Undertaking Love

Chapter Fifteen




‘Champagne, please. Your best.’ Marla cringed a little at Rupert’s dismissive tone, and smiled at the unimpressed waitress.

‘Are we celebrating?’ She shuffled along the bench seat in the booth to give herself some breathing space from Rupert, who’d shunted himself in right next to her.

‘Tada!’ He whipped the freshly printed wedding supplement for the upcoming Sunday edition out of his briefcase and slapped it down on the table in front of them. ‘Look. Go on, centre spread.’

She smoothed it out on the restaurant table and studied the splash of wedding pictures from Alaric and Gelvira’s big day. The Herald photographer had managed to perfectly capture the essence of the day with his lens, the pictures bubbled over with fun and love. The accompanying piece on the chapel was undeniably fabulous PR, and would hopefully encourage the villagers to feel proud of the unique chapel in their midst.

She laughed at the shot of Bluey in the top hat, and then found herself unable to look away from Gabe in the background of the frame. It had been just over two weeks since the finger-sucking incident, and she’d gone to considerable lengths to avoid him ever since. She could only thank her lucky stars that Rupert had text to let her know that he’d be there in five minutes, or else who knows what he might have walked in on. She badly needed to cool her engines as far as Gabe was concerned. She was old enough to have learned the hard way that a physical reaction to someone meant next to nothing; being turned on by a hot body was never to be confused with real feelings. She couldn’t deny that the chemical reaction between herself and Gabriel fizzed like popping candy, but she also knew that too much candy would make a girl sick.

Marla accepted a glass of champagne from Rupert with a grateful smile, and clinked obediently when he held his own glass out with an expectant look.

‘It’s brilliant. Thank you, Rupert.’

‘Should piss on Gabriel Ryan’s bonfire, anyway,’ he smirked. Marla’s smile faltered. As much as she appreciated Rupert’s help, sometimes she wondered if he was more interested in saving the chapel or bringing Gabe down. He was right, though; the article would be a strong piece of supportive evidence to include in the dossier she was preparing to submit to the council on the matter. The petition might have been sidelined, but she was still intent on lobbying the council to make them see sense about the situation.

The feel of Rupert’s hand massaging her knee under the table brought her swiftly back to the present.

‘So, am I the best boyfriend you’ve ever had, or what?’

She laughed and rolled her eyes. ‘And so modest, too.’

‘Should I take that as a yes, then?’ Marla coughed on her champagne. Jeez, it wasn’t a rhetorical question. He actually wanted an answer. But then, it was one of those questions with only one possible answer anyway, wasn’t it?

‘Um … let me think.’ She smiled and played for time. Was he the best boyfriend she’d ever had? Actually, he might be. He wasn’t married to anyone else, for a start, which gave him a big advantage over the other two men who made up her significant romantic history to date. She enjoyed his company, and he could make her squirm with pleasure in bed – or at least he had been able to, before a certain dark-eyed Irish man had set up his x-rated camp temporarily in her head. Rupert was entertaining. He made her laugh. But the most important thing about him was that he could never break her heart, because it would never be his to break.

‘You know what, Rupert? I can hand on heart say that, yes, you are the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.’

He leaned in and kissed her for longer than she was entirely comfortable with in a restaurant, even if they were tucked away in a booth.

‘Happy?’ he whispered, when he finally allowed her up for air. She nodded with an affectionate smile. He looked like a schoolboy, eager to please. ‘I am. Thank you.’

His fingers slipped under the hemline of her skirt. Okay, maybe not so schoolboy, after all. ‘You’re welcome, Marla.’ He leaned back in and kissed her again, taking the chance to inch his fingers further up her thigh.

‘Rupert,’ she warned, and slid away from him a little more until she was wedged against the wooden wall of the booth. He scooted closer in response, his fingers scandalously near to her knickers. ‘Rupert, stop it,’ she hissed out of the side of her mouth with a surreptitious glance at the neighbouring booths.

‘Chill out. No one can see.’ Lust had thickened his voice to a growl as he tried to work a finger under the cotton of her underwear. Marla clamped her thighs together hard in an effort to cut off his blood supply and prove that she really meant it.

‘Tease,’ he laughed and tickled her ribs, which had the unfortunate effect of forcing her to release her death grip on his hand.

Marla cringed. God, he thought she was enjoying this, and the worst thing was that she couldn’t even blame him for the assumption. She’d found herself over-compensating ever since that night in the chapel kitchen with Gabe, and had been all but hanging from the chandeliers during sex in order to tip the scales back in Rupert’s favour. It didn’t help that it took all of her concentration not to imagine that it was Gabe rather than Rupert who reached for her in bed; so much so that she’d started to insist on sex with the lights on and her eyes open. As a consequence, Rupert now had her pegged as something of a sex maniac, and no doubt imagined that a spot of public groping would get her all steamed up. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

‘Rupert …’ she twisted her fingers into the back of his floppy hair and yanked it. Hard. ‘If you don’t get your hand out of my skirt right now, I’ll stab you with my steak knife.’

She felt him still momentarily as he glanced at her fingers curled around the silver handle of the knife on the table.

‘You are a naughty, naughty little minx,’ he croaked. ‘I’m going to have to punish you severely for this when we get home.’ He sank his teeth into her earlobe, but removed his hand from her skirt. Marla breathed out and eased her grip on the knife, not even sure herself how much she’d been joking.