I lift my head. “My girl,” I tell her. “For a few days, anyway.”
She looks into my eyes for a long moment. Then she nods, her lips curving up a little. “Your girl.”
Chapter Twelve
Jess
When Rich suggested going out to dinner, half of me expected we’d return to the fish and chip shop, or maybe the slightly smarter cafe on the way back to Kerikeri. To my surprise, he takes the road north to Doubtless Bay, and it’s not long before he’s pulling in at an exclusive seafood restaurant in Mangonui that I’ve never had the balls to go in before because it’s so expensive.
“Everything all right?” he asks as we get out of the car. He must have seen the look on my face. “You do like seafood?”
“Um, yeah, sure.” I don’t like to say that I feel intimidated. Rich’s car is an Alfa Romeo. I know nothing about cars, but it’s big and shiny and it smells new inside, so I have a feeling he didn’t buy it second-hand, and it must have cost serious money. As we walk into the restaurant, he seems comfortable and at ease. I watch him tell the waiter that he’s booked—when did he do that?—and when the waiter gestures to the table put aside for us, Rich asks if we can have one out on the deck instead. I stifle a gasp—I wouldn’t have dared do that—but when Rich leans forward and whispers something to him, the waiter nods and immediately shows us to a vacant table outside overlooking the harbor.
“What did you tell him?” I ask after the waiter has given us our menus and left.
“That you’d do the dishes if he gave us this table.” Rich winks at me, then opens his menu.
I stick my tongue out at him, although he misses it because he’s looking down.
I chew my bottom lip as I study him while he chooses his meal. After our shower, he went back to his bach and must have shaved, because his jaw looks smooth and bristle-free. His curly dark hair is still damp around his temples. He’s the most attractive man I’ve met for a long time, maybe ever, but now I’m not just seeing how gorgeous he is—I’m looking beyond his chiseled jaw and dark, expressive eyes.
He’s wearing jeans and a short-sleeved, blue-and-white-checked shirt. The outfit’s innocuous, but now I can see the quality cut of the shirt, the expensive watch on his wrist, the top-of-the-range phone he places on the table. I remember what he said about running a business—he knows his stuff. He told me he’s a code monkey, and implied he scrapes by, but I’m not seeing that. This guy has money—he’s just not admitting it.
I can’t blame him for that, though. I haven’t been entirely honest with him either.
He looks up, catching me staring at him. His lips curve up, but he doesn’t say anything. I hold his gaze as long as I can before I feel my cheeks go red, and then look away.
I glance around the other diners. This being New Zealand, nobody’s dressed up to the nines even though it’s a nice restaurant, and some of the guys are even in shorts, but most of the women are wearing dresses or nice tops and skirts. I’m glad I put on one of the few skirts I own. It’s not exactly high quality though; it’s a boho-style khaki-colored maxi skirt that I bought in a buy-one-get-one-free offer that I’ve topped with a plain white vest. I hate bras and luckily I’m small enough that I look okay without one, but now I wonder whether I look like a hippie, with my hair scraped up into an untidy roll so that bits are falling around my face. I never wear jewelry, and I rarely use makeup. Today I have a slick of red lipgloss on because sometimes my lips get dry in the sun.
The waiter comes up and asks if we’d like a drink while we’re choosing our meals. “Red wine?” Rich asks. I nod, and he glances at the wine list and reels off the name of a bottle that costs almost as much as my food budget for the week. Jeez.
What does he see in me? Seriously? He looks like the kind of guy who would raise an eyebrow at the wine I drink that tends to take the enamel off your teeth. I can’t imagine that he buys food with the aim of making it stretch to as many meals for the week as possible. He wouldn’t pick apart an old sweater so he could make a new one from the wool. I bet he has a latte in a takeaway cup every morning from his favorite cafe, and he doesn’t just save takeout for the first Friday in the month after he gets paid.
He’s completely not the sort of guy who’s usually interested in me. Perhaps that’s why I feel so excited when I’m with him.
Mind you… I look at the prices on the menu and swallow hard. A three-course meal with half the cost of the bottle of wine is going to put me back around a hundred bucks. I wonder what he’ll think if I have soup as a main course?
