Читать книгу Secret Heirs Collection - Кейт Хьюит, Коллектив авторов - Страница 12

NATURALLY SUSIE OFFERED to pay her half.

‘I insist,’ she told him firmly. ‘I dumped myself on you. The last thing I want is for you to find yourself having to buy dinner for me. And a very expensive dinner as well.’

‘I don’t do anything in life because I have to,’ Sergio informed her. ‘At any rate, I don’t pay when I come here.’

‘You don’t pay? What does that mean?’

‘I have an understanding here…’ So she knew he was rich? That wasn’t too difficult. He was well known—if not because he appeared so often in the financial pages, then because he appeared with equal regularity in the gossip columns of tabloids. Whether she knew what, precisely, he owned, he had no idea—and who cared?

He had already made his mind up.

Maybe he had made it up the second his libido had been galvanised into unexpected reaction.

She had come looking for fun and cash. She was heading in the right direction for fun…

And the cash? He was a generous lover, so who knew? If she was looking for something more significant…if she was in search of involvement on an emotional level…then of course she would be in for a rude awakening. But for the moment he liked the thought of taking her to his bed…removing that provocative little red number inch by gradual inch…and then exploring the body underneath also inch by gradual inch…

‘How can you have an “understanding” with a restaurant?’ Susie asked dubiously. ‘Unless… Are you related to the owner? Or does the owner owe you a favour…?’ She frowned and chewed her lip anxiously. ‘You’re not…not connected to the Mafia, are you?’

For a few seconds Sergio thought he had misheard her, but she was still staring at him, her almond-shaped brown eyes wary.

‘Have you actually just asked me whether I was connected to the Mafia…?’ Incredulity almost deprived him of the power of speech. No one, but no one, had ever dared go this far…

In fact no one, and certainly no woman, had ever dared challenge him in any way.

Maybe because they knew instinctively that he wasn’t into verbal challenges. Some women might think it a turn-on to needle him. The few who had thought so had learned pretty damn quickly that it wasn’t.

He was almost more incredulous that the woman appeared actually to be waiting for an answer!

‘Well?’ she asked, proving him right. ‘You haven’t answered.’

‘No! I am categorically not related to the Mafia!’

‘That’s good.’

‘Because…?’

‘No reason.’ Susie shrugged and realised with a little jolt of horror that she had actually begun to hope that she’d see him again. Begun to hope all sorts of things!

‘Come on…’

Sergio stood up and she instantly followed suit, glaringly conscious of what she was wearing now that she was no longer sitting down.

She slipped the black cape on and when she reached to tighten it around her he rested his hand briefly over hers.

That electric charge again—that hot, fierce current running through her that made her heart skip a beat and the breath catch painfully in her throat.

‘Come on…?’ she parroted weakly. ‘Come on…where?’

Sergio stood next to her, looking down at her upturned heart-shaped face. So many times she should have turned him off completely—starting with her crazy urge to confide and ending with her even crazier notion that he was some kind of gangster…

Yet was he turned off? No. He was a born predator, and he was a little relieved to find all those instincts alive and kicking, having been dormant for way too long for a man like him.

‘A number of choices here…’ Sergio murmured, enjoying the hectic colour in her cheeks and marvelling that she could marshal her expression into exactly the one she wanted to have on show.

‘Really?’ Susie squeaked, obediently falling in line with him as he headed out, oblivious to the covert stares following him and certainly oblivious to whoever was responsible for supplying him with free food—whoever he had his so-called ‘understanding’ with… Maybe the maître d’, who had not reappeared but who had been visible out of the corner of her eye, keeping a watchful nervous eye on their table.

Just in case, Susie thought, she outstayed her welcome and needed to be flung out urgently and without delay.

‘Option one…’ He pulled out his mobile, quickly texted, flipped it shut. On cue, a long, sleek black car appeared out of nowhere. He held open the passenger door for her and she hesitated—because he was, after all, a complete stranger.

