Your Room or Mine? Read Free Page A

now. If Joe was washed up drowning on a beach she’d throw a bucket of water over him, but that didn’t diminish the little seeds of doubt he’d planted in her mind when he’d tried to shift some of the blame for his behaviour her way. OK so she knew she was carrying a few extra pounds, mainly around the hips, but she’d been so sure of Joe’s love she hadn’t given it a second thought before.
    Oliver Forbes emerged from the steam room and stood under the shower. She watched as the water cascaded over his body, knowing she shouldn’t be staring but unable to tear her eyes away. Joe hadn’t been keen on exercise beyond playing a bit of football with his mates. What might it feel like to be with someone that fit? He grabbed a towel from a row of hooks, then skirted the pool and headed towards her.
    â€˜You mind?’ he indicated the lounger next to her. There was a roomful of them to choose from and he wanted that one? Her heart gave a tiny skip.
    She shrugged and he sat down, rubbing his hair with a corner of the towel.
    â€˜Drink?’ he asked, reaching for the phone on the table between loungers.
    She looked up at him. A drink? A flurry of excited butterflies zipped briefly through her stomach before common sense bashed them into submission. A drink did
not
mean he was hitting on her, and even if he was she couldn’t be less interested. Someone like him would never look twice at her, he was obviously just being polite.
    Her own package deal danced through her mind. Outside its remit, you were practically charged for drawing breath in this place. Why not take him up on the drink, it meant nothing.
    â€˜I’d love coffee,’ she said.
    He gave the order over the phone and sat back.
    â€˜I can’t remember the last time I went swimming,’ she said, pulling her own towel a little closer around her.
    â€˜You don’t belong to a gym?’
    That meant he did, presumably. Who was she kidding, of course he did. You didn’t get abs like that from sitting around watching TV. He clearly put in a lot of work.
    She shook her head.
    â€˜My working hours are long,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I’m so tired by the time I get home the last thing I’d want to do is more exercise.’
    â€˜I thought your job was more about potting plants,’ he said, a grin touching his lips. ‘I didn’t realise it could be so physically demanding.’
    She raised an eyebrow.
    â€˜It’s not standing with a basket picking flowers,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of heavy work involved. You have to be prepared to get your hands dirty.’
    He reached across suddenly and paused, hand outstretched.
    â€˜May I?’
    She stared. What exactly was he playing at?
    She watched in surprise as he took one of her hands in his, no impulse kicked in to pull it away despite the sudden hot feeling in her stomach. He uncurled her fingers to see the palm and turned her hand to see her fingernails.
    â€˜This doesn’t look like the hand of a heavyweight gardener,’ he said.
    She took her hand away and held both of them up.
    â€˜Yeah well, it’s amazing what a bit of hand cream can do. Sometimes at the end of a working day they look like shovels.’
    â€˜So gym, spa treatments and swimming is a welcome break then. Is this something you do often?’
    Because she really
looked
like a gym bunny. Not.
    â€˜Not often. I’m treating myself.’
    â€˜And you prefer to do that alone?’
    Her self-consciousness about staying here alone resurfaced and she squashed it back down.
    â€˜It wasn’t supposed to be a solitary thing,’ she said.
    â€˜No?’
    For a moment she considered fobbing him off, but she was used to being the subject of gossip now. Why bother making up some story for someone she didn’t know and didn’t care about?
    â€˜I booked the room for a romantic night away with my boyfriend.’ She