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‘There’s Wi-Fi on the plane, search for it again and show me.’ He’s very businesslike.
Yep, instant regrets on being so honest. But I do as he asks.
‘There are almost no photos of me online,’ he says conversationally as I fumble with my phone. ‘I have a team who keep it that way. That’s partly why it was all but impossible for you to get in touch with me directly.’
Because he’s a control freak who hates being in the press. Yep, I’ve got that. And I don’t blame him now I know a little more about his parents putting him on the front page in their personal fight.
But it’s the Internet and some things never die on the Internet. I find the picture and turn it so he can see. It was in a gossip-column piece from a small Queenstown paper that I followed on my social media. It popped up in my feed the morning after that momentous night. The photo showed him with a famous New Zealand model and I was appalled.
‘I’m not identified in the caption,’ he says thoughtfully. ‘That must be why my minions didn’t pick it up.’
‘But it’s you.’ I brace as he studies the photo. He doesn’t deny it.
‘Is she your girlfriend?’ I ask.
The corners of his mouth twitch. ‘What makes you think we’re together?’
Well, duh, you only need to look at the way the model is looking at him to know they’re intimate. But Dain’s eyebrows are raised questioningly and I can’t tell him it’s all in her eyes.
‘We’re not even holding hands,’ he points out calmly. ‘Not kissing. Not touching at all.’
I swallow. ‘Because you’re private.’
That he isn’t named in that caption actually speaks to the power of his discretion. Maybe the photographer didn’t recognise him and was interested in the model.
He regards me steadily. ‘Okay, I’ll give you that.’
So he was with her. My innards shrivel.
‘But you didn’t notice my hair apparently grew about three inches in less than a couple hours?’ He watches me.
‘What?’ I stare at him then back at the photo.
‘My hair was shorter when I was with you,’ he says. ‘Don’t you remember tugging on it? Because I remember you tugging on it.’
A flame of heat rivers through me. With trembling fingers I study that photo again.
He’s right, I didn’t look too closely at the time because I was cringing—and I was too busy feeling inadequate looking at her. But now I do look more closely. And, yes, his hair is longer than it was that night.
‘This photo was taken two years ago when I met Willow. I haven’t seen her since then, though according to that caption she was back in Queenstown that weekend. But I never saw her and last I heard she was modelling in Paris.’
Willow is even more famous than he is. The gossip piece focused on her, not the man escorting her. And she suits the name, what with her endless limbs and, oh, yes, I am jealous. I clocked the location—a cool bar in Queenstown—and, given the date of the article, I assumed the photo was taken that night. That he went from a quick canapé—me—to the sumptuous feast that was her.
‘So she wasn’t your girlfriend?’ I ask.
‘Not the night we were together,’ he says. ‘I don’t cheat.’
Now I feel even worse.
But Dain actually chuckles. ‘You really screwed up.’
I really did.
He inhales. ‘As penance I think you ought to be wholly honest with me.’
I glance up at him, confused. I’ve just confessed the worst.
‘Were you a virgin that night?’ he asks bluntly.
