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For a split second, she sat there, her every instinct at war and plunging her into conflict. She didn’t want to leave him, which only persuaded her that sheshouldovercome that weakness and leave at speed. In a quick movement, she rose and left the room without a backward glance because she wouldn’t allow herself to look back at him. She hurried downstairs to collect her jacket from the sunroom. She was furious with him for cornering her and furious with herself for surrendering to her anxieties.
CHAPTER FOUR
ARIEMERGEDFROMan erotic daydream in which Cleo was splayed across his bed like a sensual enchantress and he gritted his even white teeth at that unlikely image.
Two long weeks waiting for Cleo to apologise had sharpened his temper because intelligence was warning him that Cleo would sit him out. Even that he should guess that about a woman’s reactions unnerved him because generally he didn’t really get to know his lovers on a deeper basis. With women, Ari had always been more of an easy come, easy go guy. He was heading down a very unfamiliar path, he acknowledged grimly, and yet he could not overcome the visceral desire to see Cleo again. Cleo was stubborn and proud. He was equally stubborn and proud.
But wasn’t it fortunate that one of them was feeling generous enough to offer a face-saving escape from their current deadlock?
Ari sent a text.
A very discreet dinner? No witnesses?
Cleo’s heart jumped inside her chest as she read the text and quickly plunged her phone back into her bag. She breathed in slow and deep. Then out came the phone again.
At your house?
She wished she could inject a sarky note. Surely his own home was the only place he could hope to offer her that kind of privacy?
And the phone started actually ringing in her hand and she stood there paralysed, staring down at it, her heart rate pounding crazily before she surrendered and answered it.
‘Not at my house. A restaurant, a surprise,’ Ari specified, smooth as glass.
‘What happened about the baby?’ she almost whispered, revealing her intense curiosity with some embarrassment.
‘It’s complicated. I’ll tell you over dinner,’ Ari murmured, smiling as he recalled the way she had lit up with interest when he told her about the baby two weeks earlier. Cleolikedbabies. He had picked up that much just from her expression at the time.
‘When?’ Cleo pressed, mouth running dry while she told herself that she wasn’t going to agree even while she somehow knew that she had already made that decision from the moment that dark, deep drawl of his had sounded in her ear. He had made the first move, she reasoned feverishly, so she could afford to be magnanimous. Or was she just making pathetic excuses for herself? Cleo winced.
‘Tomorrow evening. I’ll pick you up at seven.’ It would take that long to organise a venue, Ari acknowledged wryly, wondering if he had ever gone to so much effort to see a woman again and why he was doing it for her. Why was she a challenge that he could not ignore or forget? Why wasn’t he simply walking away as he had done a hundred times before?
A huge smile tugging at her tense face, Cleo dug her phone back into her bag. She knew she had been guilty of an overreaction at their last encounter. Refusing to consider either a date or an overnight stay had been excessive. Panicking over an entanglement that seemed to have sneaked up on her and caught her unawares with her defences down, Cleo had wanted to run away. Unhappily, her attitude had allowed Ari to see just how hard she found it to trust a man and that was humiliating. He had also been offended and she could hardly blame him for that, considering that he had, from the start, been honest with her. He hadn’t told her any lies, hadn’t given her any unrealistic expectations or any excuses. He hadn’t argued either when she had declared that they were having a fling that wouldn’t last longer than five minutes. Clearly, his opinion was similar, she reflected tautly.
Her bar shift flew past while she mentally thumbed through her wardrobe for a suitable outfit and decided that she owned nothing smart enough. She was off the following day and she went shopping, trawling through charity shops until she found her best option, a short fringed blue dress that had a dash of style and was a little less colourful than her usual choices. Turning in front of the wardrobe mirror that evening, she watched the fringes glide silkily across her thighs with every movement, revealing glimpses of her legs, and realised that for the first time in her life she felt sexy. Ari had done that for her ego, she acknowledged ruefully. She had never felt sexy in her life until he had come along and enabled her to accept that side of her nature.
Ari wasn’t in the car that picked her up and that disconcerted her. When the vehicle entered a tight network of narrow streets and she was finally ushered out into what appeared to be an alley, she surmised that Ari’s surprise could be more of a splash than she had expected. As soon as she was guided through a narrow corridor past a busy kitchen area, where hatted catering staff peered out at her with intense curiosity, she appreciated that she was being brought into the restaurant through a rear entrance as though she were a celebrity desperate to escape the paparazzi. A discomfited veil of colour had swept across her face by the time she was led into the low-lit restaurant, which was unnervingly empty of other diners.
‘Cleo...’ Ari rose to greet her from a corner table, effortlessly elegant in a dark designer suit, cut to mould his wide shoulders and broad chest, his long, powerful legs outlined by narrow black trousers.
‘Where is everyone else?’ she almost whispered as a waiter whisked away the jacket she was laying down on the back of a chair and hurried to usher her into her seat.
‘Tonight, it’s just us. I promised discretion and here it is.’ Ari moved a lean brown hand to indicate the unoccupied tables surrounding them. ‘We’re alone, aside of the servers.’
With that staggering admission, Ari settled back down at the table opposite her and reflected that every effort he had made to achieve such privacy had been worthwhile because Cleo looked incredible in a sapphire-blue dress that accentuated her eyes and revealed tantalising glimpses of slender thigh as she walked. He wondered why it was that no matter how often he had her he wanted more of her, as though she had some weirdly addictive flavour. But, in truth, at that moment he didn’t care. He was relishing the surge of sensual anticipation gripping him, the newness of it, the very exhilaration of such an unusual feeling with a woman.
‘How can we be here alone? I mean, why would the owner exclude other diners?’ Cleo queried nervously as Ari ordered wine.
‘I made it worthwhile for the owner to reschedule his other bookings,’ Ari explained.
And sudden comprehension sent pallor climbing up her throat into her troubled face. ‘You bribed him just for my benefit?’ she almost whispered in horror.
Ari frowned. ‘“Bribed” isn’t the word I would employ in these circumstances. I offered a business proposition, which the owner accepted. Nothing wrong with that,’ he declared with unblemished assurance. ‘The world turns every day on questions of profit and loss. I assure you that the proprietor is not making a loss...andhere you are. Would you be here if I had not promised you this option?’
Mortification seized her. He had offered and she had accepted, and she had not spared a thought as to how he could achieve such a phenomenon for her benefit, had she? Any criticism would be unjustified and, what was more, did she want to criticise? For the first time in her life, a male had gone to considerable lengths simply to see her. Did she really want to diminish that compliment or criticise it? She glanced around the empty restaurant and finally understood that Ari wielded the kind of power with money that she could barely imagine. Ari didn’t play games and he didn’t offer false promises. He had met her demand for privacy, and if she shrank from the means he had chosen to utilise, that was her problem,nothis.
‘I didn’t think through what I was asking properly,’ Cleo conceded uneasily. ‘Considering who you are, it wasn’t a reasonable request. Your social life is always in the gossip columns. People are interested in your life and your companions—’
‘Let’s order our meal,’ Ari cut into her troubled observations quietly as the waiter extended a handwritten menu. ‘And let’s forget about how we got here.’
