‘That’s because I haven’t given it to you,’ she answered helpfully.
‘And are you going to?’
‘That depends.’
He raised dark brows. ‘On?’
‘On whether you’d mind moving.’
‘Moving where?’
‘Swapping tables.’
‘Swapping tables?’
Catherine’s journalist training instinctively reared its head. ‘Do you always make a habit of repeating everything and turning it into a question?’
‘And do you always behave so ferociously towards members of the opposite sex?’
She nearly said that she was right off the opposite sex at the moment, but decided against it. She did not want to come over as bitter—because bitter was the last thing she wanted to be. She was just getting used to the fact that her relationship had exceeded its sell-by date, that was all.
She met the mockery lurking deep in the blue eyes. ‘If you really saw me ferocious, you’d know all about it!’
‘Well, now, wouldn’t that be an arresting sight to see?’ he murmured. He narrowed his eyes in question. ‘You aren’t exactly brimming over with bonhomie.’
‘No. That’s because you’re sitting at my table.’ She shrugged as she saw his nonplussed expression and she couldn’t really blame him. ‘I know it sounds stupid, but I’ve been there every night and kind of got attached to it.’
‘Not stupid at all,’ he mused, and his voice softened into a musical caress. ‘A view like this doesn’t come along very often in a lifetime—not even where I come from.’
She saw a star shoot a silver trail as it blazed across the night sky. ‘I know,’ she sighed, her voice filled with a sudden melancholy.
‘You could always come and join me,’ he said. ‘And that way we can both enjoy it.’ He saw her indecision and it amused him. ‘Why not?’
Why not, indeed? Twelve days of dining on her own had left a normally garrulous woman screaming for a little company. And sitting on her own made her all the more conscious of the thoughts spinning round in her head—of whether she could have done more to save her relationship with Peter. Even knowing that time and distance had driven impenetrable wedges between them did not stop her from having regrets.
‘I won’t bite,’ he added softly, seeing the sudden sadness cloud her eyes and wondering what had caused it.
Catherine stared at him. He looked as though he very easily could bite, despite the outwardly relaxed appearance. His apparent ease did not hide the highly honed sexuality which even in her frozen emotional state she could recognise. But that was her job; she was trained to suss people out.
‘Because I don’t know you,’ she pointed out.
‘Isn’t that the whole point of joining me?’
‘I thought that it was to look at the view?’
‘Yes. You’re right. It was.’ But his eyes were fixed on her face, and Catherine felt a moment halfway between pleasure and foreboding, though she couldn’t for the life of her have worked out why.
Maybe it was because he had such a dangerous look about him, with his dark hair and his blue eyes and his mocking, lazy smile. He looked a bit like one of the fishermen who hauled up the nets on the beach every morning in those faded jeans and a white cotton shirt which was open at the neck. A man she would never see again. Why not indeed? ‘Okay,’ she agreed. ‘Thanks.’
He waited until she had moved and settled in to the seat next to his, aware of a drift of scent which was a cross between roses and honey, unprepared for the way that it unsettled his senses, tiptoeing fingers of awareness over his skin. ‘You still haven’t told me your name.’
‘It’s Catherine. Catherine Walker.’ She waited, supposing there was the faintest chance that Finn Delaney was an avid reader of Pizazz! magazine, and had happened to read her byline, but his dark face made no sign of recognition. Her lips twitched with amusement. Had she really thought that a man as masculine as this one would flick through a lightweight glossy mag?
‘Good to meet you, Catherine.’ He looked out to where the water was every shade of gold and pink and rose imaginable, reflected from the sky above, and then back to her, a careless question in his eyes. ‘Exquisite, isn’t it?’ he murmured.
‘Perfect.’ Catherine, strangely disconcerted by that deep blue gaze, sipped her wine. ‘It’s not your first visit, I gather?’
Finn turned back and the blue eyes glittered in careless question. ‘You’ve been checking up on me, have you?’