Maybe not a member of the Mafia, but still a stranger! She wouldn’t have dreamt of getting in a car with anyone she’d met online dating, so why was she now contemplating it?

‘Option one is that we move on from here to somewhere else. I’m a member of an exclusive club in Knightsbridge. They do an excellent selection of after-dinner liqueurs.’

‘I can’t get into this car with you…’ She eyed the luxurious interior with unhealthy longing.

He had a chauffeur. There was someone at the wheel. It wouldn’t actually be just the two of them…

‘Option two is that we just head back to my place and cut through the middleman. A twenty-minute drive at this time of night. The views from my apartment would astound you.’

Susie gulped. ‘And—and option three…?’ she stammered, no closer to sliding into the back seat of the car and yet no nearer to fleeing the scene either.

‘The third option is that you scamper away and you never see me again.’

He leaned indolently against the open door, everything about his body language unhurried.

He wouldn’t try to stop her if she bolted for the nearest bus. In fact she could almost hear him chuckling under his breath if she chose option three—just as she could still hear him telling her that the things you did because they made sense weren’t always the things you ended up enjoying.

This dark, impossibly sexy, impossibly articulate, impossibly self-assured man was out of her league. She wasn’t the sort of sophisticated, self-confident academic like her sister, who could attract men like him. It just didn’t make any sense.

But neither had that fine art course she had wanted to do… The secretarial course had made sense, and a fat lot of good that had done her in the long run. She had still ended up digging her heels in and doing what she should have done in the first place—except she was now older as she started the climb up the career ladder.

She tightened her coat around her, her heart beating madly. It was cold out here—one of those freezing, sleety January evenings that put a depressing spin on everything. People swarmed around them, some turning to glance back over their shoulders.

‘We could talk…I guess…’

Sergio smiled. Had he doubted that she would take him up on his offer? Not really. He had sensed that charge between them, invisible but so tangible he could almost have reached out and clasped it in the palm of his hand.

‘We could—although I’ve often found that there are far more interesting things to do with a woman than talk. Now, are you going to get in?’

Susie hopped in, breathing in the smell of expensive leather and feeling the warmth of the car wrap around her. She shifted over to the window, still not entirely sure what had propelled her into doing something as extraordinary as climbing into a car with a guy she’d known for all of five minutes.

‘Club or my place?’

Sergio turned to her and all at once she felt the intimacy between them like a force.

His beautiful face was all shadows and dark, brooding angles. God, she could stare at this man and keep staring. The cute guys she had met in the past seemed like inept little boys in comparison. Actually, they probably were. This was a powerful alpha male, the leader of the pack, the king of the jungle, and a shiver of unbridled excitement rippled through her.

‘Well…’

She let that one syllable drag out and for Sergio that was answer in itself. He leaned forward and told his driver to head home, and then he relaxed back, sprawled against the car door and looked at her.

He liked this game she was playing. How many men had she approached in the past? he wondered. How many stories did she have up her sleeve? That hesitant, glorious air of innocence could go a long way…

‘So if you didn’t like secretarial work,’ he said obligingly, very happy to chat to her about the past she probably altered according to her audience, ‘why did you go in for it in the first place?’

‘What do you do?’ Susie asked curiously, as always reluctant to point out all her deficiencies—at least as compared to her gifted family members. Especially to this man who, for reasons unknown, she was driven to try and impress.

Sergio threw her an amused, vaguely disbelieving look and she stared back at him and laughed.

It was an infectious laugh. It was the laugh of someone who enjoyed laughing. His own lips twitched.

‘Share the joke?’ he drawled drily.

‘You think I know who you are, don’t you? I bet you still think I’m after whatever money you have —even though I’ve told you that I’m not.’

‘You surely must have heard of me?’ Sergio heard himself say.

Her laughter subsided into a grin. ‘Why?’

