The words he never imagined he’d hear himself say were on the tip of his tongue when Zoe got there first. ‘Oh, he isn’t,’ she said a second before he said, ‘She’s right.’
Zoe’s eyebrows shot up and he couldn’t blame her because even he didn’t know why he hadn’t taken the out she’d given him. It had been tight but there’d been time, and one would have thought he’d have learned.
‘She is?’ she said faintly.
‘Well, it has been six months, and I am the yin to your yang.’
She swallowed hard. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘You know, you really don’t have to do this.’
‘Don’t I?’ he said wryly. It seemed to him he did.
‘No.’
‘Now that I think about it perhaps it is about time I made an honest woman out of you.’
She arched a sceptical eyebrow. ‘It’s way too late for that, don’t you think?’
‘It’s never too late to do the right thing,’ Dan said gravely, reminding her of her obligations now.
For a moment she considered. Then she nodded. ‘OK,’ she said, lifting her chin and taking a deep breath. ‘Let’s do it.’
He took her in her arms and pulled her close. ‘Zoe Montgomery, will you marry me?’
‘I’d love to.’
‘Great.’ He kissed her hard on the mouth. ‘Now, are we done?’ he said, staring down at her and thinking that now was definitely finally the time to leave.
‘God, yes,’ she said shakily.
‘Then let’s get out of here.’
* * *
Thank heavens that was all over, thought Zoe, slipping her arms through the sleeves of the coat that Dan was holding out and wondering if the shiver that ran down her spine was due to the chill of the evening or the fleeting brush of his fingers against her neck.
She didn’t think she’d ever experienced so many emotions in the space of such a short time and wasn’t sure she wanted to ever again because she was still trembling from the great tangled mess churning around her insides.
It was actually quite a surprise she was still standing. There’d been a point when Dan had clearly decided to up the ante on the charade front, and what with all those little squeezes and kisses he’d bestowed on her and the warm smiles and the hot looks he’d given her her legs had gone all shaky while her stomach had dissolved, and she’d thanked God that he’d had such a firm hold on her.
She’d been even more grateful of it when the litany of women in his life had been mentioned and a totally irrational shaft of white-hot jealousy had scythed through her, nearly wiping out her knees. That had just been weird and not a little disturbing because none of this evening had been for real and she really shouldn’t have been affected by any of it.
She wasn’t a fantasist, she reminded herself, making a start on doing up her buttons and trying not to stare at the sliver of taut tanned stomach that was briefly exposed just above the waistband of his jeans when Dan shrugged on his own jacket and his shirt rode up. She was a realist.
And yet ever since he’d taken her in his arms and ‘proposed’ she’d been secretly wondering what it would be like to feel like that for real. To have someone feel like that about her for real, to want to marry her for real...
Shaking her head to dispel the uncharacteristic flight of fancy, Zoe pulled herself together. She was being absurd. She was exhausted, probably. Hormonal, possibly. Stressed out, definitely. And that was why she was casting a man she barely knew in the role of white knight.
Maybe, though, she could get to know him a bit better, she thought, fixing the last of her buttons and feeling her spirits perk up at the idea that this needn’t be goodnight. Maybe she could buy him a drink to say thank you for helping her out. Maybe they could move on to dinner. And maybe they could see what happened after that.
OK, so she’d never actually asked anyone out before, but honestly, after months of disastrous on-line dating experiences and after everything she’d been through this evening that was hardly the Mount Everest of challenges, was it? He was single, she was single and they clearly fancied the pants off each other.
So she could do this, she told herself, her pulse now racing so fast it was beginning to make her dizzy. The advantages of asking him out vastly outweighed the disadvantages. Back in the bar he’d said he hadn’t wanted to let her go, so the odds of him saying yes were stacked hugely in her favour. The risk of potential humiliation was so minimal as to be negligible. She had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Nevertheless as she turned to face him her mouth went dry, a ball of nerves stuck in her throat and no amount of swallowing hard did anything to alleviate either. ‘I can’t thank you enough for your help,’ she said a little huskily.