She tried to think... Sometimes in the past he would kiss her on the cheek, a chaste brotherly sort of kiss. But lately...since Easter, in fact...there had been no physical contact from him. None at all. It was as if he had deliberately kept his distance. That last holiday weekend at home, she remembered him coming into one of the sitting rooms at Drummond Brae and going straight back out again with a muttered apology when he’d found her curled up on one of the sofas with her embroidery. Why had he done that? What was wrong with her that he couldn’t bear to be left alone with her?
Violet picked up her scarf and wound it around her neck. ‘I have to get back to work. I hope your father’s wedding goes well.’
‘It should do, he’s had enough practice.’ He drained his coffee and stood, snatching his jacket from the back of the chair and slinging it over his shoulder. ‘I’ll walk you back to your office. I’m heading that way.’
Violet knew the tussle over who paid for the coffee was inevitable so when he offered she let him take care of it for once. ‘Thanks,’ she said once he’d settled the bill.
‘No problem.’
He put a gentle hand in the small of her back to guide her out of the way of a young mother coming in with a pram and a squirming, red-faced toddler. The sizzling heat of his touch moved along the entire length of Violet’s spine, making her aware of her femininity as if he had stroked her intimately.
Get a grip already.
This was the problem with being desperate and dateless. The slightest brush of a male hand turned her into a wanton fool. Stirring up needs that she hadn’t even registered as needs until now.
But it wasn’t just any male hand.
It was Cam’s hand...connected to a body that made her think of smoking-hot sex. Not that she knew what smoking-hot sex actually felt like. The only sex she’d had was a surrealist blur with an occasional flashback of two or three male faces looming over her, talking about her, not to her. Definitely not the sort of romantic scene she had envisaged when she’d hit puberty. It was another thing she’d miserably failed at doing. Each of her siblings had successfully navigated their way through the dating minefield, all of them now partnered with their soul mate. Was she too fussy? Had that night at that party permanently damaged her self-esteem and sexual confidence? Why should it when she could barely remember it in any detail?
She had been surrounded by love and acceptance all her life. There should be no reason for her to feel inadequate or not quite up to the mark. But somehow love—even a vague liking for someone of the opposite sex—had so far escaped her.
Violet walked out to the footpath with Cam, where the rain had started to fall in icy droplets. She popped open her umbrella but Cam had to bend almost double to gain any benefit from it. He took the handle from her and held the umbrella over both of their heads. Her fingers tingled where his brushed hers, the sensation travelling all through her body as if running along an electric network.
Trying to keep dry, as well as out of the way of the bustling Christmas shopping crowd, put Violet so close to the tall frame of his body she could smell the clean sharp fragrance of his aftershave, the woodsy base notes reminding her of a cool, shaded pine forest. To anyone looking in from the outside they would look like a romantically involved couple, huddled under the same umbrella, Cam’s stride considerately slowing to match hers.
They came to the large Victorian building where the accounting firm Violet worked as an accounts clerk was situated. But just as she was about to turn and say her goodbyes to Cam, one of the women who worked with her came click-clacking down the steps. Lorna ran her gaze over Cam’s tall figure standing next to Violet. ‘Well, well, well. Things finally looking up for you, are they, Violet?’
Violet ground her teeth so hard she could have moonlighted as a nutcracker. Lorna wasn’t her favourite workmate, far from it. She had a tendency to gossip to stir up trouble. Violet knew for a fact their boss only kept Lorna on because she was brilliant at her job—and because she was having a full-on affair with him. ‘Off to lunch?’ she asked, refusing to respond to Lorna’s taunt.
Lorna gave an orthodontist’s website smile and aimed her lash-fluttering gaze at Cam. ‘Will we be seeing you at the office Christmas party?’
Cam’s arm snaked around Violet’s waist, a protective band of steel that made every nerve in her body jump up and down and squeal with delight. ‘We’ll be there.’
We will? Violet waited until Lorna had gone before looking up at Cam’s unreadable expression. ‘Why on earth did you say that? I told you I didn’t want a—’
He stepped out from under the umbrella and placed the handle back in her hand. Violet had to extend her arm upwards to its fullest range to keep the umbrella high enough to maintain eye contact. ‘I’ll strike a deal with you,’ he said. ‘I’ll come to your Christmas party if you’ll come to a dinner with my client tonight.’
Violet screwed up her face. ‘The one with the persistent wife?’
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said back at the café. What better way to send her the message I’m not interested than to show her I’m seeing someone?’
‘But we’re not...’ she disguised a little gulp ‘...seeing each other.’
‘No, but no one else needs to know that.’
You don’t have to be so darned emphatic about it. Violet chewed at one side of her mouth. ‘How are we going to keep this...quiet?’
‘You mean from your family?’
‘You know what my mother’s like.’ Violet gave a little eye roll. ‘One whiff of us going on a date together, and she’ll be posting wedding invitations quicker than you can say I do.’
There was another yawning silence.
I do?
Are you nuts? You said the words ‘I do’ to the man who views weddings like people view the plague!
Something shifted in Cam’s expression—a blink of his eyes, a flicker of a muscle in his lean cheek, a stretching of his mouth into a smile that didn’t involve his eyes. ‘We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.’
If we come to it? There was no if about it. That bridge was going to blow up in their faces like a Stage Five firecracker on Guy Fawkes Night. Violet knew her family too well. They were constantly on the lookout for any signs of her dating. MI5 could learn a thing or two from her mother and sisters. How was she going to explain a night out with Cam McKinnon? ‘Are you sure we should be doing this?’
There was a slight easing of the tension around his mouth. ‘We’re not robbing a bank, Violet.’
‘I know, but—’
‘If you’d rather not, then I can always find someone—’
‘No,’ Violet said, not even wanting to think about the ‘someone’ he would take. ‘I’ll go. It’ll be fun—I haven’t been out to dinner for ages.’
He smiled a lopsided smile that made the back of Violet’s knees feel like someone was tickling them with a feather. ‘There’s one other thing...’
You want it to be a real date? You want us to see each other as in ‘see
