Free The Beach Hut by Veronica Henry

this was.
    ‘Lunch,’ she mused. ‘I don’t know. I’ll have to see if I can . . . fit you in.’
    ‘Well, I’m free tomorrow. I’ll be at the Stag’s Head at one. If you fancy it.’
    ‘I’ll . . . um, see if I can move my schedule around.’ She paused. ‘It was . . . wine labels you wanted to discuss, right?’
    He laughed a dieselly, treacly laugh.
    ‘Wine labels. Whatever.’
     
    The Stag’s Head was an uber-upmarket gastro pub that brought a hint of Tuscany to leafy Warwickshire, all creamy walls and rustic tables and expensive cars in the car park. The sort of place where a year-old Golf with a private plate went totally unnoticed. Sarah wore faded jeans, boots and a sloppy grey sweater. As if she had been working all morning and had just slapped on some lipstick to nip out for a working lunch.
    But sexy. Damn sexy, she knew that, because the sweater slid seductively at will off her shoulder, and she had a grey silk bra underneath. And her hair was tousled, as if she had just rolled out of bed. And her dangly silver earrings, like corkscrews, brushed against her neck as she moved. And the sweep of grey eye-liner on her top lids made her eyes smokily seductive. Sarah knew all this, because she was an artist, and an artist was trained to observe, and judge what effect a stimulus had on its audience.
    He was already in there. He’d ordered wine - Gavi de Gavi, potently rich and creamy - and a platter of antipasti which was waiting on the table: olives, Parma ham, figs, buffalo mozzarella, chargrilled artichokes, as well as hunks of artisanal bread and a bowl of peppery green oil with a slick of balsamic vinegar. She slid into the chair opposite him and put her bag down.
    ‘Hi.’
    He poured two inches of wine into an enormous glass by way of reply, and pushed it over to her.
    ‘I’m surprised you came.’
    ‘I need work as much as the next girl.’ She widened her eyes, slightly sickened by her kittenish behaviour.
    He picked up his glass with a smirk.
    She sipped at her wine, unable to stop herself smiling.
    To her surprise, he didn’t embark on suggestive banter. They talked. Properly. Like adults. About any number of things. Her work, his work. A celebrity’s misguided remarks in that morning’s paper. The food - delicious, they both agreed. Whether the Stag’s Head was as good as its sister pub in a nearby village. The stress of children’s homework - he never got involved, Sarah did. Anyone eavesdropping would not have suspected a thing.
    Until the zabaglione arrived. Just one portion, for her, in a tall glass, with a single long-handled spoon.
    His eyes never left her face as she ate. And she tried desperately not to make it suggestive. No licking the drops of sweet cream from her lips, no symbolic insertion of the spoon into her half-open mouth. No offering him a taste. Yet her eyes never left his face either, and underneath the table their legs were entwined.
    ‘Well,’ he said as she put down her spoon. ‘What now?’
    ‘I’ve never . . .’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘Because you’re so deliciously artless. And so obviously terrified. But so completely unable to stop yourself.’
    ‘I haven’t done anything yet. And I might not.’
    ‘That’s what they all say,’ he replied, and she threw the mint crisp that had come with her espresso at him.
    He was infuriatingly arrogant, and so sure of himself. Every tiny scrap of common sense that Sarah possessed told her to walk away, to thank him for a nice lunch and walk away.
    ‘I’m not going to a hotel,’ she told him.
    ‘Of course not. It’s tacky. Premeditated. And it leaves a paper trail.’
    ‘So speaks the expert.’
    ‘Married to a divorce lawyer.’
    Her stomach did a loop-the-loop. This was dangerous territory. Which was, presumably, what made it so enticing. She’d read about the adrenalin, the dopamine, the serotonin - the crack-cocaine high of an affair. And if this feeling was anything to go by, she