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‘I’m hardly likely to forget in that outfit,’ he called after her.
Luke’s breath hitched as Claudia looked over her shoulder at him and gave him a wink.
* * *
They ate a sumptuous meal in the aptly named Rumba Room and Claudia was pleased that Avery had thought to book one of the tables that ringed the large dance floor. The entertainment here was always spectacular and being this close they wouldn’t miss any of the acts.
The restaurant was crowded and the food was delicious. Avery and Jonah were happy to lead the conversation and Claudia let them go. She spoke where required, as did Luke, but neither of them were very engaged. Claudia was too aware of the strange vibe between her and Luke. He brooded away in her peripheral vision, also responding perfunctorily to verbal cues in between glaring at any man who dared look at her.
It was off-putting to start with but after a couple of glasses of wine Claudia actually started to enjoy it. It was a fairly pointless exercise but knowing that he found her attractive after years of secretly drooling over him was something of a head swell.
And he was looking particularly dashing tonight. He’d teamed a pair of dark trousers with a retro button-up shirt in a paisley print of dark greens, purples and greys. It was open at the neck and the sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and it had been left hanging out.
It was very funky. Very London.
His whiskers had been shaved to within an inch of their lives and while she wished he’d just let them grow, become the shaggy and scruffy stubble of her fantasies, a part of her was just as attracted to the whole London suit thing he had going on.
She wanted to reach out and feel for herself that a man’s face could be that deliciously smooth. Trail her finger along his chin. Push her nose into the underside, where neck met jaw, and rub her lips against all the satiny smoothness she knew she’d find there.
And then maybe she could get a better whiff of his sweet but spicy aroma. She’d been trying to place it all night. Not that she was a connoisseur of men’s aftershave but she did appreciate a man who smelled good.
‘I thought your ambition was to have your own agency by now, Luke?’
Claudia sensed Luke tensing beside her and tuned back into the conversation. What was Avery saying?
‘So it was,’ Luke said, his lips tight. ‘And if it hadn’t been for Philippa screwing me over, I would have.’
It was Claudia’s turn to tense at the mention of Luke’s ex-wife. She held her breath and waited for him to elaborate, to talk more about what must have been a fairly low point in his life. To tell them something about his ex-wife. The mysterious Philippa.
She’d never once had a conversation with him about the woman who had, according to Gloria, broken her son’s heart and almost destroyed his professional reputation. One minute he’d been married at a London register office without bothering to even tell his mother and the next it was all over.
Two years was all it had lasted. He’d been going to bring Philippa out to meet them all but they were always too busy and it had never eventuated. And then it had all fallen spectacularly apart.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Luke,’ Avery said as Jonah frowned and almost imperceptibly shook his head at Avery. She reached out to touch his hand. ‘That was insensitive of me.’
‘It’s fine,’ Luke dismissed. ‘I’ll get there again. I plan to be out on my own—completely on my own this time—in two years.’
Jonah nodded at his friend. ‘Well, you can have my account,’ he said. ‘I haven’t been happy with my advertising mob for a while now.’
Luke chuckled, his taut muscles relaxing. ‘Well, I’m flattered but you can’t just hand over a huge account like that,’ he said. ‘What if you don’t like what I can do?’
‘Can’t be worse than I have now. I’ve been a little distracted lately,’ he murmured, trailing his finger up Avery’s arm, ‘to care. I’ve really let the ball drop in that department. Besides, you forget, I know what you can do with that awful plastic-cheese crap. If you can sell that you can sell anything.’
The whole table laughed this time and Luke joined in. He’d won a national jingle competition when he’d been eleven years old, not long after his parents had partnered with Claudia’s to run the Tropicana. It had been to sell pre-wrapped cheese slices and he’d been hooked on advertising ever since.
Luke shrugged. ‘I can have a look if you like.’
Jonah nodded. ‘That would be good.’
The long, low sultry note of a saxophone oozed out then, interrupting their conversation, and a murmur ran around the room. Claudia felt her heart flutter a little.
