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‘Erm…’
‘Just let me…’ Zach reached forward, his thumb and forefinger extended towards her curls, which had now expanded into an unattractive halo of blonde frizz. ‘You have a bit of…’
Millie knew that if she leaned forward just another inch her lips would connect with Zach’s. Go for it! screamed her heart, but before her brain could reconnect to her modem and react to the order, Zach had disentangled the dried palm frond and called Binks to heel.
‘Fancy a Spag Bol to go with that wine?’ Zach called over his shoulder as if nothing had happened.
‘You’re offering to cook?’
‘Well, there’s no way I’m letting you loose in my kitchen, that’s for sure. Don’t forget I’ve seen what devastation you can wreak in any kind of confined space. I don’t think Binks could cope with the cleaning up. The invitation is only valid if you promisenotto interfere – physically or verbally.’
‘Deal.’
‘Come on then.’
Zach led the way up the wooden steps and through the front door of the lodge. He settled an excited Binks in his tartan-lined basket with a reassuring pat and a dog biscuit from his pocket and crossed the open-plan lounge area to the tiny galley kitchen.
‘Grab a seat and I’ll pour the wine.’
‘Oh, I can help with that.’
‘No, thank you! Remember your promise?’
However, Millie had already opened one of the kitchen cupboards to search for a couple of glasses. Even her sister Jen, who was the Queen of Culinary Orderliness, didn’t organise her kitchen cupboards with such meticulous attention to detail. She wasn’t surprised to see an array of jars of varying exoticness – Caribbean spices, dried herbs, flavoured salts – every label lined up in military precision.
‘I can’t believe you store your spices in alphabetical order!’
Zach gently removed the jar of dried oregano from her hand, returned it to its rightful place, and shooed her away to the lounge.
‘Go and keep Binks company.’
Whilst Zach assembled the dinner ingredients and set two places at the pine table, Millie took the opportunity to survey the décor. Like the kitchen, the room was meticulously tidy. A carved mahogany mask presided over the redundant fireplace like a painted witch doctor ready to cast a spell. There was a hand-made bookcase next to the door that Millie assumed led to the bedroom, and she had to quickly squash the image of Zach sprawled out on his bed asleep, naked but for a cotton sheet.
She decided to investigate the bookcase’s contents, curious to know what type of books Zach liked to read.‘Tropical Caribbean Birds’?‘Quad Bikes and how to Race Them’? ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, maybe? Millie couldn’t prevent a gasp of interest escaping her lips.
‘What?’ asked Zach from the breakfast bar where he was slicing onions with the precision of a master craftsman before weighing out the pasta on a set of digital scales. One of Claudia’s cookery books was propped open on the bench.
‘Oh, nothing. You know, this really is a very luxuriously appointed lodge.’
‘I have Dom to thank for that. He’s lived here for the last two years and you’re right, he’s certainly put a very comfortable stamp on what could have been a much more rustic abode.’
‘What sort of place do you have back in the UK?’
‘I live in the lodge at the entrance to Claudia and Tim’s manor house in a little village called Berryford. It’s small, but perfectly formed, as they say. It’s ideal for me and Binks and the best thing is that there’s no commute. I just have to roll out of bed and I’m at work.’
Once again, an erotic image flickered across Millie’s vision of Zach stretching his limbs as he made his way into the shower before he started his day ensuring the smooth running of his employers’ Cotswold estate. Zach had already told her a little about his childhood, growing up in the Oxfordshire countryside with his younger brother, Callum, exploring the rivers and streams like a pair of water otters until the shock announcement that the family were relocating to the metropolis of London so his father could take up a management position in one of the large international law firms there. His parents had divorced a couple of years later after his mother had discovered his father was having an affair with a colleague twenty years his junior.
Zach taste-tested the Bolognese sauce for flavour, added an extra sprinkle of oregano and declared himself happy. He carefully replaced the jar in its rightful space in the cupboard, washed the spoon, dried it, and returned it to the cutlery drawer before removing the pan of cooked pasta and dumping its contents into a colander in the sink.
The whole scene was like a choreographed culinary ballet and Millie had to smother a smile as she watched him divided the spaghetti into a couple of wide-brimmed china bowls, add a dollop of sauce precisely into the centre of each, grate a generous helping of parmesan before adding a final garnish of fresh basil leaves from a pot on the windowsill. He then submerged the pan in the sink, repeated the performance he’d enacted with every other utensil, and joined Millie at the table with a second bottle of wine.
The aroma of garlic wafted to her nostrils and Millie clamped her lips together for fear of drooling. She had to admit that Zach Barker was turning out to be a man of surprisingly diverse skills, and as she twirled her spaghetti around her fork, she cast a surreptitious glance to the bookcase as heat flooded her cheeks once more.
Was one of the booksThe Karma Sutra?
Chapter Five
‘Where do you think they’ve got to?’ asked Ella, slinging her tea towel over her shoulder and glancing at the clock next to the powder-blue SMEG refrigerator. ‘Everyone’s usually here by nine thirty for a ten o’clock start and it’s almost eleven now.’
