One Night with Morelli

‘Shame—if you were married it would be a perfect solution to the problem. There would be no question of your daughter not having…’ he paused to consult the letter and read out loud ‘…“a stable female influence in her life”.’ Frazer smiled at his own joke while Draco, his dark eyes glinting not with laughter but with cynicism, lowered his long, lean frame into a chair on the opposite side of the desk.

‘I’d sooner move my mother in.’ The other man laughed; he had met Veronica Morelli. ‘You make a mistake,’ Draco continued, ‘and you don’t repeat it, unless of course you’re a total fool.’

Frazer, who was blissfully happy in his second marriage, did not take offence. ‘Do you think it’s safe to come to a fool for expensive legal advice?’

Draco gave a tight grin that deepened the lines radiating from his deep-set eyes and briefly lent warmth and humour to the dark depths. ‘There are exceptions to every rule,’ he conceded. ‘And I’m coming to you as a trusted friend—I couldn’t afford what you charge.’

The older man snorted. Draco Morelli had been born to wealth and privilege, he could have sat back and enjoyed what he had inherited, but he was a natural entrepreneur and to his Italian family’s occasional bemusement over the last ten years he had made a series of financial investments that had made his name a byword for success in financial circles.

Under his smile was iron resolve. Draco’s short-lived marriage had been by anyone’s standards a total disaster but it had given him the daughter he adored so he could never regret it—but to deliberately take that route again…?

It was not going to happen.

He had affairs, just not love affairs. He did not dress things up and recognised that for him sex was simply a basic need; he had proved over and over again that the emotional element was not necessary. It required no effort on his part to maintain an emotional buffer—there were even occasions when he did not much like the women who shared his bed. What did require some effort on his part was keeping his daughter, now a scarily mature and impressively grounded thirteen, as ignorant as possible of his affairs.

‘She’s talking custody rights or at least Edward is.’ His ex’s latest was a very unlikely choice for a woman who normally went for men considerably her junior. It was hard to think of a more unlikely couple and Draco doubted it would last despite the ostentatious rock on Clare’s finger, but if he was wrong—well, good luck to them.

But he wasn’t going to allow his daughter to have her life thrown into turmoil because Clare had discovered her inner earth mother—not on his watch!

‘I am fond of Clare—let’s face it, it’s hard not to be fond of Clare,’ her ex-husband conceded. ‘But I wouldn’t trust her to take care of a cat, let alone a teenager. Can you imagine it…?’ He shook his dark head, grimacing at the mental image.

When they handed out the responsibility gene Clare was out of the room. Josie had been three months old when his ex had gone out for a facial and manicure and not come back. Left effectively a single parent at twenty, Draco had had to learn some new skills very quickly—he still was learning.

Fatherhood was a constant challenge, as was resisting his mother’s interference. When he’d told the grieving widow that she needed a new challenge in her life, he certainly hadn’t intended that challenge to be him! When Veronica Morelli wasn’t turning up on his doorstep without warning with large suitcases she was trying to set him up with suitable women—the marrying kind.

‘She’s asking for joint custody, Draco, and she is the girl’s mother.’ Frazer held up a hand to stem the eruption his comment invited and continued calmly. ‘But, no, given the circumstances and her history I don’t think there is any prospect of any court coming down on her side, even if it got that far and she did marry Edward Weston. It’s not as if she doesn’t have access, very reasonable access, already to Josie.’

Draco nodded. No matter what her faults were, his ex-wife was Josie’s mother and she was in her own way fond of her only child. Clare’s fondness meant months could go by and their daughter would have no contact beyond the occasional text or email from her mother, then she would appear loaded with gifts and was for a time a doting mother, until something else caught her interest.

Draco’s objectivity when he thought of his ex-wife was still tinged with cynicism but the corrosive anger had long since gone. He was even able to recognise that it had always been aimed more at himself than Clare, and with some justification when you considered the stubborn sentimentalism masquerading as love that had made him go through with a marriage that had had impending disaster written all over it.

‘So you don’t think I have anything to worry about?’ he asked.

‘I’m a lawyer, Draco—in my world there is always something to worry about.’

‘Sure, I might walk under a bus.’ He glanced at his watch and got to his feet, brushing an invisible speck from the perfectly tailored pale grey jacket. Actually, he was catching a helicopter rather than a bus to the wedding of Charlie Latimer; he found weddings depressing, and boring, but Josie was very excited about dressing up and he was making an effort for her sake.

‘Is it true that Latimer is marrying his cook?’

‘I haven’t a clue.’ Draco, who had less liking for gossip than he did weddings, replied honestly while he thought of a pink tartan bra and a pair of big green eyes…

On his way down in the elevator he thought some more about the bra’s owner, and he was so involved in the mental images that there was a twenty-second delay before he noticed that the lift door had opened.

