For all her fine words earlier she was, and had been for the last fortnight, utterly miserable. Her heart was breaking and she was aching, and all the boozy happiness around her was only intensifying her misery. She hadn’t come here just because she hadn’t wanted to spend the last night of the year on her own. She’d come because she’d wanted to see him, and to show him she was fine, that she didn’t care that he hadn’t wanted her.
But she wasn’t fine, and she did care. So very much.
And he wasn’t here. And because he wasn’t, and because her heart was shattering all over again and she was falling apart inside, she was now dancing with a man who seemed to have the eight tentacles of an octopus and was intent on wrapping every one of them around her.
She’d just about managed to keep him at bay while the music had been energetic and thumping, but now, oh, God, it was segueing into something slow and crooning and her dance partner was moving closer and those arms were getting tighter.
But she couldn’t summon up the energy to fight him because she now recognised the song as being the one that she’d mentioned they’d danced to in that imaginary nightclub in Italy and it instantly transported her back to the night this had all started, and she was filling with such deep, aching melancholia she didn’t think she could stand it.
Once the song finished that would be it, she told herself wretchedly. She’d tried, and Celia put on a fine party, but she really couldn’t stay any longer. The yearning hope that Dan would be here and the crushing disappointment that he wasn’t was just about ripping what was left of her self-control to shreds.
So five minutes more and then she’d traipse home and drown her sorrows with the bottle of champagne she had in the fridge waiting for who knew what.
Well, she knew, she thought, her heart sinking even lower and her throat aching with the lump that had been there for pretty much the entire fortnight, but really it wasn’t all that relevant now, not when—
‘Mind if I cut in?’
At the sound of the deep voice behind her, Zoe froze, her head went blank and her heart practically stopped. And then as it hit her that Dan was here after all, heat and longing and pure relief started rushing around her.
For a second her dance partner’s arms tightened around her in what she could only presume was a display of macho territorial possession or something, but Dan must have been shooting daggers at him because his face went a bit white and then his arms loosened.
‘Not at all,’ said Wilson or Winston or perhaps Walter. Whatever his name was he clearly had the intelligence to sense this was a battle he wasn’t going to win, and melted away.
Which left her standing on the dance floor like a lemon with Dan behind her while all around her couples smooched and swayed and she wondered why he was here.
Slowly she turned, and as she saw him she caught her breath. God, he looked awful. There were dark circles beneath his eyes and hollows beneath his cheekbones. His hair looked as if it hadn’t been combed for a week and his jaw hadn’t seen a razor for days. His eyes were dark and serious and his expression intense and his focus was entirely on her.
Her heart, pathetically weak organ that it was, turned over at the sight of him, but the image of him standing there in that hotel room telling her that he didn’t want to see her again was still fresh in her memory and she just couldn’t seem to let it go.
‘Have a drink,’ he said, handing her a shot glass of something cold and clear. ‘You look like you could do with one.’
‘So do you.’
‘Yes, well, I’m in the process of trying to get over an unexpected and almost Neanderthal-like need to protect what’s mine. It’s thirsty work.’ He lifted his own glass, knocked it back in one and then winced and shook his head. ‘God, that’s foul.’
‘Yours?’ Zoe echoed, going a bit giddy despite her resolve to stay strong.
He nodded. ‘Yes. Namely, you.’
‘I didn’t know I was yours.’
‘Neither did I, but I do now.’
Blinking away the giddiness before she got too carried away and threw herself at him, she sniffed her drink gingerly. ‘What is this?’
‘Grappa.’
The shock of seeing him again and the revelation that he thought she was his made the grappa seem like an excellent idea so she downed hers and gasped as the alcohol hit the back of her throat. ‘Are you responsible for the music too?’
‘Well, you are wearing black and it is tight, even though it isn’t a ski suit.’
Her heart turned over at the thought that he’d remembered the way they’d met—fictionally, at least. ‘I hope you’re not expecting
the rest of the night to pan out in the same way?’
‘You mean with us burning up the sheets? Well, that’s rather up to you.’ He glanced down at her glass. ‘Are you finished? Yes? Good.’ Dan took her glass and then shot off to put them on a table before striding back. ‘This is our song,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘We should dance.’
Before she could even think about protesting she was in his arms, the hand planted on her lower back holding her tight against him and then she found she was so where she wanted to be that she couldn’t protest even if she’d wanted to.