Page 61 of Friends Who Fake It

“Wait.” The word was imperious and demanding.

“Why?” She crossed her arms over her slender chest, and his eyes dropped to the swell of cleavage displayed by the pale yellow dress she wore.

“Because I’m sure you were mistaken just now. We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

A sharp intake of breath rocked her but she covered it quickly, concealing her emotions from him with frustrating ease. Her face bore a mask of inscrutable calm. “No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, that’s your problem.”

He laughed, a sound as foreign to him as it was to her. It thundered from his lips as though a whip were being cracked somewhere in the region of his good humour, and it was startled back to life. “I think it’s both our problems.”

She frowned and a little divot formed between her brows. A slice of memory cut through him, elusive and yet tangible, all at once. His lips pressing to that divot, kissing it away. Her laughing and lifting a hand to his chest. It was so strong but simultaneously impossible to hold onto. Even as he saw the details they were sinking through the layers of his mind, impossible to reach, like searching for a key at the bottom of the ocean.

It might have been this woman, or it may have been another woman with a similar little forehead crease. He could never trust the recollections – he’d learned that time and time again.

“Excuse me, Mr Salbatore, but I was just on my way out.”

He pounced on the slip up. “So, you do know me?”

She gaped at the moment of recognition – the foolish slip of her tongue – but recovered with impressive swiftness. “I knowofyou,” she muttered. “But then, who doesn’t?”

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Fine. So come for a drink. Get to know me.”

She took a step back then, as though he’d pushed her.

And he knew that they had a history; but had not a single idea as to what it involved. “A drink,” he repeated. “For old time’s sake.”

Colour flamed her cheeks, pale pink that set off the colour in her eyes and the rose-bud quality of her lips. When she swallowed, the delicate column of her throat shifted and something stirred within him.

“I… can’t,” she murmured, her eyes flicking towards the door.

It was hardly convincing. His smile was an attempt at niceness; it fell flat. “One drink.” And he put a hand in the small of her back, guiding her out the doors and into the foyer. It was an exclusive hotel in the heart of Mayfair – and the décor was everything such a hotel would boast. Shimmering marble tiles, gold features, crystal chandeliers and burgundy runners. There was a bar too, with a grand piano, and a great collection of scotch.

He ignored it, heading for the bay of elevators instead. And she went with him, her body close enough to his side that he could feel her curves. He pressed the ‘up’ button, his eyes seeking hers in the mirrored reflection of the doors without his consent.

Hers were there, haunted, nervous, and his own nervous system went into overdrive. He was awash with feelings he couldn’t understand. Protective instincts mingled with lust, desire, anger. It was all there, grating through him, stirring him to life for the first time in years.

The doors pinged open and he guided her inside. But it was only once the doors closed and they were alone that she seemed to rouse herself.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere we can talk privately,” was all he said, swiping his key and pressing the button for the top floor. There was no way he was going to risk having this conversation interrupted or overheard. He couldn’t, for the life of him, have said why he cared so much. But every bone in Xavier Salbatore’s body was telling him this mattered. This was important.

Her eyes flew to his and he met them, before turning resolutely away, staring ahead, trying to marshal his thoughts and wits. He suspected he would need every single one of them to get to grips with this woman – and the place she held in his life.

He was too big. Too overpowering. But then, he always had been. The first time she’d seen him, she’d been spellbound. Utterly and completely. She wouldn’t have described herself as shy around members of the opposite sex, and yet he’d walked into the theatre and she’d been lost – completely. She hadn’t been able to check tickets with any degree of composure. She’d simply gone through the motions, her eyes constantly seeking him out, searching for him, until he’d walked up to her, his ticket held out, his eyes boring into hers, and her knees had felt week and her belly had seemed to twist and knot, and the world had ceased to hum and spin.

All had been silent.

All had been lost.

But foolish deeds had been born in that obsessive moment, and she wouldn’t be a fool again.

Belatedly, her brain revived itself, and she registered the fact she was in an elevator with Xavier Salbatore, cruising towards the top of the hotel.

Survival instincts came to the fore. She had to put an end to this, before it was too late.

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