“Have it your way, for now,” he replied and then changed subject. “Come on, let’s go, and turn your work phone off and don’t give Steve your personal number because that will just encourage his advances and look where that got Miss Roe,” he revealed as they both got to their feet.
“He is the reason for her rough time at home?” she asked with a shocked laugh.
“Yes,” replied Jon bluntly as he picked up Steph’s rather heavy bag. “I said we’d spend the weekend together. I didn’t realise I’d asked you to move in with me.”
She stuck her tongue out making him smile. “Even if you’d asked me to, I don’t think Mrs Brooker would be very pleased with that arrangement do you?”
She was already in the hall now with a suit bag and could see that the introduction of Mrs Brooker had turned things more serious as Jon’s smile was no longer present and her stomach dropped like a stone. She knew she was his bit on the side, his mistress but when they were together and the banter flowed she almost forgot that fact. “Maybe I should come back here on Sunday, and go to work from here on Monday, especially if my dad is going to pressure me into Sunday lunch.”
“No, stay at mine and if you want me to I will come to your parent’s house for Sunday lunch.” He smiled again at least.
“We’ll see.” How the hell could she take him home for lunch with her dad, and if she did, how would she introduce him, as her married lover?
“This isyour idea of treating me to breakfast?” Steph shook her head as she looked around the tiny cafe squeezed between a barber’s and a pet shop on the small North London High Street.
“It offers breakfast and neither of us is cooking, so I am sticking with breakfast treat.” He grinned as he led her through the door and up to the counter and ordered two full English breakfasts, both with fried bread and two teas.
The pretty blonde assistant grinned up at Jon doe eyed as she took his order and cash before he led Steph to one of the oddly matched tables and chairs complete with a plastic coated tablecloth.
Passing her a paper napkin and mismatched cutlery, he asked, “And where else can you find breakfast for two in London for less than twenty quid?”
“I really did walk straight into our little wager last night, didn’t I?” she asked him seriously.
“Well, I think your arrogance may have got the better of you when you accepted my challenge.” He laughed for the umpteenth time since they’d made their wager.
“Perhaps if you had told me that you used to bowl in a league before staking breakfast on the best of three at ten pin bowling,” she said as breakfast appeared in the hands of the assistant from behind the counter followed by two mugs of tea.
“What is that?” asked Steph.
“Tea,” replied Jon sarcastically.
“I meant the vessel it’s in. It’s like a ceramic bucket,” she cried.
“You are a snob, Miss Pryor,” accused a smiling Jon. “Drink your tea and eat your breakfast. Then we’ll do something more middle class, like discussing our merger.” He grinned.
“Fine, but I am not a snob,” she protested.
“If you say so, but you’d be lying.” He was already tucking into the huge breakfast before him.
She frowned at him, but as she began eating her own food she had to admit that it was very good, if a little crudely assembled. Maybe she was a snob.
They had been drivingfor about half an hour when they turned off the motorway and headed into a more rural location.
“Where are we going?” she asked impatiently.
“Arrogant, snobbish and now impatient, this weekend is turning into a real eye opener.” He smiled across at her.
“I am not arrogant and I am not a snob!”
“Are you sure you don’t want to make it the best of five, Jon? Everyone wants me on their team on work outings,” he said mimicking her comments from the previous evening.
“If you’d told me how good you were.”
“Or if you’d asked me if I was any good I may have revealed my bowling past.” He laughed at her again. “And your idea of breakfast this morning if you’d won was fresh coffee and croissants at a very overpriced French deli bar in a very overpriced area of London, so you are indeed arrogant and a snob.”
“You are so annoying,” Steph muttered, unable to deny what he was saying.
“I know, but only because I am right.” He turned through the gates of a large stately home, complete with extensive gardens and a boating lake.
