‘Do you think so?’ he said ironically. ‘Then what’s all this about?’
He leaned forward and touched a gentle forefinger to the corner of her eye. It came away with a teardrop on the tip.
Zoe was horrified. She blinked rapidly.
‘That just because I’m tired,’ she said defiantly.
‘And wound as tight as a spring about to break,’ he agreed amiably.
She leaped up. ‘No, I’m not. I’m nowhere near breaking point,’ she said fiercely. ‘Nowhere near. Do you hear me?’
He titled his chair back and looked at her ironically. ‘Sure. That’s why you’re shouting, is it? So I can hear you?’
Zoe stopped dead, as if he had shot her.
She looked at his lounging body. Suddenly all the implications of the scene rose up and hit her in the face. This was a man who was so sexy his female staff e-mailed him love letters. They were alone in the flat while the stars glittered outside. She was young and attractive and unattached. What was more, she—in his phrase—fancied the pants off him.
And they were on opposite sides of the kitchen table while she shouted and he glared.
Suze would have been in his arms by now. It was too much! Any minute now she was going to cry, Zoe thought. She stumbled over to the counter and tore off a great wad of kitchen paper. She blew her nose loudly.
Jay got to his feet.
‘Hey,’ he said, touched. ‘It’s no big deal.’
‘I’m tired,’ said Zoe again loudly. She blew her nose harder.
He skirted the table and put an arm round her. She resisted for a moment. But he was strong and, heck, half of her wanted to feel what it was like to be in his arms anyway. She let him pull her against his body. It felt like a rock.
Or, no, like sun-warmed earth, solid and fertile. She buried her face in his shoulder for a moment. It did not feel natural—she stood awkwardly, all elbows and knees, and her feet were in the wrong place. But he did not seem to notice. And he smelled like heaven.
Only a moment, she promised herself. She rubbed her face against the linen jacket a little, savouring the scent of sandalwood with a deep underlying note of healthy male skin. She hoped the movement was unobtrusive. Pathetic, or what?
And if she was going to be that pathetic, she might as well go the whole hog.
‘Okay,’ she said into his jacket. ‘So what do I do?’
Jay smiled. She could feel him smile, even with her face against his shoulders. Did he smile with his collarbone, for heaven’s sake? How much did she not know about men’s bodies that she had never realised?
‘Back fence gossips don’t give advice,’ he said smugly.
He put his other arm round her. Purely for comfort, of course, thought Zoe. And she had been held lots of times. Kissed lots of times. Only somehow she had never felt so naked in a man’s arms before. Crazy, when she was still dressed from head to toe. But he knows more about me than anyone else in the world, she thought.
It was a sobering thought. It brought her upright. Though it felt like death to leave that unemotional embrace.
She grabbed some more kitchen paper and blotted her eye make-up carefully.
‘Sorry. That was stupid.’ She sniffed. Then said in a stronger tone, ‘You’re not just a busybody. You’re not my therapist.’
He frowned quickly. ‘Heaven forfend.’
‘So tell me like a friend.’
Jay was surprised. He hesitated for a moment. Then shrugged.
‘Fine. If you want the truth, as a friend, I think you’re making a fuss about nothing.’
Zoe took some time to assimilate that.
‘So why doesn’t it feel like nothing?’
‘That’s what interests me, too,’ he said. She could feel him watching her. ‘What does it feel like?’
‘A bloody great mountain range with me on the wrong side of it,’ she said explosively.
Jay’s eyes narrowed. ‘The unknown is always intimidating.’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Zoe exasperated. ‘It’s not just that I haven’t done it. It’s that all my friends think I have.’
‘So do it,’ he said, bored.
‘How?’ she almost screamed.
‘Tell one of all those men that there’s a vacancy,’ he advised. His eyes glittered like some particularly satanic polished stone. ‘Does it really matter who?’