bill to them as fast as she could so that the table could be cleared, making way for another lot to sit down. Sometimes, if the customers seemed to be dawdling a little too much over their coffees, Claire would turn up the volume on the music, just a notch, and that always seemed to remind them that it was time to go.
Sunny had her patch and she could work the tables blindfold. She chatted without really noticing who she was chatting to and she always added a smiley face to the bill when she brought it because she had read somewhere that it encouraged diners to leave bigger tips than they normally would.
This evening, she was particularly oblivious to the crowd. She’d thought of nothing but Stefano on the Tube ride back and he was still in her head as she dashed around the restaurant, distracting her, which got on her nerves.
The man had got under her skin.
Was it because he was just so good-looking? And why should that have made a difference anyway? Sunny had never been susceptible to good-looking men. She’d been chased by enough of them and heard enough of their corny lines to know that they were usually full of themselves and arrogantly all too aware of the effect they had on the opposite sex.
So why had Stefano Gunn proved the exception? Especially when she had given up on men? If she hadn’t been able to feel any sort of physical attraction to a guy who had been perfect, then there was no hope for her. She had reconciled herself to that fact. She had assumed that she was frigid, a consequence of her turbulent background and a mother who had set a poor example when it came to self-restraint and decorum.
She touched the locket she wore around her neck. In it was one of only a handful of pictures she had of her damaged parent. Annie Porter might have been a terrible mother but there was still a big place in Sunny’s heart for her. She felt that that must be what unconditional love was all about. Her mother would be the only recipient of that sort of love as far as Sunny was concerned. If she ever loved anyone again, and she wasn’t even sure that she had loved John nearly as much as he had loved her, then there would be so many conditions that the weight of them would probably kill off any relationship before it could get going. Suited her.
But she hadn’t had a relationship with anyone since John and she wondered whether the effect Stefano had had on her had been a timely reminder that she was still young.
It made no difference anyway. She wasn’t going to see him again. She had politely turned down his offer for dinner and had shown no interest in whatever proposition he had for her that she might find irresistible.
Dinner and a proposition could only add up to one thing as far as Sunny was concerned.
Bed.
Perhaps he saw her as a possible easy conquest. He was staggeringly rich and staggeringly good-looking and maybe he thought that if he made a pass at her, she wouldn’t be able to resist. Maybe he thought that, as a relative junior in the company, she would be awestruck and open-mouthed and breathless with girlish excitement if he so much as glanced in her direction.
Maybe...no, almost certainly, that was where the irresistible aspect of his so-called offer came in.
She was so wrapped up in thoughts that she wanted to box away that she was convinced her mind was playing tricks on her when, with the crowd finally and thankfully beginning to thin out, she heard the sound of his dark, velvety voice behind her.
She spun round, only just managing to hang on to the tray she was balancing and stared.
It was a little after ten and he looked as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as when she had last seen him at five-thirty, although he was no longer wearing his suit.
The suit had been replaced by a pair of black jeans and a fitted black jumper that did remarkable things for his lean, muscular build.
She couldn’t find a thing to say. She actually blinked several times to make sure that she wasn’t seeing things, that her mind hadn’t conjured up his image because she had been thinking so much about him.
‘So this is where you work...’
Sunny was galvanised into movement. ‘What are you doing here, Mr Gunn?’ She wasn’t in the office now and she didn’t see why she should try and modulate her voice to accommodate him. She stared at his face but she was aware of every part of him with every pore in her body. ‘Look, I can’t stop to chat to you.’ She turned round abruptly and began heading towards the kitchen, heart beating like a sledgehammer inside her.
Fi, one of the girls who worked the tables with her, the only full-time waitress among them and a bubbly brunette who specialised in having boyfriend problems, was taking a little time out to catch her breath because her stint was almost over. Sunny was very tempted to ask her whether Stefano was still outside and, if he was, whether she could take his order but then she knew that that would lead to endless curiosity and, as always, the part of her that clammed up at the thought of confiding slammed into gear.
Maybe he would get the message and leave. Maybe he’d already left. Her hands were clammy and she wiped them on her trousers as she headed back out to the restaurant, which was now practically empty.
There was no avoiding or ignoring him. His presence was so powerful that it would have been impossible to overlook him even though he was sitting right at the back. He had pushed his chair at an angle so that he could stretch out his long legs and he looked utterly composed and relaxed.
Stifling a sigh of frustration, Sunny walked towards him, taking her time.
‘I’m afraid we’ve already taken last orders,’ she said ungraciously, ‘so if you’ve come here expecting a meal, then you’re going to be disappointed.’
‘Oh, dear. And the menu looked so interesting. Perhaps another day. However, that being the case, I’m assuming you’ll be leaving shortly?’
‘How did you even find out where I worked?’ She looked at him with great reluctance and was assailed by the same unwelcome heady discomfiture she had felt before. His eyes were as dark as night and as captivating as an open flame to a moth. There was nothing safe or comforting about him but he had the sort of face she felt driven to stare at and the sort of compelling personality that wanted to suck her in and she had no intention of being sucked in.
Her memories of her mother were scattered but she remembered enough. She remembered how pretty her mother had been and how helpless she had been at the hands of men who had taken advantage of her. The roller-coaster ride that had been her childhood had built in her a capacity for self-control she never relinquished and a determination never to find herself in any situation with anyone that made her feel helpless. John had never made her feel helpless.
But something about Stefano Gunn made her feel helpless.
‘Sit.’
Sunny folded her arms and stared at him. ‘We’re not in an office now, Mr Gunn...’
‘Stefano, please.’
She chose to ignore that interruption. ‘So I feel it’s okay for me to be direct with you.’
‘I’ve always encouraged directness in other people,’ Stefano murmured. She was even more eye-catching than he remembered, even though the hair, he noted, was still tucked away and she wore no make-up.
She’d turned down his offer for dinner and rejected what he had to say without bothering to give him a hearing. She’d been pointedly polite
