The Girl He'd Overlooked Read Online Free PDF Page B

better. And by the way, thank you very much for cooking for me. It was very nice.’
    James muttered something under his breath but began helping her, drying dishes as she began washing. Jennifer felt his presence as acutely as a live charge. If she stepped too close, she would be electrocuted. Being in his presence had stripped her of her immunity to him and it frightened her, but she wasn’t going to give in to that queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She launched into a neutral conversation about their parents. She told him how much her father enjoyed Paris.
    ‘Because, as you know, he stopped going abroad after Mum died. He once told me that it had been their dream to travel the world and when she died, the dream died with her.’
    ‘Yes, the last time I came here for the weekend, he was waiting for the taxi and reading a guide book on the Louvre. He said it was top on the agenda. He’s been ticking off the sights.’
    ‘Really?’ Jennifer laughed and for an instant James went still. He realised that the memory of that laugh lingered at the back of his brain like the refrain from a song that never quite went away. Suddenly he wanted to know a lot more than just whether she enjoyed her job or what her apartment was like. She had always, he was ashamed to admit to himself, been a known quantity, but now he felt curiosity rip through him, leaving him bemused.
    ‘You’ve opened up a door for John,’ he drawled, drying the last dish and then leaning against the counter with the tea towel slung over his shoulder. ‘I think he’s realised what he’s been missing all these years. He was in a rut and your moving to Paris forced him out of it. I have a feelingthat he’s going to get bored with weekends to Paris pretty soon.’
    ‘We don’t just stay in Paris,’ Jennifer protested. ‘We’ve been doing quite a bit of Europe.’ But she was thrilled with what James had told her. It was a brief window during which, with her defences down, they were back to that place they had left behind, that place of easy familiarity, two people with years and years of shared history.
    She glanced surreptitiously at him and edged away before that easy familiarity could get a little too easy, before her hard-won independence began draining away and she found herself back to the girl in the past who used to hang onto his every word.
    ‘In fact, I’ve already planned the next couple of weekends. When the weather improves, we’re going to go to Prague. It’s a beautiful city. I think he’d love it.’
    ‘You’ve been before, have you?’
    ‘Once.’
    ‘And this from the girl who grew up in one place and never went abroad, aside from that school trip when you were fifteen. Skiing, wasn’t it?’
    Yes, it certainly was. Jennifer remembered it distinctly. James’s father had just died and he had been busy trying to grapple with the demands of the company he had inherited. He hadn’t been around much and when, after the skiing trip, she had seen him for the first time after several weeks, she had regaled him with a thousand stories of all the little things the class had done. The cliques that had subdivided the groups. The quiet girl, usually in the background, who had come out of her shell because she was one of only a handful who had been any good at skiing.
    ‘Yes, that’s right.’
    ‘And who did you go to Prague with?’ James enquired casually. ‘I’ve actually been twice. Romantic city.’ Heturned to fill the kettle and found that he was keenly awaiting her response.
    Jennifer frowned. She was relieved that he had his back to her. Her first instinct was to tell him that her private life was none of his business. She quickly decided that it was one thing being scrupulously polite, but if she began to actively push him away he would start asking himself why and they would be back to the subject she was most desperate to avoid: her mistimed, unfortunate pass at him. He would really be in his element then, she