‘I’m not sure cake and cheese go together in the first place.’
‘You are joking?’ She stared at him, her mouth slightly open. ‘You’re not joking. Try it.’
She held out the piece of cake with the cheese perched on top, the marks made by her even teeth clear at the edge of the bite, and he leant in and bit off the part her mouth had touched.
He felt something kick in his gut, but then the flavour burst through and he sat back and tried to concentrate on the cake and cheese combo and not the fact that he felt as if he’d indirectly kissed her.
‘Wow. That is actually rather nice.’
She rolled her eyes again. ‘You are so sceptical. It’s like ham and pineapple, and lamb and redcurrant jelly.’
‘Chalk and cheese.’
‘Now you’re just being silly. I thought you liked it?’
‘I do.’ He cut himself a chunk of both and put them together, mostly so he didn’t have to watch her bite off the bit his own teeth had touched.
Hell. How could it be so ridiculously erotic?
‘So—the bodega?’
‘Um. Yeah.’ He groped for his brain and got it into gear again, more or less, and told her all about it—about how he’d been driving along a quiet country road and he’d broken down and a man had stopped to help him.
‘He turned out to be the owner of the bodega. He took me back there and contacted the local garage, and while we waited we got talking, and to cut a long story short I ended up bailing them out.’
‘That was a good day’s business for them.’
He chuckled. ‘It wasn’t a bad one for me. I stumbled on it by accident, I now own thirty per cent, and they’re doing well. They’ve had three good vintages on the trot, I get a regular supply of wine I can trust, and we’re all happy.’
‘And if it’s a bad year?’
‘Then we’ve got the financial resilience to weather it.’
Or he had, she thought. They’d been lucky to find him.
‘Where is it?’ she asked. ‘Does Rioja have to come from a very specific region?’
‘Yes. It’s in northern Spain. They grow a variety of grapes—it’s a region rather than a grape variety, and they use mostly Tempranillo which gives it that lovely softness.’
He opened another bottle, a different vintage, and as he told her about it, about how they made it, the barrels they used, the effect of the climate, he stopped thinking about her mouth and what it would be like to kiss her again, and began to relax and just enjoy her company.
He didn’t normally spend much time like this, and certainly not with anyone as interesting and restful to be with as Georgie. Not nearly enough, he realised. He was too busy, too harassed, too driven by the workload to take time out. And that was a mistake.
Hence why he’d turned off his mobile phone and ignored it for the last twenty-four hours. It was Christmas. He was allowed a day off, and he intended to take advantage of every minute of it. Tomorrow would come soon enough.
He peeled a satsuma from the bowl and threw it to her, and peeled himself another one, then they cracked some nuts and threw the shells in the fire and watched it die down slowly.
It seemed as if neither of them wanted to move, to call it a night, to do anything to disturb the fragile truce, and so they sat there, staring into the fire and talking about safe subjects.
Uncontroversial ones, with no bones of contention, no trigger points, no sore spots, as if by mutual agreement. They talked about his mother’s heart attack, her father’s retirement plans, his plans for the restoration of the walled garden, and gradually the fire died away to ash and it grew chilly in the room.
‘I ought to go up and make sure Josh is all right,’ she said, although the baby monitor was there on the table and hadn’t done more than blink a couple of times, just enough so they knew it was working.
But he didn’t argue, because they were running out of safe topics and it was better to quit while they were winning and before he did something stupid like kiss her.
He got to his feet, gathered up their glasses and put them on the tray with the plates, made sure the fire guard was secure and carried the tray through to the kitchen.
She was getting herself a glass of water, and he put the tray down beside the sink and turned towards her.
‘Got everything you need?’
No, she thought. She needed him, but he wasn’t good for her, and she certainly hadn’t been good for him. Not in the long term. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said, and then hesitated.
His eyes were unreadable, but the air was thick with tension. It would have been so natural, so easy to lean in and kiss him goodnight.
So dangerous.
So tempting...
She paused in the doorway and looked back, and he was watching her, his face shuttered.
‘Thank you for today,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s been really lovely. Really lovely. Josh has had a brilliant time, and so’ve I.’
‘Even the kiss?’
She laughed softly. ‘There was never any doubt about your kisses, Sebastian. None at all.’
‘Wrong place, wrong time?’ he suggested, and she shook her head.
‘Wrong time.’
‘And the place?’
‘You can never go back,’ she said simply, and with a sad smile, she closed the door and left him standing there in what should have been their kitchen, gazing after the woman he still loved but knew he’d lost forever.
‘Damn,’ he said softly.
It was a fine time to discover that he still wanted her, that he still loved her, that he should have done more to stop her leaving. But his head had been in the wrong place then, and hers was now.
You should have told her.
He should. But he hadn’t, and now wasn’t the time.
It was too late. She’d moved on, and so had he.
Hadn’t he?
He poured himself another glass of wine and left the kitchen, retreating into his study and the thing that kept him sane. Work. Always work. The one constant in his life.
He turned his phone on, and it beeped at him furiously as the emails and messages came pouring in. Even on Christmas Day. He was obviously not the only workaholic, he thought drily, and then he opened them.
Greetings. Christmas
