Just Breathe by Janette Paul Read Free Book Online Page A

one deft move, she was jerked backwards, arms thrown skyward – and the tray and its contents hurled at her face.

Chapter Five
    Dee stood for a moment with the platter pressed to her face. Cream squelched on her cheek, something was oozing down her chin, but it felt like the perfect place to hide her mortification. That was an option she hadn’t considered – confessing her pretence, smacking herself in the head with a tray and smearing herself in whipped cream.
    Slowly she let the platter slide, bending forward a little so globules of lemon meringue and cheesecake wouldn’t fall onto the balcony alongside the elegant woman’s champagne glass that had smashed on the tiles.
    ‘Dee.’ Ethan tried to relieve her of the tray.
    She put a hand up like a stop sign. ‘No, I’ve got it,’ she said, not wanting to share the embarrassment. She pulled a mini citrus tart from her cheek. ‘Could you please unhook me from the door?’
    While she tried not to think about his hands fumbling with her trousers, she cast a glance around. Leonard and his wife were frozen to the spot while the elegant woman had a hand over her mouth, failing to conceal a bloody great guffaw. Fuck. Nothing like staying to enjoy your moment in the limelight – or lime tart. She smiled stupidly, felt a dollop of dessert hanging off her top lip.
    ‘There,’ Ethan said as the door swung free.
    Dee licked at the liqueur-flavoured cream. ‘Mmm, the tiramisu is really nice. Make sure you try a piece. If you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to kill myself in the kitchen.’

    Surprisingly enough, the evening improved after that. On a scale of embarrassing moments, witha faceful of cream cakes the low score of zero, things picked up to a creditable three or four – although not until she’d burst into tears, begged Jo for forgiveness and used a knife to scrape the desserts from her shirt. Jo, on the downhill run for the night, actually laughed so hard she had tears in her eyes then relegated her to the sink. For the next hour and a half Dee washed and dried, stacked crockery and endured with good humour the nicknames the rest of the wait-staff invented for her. She liked Sweet Chops the best but Tart Face and Tear-I-Missed-You were pretty good too. Best of all, she got to avoid Ethan, Leonard the Client, his wife and the awful elegant woman while she thought about how she was going to get her shit together when they decided she was just too stupid to do the ad.
    ‘Mrs Weston wants a quick chat before I leave,’ Jo said. ‘Take a break and I’ll help you with the last stuff when I get back.’
    Dee dried her hands and wandered onto the balcony. There were only a couple of guests left now and they were inside so Dee slipped off her clogs and slouched exhaustedly over the handrailing. The view from the penthouse was stunning, the city sparkling with a million lights. She closed her eyes, felt the balmy night close comfortingly around her, the sounds of the city drifting up from the street below.
    ‘Dee?’
    She jumped at the sound of Ethan’s voice. Damn, she thought he’d left.
    He strolled along the deck to her side, resting an arm on the railing. His irises were black in the dim light. ‘Are you okay?’ He sounded concerned. She supposed it was only natural after seeing someone smack themselves in the face with a loaded tray.
    ‘Yeah, fine. Just bruised my ego.’
    One side of his mouth turned up. ‘Have you still got a job?’
    ‘Well, she didn’t send me home so I suppose so. Not that this is my job job – just a job.’
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
    Dee heaved a great sigh. It was a good question. She’d told herself a thousand times she should have done that in the first place. ‘Well …’ she ran a hand through her hair and noticed the way his eyes followed her fingers all the way to her waist. ‘You told me the board wanted a really professional yoga type person for the ad, which I am, but I thought if you knew I was one of the