Chapter 4: Is this a Good idea

Friday. My birthday. Drew would understand if I bailed on him, I thought with a surge of relief. He knew how important a supplier Marco was. We could cancel the hotel room booking. The idea of us spending a night at thePark had been a spur of the moment thing, after all. It wasn't as though we were really going to go through with the whole sleeping together bit, was it?

"Er..." So why was I hesitating?

"You have other plans?" Marco sounded disappointed.

"Actually, yes. Yes, I do." The words seemed to fly out before I could stop them.

"You can't cancel?"

I suddenly wanted to laugh out loud. I hadn't been invited out for months—and now I'd had two offers for the same night. "It's my birthday," I explained quickly, rather wishing I hadn't when I heard Marco's exclamation of surprised pleasure. "A friend of mine is already—" I hesitated again, grasping for words "—taking me out to dinner." It wasn't exactly a lie; room service counted, didn't it?

"Okay." Marco seemed undeterred. "Then may I take you to dinner on Saturday evening instead?"

Would I still be a virgin by then?

I swallowed down another nervous choke of laughter. "Yes," I got out, my voice rather unsteady. "That—that would be great."

"Excellent." Marco didn't seem to notice my near hysteria. "I'll come to the shop, yes? What time do you close?"

"On Saturday?" Too late, I remembered I'd planned to take the day off. But Marco had visited the shop before. It would be much easier to meet him here than try to direct him to my house, especially given my current befuddled state of mind. "Four thirty."

"Wonderful." It sounded like he meant it. "I look forward to seeing you then."

"You—you too."

I stared at the phone in my hand for several seconds after he'd hung up, replaying the conversation, staggered by the decision I'd made. I'd had an unexpected but entirely reasonable out—and I'd chosen not to take it?

"Who's taking you out to dinner on Friday night?" Alice's suspicious voice demanded behind me. I swung around to face her, conscious of how fast my heart was beating. "Was that Marco? Don't tell me you just make up an excuse not to go out with Marco Maretti?"

"You were listening?" I accused. "To my private conversation?"

Alice looked unmoved, as I'd known she would. "Marco Maretti?" she repeated. "Tall, dark, handsome and Italian, Marco Maretti? And you turned him down?"

"No." I rolled my eyes in surrender. "He's going to take me to dinner on Saturday night instead, okay?"

"Well, praise the Lord for that," she said with evident relief. "For a moment there I thought you'd lost your mind. You wouldn't catch me saying no, not that he'd ask—I'm much too old for him. Butyou—"

"He's thirty-six!" I interjected hastily before she could go any further with that train of thought. "And divorced. And well-known for being a serial womaniser―"

"So he's eleven years older than you," Alice interrupted in turn. "So what? And as for the rest, that just makes him..." Her knowing smile seemed shockingly salacious for a woman of fifty-nine. "Experienced."

"Alice!"

She looked amused by my discomfort—until she remembered her original question. "Then whois taking you out for dinner on Friday?"

I sighed. Alice could be such a Rottweiler. "Drew."

She frowned, clearly puzzled. "You blew off Marco Maretti for my nephew?"

Enough already. "Yes," I said, infusing my reply with as much dignity as I could muster. "He asked first, okay? He's my oldest friend, I've known him for years, remember?"

And maybe on Friday I'd discover what it meant toknow him in the Biblical sense.

Oh my God.

Alice tutted slightly and turned to the carton I'd unpacked, reaching into it to retrieve the parcel I'd inadvertently left at the bottom. "Hey, it's your birthday, it's up to you," she said, straightening up with a sniff that sounded faintly disapproving. "And if you think spending the evening with Drew is the right thing to do, well..."

I couldn't meet her gaze when she let the sentence trail off, afraid my expression might give something away. Because to be completely honest...

I still wasn't sure that it was.