Millie’s expression was etched in concern. ‘But what if you develop feelings for him? I mean, different from what you have for him now?’
Ivy laughed, picked up her hairbrush and began stroking it through her hair. ‘You mean like fall in love with him? Not a chance. He’s not the settling down type. It would be stupid to fall in love with him, knowing he doesn’t want the same things in life that I do. Louis only has one-nighters. I want someone who’s there for the long haul. Someone who’ll stick around no matter what—unlike my father. Not that Louis is anything like my father, but you know what I mean. Once a playboy, always a playboy.’
Millie’s expression was so sceptical she could have been keynote speaker at a sceptics’ conference. ‘What your father’s done really sucks, but have you actually looked at Louis lately? I mean, really looked at him? The man is traffic-stopping gorgeous.’
‘I know, but I don’t think of him that way,’ Ivy said, spraying perfume on her pulse points. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t see Louis the way other women did...although there had been a strange little flicker of something when their hands had touched that afternoon. A tingle travelled up her arm like a current of electricity. And when he’d used a French term of endearment, well, what girl wouldn’t have got a shiver down her spine? But her preference had always been for blond men and Louis, with his Anglo-French ancestry, had pitch-black hair. Not her type at all.
‘You might think of him that way once you get naked with him.’
Get naked with him. The words made her skin lift in a delicate shiver. Ivy put the perfume bottle down with a definitive clunk. ‘Not going to happen. This is just about sex, nothing else.’
‘So how long are you going to be sleeping with him?’
‘Just for one night.’
Ivy picked up her evening bag and smoothed her hand over her fluttering stomach. If I can convince him and then have the guts to go through with it.
‘Wish me luck?’
Millie gave her a long, searching look. ‘You’re going to need more than luck. You’re the last person on earth—apart from me, of course—who’s a one-night stand sort of person. People are always telling me to move on from losing Julian but it’s too hard these days to find someone who doesn’t expect you to put out before you even get to know them.’
Millie had tragically lost her fiancé, Julian, to brain cancer only weeks before their wedding three years ago. His battle to fight it had been long and gruelling and it was heartbreakingly sad Millie hadn’t got to marry her childhood sweetheart before he died. Apart from a disastrous blind date set up by another friend a couple of months ago, Millie had point-blank refused to think of finding room in her heart for anyone else.
Ivy took Millie’s hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘What you had with Jules was really special, and I don’t blame you for finding it hard to think of moving on. But don’t you see? I want that sort of love one day too, but I won’t find it spending yet another weekend at home alone watching box sets.’
Millie touched Ivy on the arm, her expression serious. ‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing? This might change your relationship with Louis for ever. Are you prepared to risk that?’
Ivy straightened her shoulders. ‘I have to do this, Millie. I want to be able to date a guy without my inexperience hanging over me and this is the best way to do it.’ She leaned forward and kissed her friend on the cheek. ‘But thanks for being concerned about me.’
The doorbell sounded at that moment and Ivy’s stomach pitched. ‘That’ll be Louis.’ She waved a hand on her way out of the bedroom. ‘Don’t wait up!’
Louis had lost count of the number of times he’d taken a woman out to dinner, so there was no reason why this time he should be feeling as if this date was something special.
Date? Is that what this is?
No. It. Was. Not. He hadn’t committed to anything. One part of him was determined to talk Ivy out of her plan to have him initiate her into the joy of sex, the other part of him was mentally stockpiling condoms and scented candles. What had got into him? Where were his set-in-stone boundaries?
Louis adjusted his tie and then pressed the doorbell on Ivy’s flat. The sound of heels click-clacking on floorboards sent his pulse up. Was it his imagination or could he already smell her perfume? The door opened and Ivy stood there in a little black dress that clung to every delicious curve on her body, the vertiginous heels she was wearing showcasing her slim legs and ankles. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and his fingers itched so much to reach out and touch it, he had to shove his hands into his trouser pockets.
‘Hiya.’ Her lips curved around a smile and desire coiled hot and tight in his groin. Her smoky eye make-up made her periwinkle-blue eyes look all the more stunning, and her shimmering lip-gloss highlighted the perfect shape of her mouth. Her utterly kissable, sexy-as-hell mouth. Heaven help him.
‘Good evening.’ Louis stretched his mouth into one of his carefully rationed smiles. ‘You look amazing.’
Amazing, sexy, gorgeous, stunning, beautiful... The words piled into his brain as if he had swallowed a thesaurus. She didn’t look like his friend’s sister any more, which was a problem, because he needed to get those boundaries firmly back in place. And fast.
‘Thank you.’
There was a funny little silence.
‘Right. Well, then.’ Louis took his hands out of his pockets and gestured towards the street where his car was parked. ‘Shall we go?’
Ivy stepped down the three steps to the footpath but almost stumbled on the last one and Louis shot out one of his hands to stabilise her. ‘Whoa, there. Take it easy in those shoes. How on earth do you walk in them?’ His fingers moved from grasping her wrist to curl around hers and another punch of lust hit him in the groin.
‘I like wearing heels. It makes me taller. Otherwise I’d end up with neckache trying to look up at people all the time, particularly people as tall as you.’
He kept hold of her hand on the way to his car. Her fingers were soft as silk and her hand so small it was completely swallowed up by his. ‘I’ll have to get you a stepladder or something when you’re with me. I don’t want you to break your ankle on my behalf.’
She gave a tinkling-bell laugh and playfully shoulder bumped him. ‘Don’t be silly. So, where are we having dinner? I’m starving.’
‘A French restaurant.’
She grinned up at him. ‘So you can dazzle me with your fluent French?’
‘Something like that.’ Louis was the one being dazzled. Big time. He knew he was crazy even to take her out to dinner, let alone contemplate anything else. She was exactly the type of girl he avoided—the type who wanted the husband, the house and the sleepy hound in front of the cosy fireplace. He’d missed out on the settling-down gene, or had had it pummelled out of him through witnessing the marital misery of his parents. These days the sense of claustrophobia at being in a relationship longer than twenty-four hours was suffocating. He enjoyed sex for the physical relief it gave but, since his stalker, the thought of a longer relationship made him break out into hives.