you approve,’ he murmured, and raised his coffee beaker. ‘Here’s to cheesy snacks, although I am curious about something. Does your boss often ask you to pimp for her?’
Only just as the words left his mouth Andy was swallowing some coffee and between spluttering and coughing it took her a while before she could attempt to reply with a raspy voice. ‘First time. And the last. We went to school together so I suppose Elise trusted me not to let her down.’ She flashed him a glance. ‘Did I? Let her down?’
A long, slow, languorous smile crept like dawn across the whole of his face, and then he wrapped his hands around his beaker. ‘I might have chatted to a couple of girls. But this is the first Internet date I have ever agreed to.’
He rested his elbows on the table to support his chin. ‘The only one. Does that answer your question?’
Andy froze, her coffee beaker suspended in mid-air.
‘This is your first Internet date?’
‘Absolutely. So far, not quite what I expected, but getting better by the minute.’
Her hand dropped. ‘Oh.’
Of course it is—fool. He doesn’t need to go on the Internet to meet women. But it did make her wonder. Why? Why now?
‘I enjoyed reading about all the wonderful countries you have visited for your work.’ She twirled one hand towards his shirt. ‘I suppose that must be a problem for your, um … romantic relationships.’
Oh, shut up now before you make an even greater fool of yourself, you idiot. Andy winced and picked at some salad, to avoid looking at him.
‘My romantic relationships?’ He sniffed. ‘Actually my romantic relationships, as you call them, are just fine. That isn’t the problem. Just the opposite if anything—I spend my days surrounded by sporty girls of all shapes and sizes, and usually they are wearing remarkably little in the way of clothing.’
He lifted his chin and smiled. ‘Did I mention that we specialise in water sports? Everything from paddle boarding to kite surfing. Our bikinis are very popular.’
A short chuckle and a nasal snort made her blink. ‘No, I have plenty of female company. But I don’t get to meet other kinds of women. And now I’m back in London, it might be interesting to meet girls who know more about the city than surfboards and sunblock. Plus I happen to enjoy meeting new people and getting to know them.’
She leant forwards, glancing from side to side as though about to tell him a secret of some sort.
‘I have a terrible fault.’
His eyebrows rose towards the ceiling but he did not take the bait.
‘Curiosity.’ Andy nodded. ‘I am well known for it. So you see, I can’t help but wonder … why now? What made you decide to come out on a wet night to meet this particular girl when you don’t even know her name?’
And without permission or any kind of warning, he clasped his long fingers around the palm of her right hand, raised it to his mouth and kissed her knuckles for two seconds before releasing her hand.
‘I wanted to meet the girl who wrote those emails. The girl I am looking at right now.’
His lips had been warm and full and soft and she was so totally taken back by how gentle and tender that ultra-soft whisper of his lips on her skin had been that she just sat there, still, and in silence. While he smiled at her. And this time his eyes were smiling as well as his mouth and all she could hear was the sound of his breathing, slow and deep, which matched hers perfectly, breath for breath.
The coffee shop and the background clatter of people and machine and chairs being dragged on wooden floors faded into some other world which she no longer had any part in.
The air in the space between them seemed to bristle with electricity, tense and thick with unspoken words and silences. The pulse at the side of his neck was mesmerising, strong and steady in tune with his breathing.
Killer. Absolute killer.
Then he leant slightly forwards and said in a low whisper, ‘I have a confession too. My brother Jason was the one who set up my profile and filled in the forms. Apparently he got fed up of my constant complaints about not being able to find a date for when I am in London.’
He raised his coffee cup and looked at her over the top of it—but his gaze was locked onto hers and somehow it was impossible for her to look away. ‘To online dating virgins everywhere,’ he whispered and took a long sip of coffee. ‘Perhaps we should exchange notes?’
Ah … so that was it. She should have worked it out. Miles was a sailor with a girl in every port. Online dating virgin indeed!
They looked across at one another in silence, his mouth curled into a smile for so long that the air crackled across the table.
Andy felt as though a small thermonuclear device had just been planted somewhere low in her stomach and was threatening to emerge as a girly giggle.
She did not do giggling, simpering or anything that came close. Not even for hunky hotties like the one sitting opposite her nonchalantly drinking his coffee as his gaze stared into hers, waiting to see how she responded. Maybe this was some sort of test?
‘I’ll drink to that,’ she replied, with a smirk. ‘Although it does make me wonder.’
‘Wonder?’
‘What were you planning to do with the hazelnut cookies?’ she replied in a flash, and pressed both of her lips tight together before sitting back in her chair, her head tilted to one side.
He roared with laughter. A real laugh, head back, shoulders shaking, holding onto the flimsy table, making it rock as his whole body joined in the joke, and this time she could not help herself. And for the first time in a very long while, Andy Davies laughed. Really laughed. Laughed until the tears were running down her cheeks and she was starting to wheeze.
She never laughed like this. Ever. And it was wonderful.
Even if people on the other tables had started to give them furtive glances.
Oh, Nigel would have been so mortified if she had made this kind of a scene on the few times when he was with her.
Nigel. Andy felt as if a bucket of icy water had been thrown over her head, and she instantly sat up straighter in her chair and tried to clear her head.
Stupid girl. She was not here to flirt and laugh with Miles. No matter how much he had brightened up her cold, wet evening. She was not ready to flirt and laugh with anyone.
She glanced up into his smiling face and a small shiver of disappointment and regret fluttered across her shoulders.
This was a horrible mistake.
It should be Elise sitting here, not her.
But he was worth meeting. If anything he was more open and extrovert than his emails had suggested. She couldn’t lie.
Andy’s gaze slid over to his long,
