Blind-Date Baby

She picked the photograph of Daisy out of the mirror frame and studied it closely. One corner of her mouth lifted. That child was a chip off the old block, no doubt about it. This stunt with the dating agency was just the sort of crazy thing she would have pulled at nineteen. Why was she getting in such a lather about one silly date?

You never have to see him again if you don’twant to.

It was time she saw a little more sparkle in her own baby-blues.

She jumped back onto the bed, grabbed the laptop and typed in a frenzy, before she could change her mind.

Englishcrumpet: Okay, girls. I’ll do it. I’mgoing on the date.

After making a quick character sketch for his Ukrainian villain and jotting down some related plot ideas, Noah checked his emails again. He’d better get a move on, though. His PA would be here in twenty minutes and he really ought to finish getting dressed.

Yes, it was Saturday, but he had a big crime writers’ conference coming up soon in NewYork and they needed to go through the final travel arrangements and double-check that the notes for his seminar were all ready to go. Last job would be to proofread his keynote speech for the opening luncheon.

He shook his head, hardly able to believe that this was how his life had turned out.

It seemed he was always travelling, always speaking here and there. Everybody wanted to know what the secret of his success was, as if there were some ingredient other than a modicum of talent and pure hard graft. Living the life of a best-selling author had its great points, but there was a downside he hadn’t expected. For a start, he spent far too much time on publicity and promotion and struggled to find time to scribble more than a few words some days. Just as well his army background had taught him discipline and how to be cool under pressure.

And then there were the women.

His friend Harry thought he was crackers to complain about the women, moaning that he’d settle for just one per cent of the female attention Noah seemed to generate.

Oh, Noah had certainly enjoyed glamorous women making a beeline for him in the early days, when his books had first reached the top of the charts. The women had laughed and smiled and hung on his every word, marvelling at how clever and handsome he was and how he was just like a hero in one of his own novels. But after five years it was definitely getting a little tired. He was starting to feel like that guy in the movie who woke up and discovered the previous day was repeating itself. Only, in Noah’s case, it seemed to be the previous cocktail party repeating itself.

Okay, the colour of the skimpy dresses and the hair extensions changed. But that was as far as it went. He’d even stopped being surprised how so many stick-thin women professed to love martial arts or were totally fascinated by the cold war. One woman had even spent an hour telling him in great detail exactly how she could strip down an AK47, a hungry glint in her eyes the whole time.

After all his experiences, he could really write a convincing portrait of a glamour vixen who’d do anything to bag herself a rich and successful husband so she could bask in his glory and ride the celebrity merry-go-round for ever. Maybe he’d put such a character in his next book. And maybe he’d have the merry-go-round explode…

Compatibility started with sharing some interests, but it had to go deeper than that, surely. And it had to be a genuine interest, not facts and figures cribbed up on before a date. That was why his new pet project had come in handy. He’d read an article about this website in a Sunday magazine and had been intrigued with the possibility of being able to remain almost anonymous.

He flipped back onto the web page he’d minimised earlier.

Blinddatebrides.com.

If Martine, his PA, knew he’d been surfing on such a site, she’d have fainted.

But what was so surprising about him wanting to find a wife? He was of marriageable age, financially very secure and he had a huge house all to himself. It was just crying out for a wife. And he was fed up going everywhere on his own, being the odd one out at friends’ parties, always having to duck into the bathroom to avoid the glamour vixens at the writing ‘do’s’. Securing a wife would have the added bonus of being the ultimate deterrent.

He wasn’t asking for the moon. At forty-one, he was old enough not to fall for all that love-at-first-sight, finding-your-soulmate nonsense. He didn’t believe that his soul had another half floating around somewhere, desperately looking to re-attach itself. That sounded like a gruesome scene from one of his novels rather than romantic, anyway.

What he needed was a partner in life. Writing could be a lonely business. He spent days on end on his own, not speaking to anyone, travelling alone. It would be nice to have someone other than a part-time PA in the house. Someone to share a meal and glass of wine with at the end of the day. Someone to bounce ideas off or moan to about the latest deadline. And, if there was a little chemistry there, so much the better.

He’d been on three dates with Blinddatebrides.com so far and all had been unmitigated disasters. The women had been nice in their own way, he supposed, just not suitable at all. He was on the verge of downgrading his expectations in the short-term and just looking for a date-buddy, someone who wouldn’t mind attending functions with him to keep the vixens at bay. Even the stupid computer at Blinddatebrides.com—or the trained hamsters, or whatever they used to match people up—should be able to cope with something as simple as that.

Although the match suggestions from Blinddatebrides.com had seemed fine when he’d checked out the profiles, when he’d met the women in person…well, that was where it had all gone wrong.

Hopefully, tonight’s choice would buck the trend. He leaned forward to focus on the pixelated little picture on her profile. Local businesswoman. Age forty. And the picture was intriguing. Dark glossy hair. Stunning blue eyes and the smallest of smiles that hinted at both intelligence and mischief. Not his usual sort, but he’d kept coming back to this profile even after he’d discounted it. And if there was one thing he’d learned from all these years accessing his creative right brain, it was that sometimes you had to ignore the facts and go with your gut.

