Page 32 of The Billionaire's One-Night Baby

She nodded and picked a crumb off her plate with the tip of her finger. ‘They were delicious.’

He shrugged. He pointed to the cloches which still sat on the island. ‘Are you ready for dinner or can you wait?’

Dodi lifted her feet to place her heels on the edge of her chair. She wouldn’t be able to sit like this in a few weeks or months. ‘I can wait.’

Jago refreshed her glass with ginger beer, added some mint picked from the small bush growing on her windowsill and finally some ice. After refilling his wine glass, he joined her at the table, resting his back against the wall and stretching out his long legs. ‘Tell me about your horrible day.’

Dodi grimaced and shook her head. ‘It’s over. I’d rather move on.’

‘Tell me, I want to know.’

Dodi ran her finger up and down her glass, breaking up the droplets of condensation. What to say? How to start? It had been a disaster of epic proportions. ‘Saturdays are busy days at the salon but today was insane. We were slammed from the moment we opened, with both walk-ins and brides with appointments.

‘Two of my consultants didn’t arrive—they both sent me messages telling me that they had stomach flu.’ She felt the same familiar spurt of annoyance she had earlier. ‘But, since they are best friends and both previously asked me for the weekend off, I think them having stomach flu was a lie.’

Jago didn’t suggest that she fire her staff members or discipline them, which she appreciated.

‘Anyway, we were slammed, and I think the heat and the crowded salon started to work on everyone’s nerves, from the staff to the brides to the brides’ entourages. As the day went on, everybody started getting rattier and things started going wrong.’

‘Like?’ Jago asked when she stopped talking.

‘Ah...well, a bride picked up five kilograms and couldn’t fit into her very fitted dress. She blamed my most experienced dressmaker for taking the wrong measurements. A bride and her bridesmaid got into a heated argument when the bride chose a hideous colour and style for their dresses, and they ended up screaming at each other.’

Jago turned to face her, placing his bent forearms on the table, looking sexy and interested and...hot.

Concentrate, Dodi.

‘Another bride insisted on a dress that was three times her father’s budget and he tried to pay for it using three different credit cards and all of them were declined. She flounced off in tears and he wasn’t far off.’

Jago moved his hand so that he could run his finger on the inside of her wrist. It was, she was sure, a gesture of comfort, but it sent sparkles of desire rushing up her arm.

‘It was a mess, all around. At one point I went into my office, put a pillow over my face and screamed at the top of my lungs.’ And cried.

‘Tough, tough day.’

It had been, Dodi agreed. But she’d made it through without killing or maiming anyone, so that had to be a win. So she just needed to keep doing that for the next, oh, thirty years or so.

‘Can you hire someone to help you?’ He closed one eye and grimaced. ‘CanIhire someone to help you?’

She rolled her eyes at his suggestion. ‘You cannot. And I don’t need physical help, not really. Sometimes I’d just like to step away from the responsibility of it all.’

She could see the understanding in his eyes. Jago’s responsibility wasn’t to thirty people but to many thousands. God, how did he sleep? Jago sipped from his wine glass, and when he lowered it he looked thoughtful. ‘Tell me the real reason you don’t like the wedding dress business.’

Because it was a question she hadn’t expected, it felt like he’d rammed a probe up her spine, sending two thousand volts of electricity through her body. Nobody but Jago suspected her of having a dislike-hate relationship with Love & Enchantment, knew that she dragged her butt to work every day. She’d adored her grandmother and knew how much she loved the salon, and the thought of anyone knowing how much she hated pouring brides into white-after-white-after-cream dresses made her feel sick to her stomach.

Lily had saved her from a dead-end life, given her a profitable business, a house, security, and telling anyone how she felt, really felt about the salon, made her feel intensely disloyal.

She sucked in a deep breath, prepared her lie. ‘I just had a bad day, Jago, nothing more.’

He cocked his head to the side and touched the tip of his finger to the side of his nose. ‘You always scrunch your nose up, just on the one side, when you lie.’

She did not! Did she?

‘But I’m not lying,’ she stated, forcing herself to look him in the eye. ‘Bad day, annoying people. Let’s move on.’

Jago dared to smile. ‘Let’s not. What’s your problem with the business, Elodie Kate? And what would you be doing if you weren’t a bridal salon owner?’

Oh, God, that was easy to answer. She might hate wedding dresses, but she loved fashion and she’d open a vintage clothing shop and decor shop. She could just see it, full of mid-century Swedish furniture and Italian lighting, Art Deco glass and great clothes from fantastic designers.

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