‘Because my name crops up regularly. I’m either making money or giving it away.’

‘What does that mean?’

The undercurrent threading through their conversation felt dangerous, heady and compelling. The way those deep, penetrating eyes roved over her made her feel hot and breathless, and she had never enjoyed a sensation more in her life.

‘It means I make money—and lots of it.’

‘Doing what?’

‘All sorts of things,’ Sergio said with a shrug. ‘I buy things, take things over, invest in things, build things… I own the restaurant, as a matter of fact. It’s one of five scattered across the country that specialise in superb food and an edgy atmosphere.’

‘You own that restaurant?’

Her mouth fell open and Sergio couldn’t help himself. He laughed.

‘Are you telling me you weren’t aware of that?’

‘Why should I be?’ She looked at him, bemused. ‘I honestly had no idea,’ she told him. ‘And if you really and truly believe that I only went there to try and get your attention because you’re rich, then you can ask your driver to stop and I’ll get out and find my own way back home.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

She didn’t answer. Instead she rapped on the glass partition separating them from his driver. He caught her wrist and held on to it until she reluctantly met his eyes.

‘You headed straight over to my table,’ he said grimly. ‘You sat down uninvited until you managed to wangle dinner, and now here you are, in my car, heading back to my place… What’s a billionaire supposed to think?’

Susie yanked her hand away, stung, because what he said might make sense on the surface but was so far from the truth that it was laughable.

Sergio noted the glimmer of tears glazing her eyes and for a few seconds had some doubts about the conclusions he had drawn. She had squeezed herself tightly against the car door and he had the impression that if she could have made herself disappear in a puff of smoke she would have.

‘Well?’ he persisted roughly. ‘What am I supposed to think?’

‘You’re supposed to believe what I’ve told you.’

He laughed humourlessly. ‘Women have an unfortunate habit of acting out of character the second they’re exposed to a man with a lot of money.’

‘Do they? I wouldn’t know. I want to get out. I want to go home. I should never have agreed to get in this car with you in the first place. You think I’ve only done it because I’m after your money and you don’t want to believe me when I tell you that you’re wrong. Well, how do I know that you’re an honourable guy? How do I know that you’re not going to take me back to your place and…and…?’

‘Don’t even think of going there!’

Sergio was genuinely outraged that she could believe the worst of him but he grudgingly recognised the irony of the situation. He wasn’t prepared to believe a word of what she was saying so why should she believe a word of what he was telling her? He clearly had money, but that didn’t mean he was…an honourable guy…

He vaguely wondered what she’d meant by that anyway.

‘I don’t need to force myself on women,’ he said flatly.

Susie could believe that. He had a point. ‘So if I told you that I wanted to get out—right here, right now…?’

‘I wouldn’t try and stop you.’

He raked impatient fingers through his dark hair and shot her a fulminating look from under his lashes. Had he ever had so much conversation with any woman before getting into bed with her? Sure, he might discuss the state of the world, what was happening in the news, politics… The women he dated always enjoyed displaying the length, breadth and width of their intellect…

But feelings…?

He met her stubborn stare and sighed. ‘Why were you trying to find a man through the internet? Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s not safe?’

Susie relaxed. He had meant it when he had told her that he would drop her off if she asked. She had seen it in his eyes. And she believed him when he said that he had no need to force himself on a woman. She imagined his danger was in trying to escape women forcing themselves on him.

He might be suspicious and downright offensive, but he was up front. And so, so exciting.

‘Have you any idea how hard it is, finding a date in London? When you don’t do the clubbing scene and don’t have a fancy, high-powered job where there are loads of unattached eligible males?’

‘No.’

‘Hard. I mean, I know a lot of guys, but my friends tend to be…well…’ She frowned. ‘They’re creative types. A couple of graphic designers who freelance… One makes amazing designs for wallpapers…three work in publishing…’

‘And eligible men?’ Sergio asked, moving the conversation along, curious in spite of himself.