‘Coo-ee!’ Martine’s voice echoed round his empty kitchen. She’d obviously just let herself in. He reached for the mouse and had just closed the window as she walked through the study door.

‘What was that?’ she said, eyes fixed on the monitor.

He’d hired her for her razor-sharp instincts, but sometimes he wished he owned a remote control so he could switch them off.

‘Nothing for you to poke your nose about in,’ he said with a grin and handed her a stack of travel documents.

CHAPTER TWO

THE girl standing behind the reservations desk glanced up at him. It was the same girl as last week. He remembered the neat little bun she wore at the nape of her neck and how he’d wondered if it hurt to scrape one’s hair into something that tight. Just like last week, she didn’t seem to be in a particularly good mood. A raised eyebrow was all the welcome he got. Good. His attempt at going incognito was working.

‘Smith,’ he said, returning her look. ‘Table for two. Eight o’clock.’

She blinked, then deigned to check the reservations book. ‘This way, sir.’

She took off at a brisk pace.

‘Has my…dinner companion…arrived yet?’

The girl didn’t even turn to answer. The little bun wobbled back and forth as she shook her head. If Barruci’s didn’t have the finest wine list in this corner of London, he’d have boycotted the place weeks ago. But it was the best little restaurant in the suburb of Vinehurst, right on the fringes of London’s urban sprawl. A few minutes’ drive to the south and it was all countryside. Vinehurst had probably once been an idyllic little village, with its narrow cobbled high street, a Norman church and an old-fashioned cricket pitch that was still used every Sunday. Somehow, during the last century, as London had spread, it hadn’t swallowed up Vinehurst, as it had similar hamlets and towns. There was a distinct absence of grey concrete and high-rise buildings, as if the city had just flowed round the village, leaving a little bubble of rural charm behind. It was a great place for a first date.

At eight o’clock on the dot, a woman walked into the restaurant.

It was her.

The dark wavy hair was coiled behind her head somehow and she wore a neat black coat, fitted at the waist. Even though he was too far away to tell if her eyes were really the same colour as her profile photograph, they drew his attention—bright and alert, scanning the room beneath quirkily arched brows. He watched as her gaze flitted from one table to the next, pausing for a split-second on the men, then moving on when she saw they weren’t alone.

Noah put down the menu he’d been perusing and sat up straighter, giving no indication that his heart was beating just a little bit faster. Could the hamsters at Blinddatebrides.com finally have got it right?

Finally, the woman leaned over and whispered something to a waitress. The girl nodded and waited as the woman stopped to remove her coat. There was a collective pause as every man in the place held his breath for a heartbeat, then pretended to resume conversation with their friends, wives or girlfriends. In reality, they were tracking the woman’s progress across the room. Even the ones who were far too young for her.

Under the respectable coat was a stunning dress. The same shade and sheen as a peacock’s body. The scoop neck wasn’t even close to being indecent, but somehow it didn’t need to be. It teased very nicely while it sat there, revealing not even a hint of cleavage. The hem was short and the legs, the legs…

Well, the legs hadn’t been visible in the Blinddatebrides.com photo, but they were very nice indeed. Too nice, maybe. Maybe she was a vixen incognito. He loosened his tie slightly and tried to smile as she followed the waitress through the maze of tables, leaving a trail of wistful male eyes in her wake. The smile felt forced and he abandoned it. He didn’t do small talk; he did conversation. And he didn’t do overly effusive greetings these days, even in the presence of such fine legs.

When the waitress pulled out the chair opposite him for her, he stood and offered his hand. ‘Noah…Smith.’ A necessary diversion from the truth if he was to gauge if his dates really liked him for his personality rather than his bank balance. Sometimes he wished he’d had enough sense to use a pen name, but the lure of seeing ‘Noah Frost’ stamped in square letters across the front of a book jacket had been too great after all the years of rejections.

‘Hello,’ she said, shaking his hand, then quickly pulling hers away again. ‘You’ve got really nice teeth.’

He opened his mouth to say, All the better to eatyou with, but managed to stop himself. Instead, he just kept quiet and motioned for her to sit down. He did the same.

‘Nice teeth?’ he said, smiling again. ‘Do you want to check my hooves to see if I’m good stock too?’

She blushed ever so slightly and the mischievous little smile from the profile photograph made an appearance.

‘Grace Marlowe—blind-date virgin…’ She clapped a hand over her mouth. It looked as if she were trying to wipe a cheeky smile away as she dragged her hand over her lips and let it fall. It didn’t work. The grin popped back into place as if nothing had happened.

‘That came out all wrong. What I meant was…this will be my first time.’

She closed her eyes and bit her lip. Without opening her lids, she kept speaking. ‘I’m making it worse, aren’t I—digging myself an even deeper hole?’