‘Sorry, miles away.’ He dredged up a smile.
‘Jan’s translating the menu. What do you fancy?’ explained Anna.
Leo really wasn’t that hungry but he listened to the choices, all of which sounded good.
‘Have you decided what you’re having?’ asked Anna, doing her best to look innocent.
‘What? So you can plan your choice around mine?’ Despite everything they knew each other so well. Where food was concerned, as in so many things, they shared similar tastes, and often chose things so that they could try what they both liked.
It reminded him that her throwaway comment hadn’t been meant to hurt him. He needed to keep his stupid heart under lock and key while she was around. She was never going to trust him and he couldn’t afford to fall for her again.
She gave him a winsome smile. ‘I can’t help it if I have food envy anxiety. I was thinking about the dumpling filled with pulled pork and kohlrabi or the venison or the rolled chicken with pumpkin mash and vegetables.’
‘And you’d like me to have one of them, so you can have a taste?’
The last remnants of his bad mood evaporated at her gleeful response. ‘That would be awesome.’
Now it was his turn to roll his eyes and grin back at her.
Jan persuaded Leo to order a beef broth while he had a creamy cauliflower soup. The smell when both arrived had Leo salivating. They were beautifully presented with herb trimmings and lacy crispy onion garnishes. When he took the first mouthful, he closed his eyes as the rich savoury taste, with a slight undertone of sweetness, streamed across his tongue. The flavour. It was extraordinary. He groaned and, when he opened his eyes, Anna was watching him with a thoughtful half-smile on her face.
‘Want to try some?’ he offered and dipped his spoon into the bowl and offered her a mouthful.
She gently held his wrist to keep it steady and all he could focus on was her mouth and throat as she swallowed. ‘Mmm,’ she said, her eyes on his, the husky appreciation in her voice reinforcing a sense of intimacy. A tingle shivered down his spine, lighting up desire. Judging from the way she was looking hungrily at his lips, he guessed he wasn’t the only one feeling it. Luckily Michaela and Jan were too absorbed in conversation to notice the silent communication between the two of them.
‘Good?’ he asked, his voice vibrating a little with the feelings rushing through him. What the hell? Why was he fighting this so hard? They were only going to be in Prague until the end of the year. Maybe he should prove Anna was right all along and suggest a no-strings thing.
‘Very good,’ she said, her eyes still locked on his.
‘You want more?’ he asked, deliberately lowering his voice so she had to lean forward to hear him. Her lips parted and all he could think about was kissing them. The urge was almost painful.
Her eyes widened at the question and the not so subtle subtext. Her gaze never wavered as she gave a slight nod and said, ‘Yes.’
His heart lurched. Warning bells ringing. The danger wasn’t that he would hurt Anna, but that she would irrevocably hurt him. She’d broken his heart once; there couldn’t be a second time.
Turning his gaze from hers, he picked up his wine and raised it in a toast. ‘To Michaela and Jan. Thank you for inviting us to your lovelychata.’
His main course was an absolute triumph of light fluffy dumpling and perfectly cooked sweet, savoury and salty pulled pork with a light rich jus. Anna’s venison was fall-apart tender in the mouth. Although the food was divine, he couldn’t wait for the meal to be over. Sitting opposite her was turning into torture.
ChapterTwenty-Three
Within a few days of returning from thechata, the imminent date for the presentation took up all of Anna and Leo’s thoughts, which was probably as well, she reflected. The easiness between them had gone and there was a carefulness to their interactions that hadn’t been there before. Leo had lost some of his jokey liveliness and grown much quieter.
Whenever he was in the apartment, her heart bounced in her chest at knowing he was there. In the bathroom she could smell his shampoo, teasing her with the cedarwood scent that was so much a part of him. In the kitchen when he was making coffee, she’d covertly study him, the tiny hairs on the back of his neck, the pinpricks of bristles shadowing his face and the naked feet beneath his jeans, which shouldn’t have been sexy but were. When he was in his bedroom, like now when she was trying to concentrate while working on her laptop in her room, she could hear him moving about, always making her aware he was only the other side of the wall.
Anna shook her head and focused back on the computer screen, desperately trying to push images of Leo out of her head. Even though it was only half six in the morning, she browsed through another tranche of beer adverts from all over the world looking for inspiration. Pinterest, Instagram and Google had become her best friends during the last few days.
Time was running out and she was trying to work every second she could. And she was absolutely paranoid that she might lose the presentation. Normally she autosaved everything to her One Drive but the WiFi in the apartment had a habit of dropping out and yesterday she’d lost a chunk of work.
The presentation was in less than two weeks and she still had to come up with a name, branding and marketing strategy for her beer. She wanted to appeal to women without excluding a male target audience, but without a name, all of that was irrelevant.
She gave it an hour before she dressed and got ready for work. Jakub was still keen to push a traditional style of packaging and for her to choose a generic name, and at this point she was almost ready to give in, except her beer was perfect. At the official final taste test, she’d been thrilled with its lovely light golden colour and effervescent flavour, which was exactly what she’d been hoping to achieve. Her mouth twisted. Maybe she should call it Leo. What would he make of that? He’d probably love it; after all he was the one that had suggested she called her beer after herself.
With that thought foremost in her mind, she hurried off to work and, an hour later, bounced into the brewery, excited as always by the familiar slightly musty smell of the hops, which were piled in sacks in the half-lit store room. She carried the now institutional two cups of coffee and had had her usual exchange with the cheerful man in the bakery who urged her to try new pastries today.
Jakub looked up as she entered his office and passed the coffee across the desk towards him.
‘No pastries?’ His eyes twinkled behind the lenses of his glasses.
