He sat back. ‘So … tell me, you’re here on business?’
Orla nodded. She really didn’t want to get into anything that reminded her of the reality she faced. The inevitable takeover of her family business. So she said, ‘I’m in sales …’
Which was pretty much true. Along with marketing, management, PR, entertainment, travel, diplomacy …
The man grimaced and said, ‘I’m in acquisitions. It’s a grind, isn’t it?’
Orla regarded him suspiciously. This man looked no more like a banal businessman caught up in the daily grind than Santa Claus in full flight with all the reindeer. But she sensed intoxicatingly as if they’d both tacitly agreed to pretend to be something, someone, else.
She was about to respond when something unpalatable occurred to her. She glanced at his left hand and didn’t see a ring, but that didn’t mean anything. ‘Are you married?’
He shook his head and the faintly sick expression that passed over his features assured her even more than when he said, ‘No …’
Then he frowned. ‘Are you?’
Orla shook her head quickly and repressed a shudder. No way was she ever getting married so that some man could come and take half of the business she’d worked so hard to build up with her father. She’d seen the detrimental effects a marriage had on a business. ‘No,’ she said quickly, emphatically.
‘Well, as we’ve established that we’re both free and single … where were we?’
Orla repressed a shiver of awareness, of pure physical longing, and the feeling that she wasn’t in control of what was happening at all. She forced her mind to operate. ‘We were in sales and acquisitions, I believe.’ And why did that suddenly sound so … suggestive?
‘Ah, yes …’
The waiter returned then with their drinks. Whisky for both of them.
The man lifted his glass and tipped it towards her. ‘To chance encounters.’
Orla lifted her glass too, and said, ‘To very forward men with pa
thetic chat-up lines.’
He smiled. And so did she. They took a drink and Orla relished the smooth feel of the liquid running down her throat. Warming her up. She felt unbearably sensual all of a sudden. Languorous.
‘Perhaps we should exchange names?’
Orla’s chest tightened. Names were real. They would root this in reality and she suddenly didn’t want that.
Far more lightly than she felt, she said, ‘I think introductions are overrated. We’ll most likely never meet again. What’s the point?’
His eyes glinted in the dim light. A tiny smile tipped up one corner of his mouth. ‘We don’t have to divulge real names if you don’t want to. But I would like to call you … something.’
Orla went hot again. So that he could call her something in the throes of passion? The wicked thought made her pulse spasm between her legs.
He held out a hand then, a mischievous look in his eye. ‘I’m Marco.’
Orla put her hand in his and for a second her mind blanked when his big one enclosed hers completely. When she felt the calluses on his skin.
‘I’m … Kate.’
‘Nice to meet you, Kate …?’
Orla smiled at his obvious query as to her second name and pulled her hand free. ‘Just Kate.’
He nodded. ‘Kate Kate, it is. And I’m Marco Marco.’
Lord. No man Orla had ever met came close to this man. He enveloped her in sexual awareness. She felt energised. Alive.
‘You have a meeting here tomorrow?’