The Rules of Engagement Page 5

  But by then the maître d’ was there, and Caitlyn had grabbed her tiny bag and slid off the stool.

  He placed his hand in the small of her back and they wove through the growing crowd towards the small table in a low-lit corner of the restaurant, her skin feeling as if it were burning hot against his hand even though the many cruel layers between them meant it was physically impossible.

  * * *

  After five minutes of watching Caitlyn eat her bruschetta, slipping slivers of tomato from the top and sliding them into her mouth, then slowly licking the olive oil from the tips of her finger, Dax knew he needed a new focus or they’d never make it past the entrée. Hell, it wouldn’t have mattered to him if they didn’t but she’d seemed so excited about dessert.

  ‘So tell me about yourself,’ he said, his throat tight.

  Caitlyn frowned at him as if he’d said something objectionable, then lifted her shoulders and said, ‘What you see is what you get.’

  ‘Really?’ He leant forward, enjoying very much the way her breaths hitched every time he did so. ‘Then I’m thinking only child. Grew up on a goat farm. Captain of the high-school girls’ lacrosse team until you were suspended for ball tampering.’

  Her tongue did a sweep of her bottom lip, which made him lose his train of thought, but he picked himself up ably.

  ‘But you went on to complete your schooling in the end, and thank goodness, otherwise you would have missed out on all those lingerie pillow fights with your university roommates.’

  Her eyes sparkled deliciously as she licked a stray speck of oregano from her finger. ‘You done?’

  ‘My powers of deduction have reached their limits. Though if I missed any of the highlights, or the sordid juicy lowlights for that matter, now’s the time to tell me.’

  She stilled, her eyes dancing between his, a furrow appearing between her brows. ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘You’re the one who ordered the soufflé, remember,’ he said, sitting back, giving her space. ‘We have time to fill.’

  When he waited for her to fill the silence, she slowly released her breath, like a balloon losing air through a tiny hole, then said, ‘Fine. Only child, yes. Never played lacrosse though. Dancing in front of my bedroom mirror with a hairbrush was about as athletic as I got in high school. And...I grew up on the Central Coast and have never even seen a goat in the flesh.’ She frowned at her fingernails. ‘My mum lives there still. Same place. Same house. If we didn’t have the same knocked knees I’m not sure either of us would believe ourselves related.’

  She shook her head, then sat on her hands as if they were the ones she was upset with.

  ‘And your father?’ Dax asked, surprising himself at wanting to know when before it had been just conversation.

  She gave him a blank stare. ‘He didn’t have knocked knees.’

  His silence stretched again.

  She rolled her shoulders, and her eyes for good measure, before saying, ‘Mum always said I got my dad’s elbows and his nerve. I reckon I look just like him, in fact. He was the complete opposite to her. All spirit and fire. Couldn’t stay still even if you sat on him. He travelled constantly. He was a pro rally-car driver actually. A really good one. Did the Dakar rally a few times. He died on the job when I was eleven.’

  The speed with which she got out the words and the soft, sad little shrug told him more about her relationship with her dad than even her words had. They’d been close. She missed him still. It was the complete antithesis of the relationship he’d had with his parents, then and now.

  ‘And the pillow fights?’ Dax asked, his voice unusually deep.

  She slowly looked up at him under her long auburn lashes and the revival of the sparkle in her eyes wiped every other thought from his mind. ‘Well, they were way more fun than you could ever imagine. Your turn.’

  Dax was still trying to get his head around the image of Caitlyn bouncing about in her underwear, when he heard himself saying, ‘Grew up here. Still live here. My parents are both gone.’

  Gone. It felt so impersonal. So contrary to the very personal way the event had knocked his values inside out and turned his life upside down.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I—’

  ‘Don’t be. It was a long time ago. I have one sister. Younger. Lauren. A semi-reformed hell-raiser. In fact the reason I was at the club the other night was for her birthday. It didn’t occur to her that turning thirty might call for something more civilised.’

  Caitlyn laughed. ‘Why do I get the feeling I’d like her?’

