About Last Night

Cath tried to ignore the flush of pleasure that washed over her at the sight of him, but it was hard. Half a dozen different places on her body were reminding her of what he’d done to them on Saturday, and not one had a bad word to say about him. Stupid body.

She closed her eyes and took a moment to roll the fortifications into place around her heart. He wasn’t playing fair—she hadn’t expected to see him again this morning. She hadn’t expected to see him again at all. And he’d switched tactics. Where was the impassive City face from Saturday morning, the one that had told her to git on home?

“This isn’t your train,” she said. She could be chilly. She could totally be chilly.

“No. You weren’t at the park this morning.”

He’d been looking for her. With a near-audible thunk, a little spear of pleasure hit the ramparts she’d tossed up to protect herself, and she bit her lip. Silly to be delighted by his interest. She was finished with him. She was New Cath again.

The train stopped at Cutty Sark, the doors opening with the usual high-pitched beeping, and she considered flight. Because she was delighted by his interest, and all New Cath had on hand to keep him at bay were temporary defenses, weak and termite-riddled. There were ten more stops between here and Bank. The walls would never hold.

The train doors closed.

Flight wouldn’t have worked anyway. City was standing directly in front of her, and even though his eyes were lit with amusement, there was resolve there, too. The odds he’d let her slip by him were slim.

She opted for silence, hoping she could drive him away with her obvious lack of interest. A lack of interest she’d probably be more successful in conveying if she were able to look at her journal or out the window or anywhere, really, but directly at his handsome, clean-shaven face.

She bet he shaved with a straight razor. His jaw practically gleamed.

Silence had never been her strong suit. She only managed about ten seconds before blurting out, “So who was he?”

“My brother.”

As she’d thought. “He didn’t like me much.”

“Winston is a wanker.”

Cath had to smile at this, but she couldn’t forget Nev’s sudden change in temperament. “Is that why you didn’t introduce me?”

“I’m sorry about that. It was terribly rude. I was momentarily … distracted, and by the time I recovered, you’d gone.”

How inconvenient, to believe him. It would be so much easier if he were a jerk or a liar. So much easier if she could hold on to what was left of her anger. But she couldn’t. City was one of the good guys, after all. So she let it go, and the fortifications groaned, because anger had been the stoutest of the flimsy devices propping them up.

“I’d like to make it up to you,” he said. “Will you let me take you to lunch?”

Another spear, another thunk. Oh, man, this was hopeless.

Men never asked Cath to lunch. They asked her if she wanted to hang out, to catch a movie, to come home with them, but they didn’t ask her to lunch. Not before she’d slept with them, and certainly not afterward.

“Why would you want to do that?”

“The usual reasons, I suppose,” he said with a puzzled frown. “I’m interested in you. I like you. I want to get to know you better.”

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

She and City were over and done with, but he seemed to have missed the memo. Or he’d read it, then shredded it.

So send him another copy.

She didn’t want to. She knew she should, but she so didn’t want to. “You’re just trying to get me back into bed with you.”

Nev’s mouth curled up at the corners, and he lowered his voice, leaning closer. “Of course I’m trying to get you back into bed with me. I loved having you in my bed. I’d like to chain you to my bed.” He trailed a finger down her bare arm, leaving a trail of sighing nerve endings. “But I’d also like to have lunch with you.”

Thunk.

Desperate to maintain her resolve, Cath gestured toward a woman at the other end of the car. “Isn’t Portia there more your type?” Tall, blond, and refined, the woman was dressed for the office in a pencil skirt and an expensive-looking white silk blouse. Cath, by contrast, wore a cheap black sleeveless top and pants from Zara. Her fingernails were bitten to the quick, her hair hopelessly wispy. He didn’t want her. She was a mess.

Nev glanced over at the woman and then looked back at Cath, his smile widening as his eyes traveled the length of her body. “I know what I want, Mary Catherine.”