritation shimmered through her.
‘Do you want to get a cab, Cassie? I could drop you off.’
‘No, thanks. I’ll walk. Saves cash and the environment. Look, there’s a taxi coming now—you want it?’ She raised her hand to the oncoming black cab. It slowed towards them. ‘I presume you’ll call me when you’ve spoken to Lizzie?’
‘Of course.’ He’d been wrong about her. He’d thought the scattiness and the sensitivity were signs of weakness. But they were a sideshow. She had steel in that ramrod back and a streak of determination that bordered on reckless.
Nevertheless, he still seriously doubted she could pull off a decent wedding dinner without some sort of major mishap. The jury was still out on whether to take a risk and hire her.
Still, he wasn’t prepared to allow her to walk the London streets on her own in the dark. She might not like it, but that wasn’t under debate. He waved the cab on. ‘Nah, it’s okay. I’ll walk too. You’re on my way.’
‘I’m further down Holland Park Avenue than you and then a little way off the main drag.’
‘You’re only a short detour.’
Her hand slipped to her hip. ‘Seriously, I’m fine. I do this all the time.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t.’ Could she not listen? He knew these streets. He would not let any woman walk home alone. He’d spent far too much time fighting for survival in the adjacent neighbourhood to know the dangers. ‘It’s not safe. I said I’ll walk you.’
‘Stifling much?’ He didn’t need to see her face to know she was rolling her eyes, and the thought of it amused him. ‘It’s fine, Mr Macho. I use knives for a living, remember? I know how to gut and bone and de-vein just about anything that moves. What’ll you do?’ Her eyes flicked to his jeans pocket. ‘Wallet an attacker to death?’
‘What do you know? I have black belt wallet ninja skills.’ And a working knowledge of street fighting. Because he’d had to learn the hard way. Wrong kid, wrong street, wrong background. Every single time. Shifted from pillar to post. From house to house. His face had rarely fitted and he’d had to fight his way out of too many arguments.
But all she saw was a successful film-maker who had butted into his sister’s wedding plans. Good. Because the less she knew about him the better. The past might have shaped him, but he didn’t ever let it impinge on how he lived his life now.
At least that was what he told himself.
Cassie shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. I don’t need a bodyguard but keep up, I’ve got sums to do when I get home and I want a good sleep because I have an early meeting tomorrow. I don’t have time to wait for stragglers.’ Laughing, she wrapped a cream shawl around her shoulders and kept a brisk pace as they descended the hill towards Holland Park. This was no evening stroll for romantics. Not that he would ever use his name and the word romantic in the same breath.
He met her step for step. Too easy for a man who ran marathons to keep flab and feelings at bay. ‘So the personal chef gig—why did you choose that instead of opening your own place?’
‘Are you still here?’ She increased her pace past the still open shops and overflowing pubs. He wondered if she ever stopped. Just stopped. A fleeting image of her, slick and spent on his bed, flickered in his mind. Her eyes closed, body soft against his sheets, slow deep breathing. Relaxed. Still.
Sometimes being a film-maker played havoc with his sanity—he saw too many things in fast flickering images in his brain. Zooming in could be a pleasure and a curse. Right now, the latter.
She kept right on chattering, the tension from the café dissipated. Or it could have been that she was trying to keep him on side; it was no secret she needed his money, the job. So he supposedly had the upper hand. If only he could see it through the fog of chaos she created.
‘This way I get to meet my clients in a more intimate environment, much preferable to working in a hot, noisy restaurant. Probably like you and your documentaries? You get the best out of people when there’s less of a crowd, right?’
‘And the worst. I didn’t make a big splash on the documentary scene by finding the nicer parts of people’s stories. Sadly, dirty laundry sells.’
‘And there seems to be a lot around.’ She nodded. ‘Sometimes people plain forget that I’m there in their homes. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve seen and heard.’
‘You want to bet? I’ve been on the road with rock stars. I reckon I can beat you hands down in the shock stakes.’
Slowing her pace, she looked at him, that teasing and breathy voice becoming harder to ignore. ‘Oh? Try me. A gory story smackdown. Excellent.’
Now this could get interesting. ‘What does the winner get?’
She looked up at him for a few moments, blue eyes piercing, as if trying to read his mind. Oddly disconcerting. Because he could have sworn that she understood exactly what he was thinking. ‘Winner gets...the satisfaction that they won?’
‘I tell you, there is no competition. I’ll win.’
‘You like to win? You do seem the type.’ Her mouth curled up at one corner. ‘And you have that self-satisfied look already. How about this? Once I was serving dinner in a famous actor’s house. But he was having it away with a guest upstairs, while his wife was downstairs tasting my crème brûlée.’
‘Which actor?’
She tapped her nose. ‘My secret. Confidentiality. I’m like a doctor with the Hippocratic Oath. Only not as clever. Or as...doctory.’
He couldn’t help the laugh bubbling up from his chest. She was...well, she was just surprising. Warm and soft and smelling like a candy shop. ‘Doctory? A technical term?’
‘Obviously. My eldest sister, Suzy, is training to be a surgeon and she’s very doctory. You know—bright and dedicated and compassionate.’ They stopped at a crossing and waited for the red light, turned right past an old church on to tree-lined cobbled streets. One of the older and prettier parts of the area, a little more rundown than his mews, but
