The Girl He'd Overlooked Read Free

they would have provided a distraction, but at that juncture in my life I didn’t need their demands.’
    ‘Well, that was such a long time ago. I can’t even remember any of that school gossip.’
    ‘And if I recall, you went on to get an A in your maths…
    Jennifer didn’t say anything. The restaurant was only a matter of thirty minutes away from the house. In the blink of an eye, they would be back at the cottage and she would be able to show him that she really and truly was no longer the kid who had asked for help with her homework or filled him in on the silly happenings in her life whenever he happened to be down for the weekend. Maybe he wouldn’t be entirely surprised…? After all, he
had
asked her out on a date!
    She replayed that lovely feeling of having his arm around her and resisted the temptation to reach out and cover his hand with hers.
    They drew up to the cottage in comfortable silence. Set in the grounds of the manor house, it was originally designed to house the head butler, but it had been annexed years before the Rocchis had moved in by a wily investor who had seen it as an efficient way of making some additional money. It was a happy coincidence that her fatherhad bought the tiny two-bedroom place at around the same time as the Rocchis had moved into the manor house. Her own mother had died when she, Jennifer, had been just a toddler and Daisy Rocchi, unable to have any more children after James, had become a surrogate mother, bypassing all rules and conventions that predicated against two families of such differing incomes becoming close.
    ‘Dad’s not in.’ Jennifer turned to look at James and cleared her throat. ‘Why don’t you… um… come in for something to drink? You barely had any of that wine tonight.’
    ‘If I had thought ahead, I would have booked a taxi for us instead of driving myself.’
    ‘Well, I know there’s some wine in the fridge and I think dad’s got a bottle of whisky in the cupboard. His once-a-month vice, he tells me.’ She wasn’t sure what she would do if he turned down her offer but he didn’t and she breathed a sigh of relief as he said no to the alcohol but opted for a cup of coffee instead.
    Inside the cottage, she switched on the lamp in the sitting room instead of the harsher overheard light and urged him in while she prepared them coffee with shaking hands. She was trying very hard to recapture the excitement and confidence she had felt earlier on in the restaurant as she had gazed at her reflection in the mirror and told herself that this
date
had arrived at just the perfect time, when she was still riding the crest of a wave, with her finals behind her and an exciting new job ahead of her.
    She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost sent both mugs of coffee crashing to the ground as she turned to find James lounging in the doorway to the kitchen. Very carefully, she rested the mugs on the pine kitchen table and took two steps to close the distance between them.
    Now or never
, Jennifer thought with feverish determination.She had nurtured this crush for way too long. All through her time at university, she had tried to make herself like the boys who had asked her out, but her thoughts had always returned to James. His heart-stopping sex appeal and their shared history were a potent, heady combination and she had never quite managed to break free of its spell.
    ‘I… I liked what you did earlier…’ The palms of her hands were sweaty with nerves.
    ‘You mean the cake and ice cream?’ He laughed and looked down at her. ‘Like I said, I know what a sucker you are for sweet things.’
    ‘Actually I was talking about after that.’
    ‘Sorry. I’m not following you.’
    ‘When you put your arms around me on the way to the car. I liked that.’ She slid her hand over his chest and nearly fainted at the hard body underneath her fingers. ‘James…’ She looked up at him and before she could chicken out she closed her eyes and tiptoed up