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He straightened and nodded toward the carrots she’d just peeled. “If Bugs Bunny happens to drop by for dinner, he’s going to be one happy rabbit.”
She blinked and looked down. Instead of peeling just a few, she’d peeled an entire package. Enough for a dozen salads.
He gave her a knowing grin, then combined a couple of lazy stretches with retrieving a bowl and pan from separate cupboards. Somehow a canister of flour appeared, along with a stick of butter. With a slow flick of his hand, he dredged the chicken and set it sizzling in the pan. “You watch those while I get us some wine.”
She stared at the chicken. Her pulses were jumping, and her stomach felt as if it had dropped to her toes. For a moment the extent of what she was losing overcame her—a decade worth of daydreams about a comfortable, scholarly husband with leather elbow patches on his jacket and ink stains on his fingers. Other women might fantasize about taming some dashing scoundrel with thick black hair, a magnificent body, and violet eyes, but that had never been what she’d wanted.
Kenny returned from the garage with a bottle and lowered the heat on the chicken, which was starting to smoke. “Lady Emma, you got to relax or you’re gonna expire before we get half near the bedroom.”
“I am relaxed! Perfectly relaxed!” She took a deep breath as she realized how foolish that sounded when it was obvious she was as tight as the cork in that wine bottle he was carrying. “Please call me Emma. I never use my title.”
“Uh-huh. If you’re so relaxed, how’s come you jump every time I look at you?”
“I don’t jump!” She swallowed as she watched his hands turn the corkscrew, taking all the time in the world. She thought about those lazy hands taking their time with her, then reminded herself there was no ink stain on his thumb, no pencil callus on even one of those long, lean fingers.
“All right, then. I’m putting you to the test.” He tugged out the cork, pulled several exquisite crystal wine goblets from a cupboard above the stove, and poured. “Here’s what I’m gonna do. Just to make a point, mind you. I’m gonna touch one of your body parts, and while I’m doing it, you’ve got to stay perfectly still. If you jump, then you lose and I win.”
“You’re going to touch me?”
“The body part of my choice.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s an excellent idea.” He handed her a glass of wine. Their fingers brushed, and she jumped.
“You lose.” Triumph gleamed in his eyes.
“That’s not fair!”
“Why not?”
“Because . . . when you said body part . . . well, naturally I thought—”
He lifted an eyebrow at her. “You thought what, Lady Emma?”
“Just Emma! I thought—Oh, never mind!” She snatched up a cucumber. “You’re right. I am a bit nervous. But that’s only natural. I’ve never . . . never done anything like this.” She gazed down at the cucumber she was squeezing, realized what it was, and dropped it like one of the potatoes baking in the oven.
He chuckled. “You’ve never bought a man for the night?”
“Oh, dear . . . must you say it like that?”
“I was doing my best to put it politely.” He flipped the chicken. “Now, why don’t you finish up that salad so we can eat?”
She forced herself to concentrate, and, after a few more missteps, they were seated at a glass-topped dining room table supported by a pair of sleek black marble pedestals. The place settings seemed to have materialized out of nowhere: white linen mats with matching napkins, china banded in navy and gold, heavy sterling with swirling handles. Her companion certainly knew how to pick his friends. She’d met a few of Kenny’s counterparts in England, and she hadn’t liked them—handsome penniless men who bartered charm for their friends’ hospitality.
The idea of eating made her nauseated, so she took a sip of wine. It was lovely—fragrant and obviously expensive. He began to eat, and she noticed that nervousness hadn’t interfered with his appetite. She took a nibble of baked potato. It stuck in her throat.
He seemed perfectly comfortable with the silence, but she wasn’t. Maybe some conversation would relax her. “Your friend has exquisite taste.”
He gazed around at the luxurious dining room as though he were seeing it for the first time. “I suppose. Some sports posters’d be nice, though. A couple of La-Z-Boys in the living room. And a big-screen TV to watch ESPN while we’re eating.”
His cheerful denseness annoyed her, although he probably wasn’t a bad sort, just too lazy to make anything of himself. Maybe no one had ever taken the time to suggest a better way. “Have you ever had second thoughts about your method of earning a living?” she asked.
“Not really.” He dug into his chicken. “Escort service suits me just fine.”
She succumbed to her natural instinct to help others build character. “But doesn’t it ever present a problem for you when someone asks what you do for a living, and you have to say that you’re an escort?”
“Problem?”
