trustanddare_GEN Read online

  “So it was a long-term, not-living-together kind of arrangement then?” Fuck buddies, Nick wanted to say, but then had a hard time picturing the stick-up-his-butt, perfect-looking Brad being anyone’s buddy. Or fucking, for that matter. Not the way a woman sometimes needed to be fucked. Slow then fast. Soft then hard. Until the top of her head just about blew off.

  He couldn’t imagine Sophie and Brad going at it like that. He didn’t want to. Now imagining himself and Sophie going at it like that was another story.

  Nick shifted in his seat.

  “We always intended to marry, one day.” She sounded defensive.

  “So why didn’t you?”

  The waitress came and put his meal down in front of him, forcing him to break eye contact. When they were alone again she had her defenses well and truly raised. “We changed our plans,” she answered in a clear evasion and concentrated on her meal.

  They ate in silence for a while. Sophie commented on the quality of the food, how it rivaled anything found in the finest restaurants back home. She had no reason to be falsely polite with him, so Nick couldn’t help the burst of pride he felt. He’d come a long way from the kid everyone said would never amount to anything. All the way from the mean backstreets of western Sydney to a tropical island and his own slice of paradise.

  Now that was a story and a half. His life story. He wondered if Sophie would be interested in it. Probably not. She was a lawyer, and he sensed the straight as an arrow kind. How forgiving would she be if she knew the truth about him?

  “Listen, Nick.” Sophie twirled a cube of fish around on her fork. “I wanted to apologize for this afternoon. For being rude.”

  “Nothing I didn’t deserve.”

  “Still. I didn’t mean to suggest you sleep with all your female guests.”

  His lips twitched upward. “Are you saying you don’t think I do, after all?”

  “I’m sure it’s none of my business.”

  “Well, just so you know,” he said, giving her a slow, heated smile, “I don’t have a policy against it or anything.”

  He got a kick out of the way her lips curved and her face flushed. “Thank you for keeping me informed, Nick.”

  *

  “Anytime.”

  Sophie easily picked up on the implication that Nick wasn’t only talking about keeping her informed. Heat infused her as the many possibilities of what he might be offering flickered through her mind.

  She tried to clear the lump of tension from her throat as surreptitiously as possible. “I’m curious as to how you came about owning this place.” She was curious, and eager to bring the flirty banter down a notch or two. She didn’t think her nerves could handle it.

  It was several moments before he replied. “Life takes you to some pretty unexpected places.”

  When she realized he wasn’t going to elaborate, Sophie remarked, “That’s not exactly an answer.”

  “I bet you make a great lawyer.”

  “You see, you have me at a disadvantage. You know so much about me and I know essentially nothing about you.”

  “Women like men of mystery, I’m told.” His enigmatic smile made her wonder who had told him so. More specifically, which woman or women had told him so. The bite of jealousy was a surprise, and entirely unwarranted. His past love life was none of her concern. “Besides, I hardly know anything about you, either.”

  Sophie crossed her cutlery over her plate and started counting things off on her fingers. “You know my name, my occupation, my home address, my credit card number, my relationship status…”

  He held up a hand, a plea for mercy. “Alright, lawyer lady, you win. My name, proper name, is Dominick Albert Dufour.”

  “It’s French, right?”

  “The family tree’s a little vague but yeah, I’m one-quarter French. Three-quarters mongrel.” His lips curled with wry humor, taking the sting out of that last statement. “Occupation you know. Home address, you’re looking at it. Credit card number—I hardly use it. I’ve always been partial to cash myself. As for relationship status, I’m not in one. Most women I meet are only passing through.”

  Sophie rested her chin on her hand, enchanted by the way he’d managed to talk about himself without imparting much in the way of tangible information. He would have made a great lawyer himself. Yet it was impossible to imagine him in a suit and not the floral bula shirt and cargo shorts he was wearing. “And past relationships?”

  “I should stay silent, lest I incriminate myself.”

  “I’d be willing to bet you’re not usually concerned about incriminating yourself.”

  “Au contraire.”

  Sophie’s smile widened because his distinct Australian twang rendered his French accent abominable. “Are you sure you’re one-quarter French?”

  “Are you making fun of my accent?” His expression of mock offense was the last straw. Sophie’s smile gave way to laughter, real laughter that she felt all the way to the pit of her stomach. She had to use her napkin to dab at the moisture gathering in her eyes.

  When at last she recovered her sobriety, she glanced across the table to see Nick watching her with an intense gaze that made her smile stumble and fall.

  “Christ, Sophie,” he breathed at last. “You’re beautiful.”

  The trio playing guitar and singing island songs finished their set and a smattering of applause broke out. Sophie couldn’t have torn her eyes from Nick’s if she’d even had the wherewithal to applaud. Her breath backed up in her throat. Her heart sledgehammered. Oh, how she wished she could believe he was delivering a well-practiced line. Somehow, the suspicion that he was merely being straightforward was doubly frightening.

  “I’m not sure I’m up for this, Nick,” she burst out.

  He didn’t ask what she meant. “Why not?”

  With a monumental effort, Sophie tore her gaze away from the dark challenge in his. She looked down at the table and twirled her unused dessert spoon on the white linen tablecloth. “I’m a mess. Brad dumped me, actually. As for making a great lawyer? Not lately. I’m on extended leave from my firm because it’s obvious to everyone there my heart hasn’t been in defending the ‘wrongfully accused’ anymore.”

  Having admitted it aloud, Sophie felt a weight lift from her. A weight that had become so familiar that without it, her shoulders trembled. She brought a hand up to her mouth and her fingers shook against her lips. The feeling that she had lost her footing in life assailed her, not for the first time. “The fact is I’ve stopped caring why criminals do what they do—tired of making excuses for them to keep them from being punished as they probably deserve to be. I don’t think I can ever go back to that life.”

  It was a long time before she looked up. When she did, Nick was focused on her with a hard, impenetrable expression she had no idea what to make of. At length he reached across the table, taking her hand in a fierce grip. Holding her gaze so fast she couldn’t have pulled away for anything, he commanded, “Come for a walk with me.”

  As though hypnotized, Sophie found herself nodding.