Fired by Her Fling

by Christy McKellen

  Despite his resolution to steer clear of women until he’d got his head straight again, he couldn’t help but be captivated by her petite, curvy figure. It made him think of an Amazonian woman in miniature—all delicious voluptuousness and sexual potency.

  He watched idly as she waited for the barman to notice her, appearing to sink against the high, solid wood counter the longer she was ignored, until her previously upright posture had dipped down into a full-on slouch.

  There was a particular kind of dejection to her body language that made him sit up and take notice.

  It reminded him of the time right after Marcy told him she was throwing away what he now thought of as their joke of a relationship, and he’d felt as though someone had stripped the blood, guts and air out of him.

  He’d bought her everything she’d ever wanted—designer clothes, a sports car, ludicrously expensive jewellery—but it still hadn’t been enough for her.

  She’d taken it all with her when she’d left him, of course.

  The heat of his humiliation washed through him for the thousandth time since she’d dropped the bombshell, leaving a jittery sense of unease. He’d known for a while that things hadn’t exactly been perfect between them, but he couldn’t forgive all the lying and sneaking around behind his back that she’d done.

  The two of them must have thought he was a real chump.

  As if the dark power of his thoughts had somehow penetrated through to her own, the woman at the bar seemed to pull herself together and she straightened her posture, giving a little jump in her heels as if to remind herself to stand tall—which, judging by her diminutive height, he guessed was something she’d probably done ever since she’d stopped growing.

  He really should get back to the hotel, and get stuck into the mound of paperwork that waited for him there, but something kept his gaze fixed to the woman’s skinny-jeans-clad rear view.

  She had very long light brown hair pulled back into a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck, which swung like a pendulum as she jiggled on the spot. He bet she had a cute little nose and huge, sensual eyes too, which would draw him into a world of what the hell the moment he looked into them.

  Had he guessed right?

  The thought of leaving now without at least catching a glimpse of what she actually looked like was curiously unthinkable. Suddenly, he really needed to know for sure, to reassure himself that he wasn’t totally ignorant when it came to reading women, as Marcy had so unsubtly suggested.

  Getting up from his chair, he strode over to where she stood at the bar. Maybe he’d have one more drink before he went back to the hotel. After all, he was in for a pretty dull night on his own, so he might as well get his kicks where he could.

  Rubbing a hand over his forehead, he sighed to himself. He must be feeling jaded if he was resorting to playing guess my face in a place like this.

  Apparently she heard his sigh because she glanced round to look at him, surprise flaring in her deep-set cornflower-blue eyes.

  It was as if he’d caught her out. Perhaps she’d been eyeing him up earlier too?

  The thought warmed him.

  As she opened her mouth to draw breath, something must have caught in her throat because she paused for a moment, her eyes widening in panic, before letting out a forcible choking cough. Tearing her distressed gaze from his, she clamped her hand around her mouth in mortification.

  She was prettier than he’d imagined—in an endearing girl-next-door way that made him want to lean over and rub her back to stop the coughing fit. To take care of her.

  That was what he did best, after all—took care of people. Until they turned around and stabbed him in the back, that was.

  He shook the negative thought off and grinned at her, attempting to project concern with his expression.

  She gave him a watery-eyed smile back and flapped a hand in his direction as if asking for his forgiveness.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked.

  She nodded, her gaze not quite meeting his. ‘Fine,’ she rasped out finally. ‘Something went the wrong way.’ She gestured towards her throat and his gaze followed where her finger indicated.

  She had beautifully creamy skin, with a smattering of small dark moles just west of the hollow of her throat. A strange impulse to stroke his fingers across them gripped him. He’d probably make her choke in shock again if he did. He almost tried it, just to see if his theory was borne out.

  When his gaze returned to her face he noticed two spots of colour had appeared on her high-set cheekbones.

  Cute.

  He could see now why she favoured such high heels too; even with them on, the top of her head only just reached past his shoulders.

  She was studying him warily, as if trying to decide whether to spend more of her precious time talking to him. Clearly she deemed him worthy because she said, ‘I’m Lu,’ and put out a small, delicately boned hand for him to shake.

  He took it, his own looking obscenely monstrous in comparison. He was afraid for a second he might crush her if he wasn’t careful.

  ‘Short for Louise?’ he asked.

  She smiled back and opened her mouth to speak but, before she could, a harried-looking barman came over and leaned in towards her, suddenly eager to take her order.

  She asked for a glass of wine before turning to him and murmuring, ‘Buy you a drink...?’ She raised her eyebrows in a double question, asking for his name as well as his answer.

  Whoa, that voice. It made him think all kinds of inappropriate thoughts as it lapped indecently through his head.

  ‘Tristan. Tristan Bamfield.’ He shook her a curt no thanks in response to her offer of a drink, reluctant to get into anything more than a passing conversation. The thought of being dragged over and introduced to the gaggle of women she’d been sitting with made him feel faintly woozy.

  She nodded in an odd, knowing kind of way, but apparently had other ideas about what he actually wanted, adding a bottle of the beer he’d been drinking to her order.

