by Lucy King
Dan swallowed back the impulse, shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans in case they got ideas and reminded himself to concentrate. ‘So why did you throw yourself at me?’ he asked, rather more interested in her answer than he thought he ought to be.
She snapped her gaze back up to meet his and gave herself a quick shake. ‘Oh. Well. It was all part of my plan.’
‘What plan?’
‘The one I came up with five minutes ago.’
‘That was quick.’
She sighed. ‘Way too quick as it turns out. It’s my very makeshift, badly thought out, and with hindsight a total mistake plan.’
‘But one that somehow involves me?’
‘I was rather hoping so.’
‘How?’
Her eyes clouded over again and the panic he thought he’d glimpsed earlier flared in their depths. ‘I’ve got myself into a bit of a fix and I need your help.’
Her voice suddenly held a faint tremble and her body tensed and Dan went still, every instinct he possessed telling him to get away from her right now because, while he might have been wrong in his assessment of her motives earlier, he didn’t do damsels in distress—however attracted to them he was—and he didn’t do help, and nothing good would come of changing his mind about any of that now.
But although his brain was waving great warning signs alerting him to the possible dangers of sticking around, something was keeping his mouth from forming a parting shot and something was keeping his feet from moving. To his alarm he was rooted to the spot, strangely transfixed and unusually bothered by the desperation she was emanating, and he was mystified as to why. Surely he couldn’t actually be interested in hearing her out, could he?
‘What kind of a fix?’ he muttered since he could hardly carry on standing there in silence.
‘See that bunch of women over there?’ She smiled over his shoulder at them and gave a little wave.
He winced as one of them shrieked with laughter. ‘They’re impossible to miss.’
‘I know.’
‘What’s the occasion?’
‘School reunion.’
‘Fun?’ He couldn’t think of anything worse, but then he’d hated his school years.
She shuddered. ‘Absolutely horrendous.’
‘So what are you doing here?’
‘I thought it would be cathartic.’
‘And is it?’
‘No.’
‘Then why not just leave?’
‘Another excellent question.’ She sighed and bit her lip and his gaze dipped to watch, his mouth going dry as he involuntarily imagined nibbling on that lip himself. ‘You’d think that would have been the sensible thing to do, wouldn’t you? The logical thing... But tonight my common sense and logic seem to have deserted me.’
Dan cleared his throat and thought that the same could be applied to him. ‘How unfortunate,’ he said and told himself that it might be a good idea to try and stay cool and aloof if he was ever going to extricate himself from the mess he seemed intent on submerging himself in.
‘It is. Very. It’s never happened to me before.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t normally go around kissing strange men, you know.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’ And oddly enough he was. ‘So why did you?’
She tilted her head and regarded him contemplatively, as if mentally debating whether and how to continue. ‘Have you ever been to a school reunion hoping to impress everyone with the success you’ve achieved?’ she asked eventually.
‘No.’ Hell would freeze over first. And besides, if anyone was interested they could read about it in the papers like everyone else seemed to want to.
‘Well, I was.’ She sighed. ‘But it turns out that none of them could care less about any of that. All that any of them can bang on about is their husbands and children.’
At the resignation and disdain in her voice Dan couldn’t help feeling a stab of sympathy despite his intention to remain detached, because he knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of that kind of conversation. ‘Now that does sound bad.’
‘It’s awful. I have neither and there’s only so much chat about school league tables and the importance of baby violin classes I can stomach, which is, I’ve discovered, not a lot.’
‘I’m not surprised. How on earth does a baby get to grips with a violin?’
‘I didn’t dare ask.’ She closed her eyes briefly, pinched the bridge of her nose and gave her head a shake of what looked like hopelessness. ‘And they’re the most appalling snobs.’
‘Really?’
She nodded. ‘I’ve never seen such one-upmanship and as for the name-dropping, well, if that were an Olympic sport there’d be golds all round.’
‘Then why do you want to impress them?’
‘It’s a long and tedious story,’ she said, before pulling her shoulders back and lifting her chin. ‘Let’s just say that I wasn’t exactly the most popular girl at school and I ended up with the bruises to prove it.’
As the implications of that sank in Dan’s jaw automatically tightened and his hands curled into fists because he knew about that too. His sister, Celia, had been bullied, and even though, unlike this woman, she’d eventually managed to deal with it, it was still a cause for regret that he’d been too busy dealing with the way he’d felt about their parents’ divorce to realise what had been going on.
‘I wanted retribution,’ she added.
‘I see,’ he said, wishing not for the first time that he could string up every bully who’d ever existed and flog them to within an inch of their lives. ‘So you were aiming for the living-well-being-the-best-revenge kind of thing?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Then what’s the fix?’
She blushed and shifted her weight from one foot to the other and then took a deep breath. ‘It didn’t have the impact I was hoping for.’ She stopped. Winced a little, he thought.
‘And?’ he prompted.
‘And so I invented a boyfriend.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘What?’
She went red. ‘Please don’t make me say it again.’
