One Night Before Marriage. Anne Oliver

      As Carissa launched into another bracket of light classics she couldn’t resist another peek. He didn’t look the classical type. His music preferences didn’t bother her. His head turned as if he’d felt her watching him, and their gazes collided over the raised lid of the baby grand. Instant heat flooded her body.

      She dragged her eyes away, fumbled with the keys again and swore softly. She’d played the cocktail bar Friday and Saturday nights for two years and not missed a note. With her brain threatening meltdown, she reached for her sheet music and refused to look his way again.

      Concentrate on the important issues, she reminded herself. Such as not losing this gig and how she was going to pay the land-tax bill. Her Monday to Thursday job at the suburban café paid half what she made here. Even the extra money a lodger would bring in would only skim the top of the pile, and if she didn’t get someone pronto she’d have to advertise beyond the staff cafeteria; something she didn’t want to do. Always risky for a woman living alone.

      She’d always been able to put distractions aside when she played. Not tonight. Tonight she couldn’t raise the shield that shut out the rest of the world. She was all too aware of the clink of glass and ice and money, conversation, the light outside as it changed from dusk to dark.

      And him.

      At ten-thirty Carissa closed the piano, shuffled her music into a neat pile and slipped it into its folder.

      ‘Can I buy you a drink?’ The deep liquid voice with its hint of gravel made her jump.

      The scent of aftershave and beer hit her as she turned, her habit of a cool smile and polite refusal already on her lips, but the words died in her throat.

      Something like panic leapt up and grabbed her by the throat, then worked down to her stomach, squeezing the air out of her lungs on its way. ‘Sorry, management doesn’t permit employees to socialise with guests.’

      Refusing—was she nuts? Taking a deep breath, the new, unattached Carissa smiled. ‘Leastways, not in the hotel.’

      He grinned. ‘A walk, then, and a drink by the waterfront. The name’s Ben Jamieson.’ One corner of his mouth lifted crookedly, revealing the most kissable dimple in his right cheek. Up close she saw that his eyes were bright jungle-green and sparking with interest.

      She clutched her folder to her chest to hide the sudden tremble in her hands. ‘I’ve a train and a bus to catch, and I don’t like to leave it too late.’

      ‘I’ll pay your cab fare home.’

      ‘Oh…I…’

      ‘Walk with me. It’s a pleasant evening and we’ll only go as far as you want.’

      Those erotic images popped into her head again, but if he’d intended it as a double entendre he was astute enough to show no sign.

      She smiled as she pushed in the piano stool. ‘It’s the best offer I’ve had all night.’ The best in years, in fact, and the mind-set was still taking some adjustment.

      ‘Why don’t you start by telling me your name?’

      ‘Carissa.’ She kept her eyes on his, aware of his body heat, his fresh soap smell, his masculinity. Dangerous, she warned herself. ‘Just Carissa.’

      He smiled again, and everything inside her melted a few more degrees. ‘So, Just Carissa, do you have a bag or something?’

      ‘In the staff locker room. I’ll change and meet—’

      ‘No.’ His eyes didn’t leave hers, but their green fire scorched all the way to her toes. ‘Do me a favour—don’t.’

      She cleared her throat. ‘Okay…But I need my bag.’

      He accompanied her past the press of bodies at the bar, and across the foyer, checked his messages—ah, he was a residential guest—while she headed for the locker room.

      Her brain was a whirl; her insides were doing a quick shuffle. To waltz off with a complete stranger—she’d never done anything so impulsive or so reckless.

      ‘Why don’t we combine the two and walk to the station?’ she suggested as they walked out into Sydney’s tropical summer evening.

      Streetlights attracted bugs, which hummed in a seething ball around the globes. A languid breeze drifted off the water.

      He glanced at her. ‘Why? Is someone expecting you?’

      If she was going to back out, now was the time. But he was on a first name basis with the concierge, had a room there, and people had seen them leave together. ‘There’s no one.’

      ‘I don’t like the idea of a woman catching a train alone at this time of night. Then a bus, for heaven’s sake. Do you always travel by public transport?’

      ‘Since I sold the car.’

      His hand touched the small of her back as he ushered her to a table at an open-air café. Just a brush of fingertips on the silk of her dress, but the thrill curled her toes inside her four-inch stilettos.

      ‘What would you like?’

      You. ‘Mineral water over ice, thank you.’ She sagged onto the plastic chair he pulled out for her and slipped her bag onto the ground beside her feet. She didn’t need anything stronger to have that dizzy, tipsy rush.

      He paid at the counter, handed her a glass and lowered himself into the chair opposite with a bottle of beer. ‘Here’s looking at you.’

      The way he said that had shivers chasing over her skin. To distract him from her nipples that suddenly puckered painfully into tight little buds against her dress she asked, ‘You like music?’ He didn’t reply and a shadow crossed his eyes. She watched his fist tighten infinitesimally around the neck of his bottle. ‘Okay, you don’t like classical and you’re too polite to say so.’

      ‘Doesn’t matter what it is when it’s played with heart and soul by a woman whose…what colour would you say your eyes are?’

      She blinked, glass poised halfway to her lips. ‘Blue.’

      ‘Blue.’ He rubbed a hand over his jaw, a distinctively masculine sound, as he watched her. ‘I’d say ultramarine. Deep and mysterious. Which begs a question: what do you do when you’re not at the keyboard, Just Carissa?’

      ‘Waitressing and piano take up six days a week. I don’t have time for much else.’

      It amazed her that she could sit here and make reasonable conversation with this man when all she could think of was what he’d look like with every inch of golden skin bared for her pleasure, every working part primed to—Stop right there. She mentally slapped herself and asked, ‘What about you?’

      He glanced at the water, avoiding her gaze. ‘I have a few business interests.’

      She eyed him over her glass. ‘When you’re not being a hero.’

      ‘I beg your pardon?’

      ‘Last night. I was outside the Cove, I saw you.’

      He took a deep gulp of beer. The shadows were back in his eyes. ‘I’m no hero.’

      ‘Wrong. I was there. You risked yourself for others, stopped to help an old lady most people would avoid.’

      ‘No big deal. And it was hardly a risk; the car was gone. Those stupid kids…’ He shook his head. ‘We’ll all end up in the sewer one day.’