Page 7 of Lilly
Her mouth drops open as if she’s going to say something, but she decides against it. She must realise she won’t win if she startssomething.
“Thank you,” she whispers, looking slightly embarrassed. “That’s really kind ofyou.”
“Anypreference?”
She just shakes her head in response. Now the shock has worn off, I can see some of the sadness she had the other day seep into herfeatures.
“Did you get theflowers?”
“They were from you?” she asks, completelystartled.
“Yeah.”
“Why? I’m sorry, I mean, thank you, they were gorgeous. But why did you give them tome?”
“You said you’d had some bad news, I presumed…” I trail off when the look on her face tells me I’ve missed something. “No onedied?”
“No,” she says with a laugh. That laugh does funny things to my insides. “One of my friends had ababy.”
“Oh…but you looked so sad,” I say as I take a step towardsher.
“Long story. They were happytears.”
“You’re lying,” I state, because it’strue.
“I’m not. I’m really happy forthem.”
“I’m sure you are, but they weren’t happytears.”
My body continues forward until I’m stood right in front of her. Her breath catches at my closeness. Her scent mixes with the cleaning products she’s been using and it makes me mouth water. I reach over her shoulder and grab my phone, which is exactly where I left it. The screen tells me I need to shift my arse if I’m going to get to this meeting ontime.
“Have dinner with me tonight?” The words are out of my mouth before my brain realises it’s happened. Fuck, I shouldn’t have said that. She works for me. It goes against everything I’ve told myself I shouldn’t do. Maybe she’ll say no. It’s wishful thinking, since I’ve never been turned down before, but it’s worth ashot.
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m okay, thank you.” I’m still close enough to her that as she speaks her breath tickles my neck, and fuck if it doesn’t bring my body to life. I haven’t had sex in…a long time for me. I’ve been too busy sorting this place out. This is fuckingtorture.
I step back once her wordsregister.
“No?” I ask, in case I heard thatwrong.
She bites down on her bottom lip and I almost groan. Shit, I want to be the one doingthat.
“I’m sorry, Lucas. I don’t think that’s a goodidea.”
“Right…okay. Well, I’ll see you around then.” I quickly turn around and leave her standing there as I head for my car. I sit in the driver’s seat for a few minutes, processing what justhappened.
No one’s ever said nobefore.
She might as well have just kicked me in thebollocks.
Lilly
The lookon his face when I said no stayed with me for a long time after he’d gone. He really wasn’t expecting that. He’s good looking, yeah, and loaded, but who does he think he is? Brad bloody Pitt? The idea that a woman couldn’t possibly say no to him makes him even less of my type than before. I don’t want a guy who thinks that much ofhimself.
I shake the thought from my head as I continue eating the lunch Lucas sent up as promised—a huge cheese and tomato baguette with chips and a side salad. I can’t deny that I wasn’t starving, so this is gratefully received and will get me through uni thisafternoon.
I don’t see or hear from Lucas again for a week. To begin with, I start to think he’s avoiding me after I refused to go out with him, but when I learn he’s been away at his other hotels I want to slap myself around the face for even considering that he might have cared about it that much. I’m sure the sting of my rejection lasted all of ten seconds. He’ll have found some other woman to stroke his ego, I’msure.
Weirdly though, it seems he’s still thinking about me, and I’m not sure how I feel about that, because every day I’ve been at work I’ve found something left for me. The first day, there was a tray on the coffee table. It had a card with my name on it, a plate of chocolate biscuits and a pot of tea. I wanted to be defiant and refuse his gift, but the chocolate called to me, so after arguing with myself for a whole five minutes I sat down and enjoyed my morningsnack.
