Too Charming (8 page)

Chapter Eight

The bar where Scott had chosen to meet was halfway between the police station and the chambers. Though Megan had been there a few times, generally she and her fellow detectives avoided the place. It was too trendy, too pretentious. Too full of smooth lawyer types: men like Scott.

‘So, now you’ve got me here, what exactly do you want from me?’ she asked as he brought the drinks to her table. Today he had on a bold, purple check shirt and purple tie, loosened at the collar. She wished she could tell him he wasn’t able to carry it off. She couldn’t.

He quirked an eyebrow at her question.
‘I’m not sure the things that come immediately to mind are suitable for such a public place, but I’m game to discuss them if you are.’

Shaking her head she took a sip of lager and told herself to stop feeding him such obvious lines. ‘I mean, what are we going to talk about?’

He considered her through narrowed eyes. ‘We could start with what it is, exactly, that you’ve got against me.’

‘I thought we agreed to only one drink. What you’re asking would need a whole evening.’

‘Touché.’ He raised his glass at her. ‘Okay, let’s just pick the top three items to start with.’

‘Umm. Top three. Let me see.’ She pretended to consider the question, adding them up on her fingers.

‘Come on, don’t hold back on me now. Saying what you think isn’t usually a problem for you.’

She gave him a small smile. ‘No, it isn’t, is it?’

‘Especially when it comes to what you think of me.’

At that moment his expression was neither cocky nor smug. It was guarded and tense. He clearly expected her to reel off a litany of his shortcomings. As if she really had that right to judge him. ‘I don’t have anything against you, Scott. I have an issue with the job that you do, but not with you.’

‘Why do I get the feeling that’s not entirely true? That you’re holding back on me?’

She took a drink and made herself answer honestly. ‘Okay, the truth is, you unsettle me. Make me nervous.’

He looked so astonished, it was almost comical. ‘No way.’

‘It’s true. I’ve met your type before, and it ended badly. I’m in no rush to repeat the experience.’

‘My
type
?’ 

He was clearly unhappy with her use of the word, but she didn’t know how else to put it. ‘You’re handsome and charming, Scott.’

‘At last, she notices.’

A laugh burst out of her. ‘Of course I noticed.’ She hesitated, wondering how to phrase the rest.

‘I sense a giant
but
hovering on your lips.’

Again, she found herself smiling. ‘Okay then,
but
, in my experience, handsome and charming is a dangerous combination.’

‘Dangerous how?’

She wasn’t about to admit that it was dangerous to her heart – not to a man who probably never engaged his heart when it came to relationships with the opposite sex. ‘Tell me, why are you so determined to get me out on a date?’ she asked instead, desperately changing the subject. ‘You can’t really fancy me.’

‘Why not?’ His grey eyes were unflinching.

‘Come on, I didn’t have you down as cruel. Please don’t make me spell it out.’

‘Spell what out? How I find you incredibly attractive?’

She couldn’t stop the flush that stole across her cheeks at his words, or the rapid flutter of her heart. ‘That’s just my point. You don’t find me attractive, not really. It’s just that your ego can’t stand to be ignored. It’s still trying to work out why I didn’t immediately bat my eyelids and jump into bed with you, like every other female you’ve ever gone after.’

‘That’s simply not true,’ he countered, thumping his beer glass down on the table in a rare show of frustration. ‘I like you, Megan. I’m interested in getting to know you more …’

‘So that you can tumble into bed with me and cross another conquest off your list, before moving on to the next woman?’ Now she was being the cruel one, but somehow she couldn’t stop the words from flowing. ‘You think I don’t know how it will end?’

‘Psychic, are you now?’ he replied cuttingly, his eyes glinting dangerously. ‘You know that’s a pretty damning character assassination.’

The coldness of his tone stopped her in her tracks. She was allowing her past experience to colour her judgement, which wasn’t fair. The man in front of her wasn’t heartless or callous. He was the same one who’d taught her daughter how to draw. Who’d brought them all flowers, only a few days ago. ‘I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to say what I did. I didn’t mean to insult you, it’s just—’

‘You have no interest in dating me,’ he supplied for her. ‘Tell me, Megan, you’re nervous, but of what exactly?  I know you feel the heat between us. You can’t kiss me like you did the other night and then sit here and deny you feel anything.’

No, she couldn’t. ‘Of course I find you attractive. I suspect there isn’t a woman alive who doesn’t.’

‘Here we go with another
but
.’

She acknowledged his attempt at
humour with a lift of her lips. ‘But I’ve learnt my lesson. There was a time, before Sally, that I was only too happy to hook up with a man like you. A man for whom charm and flattery were simply a way of life.’

‘I take it you’re talking about Sally’s father.’

‘Yes.’ As she was prone to do when talking about something too personal, Megan fiddled, this time with the stem of her glass. ‘He chased me, much as you’re doing now. Foolishly, I let him catch me. I believed him when he told me how gorgeous I was and how much he loved me. How I was the only woman for him. ‘ Megan reflected sadly that this was the second time she’d dredged this sorry tale up in the space of a few days. It didn’t hurt any less. ‘I let him break my heart,’ she finished simply.

‘And now you think all men are the same?’

‘Now I tread very warily when I come across handsome charmers like you.’

‘Flattered and insulted in the same breath.’ Shaking his head, he laughed harshly. ‘So where does that leave us?’

If she had any sense, it would leave them as passing acquaintances at best. Hostile adversaries in the court room at worst. But despite everything she’d told him, and every warning bell that was going off in her head, Megan found she didn’t want to walk away from this man. There was something about him, his company and his flattering pursuit of her, which made her feel gloriously alive. She hadn’t felt like that for a very long time. ‘It leaves us enjoying a drink. Between friends,’ she finally replied.

