The man gave a bark of humourless laughter and raked his eyes over her. ‘Clever deduction. Now, what’s your choice of exit going to be?’
‘I didn’t come here to ask for money. I don’t even know who you are...’
‘Now, I wonder why I find that hard to believe?’
‘Please—just hear me out. I honestly don’t make it a habit to approach strange men in...er...bars...or even expensive restaurants...but I won’t be long...’
She had as much right to be here as he did. Admittedly not actually at his table, but in the restaurant...generally speaking.
She actually had her own table booked, and would be forking out for some very expensive food just as soon as her blind date left and she could relax—and that was more than could be said for him, judging from the way his plate had been shoved to one side. One drink wasn’t going to make the restaurant owner a rich guy, was it? In fact he was just the sort of customer a restaurant owner would hate! The sort of customer who booked a table, had a drink, made it last for four hours and refused to budge for the remainder of the evening.
‘I haven’t come here because I’m targeting you for money,’ she repeated urgently, leaning forward, elbows resting on the table. ‘And, by the way, I feel very sorry for you if you can’t talk to a stranger for three minutes without thinking that they’re going to ask you to put your hand in your pocket and write them out a cheque! You’re the only person in this place on your own and I...I...just need to kill a little time before I’m shown to my table. I do have, actually, a valid reservation. And I will be eating.’
She took a deep breath and powered on before he had a chance to throw her out on her ear—because, whether she had a valid reason to be there or not, she certainly didn’t have a valid reason to gatecrash his table.
‘Do you see the guy sitting at the bar?’
Humiliation made her skin prickle. She had always been a people person. Finding herself stared at as though she was something that had crawled in off the streets—something that needed to be bagged and binned immediately—was a new experience for her and she didn’t like it.
His icy silence squashed her natural breeziness like a pin being stuck into a balloon.
* * *
Sergio Burzi was frankly incredulous. Had she just told him that she felt sorry for him or had he misheard? He felt as though he had been run over by a bus, and was momentarily too dazed to do anything but pick himself up and dust himself down.
‘There are a lot of guys at the bar,’ he said.
So she would eventually do one of two things. Ask outright for money for some hare-brained scheme or else try and cosy up to him. He was a target for gold-diggers, and gold-diggers came in all different shapes and sizes and plied their trade with the back-up of all sorts of sob stories and fairytales.
But he was between women...jaded with the opposite sex. He liked them clever, career-orientated...he liked women who had purposeful, goal-orientated lives, who weren’t clingy and emotional. He had had them by the bucketload, but recently...they did less and less for him. Not even the chase was as stimulating as it had used to be, and more often than not the ‘catch of the day’ became boring in a matter of weeks.
What was the harm in letting this woman sit with him for a couple of minutes before he got rid of her?
She was putting on a damn fine show and she was really rather attractive. Big brown eyes, blonde curly hair that looked as though it had only a passing acquaintance with a brush, full, sexy lips...
A sharp pang of pure lust hit him deep in the gut. He had a vivid image of how that cloud of strawberry blonde hair would look spread across his pillow, her pale skin against his much darker bronze.
It just showed how neglected his sex-life had been of late. He had dispatched his last girlfriend over two months ago and hadn’t had the energy or the desire to replace her.
And now this tawdry little gold-digger had stirred him up. He sat back, easing the discomfort of a sudden rock-hard erection, and gave her his undivided attention.
‘Which one are you talking about?’ he asked, angling his big body so that he could extend his long legs to one side. ‘And why should I be looking at him?’
Susie relaxed fractionally. He was prepared to listen to what she had to say. This would be the end of her learning curve. No more blind dates. Ever.
‘Yellow jumper. Mustard trousers. Thin sandy hair. Do you see him?’
Sergio glanced at the bar and then back to her flushed, earnest face. ‘I see him.’
He was beginning to enjoy himself. He could see Giorgio out of the corner of his eye, anxiously watching the table, ready to spring into action should he need to, and Sergio gave just the slightest shake of his head.
She was going round the houses to get to the point, but she had managed to pique his interest. That in itself was worth the storyline.
When she finally made a move on him he wondered whether he would take her up on the offer... She wasn’t his type, but wasn’t a change as good as a rest?
‘And you’ve pointed him out to me because...?’
‘He’s my blind date and I’m trying to avoid him.’
She groaned, looked at the man sitting opposite her, and her breathing picked up because those lazy, dark, fathomless eyes made her nervous and excited at the same time...gave her a weird, giddy feeling.
‘I met him on one of those dating websites,’ she confided glumly. ‘They cater for the under-thirties. You know the kind of thing...young people seeking serious relationships... It’s a lie. None of them are. I feel awful about standing up poor Phil, but I just can’t face another date frantically trying to make small talk while the minutes tick by at a snail’s pace...’
Sergio wondered what she would do if he called her bluff by going across to Mr Yellow Jumper and asking whether he was there to meet someone from a dating agency.
‘I guess he’s panicking because I’ve stood him up. I’d hate someone to stand me up. But, like I said, I just can’t face all that silly, pointless conversation...’
‘He doesn’t appear to be overly heartbroken. In fact he seems to be chatting up an older woman at the bar.’
‘What?’
‘Blonde hair...smartly dressed... Yes, they appear to be leaving...together...’ Maybe because she was his original date...
‘I don’t believe it! Didn’t I tell you?’ Susie said bitterly. ‘Serious relationships... Ha! One-night stand relationships, more like it.’
She might not have wanted to go through with the ordeal but she was insulted that she had been dumped without even being interviewed for the job.
‘Online dating isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Forget about all those pictures of starry-eyed couples gazing lovingly at one another over a romantic meal, or dashing along a beach grinning like star-struck maniacs and holding hands. It’s all just advertising. Just look at my date. He couldn’t even hang around and wait a few minutes for me to show up.’
‘I thought you were trying to avoid him?’
‘That’s not the point. The point is that he could have hung around a bit longer before making off with the first available woman who gave him the time of day!’
Susie wouldn’t have dreamt of finding her perfect guy via a computer—except for the fact that The Big Wedding was getting closer, and she couldn’t face showing up without any boyfriend in tow or, worse, with one of her arty, creative crowd who would be politely dismissed as yet another loser because ‘poor little Susie’ just didn’t seem to have what it took to find herself a halfway