Maddie reddened and an errant thought flashed through her head,
What would it be like if you were to make a pest of yourself...?
‘Good,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘Because I’ve a lot going on in my life at the moment and the last thing I need is...is...’
‘Fending off a nuisance?’
‘I was going to say that the last thing I need is a relationship.’
At which Leo was the one to burst out laughing. He looked at her with his midnight-blue eyes, ‘Trust me—relationships don’t ever feature on my agenda. See you later, Maddie.’
And he was gone, leaving her standing as still as a statue, even though inside her everything was weirdly mushy, as though she’d just stepped off a death-defying rollercoaster ride and was struggling to get her bearings.
She spent the remainder of the day in a state of low-level excitement. She told herself that this wasn’t a date. Not really. This was dinner with someone who’d made her laugh—because the alternative was yet another night in, going through the mountains of paperwork her solicitor had left for her, trying to work out the best approach to take when she went to see the bank manager for a loan the following week.
She was twenty-four years old! Where was the harm in acting her age? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt young, and the tall, dark, handsome stranger had made her feel young.
And he wasn’t going to be sticking around.
By seven that evening, as she stood outside the cheap Italian restaurant where they’d arranged to meet, the nerves which had abated at some point during the day were back in full swing.
She smoothed down the front of her shirt. No one could accuse her of dressing to impress. She was in a pair of ripped jeans, some flat navy ballet pumps and a tee shirt that was a little tighter than she liked and a little shorter than she might have wanted, exposing a sliver of flat brown skin. It, like the jeans, was faded and worn.
She’d had a brief flirtation with designer dressing. Adam had liked to see her in expensive gear and, much against her will, he had encouraged her into wearing clothes that he’d bought for her—expensive, slinky silk outfits and high, high designer heels.
He’d enjoyed the way everyone’s heads had turned whenever she’d stalked into a room and Maddie had gone along with it, albeit reluctantly, because she’d loved him and had wanted to please him.
She’d sent the entire lot back to his flash apartment when their relationship had crashed and burned, and had promptly returned to the sorts of clothes she’d always felt comfortable in.
Leo, at least, would appreciate her choice of clothing, since they came from the same side of the tracks.
Feeling more buoyant, she pushed open the door to the trattoria and looked around, hoping she’d arrived before he had because then she could have a drink to steady her nerves, and also hoping that she hadn’t, because to arrive early might suggest that she was desperate for male company. More than that—desperate for his company.
Nursing a drink at the very back of the restaurant, Leo had spotted her immediately. How could he not? The entire restaurant had spotted her at roughly the same time. Every male head swung round. Mouths fell open. In fairness to her, she didn’t seem to notice any of this as she peered around her, squinting into the semi-lit depths of the trattoria, which was noisy, packed and uncomfortable.
In a room full of pale faces her honeyed tan stood out, as did her hair, flowing in a wavy mane over narrow shoulders almost down to her waist. Leo half stood and she walked towards him, weaving a path through the crowds until she was right in front of him.
‘Been here before?’ he asked, and when she shook her head he nodded and scanned the room. ‘Do you think we’ll be able to have a conversation or should we resign ourselves to shouting?’
‘It’s cheap and cheerful. And I hear that the food’s good.’
She slipped into a chair and tried not to drink in his masculine beauty. She’d just about managed to convince herself that he couldn’t possibly be as striking as she remembered, but he was even more so. He radiated a dynamism that made her shiver with awareness, and his exotic colouring only added to the potent appeal of his good looks.
Very quickly Maddie had a glass of wine to calm her nerves, even though common sense told her there was nothing to be nervous about.
Certainly he was sticking to the script. If his original dinner invitation had set her antennae onto red alert, actually being here with him was doing the opposite, dispelling any misgivings she might have been harbouring about his intentions.
He was charm itself. He chatted about the many countries he had visited—which made sense because he was obviously a guy who lived for the present and absorbed whatever adventures life had to offer. It was something she really admired. He was witty and insightful, and she found herself laughing out loud at some of his anecdotes, barely noticing the antipasti he had ordered for them to share.
‘I envy you,’ she said truthfully as plates were cleared, glasses refilled and bowls of pasta placed in front of them. ‘I’ve never got to travel. I would have loved to, but my mum and I barely had enough to make ends meet and we would never have been able to afford it. I guess it’s a lot easier when you only have yourself to consider, and I suppose you could always pick up jobs here and there to pay your way...’
‘I do try and get myself an honest day’s work when I’m abroad,’ he said, almost uncomfortably. ‘Tell me why you’ve run away from Australia.’
The abrupt change in the conversation caught Maddie off-guard and she stiffened—her natural response whenever she thought about her past. What would this complete stranger think were she to tell him the truth? He might be an adventurer, living off the land and shunning responsibility, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be judgemental if she were to share her story with him.
The whole of her story.
Maddie found that she didn’t want him to think badly of her. ‘Whoever said anything about running away?’ she hedged lightly, winding long strands of spaghetti around her fork and avoiding eye contact.
Leo raised his eyebrows wryly. He sat back and gave her the benefit of his full attention, which was enough to make her blush furiously.
Her glass-green eyes drifted to his forearms, strong and muscled and sprinkled with dark hair, and she wondered what it would be like to be touched by them, to have his hands roam and explore her body. Her heart picked up speed and she licked her lips, panicked by the way her body was insisting on slipping its leash and running wild.
‘Well,’ Leo drawled, his voice a low murmur that made the hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end, ‘looking at the facts: you’re on the other side of the world, without a network of fellow travelling friends, and working in a job that can’t really be classed as career-building. You haven’t mentioned anything about studying, so I’m thinking that’s not relevant. Which leads me to think that you’re running away from something. Or someone. Or both.’
Maddie laughed, but the tide of colour in her cheeks was more vibrant now. ‘My mum died,’ she said, twirling the stem of her wine glass and then pausing as he filled it with more wine. ‘I’d spent some time looking after her. It was very unexpected. Bad luck, really. She broke her leg, and it was a very complex break, but it should have been okay.’ She blinked furiously. ‘Unfortunately the operation turned out to be a fiasco. She was confined to hospital for much longer than anticipated and then she needed a great deal of further surgery. Every time she felt she was back on her feet something would go wrong and back she would have to go.’
‘How old were you when all this happened?’
‘Just before my twentieth birthday,’ Maddie admitted.
‘Must