‘Great!’ She grabbed his arm, hugging it as he turned to lead them into the restaurant. ‘I just love your sense of occasion, Pete.’
They were so obviously happy with each other, Catherine shook her head over the pressure exerted on her to make up a foursome. She eyed Zack Freeman curiously, aware that he could probably snap his fingers and pick up any woman. So why had he agreed to a blind date?
She remembered Livvy’s argument, centred mostly on getting Catherine to rid herself of Stuart and open up to other men. Embarrassment squirmed through her at the thought that Livvy had engaged Pete’s help to fix up her sister and she was some kind of charity case to Zack Freeman—doing a favour asked of him by his old friend.
A horrible sense of humiliation forced her to blurt out, ‘Did Pete coerce you into partnering me tonight?’
He was slow to reply, possibly picking up her inner tension and musing over its cause. ‘I had no other plans. Pete wanted me to make up a party of four tonight and I agreed.’ His mouth quirked. ‘No regrets so far. But if you have a problem with the arrangement…’
‘No,’ she rushed out on a wave of intense relief. He hadn’t been told anything personal about her.
His head tilted quizzically. ‘You want to cut and run?’
Truth spilled out before she could stop it. ‘Livvy would kill me if I did.’
‘Ah! So she coerced you.’
Catherine took a deep breath, wanting to get onto some kind of equal footing with him. ‘It was more her idea than mine.’
‘Does that mean you’re anticipating pain with me?’
A nervous gurgle of laughter bubbled out. ‘Let me fantasise pleasure for a while.’
‘Good idea!’ His eyes twinkled wicked mischief. ‘I’ll do the same.’
He half turned, waving her to fall into step with him to follow Pete and Livvy. He made no attempt to take her arm or hand, for which she was grateful since she was super-conscious of his physicality as it was, and any contact would feel sexual after her blunder in linking pleasure and fantasy.
‘Livvy said you and Pete have been friends since school days,’ she remarked, trying to dampen the sizzle she’d unwittingly raised.
‘Mmm…going on twenty years. We’re still the same people to each other. You get to value that as you move through life.’
‘I guess you do a lot of role-playing with your work.’
He paused, slanting her a sharp look beneath lowered brows. ‘You know what I do?’
Would he have preferred her not to know? To pretend he was just some regular guy for the night? Was he sick of women climbing all over him for what he was?
‘It’s okay. I won’t blab on about it,’ she assured him. ‘I don’t think Livvy knows. I happen to work with graphic artists who are interested in everything you come up with—big discussions—so when Pete introduced you…’
‘You’re a graphic artist yourself?’ he cut in, an angry tension emanating from him.
‘No. And I’m not a user, either,’ she asserted, resenting the implied assumption that she might angle some benefit out of this meeting with him. ‘You’re perfectly safe with me, Zack Freeman.’
He gave her a long hard look that bristled with suspicion and she stared right back with fierce pride, finally earning a glint of respect.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,’ he drawled, his mouth taking on a wry twist. ‘You pack quite a punch, Catherine Trent.’
Heat whooshed up her neck and into her cheeks as sexual electricity crackled from him and zipped into her bloodstream. Catherine was appalled at herself. She never blushed. She might flush in anger, but blushing belonged to adolescence and she was way past that. A sophisticated career woman did not blush.
‘You’re not exactly harmless yourself,’ she retorted defensively, only realising it was an admission of the attraction he exerted after she had spoken. Not that it mattered. He knew anyway. Impossible for him not to be aware of his effect on women, just as she was aware that many men fancied her.
He shrugged. ‘Sorry if I gave offence. This is my week off from being the Zack Freeman. In fact, it’s my last night off. I have to go back to being him tomorrow.’
‘You don’t like being him?’ Was being so successful such a burden?
‘It has its rewards and I’m not about to give them up,’ he stated, determination glinting in his eyes. ‘But there’s a time and place for everything.’
And it was clear he wouldn’t enjoy being with some star-struck woman who raved on about what he’d achieved or tried to ferret out the key to his meteroric rise to fame in his field.
‘So what would you like tonight to be?’ Catherine asked, somewhat bemused by his wish to set aside the recognition that most men’s egos would demand.
He paused to consider. His eyes beamed a speculative challenge as he answered, ‘Whatever two strangers want to make of it.’
‘Without a tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow I’m gone.’
Well, that was laying it on the line. No future with Zack Freeman. Not that she had had time to even think of one or consider whether it might be desirable.
‘Then I’ll just take this one night experience with the man behind the name,’ she countered, pride insisting that his schedule did not affect her expectations from this blind date, which had been zero before she met him anyway.
Sexual invitation simmered back at her. ‘I wonder if you will.’
She hadn’t meant a one-night stand. Another wretched blush goaded her into being uncharacteristically provocative. ‘You win some. You lose some.’ It was a warning not to assume anything.
He grinned. ‘The game is afoot. And you can’t cut and run because your sister is watching and she’ll kill you if you do.’
She laughed, trying to lighten the effect of a charge of nervous excitement. ‘You think I’m trapped?’
‘Why did you come?’
‘To please Livvy. It’s her birthday.’
‘Then you have a giving nature. That’s a trap in itself, Catherine.’
‘Oh, the giving only goes so far.’
‘What would you take, given the chance?’
‘That’s a big question.’
‘And you don’t intend to answer it yet.’
‘That would spoil the game.’
He laughed, entirely relaxed now and enjoying the flirtation he’d fired up
