“Are you really asking me this question?”
“We’ll have your house rosé, please,” he tells the waitress with a grin.
She lights the candle in the middle of the table.
“Not that you need any help with romance,” she says with a smile. “You make a very cute couple.”
“Merci beaucoup,”Jackson replies without missing a beat.
She leaves us to it. We look at each other and laugh, though mine is ironic. Maybe his is too. It’s hard to tell. It’s not the first time this has happened.
“I can’t believe you’re here, that you agreed to all this,” he says warmly.
“I’m very glad to have saved you a shit ton of money.”
He throws his head back and laughs, making my belly tingle.
I didn’t go as low as the half price I joked about in my email, but he’s better off than he would have been with an agency.
“You could have quoted higher,” he says, still grinning.
“Nah, I’m good. Unlike the agency bosses, I don’t have any overhead.”
“I didn’t think I was going to persuade you at first. What made you change your mind?”
Is he for real? Surely he knows that I wouldn’t be here if he was still happily married. But then, we’ve never talked openly about our feelings for each other.
“Starting afresh takes time and energy,” I reply, thinking on the spot. “I was so exhausted that I could barely put one foot in front of the other. It took me a moment to realize what a great opportunity this was. Plus, I really wanted to come for Albert’s birthday. My boss wouldn’t give me the time off in the school holidays because my colleagues with children take priority.”
“I’m so pleased that it all worked out,” he says.
“Me too.” The smile I give him is heartfelt. “Thank you for asking me.”
“You are more than welcome.” He reaches across the table to squeeze my hand.
I release an awkward laugh as I let him go, tucking my hair behind my ears.
There he goes again, being disarming.
“So what are your mum’s plans for Thermalisme?” I ask, reverting to our earlier topic of conversation.
“She’s trying to buy a building up the road that she wants to turn into a yoga studio and café.”
“Which building?”
“You know that crappy garage on the outskirts of town?”
“Yes.”
“It has an incredible view. But the old guy who owns it won’t sell. For reasons beyond our comprehension, he likes his crappy garage.”
“Does it come down to money?”
He shrugs. “My mom told him to name his price, not that she planned on paying it, of course, but he wouldn’t even begin negotiations.”
“Hmm.”
“Yeah.” He looks flummoxed. “It’s weird, he hosts these wild parties there occasionally—a couple of hotel guests havementioned the noise. My mom’s lawyer—oh fuck, I meant to call him back,” he says suddenly.