  He caught her eye when she glanced back at him. ‘You noticed what I was drinking?’

  ‘I’m good with details,’ she said, flashing him a coy smile.

  ‘That’s a useful skill.’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s moderately useful. Not like having superior strength or the ability to see into the future or anything. Now that would be useful.’

  Yeah. If he’d been able to see into the future he could have circumnavigated the total train wreck of his last relationship.

  The barman returned with their drinks and he watched Lu hand over the cash in silence, feeling a niggling discomfort about her buying him a drink. She gestured towards his beer. ‘For coughing all over you.’

  Tristan smiled. ‘Unnecessary, but thanks.’ Picking up the bottle, he took a long swig.

  Lu did the same with her wine, the large glass looking enormous in her dinky hand.

  ‘I see they do wine by the pint here,’ he said, nodding towards the glass. ‘That drink’s almost as big as you are.’

  He caught a flash of what looked like startled irritation before she converted it to wry amusement. ‘Yeah, well, you get quality with me, not quantity,’ she said, a steely edge creeping into her voice. ‘And I thought real men drank beer from pint glasses, not namby-pamby little bottles.’ She flashed him a disparaging grin.

  He raised an amused eyebrow back. He’d annoyed her, he could tell, but she wasn’t making an excuse and moving away—she was taking him on.

  The woman had grit by the truckload.

  He liked that about her. He liked it a lot.

  In fact, now he thought about it, she was the first woman to pique his interest since Marcy had left him.

  Taking a step towards him, Lu looked up directly into his face, her gaze roaming over his hair, his ey
es, snagging on his mouth.

  There was something in her expression that made his libido sit up and take notice. He smiled, feeling the intensity of their attraction heat his blood.

  Something akin to determination was playing across her face, as if she was having some sort of internal fight with herself.

  Intriguing.

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘Should I be worried here? Do you have an insanely jealous lover who’s about to storm over and demand I step outside or something? Only you seem to be arguing with yourself about the wisdom of speaking to me.’

  She let out a deep guttural laugh, the dirty carnal suggestion of it playing along his senses, making something fizz and tickle deep in his throat.

  He swallowed hard.

  ‘I’m freshly out of a disastrous fling with someone who couldn’t care less about me, actually. I seem to have a knack for choosing losers and users.’ She swayed in towards him. ‘What is it about me that screams sucker, do you think, Tristan?’

  He knew he shouldn’t articulate what had just flitted through his mind, but there was something about her beleaguered expression that made it impossible to resist.

  ‘From where I’m standing, sucker is a word full of possibilities.’ His gaze dropped to that smooth, curvy pout of hers as it twisted into a smile and he saw her shift in her heels as she twigged exactly what he was insinuating.

  Lu turned away from his gaze and took another hefty swig of her wine before placing the glass carefully back onto the bar, her fingertips catching the stem at the last second so that it spun and rocked for a moment before settling down to its former inanimate state. The spots of colour on her cheeks flared further outwards.

  Was she nervous? Or excited by the idea?

  He realised with uncomfortable certainty that he hoped it was the latter.

  Whoa, boy. Put the brakes on that impulse.

  Chatting to a woman in a bar was one thing, but taking it further wasn’t on the agenda right now.

  Was it?

  ‘You celebrating something?’ he said, nodding towards the huddle of women at the table she’d just vacated in an attempt to take the charged atmosphere down a notch or two.

  ‘A friend’s birthday. We both work round the corner so this is our after-work local.’ Something troubling seemed to occur to her and she frowned and picked up her glass again, taking another large gulp of wine. After giving herself a little shake, she flashed him a wide smile.

  ‘How about you? What are you doing here all on your lonesome?’ She made another move towards him, drawing herself up to her full height and putting out an arm to casually lean on the bar, bringing her tantalising floral fragrance with her.

  He drew in a deep lungful of her heady scent and smiled down at her. ‘I ducked in here to avoid being mauled by a woman with a hungry look in her eyes.’

  She looked at him steadily. ‘She fancied a slice of you, did she?’

  ‘I got that impression, yes.’

  ‘And you didn’t feel like being her Tristan Topping tonight?’

  He laughed. ‘Or any other night.’

  She swallowed and stared somewhere to the left side of his head before flicking her gaze back to his. There was a flash of something he couldn’t quite pin down in those baby-blues.

  She was one contrary lady. One minute cool and assertive, buying him a drink, the next uncertain and wary.

  He’d not come across someone like Lu for a very long time. Since splitting with Marcy he’d only seemed to meet women who had formed hard, flawless shells around themselves, who gave him a perfectly polished response every time—who thought they were giving him what he wanted, when actually he was repelled by their phoniness.

  But this woman had something about her that he couldn’t bear to step away from just yet.

  She was too damn interesting.

  * * *

  Pull yourself together, you lunatic.

  Lula turned away from the disconcertingly gorgeous man in front of her and glanced over to where her party sat laughing at something Emily had said. Her friend was standing and waving her arms around in an approximation of sexual fervour in her typical crowd-pleasing style.