  Dax shook his head. ‘I’m fairly terrified what might be accomplished if I put the two of you in the same room at the same time.’

  ‘Best not, then,’ she said, raising both eyebrows in punctuation, indicating meeting the family was the last thing on her agenda.

  ‘Best not,’ he agreed, relaxing back into his chair, thinking he was really going to enjoy her.

  ‘And you run the family business?’ she asked.

  And just like that Dax’s heretofore perfectly content solar plexus tightened as if she’d suddenly brandished a shifting spanner in a threatening manner. His feet pressed into the hardwood floor and his fingers clenched until they felt as if they might never straighten again.

  His reaction ought to have been less clamorous, he knew. His position would have come up sooner or later. It always did. His family, their foundation and their fortune were inextricably linked in the public psyche. Along with a widow’s peak and a longer second toe, all that came with the Bainbridge name. Only this time he’d apparently been hoping for later.

  But after the day he’d had, the battering his usually highly keen self-preservation instincts had taken, it seemed they’d been rehoned to a sharpness that could cut glass.

  Caitlyn was a smart girl. She’d clearly noticed his distinct lack of a response. ‘My flatmate Franny plus Google means nobody’s secrets are safe. She likes to make sure I don’t do drinks with wanted axe murderers.’

  Dax took a large sip of water. ‘Google gave me the thumbs-up?’

  ‘To Franny’s satisfaction. Which, in all honesty, isn’t saying much.’

  Unexpectedly, he laughed, the tension uncurling a tad from his gut. He put the glass down, looked deep into her eyes and saw nothing but genuine interest. In what he did, sure. In who he was, certainly. But mostly in him. The lick of desire from the other night hadn’t waned. It was there for all the world to see.

  ‘I am the CEO of the Bainbridge Foundation,’ he acknowledged.

  ‘So Google said. What does that entail exactly?’ Elbow on the table, she cupped her chin in her upturned palm and slid another piece of oil-soaked bread into her mouth.

  His eyes remained glued there as he said, ‘Primarily I keep track of the investment side of the foundation’s funds. Finance was my career before... Before I took over.’

  She crossed her eyes at him. ‘Investments are a mystery to me. If the stock market isn’t just a way for clever sorts to create money out of nothing then I don’t know what it is.’

  Another smile swept across his face, surprising him again. ‘I like it because it’s clean. It follows patterns if you know how to read them. If you pay attention it won’t surprise you. If only you could take out the human factor it would be perfect.’

  ‘You like numbers more than people?’

  ‘Numbers are predictable. Constant. People, in my experience, are mostly neither.’

  ‘Funny,’ she said, ‘that’s what I like most about people. Every person you meet has the potential of making for an exciting new adventure.’

  She slowly licked a stray tomato seed from her pointer finger, and his eyes snagged on her mouth, and bit by bit he felt the tension in his gut ease completely away. It had to if he wanted to make room for the far more enjoyable sensation brought on by watching her teeth scrape over her nail.

  She clicked her fingers at him and he flinched. ‘So that’s why you have a private number! When you called this mor
ning and no number came up, my first thought was that you were a telemarketer. Lucky for you I was distracted enough to answer anyway.’

  ‘Lucky for me.’ Her eyes locked onto his and he could feel something pure and physical tug between them.

  ‘But what if I wanted to contact you?’ she asked.

  ‘You’d have to call the foundation and leave a message with my assistant’s assistant.’

  ‘Your assistant’s assistant? Wow. You’re cut-throat.’

  ‘You have no idea.’

  The waiter arrived with their entrées, a pile of gorgeous, glistening prawns lathered in deliciously pungent garlic.

  When the kid left Dax looked over to find Caitlyn watching him, her fork turning over and over between her fingers, a small smile on her face making him think she was trying to figure him out.

  Until she said, ‘You really didn’t Google me before calling me this morning?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Pity,’ she said, piercing a prawn with one hard hit. ‘Look hard enough and there are pictures that’d make your toes curl.’