‘And if I want more than that?’

She ignored the pull of his deep, husky voice and the lure of his clear grey eyes. ‘That’s all that’s on offer.’

Scott thought for a moment. ‘Okay then, as my friend, why don’t you come with me to the Law Society annual shindig on Friday? Think of it as a chance to put on a sparkly dress and admire me in a tux.’

Had he listened to a word she’d just said? Megan closed her eyes. When she looked up again, he was watching her expectantly. ‘I have no desire to see you in a tux thanks, and I don’t own a sparkly dress.’

‘Now you’re just being pedantic. Come on.’ His grey eyes had turned soft, his voice even more persuasive. ‘There’ll be hundreds of people there, so you’ll be perfectly safe.’

‘I’m more than capable of looking after myself.’ The moment she said the words, she knew she’d fallen into his trap. The one where she’d already imagined herself there.

He grinned. It was the grin of a
man who’d been dealt a poor hand, only to find it looked like it might win him the game. ‘Perfect. I’ll pick you up at seven.’

So Friday night, still reeling from her total inability to refuse Scott, Megan found herself in a vast ballroom, surrounded by legal professionals dressed in their finery. From her vantage point on the first floor balcony, she stood and watched. It wasn’t hard to pick out Scott, despite the fact that he was wearing the same black and white evening uniform as every other man down there. He was the one with the impossibly handsome face, the tall, imposing figure, the bold confidence. All of this was obvious not just from the way he carried himself, but from the way a crowd, or should that be a flock, of women had gathered around him.

‘Lost your date?’

She turned to find an aging, balding, rotund man leering at her cleavage. ‘No, just taking a break.’ Deliberately she turned her back on him, hoping he’d get the message. Unfortunately, it meant that she was back to staring at Scott again. Back to noticing the obscenely large entourage he’d managed to collect in the short space of time it had taken her to find the ladies.

‘Great view you’ve got up here.’ Her new friend obviously couldn’t, or wouldn’t read body language, because he’d now squeezed his way in next to her. ‘Good place to line up your next conquest, eh?’

At that moment Scott tipped back his head and laughed at something one of his harem said.

And the man on the balcony sidled even closer to her. ‘
Who’ve you got your eye on then?’

His breath smelt of whiskey and his body radiated off so much heat it was like standing next to a furnace.
A furnace that was still ogling her chest. It was so pathetic, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This was the type of man she was used to attracting:  overbearing and dull. A man at polar opposites on the attraction scale to the one holding court  below her.

‘Nobody in particular,’ she lied.

His eyes followed hers and landed on Scott. ‘Is that him? The good looking cad with all the ladies buzzing round him?’

‘He’s the man I came with,’ she replied stiffly, edging away. She wasn’t going to hang around while he went on to point out the obvious differences between
herself and Scott. The fact that Scott was down there, the centre of attention, while she was hiding away up here like the proverbial wallflower.

‘How about a dance?’ He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. ‘Might make him jealous.’

Oh God. She had about as much chance of making Scott jealous as she did of making
Playboy
centrefold. ‘Thanks, but I’d better not. We don’t want to risk making a scene.’

At that moment Scott looked up. Eyes that were still crinkled with laughter searched and met hers. Held them for several heart-thumping moments before winking and turning his attention back to the blonde woman by his side.

‘Better go and claim him then, love. Before she does.’

Though her heels hampered her escape somewhat, Megan positively raced back down the stairs. She told herself that her speed had more to do with escaping furnace man than doing as he’d suggested. But as she neared Scott, who was now dancing with the blonde woman, draped around him like a fashion accessory, she felt a stab of such irrational jealousy she knew she was lying to herself.

It was happening again, she thought with a shiver of fear as she walked back to their table. The seemingly irresistible pull towards a man who was, ultimately, going to break her heart.

Whilst waiting for Megan to come down from her perch on the balcony, Scott had found himself accepting the offer to dance with the tall blonde lawyer who’d been stroking his ego for the last ten minutes. Why the hell not? Megan was only here under sufferance and was determined to keep their relationship platonic. Kathy, on the other hand, was clearly ready to jump into bed with him as soon as he said the word. And unlike Megan, the blonde laughed at his jokes, gushed over his work and generally made him feel invincible. Sadly, unlike Megan, she also failed to arouse any interest in him, despite her best endeavours. Endeavours that included sinuously rubbing her agreeably curvy body against his as they shimmied on the dance floor. It irritated the hell out of him that he was so unmoved by her. God, at this rate he was going to spend the rest of his life bloody celibate, only ever wanting the one woman he couldn’t have.

With that diabolical thought in mind, he made his excuses to the now miffed blonde and strode back to the table, where Megan had finally decided to return.

‘Come, dance with me.’

She stayed sitting, shaking her head. ‘Please tell me you didn’t drag me here to try and make me jealous,’ she remarked, nodding over in the direction of Kathy who was watching them both from the side of the dance floor, her face like thunder.

He sighed. Surely she wasn’t serious? ‘That depends. Is it working?’

‘Hardly.’ She took a sip of her wine and glared back at him. ‘In order to be jealous, I’d have to care.’ Then she expelled a long, slow breath. ‘Look, dance with other women if you want to. I’m really not bothered. But I am angry. I hate being played. I feel like this is all part of some big game you’ve got going.’

Scott reached out for her hand and dragged her to her feet. ‘This is no game,’ he told her quietly. ‘You took your sweet time coming back from the ladies. I was asked to dance. It would have been churlish to refuse.’ He studied her, his eyes taking in her lithe, toned body, tonight squeezed into a midnight-blue silk dress. ‘If I’d known you wanted to dance with me so badly, I’d have come and found you.’ Not allowing her any room for refusal, he led her towards the floor.