Realising he was being rude concentrating on his food and not making conversation, he nodded at the half-eaten salad on her plate. ‘Good?’
‘Great,’ she said, popping a piece of tomato into her mouth.
‘So, Jess, tell me more about you. Are you married?’ She must have swallowed her tomato the wrong way because she coughed and spluttered on it, her eyes watering as she fought to get her breath back.
Granted, it was more personal and direct than anything he’d previously asked and rather out of the blue, but he really wanted to know more about her.
‘No,’ she said finally, shaking her head and looking down at the table.
He was surprised by the relief he felt. ‘Partner?’
‘Not for a couple of years now.’
‘Oh? Why did you split up—if you don’t mind me asking?’ He stood the ends of his cutlery on the table and gave her his full attention, intrigued as to how someone as attractive as Jess could have stayed single for so long.
She put her own cutlery onto her half-full plate before looking up at him. ‘He was a nice enough guy, but he didn’t make my heart sing.’
‘You mean he didn’t do it for you in the sack?’
Her attempt at a casual shrug was the worst bit of acting he’d ever seen.
‘We didn’t really click,’ she muttered, not looking him in the eye. He wondered what she wasn’t telling him. Had the guy abused her in some way? Just the thought of it made him suddenly inexplicably angry. Under that tough, shielded exterior, there was undoubtedly some deeply ingrained insecurity lurking. He’d seen flashes of it already and imagined he’d see more and more, the longer she stuck around.
‘Anyway, my turn. How come you’re not settled down with a partner?’ she said, clearly wanting to change the subject and shift the attention back onto him.
‘Serious relationships aren’t my thing. I like variety. And I like sex. Lots and lots of sex,’ he teased, wanting to get back to the light, flirtatious atmosphere they’d had earlier.
He wasn’t sure what Jess was thinking now. Her huge, dark eyes seemed to have taken on a faraway look and her mouth was drawn back in a faintly twisted grimace as though her smile had gone wrong somewhere along the line.
He’d made her uncomfortable with his suggestive comment and seemingly not in the way he’d intended.
He really shouldn’t be thinking about her like this, not when he’d promised himself he was taking a break from what the press liked to refer to as his philandering ways, but it was almost impossible when she looked the way she did, sitting there all buttoned up and tempting in front of him. He wanted to peel back her layers and peek at what was underneath. Hell, who was he kidding? He wanted to tear her clothes off right there in the restaurant and feast on her like a starving man.
She fiddled with the napkin on her lap, her eyes downcast again.
‘I’m just going to find the bathroom,’ she said suddenly, dumping the napkin on the table, pushing her chair back and going to stand up, then jerking to a stop, midrise, and sitting back down again, a look of shock on her face.
‘Jess? What’s wrong?’
‘Um, I think my top’s caught on the chair. I don’t seem to be able to move.’
He couldn’t help but laugh at her predicament, until he noticed the look of utter horror on her face. She tried standing up again, but the wrought-iron chair kept her in her place. Her eyes were wide with worry now.
‘I’m stuck!’
He got up and scooted round to the back of her chair to find that some of the loops of her knitted top had somehow wound themselves around the swirls of the patterned metal back.
‘Sit still, I’ll get you free,’ he said, trying to get his hands down between the narrow gap between her body and the back of the chair. He worked on the caught bits for a few moments, feeling the heat of Jess’s humiliation burning into him as she sat as still as she could.
His large, clumsy fingers couldn’t get the loops out from where they were caught in the iron maze, which seemed to have inexplicably closed around them.
‘Jess, I’m sorry, it’s no good, you’re going to have to take your top off so I can get it free. I can’t work in such a small space.’
He went to lift the hem of her jumper but she put her hand firmly on top of his, stilling the movement. He looked directly into her face and she shook her head hard, fear flashing in her eyes.
What the hell?
‘I don’t want you to see my body.’ She was trembling.
He frowned. ‘Why not?’
Twitching her head from side to side, she looked away from him.
‘Jess? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing, nothing...it’s just...I can’t take my top off in the middle of the restaurant.’ Her voice came out all squeaky and panicked.
‘Well, you’re going to have to wear the chair home, then,’ he said, exasperation at not being able to help her coming through clearly in his tone. ‘Whatever possessed you to wear a wool top in this heat anyway?’
He stepped away as she started jerking madly away from the chair as if it would miraculously let her go if she showed enough determination.
‘Jess, you’re going to ruin...’ But it was too late. There was a loud tearing noise as the delicate material came apart under the force of her tugging. Unfortunately some of the strands were still wound tightly around the chair back so the top still wouldn’t come free.
Jess stilled, as if she’d been turned to stone, then pressed herself hard back against the chair to hide the ruined back of her top, staring up at him with such a look of abject misery it made his stomach turn over.
‘Okay, this is ridiculous.’ He pulled open the buttons on his shirt and took it off, ignoring the titters and murmurs of the diners around them who were clearly enjoying the show. ‘I’ll hold this around you while you take your top off, then you can wear it while we free your jumper.’
