Hers For One Night Only?. Carol Marinelli

      ‘I wouldn’t mind the cheese platter.’

      ‘Start at the end.’ He gave her a smile and placed the order—water for him and cognac for her, he suggested, and, heaven help her, the waiter asked if she wanted it warmed.

      ‘Dominic…’ She took a deep breath as their platter arrived, a gorgeous platter of rich cheeses and fruits. ‘I think—’

      ‘I think we just ought to enjoy,’ he interrupted.

      ‘No.’ Bridgette gulped. ‘I mean…’ She watched as he smeared cheese on a cracker and offered it to her.

      ‘I don’t like blue cheese.’

      ‘Then you haven’t had a good one.’

      He wasn’t wrong there!

      He took a bite instead and her hand shook as she reached for the knife, tasted something she was quite sure she didn’t like and found out it was, in fact, amazing.

      ‘Told you.’

      ‘You did.’ She looked at the platter, at the grapes and dates, like some lush oil painting, and she knew the dance that was being played and the flirting and the seduction that was to come, and it terrified her. ‘I don’t think I should be here…’ She scrabbled in her bag, would pay the bill, knew that she must end this.

      ‘Bridgette.’ He wasn’t a bastard—he really wasn’t. Yes, he’d been playing the field since his engagement had ended, and, yes, he had every intention of continuing to do so, but he only played with those who were happy with the rules, and he knew now for sure that she wasn’t. ‘It’s cheese.’

      She lifted troubled eyes to his.

      ‘No, it isn’t—it’s the ride home after.’

      He liked her. He hadn’t wanted emotion tonight, and yet she made him smile as a tear washed away the last of her foundation and he could see freckles on her nose. ‘Bridgette, it’s cheese and conversation.’ He took her hand, and she started to tell him he didn’t want just cheese and conversation, oh, no, she knew it very well. She told him she wasn’t the girl in the silver dress who partied and he held her hand as she babbled about zebra-print rugs, no white ones, and cocktails. ‘Bridgette.’ He was incredibly close to adoring her, to leaning over and kissing her right now. ‘It’s cheese and conversation and then I’ll take you home.’ He looked at her mouth and he was honest. ‘Maybe just one kiss goodnight.’

      Oh, but she wanted her kiss.

      Just one.

      ‘That leads nowhere,’ she said.

      ‘That leads nowhere,’ he assured her.

      ‘We’re not suited,’ she said, and was incredibly grateful that he nodded.

      ‘We’re completely incompatible,’ Dominic agreed.

      ‘And I’m sorry if I’ve misled you…’

      ‘You didn’t.’ He was very magnanimous, smearing more cheese and this time handing it to her, no, wait, feeding her, and it wasn’t so much seductive as nice. ‘I let myself be misled,’ he said, and he handed her her cognac. ‘I knew from the start you were nice.’ He gave her a smile. ‘And you are, Bridgette.’

      ‘So are you.’

      ‘Oh, no,’ he assured her. ‘I’m not.’

      CHAPTER TWO

      IT FELT so good to feel so good and it was as if they both knew that they didn’t have long. It was terribly hard to explain it, but now that there wasn’t sex on the menu, now they’d cleared that out of the way, they could relax and just be.

      For a little while.

      She took a sip of cognac and it burnt all the way down, a delicious burn.

      ‘Nice?’ Dominic asked.

      ‘Too nice,’ she admitted.

      And he hadn’t wanted conversation, or emotion, but he was laughing, talking, sharing, and that XXXX of a day melted away with her smile.

      So they worked the menu backwards and ordered dessert, chocolate soufflé for Bridgette and watermelon and mint sorbet for him. As he sampled his dish, Bridgette wanted a taste—not a spoonful, more a taste of his cool, watermelon-and-mint-flavoured tongue—and she flushed a little as he offered her the spoon. ‘Want some?’ Dominic said.

      She shook her head, asked instead about his work, and he told her a bit about his plans for his career, and she told him about the lack of plans for hers.

      ‘You love midwifery, though?’ Dominic checked.

      ‘I am hoping to go back to it.’ Bridgette nodded. ‘It’s just been a bit of a complicated year…’ She didn’t elaborate and she was glad that he didn’t push. Yes, she loved midwifery, she answered, loved babies.

      ‘You want your own?’ He asked the same question that everyone did when they heard her job.

      ‘One day maybe…’ Bridgette gave a vague shrug. Had he asked a couple of years ago she’d have told him that she wanted millions, couldn’t wait to have babies of her own. Only now she simply couldn’t see it. She couldn’t imagine a place or a time where it might happen, couldn’t imagine really trusting a man again. She didn’t tell him that of course—that wasn’t what tonight was about. Instead she gave a vague nod. ‘I think so. You?’ she asked, and he admitted that he shuddered at the very thought.

      ‘You’re a paediatrician.’ Bridgette laughed.

      ‘Doesn’t mean I have to want my own. Anyway,’ he added, ‘I know what can go wrong.’ He shook his head and was very definite. ‘Nope, not for me.’ He told her that he had a brother, Chris, when Bridgette said she had a sister, Courtney. Neither mentioned Arabella or Paul, and Bridgette certainly didn’t mention Harry.

      Tonight it was just about them.

      And then they ordered coffee and talked some more.

      And then another coffee.

      And the waiters yawned, and Dominic and Bridgette looked around the restaurant and realised it was just the two of them left.

      And it was over too soon, Bridgette thought as he paid the bill and they left. It was as if they were trying to cram so much into one night; almost as if it was understood that this really should deserve longer. It was like a plane trip alongside a wonderful companion: you knew you would be friends, more than friends perhaps, if you had more time, but you were both heading off to different lives. He to further his career and then back to his life in Sydney,

      She to, no doubt, more of the same.

      Except they had these few hours together and neither wanted them to end.

      They walked along the river and to the bridge, leant over it and looked into the water, and still they spoke, about silly things, about music and videos and movies they had watched or that they thought the other really should see. He was nothing like the man she had assumed he was when they had been introduced in the bar—he was insightful and funny and amazing company. In fact, nothing at all like the remote, aloof man that Jasmine had described.

      And she was nothing like he’d expected either when they had been introduced. Dominic was very careful about the women he dated in Melbourne; he had no interest in settling down, not even for a few weeks. Occasionally he got it wrong, and it would end in tears a few days later. Not his of course—it was always the women who wanted more than he was prepared to give, and Dominic had decided he was never giving that part of himself again. But there was a strange regret in the air as he drove her home—a rare regret for Dominic—because here was a woman he actually wouldn’t mind getting to know a little more, one who might get him over those last stubborn, lingering remnants of Arabella.

      He’d been joking about