Page 12

“You’re right.” He lifted his cocktail towards her glass, so she took it and they clinked the edges. “To new friends.”

“To boundaries,” she corrected quickly, sipping the cocktail too fast, so it burned all the way down her throat. “When did you buy this place?” she asked, to change the subject, more than anything.

He put his glass down, reached for a triangle of bread and dipped it into some oil. “When Ben got sick,” he grimaced. “I wanted a base, to be close to him. And then, to Laura and Ellie.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “They lived around here?”

“About five miles away.”

“Hence Ellie’s in school close by?”

He nodded. “I thought about moving into their place after Laura’s accident, to make it really consistent for Ellie. But a psychologist I consulted said that would be too jarring—a constant reminder of her mother not being where she expected her to be.”

Chloe grimaced. “Did Ellie handle moving okay?”

“She seemed to.”

Chloe nodded slowly. “What did you do with their house?”

“I’ve kept it. I have staff maintaining it. When Ellie’s older, she can decide what she wants to do. I’m hoping that by then, she’ll feel ready to manage the emotions. And in the meantime, if she ever wants to go back, it’s there.”

“Like a time capsule,” Chloe murmured, but frowning, because she wasn’t sure that was right, either. “Only there’s no going back.”

His eyes widened. “No.” Then, his gaze dropped to the plate between them. “Eat.”

She reached for a piece of bread, ignoring the flutter of heat that burst through her at his commanding tone. Why did she enjoy that so much? For a woman who’d built her thriving business from scratch, who was as feminist as they came, why did she get such a thrill out of the idea of doing whatever this man said?

“She’ll come home after school on Friday,” he said. “You’ll meet her then.”

Chloe paused, midway through lifting oil-dipped bread to her mouth. “Will I?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t you?”

She considered that. “I do need to discuss her room,” she said. “But I was planning to be gone by the time she arrived, at least this first week.”

“Gone where?”

“Back to London.”

“Why would you go back to London?”

“It’s where I live.”

“You’re working here, though.”

“Yes, but⁠—”

“It’s a waste of your time to commute to London for the weekends. Unless there’s something particular you have on?”

“Like a life?” she couldn’t help teasing, even when that wasn’t exactly true. Her weekends usually revolved around work, work and more work. He was quiet, and she sighed, placing the bread back down on her plate. “Look, it’s true that in the past, when I took on an assignment in a remote location, I would stay local for the weekend, to avoid having to travel unnecessarily. But that’s in cases like the Scottish Highlands or whatever, and that was all built into my fee. This is a pretty easy commute…”

“So if I pay more, you’ll stay?”

She furrowed her brow. “That’s not what I meant.”

“But it’s what you said. In some cases, you’ve stayed weekends, it just requires negotiation and extra payment. So?”

“But I was working those weekends. I mean… I guess I could work here, too,” she said, blaming the sensual fog he’d wrapped her up in for the way her brain was lagging. “It would mean I’d be done faster,” she added, with genuine relief. Because there was no way to ignore the fact that being near Dimitrios was playing with fire. She’d promised herself she’d take a long, cold break from men, and not six months after a breakup that had nearly destroyed her, here she was, practically drooling over someone else.