Читать книгу High Heels & Bicycle Wheels - Jane Linfoot - Страница 10

‘Hey. Without the pink shorts, I almost didn’t recognise you.’

Bryony knew it wasn’t true. Jackson had clocked her as soon as she strode into the empty hotel bar three hours later, eleven miles up the coast. He’d watched every step of her high-heeled progress across the long room, almost as if he’d been expecting her.

‘Pleased I’ve found you. Cressy remembered she’d booked you in here and your car was the final giveaway. I’ve brought your jacket.’ She held it out to him as if to justify her arrival, now strangely reluctant to let it go. ‘I’m the only one staying on tonight; the rest of the crew have gone back to London. I’m off to Northumberland in the morning, so I got the delivery job.’

Why the heck was she making the frantic excuses? Cressy and her ‘go-geddim’ cries obviously had her running scared. Running guilty more like, given she’d not exactly been mortified when he’d driven off leaving her wearing his top, and not minding at all that she had to leave the elegant streets of Scarborough and wind all the way to this isolated hotel that stood proud and lonely on the wind-raked cliff top. Just because he was the hunk of the century. For one more glimpse of his decorative awesomeness. Nothing to do with the way he’d sent white-hot shivers through her whole body when he’d grabbed her. And totally excused by the fact that she never dated, so she really couldn’t be interested. Could she? She shot him her best pro smile, just to prove this was work and nothing more.

‘Miss Organization. Always last to finish. Why does that not surprise me?’ Jackson climbed off his bar stool, and pulled out another for her. ‘Might as well have a drink now you’re here? Bit of a trek, but worth it for the seclusion. And best of all, no press – apart from you, that is.’

The lazy smile he slid her unleashed a single butterfly in her chest. Then another. Designer-threadbare jeans never looked so good on a guy. Impossible not to lock onto the bulge of his groin as he pushed up onto the bar stool again. Then the whole damn flock were loose. Five hundred butterflies. Choking her, with their frantic fluttering.

‘The views here are awesome too.’ Hauling her attention upwards, with that dark grin of his. ‘Once you look out to sea that is.’

Loving the way his cheeks creased when he smiled, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, that tan that was way deeper than any British summer gave. Just for a minute she soaked up the whole charisma of this super-athletic guy who was entirely at one with being head-and-shoulders above his nearest rivals. The whole superhuman quality was disturbingly familiar, reminding her an awful lot of her older and supremely successful brother, Brando. And, yes, Jackson had picked her up there. Again. But this time she wasn’t playing.

‘I’m sure the views are spectacular.’ Determined to keep this professional, not risking an acknowledgement of where her eyes had landed, or that he’d caught her out. Again. ‘So what can I get you to drink, Jackson?’

His eyebrows raised in surprise at the ease of her offer. ‘Thanks, but it’s my shout. The beer is good and cold, if you like that.’

‘Beer it is then.’

A drink with the boys. No harm in that. She did it all the time. Didn’t usually make her heart thump this badly though. As the barman pushed beer and a glass across the bar, she waved away the glass, picking up the bottle. They were two colleagues, sitting, with their elbows and their bottles on the bar. Nothing more.

‘I admire you for what you did today.’ He shot her a sideways glance. ‘It took guts.’

She shrugged, knowing he didn’t have to say this. ‘I don’t usually make that much fuss.’

‘Even so – and before you jump on me, I’m not being patronising – you did really well.’ The gravel in his voice sent a twang through her chest, his lips curving deliciously as he played mischievously. ‘Backside sore?’

Not holding back, then, although there was something simultaneously charming and disarming about his directness.

‘It could be worse.’ She grimaced. Not that she should be discussing it with him, although talking like this made the drink more matter of fact. Somehow safer. Like she was simply one of the guys. Boy-talk was good.

He swirled his beer round in the bottle, angled his head and studied her through narrowed eyes.

Dragging in a breath, she stood up to his scrutiny.

‘And I like that you aren’t throwing yourself at me.’

Wow. That came out of left field. Tag-line for Jackson Gale: expect the unexpected.

‘Throwing myself at you? As if.’ Incredulity made her voice squeak. ‘Spoken like someone who thinks they’re irresistible.’ She sniffed, definitely not about to reinforce his ego, whatever she thought privately. ‘Or maybe I haven’t got around to it yet?’

