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On autopilot and instinct, I lift a finger to Zach’s chest, staring into the depths of his dark brown eyes. ‘And what exactly does “being in your wheelhouse” entail?’
Heat sears me. I feel it erupt between us, as though a blowtorch is aimed right at me.
‘I’m always looking for movers and shakers in the digital market.’
‘And you like the way I move and shake?’
He stares at me for a second then bursts out laughing. ‘You know how gross that would have sounded if I said it?’
I laugh right back. ‘Yeah, true.’
He sobers. ‘But you said it, so it was hot.’
‘I’m flattered.’
‘No, you’re flirting, and you’re very good at it.’ More shame. So’s my dad, if his string of affairs is anything to go by. I push those thoughts aside once and for all, wondering if one day his ghost will cease to haunt me.
Zach’s other hand, the one that’s not propped along the bar top, moves to my hip.
‘You’re sure we haven’t met before,’ he queries, moving so he can drink some Scotch. I smell a hint of it in the air between us, or maybe that’s my own desire clouding all my senses.
‘I think I’d remember that.’
‘Likewise.’ The word rumbles between us. ‘What brings you to Singapore?’
‘How do you know I don’t live here?’
‘Your accent.’
I lived in England for the first ten years of my life, then moved around depending on where Dad’s latest corporate conquest required; his last job—and a long-term mistress—are both here in Singapore.
‘You have an Australian accent but you live here.’
‘I spend time here,’ he says with a shrug. ‘I live all over.’
‘Ah. A man who refuses to be tied down. I hear that.’
He grins. ‘Being tied down is highly overrated.’
Our eyes meet in a sign of solidarity. ‘You’re preaching to the choir.’
‘Am I?’
My smile hides a multitude of hurts—hurts I’ve come to terms with over the years, but that doesn?
?t mean they’re not still lurking there. My father’s philandering, the way it felt to discover how routinely unfaithful he’d been to my mother, my brother-in-law’s attitudes to women—to think he could actually proposition me. The way I’d hurt the one man who’d ever loved me—I’d hurt Patrick so badly, just because I was careless. And the pain I’ve seen my mum and sister go through because of their marriages.
Who’d give up the freedom and independence of single life for the torment of a steady relationship?
I throw back the rest of my Scotch. ‘Putting down roots is my idea of hell.’
It didn’t used to be. As a kid dragged from one exclusive international private school to the next I used to desperately crave stability. I hated that Dad’s job meant we had to move so often. I hated making new friends then losing them again almost as quickly; I hated needing to learn new systems, routines, rhythms, hang-outs, but now I feel completely blessed. Give me a rucksack, three bars of Internet access and a phone charger and I could disappear for weeks.
‘So?’ He leans forward and now his lips brush my cheek as he moves closer to my ear. My stomach feels as if I’ve just crested right over the top of a roller coaster. ‘What brings you here?’
I bite down on my lower lip, massaging it with my teeth. For a second, I can barely think straight. ‘To the bar?’
‘To Singapore.’
