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No problem, she told herself for the umpteenth time as her heart pounded with anxiety. She would soon calm down. No-one here knew her from Adam, so she had a completely clean sheet and a fabulous wardrobe of clothes, so why not act as if she had all the confidence in the world? She could be Lucinda for the night.
‘Would you like a drink madam?’
‘Um… Er…’ So much for confidence! She had fallen at the first hurdle. Heating up under the barman’s patient stare, she scanned the ranks of bottles, searching for inspiration. Half of the drinks she’d never heard of, and the rest looked more like food colouring than something she’d want to ingest in a gulp.
‘Lemonade please? With a dash of lime?’
Great start. Lucinda would have asked for champagne – and not by the glass, either. As it turned out, positive thinking wasn’t enough to stop her heating up with embarrassment, and she couldn’t risk perspiring in this dress –
‘Your drink, madam…’
‘Thank you.’ It was in a fancy glass. She downed it in one. She needed something to do with her hands to stop wringing them.
‘You look agitated,’ a deep, faintly accented voice observed. ‘Can I buy you a top up?’
‘Agitated?’
Spinning round on her bar stool, Libby promptly snapped the cocktail stick she’d been torturing in half. Confident and in charge, she reminded herself firmly, swallowing deep as she took her first look at the owner of the chilli chocolate voice.
‘Was that a white wine spritzer?’ he asked.
Her mouth was still open, she realised, shutting it quickly. The man was devastating – off the scale attractive. His smile alone lit up the room, but in a sultry, candlelit way. And he towered over her.
She was sitting down, Libby reminded herself sensibly. Of course he was towering over her. But he was one big, powerful-looking man…
‘Yes…? No?’ he prompted. ‘The drink?’ he said pleasantly.
He was a couple of years older than she was – maybe thirty. And he was still angling that bad-boy smile. And, no, she wasn’t going to look over her shoulder to see if he was talking to someone else. She had to have more confidence than that.
‘White wine spritzer, wasn’t it?’
‘No. Sorry – what I mean to say is, I’m drinking lemonade with a dash of lime.’
‘Lemonade and lime, please,’ he asked the barman, ‘and a Scotch for me, please.’
Nice manners. But had she agreed to this?
Libby rapidly rejigged her brain cells to take in the dark, flashing eyes, thick, wavy black hair, and totally disreputable stubble of the man who was wearing snug-fitting jeans, highly polished boots, and a beautifully tailored jacket that clung lovingly to his lean frame. Sensing her interest, he turned his head to look at her with amusement in his eyes.
‘Are you trying to pick me up?’ shot out of her mouth without any assistance from her brain at all. ‘Sorry – I don’t know what made me say that.’
‘Maybe you’re unusually intuitive?’ he suggested, trying not to smile.
She’d forgive him this once for mocking her, just for being so easy on the eyes. She couldn’t blame him for getting the wrong idea about her, when she had set out tonight to look the part of confident city girl, and here she was sitting alone at the bar – something she’d never done in her life before. ‘Libby…’ She proffered her hand.
‘Lucaj.’
His grip was warm and firm, and as they shook hands, she realised that while she would normally let go of a stranger’s hand as fast as possible, she was quite happy to hold on to Lucaj. There was something about him that reassured her – which went against all the evidence. Anyone with such a wicked smile, and a mouth like his, spelled danger in any language.
‘So, you’re English, Libby?’
‘Yes, I am.’ She met the clear, intelligent gaze with interest. There was more to Lucaj than met the eyes, she sensed, and what met the eyes was a heart-racing quiver of possibilities. ‘You?’ she prompted before she had chance to consider any of these dangerous possibilities.
‘Let’s just say I’m a citizen of the world – always on the move.’
He was certainly charismatic – eastern European, possibly, she guessed, with those amazing cheekbones – but the humour in his eyes was all his own. And this was all very nice, but she really should have more sense than to talk to a strange man in a bar. ‘I really shouldn’t be doing this,’ she admitted in her usual forthright manner.
‘Shouldn’t be doing what?’ Lucaj demanded as the barman served their drinks.