‘OK, but why?’
‘Because I figured that that’s the only thing they deem impressive.’ She sighed. ‘It’s totally pathetic, I realise, but I seem to be sixteen all over again and, well, you know...’ She tailed off and shrugged.
‘Don’t you have a real one?’
She flashed him a look of exasperation. ‘If I did I wouldn’t have had to invent one, would I?’
‘I suppose not.’ Although why she didn’t when she looked like that and felt like that he had no idea.
‘And I certainly wouldn’t have been kissing you.’
Which would have been a shame, he thought, briefly distracted by the memory of her mouth moving against his. ‘Did it work?’
‘Like a dream. Or should I say a nightmare? Things have got a bit out of hand.’
‘How?’
She shook her head as if utterly unable to comprehend what was going on. ‘All I did was mention that I had a boyfriend, but I guess I should have realised they’d descend on that piece of information like a pack of starving hyenas. They started bombarding me with all these questions about what he did and where he was from, and things just kind of snowballed. They even started asking if he was The One.’ She grimaced. ‘I mean, seriously? Don’t they know how statistically unlikely it is that you’ll ever find The One?’
‘Presumably not.’
‘The chances have been calculated at around one in two-hundred-and-fifty-eight thousand, which I think you’ll agree are not great odds.’
At her indignation, Dan felt his mouth twitch with the beginnings of a grin. ‘They certainly don’t sound that good.’
&n
bsp; ‘They’re atrocious, and the odds that there’s only one One are even less. But anyway, I was in the middle of extolling my fictitious boyfriend’s virtues, of which there are a great many, naturally—’
‘Naturally.’
‘When someone said a bit too sceptically for my liking that he sounded too good to be true and it wound me up. So I thought I’d collar the next vaguely presentable man who walked in and ask him to help. Then you showed up, and I thought you’ll do.’
‘Charming,’ said Dan dryly, wondering whether he ought to be offended or impressed by her candour.
She shrugged. ‘Sorry.’
Settling on the latter, he said, ‘At least you’re honest.’ Which made a refreshing change when it came to the opposite sex.
‘Hardly,’ she said, giving him a wry smile. ‘I’ve just spent every one of the last ten minutes lying my head off. I don’t normally, but this evening I seem to have gone a bit off the rails. Hence the kiss,’ she added, and then a look of horror crossed her face and her gaze dropped to his left hand as a thought evidently crossed her mind. ‘God, you’re not married or anything, are you?’
‘No.’ Much to his mother’s continual and extremely vocal disappointment.
‘Girlfriend?’
‘Not at the moment,’ he said, just about managing to hold back the shudder that wanted to run through him at the thought.
She gave him a bright smile and let out a long breath. ‘Oh, that is a relief.’
‘Isn’t it?’ And not just for her. ‘Although if I’d had either I’m not sure they’d have been all that impressed at what just happened.’
‘No,’ she conceded. ‘But then you could always have told them I started it.’
He tilted his head and shot her a sceptical look. ‘Would you settle for that?’
She stared at him in surprise. ‘Why not? It’s the truth, isn’t it?’
‘When does that ever matter?’
‘You sound cynical.’
‘Just being realistic.’
‘Maybe you should get some new friends.’
‘Maybe I should.’
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘if I trusted you, of course I’d believe you.’
She made it sound so simple. ‘Then you’re unlike virtually every woman I’ve ever met.’
Her smile faded. ‘I expect I am,’ she said with a resigned sigh.
‘Which is not necessarily a bad thing.’
‘If you say so,’ she muttered, sounding so thoroughly unconvinced and down that he had an unexpected urge to haul her back into his arms and tell her everything was going to be all right.
Failing to understand what was going on with that, Dan parked it and pulled himself together. ‘What would you have done if I had had a wife or girlfriend?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said, thinking about it for a moment. ‘Slapped you to make it look like an argument and stormed out probably.’
He winced. ‘Ouch.’
‘Quite. So it’s lucky for both of us you don’t, isn’t it?’ She took a step towards him and looked up at him beseechingly, and as her scent wound through him his head briefly swam. ‘So what do you think?’ she asked softly. ‘Will you help me out and play the part of my besotted boyfriend for a bit or do I need to slink out and hope I don’t see any of that lot ever again?’
THREE
Absolutely no way was the answer that was hovering on the tip of Dan’s tongue as he looked down at Zoe and steeled himself to ignore the shimmering hope in her eyes. She might not be the kiss-and-tell girl he’d initially suspected her of being—and the story she’d subsequently spun him was too convoluted to be anything but the truth—but going along with her ridiculous proposition was still out of the question.
Even if he had possessed a chivalrous streak—which he most certainly didn’t—ever since he’d shot to the top of that bloody eligible bachelor list five years ago he’d had the press nosing around his private life, commenting on his relationships and speculating about whether he had any intention of settling down. And following the hideously detailed story Jasmine had sold six months ago, he now hit the headlines pretty much every time he even spoke to a woman, and he had no desire to fan the embers with yet more fodder for gossip.
