Needed: One Convenient Husband(9)

Two more conversations later with men who up front admitted they were  married, but had left their wives-which meant they were utterly useless  to her because they couldn't remarry until they were legally  divorced-she scanned the bar. Depressingly, most of the men at the bar  were either already hooked up with a partner or looked older, which from  experience she knew probably meant they would still be married, even if  they weren't living with their wives.

She caught a glimpse of the back of a guy's head as he disappeared into  a shadowy part of the bar. Adrenaline pumped, because she was certain  it was Kyle. He was the right height and his shoulders were broad. He  half turned, giving her a clear view of his profile. It wasn't Kyle.

Unacceptably, disappointment deflated her mood even further. Of course  none of the Messena men would be seen dead in a singles bar. They were  too wealthy, too macho and too gorgeous. They didn't need to go after  women, because women chased them. Jacinta's reaction to Kyle was a case  in point. She had practically swooned over him.

A nerdy guy approached her and asked if she would like to dance. Eva  checked out his left hand and saw the pale streak around his third  finger. "Why don't you ask your wife to dance?"                       
       
           



       

"Uh-she's out of town."

"And I thought this was a singles bar. You should go home."

His face reddened. "Who are you? My grandmother?"

She gave him a straight look. "If I was, I'd be saying a whole lot more."

After biting out an uncomplimentary phrase, he spun on his heel and  strode away. All pleasure was now leeched from the evening. In no mood  to date, or marry, anyone, Eva pulled out her phone and checked an app  that listed nearby nightclubs and bars.

She didn't want to go anywhere else. She would prefer to go home, make a  cup of tea, curl up on the sofa and watch a movie, but she couldn't  give up just yet.

She stepped outside of the air-conditioned bar into the hot, steamy air  of a summer's night. It was like walking into a sauna. Glancing  skyward, she noticed the heavy layer of cloud that had rolled in,  blotting out the night sky. Because Auckland City was situated on a  narrow isthmus with the Tasman Sea on one side, the Pacific Ocean on the  other, the weather could change quickly.

Hailing a cab, she gave the driver the address of a bar she'd used  before that was younger and a little wilder. She'd met Troy there, and  that would have worked out if it hadn't been for Kyle.

He had vetoed every other guy she had chosen, and she couldn't help  thinking that if she located a possible groom tonight, he would no doubt  suffer the same fate.

Kyle wanted her.

She tried to dismiss the disruptive thought, but heat flooded her at  the memory of the kiss and the way she had reacted, like a love-starved  teenager on her first date! She breathed a sigh of relief as the driver  pulled away from the curb and the cab's air-conditioning kicked in.  Something made her glance back at the entrance of the bar. A tall,  dark-haired man was just sliding behind the wheel of a glossy black  sports car. Her heart slammed in her chest at the thought that it was  Kyle, although she couldn't be sure. There were a lot of dark sports  cars in town, which all looked the same to her, and maybe she was seeing  the same guy she had noticed before?

If it was Kyle, that meant he was following her. A sharp thrill jolted through her at the thought.

Determinedly, she squashed the idea along with any hint of relief that  despite her saying no, Kyle might not have given up on her. Keeping her  gaze fixed on the city street ahead, she tried to remember all the  reasons she had to be furious with him. Unfortunately, the reasons  seemed hollow when she kept coming back to the stunning fact that he had  actually asked her to marry him.

And she was wondering if the offer was still open.

Craning around, she looked through the back window. The car was  following so closely it was practically herding the taxi, but the  windows of the sleek sports car were too darkly tinted to reveal who was  driving. The driver could see her, but she couldn't see him. Her heart  pounded out of control. She was suddenly certain that it was Kyle.

The taxi pulled into a space and the sports car swept past. Eva paid  the fare and climbed out, all the while giving herself a good  talking-to. She should be frustrated and annoyed if it was Kyle-she  should be furious-so why did it feel like the evening was suddenly  looking up?

In the time it took her to close the door of the taxi, the sports car  had disappeared. She checked in both directions, half expecting to see  Kyle walking toward her. When she realized she was loitering on the  sidewalk, actually waiting for him to appear, instead of going into the  bar closest to where the taxi had parked, she quickly walked a little  further down the road before spotting another random bar.

Pulse rate still high, she checked the street one last time before  walking in, only to find she had another problem. Now that she was here,  she had absolutely no energy or enthusiasm for finding a suitable  husband. Her experience at the previous bar had literally been the last  straw.

Kyle was right. She did not want a stranger for a husband.

She could still say yes to Kyle. But if she allowed the attraction that  sizzled through her every time she saw Kyle to turn into actual love,  where would that leave her in two years' time?

The bar she'd chosen was an Irish pub, filled with young people and a  sprinkling of tourists. Feeling too put-together and conventional  amongst skin-tight denim, shaved heads and psychedelic tattoos, she took  a stool at the counter, dropped her chin on one hand and ordered a  glass of wine.

The bartender, who looked ridiculously young and was probably a  student, instantly started chatting her up. "Don't I know you from  somewhere?"

Eva sipped her drink and logged the moment he recognized her.

He nodded his head, grinning. "Oh yeah. The buses. The lingerie ad."                       
       
           



       

She groaned inwardly, but managed to keep her expression bland. She'd  had a lot of practice handling these kinds of conversations, since the  lingerie company she had worked for had plastered images of her on the  back of buses and on huge highway billboards. "That was a while ago."  Two years. Although it felt like ten.

"Cool. My mom used to buy your stuff."

Eva set her glass down and checked her watch. She had promised herself  she would stay for fifteen minutes. By then, Kyle should have found a  parking space and gone inside the other bar and she could safely leave  without him seeing her. "I didn't own the company, I just modeled for  them."

He grinned again. "Still...nice. Those billboards were big. Most of the  buses in town had you on the back of them. Pretty sure some of them  still do." He leaned forward on the bar, angling for a better view down  the front of her dress. "If you're still into that kind of work, I've  got a friend-"

"She doesn't do charities for school kids."

The rasp of Kyle's voice sent a hot tingle down her spine as he slid  onto a stool beside her. Dressed all in black, a five-o'clock shadow  darkening his jaw, his gaze wintry, he looked, quite frankly,  intimidating.

Eva felt like banging her head on the counter. Former Special Air  Service, an assault specialist who had once belonged to some  hunter-killer squad with its own scary code name... Why, oh why, had she  not known he would find her?

His gaze touched on hers and her fingers tightened convulsively on the  stem of her wineglass. Taking a deep breath because her heart was  suddenly racing, she dredged up a dazzling smile for the bartender who,  predictably, was backing off fast. "Actually, I would like to speak to  your friend. As it happens, in about three weeks' time I'll be in the  market for some modeling work."

"Uh-my friend's more into movies, you know? Maybe, talk to me later."  His gaze flickered to Kyle, the subtext clear. When the boyfriend's  gone.

"He's not my boyfriend."

A nervous tic jumped along one side of the bartender's jaw. He glanced  around, as if willing a customer to appear. "On second thoughts, I seem  to remember my friend's getting ready to go overseas..."

And if she didn't miss her guess, the bartender was getting ready to run.

Drawn by a compulsion she couldn't seem to resist, she met Kyle's gaze  and tried not to notice the instant little charge of adrenaline that  shot through her at the laser blue of his eyes. Trying to ignore the  tension thrumming through her, she ran her finger around the rim of the  wineglass. "Do you have to ruin everything? Lately, I feel like I live  in some kind of Mafia family."