She smiled. "Busted. OK, so it"s my favourite colour." She breathed in their scent again. "Thank you, Luke. These really are lovely."
And when she made them both a coffee and put a mug on his desk, she gave in to the impulse and kissed his cheek.
"What was that for?" he asked.
"Just to say I appreciate the roses."
"Pleasure." But he was staring at her mouth.
Just as she was staring at his.
Wondering.
She was used to giving hugs and kissing cheeks and ruffling hair. It was how she"d grown up, in the middle of a close and noisy and affectionate family. But kissing Luke"s cheek just now, being close enough to smell his clean scent and feel the softness of his skin against her lips...that hadn"t been her best idea. Because it had made her all too aware of him: an awareness that could be dangerous.
An awareness that grew and grew over the morning. Luke had a lunchtime meeting-one that had been in his diary since before she"d started working with him, so she knew it wasn"t an excuse to avoid her. She had lunch on her own, sitting on a bench overlooking the river. Giving her time to think.
Things were definitely starting to change between her and Luke; although Sara still didn"t really know what made him tick, she liked the glimpses he"d allowed her to see so far. Liked them enough to want to know more. To get to know him properly. And...
She took a sip of her ice-cold water. If she let her thoughts go much further in that direction, she"d need to up-end the bottle over her head to cool her down.
"I"m pulling rank," Luke said the next day. "We"re having a working lunch."
She coughed. "Lunch is meant to be a break."
"Refilling the well. Yeah, yeah, you told me." He flapped a dismissive hand. "But I need to brief you a little bit about this weekend."
"The operative word being "little". I thought you wanted me to do it completely as a mystery shopping kind of thing?"
"Even mystery shoppers need a brief. Look, it"s time for lunch. If you don"t have anything better planned, there"s a very good pizza place round the corner."
He"d dressed it up as a business thing-but he knew full well that wasn"t what he was offering. This was the same as her offer to him the previous day of a weekend in the country: a date that wasn"t a date.
He"d enjoyed spending time with her in that tiny, perfect garden. And even though the alarm bells were ringing in his head, warning him that this was a dangerous game, he wanted more. Something about this woman made him want to break the rules. Get to know her better.
"Sounds good to me. As long as we split the bill."
"You," he said, "are the boss."
She laughed. "Yeah, right."
He loved the way she laughed. It made him feel as if the sun had just come out after a dull, grey morning.
And why a beautiful, clever, warm woman with a sense of fun was still single was beyond him. He wouldn"t have been surprised to learn that Sara Fleet had been snapped up the second she"d turned sixteen.
Or maybe that was it. Maybe she was a widow. True, she was very young to be a widow-but life wasn"t always fair, and if she"d loved her husband that much... Then again, she was using her maiden name.
And why was he speculating about something that was none of his business? He shook himself. "Let"s go so we can beat the rush."
They arrived in time to grab a seat under one of the umbrellas on the terrace overlooking the river.
"Do you recommend anything?" Sara asked.
"It"s all good. The pizzas are wood-fired, so they"re fabulous. Wine?"
"Thanks, but I"ll stick to sparkling water. If I drink at lunchtime, it makes me want to curl up and go to sleep."
Luke suppressed the thought that he"d like to watch her curled up and sleeping, satiated after making love. He was meant to be keeping this strictly business. But there was something about her that drew him.
They settled on pizza, and sharing focaccia bread and a simple salad. But when the waiter arrived, he was clearly struggling to write down their order.
"Luke, would you mind if I ordered?" Sara cut in gently.
He spread his hands. "Be my guest."
She said a few words in what Luke guessed was Italian, and the waiter beamed at her before bursting into an absolute torrent of language. Sara was smiling back, speaking just as rapidly. Luke didn"t have a clue what they were talking about, but he liked the lilting sound of the words from her mouth.
The waiter was clearly also charmed, because he disappeared into the kitchen and returned almost immediately with a rose in a vase.
A pink rose.
She thanked him, and he gave her a deep bow before disappearing to see to another customer.
Luke grinned. "Trust you to make sure we take time to smell the roses."
She flushed. "Sorry. I wasn"t showing off, just then-Gianfranco was struggling and it"s hard enough dealing with customers without the language barrier. He"s only been in England for a week; he"s come over to work in his uncle"s business in his gap year."
Luke was impressed that she"d found out so much information in such a short s.p.a.ce of time. Then again, there was something about Sara that made you want to trust her.
Which made her dangerous.
He pushed the thought away. "It was kind of you to help out. So you speak Italian fluently." Then he remembered. "And I"ve stolen your week in Italy."
She shrugged. "I hadn"t booked my ticket, so it wasn"t a problem. I can go to Sorrento some other time."
"Well, I feel guilty."
"Good." She grinned at him. "You can buy me pudding to make up for it."
That zest for life, that love of food...and it was so refreshing, after the time he"d spent with women who nibbled on a lettuce leaf and made a fuss about counting carbs. "Deal. So do you speak any other languages?"
"French. A bit of German. And I can sc.r.a.pe by in Greek, provided I have a dictionary."
"Impressive." He smiled ruefully. "I never really learned languages at school. I haven"t needed to, for work."
"You can speak the universal language, though. Money."
