Dating and Other Dangers

Well, she couldn’t talk when she was so busy inhaling all the cream. But now she was a little sugared up her fighting spirit revived. A divine dessert wasn’t going to soften her attitude. ‘I’m composing my write-up of this date for my blog.’

Something flickered on his face and he set down his cutlery and pushed his plate away.

‘What are you going to write about it?’ she asked, sweeter than her pastry. ‘I’m so looking forward to our next date where you “nail” me.’

‘I’m looking forward to that too,’ he answered, utterly unabashed.

‘My choice for the date, though, isn’t it? You wanted to go to the movies for the first.’

‘Okay, so what do you want to do?’ He conceded surprisingly quickly.

‘A day date, I think.’ Safe and out in the open, where lots of people would be around. She didn’t want to drop-kick him out of touch until the very last date, which meant she was going to have to play the first two just right.

‘A day date?’ Ethan sat back so the waiter could clear their plates.

‘Sunday afternoon suit you?’ Nadia asked. The sooner it was all over, the better.

‘Sure.’ He refilled their glasses. ‘I’m really looking forward to spending more time with you. You’re really good company.’

She suppressed a giggle at his not-quite-hidden sarcasm. Instead she lifted her glass and challenged him. ‘I thought you said you weren’t going to try to impress me.’

‘I guess it’s habit.’ He shrugged, but let loose that smile.

‘You always compliment?’

‘Always.’ He gazed intently at her. ‘And you don’t think that’s okay.’

‘It’s not necessarily a bad habit,’ she mused. ‘But it is if you don’t mean what you say.’

‘But I do mean it.’

‘Always?’ She put down her glass and frowned.

‘Sure.’

‘Really? Don’t you sometimes do it because you know it’ll make the other person feel good?’

‘Is that a bad thing?’

‘It is if it’s not honest.’

‘All right,’ he said softly, and leaned across the table. ‘You want honesty? Here’s some for you—I think you look fantastic in that dress. I think you look really fantastic. I don’t want you to. It would be a lot easier if I didn’t find you attractive, but honestly I think you look …’

‘What?’

‘It’s indescribable,’ he said roughly. ‘Maybe you should feel what you do to me? Can you handle that kind of honesty?’

His hand shot out and grabbed hers, and before she could blink he’d pressed her palm to his chest. Through the cotton she could feel the heat, the fast, rhythmic pounding. Suddenly she could hear it too, thudding in her ears. Her own blood was pumping in time with his. And that wasn’t her body’s only reaction. She breathed more quickly, shallow. And worst of all was the softening—that warm, melting sensation happening in secret deep inside her. The readying for full possession by a body so much bigger and harder than hers.

She stayed frozen for five seconds too long, until awareness of their surroundings slowly returned. She was stretched across a table in a fine French restaurant, gazing into this guy’s gorgeous cinnamon-brown eyes like as if was mesmerised. She was feeling this intense, intimate thing …

Then she remembered her rule.

Don’t be too sexual.

And this was all about the rules. She swallowed, battling to return to the right regime. But every movement was sexual. Everything about him was sexual. He was a complete magnet and he knew it. But she was going to disarm him—be the one piece he couldn’t pull.

‘Oh, you’re good,’ she said, forcing coolness into her voice, sliding her hand out from under his and bringing it back to press her fist hard against her belly beneath the table-edge. ‘You like to have the women want you, don’t you? Maybe that’s the real reason you compliment so much—it’s not their need you’re filling, it’s your own.’

‘And you’re really good at coming up with fiction.’ He sat back, looking a ton cooler than she’d sounded. ‘Whereas I prefer facts. And I did my research on you.’

‘And what facts do you think you found out?’ Her temperature soared again as anger bubbled.

‘You put it all up there yourself. It wasn’t hard to find. That very first entry on WomanBWarned.’ He leaned forward. ‘Rafe Buxton, wasn’t it?’

She avoided answering by taking another sip of her wine, her blood drumming in her ears. How dared he bring that up? That was personal.

‘What were you thinking, going with a guy called Rafe in the first place? Weren’t the alarm bells ringing then?’ he asked, refilling her glass when she set it down.

‘I’m not discussing this with you,’ she snapped. ‘You’re unable to feel any empathy. All you want to do is push your agenda.’

‘Not true,’ he said, annoyingly quietly. ‘I only want to understand where you’re coming from.’

She just glared at him.

‘So he was a “virginity collector”?’

Heat blinded her—anger, yes, but incredible embarrassment too. She’d been so stupid, and she really didn’t want to relive it. Didn’t want to discuss her pathetic sexual past with such a shark. She didn’t want him to know it at all, so she had another sip of wine. A big one.

‘So your first was a jerk?’ He shrugged. ‘You don’t have to let it colour the rest of your life.’

Oh, she couldn’t not answer that. ‘What I won’t do is let him get away with it. He preys on young women who are getting their first taste of freedom. Finding independence.’ A tutor at a university, he dazzled naïve students with his good-looks and charm and intellectual ability—or at least that façade. Once she’d found out the truth she’d seen that those things were cultivated, not innate or truly deep.

‘But we all have to make mistakes. That’s part of being human.’

‘No,’ she disagreed. ‘There’s a difference between making a mistake and being abused.’ And Rafe had abused her—and several other young women. ‘Illusions shouldn’t be shattered like that.’

‘But everybody has to face reality some time.’

‘You think that’s reality?’ She was appalled. ‘So there’s no such thing as a committed, loving relationship?’

‘Happy ever after?’ Ethan shook his head. ‘No.’

His cynicism hurt, even though it shouldn’t have surprised her. But she could acknowledge a portion of truth in his words regarding that painful episode.

‘Maybe not at that age,’ she conceded. It had been her second year of university. She’d come from a small

northern town and she’d been sheltered. Cosseted, really, by over-protective parents and brothers. As a result she’d been gullible and so easily dazzled. ‘I wasn’t looking for marriage. But there could have been some kindness and some fun. Not just being another number on his list.’ Not being anything but an object. It had been a complete game for him. And once he’d had what he wanted—her virginity—he’d gone on to the next. Another virgin. In the very same week.

Megan.

Only neither of them had known about the other. About all the others.

‘You wanted some respect?’

‘And honesty.’ He’d played them both together. And others. And once they’d found out, by talking at night at a party one night, their friendship had been forged. It was the one truly positive thing to have emerged from an otherwise crushing, humiliating situation. And it had led to WomanBWarned.

‘You’re really into honesty, huh?’ Ethan’s brown eyes burned darker.

‘There can be nothing without honesty.’ Certainly not trust. And without trust or honesty or respect there was nothing to support any kind of a relationship.

‘But you’re not honest.’ With careful deliberation he struck at her integrity.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘No.’ He shook his head, a wry smile softening the accusation. ‘You’re not. You hide behind your website. Behind your stature. All wide eyes—like you’re this little thing who has no control over the situations you find yourself in.’

Stunned, she stared at him—he was wrong. ‘That’s not true.’ She hated how people perceived her as weak because she was little. She certainly didn’t think she was weak herself. She spent her life proving she wasn’t. ‘I was tricked,’ she said. ‘But I admit my own responsibility, my own stupidity.’