Page 29 of The Couple Behind the Headlines

‘Are you all right?’

?

?Fine,’ she said, clearly anything but.

‘So what are you doing here all by yourself?’

‘Well, I was hoping to have a few moments of peace …’

Jack rubbed a hand along his jaw and frowned. If that was a not-so-subtle hint that he should leave, then she was going to be disappointed because he wasn’t going anywhere. Instead, he pulled up a chair and sat down facing her. ‘I did say I’d come and find you after dinner.’

‘You took your time.’

Jack’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. Was that what was annoying her? The fact that he hadn’t come looking for her the minute coffee had been served? Was she really that high maintenance? ‘I got waylaid by someone wanting to invest in one of my funds.’

‘Oh.’ Her gaze jerked to his and he saw something flash in her eyes. Something that looked a little like relief and Jack inexplicably felt like grinning. Imogen might be hard work at times, but he had no doubt she’d be worth it.

‘And you didn’t exactly make it easy by hiding out here.’

‘I wasn’t hiding.’ She sniffed. ‘I was merely taking a little time out to think.’

‘About what?’

‘Things.’

‘Where I was being one of them?’

She flushed. ‘Possibly.’

‘And what conclusion did you draw?’ he asked, intrigued because whatever it was she’d been thinking about it was highly likely to be the cause of her frostiness.

‘It occurred to me you might have been … how shall I put it … otherwise engaged.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ she said with an airy wave of her hand. ‘It’s irrelevant now anyway. Have you had a pleasant evening?’

His smile tightened a little at the thought of the ordeal he’d had to endure so far this evening and still was. Pleasant was not the word he’d have used. ‘Not particularly.’

‘Oh?’ She raised her eyebrows and regarded him coolly. ‘From where I was sitting it looked like you were having a whale of a time.’

‘Believe me, I wasn’t.’

‘The blonde virtually sitting in your lap certainly looked as if she was enjoying herself.’

Jack frowned. What on earth was she talking about? What blonde? There hadn’t been a blonde.

Unless she meant Jessica.

Jack went still as the memory of his mother’s overblown behaviour at dinner flew into his head. She did mean Jessica.

As realisation dawned he felt like laughing because if he wasn’t mistaken Imogen was jealous. It wasn’t an emotion he’d ever experienced himself, of course—that weird tightening of his body when she’d told him she’d once gone out with Max had been nothing but surprise—but he could recognise it in others.

‘Ah, the blonde,’ he said, feeling the tension ease from his shoulders as he leaned forwards and, unable to resist any longer, wrapped his hand around her ankle and slid it up her bare calf.

With a sharp gasp Imogen snatched her legs away and clutched the edges of the lower half of her dress together.

‘Don’t think you’re going to get out of this by virtually sitting in my lap,’ she said tartly, although, with her breath catching the way it was, it didn’t come out as tartly as he imagined she’d have liked.

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