Lucy cleared her throat.

“Oh.” Jacob released Eve’s hand and went over to his aunt. “Thanks, really. Sorry to play silly buggers. I’ll see you for dinner this weekend. Bye.” He bent to kiss her silvery hair.

“Whatever. Love you, kiddo,” Lucy said, and slapped him on the shoulder as he passed.

“Erm, good-bye,” Eve said brightly, and that was all she managed before Jacob took her hand again and dragged her away.

Chapter Sixteen

Jacob leaned back in his oversized, leather desk chair, his phone pressed anxiously to his ear. “Mont? Are you all right? You sound like you’re hyperventilating.”

“I am hyperventilating,” Mont replied, although now he was speaking again, he sounded more dazed and confused than low on oxygen. “Did you just—Jacob—did you just call me up and tell me, all fucking casual, that you slept with Eve last Sunday night?”

“I suppose that depends on your definition of slept with.”

“My definition involves orgasms.”

“Ah.” Restless, Jacob pushed back his chair and stood. “In that case, I suppose so.” He sounded dry and detached, like he really was as casual about this situation as Mont claimed. But he fucking wasn’t, hence why he’d caved and confessed all to his best friend. It had been an entire week since the Dildo Incident, and he was crumbling like some ancient cliff because God and fuck and shit and God, he wanted to touch her again. To hold her, and taste her, and feel like she was his.

He’d been this close to saying as much on Thursday, in the darkness of Aunt Lucy’s cupboard. If Eve had pushed him then—even a little bit—he would’ve abandoned his common sense and fucked her however, whenever, and wherever she bloody well wanted. But she’d made it clear that she didn’t want anything of the sort—thankfully before he’d made a total fool of himself.

I know sleeping with my emotionally unavailable boss isn’t a mature, sensible choice . . .

That completely factual statement should not have stung.

“So,” Mont said, “does she know you only sleep with people if you—”

“Shut up,” Jacob said crisply.

“If you adore them and you want to marry them and hide them away in your lair forever and ever?” Mont finished.

“You exaggerate.” Jacob paced his office for the seventy-fifth time today, wishing that was true. But unfortunately, Mont was right: Jacob didn’t like people easily, but once he did like them, it was always too far and too fast. He had to temper himself, had to be careful.

Not that he’d been remotely careful with Eve. And it showed.

Take this morning at breakfast, for example. If he hadn’t been knackered from another sleepless night of overthinking and berating himself, he might have kissed her glossy, orange mouth over the pain au chocolat, and then where would they be? Up to their eyeballs in horrified Trip Advisor reviews, and more importantly, on a treacherous path from safe, long-term friendship to difficult, dangerous romance. Which she didn’t even want. So there was no use thinking about it.