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Except, time was gathering pace. She had found her first grey hair and had realised with shock that if she wasn’t careful, she would find herself staring in that very same mirror in ten years’ time and the only difference might be that the single grey hair had multiplied and taken over.
So here she was, getting her life back on track.
She felt the clammy hand of her date slap down on her thigh and she squirmed away with palpable distaste.
They’d exhausted polite conversation and for the life of her she couldn’t think of anything to say. When he leaned in and asked her where they could go from here, she stared at him with alarm because she knew exactly what direction the conversation was now beginning to head.
He wasn’t a threat. Behind the alcohol, he was probably a nice enough guy. She was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. That said, going anywhere with him wasn’t on the menu. She brushed off his hand and was about to launch into a politewell-hasn’t-this-been-fun-but-I’ve-got-to-head-back-now-to-walk-the-dogspeech while simultaneously leaping to her feet and sprinting for the door, when she heard a voice behind her.
A dark, familiar voice that sent shivers racing up and down her spine.
She froze. Then slowly, very slowly, she turned around and there he was in all his ridiculously good-looking glory.
Four and a half wasted years and he still had the same effect on her. The man was six feet four inches of sexy, muscle-packed alpha male. Of Greek heritage, he had a burnished bronzed skin tone. His raven-black hair was just slightly too long, curling at the nape of his neck, and he had the classical features of a statue lovingly sculpted to perfection and then turned into living, breathing human form.
Right now, he was dressed in a pair of dark trousers that emphasised the length of his muscular legs and a white shirt cuffed to the elbows.
The crowded room, the mellow jazz and the bustle of people instantly dimmed to white background noise as Grace’s eyes widened in alarm.
She was barely aware of Victor until she felt his hand on her arm and heard him say, with the over-enunciated precision of someone who’s drunk too much, ‘Friend of yours, Grace?’
Before Grace had time to answer that, Nico was dragging a third chair to the table and swinging it round so that he straddled it, arms resting loosely over the low back, his body language somehow oozing aggression.
Yet his expression was mild enough as his dark eyes swept over her companion and then stayed there.
‘Oh, yes,’ he purred. ‘Grace and I are very good friends.’
‘Nico...’
Grace was so disconcerted that she couldn’t get beyond his name.
What on earth was Nico doing here? Shouldn’t he have been on the other side of the Atlantic? In New York? Hadn’t she booked his flight only a week ago, along with the usual five-star accommodation he demanded?
He was staring at Victor with undisguised curiosity and the sort of bone-deep insolence that needed no words to still feel like a threat.
Grace would have been furious but right now she was heady with relief.
Yes, she was absolutely fine when it came to dealing with most things, but she had dreaded the thought of having to deal with a drunk date.
‘This is Victor,’ she said crisply, while Nico continued to stare at Victor, who had fallen silent in the face of a more powerful and decidedly sober presence.
‘Victor...’
‘Nico, what are you doing here?’
‘Same as you.’ Nico shot her a quick look from under lush lashes. ‘Having some fun. Except, when I spotted you from across the room, you didn’t seem to be having a huge amount of that. Were you? Have I interrupted a fun time? If so, tell me and I’ll leave immediately.’
He’d seen the way the man had shuffled his chair closer to hers, the way he’d tried to make inroads with his hands. He’d seen the way she’d politely pushed him back and revulsion had caught the back of his throat, as sour as bile.
The ferocity of his reaction had shocked him.
Since when had he ever been in the business of rescuing damsels in distress?
Nico had been twenty-three when he had last seriously rescued a damsel in distress, if you could call someone squatting next to an old jalopy with a flat tyre a damsel in distress. More a pocket-sized cute little thing who had known where to position that old jalopy of hers and who had stayed there in the certain knowledge that he would come along. That cute little thing had managed to steal his heart, or so he had thought before he’d wised up to the fact that the only thing she’d wanted to steal had been what was in his bank balance. When he’d tried to break up ten months after they’d met, by which time he’d recognised just how keen she’d been on all the material benefits he could bring to the table, she’d given him a piece of her mind and gone so far as to consult a lawyer to see if she could get anything on some spurious ‘broken promises’ platform.
Since then, Nico had learnt the wisdom of self-control so his utter lack of it when he had seen Grace from across the room confused the hell out of him.
‘No answer?’ He smiled a crocodile smile at Victor, who was now glaring accusingly at Grace.
