She wanted to believe him, she did, but she’d had a crappy year and her self-confidence wasn’t exactly hitting an all-time high. “You don’t think I’m fat?”
He shook his head. “I think you are perfect.”
Well, she was far, far, far from perfect, but if he wanted to think that, hell, if he just wanted to claim he thought she was perfect while they were lying here together naked, she was not in the mood to stop him.
With a sigh, she snuggled against him and closed her eyes, her lips still curved in a smile of satisfaction.
She awoke in the cold, gray light of dawn. She wouldn’t have woken at all had she not felt cold, for which, she realized, she could blame Jack, who had left the bed. So long as she’d been curled against him, warm and occasionally very, very hot, she’d been content. Now she found herself alone under crisp white sheets. She not only felt cold, but extremely naked.
The shower was running. By squinting her eyes at the clock she saw that it wasn’t even six. She could roll over and go back to sleep, and chance that Jack would catch her drooling on her pillow, or that the housekeeper would find her here when she came to do the room. No. Better to haul herself out of bed now, at once.
Rachel had never been a morning person. Working in the restaurant business hadn’t made her any less nocturnal, but she managed to heave herself out of bed and shove herself back into her clothes before the shower had been turned off.
Jack crept out of the bathroom a few minutes later with a furtive glance toward the bed. “You don’t have to worry about not waking me,” she assured him. “I’m up.”
“Ah,” he said, looking as good in a towel as he had in nothing at all. “Sorry to disturb.”
“It’s okay. I should get back to my room. Before, you know…”
He nodded. He glanced at the clock and shed the towel with no embarrassment, dressing with speed. He didn’t even kiss her good morning. Obviously, his thoughts were already in London.
“Well,” she said, “I’d better get going.” She took a step toward the door. It had been fabulous, amazing. The best night of her life. She wasn’t going to spoil it by wishing for more.
“Rachel, wait,” he said, before she’d taken more than a step. “I want to see you again.”
Her heart leapt. Oh, thank God. “I’d like that,” she said.
“Why don’t you come up to London?” He slipped into a clean shirt. “I’ll take you to dinner and the theatre.”
She sighed in pure bliss. “Sounds good.”
“All right. I’ll give you a ring. Have you got a mobile?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s a California number.” And she reeled off her cell phone number. He pulled out his and programmed her into memory. Cool.
“I could make you breakfast,” she said, suddenly not wanting him to go.
He shook his head, buckling the belt on his trousers. “No time. The M5 will be murder if I don’t get away soon.”
She felt very unhappy with the M5. But Jack wanted to see her again. That was something.
“I never gave you a menu for your sister’s wedding,” she said, suddenly feeling like the worst caterer in the British Isles.
“Believe me, anything you make will be brilliant. You’re a genius with food.”
He came over and kissed her soundly, then grabbed his bag, which she now saw was neatly and completely packed, slipped into his shoes, and left.
It was six o’clock in the morning, and she was the only person awake in Hart House.
She didn’t feel like sleeping, but she didn’t feel like hanging around here, either.
She made sure any trace of her was gone, including tucking in all the blankets and remaking the bed so it looked like only one side of the bed had been used. Satisfied, she crept out of the door and stealthily made her way back to her own room, where she changed out of Maxine’s clothes once more, showered, and hauled on her usual jeans and a favorite black cotton shirt.
She let her hair hang free and put on a little makeup. Nothing like a night of great sex to put a person in a good mood, she thought as she realized she was feeling better than she’d felt for months.
So the restaurant had closed, so she’d failed at marriage. Her life wasn’t over. She was young, talented, attractive enough that a man like Jack Flynt could spend the night making love and paying extravagant compliments to her.
Life was good.
Feeling grateful to Maxine and George for putting up with her for the past few miserable weeks, she decided to surprise them with breakfast.
Max, annoyingly, was right. She’d needed to get back to cooking. Now she couldn’t seem to stop. Something simple, she decided. An omelet with fresh herbs from the garden.
Chapter Seven
Rachel told herself repeatedly that she wouldn’t expect Jack to call. Wouldn’t expect anything. Just because he’d said he wanted to see her again did not mean that he was obsessively going over every detail of their night together the way she was, or even that he did in fact want to see her again.
Phrases like that should come with subtitles, as in a foreign movie. “I’d like to see you again,” he’d say. Translation: I’m really not that into you. Don’t expect more. “I’ll call you,” meaning You’ll never hear from me again. “We’ll have to do this again sometime.” I’ve already forgotten your name.
It didn’t matter. Hadn’t she hooked up with him exactly with a casual affair in mind? All she wanted was some uncomplicated fun. A chance to prove to herself and her battered ego that she was still a contender.
So even as she rolled her eyes and scoffed when Max made some comment about how well she and Jack had hit it off, she felt warm all over.
And if she carried her cell phone with her everywhere, never let it out of her sight for a second, no one had to know why.
Somehow she’d fallen into the business of the estate. Well, with Max for a sister, it was impossible not to. The woman was so full of energy and plans for raising revenue-a surprising number of which seemed to include food, and therefore Rachel’s input-that she kept busy. Too busy to mope and feel sorry for herself. Even better, she was appreciated. George had appeared horrified at first to find Rachel was the chief caterer on the estate, but she hazarded a shrewd guess that Max had informed him that work would be good for her poor, depressed sister, because he never argued again. What he did was thank her, repeatedly and sincerely, for all her help.
It had been a long time since anyone had taken the time to thank her.
And he did it so charmingly. If his charm was inherited, no wonder his family had managed to thrive through centuries of turbulent history. Her sister, she had to admit, had chosen herself a great guy. How nice to know they were still out there.
Max had hinted that she and George weren’t getting married until Hart House was operating in the black. How could she not want her sister to be happy? So she cooked, she catered, she sourced local suppliers, she planned.
She was in the old stables with Maxine, working out details of a corporate retreat for a big computer manufacturer who wanted to put on a medieval fair, including jousting. Her job was to create a menu of authentic medieval food, then figure out how to feed it to three hundred workers who’d no doubt be exhausted from jousting, fencing, archery, barging on the river, and learning to party like it was 1399.
“It’s going to be simple fare, obviously,” she said to Max. “Back then, they’d roast whatever animals they’d raised or hunted, eat local produce. No potatoes, obviously, since they hadn’t discovered America yet. Honey for sweetening, I imagine. I wonder what spices were imported then? I’ll check.” She was scribbling notes to herself when her cell phone rang.