How to Win a Guy in 10 Dates

Like dodging the issue. ‘Such as?’ He wasn’t backing down, and he sensed her get that. Sensed her caving in.

She shuffled her shoulders. ‘Things like teaching dancing, exercising the pony, keeping an eye on my employer’s Grandma, when the family’s out of town. Except she’s away now too. And I make collaged boxes, special ones, with lots of sticking and gluing. Satisfied?’ She gave him a hard stare, as if she resented his intrusion. ‘So what would you be up to if you weren’t here? Slaving in the quarry?’

A counter inquisition? Only to be expected.

‘Blowing things up. Big bangs and all that.’ That pretty much covered it, he guessed. No need to say he headed up a worldwide mining and blasting company, with a mega-bucks turnover, and ran a fireworks subsidiary just for fun. Not that he left the boardroom much these days. A desk-bound explosives expert, who’d lost his way.

Something about that reply shut her up, and she leaned back and closed her eyes again.

He sat back, scanned the busy waiting room, a world away from the smart, sparsely populated private clinics his family used. Beyond the silent TV with subtitles, an elderly man was helping his wife negotiate her walking frame past a couple exchanging grimaces over the heads of their squabbling kids. Next to them a couple of teenagers, seemingly joined at the hip, were clutching each other’s hands, oblivious.

Now he’d started noticing, there were couples everywhere he looked. Damn Carrie and her coupledom flag waving. And they all seemed to be supporting each other. Supporting? Was that what couples did? The whole relationship thing was so far off his radar, he really wouldn’t know. Not a place he planned on exploring any time soon. Probably not ever. He snorted loudly, at the thought of what he’d let himself in for with this darned dating challenge. He tried to rationalise the fact it was freaking him out. It had already caused him to wreck one car for chrissakes.

Realistically, it shouldn’t bother him. He needed to chill, take it in his stride. But a month in, he still hadn’t come across a suitable woman. He was a man who moved mountains, literally, on a daily basis. Jeez, what could be so difficult about a few dates? It was easy stuff. But he needed to tackle it, before he crashed any more cars. Okay, he had cars coming out of his ears, but not for wasting like that. But first he had to find a woman who was up to the task.

His eyes snagged on Millie again.

No. Absoloutely not. Definitely not her.

Except she was objectionable enough to satisfy Carrie’s criteria – a million miles from being compliant. And totally not what he’d ever go for in real life. A girl with riotous hair, and tattoos – one tattoo on her leg, he assumed there would be more – who majored in sticking and gluing. He bit back a broad grin. Cassie would be gob-smacked and it would damn well serve her right. He already knew what fun it would be.

Shame then, it didn’t seem right to go there.

Big shame, seeing as he’d pretty much racked up one date already, given they’d been here four hours. He couldn’t think when he’d last spent that long with a woman. Women didn’t particularly cross his path, other than at the wealth-dripping social occasions he attended, when he literally had to fight them off, and usually ended up taking his pick for a hot after-party liaison. It was all very well to talk about finding a suitable woman for the challenge as if women were ten a penny, but in his daily life they weren’t. Women were pretty damned scarce in the working stratosphere he moved in, and suitable women were even scarcer. Where the heck was he going to find one? He couldn’t fail the challenge before he’d even begun, because he couldn’t find a woman.

‘Sorry … ’ Millie had opened her eyes with a start and fixed him a grey-green gaze that sliced straight through his protective shell. ‘But you don’t smell like you work in a quarry.’

Hands in the air, he’d been over-zealous with the body spray this morning, and now she’d caught him out.

‘A bit of a random comment for a Monday lunchtime. Where did that come from?’ Not that he gave a damn, but more time to tailor his answer would come in handy.

Why was he still clinging to the pretence of being a quarry worker anyway? He could tell her something a whole lot closer to the truth without letting on to her that he was the CEO. But if he did that, he’d eliminate her from his challenge field at a stroke.

‘Caught a waft/making conversation/passing time. You choose.’ She threw him a smile he assumed was accidental. ‘Anything rather than go insane with boredom.’

Something about that smile made him decide his answer. ‘And probably I don’t smell of quarries because you caught me early on. By the end of the day it’s a whole different story.’

So he hadn’t ruled her out completely yet, according to the answer he’d given there. Not exactly a lie. Rather a judicious ambiguity. But she might not be available for his challenge, even if he ruled her in and that thought elicited a twang in his chest he couldn’t explain. She didn’t fit into his ideal, svelte-glossy-groomed-woman box, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be queues of other guys waiting to suck up her brand of curvaceous smolder. But if that was the case, why was she here with him? He watched as she drew one foot up onto the chair, and hugged her bent, bare leg close against one full breast, rested her chin on her knee, bit the fullest of lower lips, then closed her eyes again.

Pure sex kitten. Ready to play.

He shuffled in his seat, tried unsuccessfully to achieve some sort of negotiated settlement with his borrowed jeans, and opened Motor World. Not because he wanted to read about cars. He didn’t. Cars were the last thing he wanted to read about. But Motor World was his only hope of keeping his eyes off the troubling body beside him.

