One Night With Morelli by Kim Lawrence Page B

one street away from the building where Eve lived before he asked for further directions.
    ‘It’s the next turn…you just went past it. Our street lights are part of the council cuts,’ she said by way of apology as he backed up.
    She unfastened her seat belt, unable to conceal her palpable relief that her journey was at an end, though now it was she was able to concede she might have been overreacting. Alpha males were really not her thing; their earlier kiss was not her thing; nothing that had happened today was her thing.
    Tomorrow happily was another day, a new start, a clean slate. Running out of clichés, she turned to Draco.
    ‘Well, thank you.’ Just to keep things unambiguous, she added, ‘For the lift.’ The kiss was something she would not forgive, but she had every intention of forgetting it or at least mentally filing it under
of no
importance
.
    ‘I’ll see you in.’
    She struggled to sound amused by the offer and reached for the door handle. ‘That really won’t be necessary. I can look after myself…see, I have my key…’ Her hand came up empty from the pocket in her handbag where she always kept her key ring. ‘It has to be in here somewhere…’
    Several minutes later the contents of her bag had been removed twice and replaced and it became clear that her keys might well be somewhere but they were definitely not in her bag.
    ‘You lost your keys…it happens.’
    His soothing words did not soothe.
    ‘Not to me! I always… I had them when I was opening the car bonnet…’ She summoned a mental image of the keys on their Tempting Eve logo fob. She covered her face with her hands and groaned. ‘Oh, God, I left them in the ignition!’
    ‘It’s only keys.’
    Her hands fell and she slung him a look. ‘You’re not the one locked out.’
    ‘You have some spares, a neighbour with a key…?’
    ‘Yes, but…’ She shook her head. ‘They have a baby and James works nights.’ She shook her head positively. ‘I can’t knock up Sue and the baby at this time of night.’ The last time she had seen her neighbour she had been shocked by her appearance.
    Seeing her expression, Sue had grimaced, smoothed her hair self-consciously and said, ‘Sleep deprivation is what they don’t tell you about in antenatal classes.’
    Eve couldn’t believe it; she had crammed a lot of low moments into this day and he had been there to witness them all.
    ‘Do you mind dropping me at a hotel?’ She snapped open the mirror of her compact and closed it again without looking at it before sliding it back into her bag. There were some things it was just better not to know and how she looked at that moment was probably one of them!
    Beneath the thin veneer of cheerful bravado she had clearly reached the end of her tether. Draco looked at her in thoughtful silence, tempted to do what she requested, and why not? She wasn’t his responsibility and she had more in common with a feral cat than a needy kitten. Granted she’d had a hell of a day and it showed, but his hadn’t been so great either—with a couple of memorable exceptions!
    The internal tug of war was short-lived, and in the end his conscience won out, or was that his libido…?
    ‘I know I’ve been a nuisance.’
    He flashed a sideways glance her way. She looked dead on her feet, and he stifled a trickle of sympathy, killing it dead. ‘Yes.’ Without a word he started the engine.
    Eve compressed her lips, feeling considerably less guilty. Charm really was his middle name! After the key debacle she surreptitiously checked her purse to make sure she had her credit cards, and she struggled against the temptation to check again. He already thought she was a total head case, so why confirm it for him?
    Happily the journey back to London didn’t take long driving in this powerful car, and Draco showed no inclination to make conversation, which was a mercy. She glanced periodically at his profile, responding to some sort of compulsion that she chose