‘Lots of men—but none of them are what you might call “eligible”. To be honest, quite a few of the guys I know are gay…so when one of my friends suggested I see what was out there on the internet, I didn’t think it was such a bad idea. Besides…’

She talked a lot, but strangely he didn’t seem to mind. He wondered whether it was the lingering effect of the red dress. Or the novelty of someone who didn’t see it as her duty to show him how bright she was and how many degrees she had obtained to get where she had. Or the way her blonde hair spilled over her shoulders in unruly curls.

‘Besides…?’ he inserted encouragingly.

‘I have a wedding coming up.’

Sergio could smell a convoluted story in the making. For the moment, however, his initial suspicions about her were on the back burner. He hadn’t discarded them completely, but he wasn’t going to allow them to dictate the outcome of this very, very unusual encounter.

‘I’m boring you, aren’t I?’

‘On the contrary. You’re taking me down all sorts of roads I’ve never travelled before.’

‘Am I?’ Susie wasn’t sure whether she should be flattered by that or offended. She hesitated, distracted by what he had said. ‘What sort of roads do you normally go down with…er…women…?’

Sergio spread his hands wide and shot her a rueful, amused smile that did all those wonderful tingly things to her body. ‘The women I date are almost exclusively career women…’

‘Oh. Right. I see.’ Disappointment bit into her because it made sense. He was rich and he was smart. Of course he would be attracted to smart and probably rich women. Like always attracted like, didn’t it? ‘Career women…’

‘Big jobs…daily decision-making that in some cases can affect the lives of the people around them…packed agendas and hectic schedules…’

Saying it aloud made him wonder what he saw in those types, but that was just a fleeting thought because he knew exactly what he saw in them—just as he knew exactly the sort of women he had programmed himself to avoid like the plague.

Dominique Duval.

It was a name that didn’t often spring to mind. He had ruthlessly and successfully eliminated it from conscious thought. But vocalising the sort of women he dated had thrown up the comparison and his lips thinned with instant distaste. The past might be buried deep but it was never truly forgotten, was it?

‘What’s the matter?’ Susie leaned forward, startled by his darkening expression and immediately jumping to the conclusion that she was somehow responsible for it. And then almost as quickly she got annoyed, because she hadn’t said anything that could remotely be construed as offensive.

When it came to being offensive he was the one winning the race!

‘Just thinking back to a very significant person in my life.’ Sergio’s voice was cold and hard. ‘A delightful woman who has ensured that when it comes to any sort of involvement with the opposite sex I always make sure to steer clear of types like her. Learning curves…’ He was smiling again, the tightness around his mouth gone although his eyes were still cool. ‘I like to pay attention to them…’

‘Me too.’

Susie didn’t know what had just happened there. What she did know was that she wasn’t going to go down Confidence Lane and start telling him all about her family and her learning curves.

She was already reaching the conclusion that the only reason he had even glanced in her direction was because of her novelty value. If he only dated clever career women, someone plonking herself at his table with a long-winded tale of online dating mishaps would have been a shock to the system.

So who was this woman who had shaped his responses to the opposite sex and determined the sort of women he chose to date? She assumed some past love affair. Maybe he had fallen in love with the wrong girl? The fact that he had taken it so badly—badly enough to change the way he looked at his relationships—was telling. He had fallen in love and got burned.

Her thoughts rambled on until she surfaced to hear him asking her about the wedding she had mentioned.

‘Wedding?’ She gave an airy laugh and flapped her hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘What wedding?’

‘The one you have coming up… You were about to launch into a tale of young love and confetti…’

‘Wow. You live here? Isn’t this the most expensive place to live on the planet?’ She craned forward, squinting into the darkness and staring up and up and up at the spire of glass rising into the clouds.

As a diversion from a conversation she no longer wanted to have, it worked.

