Read Online The Girl He'd Overlooked by Cathy Williams - Free Book Online

if she happened to be dating someone? Maybe looking up this, as yet, fictitious someone on the Internet so that he could check for himself that she wasn’t dating someone unsuitable? Or maybe just checking out of curiosity, the way he had with Patric?
    ‘I mean,’ she amended hurriedly, ‘that’s a generousoffer but I haven’t made any decisions as to whether or not I’ll be returning just yet, anyway. And when I
do
decide to return… well, I would want to find my own way. I’m sure my boss in Paris will supply me with excellent references…’
    James tried not to scowl as she smiled brightly at him, a big, glassy smile that set his teeth on edge. He was so used to her malleability! Now, in receipt of this polite dismissal, he felt strangely impotent and piqued.
    ‘I’m sure he would.’
    ‘And I’ve managed to save quite a bit while I’ve been over there. I stayed in a company flat and they kindly let me carry on there at a very subsidised rate after my one-year secondment was at an end. In fact, I would probably be able to put down a deposit on a small place of my own after a while. Not in London, of course. I would have to travel in. But definitely in Kent somewhere. I could work in London, because that’s where the jobs are, and commute like most people have to do. So… thanks for the offer of one of your company flats, but there’s no need to feel duty-bound to be charitable.’
    ‘And on that note, I think I’ll leave.’
    She let him. She saw him to the door, where they made polite noises about the continuing bad weather. He suggested that he come over to the cottage to eat because it would be easier for him to tackle the short distance in blizzard conditions; he was sure he had a pair of skis lurking in a cupboard somewhere from his heady teenage years. She smiled blandly.
    Inside it felt so wrong to be closing the door on him with this undercurrent of ill feeling between them.
    Her head was telling her to let go of the past and find new ground with him, as he obviously wanted to do withher. New, inoffensive ground. Her heart, however, was beating to a different tune.
    She spent the remainder of the day clearing out cupboards and bagging old clothes. She couldn’t believe the rubbish she pulled out of her wardrobe. The cottage was small and yet the cupboard in her bedroom was like the wardrobe in Narnia—never ending. She had binned the outfit she had worn all those years ago on their disastrous dinner date in a fit of humiliation and hurt, but the shoes were still there, stuffed at the back, and she pulled them out and relived that night all over again.
    Then she worked on her computer. She didn’t know how long the connection would last. Paris seemed like a million light years away and when she managed to talk to Patric, she found it hard to imagine that she had once thought that he might be the one for her.
    She tried not to look at the clock and told herself that she honestly didn’t care whether James came over to the cottage for dinner or not. Yes, sure, some adult company would be nice. Eating pasta for one while the snow bucketed down outside was a pretty lonely prospect. She told herself that she likewise didn’t care if he had taken offence at her rejection of his offer of a job and a place to rent. She could have handled it differently, but the message would have amounted to the same thing whatever. On both counts, she knew that she was kidding herself. She was keyed up to see him later. Like an addict drawn to the source of her addiction, she craved the way he made her feel.
    By six, she was glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece, and when her mobile vibrated next to her on the sofa, she had to fight back the disappointment at the thought that he would be at the other end of the line informing her that he had decided to give their arrangement a miss.

CHAPTER THREE
    ‘I F YOU’RE calling to tell me that you won’t be coming over tonight for dinner, then don’t worry about it.