“Jess,” Rich says, obviously picking up on my doubt, “this is my treat, obviously.”
I look up at him. “What?”
“I wouldn’t ask a girl to dinner and expect her to pay.”
“And I wouldn’t expect a guy to take me to dinner and pay for me.”
“Regardless. It’s my treat.” He raises an eyebrow, brooking no argument. It makes me think of the way he pushed me up against the wall the other day in the rain and took me with a confidence and a passion I hadn’t expected.
Now his expression turns wry. “And you’d better stop looking at me like that or I’ll be dragging you off somewhere and we won’t even get around to dinner.”
“You’re quite forceful,” I say, and moisten my lips with my tongue.
His gaze drops to them. “Sorry.”
“It wasn’t a complaint.”
He laughs and taps his menu. “Choose your food, for Christ’s sake, or we’ll never get anywhere.”
I hesitate. Instinctively, I want to object and insist I pay my share, but that will mean that I can only order the soup, and some of this food looks delicious.
He tips his head to the side, a frown marring his brow. “I’m sorry. I should have asked before I brought you here. Would you be more comfortable somewhere a bit less formal?”
I like his choice of words. He’s doing his best not to draw attention to the fact that, obviously, I’m short on cash.
I shift in my chair and align my wine glass with the salt and pepper pots. “I’m sorry. You’re being generous and I must seem ungracious. I’ve never had a guy take me out to dinner before, that’s all.”
He stares at me. “What about your ex?”
“Nope. We always split the bill.”
He sits back, and he runs his tongue across his top teeth. “I’m liking that guy less and less the more you tell me.”
I don’t bother hiding my smile. “I always insisted on paying my way.”
“You think letting a guy pay for dinner makes you less independent? Less of a modern woman?”
My cheeks flush. “Now you’re making me feel foolish.”
He exhales. “That wasn’t my intention. I apologize. I appreciate that this can be a sensitive subject for women. Look, ordinarily, if we were to stop at a cafe for lunch, it wouldn’t bother me if we bought our own meals. But this is different.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re sleeping together, which means this is a date, and I suggested going out, therefore I expect to pay.”
This is a date. That’s rubbish, obviously, because all we’ve done is hooked up, which was completely by chance and purely physical. But even so, his words give me a warm tingle.
“It’s your birthday,” I point out. “I should pay for you.” I look at the menu. “Which I’m prepared to do if you have the soup for your main course and no dessert.”
His lips curve up and he leans forward on the table. “Let me buy you dinner, Jess. You can pay me back later.”
I meet his gaze. His dark eyes study me, and the flush in my cheeks extends to the rest of my body at the thought of going to bed with him again.
“It’s a deal,” I whisper. I let my gaze slide down him. “So maybe you should stay off the spicy stuff, if you want a really nice birthday present.” I bring my eyes back to his and run my tongue across my top lip.
He purses his lips and stares at the menu again. “Now I’m tempted to go fo
r the soup so we can get back as quickly as possible.”
I laugh, joy filling me. One thing I have learned over the years is to make the most of the good times when they come. And this is a good time. It’s a beautiful sunny evening, I’m with a gorgeous guy, there’s the promise of hot sex in the offing, and I’m about to have a free fantastic meal. What more could a girl want?
The waiter comes back with our wine and offers the bottle to Rich, who nods, then shakes his head that he doesn’t need to taste it. The waiter pours the ruby red liquid into our glasses, and I pick mine up and take a sip. It’s a Marlborough Pinot Noir, apparently. My mouth floods with the taste of cherries, plums, and berries. I’ve never had wine like it.
“Are you ready to order?” the waiter asks.
I nod and order the pan-fried scallops with bacon to start and the salmon fillet stuffed with oysters for a main, while Rich chooses the mussels wrapped in bacon with a honey glaze, and the fish of the day in a galliano and banana cream sauce. I have no idea what galliano is, but it sounds delicious.
After the waiter leaves, I look out across the harbor. “It’s beautiful here.”
“I think so. I come here every year. A mate of mine runs the restaurant.”
