CHAPTER TWENTY
Jennings
“Where are we?” She’s exited the car and slipped her hand in mine, glancing at the building in front of us. She managed to miss the vineyard completely on the drive in, so focused on her task of seducing me.
She’s an enigma, this girl. So full of passion but so innocently naïve about getting it. A mixture of sweet and sassy that makes me hard in an instant. The way her thoughts constantly play out across her face makes her easy to read but somehow all the more captivating. I can’t get enough of her. How she tosses me a glare and rolls her eyes in my face when I’ve irked her. The way she bites her bottom lip and glances away while she thinks about how much she’s willing to tell me. How her nose wrinkles and eyes narrow when I’ve crossed a line and how her pupils dilate when I’ve whispered something unexpectedly filthy in her ear.
Jesus, the smell of her alone is enough to get me going. The softness of her skin and the silk of her hair. The curve of her bottom and the swell of her tits.
I’m fucked.
“Local vineyard,” I tell her. “They’ve a French restaurant that’s rumored to be lovely.”
She glances around, turning in a little circle to take in the property. We’ve been dropped at the entrance to the onsite inn, a charming building that looks like a house tucked away in the countryside. The vineyard stretches out in front of us, row after row of trellises covered in growing grape vines dotted by a perimeter of trees and open skies.
“Wow, you really go all out for first dates,” Daisy says after she’s completed her circle and returned to face me. “I’m impressed,” she says and I wonder what her face would look like if I brought her to a French vineyard. Or a Spanish one. Or, best yet, a remote Italian vineyard in the countryside with a pool and staff who left during the day. We’d do nothing but eat and fuck and lie naked in the sun. I’d dribble the finest vintages money can buy across her skin and lap them up with my tongue a drop at a time.
“Don’t get presumptuous about how good this date is. I could still ask you to split the bill,” I deadpan.
She throws her head back and laughs and I can’t recall the last time I enjoyed myself this much with anyone.
“I’ve never eaten French food before,” she admits once we’re inside sat at a table. Her fingertips are tapping the side of the menu and there’s a small crease marring her forehead as she studies the options.
“No? If you don’t enjoy it we’ll stop at I Jump on the way back.”
Her eyes fly up from the menu and she grins. “You’re an excellent listener, Jennings.”
“I’m a fast learner too. I already know three different ways to make you come in under ten minutes.”
“Oh, my God.” Her eyes widen and a blush covers her cheeks and I wonder if I can run an international travel business from Naperville, Illinois. Or, fuck it, perhaps I can retire at thirty-six and make my life’s work finding the rest of the ways to make Daisy come.
What in the hell did my life look like before this woman? It’s hard to recall.
The waiter collects our drink orders. I order a Manhattan while Daisy selects one of the Rieslings made at the on-site winery. She examines the interior of the restaurant, her eyes resting briefly on the wooden-beamed ceiling, chairs covered in a blue French toile fabric, and chandeliers hanging with their cords swagged from hooks in the ceiling. She doesn’t speak until the drinks arrive.
She takes a sip of her wine and her eyes widen with pleasure. “Wow. That tastes like I could just suck it down.”
Bloody hell.
She did not just say that. I grunt and shake my head to clear the memory of her on her knees sucking me down.
“Do you eat at restaurants like this often?” She asks it casually but that face of hers has already given her away, the question hanging in her eyes as she takes a sip of her drink.
“Occasionally,” I tell her. Way to elaborate, Jennings.
She examines the tablecloth in front of her while I wait. They’re royal blue, matching the blue print on the chairs.
“What is it you do exactly?”
There it is. The question I knew she wanted to ask. I should just tell her. Right now. Yet… something is holding me back. I’ve gotten in too deep on this lie of omission and now doesn’t feel like the moment to correct it. Plus I need to figure her out before I lay out all my cards. There’s something she’s not telling me and I don’t think the revelation that I’m her boss’ boss’ boss is going to get her to open up any. Likely the opposite. In fact I think it would have her hoofing it out the door.
“I work in operations for a London-based company.”
“What does that mean?” She stares at me from across the table, her expression curious and relaxed.
Damn her curiosity.