‘Okay,’ Jess said, nodding her head unhappily in agreement, managing to look as if he’d just suggested she leap across a pit of poisonous snakes for him.
He looked away as he held his shirt around her so she could struggle out of her jumper without flashing the entire restaurant, then slide her arms into the sleeves. He let go as she pulled it closed around her and attempted to do up the buttons with trembling fingers.
After a couple of frustrating moments of watching her totally fail to do up one single button, he knocked her hands away, knelt down next to the chair and did them up for her.
He could feel her eyes on his face as he worked his way down the shirt, his fingers skirting tantalisingly close to the swell of her breasts.
‘Some people would suspect this was a cunning ploy to get me to take my shirt off in public,’ he murmured, flipping her a grin, which she returned, albeit humbly. ‘There you go.’ He stood back so she could get up from the chair.
‘Thank you.’ She looked really grateful for his help and something lifted in his chest. He quickly released the jumper from the chair back.
‘My pleasure. Shall we get out of here, before this crowd asks for an encore?’
‘Yes. Good idea,’ Jess said, reaching into her handbag and grabbing a handful of euros, which she dropped onto the table. He dropped his own share for the meal next to it and handed some of her money back to her. ‘You don’t need to pay for me.’
She didn’t answer, just nodded and gave him a grateful smile. He had no idea what she was thinking; from the look in her eyes she seemed to have retreated far away into her own head.
He strode out of the restaurant, aware of the amused glances of the other diners as he passed by them, half-naked and standing out like a sore thumb, with Jess hot on his heels. He gave them all a salute as he reached the door and ushered Jess outside. She ran over to the car and he unlocked the doors s
o she could get straight in. He swung himself into the driving seat and burst out laughing, turning to look at her and share the joke, but she was staring straight ahead, her back ramrod-straight and her hands clutched tightly in her lap.
‘Jess?’
She turned to look at him, her expression wild and her face flaming red. ‘Can we go?’ It came out as a hushed gasp. She flapped the front of the shirt, clearly trying to cool herself down. He frowned at her extreme reaction. It was warm in the car, but not sweltering.
He started up the engine and drove out of the car park, heading back to the villa. ‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘I’m fine. Just hot. Is it hot in here?’ She wafted the shirt forward and back creating a slight draught of air, staring hard at the dashboard.
‘Not really.’ He put a hand on her arm and felt the heat of her skin sear through the cotton of the shirt. ‘Jess, what’s going on?’
She wouldn’t look at him. ‘I don’t like showing people my body. I’m not comfortable with it. Never have been. I get a bit...panicked.’
He frowned, baffled. ‘How long have you felt like that?’
She took a deep breath before she answered him. ‘Since my early teens. I’ve struggled with a kind of body dysmorphia and an eating disorder since then. Bulimia.’ She screwed up her face in disgust. ‘But I haven’t let it...you know...get hold of me since my late teens.’
Memories from the last couple of days connected together in his brain like jigsaw pieces. So that explained the baggy, unflattering clothes and her apparent discomfort when eating in front of him.
He leant back in the seat and rubbed a hand over his face. ‘I’m surprised.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you seem so together.’
‘It’s all a front,’ she said quietly.
‘Takes one to know one,’ he murmured to himself.
She didn’t seem to have heard him, trapped miles away in her own thoughts.
They reached the villa a minute later and he parked back under the awning and shut off the engine.
He turned to look at her and waited until she looked back at him. ‘Well, if it’s any consolation, you’re easily the most intriguing woman I’ve met in a long time.’
She snorted, then screwed her eyes shut in embarrassment.
‘Mostly because you’re smart and funny and passionate,’ he said, ‘but I wouldn’t kick you out of bed either.’
She seemed to swallow hard. ‘What?’ Her voice was raspy and appeared to barely make it out of her throat. She stared at him hard, as if she was trying to root out a lie using only the power of her cynicism.
He looked back at her, unblinking. She wouldn’t win this one. Mainly because he was telling the truth.
Jess broke eye contact first and he gave himself a mental high five, feeling inordinately pleased with himself, until she turned her head and stared out of the window instead of acknowledging his proposition.
Was she turning him down?
The thought rattled through him like a cold wind. A woman hadn’t rejected him like that in a very long time and it didn’t feel good.
‘Jess?’
She turned back to look at him, her expression confused, but wary, and he instinctively leant forward and cupped the side of her jaw with one hand, his thumb catching against the soft fullness of her bottom lip.
He wanted to kiss her. So badly.
It was an undeniable instinct, driven by a mixture of need and curiosity and a determination to not allow her to reject him, and frustration twisted in his gut when he realised she was fighting him and pulling away.
Releasing his grip on her, he reluctantly drew back. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, holding up an open-palmed hand.
She opened her mouth, as if to respond, then shook her head hard, her long bob of hair swinging round her face, before reaching for the handle to open the door.
He watched her scramble out of the car, banging her arm on the door in her rush to get away from him.
He slumped back in the chair, staring out into the darkness, hot with anger at himself. What the hell was he thinking, coming on to her like that after what she’d just told him? God, how inappropriate. He needed to straighten himself out—fast. Getting close to Jess was going to take more than chucking a few artless, throwaway platitudes her way before steaming in full force.
