The Plus-One Agreement by Charlotte Phillips Page A

his mother had stayed out all night until he’d wondered if she’d return at all. What would happen to him then? Where would he go? The uncertainty of it all had made him constantly on edge.
    ‘I’d never have known,’ she said. ‘You’ve done so well to get out from under all that.’
    Emma felt a sudden stab of shame at her fussing about her own childhood. She must sound like some dreadful attention-seeker to him, with her comfortable middle-class upbringing, moaning that she’d never seemed able to please her family when he’d barely had one.
    ‘Not especially. I think it did me a favour. I was so determined to find a way out of there, and when I went to college I found it. Not long after that I had the idea for my first business. It was a coffee kiosk. The cafeteria on campus really sucked. It was poorly run, and there was no facility for grabbing a coffee on the go. So I plugged the gap. It wasn’t much more than a trolley at first, but I could see what worked and what didn’t. I developed the business, ran it during my free periods, and pretty soon I was making good money. And that was when I really knew.’
    ‘Knew what?’
    He glanced across at her then, and the look in his eyes was intense in the moonlight, making her pulse flutter.
    ‘That work can be your ticket out of anything,’ he said. ‘Anything at all.’ He smiled at her, a half smile that was steely and determined. ‘I just grabbed the coffee kiosk success and ran with it. Built it up, sold it, invested and started over. You can be in control of your own destiny through work. And that’s why work will always come first with me.’
    So that was why his relationships never amounted to anything. She saw now why their agreement had been of such use to him. She’d furthered his work. She’d provided a date so he didn’t need to be distracted.
    There had never been any prospect of him wanting more, then. She swallowed as she took that in.
    ‘You’ll meet someone one day who’ll make you want to put work second,’ she said. ‘You won’t know what you’re missing until then.’
    He shook his head.
    ‘The moment someone becomes that important you start to lose focus. And things start to go wrong. I just don’t need that kind of complication.’
    She had the oddest feeling he wasn’t just talking about overcoming his childhood.
    * * *
    ‘I think I’m going to turn in,’ she said as they neared to the hotel. ‘It’s getting late now.’
    The music continued on the terrace, more mellow now, and the crowd had dispersed a little. Adam stood to one side, mobile phone clamped to his ear, a stressed expression on his face.
    That didn’t come as any surprise to Dan. He could think of few things less stressful than getting married. Emma’s parents were nowhere to be seen, but obviously just their presence on the premises was enough. In the centre of the terrace the ice sculpture continued its slow melt.
    ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.
    The memory of kissing her danced slowly through his mind as they made their way inside. He’d known it might put her on edge—that had rather been the point...proof that he was calling the shots now. He hadn’t thought it through any further than that. He hadn’t counted on the way she would feel in his arms, all long limbs and fragile bone structure, such a contrast to the voluptuous curves that had always been his short-term fling diet. Or the way that satiny full lower lip would feel tugged between his own. There was a hotly curious part of him wondering how it might feel to take things further. He crushed that thought—hard.
    His perception of her had changed. And not just because of the kiss but because of tonight. When had they ever discussed anything before that didn’t have the ultimate goal of helping them in their jobs? It had been all insider tips from her. Who might be tendering for this contract, what their bid might be, who in her work circles might be looking for troubleshooting