‘No.’ He shook his head in mild disbelief as if he couldn’t believe she really didn’t know. ‘But chefs are very territorial about their knives. We always use our own and rarely let anyone touch them. At least I don’t. You don’t want some ham-fisted eejit dulling your blade.’
Hannah rolled her eyes.Talk about precious.Although, admittedly, she had a special fountain pen she used at work to annotate things, so perhaps there was a similarity.
‘I saw that.’
‘You were supposed to.’
‘Now, watch.’ He took an onion from the basket and sliced it in two, deftly peeling off the skin. ‘Keep the point on the board and lift and slice.’
She watched as he demonstrated with a swift seesawing action, while using the middle joints of his fingers as a guide for the knife. Of course he made it look effortless.
‘Now you try. Take it slow.’
She picked up the knife and tentatively arranged her hand like his around the onion, trying to copy his slicing motion. Getting confident, she forgot to keep her hand crabbed over the onion and took a chunk out of her thumbnail.
‘Eek!’ she squeaked.
‘Keep it slow to start with.’
‘I thought this was supposed to help me speed up.’
‘Even at this speed you’re more effective than you were. Economy of movement is what you’re after.’
She had another go, this time more slowly.
‘No, like this.’ Stepping behind her, he put his arm parallel to her arm and a warm, firm hand over hers to guide the movement. ‘Here.’ He gently gripped her hand and steered the knife with a steady seesawing motion backwards and forwards. Conscious of his closeness, she tried to relax at his touch but all she could think of was the smell of him and feel of his big, solid body up against hers. Her breath caught in her chest and she did her best to ease it out slowly so he wouldn’t notice. Every nerve ending was aware of him, standing to attention, breathlessly waiting for any movement from him.
‘Thank you,’ she said as his breath fluttered against her neck. Instinctively she inhaled, leaning back just the barest centimetre as the sharp punch of desire bathed her.
The silence in the room weighed heavy for a moment. ‘No problem.’ He dropped her hand and stepped back smartly, as if she were contaminated all of a sudden.
Hannah wanted to roll her eyes. Instead, she said lightly as if it were of no account, ‘I’m not going to bite you.’
‘That wasn’t what I was worried about.’ She turned to face him to find his eyes straying to her lips.
‘I wasn’t going to kiss you either,’ she said, unable to help the twitch of her lips.
Now he rolled his eyes and snatched up a carrot and tossed it on the chopping board.
This time it was her turn to raise an eyebrow. ‘Unfortunate choice.’ They both looked at the rather obscenely shaped vegetable and with one quick swipe of devilment, she chopped it clean in it two.
Conor sniggered and quick amusement danced in his eyes as he winced dramatically. ‘Ouch, that’s me told.’ He laughed, shaking his head. ‘What was it you were saying about serial killers?’
It was hard to resist his spontaneous grin.
‘Sorry, couldn’t resist.’
‘That poor carrot, whatever had it done to you. I’ve unleashed a monster.’
There was altogether too much of that smiley eye contact going on and Hannah could feel herself growing warm. Relaxed, amused Conor made her heart beat that little bit faster and it needed to back right off. He’d made his feelings quite clear. With a force of will she hadn’t known she was capable of, she turned back to the chopping board, steadied her hand, and began slicing the poor savaged carrot into equal slices. Already, using this technique she had more control of the knife and could chop in even pieces.
‘That’s much better,’ said Conor, who had stepped right back and was now leaning onto the corner of the counter as far from her as was possible in the small space.
‘Thank you.’ She kept her head down, not wanting him to see her flushed face and bright eyes. Why did he have such a damn effect on her? Honestly it was worse than being a teenager all over again.
‘Have you got any plans for dinner?’ he asked.
‘No, I was just going to have a quick sandwich.’ She wasn’t about to admit that she couldn’t face cooking and especially not when he was around. It was bad enough that he’d witnessed today’s incompetence; she didn’t need to give him a repeat performance. ‘And then I was planning, if you don’t mind, to put my feet up and read a book this evening or watch some rubbish television.’
