The Girl He'd Overlooked by Cathy Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

delicacies. They always said that they wanted to make life easier for me but, personally, Isuspected that they weren’t too sure what they might be getting.’ She laughed and their eyes met for a few seconds before she hurriedly looked away.
    There was no way that she was going to return to her comfort zone but this felt good, chatting to him, relaxing, dropping her guard for a while.
    ‘And what about you?’ she asked. ‘Do you still avoid that whole domestic thing?’
    ‘Define
avoid that whole domestic thing.
’
    ‘You once told me that you always made sure that the women you dated never went near a kitchen just in case they started thinking that they could domesticate you.’
    ‘I don’t remember saying that.’
    ‘You did. I was nineteen at the time.’
    ‘Remind me never to have conversations of a personal nature with any woman who has perfect recall.’ He had forgotten just how much he had told her over the years, superficial stuff and yet stuff he probably would never have told any other woman. ‘Your father has been trying to lure me into cooking. Every time I’ve popped over, he’s shown me one of his new recipe books. A few months ago I came for a few days to oversee some work my mother was having done in the house, and your father asked us both to dinner here. We were treated to an array of exotic meals and I was personally given a lecture on the importance of a man having interests outside work. Have you any idea how difficult it is for a man to defend himself from a dual-pronged attack? Your father preached to me about learning to enjoy my leisure time and my mother made significant noises about the correlation between hard work and high blood pressure.’
    Jennifer laughed again, that rich, full-bodied laugh that reminded James of how much he had missed her uncomplicated company over the years. Except now… nothingwas as uncomplicated as it once was. They could skim the surface with small talk and reach a place in which they both felt comfortable, but he realised that he wanted to dig deeper. He didn’t want to just harp back to the good old days. He didn’t want to just keep it light.
    ‘I thought I’d see if that Patric guy of yours had a presence on the Internet.’ He changed the subject, standing up and waving her to sit back down when she would have helped him clear the table.
    Jennifer went still. Why, she wanted to ask, would he do that?
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘He’s well reviewed.’
    ‘Why would you want to check up on him?’ she asked abruptly. ‘Did you think that I was lying? Made him up?’
    ‘Of course I didn’t!’ He shook his head in frustration as they teetered back to square one after their fragile truce.
    ‘Then what? Why the curiosity?’
    He looked at her closed, uninviting expression and scowled. She might have loosened up for a few minutes, but the bottom line was she wanted their relationship to remain on the safe, one-dimensional plane it had always occupied.
    He thought back to that crossroads moment, when, four years ago, she had offered herself to him. Hell, he could still taste her mouth on his before he had gently pushed her away. In fact, thinking about it, he wondered whether he had ever really put it behind him.
    ‘Call it human nature,’ he gritted. ‘Is it a taboo subject? Am I getting too close to showing a perfectly normal interest in the person you are
now
?’
    Jennifer couldn’t argue with that.
She
was the one at fault. It was only natural that he would want to exchange more than just polite pleasantries about their past or idlechit-chat about their parents. It wasn’t his fault that she felt threatened whenever she thought about him getting too close and the reason she felt threatened was because she still had feelings for him. She didn’t know what exactly those feelings were, but they were defining the way she responded. It was crazy.
    It was going to be very tiring if they continually veered between harmless small talk and bitter arguments.