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Then she realised something had changed. The car had stopped moving. She jerked forward, jolting her gaze free to look out of the passenger seat window.
‘We’re here,’ she said. Her voice sounded staccato.
Breaking that compelling, unbreakable gaze had freed her. Freed her to get out of the car, go back into Sarrie’s sandwich bar and bid farewell to the evening. Farewell to Nikos Parakis.
A terrible sense of flatness assailed her. The evening was definitely, definitely over. The flatness was crushing. Her brief encounter with Nikos Parakis was at an end.
The chauffeur was opening the passenger door for her and, gathering her skirts, she made herself get out. The night air seemed chilly...sobering. As if all the fizz had gone out of everything. She knew that the alcohol in her bloodstream was exacerbating her reaction, but the knowledge didn’t help counter it.
Nikos followed her out, giving a brief dismissive nod to the driver, who got back into his seat at the front of the car.
Mel painted a bright smile on her face. ‘Thank you for a fabulous evening,’ she said. ‘I had the best time ever. I hope Fiona is now duly convinced that she doesn’t stand a chance with you, and focusses on her Nordic telecoms hunk instead,’ she rattled out.
In a moment the evening would truly be over. Nikos would bid her goodnight and she would get the sandwich bar keys out of her bag and go inside. Nikos would get back into his chauffeur-driven car, and go off to his fancy apartment, back to his glittering, luxurious life filled with tuxedos and five-star hotels and champagne.
She’d go back to making sandwiches. And to booking a flight on a budget airline, heading for the Spanish costas.
She waited for the customary little thrill of anticipation that always came when she thought about her future life—but it didn’t come. Instead an unexpected chill of despondency sifted through her. How could something that only a few hours ago had been her sole burning ambition now seem so...unburning?
Because a few hours ago I hadn’t spent the evening with Nikos Parakis!
Had she sighed? She couldn’t tell. Could only tell that she was making herself stretch out her hand, as if for a brisk farewell handshake. A handshake to end the evening with before she walked back into her own life.
‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘And goodnight.’
She would do this neatly and briskly and they would go their separate ways. He to his world, she to hers. They had been ships that had bumped briefly into each other and were now back on course to their original destinations. And that was that.
You had fun—now it’s over. Accept it. Accept it graciously and go indoors.
Right now.
And stop looking at him!
But she could not stop staring at him, or gazing into his ludicrously gorgeous face and imprinting it on to her memory.
She felt her hand taken. Steeled herself to give the brisk, brief handshake that was appropriate. Nikos Parakis wasn’t a date—this whole evening had been a set-up...nothing more than that. She’d done what she’d been asked to do, had had a wonderful time herself, and now it was time to bow out.
So why did she feel so damn reluctant to do so?
She could feel the blood pulsing in her veins, feel her awareness of his searing masculinity, his ludicrous good looks, as she stood on the bleak bare London pavement at two in the morning, the night air crystal in her lungs. She seemed ultra-aware of the planes and contours of his face, the dark sable of his hair, the faint aromatic scent of his skin and the shadowed darkening of his jaw.
Why, oh, why was she just stuck here, unable to tear herself away, while she felt the warm, strong pressure of his hand taking hers? He was folding his other hand around hers as well, drawing her with effortless strength a little closer to him. Looking down at her, his long-lashed eyes holding hers just as effortlessly as she gazed helplessly up at him.
‘Goodnight—and thank you for coming with me this evening.’ There was a husk in his voice that belied the prosaic words.
Her hand was still enclosed in his and she was standing closer to him now. So close that she could feel her breasts straining, as if she wanted only to press forward, to bind herself against the strong column of his body. She longed to feel that sheathed muscled strength against the pliant wand of her own body, to lift her mouth to his and wind her fingers up into the base of his neck, draw that sculpted mouth down upon hers...
It shook her...the intensity of the urge to do so. Like a slow-motion film running inside her head, she felt her brain try to reason her way out of it. Out of the urge to reach for him, to kiss him...
It had been so, so long since she had kissed a man—any man at all. And longer still since she had given free rein to the physical impulse of intimacy. Jak had left for Africa long ago, and since then there had been only a few perfunctory dates, snatched before caring for her grandfather had become all-consuming.
