Seymour speaking.’
‘It’s Loukas Kyprianos.’
Her heart kicked her ribcage out of the way, leapt to her throat and clung there with hooked claws.
He’d called her. He’d called her. He’d called her.
The words were beating in time with her panicked pulse. She needed more time. She wasn’t ready for this conversation. She needed to rehearse in front of the mirror or something, like she used to do as a kid with a hairbrush as a pretend microphone. She tried to calm herself but her breathing was so choppy it felt as though she was having an asthma attack.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
She could do with some of her mother’s mindfulness techniques right about now. ‘Erm...hi. How are you?’
‘Fine. You?’
‘Erm...good, thank you. Great. Super. Fantastic.’
Apart from a little morning sickness.
There was a tick-tock of silence.
‘Are you free this evening?’
Emily swallowed. Free for what? Hook-up sex? She didn’t want to sound too available. A girl had her pride and all that. But she had to tell him about the baby. Maybe over dinner would be the best way to do it. No. No. No. Not in a public place. She would have to do it in private. Private was best. ‘I’ll have to check my diary. I seem to remember I have something...’
He gave a soft sound that could have passed for an amused chuckle. ‘You don’t have to play hard to get with me, Emily.’
Yes, well, it was a little late for that, she had to admit. The way he said her name with that subtle Greek accent made the base of her spine go all squishy. Em-il-ee. It wasn’t a name when he said it. It was a seductive caress, as if he had circled each and every bump of her vertebrae with a slow-moving fingertip. ‘Look, I think you should know, I’m not usually like that...like I was the night of the wedding. I don’t normally drink so much—’
‘Have dinner with me.’
Emily took umbrage at the way he said it, like a command instead of an invitation. Did he think she’d been sitting by her phone waiting for him to call? Well, she had, but that was beside the point. She wasn’t going to let him think he could call her out of the blue and get her to drop everything to have dinner with him—even if she had nothing to drop. ‘I’m not free this evening so—’
‘Cancel.’
Cancel?
What the hell? Why should she cancel something at his say-so? ‘I don’t think so.’
She was quite proud of the haughty I-haven’t-been-Superglued-to-my-phone-waiting-for-you-to-call tone in her voice.
‘Please?’
Emily let a small silence pass. Let him sweat it out, as she’d been doing for the last month.
‘Why do you want to have dinner with me?’ she finally asked.
‘I want to see you again.’ His voice was rough and smooth. Gravel dipped in honey.
He wanted to see her again? Why? He had a reputation as a playboy, perhaps not as wild and loose-living as some rich men, but he hadn’t had a relationship lasting longer than a few days.
Or, at least, none the press knew about. Since his best friend’s marriage, the media interest had shifted from Draco to Loukas. Before that, Loukas had been able to fly below the radar but now everyone was speculating on whom he would date next. Emily privately had been dreading seeing him with another woman in the weeks since the wedding. If he were involved with someone else then the task of telling him he was to be a father would be even more difficult.
‘Is that code for “sleeping with me”?’ she asked. ‘Because, if so, I think you should know I’m not that sort of girl. I’ve never had a one-night stand before and I—’
‘It wouldn’t be a one-night stand if we did it again.’
It was a good point. But she couldn’t sleep with him before she told him the result of their last encounter. Even thinking about that night in his arms made her insides do cartwheels of excitement. Listening to his voice was as good as foreplay. If he kept talking to her, who knew what might happen? ‘Just dinner, okay?’
‘Just dinner.’
‘Will I meet you somewhere?’
‘I’ll pick you up. What’s your address?’
Emily gave it to him while part of her mind was worrying about what to wear. Little black dress or colour? No. Not too much colour. Not red. Definitely not red. Red was too ‘come and get me’. Pink was too girl-next-door. Did she have time to do her hair? Should she wash and blow-dry it or just scoop it up and hope for the best? Not too much make-up. Subtle and classy was best. Which heels? She needed heels because he was tall—a pair of stilts, even. A night of craning her neck to maintain eye contact would send her muscles into spasm.
‘I would’ve called you before this but I was away on business.’
You still could have called me.
Was his ‘business’ a svelte blonde like the one she’d seen hanging off his arm when she’d searched him online? ‘Really?’
‘Yes. Really.’
Emily chewed at one side of her lower lip. Why had he called her? Hadn’t she put him off with her ‘marriage and kids’ manifesto? Why had she blurted that out anyway? It was a first date no-no. Although, strictly speaking, it hadn’t been a date at all. It had been a chance hook-up. An impulsive act she still couldn’t explain. ‘Why? I mean, it’s not as if I’m your type.’
‘Given your relationship with Allegra and mine with Draco, I wanted to make sure there wasn’t any uncomfortableness about that night, in case we run into each other again because of our connection with them.’
There was going to be a whole heap of uncomfortableness when Emily told him what had resulted from that night. ‘Right...good thinking.’
‘I’ll see you at seven.’
Emily didn’t get a chance to say anything in reply for he ended the call. She stared at her phone, wondering if she should press redial, but then she realised he had a withheld number.
Her mother would say it was a sign.
* * *
Loukas clicked off his phone, placed it on his desk and leaned back in his office chair. He was breaking a rule by contacting Emily Seymour but he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind, or the memory of her touch out of his body.
One-night stands were meant to be exactly that.
One night.
He had occasional relationships but he always kept things casual. Casual worked for him. Casual meant no emotional investment. Casual meant no promises he couldn’t keep.
