‘Revolting.’
He pushed his untouched BLT baguette towards her. ‘I’ll swap you.’
‘No, there’s no need, I’ll get through it.’
He slid her plate away from her. ‘Not on my watch you won’t. Not when this place was my suggestion.’
‘But it was my choice what I selected,’ she said firmly, taking back her plate.
‘I admire your stoicism. As erroneous as I believe it to be; but life’s too short to eat stuff you don’t like.’ Once more he removed the plate from her, and before she could protest, he stood up and went back inside the deli, leaving her to drum her fingers on the table with irritation. How did he always do it, make her feel as though he had claimed the advantage? And why did she care so much that he did?
Minutes later he reappeared with a BLT baguette for her.
‘I realise that you may well not want to eat this on principle, on account of me taking away your freedom of choice,’ he said, ‘but I’d feel much happier if you could forgive my impertinence so we can get on with enjoying lunch.’
She frowned, mentally still drumming her fingers on the table. ‘I don’t understand why you should want to enjoy lunch with me. I don’t get it.’
‘I like you,’ he said matter of factly. ‘Prickles and all.’
‘But why?’
‘I’m curious to know why you took such an immediate and obvious dislike to me. This may come as a surprise to you, and I say it with all due modesty, but people usually like me.’
‘Maybe you need to lower the level of your charm when you come anywhere near the legacy department,’ she said.
‘If I did that, would you like me any more?’
‘I might.’
He gave her a long and slightly unnerving stare, the burnished copper of his eyes glowing with an intensity that seemed unnatural. ‘And what would your boyfriend think of that?’ he asked.
Oh hell, she’d forgotten about her so-called boyfriend. ‘Umm … he’d be happy to know that I was getting on with my work colleagues so well.’
‘He’s not the jealous type, then?’
‘Are you saying there’s anything he should be jealous about?’
‘I’d say that’s for you to decide.’
I’m not cut out to be a serial liar, thought Jenna miserably when they were walking back to the office. Why did she have to make life so bloody complicated for herself? She was a reasonably intelligent woman, yet she was acting like a child, digging herself a deeper and deeper hole.
They were waiting for the lift to take them up to their respective floors when, and in an effort to make things absolutely clear, she said, ‘I think you should know something, I made the mistake of having a relationship with a work colleague in my last job and it didn’t end well. As a consequence I promised myself I’d never make that same mistake again. I like working for Heart-to-Heart and don’t want my position here to be made untenable.’
‘That’s a shame,’ he said, after a few moments had passed, during which he seemed to give her admission his full consideration. ‘A shame that things ended badly for you, I mean. So the boyfriend you now have, is he a new one?’
‘He’s …’ She swallowed, suddenly wanting – needing – to make a clean breast of things. ‘He’s not a boyfriend.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘What is he then; a friend with benefits?’
‘No! He’s an old friend who I kissed in a foolish attempt to make you stop …’
‘To make me stop what?’
‘Pestering me. I thought if you knew I was attached, you’d back off.’
He put a hand to his heart. ‘Goodness, you went to all that trouble for my sake? I’m touched.’
‘And now I feel even more of an idiot than I did before.’
