He was still looking at her questioningly and she tried to imagine what her sisters would say in similar circumstances. They certainly wouldn’t be struck dumb like this. They’d probably shrug their gym-honed shoulders and make some smart comment, and hold out their half-empty glasses for a refill.
Willow twisted the stem of the champagne glass in between her finger and thumb. So act like they do. Pretend that gorgeous-looking men talk to you every day of the week.
‘I imagine you must be used to people staring at you,’ she said truthfully, taking her first sip of champagne and then another, and feeling it rush straight to her head.
‘True.’ He gave a flicker of a smile as he slid onto the bar stool beside her. ‘What are you drinking?’
‘No, honestly.’ She shook her head, because surely the champagne must be responsible for the sudden warmth which was making her cheeks grow hot. ‘I mustn’t have too much. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘I was going to ask if it was any good.’
‘Oh. Yes. Of course. Right. Silly of me. It’s...’ Feeling even more flustered, Willow stared at the fizzing bubbles and drank a little more, even though suddenly it tasted like medicine on her tongue. ‘It’s the best champagne I’ve ever had.’
‘And you often drink champagne on your own at airports, do you?’ he drawled.
She shook her head. ‘No. Actually, I’m celebrating the end of a job.’
Dante nodded, knowing this was his cue to ask her about her job, but the last thing he wanted was to have to listen to a résumé of her career. Instead, he asked the bartender for a beer, then leaned against the bar and began to study her.
He started with her hair—the kind of hair he’d like to see spread over his groin—because although he wouldn’t kick a brunette or a redhead out of bed in a hurry, he was drawn to blondes like an ant to the honeypot. But up close he could see anomalies in her appearance which made her looks more interesting than beautiful. He noted the almost-translucent pallor of her skin which was stretched over the highest cheekbones he’d ever seen. Her eyes were grey—the soft, misty grey of an English winter sky. Grey like woodsmoke. And although her lips were plump, that was the only bit of her which was—because she was thin. Too thin. Her slim thighs were covered in jeans onto which tiny peacocks had been embroidered, but that was as much as he could see because the damned pashmina was wrapped around her like an oversize tablecloth.
He wondered what had drawn him towards her when there were other more beautiful women in the terminal who would have welcomed his company, rather than looking as if a tiger had suddenly taken the seat beside her. Was it the sense that she didn’t really fit in here? That she appeared to be something of an outsider? And hadn’t he always been one of those himself? The man on the outside who was always looking in.
Maybe he just wanted something to distract him from the thought of returning to the States with the tiara, and the realisation that there was still so much which had been left undone or unsaid in his troubled family. Dante felt as if his grandfather’s illness had brought him to a sudden crossroads in his life and suddenly he couldn’t imagine the world without the man who had always loved him, no matter what.
And in the meantime, this jumpy-looking blonde was making him have all kinds of carnal thoughts, even though she still had that wary look on her face. He smiled, because usually he let women do all the running, which meant that he could walk away with a relatively clear conscience when he ended the affair. Women who chased men had an inbuilt confidence which usually appealed to him and yet suddenly the novelty of someone who was all tongue-tied and flustered was really too delicious to resist.
‘So what are you doing here?’ he questioned, taking a sip of his beer. ‘Apart from the obvious answer of waiting for a flight.’
Willow stared down at her fingernails and wondered how her sisters would have answered this. Her three clever, beautiful sisters who had never known a moment of doubt in their charmed lives. Who would each have doubtless murmured something clever or suggestive and had this gorgeous stranger tipping back his dark head and laughing in appreciation at their wit. They certainly wouldn’t have been sitting there, tying themselves up in knots, wondering why he had come over here in the first place. Why was it only within the defining boundaries of the work situation that she was able to engage with a member of the opposite sex without wishing that the floor would open up and swallow her?
This close, he was even more spectacular, with a raw and restless energy which fizzed off him like electricity. But it was his eyes which were truly remarkable. She’d never seen eyes like them. Bluer than the Caribbean sky outside. Bluer even than the wings of those tiny butterflies which used to flutter past on those long-ago summer evenings when she’d been allowed to lie outside. A bright blue, but a hard blue—sharp and clear and focused. They were sweeping over her now, their cerulean glint visible through their forest of dark lashes as he waited for her a
nswer.
She supposed she should tell him about her first solo shoot as a stylist for one of the UK’s biggest fashion magazines, and that the job had been a runaway success. But although she was trying very hard to feel happy about that, she couldn’t seem to shake off the dread of what was waiting for her back in England. Another wedding. Another celebration of love and romance which she would be attending on her own. Going back to the house which had been both refuge and prison during her growing-up years. Back to her well-meaning sisters and overprotective parents. Back to the stark truth that her real life was nowhere near as glamorous as her working life.
So make it glamorous.
She’d never seen this man before and she was unlikely to see him again. But couldn’t she—for once in her life—play the part which had always been denied to her? Couldn’t she pretend to be passionate and powerful and desirable? She’d worked in the fashion industry for three years now and had watched professional models morph into someone else once the camera was turned on them. She’d seen them become coquettish or slutty or flirtatious with an ease which was breathtaking. Couldn’t she pretend that this man was the camera? Couldn’t she become the person she’d always secretly dreamed of being, instead of dull Willow Hamilton, who had never been allowed to do anything and as a consequence had never really learned how to live like other women her age?
She circled the rim of the champagne glass with her forefinger, the unfamiliar gesture implying—she hoped—that she was a sensual and tactile person.
‘I’ve been working on a fashion shoot,’ she said.
‘Oh.’ There was a pause. ‘Are you a model?’
Willow wondered if she was imagining the brief sense of disappointment which had deepened his transatlantic accent. Didn’t he like models? Because if that was the case, he really was an unusual man. She curved her lips into a smile and discovered that it was easier than she’d thought.
‘Do I look like a model?’
He raised his dark eyebrows. ‘I’m not sure you really want me to answer that question.’
Willow stopped stroking the glass. ‘Oh?’
His blue eyes glinted. ‘Well, if I say no, you’ll pout and say, Why not? And if I say yes, you’ll still pout, and then you’ll sigh and say in a weary but very affected voice, Is it that obvious?’
Willow laughed—and wasn’t it a damning indictment of her social life that she should find herself shocked by the sound? As if she wasn’t the kind of person who should be giggling with a handsome stranger at some far-flung spot of the globe. And suddenly she felt a heady rush of freedom. And excitement. She looked into the mocking spark of his eyes and decided that she could play this game after all. ‘Thank you for answering me so honestly,’ she said gravely. ‘Because now I know I don’t need to say anything at all.’