A Night with the Society Playboy. Ally Blake

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СКАЧАТЬ he couldn’t identify but knew he’d never forget; those soft pink lips he’d kissed for the last time only moments before she’d walked away… Taking any naivety he might once have had with her.

      ‘Nah,’ he drawled, letting his hand drop to toy with his crystal-cut glass. ‘I’m a rogue now, didn’t you know? If I shaved I’d be unrecognisable.’

      ‘Right. Wouldn’t want to disappoint your public.’

      The side of his mouth twitched into a smile despite itself. ‘I’ve never been known to disappoint before.’

      And where in the past she might have frowned, knowing there was a double entendre in there somewhere, and then blushed as she figured it out, this time her eyes slid back to lock with his.

      She gave him a small smile to match his own. Then nodded, almost imperceptibly. Perhaps little Ava Halliburton had found time in her busy pencil-sharpening schedule to grow up after all.

      ‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘You’ll be on the business end of lots of pointing and staring and frowning if you stand next to me for too long. Your reputation will never be the same again.’

      ‘I’ll live.’

      Caleb adjusted his stance as everything south of his thyroid felt fuel injected.

      Before he had the chance to find out just how grown up she might yet be, she disregarded him in favour of looking up.

      He tipped his head to see what was so great up there to find the stars were out in force, twinkling majestically through the gap between the two large swathes of white gauzy fabric that hung over the night.

      Beside him Ava sighed. ‘Did you know Galileo died in sixteen forty-two, the year of Isaac Newton’s birth?’

      Caleb grinned. Any other woman might have made a big deal about the romance of the stars and the moon and the colour-tinted cake frosting… But not Ava. For all their history, and for all the niggling discomfort he felt not quite knowing where they stood with one another now, he couldn’t deny she was one of a kind.

      He leant his backside against the bar and crossed one ankle atop the other and asked, ‘So how is school?’

      After a few last lingering moments gazing at the dark sky, she dragged her eyes back to him. ‘School’s fine.’

      ‘And what’s your major? I can never keep up.’

      ‘I’m nearing the end of my doctorate in Social Anthropology.’

      ‘Meaning next time we see one another I’ll have to call you Dr Halliburton? Marvellous.’

      She didn’t answer, just gave an indecipherable smile.

      ‘And what does a doctorate in Social Anthropology entail exactly?’

      ‘My paper is on consumption, gender and economic status among Manhattan adolescents.’

      ‘Buying patterns of New York kids?’ he asked.

      Her smile was flat. ‘It’s not quite that simple. It’s a study of ethnicity, family structure, peer pressure, needs versus desires, and identity.’

      Spin it however she pleased, after her fancy-schmancy degree was finished little Ava Halliburton would be wanted by any American company that bought and sold goods and had a clue. Clever girl.

      ‘So that answers my next question. You are still teacher’s pet.’

      Some unnamed emotion flashed across her eyes like quicksilver, but she lifted her chin and it was gone. ‘If your memory stretches back far enough I’m sure you’ll remember I was never the teacher’s pet. I ask far too many obnoxious questions, which I’ve since discovered nobody really likes.’

      Caleb laughed through his nose. And at the same time he felt muscles stretching that hadn’t been used in years. Jousting muscles.

      For a guy who had things come all too easily to him all his life, Ava Halliburton had always been hard work. She’d never backed down from an argument. Never given an inch when she could take a mile. She was a challenge. And there was nothing Caleb liked sinking his teeth into more.

      Down, boy.

      ‘Have you seen your parents yet?’ he asked.

      She glanced down at her drink. ‘I’ve so far managed to avoid that little reunion.’

      He didn’t half blame her. Since her parents’ divorce she and her father had barely spoken, and her mother, though a delight to sit next to at a dinner party, was a Stonnington Drive cliché: ten per cent plastic, ninety per cent self- absorbed, and the last kind of creature who should ever have been allowed to be in charge of nurturing another living soul.

      ‘And how are yours?’ she asked. ‘Merv and Marion still as surly as ever?’

      ‘My mother has taken up pole-dancing.’

      Ava’s jaw dropped while her bright eyes danced. ‘She has not!’

      ‘That she has. Her doctor suggested it would be good for her blood pressure. As to my dad’s blood pressure? I’d put money on the fact she gave that little to no thought whatsoever.’

      Ava ducked her chin and smiled into her drink. When she looked back at him her head was cocked, that wide warm smile of hers was out in force, and Caleb felt the years just slip away.

      ‘Are you staying here?’ he asked, when the real question he wanted answered was would she be staying long.

      ‘Hotel,’ she said, shaking her head, thick dark hair cascading over her shoulders.

      Caleb shoved his hands deep into his trouser pockets to stop from reaching out and brushing her hair back so that he could better see her face. She did always have such a charming face.

      She glanced up towards the big house perched magnificently atop the great lawn. ‘You know this is the first time I’ve set foot in this place in near on ten years.’

      Nine years and four months. Caleb gritted his teeth until his jaw hurt, hating the fact that he knew that.

      He’d lived more, bigger, harder, better in those nine years and four months than most men lived in a lifetime, yet the fact that Ava had not seen a day of it still left an indent somewhere deep beneath his ribs.

      Out of the corner of his eye Caleb saw Damien waving frantically at him from the other side of the marquee. He was miming taking a photograph.

      ‘Then I reckon you have a lot of catching up to do with a lot of people,’ he said. ‘I should stop monopolising your time.’

      He squared his shoulders and took a step backwards, disentangling himself from the heady mix of cloying memories and Ava’s faint but memorable scent. ‘And it seems my best- man duties have barely begun. Are you sticking around?’

      ‘Until the death,’ she said, raising her glass to him.

      ‘Fine. If I don’t СКАЧАТЬ