Page 23 of Maid for Advertising
“As your what?” I whispered.
“As my date,” his muffled voice said into his hands. “Okay? I wanted you to come here as my date. And not to show you off to all my wanky friends, not to try to impress you with my big boat (well okay, maybe alittlebit of that), but because I didn’t want to go one bastard week without seeing your face. I thought we could hang out and do some of the conference stuff, but also chill . . . together. It was going to be my grand romantic gesture. Bit full on but I was tired of skirting round the issue with you and when I realised you were free this week it seemed like fate had handed me a golden opportunity.”
I threw up my hands and let them slap down at my sides. “Well, why didn’t you just ask me then?”
“I did!”
“No, you didn’t, you . . .” I blinked as the memory of the coffee shop swam back into my mind. “Stella,” I whispered. “She told me you were offering me a job,notan invitation.” I let out a humourless laugh. “I thought she feltsorryfor me for getting the wrong end of the stick. She made me feel like a right dick for thinking you might be asking me out.”
“Stella told me you needed the money and wanted to work on the boat. She said that Iwasn’t your type.”
“That bitch! I just told her my normal type was complete loser and not impossibly gorgeous and successful.”
A slow grin spread across his face.
“Impossibly gorgeous?” he asked, his shoulders going back with renewed confidence. “I like the sound of that.” His eyes fixed on mine and took on a predatory light as he rose from the bed. Before I knew it his hands were in my hair and his face was centimetres from mine. “I thought you weren’t attracted to me.”
“I,I . . .”
“Now that I know that youareattracted to me, that changes things.”
He breathed in my hair and I shuddered in his arms before shaking my head and pulling back.
“It doesn’t change how you’ve treated me for the last few days.”
“I thought –”
“Yes, I know what you thought. ButIthought we had a connection. Even if you did believe those things about me you didn’t care enough to talk to me about them. I could have been in real trouble and you just wanted to avoid me.”
He let out a frustrated breath and raked his hands through his already messy hair. “I know. But Ihadto avoid you. The last thing I wanted was to take advantage of a vulnerable teenager, one that was in my employ.”
“I’mnota bloody teenager.”
“I know thatnow. But . . . look, I was angry as well. My pride was hurt, and I’m a sore loser. Please –”
“’You can tell a lot about a man by how he treats those with less power than him at any given moment’,” I quoted him beck to himself in a quiet but firm voice.
“I didn’t mean to –”
“I don’t trust you.”
“And that’s my fault,” he said, his voice pained. “But I can fix it. I promise.”
I sighed. “Look, I’ll see you later I just – “
“I was going to help you,” he cut me off. “Even when I thought you were a strung-out teenager, I wanted to help you. I was going to force you into rehab or something. I couldn’t have stayed away from you. I know I was a judgemental pillock on the deck that night, but that was the start of my attempt to help.”
I stared at him for a moment through narrowed eyes and tried to put myself in his position. A teenager, possibly on drugs, clearly unwell. Not something most men would want to deal with. But he had tried.
For me he’d started to try.
Chapter 11
On my radar
Jack
“Yes, delivered tomorrow,” I said into the phone. Urvi glanced up at me as we weaved through the Place des Lices market.