My eyes widen. “Really?”
“He was a few years below me at school, but we were both in the rugby team. He’s a fantastic chef. He was offered a place at Rutland’s in Auckland but decided he wanted to stay here.”
Maria had talked often of the prestigious Rutland’s, so that impresses me. “Wow.”
“Yeah. His wife co-owns the chocolate and coffee shop just along from here. You’ll get to try some of their ice cream for dessert, if you fancy it.” Rich looks across and smiles. “Here he is now.” He stands and holds out his hand as a slender, dark-haired guy dressed in the classic checked trousers and chef’s white coat approaches, and they shake hands.
“Good to see you,” the chef says.
“And you,” Rich replies. “This is Fox,” he tells me. “And Fox, this is Jess.”
I rise and shake his hand. “Hello.”
“Hey.” Fox shakes hands with me and gives me a warm smile. “Welcome to Aqua Blue. I hope you enjoy your meal. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you while you’re here.”
“I’m looking forward to trying your wife’s ice cream,” I tell him, which earns me a wide grin. “I hope she does chocolate.”
“At least ten kinds,” he says cheerfully. “The girls at Treats are all chocoholics. Please, don’t stand on my account.”
We sit again, and Fox lingers to chat to Rich for a few minutes about the All Blacks’ latest game against England. Eventually, though, he says, “Well I’d better get back to the kitchen. I’ll send you through some of the new appetizers I’ve been working on. You can be my guinea pigs. Let me know what you think.”
“Great, thanks.”
We sit again, and Rich winks at me. “Always helps to know the chef.”
I have to agree with him when Fox sends out the appetizers. They’re bite-sized pieces of exquisite food, from mini lobster rolls to tiny Asian crab cakes, every one full of flavor. Rich and I discuss our favorites, and I discover that he’s surprisingly knowledgeable about ingredients, and identifies several I’ve never even heard of, let alone tasted before.
As the evening draws on, I find myself increasingly fascinated with this man. He’s like one of Fox’s dishes—outwardly attractive and he smells gorgeous, but it’s only when you delve in that you realize how many layers there are to him, and how deep they go.
For the first time, he opens up a little, and he talks about Will and their childhood together, and how he felt when his brother died. As he speaks, it becomes clear that I was right, and he has feelings for Teddi.
“It must be hard for you,” I say as I cut up my salmon to expose the oysters inside. Yum. “Now Will’s gone. She’s free, and yet she’ll never be free, from your point of view, anyway.”
He leans back and turns his wine glass in his fingers as he surveys me. “You’re very perceptive, aren’t you?”
“I try to put myself in other people’s shoes and not put my own beliefs and assumptions on them. Am I right, then?”
He looks at the wine. As he’s driving, he’s only had the one glass and he’s topped it up with water, so it shines a pale red. “Yes. It was clear from the beginning that she was only interested in Will. When he died, I wondered whether she would finally turn to me out of grief and loneliness. I hoped for that for a long time, but I’m beginning to think it would be a disaster for both of us. She’s Will’s girl, and that would always be in the back of both our minds, I’m sure. It would be hard to fight feelings of disloyalty and guilt, and that’s no way to begin a relationship. If it does ever happen for me, I want it to be fresh and unadulterated, if you know what I mean.”
“I do. I feel the same. After Alastair… I don’t want anyone who’s attached. I know it gets more difficult as you grow older to find someone single, but it’s not impossible.” My gaze lingers on him as he spears a piece of his fish and eats it. Will must have been some kind of guy if this Teddi chose him over Rich. And yet, it doesn’t work like that, does it? There’s no telling why two people click sometimes and others don’t. Clearly, Rich and Will being twins doesn’t mean that Teddi will automatically fall for Rich just because Will’s gone. How odd it must be for her knowing Rich is her partner’s twin brother, and yet for her, not being able to see, maybe they seem very different.
“Anyway, enough about me,” Rich says with a smile. “I want to know more about you.”