The apartment her parents owned was nice. No, it was better than nice. It was in a great location, and had been refurbished to a high standard, but this was the stuff of dreams—a place ordinary mortals never got to see.

She had genuinely forgotten the ‘wedding on the horizon’ conversation.

‘Impressed?’ Sergio was exiting the car and swinging round to open the passenger door for her, but she had already hopped out and was staring.

‘Very impressed,’ she confessed.

That came as no big surprise to Sergio. He imagined her place as somewhere small and damp and in poor condition, languishing in a fairly unsavoury location. Possibly directly under a flight path.

It had begun to rain—a fine, dreary drizzle. It was after ten on a dark, wintry night but there was the alluring promise of excitement within the walls of his massive apartment and he felt like a randy teenager at the conclusion of a first date with the hottest girl in school.

They were whooshed up to his apartment in a glass elevator and finally, as he pushed open the door to his apartment, she managed to find her voice, which had got lost somewhere between the vast foyer and the fifteenth floor.

‘This is…incredible—but I guess you know that already…’ She laughed nervously and stared around her at a marvel of modernism. Cool abstract paintings, most of which she recognised, were hung strategically on the walls and there was an awful lot of pale marble everywhere.

She was in his apartment…

There was nothing to be nervous about. She repeated that mantra to herself as he dutifully made noises about the layout of the apartment.

So many rooms… And whilst he was obviously accustomed to the artwork, to the vast scale of everything, the avant-garde kitchen where the marble gave way to wood, the sitting area which was dominated by creams and whites… Well, she was more and more impressed with every passing step.

She peppered him with questions. Asked him how long he had lived there, if he knew his neighbours—which for some reason he found very funny—wondered aloud what would happen if he spilled red wine over the white leather sofa…

She chattered ceaselessly—because whether or not she should be nervous, she was.

With all her online dates—three of them, because number four had bitten the dust before they could actually meet—she had ultimately been in control. Public places, superficial conversation, awkward goodbyes…

She had not, even in passing, been tempted to go anywhere with them except to the door, where they’d parted company in different directions.

And both her relationships had started life in the friendship arena and then progressed from friendship through to curiosity and into a relationship before morphing back into friendship.

This…was different.

‘Perhaps some coffee…?’ she said.

So she was looking for a relationship? Why hide from that? He wasn’t. And definitely not with someone like her. She wasn’t a career woman who could talk about business stuff. That were the sort of women he dated, went out with, would consider a candidate for a relationship. He had said so himself. She was a one-off.

And he was a one-off for her as well. He was…this was…lust. No more, no less. Heck, she was aware of him with every fibre of her being—could feel his presence like a forbidden thrill.

So they were even. Weren’t they?

Still…a cup of coffee might settle her nerves. She pictured them heading up to that split galleried landing straight to his bedroom…where he would turn to her, expecting her to launch herself into abandoned sex when in fact she might have had two boyfriends but she was woefully short on the sort of experience she figured he would be used to.

‘You want…coffee…? At this hour?’ Sergio leaned against the kitchen counter and looked at her evenly.

‘Maybe a nightcap…’ A strong dose of hard liquor would definitely steady her nerves. Or else knock her out completely. Both options were preferable to the frantic flutter in her stomach.

‘Sit down,’ Sergio told her gently.

He propelled her towards one of the black leather chairs at the kitchen table and then perched on the side of the table, which was a beaten metal affair the likes of which she had never seen in her life before. She stared at it fixedly and tried not to let her eyes wander to the strain of his trousers pulling taut across a muscular thigh.

‘So you want either a cup of coffee or a nightcap?’ he mused, tilting her face upwards so that she could look at him.

What was he to think? He didn’t know. They were in his apartment and she should be coming on to him. That was how the game was played. Was this some cunning ploy to hold his interest? He didn’t want to let go of his natural instinct to suspect the unexpected, but some other natural instinct inside him—one that had never surfaced before—was pushing him in a different direction.

