AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘What are you doing tonight?’ he said.
The question made Isobel turn round. ‘It’s my book club.’
‘Your book club?’
‘Six to eight women,’ she explained, since he’d clearly never heard of the concept. ‘We all read a book and then afterwards we sit round and discuss it.’
He knitted his brows together. ‘And that’s supposed to be enjoyable?’
‘That’s the general idea.’
‘Cancel it.’ The answering smile he floated her was supremely confident. ‘Have dinner with me instead.’
Shamefully, she was almost tempted to do as he suggested—until she imagined the reaction of her girlfriends. Hadn’t she let them down enough times in the past, when Tariq had been in the middle of some big deal and she’d had to work right through the night? Did he really expect her to drop everything now, just so he could get a duty dinner out of the way before another bout of sex?
She thought about everything she’d vowed. About not leaving herself vulnerable to heartbreak—which wasn’t going to be easy now that she had taken such a big leap in that direction. But even if she had made herself vulnerable she didn’t have to compound it by being a total doormat.
‘I don’t want to cancel it, Tariq—I’m hosting in my apartment. There’s two bottles of white wine chilling in the fridge and we’re reading Jane Eyre.’
Damn Jane Eyre, he thought irreverently—but something about her resistance made his lips curve into a sardonic smile.
‘What about tomorrow night, then? Do you think you might be able to find a space in your busy schedule and have dinner with me then?’ he questioned sarcastically.
Her heart began thundering as she stared at him. Wasn’t that what she’d wanted all along? The cloak of respectability covering up the fact that they’d had sex without any of the usual preliminaries? Wouldn’t a civilised meal prevent their relationship from being defined by that one rather steamy episode—no matter what happened in the future? Because the chances were that they might decide never to have sex again. Maybe in a restaurant, with the natural barrier of a table between them and the attentions of the waiting staff, they could agree that, yes, it had been a highly pleasurable experience—but best kept as a one-off.
Isobel nodded. ‘Yes, I can have dinner with you tomorrow night.’
‘Good. Book somewhere, will you? Anywhere you like.’
His expression was thoughtful as he walked through to his inner sanctum. Because this was a first on many levels, he realised.
The first time he’d ever had sex with a member of his staff.
And the first time a woman had ever turned him down for a dinner date.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘THIS IS THE LAST kind of place I’d have thought you’d choose,’ said Tariq slowly.
Isobel looked up from the laminated menu, which she already knew by heart, and stared at the hawk-like beauty of the Sheikh’s autocratic features. ‘You don’t like it?’
He looked around. It was noisy, warm and cluttered. Lighted candles dripped wax down the sides of old Chianti bottles, posters of Venice and Florence vied for wall-space with photos of Siena’s football team, and popular opera played softly in the background. He could remember eating somewhere like this years ago as a student, at the end of a rowdy rugby tour. But never since then. ‘It’s...different,’ he observed. ‘Not the kind of place I normally eat in. I thought you might have chosen somewhere...’
‘Yes?’ Isobel raised her eyebrows.
‘Somewhere a little more upmarket. The kind of place you’d always wanted to go but never had the chance.’
Isobel put the menu down. ‘You mean somewhere like the Green Room at the Granchester? Or the River Terrace? Or one of those other fancy establishments with a celebrity chef, where you can only ever get a table at short notice if you happen to be someone? All the places you usually frequent?’
‘They happen to be very good restaurants.’
She leaned forward. ‘This happens to be a good restaurant, too—though you seem to be judging it without even trying it. Just because you don’t have to take out a mortgage to eat here, it doesn’t mean the food isn’t delicious. Actually, I thought you might like to try somewhere different and a bit more relaxing. Somewhere you aren’t known, since you often complain about rubbernecking people staring at you.’ She sat back in her chair again and shot him a challenge with her eyes. ‘But maybe you like being looked at more than you care to admit—and anonymity secretly freaks you out?’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘Actually, I’m rather enjoying the anonymity,’ he murmured, and glanced down at the menu. ‘What do you recommend?’
‘Well, they make all their own pasta here.’
‘And it’s good?’
