‘Yes. My young dream. I do design a few, but I’m not exclusively a designer. Mum and Dad split up and Mum owns a bridal shop in Kingston upon Thames. That’s where we live. I help her run the shop and we also have a thriving online business too.’
‘That sounds great.’
‘So … does Jenna lounge seductively on your bikes, then? In your ads? For all the guys to drool over her.’
He snorted with laughter and shook his head, pushing back a thick lock of hair with his hand. ‘Nope. She’s in the ads to sell bikes to women, not guys. Although I’m sure she does both. She’s a bit like the women in perfume ads. She’s there to sell the dream.’
He pulled out his phone, scrolled a few pages, and then showed me a collage of Jenna in black leathers, and Jenna in a dress similar to the one she was wearing today, astride a massive beast of a bike, and Jenna standing beside a gleaming and obviously expensive bike with a gorgeous hunk of a manstanding behind her, but she was clearly the one in control. Jenna was already selling the dream to me.
‘Oh!’ I cocked my head to one side. I’d thought of perfume ads when I first saw her, so it was strange that Sam had used that comparison too. Or maybe not. ‘She’s good at her job. Would I look that sexy, powerful, and in control, if I bought a bike from you?’
He raised his brows and then a devilish smile spread across his mouth. ‘You don’t need to buy a bike to look like that, Lucy,’ he drawled.
‘Shall I pour?’ the waitress asked, appearing beside us with a bottle of wine and two sparklingly clean glasses. ‘Your meals will be with you momentarily.’
‘That’s okay, thanks,’ said Sam. ‘We’ll do it.’
The waitress placed the bottle and the glasses on the table, and Sam began to pour the wine as she smiled and walked away.
‘Where were you meant to be right now?’ I asked, having been wondering how he had managed to get out of whatever it was he and Jenna had planned to do when they had left.
He shot me a look but continued filling our glasses before he answered.
‘On a photoshoot, as it happens. But they didn’t really need me. My team know what I want. I dropped Jenna off at Elliot’s – he’s a photographer, and a good mate of mine, and checked everything was okay, and then I called you, having decided I’d rather be here than there.’
Before I could respond, the waitress had returned with our meals. She really had meant they would be with us momentarily.
‘Please let me know if there’s anything else I can get you,’ she said. ‘Enjoy your meals.’
‘Thanks,’ Sam and I said in unison.
He held up his glass and I did likewise and we clinked them together. Although I was still trying to get my head around thefact that he’d left a photoshoot to come and have lunch with me. And that he had ‘a team’. And models. And a photographer.
‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘Here’s to a great week.’
‘Cheers,’ I replied. ‘I second that.’
We both took mouthfuls of our drinks and then he looked at me as he put down his glass.
‘Do you have plans?’
‘Plans? Oh, for today, you mean? I’ve been invited for drinks with my neighbours around six-ish, but other than that, no.’
Sam narrowed his eyes a fraction and an odd sort of smile hovered on his lips. ‘For this week.’
‘Oh! Erm.’ I coughed to clear my throat. ‘Not really. No.’
I took another sip of wine, feeling even more nervous and self-conscious than I had before.
‘Would you like to spend it with me?’
I was so surprised by that question that I almost spat out my wine, but I managed to choke it back, and I somehow settled my glass onto the table without spilling a drop.
‘What?’
He shrugged one shoulder. ‘Feel free to say no. I won’t be offended. But … we had a great time when you were last here, didn’t we? I … hoped we could do so again.’
I could feel my jaw drop as I stared at him. Was he for real?
