She opened her eyes and saw that he was smiling. “Worth two solid weeks on the treadmill.”
“You haven’t truly lived until you’ve tasted Brigitte’s hot chocolate.”
“It’s wicked.” She tasted cream, chocolate and the burst of cinnamon and savored it all—flavor, scent and texture. As she licked cream from her top lip, she saw that he was watching her.
“I get the sense you don’t usually indulge.”
Kayla curled her fingers around the mug, warming her hands, staring down at the chocolate flakes sprinkled onto swirls of whipped cream. “That depends on what you mean by indulge.”
“Doing something just for the sheer pleasure of it.” Somehow the atmosphere had shifted. There was tension where tension shouldn’t exist. Heat where there should have been cold.
“Work is my indulgence.”
“Work can’t be an indulgence. Not even if you enjoy it.”
“Of course it can. There’s nothing like the high you get from winning a big account, or getting a client profiled in their target media.”
“Nothing?” He leaned across and brushed his thumb over her mouth, and she stilled, feeling that touch right through her.
“What are you doing?”
“Removing chocolate from your lips.”
“I could have done that.”
“I guess you could.” He lowered his hand slowly. “But I did it.”
Heart pounding, she touched her fingers to her mouth where his had been only moments earlier. “Do all the O’Neils touch a lot? Last night your mother wanted to hug me, and she’d only just met me.”
“My mother has always known how to give a warm welcome. Does it bother you?”
Yes, it bothered her. “I suppose I’m not used to it.”
“You don’t come from a family of huggers?”
“Why are you so interested in my family?”
“Just a friendly question, Kayla. But if it makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to answer.”
It made her uncomfortable. He made her uncomfortable.
She tried not to look at the width of those shoulders or the warmth of his gaze. “My family wasn’t tactile.”
“Wasn’t?”
“I mean isn’t.” Unused to talking about her family, she handled it clumsily, but he let it go.
“How did you end up in public relations?”
The shift in conversation was a relief. “When I graduated, I went for an interview with an advertising agency in London. They had a sister PR agency and during my interview they decided I was exactly what they were looking for. It took about six months to discover I had an aptitude for finding media angles and selling them to the press. After that I was promoted pretty quickly.”
“It must have been hard, moving to the U.S.”
“Not really. I didn’t have anything keeping me in London.”
“Your family isn’t there?”
And, just like that, they were right back to that question. “My mother lives in New Zealand. My father, in Canada.”
“So you were on your own in the U.K.?”
She’d been on her own for as long as she could remember. “It’s fairly common for families to be scattered these days.” Scattered was a good word. Lost might have been a better one.
She thought about the envelope waiting for her back in the cabin. Last year, the envelope had stayed untouched until February when she’d finally cleared out the bottom of her in-tray.
She was terrified Jackson was going to press her for more details, but he levered himself to his feet. “Are you done? I want to show you the ice waterfall before I take you skiing.”
Deciding that skiing had to be preferable to talking about her family, Kayla finished her drink and followed him to the snowmobile.
He stood steady in the deep snow, legs spread as he pulled on his gloves. “Do you want to drive?”
Remembering the twisty, turning trails and the skill he’d shown maneuvering the snowmobile, she shook her head. “Not this time. I’d rather let you do the work. When it comes to physical effort I’m inherently lazy.”
“So you’re a lie-back-and-let-it-happen sort of woman? That surprises me.” The gleam in those blue eyes made her feel as if she’d stepped off a cliff.
“Are you flirting with me?” She breathed and felt cold air rush into her lungs. Unfortunately it did nothing to cool the heat of her skin. “Because if you are, I’d have to warn you that you’re wasting your time.”
“It’s my time.” His gaze steady on hers, he picked up his helmet. “Up to me how I choose to waste it.”
“Just as long as you know I’m not good at personal relationships.”