The last made me giggle as I answered the door. I soon stopped, mainly because my focus had to immediately go on how to breathe.
Seph Callaghan was the sort of good-looking you usually saw in magazines, especially when he was looking serious. He displayed a suit like every single one was made to fit him personally, which they probably were, the slight stubble and cut jaw making me want to photograph him just for posterity.
Tonight, he was different. Jeans, dark blue ones that looked fairly worn, with a black T-shirt, no label and a leather jacket that was slightly battered. He hadn’t had his glasses on since Friday, and as much as they’d suited him, I preferred him without. This man was gorgeous, but right now he was more than that. He was some sort of god sent to distract me from whatever it was I should’ve been doing – and it wasn’t drooling over him.
My mouth opened to apologise, but he wasn’t laughing at my staring or lack of words; his eyes were on me, trailing over my hair and down to my legs, and when he finally met my eyes, I saw something in them I only just recognised.
Lust.
“You look fucking amazing.” His words were rusty in the evening air. “Shit, Georgie, I don’t want to blow this.”
Why was this beautiful, clever man so nervous?
“You won’t. You can’t. We’ll still be sharing an office tomorrow. I’ll still be right about that advice to Hartford.”
He laughed and the tension eased. “Disagree. I’ll tell you why in the car. But first.”
The bag he handed me was full of colouring pencils and books for Rose.
“You didn’t need to do this.”
He shrugged, looked bashful. “I know. But I’m stealing her mum from her for a night – I figured I should do something to make up for it.”
I shifted closer to him and stood up on my tiptoes a little to press a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you. That’s sweet and she’ll love them. Let me put them inside so we can escape before she gets back with Liv.”
He nodded, watching me as I stepped back inside, leaving the books and pencils on the console table, with the note he’d written – on another post it note – for her so she knew who they were from.
I locked up, then took the hand he offered and let him lead me down the path, to where, I wasn’t sure.
I only hoped my heart could take it.
Chapter Fifteen
Seph
Ichose to drive so I didn’t drink. I wanted to be sober enough so anything I said that cocked things up couldn’t be blamed on alcohol, and I was only too aware that I could easily cock this up without even trying.
I’d toyed with hiring a car and driver, but that seemed pretentious and twattish, so I’d opted for the controlled option: my car, washed and valeted, me as driver. Only now Georgie was in the car with me, I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea because her legs in those fucking jeans were enough of a distraction to cause a crash. She had curves; toned, hot curves that seemed to send me in the direction of what was between her legs. I felt my dick harden in my jeans and hoped she wasn’t eyeing me up like I was her, because that would not be a good first date move.
I brought up David Hartford again, which did something to pour cold water on my hard-on, but the conversation didn’t stick. Georgie ended up telling me about Rose and the list of demands she had for her new room once the mural was up. She wanted a bookcase with some series of books about unicorns, and if she couldn’t have that she’d write her own.
“She thought that was a threat?”
Georgie laughed. “I know. I debated just getting her a load of notebooks. Where is it we’re going?”
I’d taken a turn off the main road we’d travelled down, still south of the river but now east of Greenwich.
“You’ll see.”
I was desperate for it to be a surprise, one I hoped she’d enjoy and not forget for good reasons. I pulled up, the quietness of the city obvious as soon as the engine stopped. When I opened the door, the damp coolness of being near water was obvious. I knew Georgie had no sense of direction, so I was pretty sure she wouldn’t have realised we were heading towards the river.
“Know where we are?”
She shook her head, that dark red hair bouncing over her shoulders. Her car door opened, and she got out, looking around her.
“You really don’t have a sense of direction, do you?” I struggled to keep a straight face.
“It smells of water.”
