‘OK. Then let’s go find a table.’
She found herself standing and walking with him to the adjoining restaurant just like that. No hesitation, no second thought, just simplicity.
He grinned as they sat down. ‘I really am starving.’
‘So you haven’t caught anything much lately, you big tiger, you,’ she mocked.
He laughed. ‘I’m confident I can make up for it.’
Bella met the message in his eyes. And was quite sure he could.
CHAPTER THREE
OWEN felt a ridiculous surge of pleasure at finally having made Bella see the funny side. And, just as he’d suspected, she had a killer of a smile and a deadly sweet giggle. Her full lips invited and her eyes crinkled at the corners. He couldn’t decide if they were pale blue or grey, but he liked looking a lot while trying to work it out and he liked watching them widen the more he looked.
He’d been bluffing—if he really were some tiger in the jungle, he’d have died of starvation months ago. Sex was a recreational hobby for him, very recreational. But it had been a while. Way too much of a while. Maybe that was why he’d felt the irresistible pull of attraction when she’d walked into the bar. He’d been sitting at a table in the corner and almost without will had walked up to stand beside her at the bar. Just to get a closer look at her little hourglass figure. In the shirt and skirt he could see shapely legs and frankly bountiful breasts that had called to the most base of elements in him.
Then he’d noticed the droop to her lip that she’d been determinedly trying to lift as she’d read that menu. And he’d just had to make her smile.
The table he’d led her to was in the most isolated corner of the restaurant he could find. He didn’t want her family interrupting any sooner than necessary. Wanted to keep jousting and joking with her. Wanted a whole lot more than that too and needed the time to make it happen.
‘So,’ she asked, suddenly perky, ‘what sort of computers? You work for some software giant?’
‘I work for myself.’ For the last ten years he’d done nothing much other than work—pulling it together, thinking it through, organising the team and getting it done.
‘Programming what—games? Banking software?’
‘I work in security.’
‘Oh, my.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I bet you’re one of them whiz-kids who broke into the FBI’s files when you were fourteen, or created some nasty virus. Bad-boy hacker now crossed over to the good side or something—am I right?’
‘No.’ He chuckled. Truth was the actual programming stuff wasn’t him—he had bona fide computer nerds working for him. He was the ideas guy—who’d thought up a way to make online payments more secure, and now to protect identity. ‘I’ve never been in trouble with the law.’
‘Oh. So …’ She paused, clearly trying to think up the next big assault. ‘Business good?’
‘You could say that.’ Inwardly he smiled. He now had employees scattered around the world. A truly international operation, but one that he preferred to direct from his inner-city bolt hole in Wellington. But he didn’t want to talk about work—it was all consuming, even keeping his mind racing when he should be asleep. That was why he was on Waiheke, staying at his holiday home a few yards down the beach from the hotel. He was due for some R & R, a little distraction. And the ideal distraction seemed to have stepped right in front of him.
His banter before hadn’t all been a lie, though. He did believe in going for what he wanted and then moving right on. This little poppet was the perfect pastime for his weekend of unwind time. So he’d made sure she understood the way he played it. Spelt the rules out loud and clear. She’d got them, as he’d intended, and she was tempted. Now he just had to give her that extra little nudge.
She was studying the menu intently. And he studied her, taken by the stripe of sunburn that disappeared under her shirt. It seemed to be riding along to the crest of her breast and his fingers itched to follow its path.
When the waiter came she ordered with an almost reckless abandonment and he joined in. He was hungry. He’d splashed up the beach over an hour ago now. He hadn’t been able to be bothered fixing something for himself, figured he’d get a meal to take away from the restaurant. Only now he’d found something better to take back with him.
‘Oh, no.’ The look on her face was comical.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Some of my family has arrived.’
‘It’s time for drinks, then, huh?’ He turned his head in the direction she was staring. Inwardly cursing. Just whe
n she was getting warmed up.
He saw the tall blonde looking over at them speculatively. When she saw them notice her, she strode over, long legs making short work of the distance.
‘Bella. So sorry,’ she clipped. ‘It’s your birthday and you’re here all alone.’
What? thought Owen. Was he suddenly invisible?