"Well enough." He shrugged. "Have you been to Scarborough before?"
"No-we always tended to go south, down to the coast at Suss.e.x. You?"
"A long time ago," he said. It was one of the few memories from his childhood that was happy.
"You"re right. The pizza"s excellent," she said after her first mouthful. "And so"s the bread-I love it that they do it with rosemary here. It reminds me of Florence."
"So you like ruins?" He remembered her degree was in history, so it was pretty obvious she"d be interested in that kind of thing.
"It"s the way the past still echoes down through to the present, and the beauty never fades."
When she talked about something she enjoyed, she was really animated, he noticed. And her enthusiasm was infectious. "You could"ve been a teacher. You would"ve really inspired your cla.s.ses," he said.
She wrinkled her nose. "I did think about it. But there"s so much red tape in education-it would just suck the joy out of it, for me. Besides, I like what I do now."
And if she"d been a teacher, she wouldn"t have walked into his life.
Although Luke didn"t join her in having a pudding, he indulged in a rich, dark coffee, and when they returned to the office he was shocked to discover they"d been out for an hour and a half. Considering that lunch for him was usually just long enough to eat a sandwich... He made a mental note to put in the extra time that evening, and forced himself to concentrate on figures and phone calls for the rest of the afternoon.
He"d just replaced the receiver when she put a mug of coffee on his desk. "Problem?"
"Nothing major. The guy I was playing in a league match tonight-he needs to reschedule because something important cropped up at work. Which means I have a court booked but no partner." He looked speculatively at her. "I don"t suppose you...?"
"Absolutely not."
"I thought you said exercise was good for you?"
She shook her head, laughing. "I"m hopeless at racquet sports. Justin tried to teach me, and I was so embarra.s.singly bad that he had to admit defeat."
"I could teach you."
Her eyes met his and awareness zinged through him. Both knew he hadn"t been talking about just squash.
"Thanks for the offer, but it"s not really me." This time, she was the one to give the speculative look. "Though if you"re at a loose end..."
"What?"
"You didn"t look that convinced at lunchtime when I told you why I loved ruins. Come and see something with me. And you don"t have an excuse-you just told me your squash match was cancelled."
"Has anyone told you that you"re a bulldozer in disguise?"
She laughed. "Yup. So are you game?"
He should say no. Use the time to work. But his mouth didn"t seem to be working in synch with his brain. "Sure."
"Something"turned out to be the British Museum. "I love the courtyard here," she said. "It"s the light and shade-just lovely."
A big, wide open s.p.a.ce with a gla.s.s ceiling, triangles radiating out from a central column. He could see exactly what she meant.
He"d never really spent any time in museums. But when she took him to see the Egyptian mummies and the Roman mosaics, he could see it through her eyes and was enchanted.
"Haven"t you ever done this before?" she asked, clearly surprised.
"I guess when you live in a place, you take it for granted and don"t get round to doing the touristy things."
"True, and doing them on your own"s not such fun because you don"t get to share them and talk about them with someone." She reached out and took his hand for a moment, squeezing it. "Maybe we can come back together some time."
"That"d be nice."
What really shocked him was that he meant it. He wanted to spend time with her. He liked the sound of her voice and could"ve listened to her all day when she told him about the things that clearly grabbed her attention. And he really liked the touch of her skin against his.
Ah, h.e.l.l. This wasn"t supposed to happen. He didn"t do relationships. He always had brief and mutually satisfying affairs with women who knew the score. Women who moved in the same glittering social circles. Women who didn"t have wedding bells in their eyes or want him to meet their families.
Sara Fleet was a ma.s.s of contradictions. Efficient and businesslike, and yet warm and touchy-feely at the same time. He still hadn"t quite recovered from that kiss on the cheek earlier that afternoon. G.o.d only knew how he"d stopped himself turning his face to hers and capturing her mouth.
And right now her hand was curled round his.
It was oh, so tempting. All he had to do was raise her hand to his lips. Kiss the backs of her fingers. Turn her wrist over and press his mouth to the pulse point, see if it jumped as hard and fast as his own heart was beating right then.
It didn"t matter that they were standing in the middle of a public place. The rest of the world just faded away. He could pull her into his arms. Cup her face. Lower his mouth to hers. Taste the sweetness on offer...
"Luke?"
Uh. He really was losing the plot. He never, but never, allowed himself to be distracted like this. "Yeah, fine," he said, not really sure what he was agreeing to, but the warmth of her smile promised him it was something good. "Listen, I"d better let you go. You"ll need to pack for tomorrow."
"And you, no doubt, are planning to squeeze in some work."
"A teensy bit." Which might just stop him thinking about kissing her.
"You," she said, "are impossible."
"So I"ve been told." He disentangled his fingers from hers and was dismayed to find that he actually missed their warmth and pressure.
Not good at all.
He was twenty-eight, not thirteen. Time he remembered that and acted like it. "Come on. I"ll put you in a taxi."
"I"m perfectly capable of getting the Tube."
"I know. But humour me."
"Depends."
"On what?"
"I"ll take a taxi," she said, "if you agree to paddle in the sea with me on Sat.u.r.day."
"And you say I"m impossible?" He rolled his eyes. "Come on." He hailed a taxi, paid the driver and waved her goodbye.