One Night: Promised(63)

And there it is. It’s minuscule, but he shifts the glass a very tiny bit to the right. It’s probably barely noticeable to anyone except my scrutinising stare, and I smile as I raise my eyes, finding him watching me studying him.

He cocks his head, his eyes narrowing but twinkling wildly. ‘What?’ he mouths, drawing my attention to his lips. The bastard licks them, prompting me to make a grab for my glass and take a sip – anything to distract me. It’s not until I swallow that I realise what I’ve done, the unaccustomed taste making me shudder as it slides down my throat. My glass hits the table a bit too harshly, and I know Miller has just glanced at me curiously.

A piece of beef Wellington lands on my plate. ‘Help yourself to potatoes and carrots, Livy,’ Nan says, holding her plate up for George to transfer some crumbly pastry to. ‘Let’s fatten you up.’

I spoon some carrots and potatoes onto my plate before putting some on Miller’s. ‘I don’t need fattening up.’

‘You could gain a few pounds,’ Miller declares, pulling my incredulous face back to him as George finishes his plate off with the Wellington. ‘Just an observation.’

‘Thank you, Miller,’ Nan huffs smugly, raising a glass to toast their agreement. ‘She’s always been skinny.’

‘I’m slender, not skinny,’ I argue, lobbing Miller a warning look and getting a hint of a smile. In a very juvenile fit of revenge, I discreetly reach over and casually start twisting his wine glass by the stem, pulling it a fraction towards me. ‘Is that nice?’ I ask, nodding at his forkful of beef.

‘It’s delicious,’ he confirms, placing his knife perfectly perpendicular with the edge of the table, and then resting his hand over mine, slowly removing it and repositioning his glass. He picks his knife back up and resumes with his dinner. ‘The best Wellington I’ve tasted, Mrs Taylor.’

‘Nonsense!’ Nan blushes, a rarity, but my heart’s nemesis is making my nan’s heart flutter, too. ‘It was very easy.’

‘It didn’t look it,’ George grumbles. ‘You were flapping all afternoon, Josephine.’

‘I was not flapping!’

I start picking at my carrots, chewing slowly as I listen to Nan and George quarrel, leaving one hand free to move Miller’s wine glass again. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye, and then places his knife down again before reclaiming his glass and putting it where it needs to be. I’m restraining my grin. He even eats precisely, cutting his food into perfectly sized pieces and ensuring all of the prongs of the fork are pushed into each piece at a right angle before taking the fork to his mouth. He chews slowly, too. Everything he does is with such thought, and it’s spellbinding. My hand creeps across the table again. I’m intrigued by this anal need to have things just so, but this time I don’t make it to the glass. My hand is seized midway across the table and held between us, looking nothing more than a loving hold of my hand. His grasp is firm, though, not that anyone would notice unless they were on the receiving end of the grip. And I am. And it’s a very harsh grip – a warning grip. I’m being told off.

‘What do you do for a living, Miller?’ Nan asks, delighting me. Yes, what does Miller Hart do for a living? I doubt he’ll tell my sweet grandmother that he doesn’t want to get into personal talk when he’s sitting at the head of her dinner table.

‘I won’t bore you with that, Mrs Taylor. It’s mind-numbing.’

I was wrong. He hasn’t directly brushed her off, but he’s succeeded in a roundabout way. ‘I’d like to know,’ I push, feeling brave, even when his grip on my hand tightens by another notch.

He blinks slowly, then raises his eyes slowly. ‘I like to keep business and pleasure separate, Livy. You know that.’

‘Very sensible,’ George mumbles around his food, pointing his fork at Miller. ‘I’ve lived by that saying my whole life.’

My pluck is being beaten down by Miller’s look and worst of all, by those words. I’m pretty much a business transaction – a deal, an agreement or an arrangement. Call it what you like, it doesn’t change the meaning. So, technically, Miller’s words are a pile of shit.

I flex my hand in his grip and he eases up, raising his eyebrows as he does. ‘You should eat,’ he prompts. ‘It really is delicious.’

Taking my hand out of his, I follow through on his order and resume my meal, but I’m not at all comfortable. Miller shouldn’t have accepted my grandmother’s dinner invitation. This is personal. He’s invading my privacy, my security. He is the one who made his intention to keep things physical clear, yet here he is, immersing himself in my world, albeit a small world, but it’s my world, nevertheless. And this is not being physical.