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What had happened to the stiff talk she’d given herself yesterday?

His bare feet came into view first, long and narrow with neatly cut toenails. Good job she didn’t have a foot fetish.

She dragged her gaze to his long, denim clad legs, over his strong thighs, past the place she definitely wasn’t going to get caught looking, across his chest, covered by a faded blue T-shirt, and up to his face.

Her belly gave an appreciative tumble. It was like now she’d noticed how attractive he was, she couldn’t un-notice it. “Morning.”

He gave her a mildly amused look. “Morning.”

“What happened to you last night?”

“Sorry?”

“I know we didn’t say we’d eat together again, but . . . well, I thought it was like an unwritten agreement now.” She’d waited, and waited, for him to turn up in the kitchen and cook with her. In the end she’d knocked on his door, only to get no answer. “Obviously I was wrong, and I’m sure you have far better options than staying in with me and eating dinner off your lap in front of the TV, so no biggie. It would just have been nice if you’d told me.” It had hurt to find he’s just disappeared.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, like she was giving him a headache with her perfectly reasonable request for him to talk to her.

“I went for a walk,” he muttered, padding into the kitchen, presumably to make his customary mug of good old British tea.

“All night?”

With his back to her, he filled the kettle, lit the stove. When he finally turned to face her, he ignored her question completely. “What does it say today?”

Great. Annoyed, she decided to poke the bear. “If we aren’t going to talk about your midnight wanderings, or why you didn’t have the courtesy to tell me you wouldn’t be in for dinner last night, how about we talk about what happened yesterday. By the truck,” she added to be clear. She didn’t need a conversation about his victory at basketball.

His chest heaved in the deepest sigh she’d heard from him to date. “No.”

This was good, she decided. No way was she stupid enough to be attracted to yet another guy who refused to talk about anything important. “That’s it, just a straight no? You dig that . . . thing you’re hiding in your trousers—” She refused to stroke the ego of a man she was annoyed with. “You dig it into my belly but we don’t talk about it?”

“Jesus.” He dragged a hand down his face.

“Is it fair to say you’re attracted to me on some level?”

He swallowed. “It would seem so.”

“But?”

“But, nothing. You’re an attractive woman, I’m a guy. It happened. End of.”

“Very pretty,” she mumbled. “That’s what you called me the other day. I was happy with that.” She started to wonder if this conversation was worth the pain. He clearly didn’t want to be attracted, and she absolutely didn’t need the complication. They had another sixteen days to get through. Probably he was right and she should just leave it alone.

His big chest heaved up and down. “You shouldn’t be,” he said finally.

“I’m sorry?”

“You shouldn’t be happy with being called very pretty. You deserve a guy who thinks you hung the moon. Who appreciates you for more than how you look.”

The subtext was clear. That man isn’t ever going to be me.

“Right, thanks. I’ll bear that in mind should I ever find myself losing all sense and deciding to date again.” He gave her a long, hard look, like he was debating whether to ask her more. Then, with a little shake of his head, he turned back to making his drink.

Fine by her. They could stick to polite, civil conversation. Or maybe she should take a leaf out of his book and just grunt for sixteen days.

With a quick flick, she opened the window for day nine. “Visit Central Park Zoo,” she read out. “Oh goody, I get to spend the day in a zoo with a gorilla.”

“There are no gorillas in Central Park Zoo.”

She smiled sweetly at him. “I know.”