Anouk snorted rather indelicately.
‘You must know they’re secretly hoping for more.’
‘Some, maybe. But I make no false pretences. Why does this rile you so much, Anouk?’ His voice softened suddenly. ‘Is this about what happened with Saskia? Or did some bloke treat you that badly in the past?’
He might as well have doused her with a bucket of icy water.
What was she doing arguing with him about this? Letting him see how much it bothered her just as clearly as if she’d slid her heart onto her sleeve.
She fought to regroup. To plaster a smile on her face as though she weren’t in the least bothered by the turn of conversation. But she feared it looked more like a grimace.
‘No, I’m fortunate that I’ve never been treated that way.’
She didn’t add that she’d watched her mother repeat the same mistake over and over enough times never to be caught out like that.
‘Never?’
‘Never,’ she confirmed adamantly.
As though that would rewind the clock. Back to the start of the conversation when she hadn’t been quite so revealing about herself. Or the start of the night before she’d let Saskia walk away and leave her alone with him. Or three days ago when they’d worked together on little Isobel and she’d arrogantly imagined she saw something in the man that no one else appeared to have noticed.
The worst of it was that there was some component of her that didn’t want to rewind anything. Which, despite every grey cell in her brain screaming at her not to be such an idiot, was enjoying tonight. With Sol.
‘In that case, there’s something else you should bear in mind.’ He leaned into her ear, his breath tickling her skin, and it was like a huge hand stealing into her chest and closing around her heart. ‘There are plenty of women who enjoy no-strings sex just as much as I do.’
Don’t imagine him in bed. Don’t.
But it was too late.
Anouk wrinkled her nose in self-disgust.
‘I get that in your twenties, but you’re—what? Mid-thirties? Don’t you think you might want to grow up some time? Settle down. Be an adult.’ She cocked an eyebrow. ‘You aren’t Peter Pan.’
‘That’s a shame, because you’d make the perfect Tinker Bell.’
‘I’m not a ruddy fairy,’ she huffed crossly.
‘See?’ he teased, oblivious to the eddies now churning within her. ‘You even have the Tinker Bell temper down flawlessly. Clearly we’re perfectly matched.’
‘We most certainly are not,’ she gasped.
And he laughed whilst she pretended to be irritated, even though she still didn’t try to pull away. So when Sol’s hand didn’t leave her, when his body remained so close to hers without actually invading her space or making her feel crowded in, and when he deftly steered her out of the path of a couple of rather glassy-eyed, lustful-looking men, she found it all such an intoxicating experience.
As though Sol wanted to keep her to himself.
No, she was being fanciful, not to mention ridiculous.
And still that knot sat there, in the pit of her stomach. Not apprehension so much as...anticipation. She was waiting for Sol to do something. More than that, she wanted him to.
Perhaps that was why, when reality cut harshly into the dream that the night had become, Anouk was caught completely off guard.
‘Now, these are the Hintons,’ he leaned in to whisper in her ear as a rather glamorous older-looking couple approached. ‘She was a human rights lawyer whilst he was a top cardiothoracic surgeon. They’re nice, too.’
‘How lovely to meet you.’ The older woman smiled at her, but her old eyes burned brightly as they looked her over thoughtfully. ‘Anouk Hart... Hartwood... Hmm. You seem familiar, my dear?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ Anouk forced herself to smile back but her cheeks felt too frozen, her smile too false.
The woman peered closer and Anouk could feel the blood starting to drag through her veins even as her heart kicked with the effort of getting it moving again.