He got out of the car and followed her into the villa, a little way behind to give her the space she obviously needed. She turned before she got to the staircase and gave him a strained smile.
‘See you tomorrow.’ It was a statement, not a question and he knew for sure there would be no invitation to visit her room that night. Perhaps it was for the best considering how ineptly he seemed to be acting around her.
The best. The best, he chanted inside his head in an attempt to convince himself of it.
‘Goodnight, Jess, sleep well,’ he called after her, knowing full well a good night’s sleep was the last thing he’d be getting.
FIVE
Jess couldn’t sleep. Again.
Her body hummed with unsettling sensations after spending the most sexually charged day of her life with the most disquieting man in the world—who she was pretty sure would have kissed her in the car if she hadn’t freaked out and run away from him like that. The trouble with being around Xander was that he was such a tactile person she wasn’t sure whether she’d read his intentions all wrong. Maybe he meant nothing by it.
The memory of the humiliating jumper incident in the restaurant made her whole body flush hot with embarrassment. Xander had been so cool to whip off his own shirt like that to protect her modesty and then she’d been cold and weird with him in the car afterwards.
He must think she was a total loon.
And what the hell had possessed her to tell him about her bulimia? It felt now as if she’d opened up the most delicate part of herself and there was a cold draught blowing in, chilling her to the bone.
Not that he hadn’t been sensitive about it. In fact, he’d been lovely about that, too, which only made her want him more.
Because she did want him.
More than she’d wanted anyone in her entire life.
And the idea terrified her.
She knew deep in her bones it would be a disaster for her to get emotionally involved with him. He was too wild for her, too... What was the phrase? Too hot to handle.
She’d get badly burned; she knew it.
The most sensible thing to do would be to keep it strictly business for the rest of her time here in case she made even more of a fool of herself. But she didn’t want to be sensible. Not this time.
Trouble was, she had a feeling her stand-offishness was all that separated her from pretty much every other woman he came into contact with and she’d be a fool to squander the advantage of his remarkable interest in her by making herself too available.
All she had to do was keep things in perspective.
Yeah, good luck with that, Jess.
Oh, goodness, this assignment was hard work.
She sighed and rolled over in bed, trying to quell the deep, vigorous throbbing between her legs at the thought of him sleeping just along the corridor.
Impossible.
Perhaps she should go and make herself a milky drink or something, in the hope it would relax her enough to let her sleep.
Rubbing a hand over her tired eyes, she sat up, shuffling to the side of her bed, only managing to increase the ache between her thighs with the friction of the movement.
Never in all her life had she felt so wildly out of control and it scared the hell out of her.
Leaving her room quietly, so as not to disturb Xander, she tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen, leaving off the light in case anyone should be alerted to her
presence. She felt furtive and naughty for being there, as if she were trespassing on someone else’s property, even though she was a guest in the house.
As she pulled open the fridge door to find the milk her eye was drawn to a bowl of what looked like tiramisu, sitting there innocently in the fridge.
A horrible greedy urge to take it and eat the entire bowlful gripped her around the throat.
The stress of hanging out with Xander Heaton was severely testing her rather shaky self-control.
Her hands shook and her mouth filled with saliva as she stared at the delicious-looking pudding. A tremendously powerful urge to reach forward and take it gripped her, but she knew from experience if she so much as let herself take a mouthful she’d end up stuffing the whole thing into her mouth like some crazed maniac and she really couldn’t let that happen. She’d fought so valiantly over the years against the horrible overwhelming feelings of shame and self-loathing her eating disorder prompted, she couldn’t let herself get pulled into that vicious cycle of binge and purge again. She’d made a promise to herself not to allow extreme comfort eating to ruin her life any more than it already had.
It would not beat her.
With a determination that she had to pull up from the very depths of her psyche, she swung the fridge door shut and walked away on shaky legs, back to her bedroom and safety.
* * *
The next morning Jess got up early and took herself off for a drive around the lake.
She needed a breather from being around Xander in order to mentally get herself in a place where she could handle the developing situation without freaking out again.
A bit of peace and calm and normality was just the ticket.
Stopping off in a few of the charming towns along the way, she took photos and made notes for the travel piece she needed to write. Each place was very different from the last—with its own unique atmosphere and character—all bordering the amazingly clear water of Lake Garda. She could totally see why the place lured so many visitors to its shores each year.
A tantalising window display in one of the women’s clothes shops drew her in and she found herself trying on and buying a couple of reasonably priced tops—one white and one in a vibrant pillar-box red—a stylish, black fishtail skirt that fell to just above her knee and a couple of midlength-sleeved summer dresses. All the clothes were more fitted and flamboyant than the things she’d usually wear, but some strange compulsion made her hand over her credit card and buy them anyway. She justified the expense by telling herself she needed some more clothes since it looked as if she was staying longer and it wouldn’t be professional to keep turning up in the same sad outfit every day.
Lessons in Rule-Breaking Page 8
