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‘Because?’
‘Because you haven’t got a family.’
‘How do you know that?’
Lara turned her head back to glare straight ahead into the darkness, her heart leaping with something which felt very like fear. That was a factor which hadn’t even entered her head. She hadn’t considered that he was a married man, and she didn’t want to question why the thought of that should upset her quite so much. ‘Well, if you do have a family, then you shouldn’t be in the habit of taking women who might jump to the wrong conclusion out to dinner!’ she said crossly.
‘And what conclusion would that be?’ he murmured.
That this was a date. Lara suddenly realised that she wanted it to be a date. Oh, why did he have to have a damned connection to Maraban—and when was she going to get around to broaching the subject?
Not yet, she told herself.
Not yet.
‘And where else wouldn’t I live?’ he asked softly, changing the subject back because she seemed to have lapsed into a thoughtful kind of silence.
Lara settled back in her seat, relieved to discover that, like all men, he wanted to talk about himself. And wasn’t that good, in the circumstances? ‘Nowhere there are lots of houses all the same,’ she said firmly. ‘And nowhere that’s fussy or predictable—the kind of place where people always do the same thing, day in, day out—you know, like catching the train at the same time every morning and washing their car before lunch on Sundays!’
Unseen, he narrowed his eyes. It was uncanny. Disturbing. How had she managed to echo the very thoughts he had had the other day?
Any minute now she would be telling him what colour boxer shorts he was wearing—Darian regretted that thought instantly, as it was met with an answering jerk of desire.
With a small sigh of something like relief, he drew into the parking lot of the restaurant and Lara peered through the window, interested to see where he had chosen. She had been so wrapped up in him that she had barely noticed where they were going, and this was an area of London she realised she didn’t know at all. Had she been half expecting him to opt for some glitzy place right in the centre of the city?
Because this was the very opposite. It was a small, unpretentious building with fairy lights strung outside, making tiny blurry rainbows through the misty autumn air, and as she opened the car door she heard the sound of music. It conjured up memories of days when money had been tight, days when people were happy to eat simply because they were hungry, and not because a restaurant was the place to be seen. A little sigh escaped from her lips. Nostalgia could be very powerful.
‘Where’s this?’
In the circumstances, Darian didn’t think it pertinent to tell her that it was a small, noisy, family-run Italian restaurant that he had stumbled on by chance years ago. And that, apart from the food, one of its main attributes was that he was never recognised in there by anyone remotely connected to his business life.
Jake Haddon probably took her to places where he wouldn’t be recognised all the time, he thought, again with that infuriating shaft of something very like jealousy.
The owner and his wife greeted him warmly, and that, too, took Lara by surprise. Had she thought that he would be aloof—one of those men who swanned into places as if they owned them? They were shown to a table in an alcove—private, yet managing to provide a good view of the rest of the restaurant. It was as if they had been saving the nicest table just for him, and that didn’t surprise her at all.
As they settled into their seats Lara thought that perhaps this was the best way of all of finding out what the real man was. A one-to-one dinner where she could discover as much about him as possible. It would be like taking an inventory.
‘You were miles away.’
His voice was a velvet murmur which nudged into her thoughts, and Lara blinked to find the gold eyes trained on her, piercing through her as if the light which shone from them was the precious metal itself. And for a moment she felt uncomfortable, as if what she was doing was somehow furtive. Well, when she stopped to think about it—it was. ‘W-was I?’
He gave a wry smile. He didn’t usually send women off into a trance! ‘Drink?’
Lara nodded. ‘Please.’
‘What?’
‘Whatever you’re having.’
He raised his eyebrows fractionally and ordered wine. ‘Shall I choose what you’re eating, too?’ he questioned sardonically.
Lara nodded, enjoying the confounded look on his face. ‘Please.’ She smiled. ‘You’ve obviously eaten here plenty of times before—I’m happy to take your recommendations.’
‘Are you always so delightfully acquiescent?’ he questioned, in a voice of silky provocation.
Lara didn’t react to the not-so-subtle implication. ‘Only in matters concerning my stomach,’ she said. ‘I’ll eat whatever is put in front of me.’
‘You don’t survive on cigarettes and black coffee, then?’