Another smile. All rugged jaw and the darkest twinkle. Many more of those, and she might have to rethink her hands-off policy.

‘No. I’m confident that you won’t. You’re nothing like the women I usually come into contact with – or rather, fight off.’ He drummed his fingers on the bar ‘I like it. It’s intriguing.’

Was she really hearing this? Not so much of the fighting off either, if you believed the official biography.

‘Don’t you get fed up of being so super-sure of yourself?’

That made him laugh. ‘Spoken in person by Miss Uber-Confident herself.’

As he drained his beer, the hollow at the base of his neck played havoc with her insides.

‘So…’ He cleared his throat, swallowed again. ‘Shall we take this outside? There’s the beach, the terrace, or my log cabin. Your choice.’

What? Bryony’s stomach officially left the building. A man who knows what he wants and goes all out to get it. Like a line from The Official Biography. Picking up her own beer, she took a like-I-even-give-a-damn swig. The past fifteen minutes had confirmed this as the weirdest weekend of her life to date, and it wasn’t just the tandem fiasco.

Sadie, her last stoically-single friend, had just signed up for matrimony, she thought to herself, presuming that’s what Friday’s hold-the-date card meant. Okay, Cressy was still single, but Cressy was so far off the couples’ radar she didn’t figure. And Bryony was still reeling from her mum’s approach last night; although to be fair to her mother, how did you sugarcoat an offer like that? It was bound to sound insulting. Suggesting someone was unlikely to meet a partner before it was too late was not the easiest line to spin. Then she’d been shoved in front of the camera for the first time ever, and that was definitely the wrong side, from the mess the interview with Jackson had turned into.

All going down in Scarborough of all places.

She allowed herself a latent shudder for what had gone on at the end-of-sixth-form weekend bash, at The Esplanade Hotel in Scarborough, when she was eighteen. Losing her virginity to Aphrodisiac-Alex – who really hadn’t lived up to the name, even though he’d been everyone else’s heart throb at the time – hadn’t been her proudest moment. Drunk on the fire escape at six in the morning – it really had been a just a matter of her wanting to get that milestone out of the way and him being a) there, and b) ready, willing and able, which was more than could be said of the rest of the guys who were largely either spoken for or wasted. Last man standing, so to speak. It didn’t take long and she hadn’t seen him since. And granted that had been back in the day, before she took her teenage grab-all-the-man-you-can tendencies firmly in hand, and before she’d headed off from Lincolnshire to London and channelled her energy into a becoming a go-getting career-success instead. But it would always be there, an indelible shadow on the radar of her memory.

And as if the Scarborough shudders weren’t enough for one girl to handle, this weekend was all being played out against the backdrop of the other biggie she’d promised herself not to think about, the biggie that had sent her fleeing up here in the first place. That would be the biggie she couldn’t possibly dwell on for a whole weekend at home, because, let’s face it, they didn’t come much bigger than the love of your life getting married to someone else. Even if that love had remained completely unrequited, unacknowledged, unreturned and unspoken for the best part of fourteen years, it still hurt like a hole in her side. Not forgetting that tomorrow she was about to start a month off work, and she didn’t have the first idea what she was going to do with herself after she’d popped in on her married girlfriends.

And now this.

A drink with the worst womaniser, possibly in the history of the world, who thanks you for ignoring him, then asks you to his cabin. Presumably not to have sex with him whilst standing on her head, because, to be honest, this weekend the whole world was turning upside down and back to front.

And Cressy’s words pirouetted around her brain. We both know you need to lighten up. This could be your chance… What exactly had that wild-girl teenager Bryony got out of becoming so serious? A successful career? Weekends when you worked because everyone in your social circle was married off? Being in control? Maybe she should have just carried on down Slut Street; at least then she’d have had some decent sex along the way. She cringed to think what a distant memory that was.

‘So?’ The most attractive hunk in the universe was looking at her expectantly as he climbed off his bar stool.

‘Sorry?’

‘If you’ve finished your beer shall we…go?’ Inclining his head, raising his eyebrows, resting the lightest hand in the small of her back.

A convulsive shiver zithered up her spine. Why did he have to speak with that chocolate growl? Could she dare to try what she’d denied herself for so long? Take this outside, and see where it ended up?

Before she knew, she’d flashed him a dazzler of a smile that had nothing to do with professional. ‘Why not?’

Think of it as a gift.

She slipped off her stool, and landed in the crook of his waist.