‘Crabs live in the sea; ergo, it’s seafood.’
‘Try one, for goodness’ sake.’ Both his lips and voice tighten. ‘Don’t be a baby.’
‘Don’t be a baby?’ I repeat a little incredulously.
‘Yes, your hearing is perfectly fine. Eat a crab cake.’
‘How about...’—you eat a dick—‘no,’ I add at the last minute and much more politely.
‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’ His gaze narrows, his expression suddenly thoughtful and not the good kind of thoughtful. The kind where he looks as though he’s considering force-feeding me just to prove his point.
‘What if I was allergic to seafood? What if I went into anaphylaxis?’
‘Then I expect you’d have said that seafood was verboten. And I, myself, wouldn’t have ordered fish.’
‘If I’d been allergic, it wouldn’t meanyoucouldn’t have fish.’
‘But what if I’d wanted to kiss you? And not to give you the kiss of death?’
His gaze is so intent I feel I need to wrap my hands around the arms of the chair to stop them from dithering.Does he want to kiss me?But before I can analyse that thought, Beckett tears one of the tiny morsels open with his long fingers and then pops a piece into his mouth. His eyes roll closed as he savours it, and I must admit—to myself, at least—that it does smell really good.
‘So we’ve established you don’t like seafood, you’re in need of finance, and you’re a colonial.’
‘I never said I needed finance.’
He waves off my protest. ‘The companies on the thirty-fifth floor all deal in business finance of some sort. Meanwhile, we’ve also determined that I’m on first-name terms with Satan, that I think you’re rather lovely, and that I might like to kiss you.’
Chapter 5
OLIVIA
‘Play with me, more like.’
My answer is immediate, the words in the air in all their brash incredulousness, because if this is the way he treats people he thinks are lovely, I’m so pleased I’m not his enemy. But he wants to kiss me with that gorgeous mouth of his. What would that be like, I wonder. Soft, I decide, at least to start with. Powerful. Demanding. The kind of kiss that makes your knees weak.
‘How old are you, Olivia?’
‘You’re not supposed to ask a lady her age,’ I reply, wondering where the conversation will hop to next.
‘Young women aren’t generally so reticent. Or maybe you want me to guess? Twenty-four? Twenty-three?’
‘Fine. I’m twenty-seven.’ Practically. ‘What about you?’
‘I’m older than that.’
‘Well, duh.’ Not my finest response as these things go.
‘But not too old,’ he adds, the hint of a sparkle back in his gaze. ‘And what about tonight?’
‘Tonight, I’m half a day older than I was this morning. What about it?’ I add when I realise he’s not going to bite.
Bite...
My eyes are almost riveted to his mouth as he feeds himself what suddenly seems like small bites of heaven. Seafood seems to appeal to a stomach full of nothing but champagne.
‘You’re sure you wouldn’t like some?’ I shake my head even as he uses his fork to slice a crab cake in half before offering it to me. ‘They’re delicious.’ A ghost of a smile hovers on his face as the fork dances in front of me. I finally concede, lifting my hand to take it from him, but he moves it away. I roll my eyes, then open my mouth anyway.Don’t judge. The smell is divine, plus I really do need something to soak up the alcohol.
‘Good, right?’
