would have been right up there. It was the keeping it in that made everything worse. She’d had to smile through the knowledge that her mother was throwing herself away on a man who was not worthy of her, a man Eve despised, while looking as if she were dressed in a curtain and to top it all that man was here watching it happen.
Now what were the chances of that? It was like some horrible cosmic conspiracy! She had turned her head because she had literally felt his eyes on her, which was crazy. But she hadn’t been hallucinating; he really was there.
It had been the burst of energising adrenaline resulting from that brief contact and that wink that had got her through the photo shoot, but any benefits had been cancelled out by the fact that every time she had glimpsed him since then he’d been staring at her.
He was rude, he was arrogant and she determinedly ignored him, which was not as easy as it sounded when even across the room and separated by dozens of other people she was painfully conscious of the primitive sexual aura he exuded that had struck her dumb earlier that day. It wasn’t just his height or undeniable physical presence that made him stand out among the other men present, it was that rawness, the hint of danger he possessed.
It seemed crazy to Eve that some women were actually attracted by danger, that the whole bad-boy thing turned them on, but not being one of them she went out of her way to avoid him instead.
She opened her eyes and gave her reflection a stern look. ‘Come on, Eve, this will all be a memory tomorrow.’ Consciously straightening her shoulders, but not so much that it made her bodice slip down—she’d got the hang of it now—she headed for the door.
She had pushed it open a crack when she heard a voice she knew all too well. She peered furtively through the crack, knowing it wasn’t one person, it was all three. They always had hunted in a pack and it seemed they still did.
The bullies from her school days no longer wielded the power over her that had made her life a misery but the thought of going out there and facing them right now… No, there were limits to how much ‘suck it up and smile’ she had left in her—a school reunion with the three witches was just too much to ask of anyone.
Lifting her skirt, she ran for one of the cubicles, closing it just before the three women who like herself had had parents who worked on the estate came in.
‘I just love that lippy, Louise.’
There was a clatter as make-up was emptied onto the counter top.
‘So Hannah bagged a prince, lucky cow…’
There were murmurs of agreement.
‘He’s gorgeous, but I think she’s put on weight.’
‘Oh, definitely.’
‘Look who’s talking.’
In the cubicle Eve covered her lower face with her hand, not just to protect herself from the cloud of perfume that was drifting her way, but to stifle a gurgle of laughter. She wasn’t surprised that her friend inspired jealousy but fat…! Hannah was perfect and everyone knew it.
‘She’s welcome to her prince—it’s the hot Italian one I fancy. Now he is fit…with those eyes and that mouth.’
You’re obsessed, Eve chided herself. Just because the man is dark, why assume they are talking about him? Italian? Actually, one of the things that had struck her about him had been his Mediterranean colouring… Her green eyes glazed over as she conjured his voice in her head, hearing the slight husk in his deep, sexy drawl, but no accent.
‘Is he Italian?’
‘Have you never heard of Draco Morelli? Where have you been living?’ came the pitying response. ‘Honestly, Paula, I sometimes wonder what planet you live on. He’s a multibillionaire or something, on all the richest lists.’
‘So he’s loaded? Better and better. Shame about the scar…but I suppose it isn’t that bad.’
‘Married?’
Someone giggled. Eve didn’t know who by this point as their voices had blended into one high-pitched whine that grated on her nerves. At least one thing was cleared up: there was no longer any question mark over who they were talking about. Once they mentioned the scar she knew that the man the trio were discussing was the one whose stares she had been trying to ignore all day.
‘Does it matter?’
The careless response made Eve’s lips purse in a silent moue of distaste.
Marriage might not be something she personally aspired to, but if you were going to take vows—and she knew at least two of the women outside her cubicle door were wearing wedding bands—you stayed faithful to those vows.
If not, then what was the point?
She wasn’t surprised, given he moved in the same circles as her new stepfather, that this—what had they called him? Morelli—had money, but, unlike the trio who were discussing him as though he were a piece of prime juicy steak they contemplated eating, Eve was not impressed.
You could recognise the quality of good tailoring without admiring the person who wore it! Her birth father had money and status and he was a total sleaze. Eve admired talent and intelligence, and there had certainly been intelligence in the dark-eyed stare that had followed her all day, but it had been the sexual challenge in them that had made her stomach muscles quiver.
‘A definite plus,’ someone admitted. Maybe Emma? Eve speculated. ‘But I wouldn’t throw him out of bed if he was broke. Imagine him stripped and ready for action…’
During the general laughter and crude comments that followed Eve found herself responding with a mixture of indignation and distaste… It wasn’t so much that someone had hijacked her secret fantasy, although that was bad enough, it was that she’d been forced to admit she’d had one, that she had pictured a total stranger naked and sprawled on a bed that bore more than a passing resemblance to her own!
So you wondered what he looked like naked, Eve, big deal, she told herself. Did you think you were the only woman whose creative juices were switched on by his sexual charge?
‘He’s been staring at me all day, can’t take his eyes off me. Have you noticed?’ Louise boasted.
Eve’s nostrils flared as she hung onto her temper. So he’d been eyeing up all the women—what a sleaze! It was just as well she hadn’t felt special…well, not much. She could genuinely say she hadn’t wanted his attention, but it was one thing not to want it and another to know he pulled the same tired trick with every woman in the room!
‘You mean he came on to you? When?’
‘I wrote my number on his hand.’
‘No…how much have you had to drink? What if your Rob had seen?’
‘What did he say?’
‘He just looked at me and I went shivery! He’s got the most incredible eyes… Then he said…’
‘What? What did he say, Louise?’
The dramatic pause had not just her friends, but Eve in her hiding place,
