She takes a sip of her wine and her eyes widen with pleasure. “Wow. That tastes like I could just suck it down.”

Bloody hell.

She did not just say that. I grunt and shake my head to clear the memory of her on her knees sucking me down.

“Do you eat at restaurants like this often?” She asks it casually but that face of hers has already given her away, the question hanging in her eyes as she takes a sip of her drink.

“Occasionally,” I tell her. Way to elaborate, Jennings.

She examines the tablecloth in front of her while I wait. They’re royal blue, matching the blue print on the chairs.

“What is it you do exactly?”

There it is. The question I knew she wanted to ask. I should just tell her. Right now. Yet… something is holding me back. I’ve gotten in too deep on this lie of omission and now doesn’t feel like the moment to correct it. Plus I need to figure her out before I lay out all my cards. There’s something she’s not telling me and I don’t think the revelation that I’m her boss’ boss’ boss is going to get her to open up any. Likely the opposite. In fact I think it would have her hoofing it out the door.

“I work in operations for a London-based company.”

“What does that mean?” She stares at me from across the table, her expression curious and relaxed.

Damn her curiosity.

“It’s mostly analyzing strategies and procedures. Ensuring efficiencies. Minimizing resources. Forecasting trends, etcetera etcetera.” I spout off a bunch of nonsense and hope it was dull enough to answer her and put an end to any additional questions.

“Wait a minute.” She says the words slowly, her eyes narrowing. “I think I’ve got you figured out.”

Shit. “Have you?” I take a sip of my drink and feign nonchalance.

“Yup. Can’t fool me.” She taps her water glass against the tablecloth as she speaks and I wonder if she’s going to fling it in my face.

At least her hand isn’t on the butter knife. Yet.

Fuck, I should have said something sooner. But it’s not as though I lied, is it? An omission isn’t a lie, exactly. I make a mental note not to say that aloud. I doubt it’ll win me any points.

“You,” she says, pointing at me with her finger and a stern expression, “have a job.”

“Correct. And I don’t live with my mum. We established that when you agreed to keep sleeping with me.” I wink, hoping we’re done with this line of conversation.

“I meant you have a good job.” She tilts her head and examines me as if something is just occurring to her. “And you own a home. Even homes in the dodgy section of London are crazy expensive.”

“Dodgy?” I laugh at her. Her expression is so serious, as if she’s about to win a game of Clue. “Americans don’t use the word ‘dodgy’ to describe property.”

“I told you, I have an Anglophile fetish. Stop trying to distract me.” She straightens her silverware and I keep an eye on the knife. “I don’t think your grandmother paid for your trip.”

“No?”

“No. I think you paid for her trip. Am I right?” She sits back in her chair, confident she’s solved the puzzle of me. “You let me think you were Mr. Good Times, but you have your act together, don’t you?”

Not that together, no. But I grin and tell her it’s family tradition to take turns taking Nan on holiday. Then the waiter arrives with our starters and I thank my lucky stars for the interruption.

I’m on borrowed time on this lie. I manage to remain relatively anonymous, being that no one gives a toss about who runs a travel conglomerate and I have a last name other than Sutton, but it’s not impossible to piece together.

The company website is little more than a fancy landing site to direct consumers to the individual brands. The About section on the site only makes a brief mention of the corporation being family-owned, and even then not a name is listed, merely a note of four generations of service. She knows it surely, being an employee, but it’s not my name on her payslip. I’m buried layers deeper than a contract employee of one division would care about.

I need to come clean with her.

“I think I’ve got you figured out as well.” We’ve gotten a cheese board starter and Daisy pauses in the act of spreading raspberry preserve across a tiny crunchy toast and blinks twice.

“You have?”

“I think…” I pause, letting the tension build a moment while a look of unease flashes in her eyes. “I think that you like me.”

She sets the toast on her bread plate and leans in a few inches before speaking.

“I think I’m addicted to having sex with you,” she whispers and there’s not an iota of seduction in her delivery. She presents it as if it’s simply a fact that confuses her a bit. “It’s really good, right? I’m sure I have less experience than you do, so maybe I’m just naïve. Or maybe I need a bigger sample pool? Maybe it’s you and you’re really good at sex and it’s like this for you with everyone? Is it all the same to you? Maybe you’re the common denominator?”

Totally guileless, this girl. She didn’t say any of that from a place of judgement. It’s from a place of curiosity and it’s both endearing and erotic and oh, so totally Daisy.

“How am I supposed to eat this?” she asks, pointing at the cheese board. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Spread the soft cheese onto the toast and eat it with your hands.”

She does as I tell her and pops the food into her mouth, humming a little as the flavor hits her tongue. My cock responds as if she’s just placed me on her tongue.

“This is fun,” she says, doing a little wiggle in her seat. “You’re fun, Jennings.”

Fun? When’s the last time someone accused me of being fun?

“So is it always good for you? The sex, I mean. Not the cheese. Cheese is always good, am I right? There’s nothing not to enjoy about a liaison with cheese. In your mouth.” She’s babbling and she makes a grab for her wine glass before adding, “Yay, cheese.” Then she downs a long sip and avoids my eyes.

Jesus Christ, she has no game.

I rub a hand over my jaw and think about my response. I need to tread carefully because this is a conversation that could result in me heading to my room alone tonight before I know what’s hit me. The last thing I need her thinking about is any woman who isn’t her.

“Daisy,” I say softly and wait for her eyes to return to mine. “You’re the most fun I’ve ever had.”

She dips her head and smiles, a blush coloring her face over the double entendre. “I’m not that experienced in fun.”

“Why is that?” I ask when what I want to say is, Good.

She shrugs and works on preparing another toast. “Focused on my career. Wasted time on the wrong guys. You know, the usual reasons.”

“Tell me about the guy.”

“Which one?”

“The one who led you to pick up a stranger in a hotel bar.” The idiot who led you straight to me.

She wiggles her nose while she thinks about what, if anything, she wants to share and I focus on not asking for the cheque and dragging her out of here caveman-style so I can fuck the answers out of her.

“It’s sorta tied into my old job.”

Fucking hell. I don’t think I like where this is headed.

“The design job? That you did prior to working at Sutton Travel?”

“Right.” She fidgets in her seat. “A long time ago.”

I wonder what a long time consists of in a twenty-six-year-old’s life.

“So what happened?” I prompt.

“It’s embarrassing,” she says while examining the crumbs on her plate.

“How so? You were co-workers? Dating the boss?” Fuck, neither of these options are great. No wonder she was squirrelly about company policies.

“We were co-workers, yes.” She pauses. “And his dad owned the company.”

Fuck.

“I sound like a hussy when I say that, right? I promise you I did not get any special treatment. None!” Her eyes flash with an old pain and I wish I could erase it for her. “It wasn’t like that at all. At all,” she repeats.

“Of course you didn’t.”

“It was the opposite of an advantage. I didn’t push hard enough to get the projects I wanted because I didn’t want anyone to think I got them unfairly.”

“I get it,” I tell her, and I do. I get the conflict, if not the holding back. Working at a family-owned business, you know you’re being watched more than anyone else. You know you have to work twice as hard to prove yourself worthy of the advancements that you’ve earned, but were always expected to receive.

“Then the company was sold and most of the staff was laid off, myself included. Mark relocated with the new company so I lost my job, my boyfriend and my house in the same week.”

“You were living together?” I hate the idea of this.