One Night with Morelli

‘She means, Sabrina, that normal women can never aspire to looking like you do.’

Had anyone else made the intervention Eve might have felt grateful, but instead she found herself biting back a childish retort of Don’t tell me what I mean.

‘You’re so sweet.’ Sabrina pressed a soft kiss on his lean cheek.

Eve rolled her eyes and thought perleeze just as, above the model’s head, the dark eyes found her own. His sleek ebony brows lifted and he smiled, the sort of smile that she imagined a fox might produce when contemplating a defenceless chick.

Eve narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin in silent challenge. She was not defenceless or stupid enough to smile at a man who could flirt with one woman while another was kissing him!

As she pulled away the model’s complacent expression faded. ‘But isn’t that the idea? They all think if they buy the product they will look like me,’ she said, looking confused.

Eve heaved a sigh. She had neither the time nor the inclination to explain herself to this woman whom she ungenerously stigmatised as totally self-centred. Her eyes slid of their own volition to her tall, arrogant companion…not a case of opposites attracting in their case, she decided waspishly, but like meeting like. ‘Sorry, but I must run…lovely to bump into you…’ She could hear the insincerity in her voice but didn’t hang around to see if anyone else had. Head down, she headed for the entrance to the underground car park.

The brief encounter had left her feeling… She laughed, the sound echoing around the concrete shell, and shook her head. If there was ever a moment when she was allowed to feel weird it was today! Ignoring the fact her hand was still shaking, she fished her key ring out of her bag.

She had enough to deal with today without analysing the skin-tingling effect of a sexy stranger who represented pretty much everything she despised in a man. She was jet-lagged, facing the prospect of biting her tongue while her mother threw away her life and freedom and—she rubbed her shoulder and grimaced—she’d just had minor surgery. She was definitely permitted a little weird.

* * *

‘I’m curious, why do you keep running away from me?’

Eve started violently, nearly losing her grip on her keys as she spun around. How on earth could someone that big make so little sound? He was standing a few feet away just beyond a sleek gleaming monster that was the motoring equivalent of him. If she cared about cars she would probably know what it was, but she didn’t so in her head she simply grouped it under the heading of look at me I have loads of money.

She lifted her chin. ‘There are laws against stalking.’ She knew perfectly well that none of the adrenaline pumping through her body was the result of fear…which was too worrying to think about just now.

‘And quite right too; speaking from experience it can be—’

Her hoot of derision cut him off. ‘God, it must be so tough being irresistible to the opposite sex.’ She only just stopped herself hastily adding she was not one of that number, but then actions always spoke louder than words and she hoped she was channelling contempt and not lust. There was no way in the world that he could know about the shameful heat at the juncture of her thighs.

‘I’m flattered—’

‘Not my intention.’ She sounded breathless, and she definitely felt breathless as she fought to hold onto her defiance in the face of the suggestion of a smile her retort had produced.

She didn’t know him.

She disliked him.

She had never felt such a strong reaction to a man. Ever.

‘Relax, cara, this is my car.’ He pressed his key fob and the monster’s lights flashed.

Calling herself every kind of a fool—sure, you’re so irresistible every drop-dead gorgeous man has to follow you, she thought scathingly—she wrenched her own car door open.

‘Would you like dinner sometime?’

Draco was almost as surprised to hear himself make the offer as she looked to hear it. It had been an uncharacteristic impulse kicked into life by the sight of her getting in that car and the knowledge he would never see her again.

‘Well, it seems like such a waste…all this…’ his long fingers moved in an expressive gesture that encompassed the space between them ‘…chemistry.’

Draco felt satisfied with this explanation for his uncharacteristically impulsive behaviour. She looked—he studied the small heart-shaped face lifted to him—less so.

The soft flush that covered her skin and the angry sparkle in her luminous green eyes made him tip his head in a nod of approval. There was passion there. He knew he’d been right about the chemistry.

‘I’m assuming it’s an ego thing with you…you have to have every woman your willing slave.’