Focus, Draco… He did not for a second doubt his ability to do just that; it was a case of prioritising and he was good at that. It had been this ability that had got him past the first few weeks and months after Clare had walked out. He could have carried on being bitter, twisted and generally wallowing in a morass of self-pity; he could have allowed himself to be defined by that failure.

But he hadn’t.

After that reminder, keeping his libido on a leash was relatively simple and he told himself that Green Eyes was definitely not his type. Still, there had been something about her…

‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’

Draco placed a steadying hand on the arm of the young woman who had not so accidentally collided with him. Blonde and stunning, she was his type.

His smile was automatic and lacking a spontaneity that the recipient appeared not to notice. Standing on one foot, she had grabbed his arm for support. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘I wasn’t looking where I was going. It’s these heels.’

She rotated one shapely ankle, inviting him to look, and Draco, being polite, did.

‘I don’t know if you remember…?’ The eyelashes did some overtime and the pout was good but he’d seen better, he mused. Now, if Green Eyes ever decided to pout, those lips would have given her a natural advantage. ‘But we met at the charity gala last month.’

‘Of course,’ Draco lied. There had been many attractive women there and good manners plus boredom meant he had probably flirted with a few. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’m pushed for time—’ His grimace was a product of impatience but the recipient chose to interpret it as regret.

‘Shame, but you’ve got my number and I’d love to take you up on that offer of dinner.’ Before Draco could even pretend to recall any such offer, let alone extend or retract it, the blonde suddenly stopped, her eyes widening at him as she waved her hand wildly at a figure about to cross the road.

‘Eve!’ she shrieked, forgetting the sexy purr.

Eve heaved a sigh and, pasting a smile on her face, turned without enthusiasm.

She had spotted them fifty yards back, hardly surprising as the couple who were standing at the entrance to the underground car park where she had left her car were drawing attention the way only beautiful people did. Eve had nothing against beautiful people in general—her best friend was one, after all. She didn’t even envy them their head-turning good looks because being the focus of attention everywhere you went was the stuff her nightmares were made of. It was just that this man…talk about bad luck…and talk about a stereotype!

It had been no shock to see him with the blonde—just a massive shock to bump into him again. As status symbols went, an underwear model on your arm was right up there with a big flash fuel-guzzling car, for alpha men like her father. But, to be perfectly fair, this man wasn’t her father and she was making judgements like this because…?

Because of the liquid ache low in her pelvis, because a man who had barely brushed her life had finally given her the faintest inkling of the sort of irrational attraction that her own mother must have experienced in order to make her forget the principles she had instilled in her own daughter and have an affair with a married man.

Keep it in proportion, Eve. It’s been a tough week and it isn’t over yet, she reminded herself as she averted her gaze from the long scarlet nails that were possessively stroking his sleeve.

Her heart was thudding so hard that she could hardly hear her response to the woman almost as famous for her rich and famous boyfriends as she was for her perfect body. If he was Sabrina’s latest that made him rich…well, that explained the arrogant air of smug assurance that really got under her skin and, as for famous, well…these days who wasn’t? Even she could type her name into a search engine and have pages appear.

‘Hello, Sabrina.’ She acknowledged the tall stranger from earlier with an unsmiling nod while she struggled against the effects of his brain-mushing charisma.

‘Eve, it’s so good to see you.’ Eve got a whiff of heavy perfume as the air either side of her face was kissed. ‘And perfect timing too. I can tell you in person…’ The dramatic pause stretched a little too long before her announcement. ‘I’m available.’

Eve always hated the feeling of walking into a conversation halfway through. Was she meant to know what the woman was talking about…?

Draco watched the expression on Eve’s face; it was clear she didn’t have a clue what the blonde was talking about. He fought a laugh with more success than he had fought the gut kick of lust he had no defence against when he had recognised the petite figure who, unless he was mistaken, had been about to make good an escape.

Draco wasn’t used to women who crossed the road to avoid him—they did the reverse occasionally—and he wondered what he’d done to make her look down her elegant little nose at him. His ego remained intact—it was pretty robust most of the time—but his interest was piqued. What would it take to melt that stern disapproval into uncritical adoration? He was setting his sights too high, he realised; he didn’t want adoration from her, just a smile. Although adoration might be nice after a long night getting to know her better…?

‘You are?’ Eve asked Sabrina.

‘Yes, but my agent said he is still waiting for a call back from your office about the new campaign…so-o-o exciting. He said something about you not using models this time.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘But I told him it’s obvious you think I’m still committed to the supermarket people, but the thing is I decided to call it a day with them as they were just going so down market and not the sort of thing I want to be associated with at all.’

‘Sorry, Sabrina, but I’ve been out of the country so the agency has been doing all the recruiting.’

‘But you’ll have the final say…right?’

Eve was tempted to say she’d be in touch but her innate sense of honesty won out. It would be unfair to string the other girl along. ‘Actually your agent had it right; we’re not using models, just real women…not that you’re not real, but you’re not ordinary. What I mean is—’