Playing With Fire

Chapter Four

‘Then sit with us for a moment, mon ami,’ Anton Dubois, Cluny’s award-winning head chef, invited in his thick French accent. He reached to take the lid off a large casserole dish in the centre of the table with a flourish. ‘Have some bourguignon and tell us all your news.’

Aidan shook his head in regret. ‘As delicious as it looks and smells, no, thanks. I’m actually on my way to catch a flight back to Cork now. I had to stop by to see Annabel about something.’ They didn’t need to know that the something was, in fact, nothing; that, rather than heading straight to the airport as he’d intended, he’d given in to a compulsion to come by for no other reason than to see her before taking off for Ireland.

Annabel all but leaped to her feet. ‘Why don’t you come through to the office?’ she said, looking eager to hustle him out of there.

Leaving the rest of the staff to finish their meal, he followed as she took off towards the kitchens as fast as the narrow fit of her pencil skirt would allow. It had been a week since their reconciliation, and during those seven days they’d managed to meet a few times, though not nearly as often as he’d have liked. Trying to work a social life around the long shifts typical of the restaurant trade was bad enough, but with someone as driven as Annabel – who worked over and above what was expected in order to keep up with her own exacting standards – it was harder yet. Still, determined as he was to stick to his promise of dating her properly, he’d managed to pin her down one morning for an early brunch, taken her to a movie on her night off and, as a chance to grab some precious time together before he had to head back to Ireland today, he’d met her for a nightcap at the end of her shift last night.

What they hadn’t managed to do at any point in the week was spend another entire night together. Following the nightmare incident at her place, Annabel had thrown out all sorts of excuses as a way of ensuring they’d both ended up sleeping alone each night in their respective beds. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was actively avoiding the situation for fear of risking a repeat performance.

Ahead of him, she pushed through the doors into the kitchens without breaking her stride. Once he was through, leaving the doors to swing to behind him, Aidan closed the distance between them and reached out to rest his hand at the small of her back as he fell into step beside her.

Annabel sprang away from the touch as though jabbed with a hot poker. ‘Not here,’ she muttered, casting a look back over her shoulder. ‘What if someone sees?’

Well, there was his answer to the question of guilty secrets, then. He tried not to take it personally. ‘Ashamed of me?’ he teased.

‘No.’ Annabel cast him a flustered look. ‘It’s . . . it doesn’t feel comfortable.’

It was hard to keep remembering that even relatively casual gestures of affection were alien to her. While Annabel was no stranger to sexual encounters, she’d never been in a romantic relationship with a man. It felt good to know he’d get to be her first.

Her only, a growling echo emanated from the man-cave set in the deep recesses of his brain. He quickly blocked, in case any further club-swinging, chest-beating thoughts tried to escape.

‘It doesn’t feel comfortable because you’re not used to it.’ Which was something he intended to rectify. Starting now. He caught her hand and tightened his grip when her automatic reaction was to pull away.

Finding that she was unable to wrench herself free, Annabel settled for picking up speed and towing him across the kitchen instead. ‘Maybe. But I don’t think this is the place for it. Not at work. Not in front of the staff.’

‘Why not? Why shouldn’t they know you’re a normal human being?’ Aidan asked as she rushed him with small, scissoring steps through the rear doorway into the hallway leading to the staff room and her office. ‘I have nothing to do with the place any more, so there’s no threat to your authority, no reason not to have a relationship outside your business life.’