LITMIR.BIZ

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ears to hear it.

      It was Friday evening and she had declined all company. Definitely no more online dating. The daring red number had been cleaned and was hanging at the back of the wardrobe as a reminder of her mistake.

       Sergio Burzi.

      She had looked him up on the internet—not to read what was said about him, because she wasn’t that interested, but to gaze at the pictures of him...which didn’t do him justice at all.

      It amazed her that one random meeting with a perfect stranger had managed to throw her whole life out of kilter.

      She daydreamed. She changed reality so that she had ended up spending the night with him. She wondered what it might have been like. She projected herself into a future that they would never have and fantasised about having a relationship with him—a proper relationship.

      Then she remembered what he had said about the women he dated, what he had told her about the sort of women he was drawn to. Women like her sister, Alex. Clever, high-powered women, who knew what they wanted out of life the very second they emerged from the womb.

      Another feeble ring from the doorbell and she padded across to the front door. Ten seconds was all it took. Her flat was so small that she could practically flick on the television in the poky sitting room while frying an egg in the kitchen.

      She thought of Sergio’s apartment. So vast...so modern...a stunning space where everything worked and did what it was supposed to do. The lights didn’t flicker ominously, the fridge didn’t stage protests against being too well stocked, the sofas didn’t sag in the middle...and the bed... She could only think that his bed would be ten times the size of hers and wouldn’t creak every time he moved.

      Susie knew that she had to snap out of her torpor because it wouldn’t get her anywhere. Her mother had telephoned the very day after her dinner with Sergio and had peppered her with questions about the new restaurant. She had been irritated when Susie had responded in monosyllables and made a great effort to try and change the conversation, having put Louise Sadler straight and told her that there had been no nice man sharing the meal with her.

      Then her mother had launched into a speech about Clarissa’s wedding—about how delighted everyone was that she was getting married, that it wouldn’t be long before a grandchild was on the way for her mother...Louise Sadler’s sister.

      Susie’s mother had a long-running, just below the surface competitive edge with her aunt, Kate. Two years separated them, and rumour had it that the Thornton sisters had been competing from the second her mother—the younger of the two—had uttered her first words.

      Louise had married first, but Kate had had a child first. Louise had had a job with more status, but Kate’s had earned her more money.

      And now Kate’s daughter Clarissa was hopping up the aisle—the first in the family to do so.

      Susie shuddered to think of her mother’s reaction if Clarissa got pregnant and had a baby nine months after the wedding ring had been put on her finger.

      It was bad enough that Alex was so involved in her fabulously important job as a neurosurgeon that there was no sign of any boyfriend on the horizon. At least in the case of her sister Louise had the ‘fabulous job’ to fall back on—about which she never stopped boasting.

      But Susie...

      No fabulous job and no boyfriend either. In fact not even any friends who were boys who could give her mother anything to brag about.

      Was it any wonder that she had toyed with the idea of finding Mr Perfect via the internet? Was it any wonder that she had fallen for all those cosy pictures of loving couples and actually believed that rubbish about perfect endings?

      Fighting down another wave of self-pity, she pulled open the door—to a barrage of flowers. Bunches and bunches and bunches of roses—so many roses that it had taken two people to cart them up to her flat, although she couldn’t see who they were because they were shielded by the flowers.

      ‘Sorry, you’ve got the wrong place.’

      She moved to shut the door. Somewhere in the building some lucky girl was being bombarded with flowers, and she didn’t want to be reminded of the fact that the lucky girl wasn’t her.

      ‘I would have gone more easy on the quantity if I had known that your flat was so small...’

      Susie’s mouth fell open. Her heart started beating so hard that she felt giddy. The palms of her hands began to perspire. Her whole body began to perspire.

      She watched as Sergio emerged from the garden centre on her doorstep.

      He was as sexy as she remembered. As tall, as dark, as striking. Dark jeans clung to his lean hips and he was wearing a striped rugby jumper and loafers. It was cold outside, and she wondered how he could find a trench coat adequate cover. It was hooked over his shoulder with one finger.

      ‘What are you doing here?’

      ‘That will be all, Stanley.’ He addressed the man next to him without taking his eyes from Susie’s face.

      ‘Why are you here?’ she repeated in a dazed voice, barely aware of so many flowers being put inside her flat that she probably wouldn’t be able to turn a full circle when she shut the door.

      But through the daze pleasure was zinging through her—because this was one of her fantasies...the one that involved him seeking her out.

      Excitement gripped her, twisting her insides and turning her legs to jelly. He was giving orders to Stanley, the really great guy who had driven her back to her flat and seen her up to her front door the previous week, in true gentleman style.

      And then there were just the two of them, staring at one another, until she was knocked for six by his slow, curling smile.

      * * *

      He’d done the right thing.

      Sergio knew that the very second the door was pulled open and he saw her again. No red dress this time. No dress at all. Baggy jogging bottoms and a grey jumper and fluffy bright pink bedroom slippers.

      The sex kitten was nowhere in evidence. In her place was a small, cute, freckle-faced, vanilla-haired girl who was gaping at him as though he had materialised out of nowhere.

      And she was even sexier than he remembered.

      ‘Are you going to ask me in?’ He lounged against the door frame and continued to look at her.

      ‘How did you find me? No, I know. Stanley knows where I live. I’m surprised he remembered the route.’

      ‘He’s talented when it comes to remembering places.’

      ‘And maybe you’d like to tell me what the heck you’re doing here?’

      For a few seconds Sergio was completely thrown by that question. Automatic entry had been his expectation. Explanations to follow—not that he had really anticipated many of those. He had shown up, hadn’t he? This was the first time he had ever done anything like this before, and it hadn’t crossed his mind that she wouldn’t be delighted with the gesture.

      ‘Come again?’

      ‘The last time I saw you, you told me that I was either a gold-digger or a simpleton and you weren’t interested in having anything to do with me.’

      ‘I don’t believe I used the word simpleton.’

      ‘As good as,’ Susie retorted, her body as stiff as a plank of wood. She might have daydreamed about this, but now that he was here she couldn’t just shove aside the fact that he had turned her away. ‘I’m not your type...remember...?’

      ‘I’ve come bearing flowers,’ Sergio said incredulously, raking his fingers through his hair and wondering how such a generous gesture could garner a cross-examination.

      ‘That still doesn’t excuse what you said to me.’

      But

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