Now, why was he thinking about that?
With effort, he wrenched himself back to the conversation they’d been having before everything had somehow gone off the rails. “You’ve been reading my handbooks.”
“Oh, yes. Mont gave them to me.”
“And you—actually read one.”
She sounded confused when she corrected him. As if she didn’t understand his disbelief. “I read all of them.”
“You—read—all of them.”
“I can read, you know.”
“You’ve been here for two days!”
“Technically three, since it’s past midnight.”
“Days don’t count until they end,” Jacob snapped. “And—and you should know, I really wrote those manuals for myself more than anyone else. To get my systems clear in my head.”
“Ah—that explains the rampant swearing and generally unprofessional tone.”
He was so beside himself with astonishment, he didn’t even scowl at the unprofessional comment. Even though it was bullshit. Jacob was the soul of professionalism. Although he had a feeling that if he said that out loud, she might laugh in his face.
Didn’t matter. He couldn’t get over the fact that she’d apparently taken his weird manuals—yes, he knew they were weird—and read them as if they were very serious materials and applied them with impressive commitment.
Serious. Application. Commitment. All these things added up to one impossible conclusion.
“Eve,” he said slowly. “Are you . . . do you . . . by any chance . . . respect my B&B?”
“What on earth kind of question is that?” she demanded. “Of course I do, you widgeon.”
Well. Well. He’d expected someone like Eve—someone carefree, someone flexible, someone who could bend without breaking—to look down on his rigidity. To laugh at it, maybe. But this . . .
“In that case,” he said stiffly, his mind still sifting through evidence, “it is entirely possible that I have been operating on some incorrect assumptions about you, based solely on your horrific taste in T-shirts and your annoyingly whimsical manner.”
“Is that your way of saying you’ve been a judgmental prick?” she asked. “Gosh, I hope so. Say sorry next. Go on. You can do it.”
“Piss off.”
“There he is.”
Jacob was disturbed to find himself grinning ear to ear. God, why did she have to be funny? He felt himself being dragged against his will toward the certain doom of not-hating her. Dangled over the explosive volcano of enjoying her as a person.
“And what exactly is horrific about my T-shirts?” she asked, as if she’d just remembered the comment.
“Everything.” Except for how tight they were. He was a fan of the tightness.
Wait, what?
Jacob was busy checking his own pulse (because his thoughts indicated a lack of oxygen to the brain, possibly caused by some kind of cardiac event) when the clouds covering the moon danced away again. Eve came properly into view, but this time, she wasn’t standing—or duck-chasing—safely on the banks. This time, she was at the very edge of the pond, waving her arms like a wind turbine and muttering, “Shoo! Shoo!” at a certain beady-eyed minion of poop and destruction. Which was wonderful, except for the part where she was leaning perilously far.
“Eve,” Jacob said.
“Go on, Mr. Duck. Bugger off.”
Make me, said the duck’s tranquil glide and vicious gaze.
“Eve. Be careful. The banks are uneven and you’re too—”
“Shit sticks,” said Eve, and fell right in.
* * *
The night was warm, but the pond, as it turned out, was not.
Eve sucked in a breath as she plunged into cold water, then choked and coughed when she got a mouthful of pond for her troubles. Oh, fudge knickers. Now she probably had tuberculosis, or something. Lung mold, or something. She was diseased, and all because Jacob was ridiculously anal about ducks. She would kill him. She would murder him. She would—
Another splash sounded beside her, and then a steely arm wrapped around her waist, and Eve found herself turned around and smushed chest-first against some sort of wall.
She blinked water droplets from her eyes and squinted up. The wall had a marble-carved jawline and a wintry gaze and slightly lopsided glasses. The wall was Jacob.
Her mind momentarily glitched.
He shook her about like a terrier shaking a rat. The fact that he did this with only one arm made the whole ordeal even more undignified. His other arm, or rather, his cast, was held in the air, clear of the pond, because even when leaping into bodies of water to physically assault his staff, he remained coordinated and sensible. The bastard.
“Eve,” he said, shaking her some more. “Say words. Proper words. Together.”
She slapped his arm—his strong, strong arm, which was lean and corded with muscle, and currently getting up close and personal with her not remotely lean or muscular waist. It was an . . . interesting contrast, one she absolutely did not enjoy because that would be weird. “Get off me, you prat!”
“Oh good,” he said, “you’re all right.”
She paused, then glowed for a moment. He’d been checking she was all right? He cared that she was all right? Maybe he wasn’t the worst human being on earth after all.
Then he added, “It’s far too late to find someone else to do this morning’s breakfast,” and Eve decided she’d been mistaken; he was definitely still the worst.
“Fuck off,” she muttered and shoved him away. Her brand-new pajamas were ruined. Her braids were swirling around in algae. Her mouth still tasted of tuberculosis or fungus or something equally terrible, and when she tried to step back, her shoe sort of . . . squidged in something, and the something gave way, and suddenly she was sinking.
“Oh no you don’t,” Jacob said and grabbed her again. Now she was back against the wall of his chest.
“Why,” she gritted out, “is the water up to my neck, but only up to your . . . boob area?”
He stared down at her. “Because we are different heights, Eve.”
“I know that!” She scowled, then blinked. “Er, Jacob, are you shirtless?”
“Let’s not discuss it.”
“Bloody hell.” She hadn’t noticed before, in the shadows, but it was difficult not to notice now, with his bare skin pressed against hers. She prodded experimentally at his abs. “Bloody hell.”
“Stop that,” he snapped. “Do you think we could get out of here now? There’s . . . algae on me.” Apparently he found that even more abhorrent than she did, because he shuddered. It was a full body movement, one that seemed involuntary—and pressed the aforementioned abs against her tits. Which might have been enjoyable if he hadn’t muttered darkly, “Slime. Can’t stand slime.”
Actually, even with the mutterings, it was still enjoyable. How dare Jacob of all people have this . . . television body?! He must have made a deal with the devil. She’d seen evidence in the kitchen of him eating microwaved spaghetti Bolognese for dinner. Men who ate nice food like spaghetti Bolognese were not supposed to also have abs. There was a balance to the universe that had to be observed and he was shamelessly flouting it.