Truth-Or-Date.com

Sniffing at being so obviously dismissed without being introduced to Andy’s mysterious date, the two shuffled over to the only spare table, which thankfully meant that they were facing away from Andy, but from the sly sniggering glances they were giving her it was obvious that their lives were now complete.

Who needed a movie when they had just found out that Andy Davies was out with a hunky bloke in a coffee shop? Just think! Who would have thought she had the nerve, after Nigel had made such a fool of her?

It would be around the office in five minutes. In fact, they were probably texting all of their pals and her colleagues on their mobile phones at that very minute.

‘Friends of yours?’ a male voice asked from across the table.

She opened her eyes and blinked. Not only was Miles still there, but he was smiling at her and had started work picking out the whole hazelnuts from his cookie. She had been so absorbed in her own dilemma that she had forgotten about him.

‘Girls I used to work with in my last job. And no, they certainly are not my friends. Far from it. I despise them.’

Now why had she said that? It wasn’t their fault that she had fallen for all of the lies Nigel had told her so that she would work on his business proposals for nothing, night after night, while all the time he was living with the boss’s daughter and taking the credit for her work. And she was the only one who was not in on the joke. The rest of the office had been laughing behind her back for weeks. Just waiting for Nigel to dump her the second he got his promotion. And he had. Oh, yes. And in public. And in style.

That familiar cold dark blanket of humiliation and bitter disappointment wrapped itself around Andy’s shoulders, and she shivered inside her thin suit jacket.

‘I see. They tell me that girls can be hard to work with. I’m sorry if my being here is going to cause you a problem back in the office.’

‘Problem?’ She whimpered and slumped down. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’ Then she caught his change in breathing, and saw a flash of concern in his eyes. Tossing her head, she ran her fingers through her hair and smiled. ‘Sorry. It’s fine. Let’s try and ignore them. They have nothing to do with my life now.’

He rested both elbows on the table and leaned forwards until his fingers were almost touching hers, and nobody else could hear what he was saying, his back to the room. ‘None of my business but in my mind there are two ways to deal with office gossips. You say so what, and shrug it off. Or …’ He picked up Andy’s hand and started playing with it.

‘What are you doing?’ Andy snapped, trying to pull her hand away, but he was holding it in a vicelike grip. ‘They’re looking this way and taking photos on their cell phones,’ she groaned in a strangled voice, as if things could get any worse.

‘Excellent,’ he replied, in a low calm voice. ‘So let’s try the other option, and give them something to really talk about.’

There was something in his voice that should have warned her that actually things were going to suddenly get a lot worse, but her gaze was locked on his mouth as he licked his lower lip with the tip of his tongue.

Then without warning his entire body moved in one single continuous motion, so that as he lifted slightly from his chair his right hand reached back and cradled the base of her head.

And then he kissed her.

Not just a peck on the cheek. Oh, no. His warm, full, moist lips moved gently across hers in a kiss so tender and so loving that her eyes instantly filled with tears and she had to blink them away as she closed her eyes and tilted her head so that he could kiss her again.

Only this time it was deeper and she felt just the slightest tingle of his tongue, chocolate and coffee on hers before he slid his mouth away, leaving her staggered, wobbly and unable to speak and attempting to breathe again.

Wow.

Andy opened her eyes and he was breathing as hard as she was. She could not resist staring at his full mouth, which was still wet from her kiss, and in another place and another universe she would have liked to know what it would feel like to lift that shirt over his head and find out what kind of man was able to kiss a perfect stranger like that.

She wasn’t sure if she was meant to push him away and hit him for taking advantage, or pull him closer, and jump into his lap.

He did it for her. ‘Andy?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you think that is enough to keep the gossips happy?’ he asked in a hoarse, breathless whisper.

‘Oh, yes. That would do it,’ Andy answered, and looked over to the girls who seemed to be huddled together over their phones. ‘That will definitely do it.’

She pulled back, scraping her chair along the floor, grabbed her bag and stood up. ‘Back in a moment. Too much caffeine,’ she lied and almost ran to the ladies’ room.

‘I’ll be right here,’ he murmured behind her back. She turned back to look at him, as his fingers started flicking across the screen of his smart phone. The way his fingertips pressed the keys told her a lot more about his finesse and gentle touch than any online profile could.

Miles would be amazing in bed. She sighed as she turned away.

And it was only when she got inside the stall and had locked the door firmly behind her that her brain caught up with her hormones.

Miles had just called her Andy. And now he knew her real name!

She sat down, fully clothed, her elbows resting on her knees, chewing at her raggedy small fingernail, trying to come up with a cunning plan as to how to:

#Thank Miles for his understanding about Elise and pray that he had enough cash for the bill. Then thank him for the nice kiss. No—make that a very nice kiss.

#Sneak out of the coffee shop alone past the two gossips. Or maybe she should stride past with her head high? Nigel the suit was nothing compared to the gorgeousness of the man she had just left at the table.

#Come clean to Saffie. It had to be done. Elise’s online coffee date had kissed her within an hour of walking through the door. Which either made her extremely lucky or a total strumpet. And she did not do strumpet. Never had. Not even when she was at school. The boys from their rival high school did not call her frosty knickers without good reason.

#Try and ignore the fact that Miles was the most attractive man that she had met in a very long time and that she would be reliving every moment of the last hour for a long time to come.

She keyed in the list on her organiser, looked at it, then shut the gizmo down and stuffed it into her bag, ripped off a long strip of toilet tissue and blew her nose loudly.

One thing was for sure. She was not going to get anything done sitting here feeling sorry for herself. Time to get going.

Andy pushed herself to her wobbly legs, turned the door handle and hobbled over to the washbasins in her high-heeled boots to try and repair the damage before facing Miles again.

She took one look at the medium-height, medium-pretty woman with the medium-brown scraggy hair in the mirror and winced.

Why had she stayed long enough to let Miles kiss her?

Miles was a flirt. A professional, Greek-god-handsome, used-to-women-falling-at-his-feet flirt. He had higher qualifications in manly allure and an honorary degree from the university of flirting and female dazzling.

And she was not in a place where she could handle that. Any of it.

He was everything she’d thought he might be from his emails. And more.

She simply wasn’t up to flirting with a man like Miles and the truth was … she didn’t know whether she ever would be. Time to go home.

CHAPTER THREE (#u3d7d8404-a7a1-59c9-af28-890ad4ab3291)

MILES watched Andy stroll away from him to the other side of the room.

So what if he was a leg man?

Those cute little ankle boots showed off her shapely legs to perfection, and not even that shapeless grey business suit could hide the fact that Andy had a body that would look amazing in a swimsuit.

What was the Andy short for? Andrea? Maybe he would have a chance to find out.

If she let him.