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‘A date?’
‘Yes. You know—two people getting together for a social activity where romance is a distinct possibility.’
She frowned. ‘Or, in our case, the pretence of romance?’
He paused, and for one glorious moment she thought he was going to deny it.
‘Of course,’ he confirmed, and something darted over his features, too fast for Effie to work out what it was.
Probably relief. Which, she told himself, was just fine.
‘I thought we might go to a restaurant frequented by some contacts of my parents. News of our date—and no doubt the odd phone photo—will have made its way across two continents before Chef Michel’s world-renowned soufflé can even be served.’
‘I thought that was what our gala date was supposed to have been about?’
‘It was.’
He shrugged, as though he wasn’t remotely affected by this conversation. And, of course, she reminded herself hastily, neither was she.
‘But that was a work thing. This is a private date. It will consolidate the image of us as a proper couple.’
A proper couple. The notion affected her exactly the way it shouldn’t have done. Yet somehow she managed a curt nod. As one might acknowledge a point of fact in the operating theatre. Or the boardroom.
And it wasn’t disillusionment which rumbled through her. Of course it wasn’t.
* * *
The restaurant was excruciatingly romantic.
Intimate tables for two were dotted under a starry sky in one of the most booked-out restaurants in the city. Exactly as he’d planned. A place to see and be seen, just as he wanted. A set-up guaranteeing that word would get back to anyone in his family who hoped they could use him in a marriage arranged only to further their own agendas.
And yet all Tak wanted to do was lift Effie out of her chair and get out of there. To somewhere far more discreetly intimate. Where it would be just the two of them.
He fought to tune out the loved-up diners around them and concentrate instead as Effie chatted to him conversationally. He hadn’t brought her here tonight to seduce her, or to further any romantic entanglement, so why was it that all he could think was that he wanted to taste her lips again, the way he had the night of the hospital gala?
‘So that’s what brought Nell and I halfway across the country,’ Effie concluded.
He let his eyes linger a little too long on her mouth, fighting the impulse to lean right across the table and scoop her up, settle her on his knee and lick every inch of that smooth, elegant neck with his tongue. To hell with all the people, all the camera phones around them.
‘That’s a fascinating but I fear highly diluted story of what brought you to the air ambulance.’ He hadn’t intended his voice to sound so raw, so raspy, but she had him on edge tonight. Even more than usual.
Effie flushed, sucking in her bottom lip in a way that shot right through his body.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.
‘I think you do. You haven’t really told me a single thing about you.’ He had no idea why it even mattered, and yet the words kept coming. ‘My few questions about your childhood were met with a wave and a comment that it was just like everyone else’s—fairly standard. When I enquired after your family you smiled prettily and pointed out that in a job like ours we’re so busy we never get to see people as much as we would like.’
‘I don’t see what’s wrong with that.’ She leaned back in her chair defensively.
‘They weren’t particularly intrusive questions, Effie. Just the usual kind of questions when two people are getting to know each other on a date.’
‘Well...’ She shrugged awkwardly, as though looking for an excuse, babbled on as soon as she thought she’d found one. ‘Well, this isn’t a date, is it? You said it yourself—it’s just shoring up the falsehood of our being in a relationship to distract your extended family from pushing the idea of an arranged marriage.’
Yes, he had said that, hadn’t he? Tak clenched his fist, unseen. The problem was, even at the time he had known that wasn’t true. Even in that moment when he’d asked her on a date a part of him had known that it was because he’d genuinely wanted to take her out.
Fooling his extended family was merely an added bonus, a justification. Though whether for Effie’s benefit or for his own, he couldn’t be sure.
And so all through the meal he’d felt his frustration growing as she fed him her all too practised response, telling him the carefully crafted version of her life that she wanted him to hear.
