Date with a Single Dad. Ally Blake

what Rylie was asking. And it was fair enough. They were best friends. Had been since school. Maybe she could give her a little sugar, so long as she gave nothing away about Zach or Ruby. But to do that she’d have to give too much of herself away as well. The myriad reasons why she couldn’t just throw herself at him and be done with it went deeper than even Rylie knew.

      ‘The weather, then,’ Meg said, tilting her head towards the heavens. ‘Look at that sky. Have you ever seen so many stars? Hasn’t this been the most beautiful night?’

      Rylie paused a long moment before glancing across the fire towards the man they were both pretending not to be talking about. ‘Absolutely gorgeous.’

      On a sigh Meg said, ‘You have no idea.’

      A gorgeous man and a gorgeous dad. It was the second part that was making it so easy for her to fall for him, while also making it impossible for her to have him.

      She’d never gone through the grieving process the doctors had warned her she might when she’d convinced them to give her the operation that would take away her chance of conceiving a child. All she’d wanted was to do whatever she could to stop her father from ever getting the chance to bully another kid again.

      She was beginning to fear that was what the faint but now constant ache in her heart was—fissures that had existed in her happy facade since the morning she woke up in Recovery. Only now, as she understood fully for the first time what she’d given up, those fissures were turning into cracks big enough to split her in two.

      ‘Can you do me a favour?’ Meg asked.

      ‘Anything. Always.’

      ‘I don’t want to be missing any more. In the press, I mean. Dylan texted me today. Apparently the snippet Chic ran online a couple of days back has grown legs. I’d rather not be hounded by people with mobile cameras any more than usual this week.’

      ‘I’ll get onto my contact at Chic and give them the word,’ Rylie said. ‘Where do you want to be instead of missing?’

      Here. ‘Anywhere but here.’

      ‘May I ask why?’

      Meg tucked her chin against her shoulder and glanced at her friend. ‘I wish I could tell you, but it’s complicated.’

      ‘Okay, for now. I’m not so silly to think wheat-grass juice is the reason you’re glowing like you are. Tell your man he can do as he pleases, I’m looking the other way.’

      Meg gave Rylie a quick hug.

      Tabitha chose the perfect moment to twist her way out of the line and head on over, laughing as though she could barely draw breath.

      ‘You are a maniac,’ Meg said, her voice still slightly ragged.

      Tabitha slumped down onto the straw mat beside them. ‘Every party we ever have from now on should be exactly like this.’

      ‘With nobody we know as guests and no alcohol?’ Rylie asked.

      Tabitha shrugged. ‘Why not? I know the wellness class we took the first day was all about finding balance, but sometimes I think you need to let yourself go completely off balance too. It’s a yin and yang thing.’

      Off balance. That was the term Meg had been reaching for to describe how Zach made her feel.

      He was intensely private while her life was splashed about the papers so regularly she might as well have been living in her own reality TV programme. He saw family as something to safeguard, not to flaunt. His life was so far removed from her own as to be completely foreign.

      This was a man trying so hard to be worthy of his daughter, if he knew how low she’d sunk, how desperate a measure she’d taken in order to pull herself back out into the bright lights, would he understand? Or would he think her ridiculous? Hopeless? Weak? All the things she’d been told she was by the one man who ought to have been her fiercest champion. If even her father couldn’t see the good in the real her, what hope did she have with anyone else?

      He shifted in the firelight, all shadowy angles and dark good looks.

      This man had given her chocolate when she’d needed chocolate. He’d given her disco when she’d needed disco. Would he, could he, be the one she could trust to accept her just as she really was?

      ‘As much as it pains me to admit,’ Rylie said to Tabitha, ‘you may be onto something with this off balance thing.’

      ‘I hear that,’ Meg whispered.

      When the party had well and truly wound down, Zach found Meg standing by the bar alone—a bright red firecracker amongst the few shadowy forms lingering till the end.

      ‘Did you get your fair share of marshmallows?’ he asked when he was close enough to breathe in her subtly exotic perfume.

      She turned to him with a coconut shell curved into her palm and a straw in her mouth. That mouth. If Zach had ever had cause to believe in heaven and hell that mouth was enough to convince him of both.

      ‘I’ve eaten far more than my fair share. But it’s too late. There’s no getting them back now. You had a good night?’

      ‘Tonight hiding in plain sight finally caught up with me. My right hand is bruised from pressing local flesh all evening.’

      Her eyes smiled as she sucked on her straw. ‘So how was it being Mr Social?’

      ‘One couple had me pinned for half an hour trying to get me to join their pyramid scheme.’

      She laughed so hard she tucked her drink to her chest so as not to spill it. ‘If you want I can give you some hints on how to extricate yourself quickly and politely so that they leave thinking you were lovely but somehow certain they’d better not go near you again.’

      ‘You are a woman of many hidden capabilities, Ms Kelly.’

      She raised one thin eyebrow. ‘And then some. Now come on, you must have met some nice people.’

      ‘I did.’ Most were surprisingly decent. Warm, welcoming, enthused that he’d seen such value in their beautiful region to create the resort. He said, ‘One local businesswoman had some fantastic ideas about marketing local produce around the country using the resort label. I might even look into it while I’m here.’

      She grinned. ‘I told you schmoozing had its perks.’

      ‘So you did.’ He glanced around. ‘Where are your chaperones?’

      ‘Rylie needed her beauty sleep and Tabitha practically had to be carried back to the room, she so wore herself out dancing.’

      When she smiled at him she made him feel as if he were sixteen again with possibilities he’d never even imagined opening up before him. He felt as if he could take on the world. He felt as if he were standing on unstable ground.

      He waved an arm away from the bright bar. Together they walked around the edge of the beach to a place the firelight didn’t quite reach.

      She slid her bare feet sensually through the sand. Her fingernails and toenails had been repainted blood-red. She smelled of jasmine. Her skin glowed warm and creamy in the firelight. Escaped tendrils of her hair flickered away from her lovely face in the light summer breeze. Heat curled deep within his abdomen.

      His voice was rough when he said, ‘I’ve had a question I wanted to ask you all night.’

      She clutched her coconut shell to her chest and looked at her feet. ‘And what’s that?’

      ‘Did you seriously have that dress in your suitcase this whole time?’

      She laughed. ‘A girl never knows when she’s going to need a party frock. Besides, the girls packed my bags for me. You’ll be shocked to discover coming to a wellness retreat was their idea.’ She glanced sideways. ‘You look very smart yourself.’

      He