‘Either or…’ Susie blinked and licked her lips.

‘Do you usually have nightcaps?’

‘Not usually, no…’

‘Only when you go on dates?’

‘I…I don’t really do a lot of dating, as it happens.’

‘Just random ones with strange men you meet on the internet?’

‘I would never have dreamt of having any sort of nightcap with any of those guys I arranged to meet,’ she told him truthfully. ‘They were pretty awful. Well, not awful. Just…boring and average…’

‘Is there a hidden compliment in there somewhere for me?’

‘You really are arrogant!’ But a little smile hovered on her lips and she relaxed fractionally.

‘And you’re very sexy,’ Sergio told her bluntly. ‘So why the hell do you think that the only way to meet a man is on the internet?’

‘You think I’m sexy?’

‘I think you’re sexy. Beyond that, I don’t know what to think—and, take it from me, that’s a first.’ He stood up and sauntered over to a complicated coffee maker. ‘Now, I’m going to make you a cup of coffee and then I’m going to get my driver to take you back to your place.’

‘No!’

She would never see him again. Thrown into a state of confusion by the tumult of emotion that accompanied that thought, Susie stared at him, dry-mouthed.

Sergio ignored her outburst. He wasn’t up for this—however intriguing it might be and however much it rescued him from his emotional torpor. This was a complication, and he could do without complications.

When it came to women, he liked to know what he was dealing with. He had no idea what he was dealing with here. Gold-digger? A sexy little number who wanted to press all his buttons and was doing so via a roundabout route? Or an up front and honest young girl who genuinely had no idea of her own sex appeal? And how up front and honest could she really be if she was out there, trawling the internet, advertising herself on the open market?

‘Look…’ Coffee made, Sergio sat next to her at the kitchen table. ‘Somehow I found myself in your company tonight. Not what I had planned on. In fact I had planned on working, having something to eat and coming back here on my own.’

His keen eyes noted the slight tremble of her hands as she cradled the mug between them. If this was acting, then she should be up for an award.

‘That said, I was more than happy with the change of plan. I have no idea who you really are, or what you really want from me, but like I said…you’re sexy. And I’ve been celibate for two months, which is two months too long for me. But I’m not interested in going round the houses to get there. Now, drink up and I’ll see you to the front door.’

‘What do you mean that you have no idea who I am or what I want from you…?’

Sergio gave a sigh of pure frustration. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever talked so much with a woman before sex.’

Susie blushed and hurriedly sipped her coffee, then cleared her throat. ‘You mean you just beckon a woman across, lead her to the nearest bed and…and…?’

‘Oh, we talk…’ Sergio laughed softly, enjoying the arousal that was making itself felt all over again, despite the fact that the traffic lights had turned red and he knew it was time to stop. ‘High-powered career women generally have a great deal to say. It’s all very civilised. We discuss the state of the world, and once that foreplay’s done we head to bed.’

‘Oh.’

And tonight for a while he had been caught up in the novelty of someone who didn’t have a great deal to say on the state of the world, but he wasn’t so caught up that he was going to wade through her sudden attack of nerves and hold her hand because she was suddenly feeling panicky.

He was a sophisticated man who liked sophisticated ladies but he had been willing to step out of the box for a brief session with her.

‘I’d better be on my way, then.’ She stood up, not looking at him. ‘And I’m sorry. You know… I guess it’s not really on… Well, it’s really not on to lead a guy on. Which I wasn’t doing. Actually. Because when I agreed to come here with you I thought… Well, I guess it’s just not like me to have a one-night stand.’ She frowned. ‘In fact I’ve never had a one-night stand in my life before and I’ve never been tempted to. I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was just…walking in there and seeing Colonel Mustard at the bar… I wouldn’t have approached you otherwise, you know…’

Sergio raised one hand to halt the stream of introspective conversation.

‘I’m getting the picture,’ he said wryly.

