Page 28 of Worth Every Game

I don’t want to wait all night just so we can eat together either. If Jack walks in and I’m sitting here like I’m about to say grace over a bowl of untouched food, waiting for his delectable arse to walk in, I don’t know what he’ll think. It’ll look like I’m serving him up dinner, like a good little housewife.

That’s definitely not what I meant to do.Is it?

This is confusing.

I tuck into the food, but I’m not really tasting it. My mind is all over the place, and I keep glancing at the pile of female faces staring up at me from the island. It’s like they’re watching me. It’s unnerving. I push them out of sight behind the fruit bowl.

The sound of the key in the front door makes me sit up straight, and my heart does a little jig.He’s home.

The door creaks as Jack enters. At least, I assume it’s him. I can’t see from here.

Footsteps approach, and I spin on my kitchen stool to find him standing in the doorway in a long dark overcoat, leaning on the door frame. He stares at me, and I struggle to take my next breath.He’s gorgeous. And big. Really, really big.

“Hi, there,” he says, brushing a hand through his hair. His voice is all smooth, and the hairs on my forearms stand in slow motion. I wish I was wearing long-sleeves.

I point my fork at him. “Don’t ‘hi there’ me. I see what you’re doing.”

One of his devastating smiles breaks over his face, and I briefly wonder if I could fall in love with his smile and remain immune to the rest of him. “What am I doing?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” I spin on the stool so my back is to him, but he’s making that amused humming sound in his mouth, and it resonates deep in my core.Damn it. He hasn’t even fully entered the room, and hidden parts of me are already throbbing.

His footsteps come closer until he’s right beside me, and every muscle in my body tenses. I pretend to focus on my food, but really all I’m doing is observing him out of the corner of my eye and growing light-headed because my breathing has become unaccountably shallow.

He takes off his coat and suit jacket, folds them carefully, and drapes them both over a kitchen chair, before he pulls out a stool and sits down next to me. He smells like fresh air and whatever that delicious scent is he wears. I inhale like I’m greedy for it.

He’s smiling so wide I can see his perfect white teeth in my periphery. My insides are fizzing as though I’m about to go to a party I’ve been looking forward to.This is messed up.

He stares at my bowl of stew, and his gorgeous smile turns slightly crooked, as though he’s both puzzled and amused. “The whole house smells like… whatever that is.”

I shrug.That’s not what I was smelling. “Oops. A girl’s gotta eat.”

“What is it?”

“Khoresh-e-Fesenjan.”

“Which is?”

“It’s Persian. Chicken and walnut stew with pomegranate molasses.”

Jack’s eyebrows fly up. “There’s no way you found pomegranate molasses in my cupboards. Or that many walnuts.”

I laugh, but it sounds more nervous than amused.What if he hates this?“No. I went shopping. Even I couldn’t make a meal out of a block of cheddar cheese and a gallon of champagne.”

Jack dismisses my comment with an eye-roll. “My housekeeper’s away. She normally stocks the fridge.”

“I took a tonic water,” I say, tapping the small can beside my plate. “Figured you could spare one.”

“Best tonic on the market,” he replies, nodding at the can.

I vaguely recall Kate telling me Jack was the first investor in Angel Tree tonic water when one of his school friends set up the company. A decade later and the drink is everywhere. Sold out to some huge drinks corporation for nearly a hundred million, and Jack got an enormous payout.Moneyrains into his life, whereas I seem to be in a permanent state of drought.

He leans over my dish, inspecting it at closer range. My heart flutters at how intimate this is. Howdomestic. Mrs Lansen might have picked out a load of suitable partners for her son, but I’m the one who gets to sit next to him at dinner.I’m winning.I shake the bizarre thought away.I must be losing my mind.

“That looks kinda disgusting,” he says, wrinkling his nose as he inhales. “Smells good though.”

Before I can think about it, I’ve filled a fork and I’m holding it out to him. “Taste it.”

He frowns at the lump of stew but opens his mouth wide around my fork, and his lips wrap around the tines. He lets out a low, appreciative moan that vibrates up the fork and into me until it nestles right between my legs.Oh boy, am I in trouble here.

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