KIM LAWRENCE - One Night with Morelli

If she’d had to make a list of the five worst days of her life this one 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 i s 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, on tenterhooks.

‘I could tell by the way he’s been looking at me that he wants me. You always can…’

‘Yes, but what did he say ?’

‘He said he had an excellent memory and if he wanted to remember a number he would, and then…’

‘What? What did he do then?’

‘Then he wiped it off!’

Louise had clearly decided this was encouraging. Her cronies, a lot less under her thumb than in the old days, were less sure. The subsequent squabble continued until they found a subject that they all agreed on—they were united in their contempt of the wedding.

‘I think in this day and age when people are losing their jobs and everything this sort of lavish display is totally insensitive.’

So why did you come? mouthed Eve from her hiding place. Someone seemed to hear her silent question.

‘Yeah, but the champagne is good.’

‘She’s only the cook.’

‘But good-looking. I wouldn’t mind looking half as good as E-E-Eve’s mum when I’m her age.’

‘You’ve got to hand it to E-E-Eve’s mum—she got her man in the end. My mum says they’ve been at it for years.’

With a militant light in her eyes, Eve reached for the door handle. No one, but no one , was about to bad-mouth her mother when she was around and get away with it.

‘What about E-E-Evie? What does she think she looks like?’

Eve’s hand fell away as she listened to the cruel malicious laughter. It brought the memories flooding back and for a moment she was the misfit stigmatised as a swot and taunted for her stutter.

‘And that hair!’

‘And the eyebrows, and she’s still flat as a pancake, talk about molehills… Do you think she still stutters?’

‘I don’t know. The snooty cow walked straight past me and acted like I wasn’t there. Well, whatever money she is supposed to have made I think that it’s exaggerated as she hasn’t spent any on make-up. I was right all along—she’s definitely a lesbian.’

‘You only have to look at her.’

‘Definitely.’

‘To think we got detention for saying it at school! The girl has no sense of humour.’ There was the sound of rustling and another blast of hairspray before someone said, ‘That’s my mascara.’ The sound of the door opening and then, ‘She was always full of herself, looking down her nose at us, the little swot.’

Old insults and she’d heard them all before.

The door to the ladies’ room closed with a dull clunk and the room fell silent, but Eve stayed inside the cubicle giving them another few minutes just to be on the safe side and let the tears dry.

She lifted a hand to her damp face… How crazy was that? She had sworn that they would not make her cry again, that the bullies who had made her life a misery had long ago lost their power to hurt her.

So why are you hiding in the loo, Eve?

Because she had nothing to prove.

‘I’m not hiding.’ She was about to slide the latch when a soft reply made her jump.

‘I know but it’s all right—they’ve gone.’

The kind voice didn’t belong to any of the three faces from the past.

The only person in the otherwise empty ladies’ room was a young girl. Even in her flat ballet pumps she was several inches taller than Eve and slender. The encouraging smile she gave when Eve stepped out lit a face that had perfect features.

Eve could feel the girl’s warm brown eyes as she walked across to the washbasin. ‘Are you all right?’

Eve smiled at the girl’s mirror reflection and turned the tap, allowing the warm water to flow over her hands.

‘Fine, thanks,’ she lied, mortified to hear the wobble in her voice. This was crazy; she was a hard-headed businesswoman, so why was she fighting the sudden and utterly uncharacteristic urge to unburden herself?

The girl continued to look troubled. ‘Are you sure?’

What a nice girl. She reminded Eve a little of Hannah at the same age. Not in colouring, as the teenager had raven-black hair, golden-tinged skin and liquid brown eyes, but in the confidence and innate grace that would set her apart from her contemporaries. Eve nodded and the girl walked towards the door.

Her hand was on the handle when she stopped and turned back, her expression earnest. ‘My dad,’ she began hesitantly. ‘Well, he says you shouldn’t let them get to you, or at least not let them see they get to you. It’s the pack instinct—bullies react to the scent of fear, but underneath they’re insecure and cowards.’

‘Sounds like you have a good dad.’

‘I do.’ A grin flashed that made her look much younger all of a sudden. ‘But he’s not perfect.’ The grin appeared again. ‘Though he thinks he is.’