Resisting Mr. Kane (London Mister #2)(50)

I roll my eyes, but I am so ready. Landing strip prepared for landing. Of course, I’m not planning to sleep with him. It’s just in case.

“It’s just dinner.” I brush her comment off. “He only wants me because I’m resisting him. He’ll get bored.”

“Are you sure about that?” She applies a tinted moisturiser to my face.

I hope I’m wrong.

“That’s better.” She nods at her handiwork then pushes my dress down past my right shoulder. It’s an oversized jumper.

“Why did you do that?” I frown.

“I read in an article that bare shoulders remind men of bare breasts,” she muses. “It must be to do with the shape.”

I’m not convinced. “Couldn’t you say that argument about knees then?” I ask sceptically. “You are seriously saying I show him a bit of shoulder socket rolling, and he’s putty in my hands?”

“Fine, don’t take my expert dating advice.” She tuts. “But you need to hone your flirting skills. At Venus Envy, you were like a viper with fangs out anytime a bloke came near you.”

I narrow my eyes. We said we wouldn’t talk about that night again. “I’m not sure I’m capable of flirting. My Crohn’s disease is playing up like it always does when I’m nervous.” I chew my lips. “I hope I don’t spend the whole date in the bathroom.” How many dates do you wait until you tell someone you have a dodgy bowel?

There’s a knock on the bedroom door and Frank the Shagger pops his head in.

I glare at him. I still haven’t forgiven him for mistaking my bedroom for the bathroom.

“Ah, come on, don’t look at me like that,” he says. “You’re still huffing with me over a little mistake? I said I would do your cleaning slot for four weeks.”

“That’s only useful if you actually clean,” I reply dryly. “Hiding things in cupboards is not cleaning.”

“Says who? Anyway, I came to tell you, there’s a bloke here to see you. He looks fancy.”

I turn to Megan in horror. “He’s twenty minutes early!”

Frank shrugs. “He’s in the living room.”

My spine jerks upright. “You let him into the living room?”

He gives me a blank stare. “Yeah, why not?”

“No, no, no!” I leap up, trying to locate my shoes.

Locating the second shoe under the bed, I barge past Frank and race down the stairs with Megan hot on my heels. I fire open the living room door.

“Tristan!” I greet him, flustered. “I –” I stop talking.

Oh.

He looks devastatingly handsome. I can’t even put my finger on why. He is leaning against the wall, looking completely out of place and too big for the room. He’s wearing jeans and a shirt that strains against his wide chest. He looks completely different than he did this afternoon. More like the Tristan I met in Mykonos.

One of his eyebrows rise as he takes a slow step forward. “Elly, you look beautiful.”

“Thanks,” I say breathily.

His gaze falls to the cut of my breasts in my dress, trailing a line down my stomach to my bare legs so slowly and purposefully, I have to look down to check I’m wearing underwear.

Someone clears their throat from the sofa. I turn to see my army of housemates watching us.

Did they all have to make their presence known at this particular moment? Three of Frank’s friends are sprawled out across the sofa and the floor, watching what appears to be bear attacks streaming from YouTube. The kitchen-hogging couple have formed a brass band with pots and pans, as they do every night. Their washing is drying all over the living room. Isn’t there some sort of etiquette about not drying your underwear in a house-share communal area?

I eye Rafal’s friend, Martina, suspiciously. She doesn’t live here, yet I see her here every night. Has she moved in on the sly?

Well done flashes in her eyes at me as she gives Tristan a greedy once-over.

“Let’s get out of here,” I mumble awkwardly, trying to ignore the gawking eyeballs. What I mean is, get the hell out of here before any of my housemates say anything to show me up.

Megan hands me my coat and bag, giving me a conspicuous wink, and I shepherd him out the front door.

Nerves clutch my stomach as he walks me to the Aston Martin where George is waiting in the driver’s seat.

George gives me a polite nod.

“Interesting bunch of tenants,” Tristan observes, arching a brow. “It was like separate groups of people taking up space in the living room but ignoring each other.”

“Welcome to living in the real London.”

He opens the car door to let me in, then pauses to take my jaw in his hand.

My breath hitches as I wait to be kissed.

He inches closer, his breath hot on my face.

God, the suspense.

He tilts my face to the side. “You have a few smudges on your cheek. Are they pencil marks?”

Damn you, Megan, and your epic contour fail. “Must be pencil marks, yup,” I mutter, stepping out of his hold to rub my cheek violently.

***

As we approach Clapham, I start to get excited. Really excited. A reservation to this place is gold dust. I would have said yes to the devil himself if he offered me dinner at Asha's, the most coveted restaurant in London. It recently snagged the third Michelin star and was the driving force behind the rush of celebrity sightings south of the Thames.