One Night With Morelli by Kim Lawrence Page A

her head a tiny shake, causing a curling tendril to attach itself to her mouth, and she detached the strands with an impatient frown.
    * * *
    In his seat before her Draco leant across, pulling away the jacket draped over the back of the passenger seat before she leaned back. His hand touched her shoulder as he slung it into the back, even that light contact sending an electrical surge through her body.
    She survived the brush of his eyes, breathing through the moment and even managing to acknowledge his action with a slight nod despite the swirling confusion in her brain.
    As he hit the ignition the space was filled with a classic jazz ballad. Eve exhaled, covering her mouth with her hand to disguise her sigh of relief—she wouldn’t have to make conversation.
    Then he turned it off.
    They had driven a few minutes when he broke the silence.
    ‘Will you fasten your jacket?’
    She didn’t fight the childish urge to challenge everything he said or question it too deeply. ‘Why? I’m warm.’
    The comment drew a rumble of laughter from his throat, but, bemused and desperately hiding her reaction to the nerve-shredding effect of being in close physical proximity to him, Eve turned her head and slung him a scowl.
    ‘I’m missing the irony.’
    ‘You make your living selling underwear but you don’t wear your own products.’
    She was tired and stressed and it took a few moments for his meaning to penetrate. When it did she grabbed the corners of her jacket and pulled them together.
    ‘You mean I’m not an underwear model. Well, for the record, most women aren’t and I make underwear for normal women.’
    ‘Make but not wear.’
    ‘I…I had a very minor surgery and the bra strap chafes.’ The Australian doctor had been reassuring about the mole he’d said looked innocent, but to be safe he’d whipped it off and sent it for analysis.
    ‘Minor?’
    ‘A mole removal, but it was nothing sinister.’
    His brow smoothed as he slid a sideways look at her face. ‘With your skin you should plaster on factor fifty.’
    ‘I’m not an idiot.’
    ‘That’s open to debate.’ What wasn’t was her delicious, soft, smooth pale skin; it would be nothing short of criminal to expose it to the harshening effects of the sun. ‘Statistically speaking, someone with your colouring—’
    ‘I am not ginger; it’s chestnut.’
    Colour aside, it was an essential part of his fantasies.
    ‘Well, statistically—’
    ‘Do you know how boring people who quote statistics are?’
    He adopted an expression of unconvincing confusion as he consulted the rear-view mirror. ‘I never quote statistics,’ he explained. ‘I make them up—no one ever knows the difference and you sound informed and intelligent.’
    ‘Seriously?’
    ‘Totally,’ he confirmed. ‘You should try it. You’d be amazed at how few people question a statistic.’
    Eve bit her quivering lip, then, losing her fight, broke into peals of laughter.
    She had a great laugh, when she wasn’t feeling bitter and twisted and sexually frustrated. He couldn’t believe now that he had actually almost convinced himself she was a virgin. He realised that Eve Curtis could be fun outside bed, not that his interest in her extended beyond the bedroom, he told himself.
    Wiping her eyes, she turned to him. ‘So the next time I find myself losing an argument I should make up a statistic.’
    ‘You have to keep an element of realism and you have to believe what you say.’
    ‘You mean,’ she cut back slickly, ‘you have to be a good liar.’
    ‘That goes without saying…’
    ‘Like you.’
    ‘I could say I’m always honest but I might be lying.’ Eve recognised the crossroads they were approaching; it was the one where she always nursed a secret fear of taking the wrong turning and ending up in Wales.
    She told him the area she lived in, fully anticipating he would ask for updates, but he didn’t. Draco was obviously one of those people with a built-in sat nav. He was