AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She sat waiting for him in the conservatory. It was cool out, the sky pure white without a hint of blue, but she felt far too hot. She was wearing a knee-length floral print tea dress, having thought that making herself look more…appealing…might help sweeten the deal she hoped to make. But now she wished she was covered up. She wanted to hide.
The doorbell rang, and it seemed to echo in her ears. Her heart was beating incredibly fast. She pinched the skin at the base of her thumb and counted backwards from one hundred.
Her mother showed Jay into the conservatory, giving Sophia a dubious smile. That was another reason Sophia had wanted to do this at Jay’s house. The less her mother knew, the better.
Jay was dressed properly this time, in jeans and an off-white linen shirt, the open collar seeming designed to show off his collarbones and the strong line of his neck.
She made herself smile and stand up and nearly went to shake his hand, but she remembered just in time it would have been weird.
And this situation was already weird enough.
“I’m not doing polite chit-chat, Clements,” said Jay with a smile as they sat down after her mother left them. “You have to tell me what this favour is before I die of curiosity.”
“I might die of embarrassment first.”
His eyebrows shot up, which did not help at all. She glanced past him to make sure the conservatory door was shut.
“You gave me the idea at the Duke of Cumbria’s dinner,” she said, deciding on the ripping-off-the-sticking-plaster approach. “First though, can I trust you to keep this conversation between the two of us? No one else can know.”
Jay looked a mixture of curious and wary, but he smiled slightly as he said, “No one trusts me, Clements. Haven’t you heard? But I promise your secret is safe with me.”
“Good. I’ve drawn up a non-disclosure agreement anyway, just in case.”
She took the first of the papers from the pile on the table next to her and handed it to him with a pen.
“Seriously?” he said, eyebrow cocked. “I knew you were a lawyer, but you’re making me nervous.”
“Only a paralegal. But I can draw up a contract. It’s all sound.”
“It’s not the wording that’s making me nervous, it’s the fact it exists at all.” But he shrugged to himself and signed it anyway, as she had guessed he would. It was one of her reasons for choosing Jay Orton. He was a man with few qualms and allegedly game for anything.
He handed the pen and paper back to her. “Do I get to hear your dark secret now, Clements? Have you killed a man and you need me to help you hide the body?”
“I could probably do that by myself,” she said, not thinking she had made a joke. Although, the way Jay laughed, and the way it made her smile in return, made her wonder if perhaps she had intended to be funny after all. She did have a sense of humour, but she tended to employ it with caution, because humour often involved saying the unexpected, and that was risky when you were trying to blend in. But with a man as worldly and unshockable as Jay Orton, maybe she didn’t need to keep such a strict guard on her tongue.
“But it is about a man,” she said, tucking the signed agreement into a folder. “His name is Simon. I worked with him in New York and I’m… Well, I’m sort of secretly in love with him.”
Flushing, she risked a glance at Jay. He wasn’t laughing or teasing. In fact, she couldn’t really read his expression at all.
“Obviously, I haven’t seen him in a few months, but he’s coming over for a conference and for my birthday, and I want to…make an impression. A good one, I mean. Not the one I usually make on people.”
“And what do you think that is?”
“Like you said. Stiff. Formal. I know I’m…strange. I never know what to say. No one likes me at all.”
Jay opened his mouth as though to say that wasn’t true but gave into honesty.
“OK…” he said instead. “But where do I come in? Am I going to pretend to be your boyfriend and make this Simon jealous?”
“No.” Her heart pounded. “You’re going to teach me how tohavea boyfriend.”
Jay
Jay just looked at Sophia for a long moment. Her cheeks were pink. Anyone else would be squirming in their seat with embarrassment, but she stayed completely still, other than clasping her hands and lowering her eyes.
“I’m not quite sure what that entails,” he said at last.
“I’ve never had a boyfriend,” she said. “I don’t know anything about…you know…being with someone.”