***

‘We’ve been here eight hours, and now you’re telling me I can’t go home?’ Millie rounded on the nurse, her anger strangled by the panic that tightened around her throat. ‘I won’t stay here, I can’t stay here … ’

The last time she’d stayed in hospital … She gritted her teeth to banish that thought.

The nurse was insistent. ‘You lost consciousness earlier, you have suspected concussion. For your own safety you need someone with you for the next twelve hours, otherwise we won’t be able to discharge you.’

‘Is there a problem?’ Ed sauntered over, hands rammed into his pockets, his past-caring face long since worn out. All she needed. He’d been driving her crazy simply being here, all day long, with his superior expression, not to mention his shorter than short temper. Frankly, she’d met more mature two year olds. He obviously thought he was God’s gift to someone; she just wasn’t sure who yet. Sitting next to him had been like being rubbed all day with rough sand paper on bare skin. And he was going to love this. She already knew the way his disgustingly perfect features would twist as he gloated.

‘They won’t let me out unless there’s someone to stay with me until morning.’ She couldn’t bring herself to say there was no-one she could think of to ask. Darned countryside, with hardly any people, her best friend off back-packing and after being here a year, no-one else she knew well enough to ask. All the family where she was living were away until the end of the week, even Grandma. It wouldn’t have been like this if she’d stayed in the city. She had stacks of friends there. It was all very well being independent, coming to the country to get a free house whilst she built up her business, but there were times when it had serious drawbacks.

‘My sister was ill for a long time, I can’t stand medical environments.’ She hurled that nugget at the nurse and the man, both staring at her, bemused. The truth, but missing out the real reason. Hopefully enough to explain her reluctance.

She tried not to remember how much she didn’t want to stay here, how much she detested hospitals, how ill they made her feel after the last time. She threw one desperate glance in Ed’s direction. ‘Unless … ’

‘Unless what?’

‘You wouldn’t be able to..?’ She screwed up every bit of courage and put her irritation of the day to one side. It was a measure of how desperate she was that she was even thinking of this, but, whoa, she was desperate. Desperate enough to force out a smile.

‘Could you possibly stay with me for the next twelve hours?’

***

How the heck had it come to this? An hour later, pulling up outside Millie’s cottage, Ed’s internal panic alarm was blaring.

‘I’ll wait in the car while you go for your gear. Bring a quilt, my place is rough, I’ve got the builders in. And hurry up.’ As if barking at her would improve the situation at all.

He had to be mad to be doing this, but somehow Millie had caught him off guard. Maybe it was the wild, haunted flare in her eyes. Stroppy woman and sex kitten had melted away, leaving one girl who was just plain scared, though perhaps the full-on curve of her lips in that one begging smile had swung it. Then his own instinct to work every situation to the max kicked in, and he was straight on the phone to Carrie, saying ‘Dating Challenge on.’

When Millie re-appeared – not that he expected that to be any time soon – he’d drive into town, pick up a take-away, and then head back to the barn he was converting out on the estate. All agreed with Carrie as a suitable wealth-concealing, coupledom activity.

Twelve hours from now Date One would be over. All good.

Except now it came to it, he was the one bricking it, and he had no idea why.

CHAPTER THREE (#u36511fef-9ae6-5ec5-82cf-60332b899133)

MILLIE stretched out on Ed’s threadbare sofa, loving the tea-lights placed at intervals around the floor edge, and the flickering shadows which danced up the rough stone walls.

‘You okay there?’ Ed leaned over the back of the sofa, and gave her quilt a tweak.

Was that a glimmer of a smile playing across his mouth, or just another ironic grimace? She’d definitely got her gratitude-goggles on here.

‘Yep.’ She nodded. Way more than okay in fact. Try couldn’t be better. Perfect even.

Indian take-away, watching the sun go down on the terrace-to-be outside the huge barn doors, and washed down with alcohol-free beer, in case there was an emergency later. Bossy Ed had come through. So far, he was looking like a whole lot more than just a pretty face. And then all rounded off with luxury ice-cream. Now he was looking like a god. Not necessarily the best news for her, with her strict man-ban in place.

‘The barn’s still a work in progress, obviously. We’ve stripped out, done the roof and drains, and enough electrics to run a fridge. Should be good for a night of summer camping.’ As he craned his neck scanning the roof timbers, she reeled as one glimpse of the exposed column of his throat fired a shiver down her back. Then he sent her a grimace so close to a smile it made her tummy tumble into free-fall. ‘Better than hospital, I guess.’

‘You bet.’ The secret cat-who-got-the-ice-cream grin she’d been guarding made a surprise escape, somehow plastering itself from ear to ear. Hopefully he’d turned away before he saw.

As for her man-ban, he’d given her no reason to think she had any chance with him. On the contrary, he was keeping his distance.

‘So, if it’s okay with you, I’ll get on with that work I told you about.’ He sauntered to the table by the doors, flopped onto a chair and opened his lap-top.