He ushered her out of the kitchen. He was doing the right thing. He would deal with his unwanted arousal later. In the shower. Turned to cold. That should do the trick.

‘Just out of interest,’ he drawled, once they were in the hall. ‘if you’re not the kind of girl who goes in for exciting, racy one-night stands, why the hell did you agree to this in the first place?’

He leaned against the wall and watched as she took her time fumbling with the black coat, belting it around her waist before raising her eyes to meet his.

‘I don’t know,’ Susie admitted. ‘I…I fancied you…’ She went bright red and her eyes skittered away.

And that, Sergio thought, was how a guy could get insanely turned on. She could barely meet his eyes. She sounded as though the admission had been dragged out of her.

What kind of a guy would he be if he let her go away with nothing?

He moved forward, cupped his big hand behind the nape of her neck and saw her eyes widen with a mixture of surprise and hot excitement.

In that split instant he knew that he could have her if he wanted. He had never wanted anything so much in his life before, but was he going to have her? No. He would stick to what he knew. Safer that way. A controlled life was a life with no nasty surprises.

His mouth hovered tantalisingly close to hers and she whimpered and linked her hands around his waist. She was so wet! She eased the ache by widening her stance a little, when all she wanted was for him to put his hand there and rub away the discomfort, give her some release.

Sergio breathed in her scent, light and floral and clean.

With a groan, he lowered his head and forgot…everything. Her lips parted readily…her tongue flicked to meet his. He was barely aware of propelling her backwards, so that she was pressed against the wall and he was pressed against her. He moved against her, wanting nothing more than to rip off the black cape and hoist up the flimsy nothing of a dress. He wanted to yank her panties down and just take her…right here in the hallway…up against the wall…with her legs wrapped around him…

It took a few dazed seconds for her eyes to flutter open as he tore himself away and stood back.

‘Why have you stopped?’ Her nerves had gone, banished under the impact of that kiss. She hated the cooling distance he was putting between them and the fact that the bedroom beyond that short flight of stairs was no longer too scarily close for comfort.

‘It’s no good.’ Hot blood was still pumping thick and hard in his veins. ‘You’re not my type.’

He should never have made a move on her—never invited her back here. But he was just so damned accustomed to having exactly what he wanted, to taking exactly what he wanted.

He clenched his jaw as he saw her hurt expression and told himself that this was just the sort of episode that would make her stronger. Get her off the internet for a start.

‘You’re either a gold-digger,’ he said coolly, ‘or a naive kid—and I’m not interested in either.’

‘I’m not experienced enough for you…or clever enough…’

‘Don’t put words into my mouth. I’m telling it like it is—and here’s something else… If I were you I’d think twice about trying to find your soul mate on the internet. It’s a dangerous place out there…’

But not as dangerous as the inside of an exclusive restaurant in the city…

Susie knew that she shouldn’t care. Okay, so she might go away with her pride slightly dented, but he had probably done the right thing.

She drew herself up and returned his cool look with an equally cool one of her own. ‘Thanks for the advice. And if you’re glad you didn’t end up in bed with me because I’m not your type, then I’m just as glad that I didn’t end up in bed with you because you’re not my type.’

She forced herself to smile…the casual, dismissive smile of one adult to another.

‘And I’m not as naive as you think I am,’ she lied, tossing her head. ‘In fact I’m more than capable of taking care of myself and of having a one-night stand, if I ever want one!’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Car’s outside, Susie…it’s been a…a highly unusual encounter…’

God, just his voice was enough to send shivers racing up and down her spine.

She held out her hand in response and pinned a smile on her face as he reached to pull open the front door. ‘Thanks for dinner. And I hope you find the businesswoman of your dreams. I’ll keep looking for the fun guy of my dreams…’

And she dashed out of the open door, back down in that glass lift and slap-bang outside into his chauffeur driven car. She dived in, slamming the door after her and making sure she didn’t glance back as she was driven away.