God only knew how far this particular little farce had gone, but should it get out that he was romantically involved—falsely or not—there’d be repercussions he could barely bear thinking about.
And not just from the press.
Ever since he’d turned thirty his mother had never passed up an opportunity to mention how she wasn’t getting any younger and how she’d like to be able to enjoy her grandchildren while she still could, and, although he hadn’t reached his breaking point yet, the memories she stirred up every time she mentioned it were getting harder and harder to suppress and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand it.
If she got to hear of a relationship then his life would become truly intolerable, so if he had any sense whatsoever he’d be saying goodbye and good luck and sticking to his original plan of buying a pint and taking himself off to a relatively quiet corner of the pub. Even more wisely he’d be heading out of the pub altogether, finding a venue that didn’t contain lunatic women with hyperactive imaginations and texting Pete to inform him of the change of plan.
But Zoe had clearly stolen every drop of sense he possessed because she was blinking up at him with those pleading brown eyes fringed with the thickest darkest eyelashes he’d ever seen, and all he could think about was how she’d felt plastered up against him, how warm and soft she’d been and how desperate she was looking now.
He didn’t think he’d ever seen quite such raw panic or such heartfelt pleading before, and it was making his resolve not to get involved waver. It was giving rise to a weird protective streak that he hadn’t known he’d had and an oddly difficult to ignore sense of empathy.
Even though he’d always considered himself to be way too canny and too cynical to be suckered by a damsel in distress, he did know what it was like to be bombarded with the whole marriage and children thing so relentlessly that you could be driven to recklessness. He did know what it was like to go off the rails and make rash decisions that with hindsight were just plain madness.
So if he could figure out something that wouldn’t require much input from him but would have the maximum impact for her, if it was only for a moment and strictly on his terms, then maybe, just maybe, he could help her out.
Zoe bit her lip nervously, as if trying to stop herself from telling him to hurry up, and as his gaze dipped to her mouth the solution came to him in a flash.
‘All right,’ he said, dismissing the voice in his head demanding to know whether he truly had gone insane, because, really, what harm could come of it? ‘You can have a kiss.’
* * *
Oh, thank God for that, thought Zoe letting out the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.
For one horrible moment she’d thought Dan was going to say ‘no’ to her frankly preposterous proposal, declare she was mad and march off. Like any normal person—as unlike her he seemed to be—would. But he hadn’t. Her decision to enhance her appeal to his better nature with a whole load of very uncharacteristic eyelash batting had worked and he’d capitulated.
Well, sort of, she amended. A kiss wasn’t exactly what she’d been hoping him to offer, but it was a start.
‘Haven’t I already had one of those?’ she asked.
His eyes glittered as he considered. ‘I’ll make it a proper one. In full view of everyone. To make up for any doubts that might have been generated by my pushing you away the last time.’
‘I see,’ she said, having to concede that this was a good idea. ‘And then what?’
‘I’ll be leaving.’
‘Oh.’ Zoe felt
her face begin to fall and pulled herself together. What had she been expecting? That he’d want to stick around and get even more involved in the craziness she’d created? Why on earth would he—or anyone for that matter—want to do that? She ought to be grateful that he’d offered a kiss, not left her to face the repercussions of her little white lies.
‘Think of it like this,’ said Dan. ‘I popped in to say hello on my way to somewhere else, and once we’ve had the kiss I’ll be popping out again. You can do what you like.’
Logically Zoe knew that that was fair enough, but the thought of all those women eagerly waiting to meet him and the giddy rapture that would ensue when they did was still battering away in her head and scrambling her powers of reason. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay?’
‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea, do you?’
Well, yes, actually she did, because if she was being brutally honest she didn’t want to say goodbye to him just yet. She wasn’t sure why, but she wanted more of him. ‘Why not?’
He frowned. ‘How deep are you in with the details, Zoe?’
She sighed. ‘Pretty deep, I guess.’ Not quite in over her head, but nearly. ‘I think I might have implied that you’re on the point of proposing.’
She thought she saw him shudder, which kind of told her what he thought of that particular idea.
‘Then you should be counting yourself lucky you’ve got away with it this far,’ he said. ‘If you add me into the mix any further when I don’t have any idea of the lies you’ve been drumming up things could get really complicated, don’t you think?’
Hmm, he did have a point. ‘Probably,’ she muttered.
‘Definitely,’ he said, his dark eyes glittering in the soft light of the pub. ‘So that’s the deal, Zoe. One kiss. Take it or leave it.’
Well, what option did she have under the circumstances but to agree? she thought, caving into the common sense she usually valued so highly but seemed to have abandoned tonight.
Dan was absolutely right, of course. There was no probably about it. She’d pushed her luck way beyond its limit this evening and sailed so close to the wind with the story she’d concocted, and what with the emotional turbulence, the stress of having to think on her feet and the horrible sensation that her control was history she didn’t think her nervous system could take any more.
