He laughs and shakes his head. “No. More like, I’m cold as hell and hard as ice. Or they play on my surname and say I have a stone where my heart should be.”
He clearly isn’t bothered, but I am.
“Oh.” I shoot him a sad smile and clutch him closer to me. Jared isn’t like that at all though. How could anyone hate him? “And are you cold as ice and just as hard when you’re at work? What kind of boss are you?”
He shrugs, settling himself at my side, propping himself up on one elbow. “I don’t think I am. I’m a bit particular, I suppose. I like things done in a certain way, and I like things done right the first time. And if I have to ask for something twice, then you’ve not done a good job in my opinion.”
I smile as realisation dawns on me. Jared—the perfectionist, OCD, tailored suit–wearing professional—is a hard-arse boss.
“Oh!” I raise one eyebrow.
He grins and rolls his eyes as he realises what he just said. “Okay, yeah, maybe I am a little hard to please.”
I bite my lip and chuckle.
He raises one eyebrow in question. “So … you’ll come with me? It’s a dinner dance at a posh hotel.” He sticks out his bottom lip and pouts pleadingly.
Posh. I don’t like that word. I wince. “Posh meaning like cocktail dresses and black tie? I don’t think I even have anything to wear.” My mind flicks to my wardrobe, considering my options. I definitely don’t have anything suitable.
Jared pulls me closer; his body pressing against mine is almost too distracting for me to stay on track, but I force myself to. “Please? I’ll buy you something if you don’t. Please? I hate going to these things. It will make it almost bearable if you come with me. I can’t think of anything worse than socialising with my subordinates.”
I burst out laughing. “If you call them subordinates, I’m not surprised they hate you.”
He laughs too, dipping his head, kissing me lightly. “Come with me, please? Save me from the boring night where I’m forced to make polite small talk with people who hate my guts. Please, baby?” he whispers against my lips, his hot breath tickling my skin, and I’m done for.
He could ask me for the moon, and I’d give it to him if I could.
“Okay.” I nod in agreement. When he grins in response, I reach up and press my palm against his cheek. “I really like it when you smile this big. You get these little crinkles at the corners of your eyes. They’re sexy as hell.” I rub my thumb over the creases and let out a little dreamy sigh.
He snorts a laugh, his eyes twinkling as he leans over me, just staring down at my face. “Amy, at the risk of scaring you away, I just want to say that I’m well on my way to falling in love with you. You know that, right?” A muscle in his jaw tightens as he watches for my reaction.
I grin sheepishly, my insides glowing with pleasure at his words. He is falling in love with me? I didn’t know that. I hoped he was feeling this connection growing between us like I was, but I didn’t know. I’m secretly thrilled at this revelation.
I want to scream and whoop in celebration, but instead, I force myself to remain calm and collected as I reply, “Well, that’s very nice to hear, but I’m not going to say it back. If I do, it’ll just sound like I’m copying you.”
His shoulders lose some of their tenseness as he turns his head and plants a little kiss on my palm. “I don’t mind you copying me.”
He eagerly looks up at me, but I shake my head.
“I’m not going to; I like to be original. So, instead, I’ll just say … I love your eye crinkles.”
He bursts out laughing; it’s loud and free, and it makes my tummy flutter with pleasure. “You’re so wonderfully weird.”
I smile and chew on my lip. “I’m taking that as a compliment.”
My insides are simmering with excitement, his words playing over and over in my head.
“I’m well on my way to falling in love with you.”
“As it was intended,” he replies, leaning in and kissing me before effortlessly manoeuvring my body so he’s spooning me from behind, his arm under my head, his other wrapped securely around me, his fingers drawing a little pattern on my bare stomach, causing goosebumps to rise on my skin.
As he reaches for the remote and presses play on the next episode, I snuggle back against him, blissfully happy. My hand catches his, and our fingers interlace as I pull his hand up to my mouth and kiss his knuckles.
As the opening sequence music plays, I smile and decide to throw him a bone. “Just so you know, I’m well on my way to falling in love with you too,” I admit. That doesn’t even come close to how I feel though.
I feel him grin against the back of my neck, and his hold on me tightens, pulling me closer to him as he throws his leg over mine, cloaking me in a warm Jared sandwich of luscious skin. He doesn’t say anything, and I don’t need him to. How firmly he’s holding me says it all.
fifteen
“I’m still not convinced this is a good idea,” I mutter. My stomach aches from nerves, and I look up at my childhood home, my brain whirling through all the things that could go wrong.
Jared laughs and advances on me, his eyes locked on mine as his hands come up to cup my neck, tilting my head back, forcing me to look up at him. “Of course it’s a good idea; it was mine,” he rebuts playfully as his head dips and his mouth captures mine in a soft kiss that makes my heart sing.
My arms instinctively grip his waist as he gently eases me against the side of his car, leaning into me, his hard body pressed against the length of mine.
I groan and close my eyes. “My nanna is going to eat you alive.”
“You underestimate me,” he replies.
I shake my head. “You underestimate her.”
Jared came up with this not-so-brilliant plan during the week. As next weekend is both his work dinner dance and his dad’s birthday party, I will be meeting everyone who is important in his life over the space of two days. Because of that, he thinks it is only fair that he meet my mum and nan. I tried to talk him out of it—I definitely want to put that off as long as possible—but he has been adamant and worked on me all week until I agreed.
He shrugs, playing with a lock of my hair, twirling it around his finger this way and that. His eyes are latched on mine. They’re dizzying, but then I realise it’s because I’ve forgotten to breathe again. He does this to me a lot. One day, I’ll die from it, just randomly keel over because he’s mesmerised me so much that my body has completely forgotten basic survival function.
“It’ll be fine. I met Heather and did all right there; she was probably the one I was most worried about meeting.”
My hand strokes against his coat, toying with one of the buttons. He did better than all right with them. They love him. Tim and Jared even exchanged numbers at the end of the night and are planning on going to watch a football match together in a couple of weeks, as they both support Cambridge United.
“It’s not that I don’t think you’ll do all right; I know you’ll do great. They’ll love you; who wouldn’t?” My stomach gives another nervous twist. “It’s just … my family is a bit …” I search for the correct word to describe them, but nothing comes to mind, so I groan and drop my head onto his chest, letting his smell fill my lungs. “I just don’t want you taking one look at them and thinking, Oh, so that’s what Amy will be like in thirty or fifty years, and run screaming for the hills.”