  * * *

  An hour later, their dessert plates were mere crumbs. Dax had downed his espresso in one hit, and his feet now tapped on the floor, ready to spring into action the second she gave the sign she was ready.

  Having been forced to watch her hum happily over every bite of her steak and lick the spoon clean with every mouthful of dessert, his body felt so tight with desire he had to grit his teeth to bite it back.

  And now, considering the look in Caitlyn’s eyes as she gazed hungrily at the mint balancing on the edge of his saucer, Dax had never felt so envious of a food in his life.

  ‘Want it?’ he asked, reverting to monosyllables.

  She glanced up, guilty at having been caught. ‘What? That? No. I couldn’t possibly fit another...’ Her eyes slunk back to his saucer. ‘Oh, just give it to me, will you?’

  He slid his cup to her side of the table. She all but bounced on her seat as she slowly turned the saucer around, then placed the wafer-thin chocolate on the tip of a finger, brought it up to eye level, seemed to say a small prayer of thanks, then closed her eyes and tipped it onto her tongue.

  As if it had finally snapped its leash his mind ran wild. Her place? His? Which was closer? Was her flatmate home? She had a flatmate, right? His place, then. Was his bed made? Who cared? The way his blood was cooking they’d be lucky to get to the bed.

  ‘Done?’ he asked, the caveman deep inside him now very much in charge.

  She flicked her fringe from her face, licked a smidge of chocolate from her lip and looked him in the eye. She sat back, folded her hands on the table, and at the determined look in her eye his libido actually whimpered.

  ‘Before... Before we finish up, I have a confession to make,’ she announced.

  Damn it! Why now? Why that? They’d been so close!

  He considered deflecting her—’til later, ’til after—but knew himself too well to know she’d tweaked his Achilles’ heel, and the ignorance would play with his head worse than the knowing.

  ‘Go on, then,’ he said. ‘Hit me.’

  ‘Okay. Here goes.’ She screwed her eyes shut and held her breath and said, ‘I was on a date the night we met. With another guy.’

  A date. A date? The concept bounced about inside his head, making no sense. She hadn’t stalked him. Or secretly pricked a hole in his condom. Or used truth serum to finagle the company’s banking passwords from his mind. Bloody hell, had he become so accustomed to believing people were always out for themselves that he’d really considered any of those options seriously?

  What mattered was that he’d been thrown a bone, a bright ray of honesty where he’d expected cunning, and he’d be a cold-hearted bastard if he didn’t take it. Dax laughed ’til his stomach hurt.

  ‘That was really embarrassing to admit, and now you’re laughing at me!’ She glared at him accusingly, as if he were the one who’d done something improper.

  ‘What did you expect me to do?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Cast me off in the name of brotherhood.’

  He motioned to a passing waiter for the bill, waving his credit card. ‘Do I know the guy? Is he a direct relative?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Franny didn’t Google that deep. Are you related to anyone who sells surfboards in Torquay?’

  He slanted her a sideways look.

  Her smile was seductive as all hell as she shrugged unapologetically. ‘Believe me, that was a selling point.’

  Dax ignored the hot stab of jealousy and said, ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I am a Man. The concept of besting another Man at something is a happy one. You chose me. I won. Tonight my manhood reigns supreme.’

  When she laughed her cheeks grew pink and her eyes sparkled. ‘You’re shameful!’

  ‘I’m not the one who ditched a date for a one-night stand.’

  His hand edged across the table until his little finger found hers. Her voice was husky as she said, ‘So you do think I’m a hussy.’

  ‘Absolutely. And for that I will be eternally grateful.’

  Banter on the backburner, searing heat arced between them. She sat very still, but her gorgeous eyes drank him in. They were the colour of good Scotch. Of autumn leaves. Hell, she was making him a poet.

  ‘Dax...’ she said, then stopped.

  ‘More confessions?’ he asked, past the point of caring if there were.

  A smile came and went. ‘More like fine print. I’m... I’m not looking for anything serious right now.’

