Page 90 of A Dark Fall
“So fucking possessive.” He rolls his eyes playfully before nuzzling my neck again. The act isn’t missed by Rob, who’s coming toward us again.
“Hope everyone’s hungry,” she says, reaching around Dan to grab her cocktail.
“Bloody starving.” I nod. The others agree, and Robyn looks pleased as she gulps her margarita.
“Mmm, so, we should all sort a night at Surgery again—what do you say, Al? Jake? We’ll let the guys come this time. Dan, I told you how much you’d love it.”
Dan nods, turning to Jake, eyes alight with interest.“Yeah, I’m up for it. Rob said the place was something else.”
Jake nods, sipping his drink. “Yeah, course. Anytime you fancy another night there, just let me know. Alex’s table is there whenever she wants it.”
“I didn’t know I had atable.”
“Put your name on it and everything,” he says.
I can’t tell whether he’s joking, until a moment later, he laughs. I hit him softly on the arm.
“So, tell us about the name then?” Robyn asks. My heart falters a little as I look at her, butterflies rising in my tummy. She’s got a mischievous look in her eye. “I mean, you meet Alex, a doctor, the night of your opening and then call your club Surgery. Sounds like abizarrecoincidence if you ask me.”
“More like fate,” Jake says after a few seconds. I feel Rob, Dan, and Mark’s eyes on us, but I barely even notice. Jake is all I’m aware of. The corner of his mouth lifts.
“Yeah, okay, you two are adorable. We get it,” Rob proclaims before sashaying past me toward the kitchen, pulling Dan with her.
The dining table is a work of art as usual. Elegant candlesticks, stylish cutlery and glasses, and a gorgeous contemporary centerpiece. Rob’s skill with interior design is quite something. She runs an interiors Instagram account with a quarter of a million followers, and it’s not even her day job.
As Jake and I sit to the left of Robyn, Mark sits directly opposite. It’s maybe a bit strange given Dan will be at the other end of the table. As Mark gets up to fill his wine from the bottle on the table, I notice him steal another look at Jake. When he catches me staring at him, his expression lifts immediately, and he smiles warmly. I glance to my right to see Jake in conversation with Dan’s friend Damien who is on his left, and so he hasn’t caught any of it.
A few minutes later, Rob’s signature goats’ cheese and roasted vegetable tart is placed in front of me, smelling so good my mouth waters. As I reach over to help myself to some more wine, Jake turns to say something to Damien again that makes them both chuckle. It dissolves the last of the unease inside me, and just like that, I can’t remember why I was so nervous about this. It’s fine. Rob seems smitten with him, and he’s been nothing but charming since we came through the door.
“I haven’t seen you since Dan’s birthday, Alex,” Mark says. “You’re looking great.”
I notice Jake’s head turn at the comment as I lift my glass. “Yeah, that was such a fun night.” A moment later, I feel Jake’s hand slide onto my thigh, squeezing gently. I twist my head and smile at him and then pick up my cutlery and slice into Robyn’s tart.
“Rob, this is amazing as usual. I think you’re getting better at it,” I say.
She swallows her mouthful. “Aw, you think? Guess we can thank Jane for it,” she says grudgingly.
Rob’s parents divorced twenty years ago, after her mother fell in love with a guy ten years younger. Rob couldn’t forgive her, and it effectively ruined their relationship.
Most of the chat through dinner is about the wedding, which everyone agrees has totally crept up on them, and Robyn all but glows in the chair from excitement while she talks. Dan rolls his eyes in between looking lovingly at Rob. I’ve no clue why, but for some reason, my mind drifts to Ben and where we might be now had I not found out about his affair. Would I have gone through with it because it would have been expected of me? Because it would have been thepolitething to do? I practically shudder at the thought.
Taking a deep sip of my wine, I turn to look instead at the man sitting beside me. He senses me looking at him and lifts his head from his tart to widen his eyes playfully. Something warm and content blooms in my chest.
Despite his joke outside about my holding his hand all night, he barely lets go of mine throughout the whole of dinner. Soft strokes of my fingers and small, private smiles that only draw me in further and make the warmth in my chest burn hotter. Seeing him in this context, outside of just us, naked, is revealing, actually. He’s chatty and funny and knows a lot about football—which, since the dinner table is filled with two agents and two footballers, is perfect. He’s also charming and funny and great at telling stories in a way that makes people want to listen. I find out during the monkfish main that he was scouted for Fulham Boys Club in school but “lost concentration and ruined it.” There’s something about how he says this though that makes me think that’s not entirely what happened. It makes me think maybe it was more to do with his being taken into care.
There are a few moments of panic when the chat turns to conservative politics. I hear the words “benefit scroungers” from Simon, one of Dan’s agent friends, but Jake takes that moment to turn his attention fully back to me, distancing himself completely from the topic.After Rob takes away the empty dessert plates, which she refuses to let me help with, and while everyone else chats loudly under the obvious effects of alcohol, Jake leans in to kiss me.
“You have no idea how much I want to fuck you right now,” he whispers.
My stomach swoops deliciously, thighs clenching with want. I feel my face go a deep, sexual red. I look at him aghast while he smiles that slow, sexy smile of his.
“I thought we banned that kind of talk from the dinner table,” I whisper back, my eyes dropping to his mouth. It looks luscious and wet, and I think about how it must taste like the dark chocolate and strawberries from Rob’s dessert.
“I decided to lift the ban.” He shrugs.
“Oh, you decided, did you?” I try to sound annoyed. Which I’m not.
“Yeah, I did.”