‘Didn’t it have a bit of a kick?’
‘Fantastic.’ She nodded.
He finally grinned back. ‘No headache?’
‘That’s why I got the good stuff.’ And she was feeling far more of a kick from the way he was smiling. She was positively giddy and she certainly hadn’t been giddy from the champagne last night.
‘Have enough of it and you’ll still get a hangover.’ He actually laughed then. ‘You should share them with someone.’ His voice dropped.
‘Never,’ she dismissed him instantly. Dismissing the outrageous invite on the tip of her tongue too. ‘Do you know the price of each one of those bottles? It’s mine, all mine.’
He chuckled and looked back at the fridge. ‘And V, what’s that one for?’
Damn, she’d hoped he might have forgotten about that last one. She swallowed, wished her addled brain would come up with something—anything to get her out of this embarrassment.
‘Victory?’ he asked.
‘Yeah.’ She nodded enthusiastically. So not going to admit to this guy that the last bottle of Bollinger was for when she finally lost the virginity she’d been dragging round for far too long. ‘For when the Knights win the trophy.’
‘You drink champagne all the time?’
Uh, try never before last night. ‘On special occasions.’
He closed the fridge and eyed her, looking serious now. ‘Mind if I ask you a personal question?’
‘Go right ahead.’ She waited, wondered.
‘How old are you?’
She hadn’t expected that. ‘Twenty-two.’
His mouth thinned.
‘That surprises you?’Unpleasantly?Why was he looking so unimpressed?
‘I thought you were younger.’ He swallowed.
Uh-huh. ‘How young?’
‘Eighteen or so.’
At the most, she reckoned. What was with the putting her in a child’s box? ‘Well, how old are you?’
‘Thirty-one.’
‘There’s less than a decade between us,’ she pointed out with extreme pleasure.
‘I’m still a lot older than you.’ He seemed determined to labor that one.
‘Yeah, but you’re hardly old enough to be my father. Unless, of course, you wereveryadvanced for your age,’ she taunted softy, pleased to see him wince in horror.
‘I was very advanced for my age in some areas,’ he said, quickly reverting back to his blunt arrogance. ‘But, no, I didn’t start fooling around ’til my late teens.’
She gritted her teeth. A nice,normalteen life. She hadn’t had that. She didn’t resent the reasons why she hadn’t, she had loved caring for her grandparents, but it was time now for her to have the freedom and fun she’d missed out on as an eighteen-year-old. Not to mention the fooling around. Better late than never and she was damn well determined it wouldn’t be never. Maybe it could be soon.
‘Well, as you now know. I’m more than old enough to be living on my own, in any way I like, drinking whatever I want.’ And she’d do whatever she wanted too.
There was a moment’s silence. He glanced at the fridge again. ‘Do you eat anything?’
