Exotic Nights

‘It needed to happen.’

‘You’ve got work already?’

She nodded and admitted it. ‘I’ve got a job at one of those good cafés. And I’m going to hit the audition circuit.’ She’d already scoped the talent agencies. Knew which ones she was going to target. Hopefully they’d take her on. And then it was a matter of keeping trying and hoping for Lady Luck to smile on her.

He lifted the plates onto the tray. Noodles with wilted spinach and slices of seared beef. Her mouth watered. She hadn’t had a meal as good as this in weeks.

‘Wine?’

She hadn’t noticed the bottle of red standing on the bench.

‘Thanks.’

He added the bottle to the tray, glanced at her, all irony again. ‘Can you manage the glasses?’

‘I think so,’ she answered coolly.

She followed him up the stairs she hadn’t even noticed earlier. They literally climbed to the roof—to a door that took them right out onto it.

The air outside was warm and not too windy. Most of the roof was bare, but there was a collection of plants in pots lined up close together. As he led her around them she saw they created a hedge. On the sheltered side a small table stood, with a couple of chairs, and a collection of smaller pots holding herbs, a couple holding cherry-tomato bushes. It wasn’t a huge garden, but it was well cared for. And the view took in the vibrant part of the city, gave them a soundtrack that was full of life.

He balanced the tray on the edge of the table, unloaded the plates with such ease she knew he’d done it countless times before. Just how many women had dined on his roof? It was, she speculated, the perfect scene for seduction.

Well, not hers. Not again.

But she sat when he gestured and he sat too. He seemed bigger than she recalled. His legs were close under the table and it would be nothing to stretch out and brush hers against his. She felt the flush rise in her cheeks and took a sip of the wine so she could hide behind the glass.

‘I’ve organised for your car to be taken to my local garage. I’ll get them to check the tyres too. A couple looked a little bald.’

Bella’s nerves jangled. The wine tasted sharper. She swallowed it down hard. She couldn’t afford new tyres and the last thing she wanted to be was even more indebted to him. A night in his spare room she could deal with. But nothing more. And fixing up her car was well beyond her at the moment. She didn’t want to be dependent on anyone. Certainly didn’t want to be beholden to him.

‘I’d really prefer that you didn’t,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘I can take care of it myself.’

And she would. She was over having people interfering and trying to organise her life for her, as if they all thought she couldn’t. As if they thought the decisions she made were ill judged.

He didn’t reply immediately—coolly having a sip of his wine and seeming to savour it while studying her expression. ‘At least let me arrange to have it brought here. It’ll be a sitting duck left in a supermarket car park like that.’

She bit the inside of her lip. He was right. It was the ideal target for teenage joyriders—irresistible, in fact. And she loved Bubbles, would hate to see her wrecked, which she would be if any boy racers decided to have a laugh in her. Besides, she suddenly remembered all her party gear was in the back. She certainly couldn’t afford to replace all that in a hurry. She knew that once again she couldn’t refuse him.

‘OK,’ she capitulated in a low voice. ‘Thanks.’

She sampled some of her dinner. He was right, the sauce was divine—and so was the way he’d cooked the meat in it. But she couldn’t enjoy it as much as she ought—the day’s events were catching up with her and she realised just what the small fire in her flat had meant. The silence grew and while she knew she should make the attempt she couldn’t think what to say. It was like the white elephant in the room—that subject she was determined to avoid. How did people play this sort of thing? How would some sophisticate handle it? How did she pretend bumping into the guy she’d had the hottest sex of her life with was no big deal? But it was a big deal.

Because she wanted it again—badly. Only he’d walked away so quickly, so easily and seemingly without thought to where it had left her.

And now, seeing him in his home environment, she knew he was nothing like the guy she’d pegged him as. He was way out of her league and, judging by the blandly polite way he was dealing with her, he was no longer interested anyway.

He rested his fork on his plate and looked at her. ‘So tell me about the wedding.’

She lowered her fork too. So he did remember about that—did he remember he’d offered to be her date too? She shrugged the question off. ‘What’s to tell?’

Owen lifted his fork again and determinedly focused on his food. It was just like that night on Waiheke—one glance and all he wanted to do was take her to bed. For that time in the bar he couldn’t have cared less about work and the commitments he knew were burdening him. Not until he’d had her. But then those commitments had pulled. He’d cursed it at the time, mentally swearing as he’d worked through the early hours answering the questions his client had been struggling with.

He’d walked from her. He’d had to work—that was his first priority. It was the one thing he knew he could be relied on to do, and all the while he’d been doing it he’d been thinking of her—of the most spectacular sex of his life. But then, only a few hours later, he’d tried her number, wanting to apologise for letting her down about the wedding and for walking out so fast, but found it rang to someone who’d never heard of her.

Stung, he’d decided it was for the best—a one-off, as most of his encounters were. It was the way he liked it—simple, uncomplicated, with no threat of someone wanting something more from him, emotionally or financially. He’d been appalled to discover years ago that he didn’t have the ‘more’ emotionally to give. When Liz had tried to force a commitment, he’d realised damn quick how much he didn’t want the burden of it. He couldn’t meet high needs, high maintenance, high anything. He didn’t want the responsibility of family and forever and all that. Casual, brief, fun. That was all he offered and all he wanted.

But it still niggled. She’d cut at his pride. Tony’s Lawn Mowing Service. He wouldn’t