  Em would know exactly what to say to a guy like this, and she certainly wouldn’t have made a total fool of herself by coughing all over him.

  He’d taken her by surprise, rocking up to the bar before she could formulate a plan about how best to approach him, and she’d been totally unprepared for the immediate visceral effect he’d had on her.

  He wasn’t the type of man she’d usually go for—he was scarily charismatic and his powerful virility and snappy smartness gave her the jitters. He was just so chiselled and smooth-looking with his Roman nose and intelligent, rich brown eyes that sparked with amusement behind a pair of those trendy rectangular-framed ‘invisible’ glasses.

  He was totally business.

  She had a mad urge to mess with his neatly swept back hair, to ruffle him up a bit and see the raw side of the man concealed beneath the sharply tailored suit.

  Blood throbbed through her veins as she entertained the impulse.

  She felt slightly bad about not correcting him when he’d asked if her name was short for Louise, but it had occurred to her that she could pretend to be someone else entirely tonight and it wouldn’t matter a jot. She’d never see him again, so why not fully step into the persona she wanted to project? A fake name was a great way to do that, and it wasn’t as if anyone was going to get hurt.

  Looking back at him, she realised he was frowning down at her as if trying to figure out what the heck was going through her head. He must think she was a total simpleton, first rambling on about her failed relationships, then suggesting he wasn’t a real man and now staring around like a vacant airhead.

  Gah.

  After taking one more bolstering swig of wine, she turned to regain eye contact and gave him her most seductive smile.

  ‘So what made you pick this particular pub for a refuge from the man-eater?’ she asked.

  He shrugged and twisted his beer bottle between his fingers. ‘I’m staying in the hotel across the road and this looked like a suitably dark and shady place to hide.’

  ‘So you don’t live in London?’ That was good. It meant they were unlikely to ever bump into each other again.

  Unless they wanted to?

  That’s not on the agenda tonight, Lula, get a grip.

  Tristan shook his head and frowned. ‘I’m based in Edinburgh.’

  ‘I’ve never been there. I hear it’s a really cool place.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘So what brings you this far south?’ she asked.

  ‘Business. I had a meeting in Canary Wharf today and I have something to do for my father tomorrow.’ His voice had become rougher, as if he was uncomfortable—or maybe bored—talking about it.

  Lula nodded and smiled, attempting to hide her anxiety. Her radio training told her she needed to latch onto a more interesting topic of conversation or she was going to lose him.

  ‘So is it true that men who wear glasses make better lovers?’ She cringed inside, amazed at the guff that came out of her mouth in times of stress.

  He let out a startled guffaw. ‘That’s not one I’ve heard before, but since I fit firmly into that category I’m going to say yes.’

  She smiled, happy not to have been slapped down and amazed to feel the atmosphere begin to zing between them again.

  May as well go with it.

  ‘I think it has something to do with losing one of your senses when you take your glasses off—your eyesight, obviously, in this instance—which makes you work harder with your sense of touch.’

  He dipped his head in mirth. ‘That sounds like a load of gobbledegook to me, but I’m willing to go with it if it m
akes you believe I’ll be better in bed than my non-bespectacled rivals.’

  ‘Oh, I have no doubt you are,’ Lu said, the heat in her cheeks intensifying as she struggled to maintain flirty eye contact.

  Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Emily making her way over to where they stood at the bar and primed herself for whatever might happen next.

  Everything about her friend shouted Look at me!, from her abundance of blonde-tipped, chocolate-coloured curls and large golden eyes to her curvy statuesque figure.

  She struck people.

  And she made things happen—it was what made her such a successful TV presenter. Normally Lula loved that about her, but right now she needed to be allowed to handle this situation with Tristan without Em’s dominating personality muscling in.

  ‘So, Lu, I guess you’re not coming to the next pub with us then?’ Emily said as she approached, widening her eyes and unsubtly twitching her head towards Tristan.

  ‘Er, no. I don’t think so,’ Lula said, hoping her face didn’t look as flushed as it felt.

  Emily nodded, narrowing her eyes at Tristan. ‘Hold this for me, will you?’ she said, thrusting her drink at him.

  He took it from her and watched in apparent amusement as she rummaged in her bag for something.

  ‘Do me a favour, take a sip of that and tell me if you think it’s gin or vodka they’ve put in there. I think it’s gin, but the barman swears it’s vodka,’ Emily said, her head still in her bag.

  Tristan took a small sip. ‘Definitely not gin,’ he said.

  Em pulled her phone out of her bag and took a quick snap of Tristan with the camera on it. Before he had chance to ask her what she was doing, she wrapped a tissue around her hand and took her glass from him.

  ‘Thanks. Right, well, you look after my friend here, because if you attempt anything she doesn’t like I have your picture, fingerprints and DNA and I will not hesitate to hand them over to the police. Consider yourself warned.’

  ‘Jeez, Emily, leave the poor guy alone,’ Lula said, rolling her eyes at her friend, hoping to God Tristan would see the funny side. When she turned to give him an apologetic smile she was relieved to find he was smiling, albeit in a rather bemused way.