He adopted a thoughtful expression as though considering the charge, then slowly shook his head. ‘Slave suggests passive,’ he purred, staring at her mouth with an expression that made her stomach quiver with a mixture of anger and lust she refused to acknowledge. ‘I find passive boring.’

‘Well, I find men who have massive egos boring!’ she jeered, and slid onto the driver’s seat. ‘And there is no chemistry,’ she yelled, before slamming the car door.

She could hear the sound of his low throaty laughter above the metallic scream as she crunched the gears before finding reverse.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_9dd0e0cd-903d-5bfd-9491-8245e53c946d)

THE TWO YOUNG women who stood waiting in the bedroom were both in their mid-twenties but there the similarity ended.

The girl who sat on the edge of the four-poster, one slim ankle crossed over the other, was an elegant, tall, blue-eyed blonde. The other one, who had spent the last five minutes prowling restlessly up and down the room, her heels making angry tapping sounds on the age-darkened polished boards, was neither tall nor blonde, and, even though the two women were dressed identically, she was somehow not elegant.

She was five three without heels and had chestnut-brown hair. Making no concession to the occasion—the dress was enough—she wore it as she always did: scraped into the heavy knot on her slender neck. It was not a style statement, though it did reveal the length of her neck and the delicate angle of her rounded jaw, just convenient. When exposed to even a sniff of moisture it fell into a mass of uncontrollable kinky waves and Eve liked control in all aspects of her life.

There had been a period when she had struggled to emulate her friend Hannah’s effortless elegance, but no matter how hard she tried it just didn’t happen. She always ended up looking as though she were dressing up in her mother’s clothes. Gradually Eve had found her own style or—as an exasperated Hannah put it—uniform, which was a little unfair. Not all Eve’s trouser suits were black—some were navy—and who had time to shop anyhow when they had a business to run? You couldn’t afford to relax in this competitive world.

‘Ouch!’ She tripped over the skirt of her duck-egg-blue silk bridesmaid dress and banged her knee on the window seat. The pain made her green eyes film with tears.

‘Well, if you’d come to a fitting it wouldn’t be too long.’ Harriet gave an affectionate smile and shook her head. The frantic last-minute pinning meant that Eve’s dress had a sort of waist but the neckline of the fitted bodice still had a tendency to gape and slip down a couple of inches if Eve moved too quickly—and Eve moved quickly a lot. Her friend was never still mentally or physically, and just watching her made Hannah feel tired.

Eve gave another hitch accompanied by a hiss of exasperation. If she’d been more naturally blessed in the boob department it wouldn’t be a problem, but even with the tissues tucked into the strapless bra that was chafing the partially healed scar on her shoulder blade she was one cup size short of keeping the bodice up.

On the plus side, while she was focusing on not exposing herself she wasn’t thinking about her mother throwing herself away on a man who didn’t deserve her! The furrow in danger of becoming permanent in her wide brow deepened because, impending wardrobe malfunction or not, she was thinking about it and had been ever since her mother had rung excited as a schoolgirl with the glad tidings. A week was not a long time but Eve had prayed her mother would come to her senses.

She hadn’t.

‘The measurements you sent must have been way off. Sarah said you’ve lost weight since she saw you last,’ Hannah commented.

Eve felt a stab of guilt that intensified when Hannah made excuses for her.

‘I know Australia is a long way to come for a fitting.’

‘I didn’t go there to avoid my mother!’ Eve protested.

‘I never thought you did.’

Until now, thought Eve, wishing she could keep her big mouth shut. ‘I don’t see what all the big hurry is for anyhow.’ The way Hannah was looking at her made Eve frown. ‘Well, do you?’

Hannah pressed a protective hand to her stomach, reflecting on how odd it was that Eve, who was super smart and intuitive in so many ways, could not have at least suspected. She had often felt a little intimidated by her friend’s quick brain and focused drive, but for all her ability there were times when Eve couldn’t see what was right under her nose and this was one of those occasions. Hannah swiftly changed the subject; now was probably not the time to voice her suspicions.

‘Well, you made it back in time, which is the main thing. I’d have loved you to be at my wedding too,’ Hannah added wistfully.

‘I didn’t get an invite.’