Fun! The urge to have a bit of fun herself blew through Amy’s mind. “What a pity I couldn’t be there!” she said ruefully. “Jake and I have the best fun together, don’t we, darling?”
His head jerked to her, eyes startled. He recovered fast, his mouth curving into his whimsical smile. “Ain’t that the truth?” he drawled.
‘Jake always says we complement each other perfectly,” Amy crowed, buoyed so much by his support, she batted her eyelashes at the blonde bombshell.
“Then you should have been there, shouldn’t you?” came the snaky return comment, accompanied by a suggestively raised eyebrow.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Amy shrugged and swirled the champagne around in her glass as she gave Jake a smouldering look. “Some men like a bit of rope. I don’t mind as long as I can reel him in whenever I want to.”
“Amy is very understanding,” Jake said, nodding his appreciation.
“Well, perhaps another time, Jake,” Isabella purred, undeterred from a future romp.
“Oh, I doubt it.” Amy poured syrup into her voice. “He rarely dips into the same well twice.” She bared her teeth. “Take a friendly word of advice. Best to move on to greener pastures. He is sort of stuck with me for the long haul.”
Isabella started to retreat. “If you’ll excuse me...”
“With pleasure,” Amy said to speed her on her way, then downed half the champagne to celebrate her going.
Jake’s eyes were dancing with unholy amusement. “My wildest fantasy come true...you fighting another woman for me.”
“Huh!” Amy scoffed. “That’ll be the day.”
“Am I not to believe my ears?”
“She had the wrong coloured hair.”
“Ah!” His wicked delight took on a wry twist. “The other woman.”
“Sorry if I’ve queered your pitch with her.” She wasn’t sorry at all, but it seemed an appropriate thing to say. After all, when all was said and done, he was still her boss. Though he could have stopped her roll if anything important was at stake. She would have taken her cue from him.
“No problem,” he said carelessly.
“No, I don’t suppose it is.” Cynicism streaked through her. “If you snapped your fingers she’d come again.”
“Isabella has no claim on me.” It was a surprisingly serious statement, and his eyes held hers intently, as though he was assuring her he spoke the truth.
It was meaningless to Amy. No woman ever seemed to have a claim on him. “Is she your latest interest?” For some reason, she really wanted to know.
“No,” he answered without hesitation.
“Just one of the hopeful crowd that trails after you,” Amy said dryly.
He shrugged. “It hardly matters if I’m not interested, does it? To be blunt, Isabella doesn’t appeal to me. She never will appeal to me. Any hope she might be nursing is therefore futile.”
Goodbye, Isabella.
Amy was pleased that Jake had more taste than Steve. For both the men in her life to fall into the clutches of predatory blondes would have been altogether too wretched to bear. Not that Jake was an intimate part of her life, but he was a big chunk and she wanted to respect his judgement of character.
His quirky little smile came back. “You are quite a formidable fighter, Amy.”
She shrugged. “You did encourage me, taking my side. If you’d clamped down on me...”
“And miss that performance?” His eyes sparkled admiration.
“The fact remains...” It felt really good that he’d supported her. “...You let me win, Jake.”
He lifted his glass of champagne in another toast. “We’re a team, Amy. A great team.”
“A team,” she echoed happily, and drank to the splendid sense of well-being flowing from being a solid team with Jake.
Their first course arrived.
Amy ate with gusto. Not only was the food fantastic, her tastebuds were fully revived from the weekend when everything she’d tried to eat seemed to have the texture of cardboard, indigestible. Maybe having a healthy appetite was a side effect from feeling victorious. Defeat was certainly the pits.
“More champagne?” Jake asked, seeing her down the last drops in her glass.
“No, thanks. I’d better move on to iced water. I think I’ve been hot-headed enough today.”
He grinned. “Some things need letting out of your system. Especially the deep down and poisonous stuff.”
“Well, I’m almost squeaky clean again.”
“What a shame! So much volatile passion flying around. It’s been quite an exciting experience watching it in action. Intriguing, too. Shows me a side of you you’ve kept under wraps. Not that I didn’t suspect it was there.”
Amy sat very still because her heart was fluttering extremely fast. Jake was regarding her with simmering speculation. The cat was out of the bag, well and truly, and she’d let it out with her wild flights off the rails. If she wasn’t careful, the cat would feel free to pounce!
Twice she’d zoomed out of control, losing any semblance of the cool she’d kept with Jake. She could make excuses for herself. Jake was obligingly accepting them. But that didn’t put things back the way they were between them.
“Anything else you’d like to spit out? Get off your chest?” he invited, clearly relishing exploring this newly revealed side of her.
Amy needed a safe topic fast, preferably focused on him instead of her.
“Yes. Since I’ve now been introduced to your sister, would you mind telling me about your family?” Her curiosity had been piqued by Ruth’s revelations this morning.
“Not at all. What do you want to know?”
“Is there only you and Ruth?”
“Ruth is the youngest. I’m the next youngest. Above us are two older brothers, both very respectably settled down with families. Mum does her best to rule over us all and Dad lets us be.”
“Do they all live in Sydney?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re the wild one.”
He laughed. “They called me the adventurer when I was a kid.”
He still was, Amy thought. “Tell me why,” she prompted, eager to know more about him, to understand where he came from.
Again he obliged her, putting her at ease by regaling her with amusing stories from his childhood. Freed from the disturbing sexual pull he could exert on her, Amy enjoyed listening.