was a relationship girl through and through—romantic, idealistic, a little bruised and misguided, but soft-hearted still for all that. And, for whatever warped reason, those qualities were endearing her all the more to him. But it was dangerous for her, because he would never be the right guy. Which meant he had to walk now.
He breathed deep to try and push out the pain cutting into his heart, but it was a mistake. Her scent curled tighter around him. Her proximity was tantalising—her soft, warm limbs and passion were so close. She didn’t move. Her head was bent as she waited in silence—for what? The inevitable? He had to rebel against that.
He released the handle and pushed the door so it swung open. She stepped inside. Not following her was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life.
It was so unfair that doing something right felt so wrong.
NADIA stared at the blank form on her screen. For a long time. Then she clicked in the corner to close it. Three days later and she still hadn’t posted anything online. That was for ever. Her hit rate would start to slide. Already people were commenting and asking questions. Questions she didn’t want to answer.
Her mobile rang. She picked it up and checked the screen; the number was withheld which meant it wasn’t him. Her heart accelerated anyway. ‘Hello?’
‘You haven’t updated your blog.’
Okay—it was him. ‘Neither have you.’ She managed a light answer. There’d been no posts—no comments, e-mails, texts or phone calls either in the last three days. That was for ever and ever. The only thing stopping her from going insane was the thought that he hadn’t sent her the flick-off flowers yet, like the women on the original 3 Dates and You’re Out thread said he did. Then again, he probably didn’t feel the need to keep her sweet. They’d done the three dates. It was all over and out.
‘A gentleman always lets the lady go first.’
‘I’m not ready to write it yet.’ Nadia turned away from her screen, screwed her eyes shut as she boldly went down the road she’d been fantasising about for the last three eternally long days and nights. ‘There’s a problem.’
‘What kind of problem?’
She pressed her hand on her chest to stop her heart beating out of it, and blurted the words she’d rehearsed too many times to be natural. ‘I can’t say those claims are wrong when one major aspect is completely right.’
‘What aspect’s that?’
‘That it’s three dates and you’re out. You’re totally doing that to me.’
She heard the whistle of indrawn breath from his end of the phone. ‘You want a fourth? You want us to go out again?’
Oh, she wanted way more than that. But right now she’d take what she could get. ‘I just can’t see how I can refute what those women say when we’ve only gone for three.’
‘But you’re planning to refute some other things?’
He didn’t sound as pleased about that as she’d thought he would. Truthfully, she didn’t want to write another word on it.
‘Nadia, you know what’ll happen if we meet up again.’
She waited, nibbling her lip so hard it hurt.
He cleared his throat. ‘Is that something you’re willing to risk?’
‘Life’s no fun without a little risk.’ She bit harder, waiting for his reply, her nerves teetering on a cliff-edge.
‘Well, there’s risky and there’s reckless. I told myself not to see you again.’
‘Well, you don’t have to.’ She held her breath, held back the hurt. And waited.
For ever.
‘But I think I do,’ he said on a groan. ‘Let’s go out for dinner. We’ve not done the traditional date, have we? Only I’m out of town for a few days. Can you do Friday?’
‘Sure.’ Friday was months away. ‘Where are you?’
‘In Germany, trying not to think about you.’
‘Are you succeeding?’
‘Well, I’m calling you now, so I guess not.’
Her whole body curled into a smile. Noise broke up the line—talking in the background got louder.
‘I have to go.’ His voice came and went.
‘You’d better put something on the blog. You’ll lose people.’
‘So had you.’
‘I don’t have time. I’ll see you Friday.’
Nadia hung up and turned to her computer, determined to get some work done now.
The next morning she went back onto his blog to see if he’d put anything up. Nothing. But she noticed some of the worst comments had been taken down, and there was a note from Ethan to say that he’d be approving the comments before they got posted from now on. It seemed he’d suffered an attack of gallantry. Or was it just that he was worried about what his work colleagues would say? No, she guessed he didn’t really give a damn about what other people thought of him, considering what he’d put out there. Which made her wonder more about why he’d hunted her down as the creator of WomanBWarned—what was it that had bothered him so much?
Underneath that arrogant playboy attitude Ethan really was a nice guy. He liked women, and he treated them well when he was with them. He just didn’t want true intimacy or a relationship. The smoking remains of his parents’ relationship had to be the cause of his reluctance. Whatever had happened had put him off committing, and he and his father were clearly at war. Which meant all she’d ever be was another one of those women he’d had a fling with. Except she had just got to date four—the final frontier. And, yes, deep inside that very stupid part of her wanted so much more. He was so easy to fall for.
The days didn’t pass fast enough. She went shopping. She went for a manicure. She went indoor speed-skating to burn energy and make her tired enough to sleep. It didn’t work. So by the time Friday night rolled around she was ready too early and beside herself with anticipation. She practised yogic breathing and waited. Waited some more. Tried not to look at her watch every ten seconds. Only made it to fifteen once and got so mad with herself she took her watch off. She had her fab new dress, matching fingernails and toenails—the bits in between buffed and polished too.
But time ticked on and on and there was no knock at the door. The summer sun set and Nadia sat frozen in her chair.
Finally her phone beeped. A text message. She knew what it was before she even looked at it. He didn’t even have the decency to talk to her. Tears tumbled and she was so glad Megan was still away and not there to see her humiliation. She couldn’t bear to admit what a fool she was. According to the text he’d been delayed at work and missed his flight. He was on a later one and wouldn’t
