Holiday With The Mystery Italian. Ellie Darkins
bitter old hack that the Internet had labelled her. But did the dating gods really have to send this guy to help? Someone who it seemed she was physically programmed to react to. Someone whose eyes seemed to twinkle into the depths of her own, who seemed to sense her discomfort, however hard she tried to hide it.
She sat beside him, and he reached for her hand, pulling her towards him for a friendly kiss on the cheek. A day’s worth of stubble scratched her cheek—he’d lain in bed too long that morning perhaps. Had something more tempting than a close shave kept him there?
Good for him if it had.
Just because she was sworn off romance and men, and sex by default, that didn’t mean everyone had to live her celibate life. If he was getting some, she was pleased for him, really. And not in any way the teeniest, tiniest bit jealous. She settled into her seat and glanced at the screen showing flight details. Another hour until they had to be at the gate. Were they meant to make small talk until then? With the camera rolling?
‘I think I might just have a look round the shops until they call our flight.’
She needed something to read, something to bury her nose in during the flight, to keep her eyes from wandering over to Mauro.
‘Great idea,’ Mauro said, draining his glass. ‘Lead the way.’
‘I meant—’
‘You were trying to get away from me?’
He said it with a laugh, but the question in his eyes was serious enough.
‘Of course not. I’m just surprised that you’re so keen on shopping.’
‘Casual sexism? I’m shocked at you, Miss Harris.’
She smiled, not quite sure whether he’d shamed her or charmed her into it. ‘Well, shopping it is, then. We’ll meet you back here before we go to the gate,’ she told Ayisha, pre-empting any thoughts of them following. She was going to have to get used to a camera watching her every move, of making sure that every word and action was projecting the image that she needed it to, but she couldn’t just turn it on from nowhere. She needed to practise without the cameras on her. One misstep and she was sure that they would be all over her.
‘So, then, what’s it going to be?’ Mauro asked. ‘Handbags? Clothes? Are you going to disappear into the make-up for an hour?’
‘Who’s sexist now?’ she asked. ‘None of the above.’ Her interest in make-up hadn’t survived her relationship with Ian. She’d never seemed to get it right, however hard she’d tried—too slutty, too shabby, too colourful, too drab. In the end, she’d stopped trying.
She strode purposefully across the concourse towards the bookshop, dodging tourists dragging cases behind them with no sense of spacial awareness.
‘What? My witty repartee isn’t going to be entertaining enough for you?’ Mauro asked as he zipped into a space in front of her, using his chair to clear a path through the throngs of holidaymakers. ‘I’m clearly not making a great impression.’
‘What can I say?’ Amber replied with a shrug of her shoulders. ‘I’m a writer. Which by default makes me a reader. We get a free pass to have our nose in a book whenever we want.’
‘Even when there’s something better to do.’
She laughed.
‘Wow. I’m surprised you got that ego of yours in the terminal. And, for the record, I have absolutely no intention of doing you.’ There, if she was going to try and flirt for the cameras then that needed to be said. She could pretend to be attracted to him now with a clear conscience. There was no leading him on if she’d already told him it wasn’t happening. He’d understand friendly banter. No doubt flirting came to him as easily as breathing.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘We’ll see about that.’
‘I want to be honest with you, Mauro. I’m here for the charity, because my work insisted on it, and for a week in the sun. I’ll smile for the cameras and if you want to get to know each other while they’re rolling then fine. But that’s all. No funny business.’
He held her gaze for a second longer than was comfortable. What was he seeing? What was making him search her features like that, as if he was trying to get inside her head?
* * *
Managgia, she was driving him crazy already. He’d fixed her with his most challenging look. The one that had got impossible contracts signed, and unattainable goals achieved. And she still hadn’t shown him who she was. She was carrying this front of hers like some sort of armour, and all he wanted was a glimpse at what was behind.
He’d heard the real her on the show, he was sure. The take-no-prisoners, ‘I’d be a killer whale’ Amber. The one whose caustic humour had hit him so hard he’d had to go off script, just to see what happened if he called her bluff.
So where was she now? Because she damn sure wasn’t in this airport with him. Instead, in her place, was a woman trying to appear...ordinary.
Was she soft underneath? he found himself wondering. Like the silk shirt she’d worn beneath that blazer the first time he’d met her. The one that had gaped slightly between the buttons, that had skimmed gently over her generous breasts, hinting at the shape below just enough to keep him awake last night, concealing him enough to drive him crazy.
What had happened to make her so...closed? So controlled? Where had these defensive walls around her appeared from?
At least she had made it clear that she hadn’t expected anything from him this week. It was why he had gone off-script and chosen her, of course. When he had been swimming competitively it had been his time in the pool that had controlled his schedule, his time, his life. Now it was time in the boardroom, trying to steer his sports marketing company from one market-leading success to another. There was no room in that life for a relationship. It simply didn’t fit. If he was going to achieve everything that he wanted in this life—everything that he needed to—then he had to be focussed.
Since his university friend had driven the car they were travelling in into a tree, leaving him with a spinal injury and a brush with death that had been closer than was comfortable, he’d been determined to do more. To see more. To be more.
Before the accident, he’d been a naturally talented but under-committed athlete. The thought of leaving this world with just a mediocre list of achievements to his name: a bronze medal in the university swimming championship. Scraping a two-two in his Sports Marketing degree. A girlfriend he had liked a lot, but not loved. Not enough, anyway.
After the accident? It had all changed. It had to. He wanted to leave a mark on the world. So he’d watched the ParaGames from his hospital bed with an interest that had bordered on obsession. Four years to get himself fit, to be the best in the world. And he’d done it. Six gold medals over two games. And then after a day in the pool or the gym it was packing as many more achievements and successes as was humanly possible: flying lessons, professional development courses, a one-night stand with a beautiful woman. Anything new, anything remarkable, anything to make his life meaningful. To drive him further and further from the mediocrity that had almost been his epitaph.
And after he retired from swimming, he’d attacked the business world with zeal. The seeds he’d planted when he was competing started to grow, and somehow, ten years later, he had money rolling in from sponsorship deals, which he’d used to set up his own sports marketing business, his half-dozen medals hanging in his Sicilian home, and a passport that had seen almost as much action as his super-king-sized bed.
This front of Amber’s was meant to keep people at a distance, he guessed. To keep herself apart, private. She must not realise how much he could see. How her hurt radiated from her like an inflamed wound; how her strength and her vulnerabilities were so tangled together he couldn’t seem to see one without seeing the other.
He had thought that he was picking the least complicated option, when he had chosen Amber. That she was someone who couldn’t be less