ABBY
Emma’s assertiveness snags us the last free space at the bar. Low lighting and soft jazz are the only distraction from the girls discussing the merits of honeymooning immediately after a wedding or chancing a mini-moon first. I’m bored senseless.
Karen looks bewildered, reality striking with the constant wedding talk. She chews her nails subconsciously, overwhelmed with it all.
There’s been no sign of Callum Connolly since dinner. Perhaps he took the hint when I didn’t immediately flock to him. An unwarranted surge of disappointment whips through me. It’s probably for the best. I’ll never give him what he really wants. Although it still leaves my radio show dilemma.
‘Are you okay, Abs?’ Karen asks, stirring ice around a rapidly decreasing G&T.
‘Tired after dinner and the massage.’
‘I can’t believe the boys didn’t hang around,’ Emma says.
If there was ever a woman that was made to be a WAG, it was Emma. Her hair’s always immaculate, as are her nails, and I’ve never once seen her without a full face of make-up, even in the spa earlier. She’d look the business, cheering Callum on from a private sporting box. I should encourage her, but I loathe the thought of it. What is wrong with me?
‘Weird how he sent the bottle and didn’t even come over,’ Kerry adds. ‘Maybe he actually is a fan of the show.’
The alcohol’s gone to my head. It’s bursting out of me, I’m dying to tell someone, anyone about what happened earlier. ‘I wasn’t going to mention it, girls… but it wasn’t the first glass of champagne he bought me today.’ I flash a sly smile and smooth my dress down.
‘You dark horse, Queenan!’ Karen’s eyebrows disappear beneath her fringe.
It’s too tempting not to continue, to relive the moment out loud, even if it did amount to nothing in the end.
‘He arrived at my bedroom door about five hours ago.’ I deliberately leave the details abstract.
‘It’s always the quiet ones.’ Karen is practically jumping up and down. Only she knows the significance of me overcoming my own self-imposed boundaries.
‘Well, don’t stop now, Abby. You’re on a revolutionary roll,’ Kerry says.
‘So, did you?’ Emma licks her lips, desperate for details.
‘Of course, I didn’t. Do I look like the kind of woman that would happily be another notch on that man-whore’s bedpost? Good looking though he is, it’d take more than that.’ I enjoy the way Kara’s term rolls off my tongue.
The rapid widening of Karen’s pupils alerts me that something’s off-kilter. Emma stands to attention, fluffing her hair at the roots.
I feel Callum’s presence before I see him. Heat spreads betrayingly up my neck, rapidly progressing towards my cheeks. Not because of what I called him. I practically said that to his face already. I might have held back on the exact term ‘man-whore’, but he got the gist.
It’s the agonising physical effect he commands that embarrasses me. The way my heart rattles in my ribs. The way that my pulse deafens me.
‘Thanks again for the champagne.’ I attempt to recover the situation quickly, as though I intended him to hear my harsh words.
‘It’s a pleasure, Abby, as always.’ He doesn’t miss a beat.
The simple blue lining of his white shirt emphasises his oceanic eyes. Eyes a woman could drown in. The sheer size of him makes me want to fall into the security of his arms and wrap them around me. The alcohol hasn’t helped my mouth or my resolve.
‘So, you think I’m good looking?’ Callum murmurs, lips brushing against my ear. His masculine scent sends my hormones into overdrive again.
Note to self, order a rampant rabbit before I meet him again, especially if I plan on consuming alcohol. If the chemistry escalates much further, I can’t trust myself.
‘There’s many a good-looking bastard out there.’ I quote one of Mammy’s wise words of warning to my sister and I before we left for college, smiling again to soften the insult.
‘Where are your buddies?’ Emma happily accepts Callum’s interests are well and truly focused elsewhere.
‘Two went home to their wives and the other two went to a club in the city.’ He doesn’t take his eyes from me for a second. He possesses a dangerous ability to make a girl feel like she’s the only woman in the world. Thankfully, pictures inThe Irish Sunremind us of a different story; one in which others felt that they were the only woman in the world. Obviously, they weren’t. And I’m not stupid enough to think I am either. Not least because I refuse to surrender to his advances. If I do, he’d disappear the second he reached his flesh induced peak.
But I do need him for another purpose. He’s undoubtedly perfect for my show. How to get him to agree to my proposition’s another matter entirely. I decide to grab the bull by the horns, or the hand, at the very least.
‘I have a proposition for you.’ I hold my body flirtatiously close to his.
Surprise etches the lines of his devilishly handsome face.
‘I think I like the sound of that.’ No, he likes the sniff of an opportunity.
‘Let’s go somewhere we can talk, privately.’
Karen’s white with shock, having never witnessed this side to me before.
‘See you at breakfast.’ Emma wiggles her eyebrows suggestively at Callum’s perfectly rounded backside.
His hand sears the small of my back as he guides me out of the busy bar. My heart hammers erratically under the heat of his touch, invisible flames lick parts of my body that I’ve neglected for years. Every single sleepy cell within me jolts vividly back to life at his touch, as he leads me to the elevator.
