you, Beth? Did you think you’d end up with someone soft and fuzzy like young Benny boy?’
As Beth proceeded to regale the group with tales of numerous dream boys from her teens Jacob watched as Holly slowly relaxed.
Her natural colour had returned and he noticed again what an attractive woman she was—and just his taste. Not too tall, graceful, curvaceous, vivacious. And he had been lying earlier to rile her. He had never been one of those men who preferred blondes. Her lustrous, thick dark hair beguiled him. He found himself wanting to release it from its confining pins and feel its lush abundance sliding through his fingers.
With her head cocked, listening to Beth’s funny stories, she surreptitiously picked up stray slivers of carrot and brought them to her mouth, daintily sucking them in with a swift sip. And each time she gave the tips of her fingers an unhurried lick, savouring the slight drops of honey. And Jacob was mesmerized. It was all he could do to stop himself from licking his own lips, she made it look so good.
‘Don’t you remember Gary Phelps, Holly?’ Beth asked, snapping Jacob back to the conversation at hand. Holly even managed a small laugh. It was a pretty sound. Light and unselfconscious.
‘He was so horrid, Beth.’ Holly grimaced, but her voice had returned to a more normal timbre.
‘He was not. He was lovely.’
‘He was five feet tall and never washed his hair. I never knew what you saw in him.’
‘Just because he wasn’t tall, dark and handsome like every boy you ever had a crush on didn’t mean he couldn’t be attractive to someone else. Namely me. And what a kisser.’
Holly flicked a sudden glance Jacob’s way. If he had blinked, he would have missed it, but he had caught its full measure. It was a look brimming with suppressed attraction. He should have jumped from his seat and run for his life. But he didn’t.
She had bruised his ego enough with her indifference towards his business practices. So he intended to soak up every bit of positive attention she was willing to send his way. Just to even the scales. That was all.
‘Hey,’ Ben called out, feigning a broken heart. ‘You do realise your husband and the father of your soon to be child is sitting here having to listen to these stories of young love which do not involve him.’
‘Yes, darling but you have to remember that, out of this long line of dreamboats, I chose you.’
‘Very true.’ Ben beamed lovingly at his wife.
Under the mask of laughing along with them, Jacob stole a cheerful glance over Holly, and he found her leaning her chin on her palm, watching Ben and Beth with a smile of pure joy splashed across her lovely face. Her expression was so tender it was luminous. And in that moment he thought he understood her. It did not seem so very strange to want what Ben and Beth had.
Jacob felt a sudden tightening in his chest. Not good. He needed time out. He pushed his chair back and stood up.
‘Excuse me, folks. I have to powder my nose.’
As soon as Jacob left Beth leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, ‘What on earth is with him tonight, Ben? All that talk of babies and blondes, that wasn’t like the Jacob Lincoln of old.’
‘Lincoln?’ Holly mimicked Beth’s strained whisper, as it was the only way she could stop herself from shouting. ‘He’s Jacob Lincoln? As in your boss, Link? As in Lincoln Holdings Lincoln?’
Ben flinched. ‘Ah, yes. He’s one and the same.’
‘What on earth is he doing here? You told me he lived in … New Orleans or some such place.’ And he was supposed to be balding, with a paunch and liver spots. Not … well, not so manifestly the opposite.
‘He did,’ Ben said. ‘Then without telling a soul he moved back to Melbourne a couple of days ago.’
That first morning, standing on the corner, armfuls of luggage, faint accent. Holly dropped her face into her palms.
‘That means I told him how little I thought of his boxing idea, not at the time realising that it was his idea, then accused him of going to the wrong bathroom, not at the time realising it was his bathroom. He’s really Jacob Lincoln?’ she repeated.
Ben shrugged and grinned contritely.
Holly’s voice hissed as she turned on Ben, her pent-up mortification whirling into a terrible rage. ‘And knowing all of this you set up this dinner, told him that I was “husband hunting”, and that he was my number one contender?’
Beth also turned on her husband. ‘Did you really do all of those things?’
Ben held his hands up in submission. ‘Hey, you guys dragged me into this ridiculous plan of yours. So, I took you to a gathering teeming with numerous available red-blooded men and you hid in the bathroom all night. And then I ask the most eligible of all red-blooded men I know to dinner and you attack me.’
Holly was having none of it. ‘But you told him—’
‘The truth, Holly. But to tell you the truth I really did wonder if my two best friends in the whole world might not hit it off.’
Beth’s face softened easily. ‘That’s so sweet. Holly, forgive Ben.’
Holly sat back, all angered out. Her face was heated from her strained whispers and her head spun with the maze of words and deeds they had created for themselves.
Beth giggled. ‘Now poor Jacob thinks Holly’s hot for him. No wonder he has been acting so strangely.’
‘Ah, well, actually,’ Ben said, ‘he knows the whole deal and has been pulling your legs all night.’
‘Ha!’ Beth said, clapping her hands together. ‘Now that’s more like the Jacob Lincoln of old.’
But Holly was not so amused. She was thinking. And planning. ‘He knows the whole deal and he thinks I’m now sweating it.’
‘Well, gorgeous, you have pretty much been sweating it all night,’ Ben said.
‘But I’m not now.’ Now she knew the glimmer in Jacob’s eyes had indicated he was enjoying an elaborate joke, not that he was sizing her up for a wedding dress.
Well, if it was fun and games he liked …
CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN Jacob re-entered the room Holly was standing by her empty chair, eyes closed, rocking her head side to side. He suppressed a grin as he settled back in his chair. He shouldn’t have been worried; he still had the upper hand. He had the poor woman in knots.
As he watched she ran a hand up her side, and then back and forth across her shoulder, eyes still closed, head tossed back, leisurely massaging out those very knots. Her mouth dropped open and a blissful groan escaped her lips.
Whoa.
Jacob shifted in his seat, suddenly feeling mighty uncomfortable. He set his teeth and tore his eyes away before he would be forced to make another hasty exit to recollect his wits.
‘What did I miss?’ he asked, purposely not including Holly in his question.
But Holly had ceased her rub-down, and Jacob’s gaze was magnetically drawn to the movement. He did not miss a single curve as her hand made its unhurried journey back down her side to rest provocatively on her hip.
‘Nothing significant, Jacob,’ Holly purred. ‘I was just saying how much I was hankering for something sweet.’
Her lashes batted heavily against her cheeks, then her gaze fluttered and drifted to his lips.
The words ‘then come and get it’ sat precariously close to the tip of Jacob’s tongue. Get a hold of yourself, he told himself. You’re imagining things. You’re just tired. It’s not been a week; can you still blame the