It Was Only a Kiss - By Joss Wood Page 0,35

wasn’t sleeping with her any more, that they were just friends, that he had no intention of resuming their arrangement.

Smart girls. Dammit, you just couldn’t get anything past them.

* * *

Jess, with Ally asleep in the passenger seat, turned into the gates of St Sylve and steered her SUV down the long driveway. She’d deliberately not thought about Luke while she was away, and being insanely busy had helped. There’d been decisions to be made at work, projects to give input on, meetings to take. She’d had drinks with a potential client and dinner with another, and had returned to the office around ten to put in another couple of hours’ work.

Luke and St Sylve had been put on the back burner, but now she was back and she had to deal with them. Luke had told her he wasn’t sleeping with Snow White... The woman looked exactly like the popular children’s character: black hair, white skin, blue eyes. Curvy. He had been, but he wasn’t any more. That was all the explanation he’d given her and she admitted that it was all she was entitled to. But she wanted to know more. How long had they been together? How had they met? Had he ever loved her?

Why did she even care? It wasn’t as if she had any claim on the man—she wasn’t in love with him. She liked him—a lot—but she liked a lot of men... She just didn’t want to have hot sex with any of them but Luke. She couldn’t possibly be thinking about him as being something more, someone important...could she?

If she was, then she didn’t have an IQ higher than a tree stump. She didn’t want a relationship, and he certainly didn’t want anything more. Did she have to draw herself a picture to explain the concept of going nowhere? Honestly...

Jess parked her car in the empty garage and switched the ignition off. Ally woke up, stretched and yawned. ‘Are we here?’

‘Mmm-hmm.’ Jess tossed her sunglasses onto the flat surface of the dash and rubbed her eyes. ‘Luke’s not back yet. His car isn’t here.’

Ally released her seat belt and opened the door, greeting Luke’s two dogs as she hopped out. ‘So where does Owen live?’

Jess rolled her eyes and pointed to the stable block. ‘Luke converted the stable block into a two-bedroom apartment for him.’

Ally squinted at the building and then back at the manor house.

Jess rolled her eyes before laughing at her friend. ‘Yeah, the walk of shame won’t be that long,’ she teased.

Ally looked completely unabashed. She’d come to St Sylve to sleep with Owen, and the poor guy didn’t stand a chance. Jess opened the back door and pulled out her suitcase and then Ally’s. Ally had a very masculine way of looking at sex and men: bag ’em, tag ’em and toss them back.

Love and feelings didn’t form part of the equation.

Jess still couldn’t work out whether she found that sad or smart.

* * *

Jess hummed softly as she padded her way to the kitchen door. She was exhausted, and it felt as if every muscle in her body was protesting against Ally’s idea of heading to a pub this evening and ‘par-tay-ing’. Jess draped her shoulder bag over the back of the chair and headed straight for the kettle, suddenly desperate for a cup of tea.

‘Head up the stairs. Second room on the left. I’ve put you in the room next to mine,’ Jess told Ally.

‘How old did you say this place was?’ Ally asked.

‘Early eighteen hundreds.’

‘Encountered any ghosts yet?’

Jess knew that Ally was pulling her leg about the fact that she believed in ghosts and wanted to see one. Like Luke, Ally was a firm non-believer.

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Nothing. A house like this should have a ghost or two.’

‘And it probably would, if ghosts existed,’ Ally responded. ‘Up and left?’

‘Tea?’ Jess asked.

‘God, no,’ Ally responded. ‘Wine. Got any?’

‘I’m currently living on a wine estate...’ Jess looked around. ‘Actually, I don’t. Nor do I have any food. We might have to raid Luke’s kitchen.’

Ally leaned against the doorframe. ‘Do you do that often?’

‘More than I should,’ Jess admitted.

‘Oh, baby girl, you have it bad,’ Ally said before disappearing upstairs.

Jess poured water into a cup and poked at the teabag with her teaspoon, thinking of Luke and wondering how today’s filming had gone.

She splashed a little milk into her tea and wrapped her hands around her cup, blew across the surface of the hot liquid. Hearing Luke’s car