“It’s mostly analyzing strategies and procedures. Ensuring efficiencies. Minimizing resources. Forecasting trends, etcetera etcetera.” I spout off a bunch of nonsense and hope it was dull enough to answer her and put an end to any additional questions.
“Wait a minute.” She says the words slowly, her eyes narrowing. “I think I’ve got you figured out.”
Shit. “Have you?” I take a sip of my drink and feign nonchalance.
“Yup. Can’t fool me.” She taps her water glass against the tablecloth as she speaks and I wonder if she’s going to fling it in my face.
At least her hand isn’t on the butter knife. Yet.
Fuck, I should have said something sooner. But it’s not as though I lied, is it? An omission isn’t a lie, exactly. I make a mental note not to say that aloud. I doubt it’ll win me any points.
“You,” she says, pointing at me with her finger and a stern expression, “have a job.”
“Correct. And I don’t live with my mum. We established that when you agreed to keep sleeping with me.” I wink, hoping we’re done with this line of conversation.
“I meant you have a good job.” She tilts her head and examines me as if something is just occurring to her. “And you own a home. Even homes in the dodgy section of London are crazy expensive.”
“Dodgy?” I laugh at her. Her expression is so serious, as if she’s about to win a game of Clue. “Americans don’t use the word ‘dodgy’ to describe property.”
“I told you, I have an Anglophile fetish. Stop trying to distract me.” She straightens her silverware and I keep an eye on the knife. “I don’t think your grandmother paid for your trip.”
“No?”
“No. I think you paid for her trip. Am I right?” She sits back in her chair, confident she’s solved the puzzle of me. “You let me think you were Mr. Good Times, but you have your act together, don’t you?”
Not that together, no. But I grin and tell her it’s family tradition to take turns taking Nan on holiday. Then the waiter arrives with our starters and I thank my lucky stars for the interruption.
I’m on borrowed time on this lie. I manage to remain relatively anonymous, being that no one gives a toss about who runs a travel conglomerate and I have a last name other than Sutton, but it’s not impossible to piece together.
The company website is little more than a fancy landing site to direct consumers to the individual brands. The About section on the site only makes a brief mention of the corporation being family-owned, and even then not a name is listed, merely a note of four generations of service. She knows it surely, being an employee, but it’s not my name on her payslip. I’m buried layers deeper than a contract employee of one division would care about.
I need to come clean with her.
“I think I’ve got you figured out as well.” We’ve gotten a cheese board starter and Daisy pauses in the act of spreading raspberry preserve across a tiny crunchy toast and blinks twice.
“You have?”
“I think…” I pause, letting the tension build a moment while a look of unease flashes in her eyes. “I think that you like me.”
She sets the toast on her bread plate and leans in a few inches before speaking.
“I think I’m addicted to having sex with you,” she whispers and there’s not an iota of seduction in her delivery. She presents it as if it’s simply a fact that confuses her a bit. “It’s really good, right? I’m sure I have less experience than you do, so maybe I’m just naïve. Or maybe I need a bigger sample pool? Maybe it’s you and you’re really good at sex and it’s like this for you with everyone? Is it all the same to you? Maybe you’re the common denominator?”
Totally guileless, this girl. She didn’t say any of that from a place of judgement. It’s from a place of curiosity and it’s both endearing and erotic and oh, so totally Daisy.
“How am I supposed to eat this?” she asks, pointing at the cheese board. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Spread the soft cheese onto the toast and eat it with your hands.”
She does as I tell her and pops the food into her mouth, humming a little as the flavor hits her tongue. My cock responds as if she’s just placed me on her tongue.
“This is fun,” she says, doing a little wiggle in her seat. “You’re fun, Jennings.”
Fun? When’s the last time someone accused me of being fun?
“So is it always good for you? The sex, I mean. Not the cheese. Cheese is always good, am I right? There’s nothing not to enjoy about a liaison with cheese. In your mouth.” She’s babbling and she makes a grab for her wine glass before adding, “Yay, cheese.” Then she downs a long sip and avoids my eyes.
Jesus Christ, she has no game.
