Her Honourable Playboy by Kate Hardy

Author:Kate Hardy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

‘SHOULDN’T we say goodbye to—?’ Alyssa began.

‘Mara and Barry?’ Seb shrugged. ‘No need. I’ve already seen them.’

And it hadn’t been a pleasant encounter, Alyssa guessed. It felt rude to go without at least saying goodbye—particularly as she’d been an unexpected overnight guest—but the set of Seb’s mouth warned her not to push the issue. And in some respects it didn’t matter if Mara and Barry thought her uncouth, because she wouldn’t be meeting them again. She and Seb were colleagues, not an item, and his mother and stepfather were hardly likely to turn up at the Docklands Memorial Hospital.

Seb drove them back towards London in near silence. Driving on the motorway seemed to calm him a little, and eventually he sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Alyssa. I didn’t mean to be offhand with you this morning. Mara just brings out the worst in me, and right now I don’t like myself very much.’

Because of last night? Well, she’d been as much to blame for that. More, in fact. She’d been the one to pounce. ‘You’re not as bad as you like to think you are,’ she said quietly.

He grinned. ‘Careful, Alyssa. You might be close to polishing my ego. And that would never do.’ He gave her a sidelong look. ‘Do you have to rush back to London?’

‘No.’ She was only going back to the housework—which wasn’t her favourite occupation anyway.

‘Want to have lunch with me? Not as a date,’ he added, a shade too quickly for her liking.

She’d already told him she wasn’t looking for a relationship. What did she have to do to prove it? ‘Lunch is fine, as long as you let me pay for it.’ Seb had refused to let her give him any money towards the cost of petrol, saying that he’d have had to go with or without her. And that had grated: she didn’t want him to think of her as just another woman out for what she could get.

Because not all women were like that.

He just had to work it out for himself.

‘Let you pay for it?’ he echoed, sounding surprised.

‘That’s what friends do,’ she emphasised. ‘Take turns.’

‘In that case, thank you. I accept.’ His dimple reappeared briefly. ‘Do I get to choose the venue?’

‘Whatever.’ She hoped she sounded more casual than she felt.

‘Good. I know this little pub by the river…’ He smiled wryly. ‘Ah, listen to me. Pathetic. But after being near Mara, I need something soothing. I want comfort food and comfort surroundings.’

‘And you like being near the river?’

He nodded. ‘When I lose a patient, I normally end up walking by the Thames. Doesn’t matter where. Just being near water calms me. And I prefer rivers to the sea.’

Because they were more controllable?

Not that she was going to ask him that.

He turned off the motorway at the next junction and drove through some narrow, winding roads. A few minutes later they were parked outside a pub with whitewashed walls, mullioned windows and a thatched roof.

‘Is this your normal stopping place on the way back to London?’ Alyssa asked.

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