‘Far more interesting than mine. Tell me why you needed to get away, Ella. Your openness is sexy. I like it.’
Rocco relaxed. He was back on safe ground instead of uncomfortably skirting round the truth about who he was and why he was here.
‘I fell in love,’ Ella said simply. She laughed a little self-consciously. ‘At university. I fell in love with a guy and I thought he’d fallen in love with me as well.’ She raised her eyes to his and wiped her mouth on her serviette. What had she just eaten? Ithad been very tasty but she couldn’t say. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this stuff.’
‘You know why. We’re ships passing in the night. We can say whatever we want and do whatever we want because nothing will come back to bite us in the future.’ Also true. And this was why he felt so liberated, why he wasn’t watchful with her, or keeping her at an emotional at arm’s length.
‘Tell me,’ he said roughly.
‘It’s all history now, but I suppose it’s why I stayed here. Deep down, maybe I was afraid to return to my course, afraid to bump into Steve. He was studying geography as well. We bonded over our passion about climate change. At least, that’s what I thought at the time.’
‘But instead…?’
She laughed, faltering. ‘Instead, it turned out that he went out with me because he wanted to bond with my best friend. Actually, he wanted to do a lot more than bond with her. Or, rather, hedidwant to bond…in a very,veryliteral way. He used me to get to her, and she decided he was a better catch than the guy she was dating, who was messing her around. I was collateral damage and neither of them looked back.’
‘Ella…’
‘No need to feel too sorry for me,’ she said lightly. ‘Everybody has to have a little heartbreak in their life now and again, and I’m well and truly over him.’
Rocco felt a jolt of pain on her behalf. He felt submerged in her story in a way he would never have dreamed possible. Her sweet, heart-shaped face was a picture of the stiff upper lip as she recounted something that had clearly been shattering for her at a time when she’d been going through the grief of losing her mother.
‘If that man was sitting here right now, I’d wring his neck.’
This time her laugh was genuine. ‘You’re sweet.’
‘I’m the opposite of sweet,’ Rocco growled.
‘But you’re not.’ She reached across, gently touched his hand and, when he linked his fingers with hers, she squeezed them and smiled. ‘I thought you were the most arrogant guy I’d ever met when you waltzed into my office.’
‘I’m extremely arrogant.’
‘But underneath all that arrogance and self-confidence there’s a really sweet guy who knows how to listen, and is genuine and honest.’
Rocco flushed darkly. ‘I break hearts.’
‘My heart isn’t on the line here.’
‘Good,’ Rocco said in a low, driven voice. ‘Because…’
‘Because?’
‘I want you, Ella. I want to take you to bed and make love to you until you’re crying out for more. But I don’t want to end up hurting you in the process.’
A thread of reckless abandon stole into her. She’d spent her entire life being careful and the oppressive weight of that was something she had always kept to herself. She had never really thought about it…until now.
Just when she’d least expected it, this stranger had come into her life and thrown everything into focus. He’d made her see things she might not have wanted to see, but she couldn’tun-see them. She didn’t like the trajectory of her life, didn’t like the way she’d run away and then hadn’t really stopped running, even though she could have a while back.
He was dangerous. She felt it. He was arrogant, self-confident, empathetic, strong:a potent mix. But did she care how dangerous he was? She could withstand that potent mix because she could never go for a guy like him; could never be sucked in to emotional involvement with someone who was so far out of her comfort zone. She was too grounded, whatever temporary recklessness was possessing her.
‘I… I’ve never done anything… I’m not the sort of girl… You’re saying these things…’
‘We both know why we’re here, having dinner. This is foreplay, and we both want what comes next. You’re still young, Ella,’ Rocco said with cool, gentle persuasion in his voice. ‘Give yourself permission to live a little, whatever heartbreak you’ve suffered. Or else the creep who broke your heart wins.’
‘Yes, well…’
‘Sometimes,’ Rocco murmured, leaning forward and tugging her into him, ‘It doesn’t pay to be too careful. You spend so long dodging land mines that you forget there’s a world out there where land mines don’t exist. You forget how to live the life you have.’
Ella breathed, looking at the dark intent on his face. ‘And sometimes you get out there and forget that you might just step on a land mine you hadn’t expected because you got a little too complacent. And when that happens…it’s all over.’