I rub a hand over my jaw and think about my response. I need to tread carefully because this is a conversation that could result in me heading to my room alone tonight before I know what’s hit me. The last thing I need her thinking about is any woman who isn’t her.
“Daisy,” I say softly and wait for her eyes to return to mine. “You’re the most fun I’ve ever had.”
She dips her head and smiles, a blush coloring her face over the double entendre. “I’m not that experienced in fun.”
“Why is that?” I ask when what I want to say is, Good.
She shrugs and works on preparing another toast. “Focused on my career. Wasted time on the wrong guys. You know, the usual reasons.”
“Tell me about the guy.”
“Which one?”
“The one who led you to pick up a stranger in a hotel bar.” The idiot who led you straight to me.
She wiggles her nose while she thinks about what, if anything, she wants to share and I focus on not asking for the cheque and dragging her out of here caveman-style so I can fuck the answers out of her.
“It’s sorta tied into my old job.”
Fucking hell. I don’t think I like where this is headed.
“The design job? That you did prior to working at Sutton Travel?”
“Right.” She fidgets in her seat. “A long time ago.”
I wonder what a long time consists of in a twenty-six-year-old’s life.
“So what happened?” I prompt.
“It’s embarrassing,” she says while examining the crumbs on her plate.
“How so? You were co-workers? Dating the boss?” Fuck, neither of these options are great. No wonder she was squirrelly about company policies.
“We were co-workers, yes.” She pauses. “And his dad owned the company.”
Fuck.
“I sound like a hussy when I say that, right? I promise you I did not get any special treatment. None!” Her eyes flash with an old pain and I wish I could erase it for her. “It wasn’t like that at all. At all,” she repeats.
“Of course you didn’t.”
“It was the opposite of an advantage. I didn’t push hard enough to get the projects I wanted because I didn’t want anyone to think I got them unfairly.”
“I get it,” I tell her, and I do. I get the conflict, if not the holding back. Working at a family-owned business, you know you’re being watched more than anyone else. You know you have to work twice as hard to prove yourself worthy of the advancements that you’ve earned, but were always expected to receive.
“Then the company was sold and most of the staff was laid off, myself included. Mark relocated with the new company so I lost my job, my boyfriend and my house in the same week.”
“You were living together?” I hate the idea of this.
“No.” She shakes her head. “No. I was in the process of buying a condo and it fell through when I got laid off. Banks frown upon a lack of employment.”
Bloody arsehole.
“Never again, you know? I never should have gone out with him. What’s that saying? ‘Don’t mix business and pleasure?’ Yeah, don’t.”
“I prefer the saying ‘never say never.’”
“You do? Why?”
Because you’re involved with a co-worker right now and you don’t know it yet. Because I can’t envision walking away from you when this week is over and I need you to forgive me for not telling you sooner.
The waiter arrives with our entrées and I take the opportunity to avoid the question. When he leaves Daisy continues.
“If my work and personal life hadn’t been combined it wouldn’t have all blown up at once,” she says.
“Sometimes a shake-up is just what you need,” I counter.
She frowns at me when I say that and I realize I might be overdoing it.
“Did you consider going with him?” Hell, there I go again. Asking her questions out of context. Because what I mean is, Is Naperville fucking Illinois a hard limit for you?
She blinks a few times and pokes at her food. “I don’t know,” she finally says. “Because he didn’t ask. Looking back I’d like to say no, I wouldn’t have. Knowing everything I know now, I’d like to say no way. But I don’t really know, do I? He hadn’t shared any of his plans with me,” she continues. “I didn’t expect that he’d disclose the company was being sold. I honestly didn’t. But he could have found a way to tell me something. He could have told me he was considering a move. That he’d been recruited to another company. He could have told me that much, but he didn’t. The weekend I thought he was on a golf trip with friends he was in California signing a lease on a new apartment. He was full of lies and half-truths.”
“He’s obviously an idiot. Terrible in bed as well, I suspect.”
She grins, the smile lighting up her face and the hint of sadness in her eyes gone.
“Nowhere near as fun as you,” she says. Then she laughs, delighted in her dirty pun, and I add this look on her face to all the others I can’t get enough of.