I pout. There’s so much I want to know about him. He’s been very open, and yet he’s said little about his work, and I’m sure he’s not telling me everything. I feel a flicker of doubt at the thought that maybe he’s married, but I dismiss it—that doesn’t make sense, and I don’t get the feeling of evasiveness when he talks about relationships that I did with Alastair, especially now he’s admitted his feelings for Teddi.
He’s under no obligation to confess all, though, any more than I am to him, so I play along, sip my wine, and bat my eyelashes at him. “Okay, what do you want to know?”
Chapter Thirteen
Rich
I’m finding it difficult to tear my gaze away from Jess this evening. She’s so unlike any of the other women around her. In her long skirt and top, with her untidy hair and her sun-kissed skin, she thinks she’s out of place here, but actually she’s the most beautiful woman in the restaurant, and I feel smug that she’s with me.
I still can’t put my finger on why she fascinates me so much. She’s irreverent and unconventional, which normally irritates me as I tend to see non-conformity as pretentious, but Jess’s stems from her insecurity and the fact that she feels intimidated being in what she considers an expensive restaurant. It’s not expensive at all compared to some of the places I frequent in Auckland—Fox has always tried to make sure his prices are competitive, and if they are steeper than your average eatery in the Northland it’s because his ingredients are all locally sourced and freshly cooked. Plus, Aqua Blue has recently been awarded one of the top Cuisine Good Food Awards, so it’s not as if he’s desperate for customers. I had to speak to him personally to wangle a reservation tonight, and I slipped the waiter fifty bucks to get the table outside.
“You’re making me blush,” Jess says, and I realize I’ve been staring at her for a while.
“Sorry,” I say, not meaning it. The spaghetti strap of her vest has slipped off her shoulder, and I’m fascinated by the expanse of warm brown skin that runs from her arm, across her collarbone, and up to her throat. I’m tempted to lean forward and press my lips to the crook of her neck, where I can still see a faint mark where I sucked there the other day. I want to take this girl to bed again, I want to kiss her all over, I want to slide inside her and feel her clench around me. She’s driving me insane.
“Holy fuck,” she whispers, “you’ve got to stop looking
at me like that or I’m going to melt into a puddle.”
I take a mouthful of the wine and savor it on my tongue, imagining I’m licking up through Jess’s soft folds. “I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with me lusting after you. I can’t seem to switch it off.”
Her hazel eyes take on a helpless, sultry look. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”
I raise an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“I mean it. I don’t know why, but you’re just so… different.”
It seems that I fascinate her the same way she fascinates me. I’m hungry for her—for her body, but also for her mind. I want to know more about her. And I need to distract myself from thinking about sex.
My gaze falls on the symbol on her wrist, and I point to it with my fork. “Tell me more about that.”
She looks at it. “What do you want to know?”
“What does it represent?”
She lifts her wrist and examines it, as if seeing it for the first time. “It’s the phases of the moon. Waxing crescent, full moon, and waning crescent. Like I said, it’s a symbol of my independence from my parents, if you like.” She smiles. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
I’ve finished my meal, so I lean back, letting the warm evening air sweep over me, and survey her. The water in the harbor is now the color of the tangerines growing in the gardens out the back of the restaurant. “No,” I tell her. “I don’t think you’re crazy. I envy you, in a way.”
“Why?”
“Because you seem secure in your faith. Comforted by it, like Marx said.”
“You don’t think that’s foolish?”
“I think it makes perfect sense. I wish I could be the same. I was brought up a Christian and went to church regularly until my late teens, and I was taught about the old Maori gods too, Papatuanuku and Ranginui, gods of the earth and sky. It seemed natural to believe in both. I had a fairly solid faith through my teens and twenties, but Will’s death changed me. I tried so hard to feel him around me after he died, but I couldn’t, and that tore through all my religious beliefs. I can’t bring myself to believe I’ll never see him again, and yet I can’t honestly believe he’s in some idyllic otherworld sitting on a cloud playing a harp.” I stop, my throat tightening. It’s our birthday, and although yesterday was a big step forward for me, the grief is still there, fresh and raw as the day it formed inside me.
My New Year Fling: A Sexy Christmas Billionaire Romance (Love Comes Later Book 2) Page 10