Page 41 of The Surrender

“It was an idiotic accident. It was my brother’s wedding this past weekend. I had a few too many and leant on some broken glass.”

“Stitches?”

“Ten.”

He puts his hand on the table, palm up, and I see a scar running from the base of his little finger to the centre of his palm. “A broken bottle on the beach in Sorrento. Twenty stitches.”

“You win,” I quip, and he chuckles as I help myself to more wine, needing it. I freeze in my chair when Jude appears at the side of the table.Oh God.He looks between Leo and me, his hands in his pockets, casual, but I see the burn in his dark-blue eyes. Leo tilts his head to look up at Jude. I die on the spot.

“What do you recommend?” Jude asks, motioning to the empty bowls.

I peek at Leo, my words caught in my throat. He’s smiling. “The seafood linguine is famous. A must.”

I want the ground to swallow me whole. “A must,” I murmur, sipping more wine. Is there another bottle coming?

“Then I’ll try that,” Jude says, leaving, relieving me of his passive-aggressive presence.

“Well.” Leo laughs. “He was an intense creature.”

I awkwardly smile at the irony, needing to get out of here, but I don’t want Leo to feel like I’m trying to escape.

“The bill?” he suggests, and I sag.

“Yes, please, let me.”

“Oh, absolutely not.” Leo calls to a waiter, and my eyes root past him, watching Jude weaving through the tables until he disappears around a corner. They were seated in the next room. Thank God. But then he suddenly appears again, the woman in tow, a waiter motioning to a table nearby. The fuckhead. He’s asked to be moved so I can see how his dinner date pans out?

I clench my fists and immediately regret it, a sharp, shooting pain engulfing my entire hand. Jude pulls a chair out for the woman, and she lowers, smiling, her back ramrod straight, her chest the showstopper of the night. He takes a chair opposite her, his back to me. But then he stands up, shifts his chair around the table and lowers next to her, looking at me briefly before picking up the menu from the centre ofthe table and passing it to the woman, leaning in to see it too. Close. That’s what he did at our first dinner. Moved his chair to be closer to me. Then he finger-fucked me under the table until I came, clutching at the tablecloth.

My stupid, betraying heart cracks, my eyes naturally watching the tablecloth for movement.

“Amelia?”

I blink and look at Leo. He’s standing. Has paid. “Sorry,” I murmur, rising. “Thank you so much for dinner.” I’m struggling to keep my eyes under control, which is ridiculous. I don’t want to see what’s going on at Jude’s table.

I throw my bag onto my shoulder and follow Leo, and, fuck my life, he’s walking straight towards Jude’s table. “I hope you like the linguine,” Leo says as he passes, and both Jude and his date look our way. She smiles, all toothy and wide, her red lips stretching. And Jude maintains his infinite, intense expression.

“Enjoy the rest of your evening,” he says, eyes on me. And my heart cracks a little bit more. I overtake Leo and hurry outside, breathing in the cool nighttime air urgently.

“I assume you can get home safely,” he says when he makes it to me on the pavement. There’s a Bentley idling at the kerbside. Undoubtedly his.

“Yes, thank you.”

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Amelia.”

I feel absolutely clueless past my stress right now. We haven’t talked business for long; he never really confirmed if he’s interested in me taking over his financial affairs.

“I’ll be in touch,” Leo says, getting in the car.

He’ll be in touch. Is that like date code forI’ll call you? I look back over my shoulder to the restaurant doors, wanting to go in there and upend Jude’s table. I can feel that crazy part of me I never knew existed until I met Jude Harrison rising, my blood boiling. I ended it. I have no power here.

Power?

What the hell am I thinking?

I quickly pick up my feet and head for the Tube station before I let them take me back into the restaurant and rain holy hell on Jude. But I only make it precisely five steps before I stop and turn, yelling at myself not to go back but unable to stop my legs from taking me there.No, Amelia!I keep walking, feeling out of control in every way.Stop, Amelia. Go to the Tube!

I swing the door to the restaurant open and run straight into a chest, bouncing back.