A Dangerous Solace

The sentiment found its home.

She didn’t know where to look. She’d been spot-on back in the bar, when it had occurred to her that he hadn’t been serious at all...but she’d taken him very seriously—too seriously—and now it was too late to avoid disaster. She’d mistaken the kiss as proof of something. Oh, what was wrong with her? She always got social interaction between men and women wrong. Every time.

This was why she’d stuck with Bernard for so long, terrified of what would happen to her out there on the singles scene. She’d been out there once before...when she came back from Rome seven years ago, looking for something approaching what she’d found that night with this man. What she’d got was a guy called Patrick whose sports car and good looks had been her fledgling attempt to put herself out there, to run in the fast lane, and his dating her had been an attempt to slow himself down. She’d discovered a few months into the relationship that he hadn’t slowed down at all.

Right now she just wanted out of this car. She needed to run and hide and make sense of this—and then kick herself for being such a fool.

‘I didn’t issue that invitation. If it was flimsy that’s down to you,’ she mumbled. ‘And you don’t need to question my common sense. Right now I’m doing enough of that for the both of us!’

She saw his eyes narrow on her, as if something about this wasn’t playing out as he’d expected it to.

When he did speak again it was in a low, silky tone. ‘So, where have I gone wrong, signorina?’

Just about everywhere! She should be able to laugh about this, but the joke fell flat because it was on her. Right now she knew she was in serious danger of losing it in a major way if she didn’t stick to the facts. Cold, hard logic had always been her anchor, her guiding light, and she grasped it now.

‘Flimsy invitation or not—’ she kept her voice steady ‘—you invited me!’ When he didn’t react she repeated stubbornly, ‘You invited me.’

He took out his phone and she watched his thumb move idly over the keypad. He looked so relaxed, as if this entire argument were nothing, and yet his words had been wielded with scalpel-like precision as he took her apart.

‘Did you set up the paparazzo?’ He didn’t even look up.

Ava snorted—she couldn’t help it—and his eyes lifted from his phone as if no woman should make such a sound in his vicinity.

Good. She didn’t want to be his kind of woman anyhow. ‘Do you know what you are? A bully, and a—a playboy, and none of this is fair.’

‘Is that so?’ His attention had returned to the phone.

‘Right now all I’m thinking about is the hours I spent getting ready for tonight,’ she admitted, wondering why she was even bothering to tell him this—he was much more interested in his phone. ‘And I don’t have a clue why I did it.’

‘To impress me,’ he said, as if it were obvious.

Ava’s jaw dropped. ‘Your ego is astounding!’ A blast of anger that demanded she call in a little justice fired up her temper. ‘Just you put down that phone and listen to me.’

He lifted his eyes slowly and Ava wished he hadn’t. She swallowed—hard—but she’d come a long way in life and she didn’t let anyone intimidate her any more.

‘I’m not one of those floozies climbing all over you at that bar. Let me give you some facts. Last month I was listed in the top fifty women in business in Australia. It may not mean much to you, Prince Benedetti, but it does mean I don’t bar-crawl, I don’t milk men for profit, and I certainly have no idea how you contact a paparazzo.’

‘And you are giving me this fascinating glimpse into your life...why?’

With that a great deal of the fight went out of her.

What was she doing? She had a single memory of something wonderful and it was falling apart in front of her eyes. She couldn’t even really blame him, because although this man had ripped her blinders off seven years ago the truth was she had sent herself off to live a life devoid of colour, of passion, of sex.

It was a startling realisation, and as if reality had decided to tear down all her supports, tension combined with one glass of white wine and three glasses of red on an empty stomach began to swirl and shift in her belly. Everything else was wiped out by the very real knowledge she was probably going to be sick.

‘Time to wind this up,’ he said, shooting the sleeve on his left arm.

He wanted her to get out. This wasn’t his problem. He was just a man to whom everything came easily, and she was a woman for whom nothing had come without hard work. She gathered up her handbag.