I snap my head back to a screen where she is dancing with a tall, dark guy. Well, I say dancing, her dancing should still be classified as fucking to music.
“You’re right,” I agree, getting to my feet. “Although I am unsure what I will do if she runs away when she sees me,” I say to myself really, but Dec answers for me.
“Simple, follow her, bring her in here and lock her in until you’ve convinced her not to run away.”
I really hope I can rediscover my younger brother’s sense of confidence for myself before I reach Olivia.
Chapter 10
Olivia
I have no clue how we have ended up in VIP, unlike Sarah, although she is attempting to feign innocence. There is no real reason for Sarah to be coy about whatever she’s done to bag us access to this exclusive floor to the club with its own bar, facilities and dance floor.
I love dancing and up here there’s enough space to move comfortably, unlike the main dance floor that I spied when we first came in. The same dance floor where I met Mason who I really need to banish from my mind.
There are two very pretty blonde girls working behind the bar, sisters or even twins who keep looking at me, so much so that I am beginning to wonder whether I know them, but am sure I don’t, even when they both smile at me as I visit the bar again. The taller of the two comes to serve me,
“What can I get you?” She grins as if she’s privy to a secret.
“A glass of white wine, please,” I reply, thinking I need to pace myself, especially at these prices.
“I’ll get that,” says a voice that turning I discover belongs to a guy I noticed earlier.
“I’m fine,” I say, already handing a ten-pound note to the barmaid.
“Come on, it’s one drink. One drink and maybe a dance,” he suggests with a grin that seems almost contagious.
I can see that this man is only a couple of years older than me, no more, and with his beautiful grey eyes searching mine I feel as though he is looking through me. He is taller than me but not as tall as Mason—why did I do that, allow myself to think of Mase? This man is never going to be anything more than a dance partner now that I have Mason bloody Harding in my head.
“I’ll buy my own drink, but the dance I can do,” I say with a sincere smile.
“You drive a hard bargain, but I’ll settle for that.” He rubs a hand through his dark, closely cropped hair before he extends a hand towards me.
“Will.”
“Olivia,” I tell him as I accept my drink and the small amount of change.
Sipping my wine on the way back to where Jed and Sarah are sitting, Jed looks up first and seems shocked to find me with company.
“Jed, Sarah, this is Will. Will, my friend Sarah and her fiancé Jed.”
Jed still looks shocked, but Sarah looks as though she may vomit judging by her green tinged pallor. I can’t shake off the feeling in the pit of my stomach that I am missing something here, yet I just place my glass on the table and assume they both think I am about to jump in with both feet like I did with Mason. I’m not.
“We’re going to dance,” I say with a final glance back at my guilty looking friends and am sure I hear Jed tell Sarah that he’d warned her this was a bad idea, but again I ignore the gnawing sensation in my gut and assume Jed means coming out so soon after my encounter with Mason, and yet again I have allowed him to invade my thoughts.
Will waits for me at the edge of the dance floor and with a hand on the exposed skin of my back guides me to the middle of the shiny surface that is still quite sparsely occupied.
I immediately begin to move to the beat of the music and quickly lose myself in it. I am aware of Will behind me, dancing but when I am moving to the music I almost forget that anyone else is there and Will is no exception. There has only really been one exception and that was…a huge mistake. That was Mase. Why do I do that? As soon as I think of Mason in familiar, intimate terms he becomes Mase.
I immediately recognise the song that’s just started, INXS, Need You Tonight and I really hope the fact that I am dancing with Will to it doesn’t make him think that Michael Hutchence and I share the sentiment because the last thing I need is another one-night stand with anyone, but especially a someone who isn’t Mase. God, I am so screwed with all thoughts coming back to him. I really wish he had come after me the other day and explained what a big misunderstanding things were, but he didn’t, meaning there were no misunderstandings on my part.
My arms are in the air, my body sways and bends from side to side while my hips begin circling as my feet move to the beat. This is the best place to escape the world, even my own mind I think as I get lost in the beat and my own movements.
I’ve always loved dancing and reading because they both offered me an escape from the real world, not that I always had the freedom to do either. The next song is already coming on and I know that Will’s going to make his move now, to get closer and to touch me, something he does as soon as I think it. Usher is talking about getting something off his chest while Will’s arms are wrapping around me, his hands on my hips pulling me closer.
“I don’t think—” I begin before Will interrupts me.
“It’s a dance, no more,” he reassures me in a whisper against my ear but as he spins me around and pulls my back into his body there is no denying that for him this is more than a dance, a sentiment his erection confirms as he holds me even tighter.
