It should have been a boring business, sitting there watching people enter and exit and gambol by, but it really wasn’t. It was a lovely night, with a clear sky, a light breeze, and the sound of gently lapping water to her side from the canal. Inez had always enjoyed people watching and it was hard not to in this setting.
“Hello, beautiful lady.”
Inez glanced around with a start as three men suddenly took up the extra seats at her table. She’d seen them approaching, but had assumed that they intended to claim a table of their own, not join her. Now, she glanced wide-eyed from man to man to man; a blonde, a brunette, and a man with a shaved head. All of them were about her age and all of them wore a half-drunk, half-stoned, we’re-here-to-have fun smiles.
“Can we buy you a drink?” the blonde asked in a rather slurred British accent.
“No, thank you, I’ve ordered one…and I’m waiting for someone,” Inez added stiffly. This wasn’t a situation she was used to dealing with. In fact, it had never happened to her before. Work kept her busy enough that she rarely went out socially, but when she did, it was with her girlfriends, Lisa and Sherry. They lived in the neighboring flat. She’d met them the day she’d moved from Portugal to London. Lisa wrote a column for a national magazine and Sherry worked in IT for the same magazine. They were both gorgeous model types; Lisa, a tall blond, and Sherry, a tall redhead, and always drew all the attention when the three of them were together, leaving Inez free of having to fend off advances.
That was part of the reason Inez did occasionally agree to go out with the pair. Going out with them was like going out with shields. In their presence, she disappeared into the surroundings and wasn’t forced to socialize with the opposite sex. While Inez had a lot of confidence at work, was excellent at what she did, and could handle any crisis, in her personal life she was decidedly lacking in self-confidence.
Inez was short and—in her opinion—twenty pounds overweight. She was top heavy, her lips were too full, her hair too wild and unmanageable, insisting on curling in the damp English air. None of which was considered attractive by today’s standards. Hairstyles today were all nice, flat helmets, and no matter how many creams or hair flatteners she used, her glossy black curls would not be beaten into submission. As for the rest of her, unfortunately, there was no cream to make her shoot up about six inches and give her a svelte figure.
“Oh, don’t be like that, love,” the one with the shaved head said. “We’re just trying to be friendly.”
Inez had a sudden, overwhelming urge to tell them to bugger off. She had Thomas, a lifemate chosen by nanos or God or both and dropped into her life without any effort on her part and no need to try to pretend to a confidence, beauty, or social skills she didn’t have. She didn’t feel awkward or unsure around him, didn’t feel the least uncomfortable…
Blinking at her own thoughts, Inez suddenly sagged back in her seat. It was true. She didn’t feel self-conscious or out of place with Thomas as she did with most men. She felt completely comfortable with him, even at her worst as she was right now. And she was definitely at her worst. She was tired, hungry, and while she’d had a bath at the hotel in London, she was still wearing the wrinkled clothes she’d tugged on that morning, hadn’t had even an elastic to pull back her unmanageable hair, or any makeup to put on afterward other than the lipstick she’d had in her purse, and yet it didn’t seem to matter to Thomas. He’d still kissed her in the hotel, and then gone at her again just moments ago in the dark alley.#p#分页标题#e#
Of course, he was a bit horned up right now on account of the Immortal version of Spanish fly, Inez reminded herself. Still, that didn’t mean he had to jump her.
“Look, love, while its fascinating sitting here watching you nod and talk to yourself under your breath it might be more fun if you talked to us,” the blonde said, forcing himself into her recollection again. “We’ll buy you that drink and you talk to us, right?”
Knowing it wasn’t advisable to be rude to sotted men, Inez was just opening her mouth to ask them politely to leave her alone when Thomas was suddenly there, looming beside her. She peered up at his face, surprised to see that his features were rigid and his eyes glowing silver. She’d seen his eyes turn that way before, both times when he’d kissed her, but somehow she didn’t think it was passion making them silver right now.
“She said ‘no, thank you,’” Thomas said coldly and Inez bit her lip, her gaze sliding worriedly between the men. She’d lived in Britain for almost eight years and knew the last thing you did was piss off a drunken Brit. They were considered all stiff upper lip and conservative by the world at large, and they were that, but she’d also never seen a group more likely to start swinging their fists than Brits when drinking. She suspected it had something to do with that very conservativeness that they were known for. All those emotions they bottled up so much of the time, had to come out at some point and when they were drinking seemed to be the point. She couldn’t recall an evening out with Lisa and Sherry where a fight or absolute brawl hadn’t broken out at the end of the night.