  He stilled, surprised to say the least, until he realised it wasn’t a brush-off. It was providence. He wanted her. God, did he want her. But only to a point. He didn’t do commitment, which mostly came down to a complete lack of faith that anything that seemed genuine really was. He’d been proven right on that score too many times to change his mind. He barely trusted his housekeeper with a key—much less a ‘girlfriend’—and he’d known her for fifteen years. And that wasn’t easily put into words without offending.

  Dax said, ‘Is now an appropriate time for me to message my mates and tell them I’ve found the perfect woman, or would that be presumptuous?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ she said, leaning back in the chair, a secret smile playing on her lips. ‘I don’t have anywhere else to be.’

  ‘Oh, but I think you do.’ Not taking his eyes off her, he pushed back his chair and made it around to her side of the table in time to slide hers away.

  She glanced up at him in thanks. And again as he held out her jacket.

  ‘How far is your car?’ he asked once they were making their way, fast, through the still-busy bar.

  ‘I caught a cab.’

  By now he could feel his pulse beating all the way to his toes. ‘So were you hoping we’d only need one car between us by this point, or were you planning on getting sloshed? I’m not sure either has helped in your efforts to clean up your image.’

  She glanced back over her shoulder, gleaming brown eyes, shining auburn hair, glints of light catching on metallic threads in her jacket. She lit up the room. ‘Where your mind goes reflects far more on you, my friend, than it does on me. I get a car as part of my work agreement and I’m between freebies right now.’

  ‘Convenient.’

  She laughed. Heads turned. All male. Dax felt himself strut.

  He closed in on her, placing a hand in the small of her back. She started at the touch, then sank into it. Into him.

  His voice was tight, hell, his whole body felt like a coiled spring as he said, ‘Then please allow me to escort you home. Casually, of course.’

  She raised a silky eyebrow. ‘Casually? How does that work? Will you be driving with your elbow on the open window sill, easy-listening radio humming through the speakers?’

  ‘And I thought you were the one who liked new adventures.’

  She laughed, the sound tense, fluttery, excited. ‘If it’s not out of your way—’

  ‘It’s not.’ It was
closer than his place, which was all that mattered.

  Once outside, the crispness of the spring evening air came as a shock when compared with the heat that had been bubbling between then all night.

  ‘Come here,’ he said. And he didn’t have to ask twice.

  She turned to him, slid her arms beneath his jacket, around his waist, the friction of her soft hands on the cotton of his shirt almost painful. She pressed herself against him and the trembling in her body told him he wasn’t alone in the need to get skin to skin as fast as humanly possible.

  The revving of an engine cut into his thoughts. A familiar engine, thank God. He gave her a little shove towards the car, knowing if he didn’t do it then he might never get the strength to let her go at all.

  ‘You have a driver?’ She leant down to wave through the tinted windows, her pants pulling tight across her backside.

  Dax cut his eyes to the clear cloudless sky and prayed for strength. ‘If I have to get to the airport it’s easier than driving myself.’

  ‘The airport?’

  ‘I was in a meeting in Sydney all day today.’

  She stood up, blinking at him. ‘Why didn’t you stay overnight?’

  ‘I had plans.’

  ‘Oh? Oh.’ The heat that shone from her gorgeous amber eyes was worth every second of the weary flight back.

  He opened the car door.

  She shuffled in and leant across the partition, hand outstretched. ‘Caitlyn March,’ she said.

  ‘Jerry Weidman.’

  She sat back, ran her hands over the leather seat. ‘Nice wheels, Jerry.’

  ‘Thank you, Ms March. Now where can I take you on this fine evening?’

  Caitlyn barely paused before giving her address, and then Jerry, bless him, slid the privacy screen into place before doing a smooth U-turn and taking off down the gleaming Melbourne street.

  ‘Nice wheels?’ Dax murmured, his voice echoing in the dark confined space.

  ‘They are,’ she said, slanting her eyes his way. ‘I should know.’

  Wisps of her fringe had fallen from her hairdo and now tickled the edge of her cheek. He reached out and tucked it behind her ear. The blaze of attraction flared in her eyes, creating hot dark pools of desire in their whisky-brown depths.