Chapter 1
As a rule, Alice Wilkie didn’t participate in fix-ups. Just because she was on the other side of thirty and once again unattached did not mean she was looking for a serious relationship. She’d been there, thank you, and come out of it feeling raw and battle weary. She had an extensive DVD library and no one to hog the remote. Right now, she didn’t need a man.
Unfortunately, the more Alice made this declaration to her well-meaning neighbor Yolanda Kaminski, the less the elderly lady seemed to believe her. Mrs. K was always trying to set Alice up with the “nice young men” she met through her network of friends—all retired ladies keen to offload their single or divorced sons onto any woman who’d take them.
Alice looked at the man sitting beside her at the bar of Maxine’s, a popular place in Broadbeach. He saw her glance and wiggled his eyebrows at her. Alice forced a smile that hurt her cheeks. Ron Akron. Why had she relented to Yolanda’s prodding? She’d let a little old lady set her up with one of her friend’s sons, a used-car salesman no less, one with a pronounced paunch and an even more pronounced bald spot. One who should have come wearing a warning sign: boring, self-inflated pain in the ass ahead. Proceed with caution. Subject may get grabby when intoxicated.
She’d thought it couldn’t do any harm just to meet with the guy. Even though she wasn’t in the mood for anything serious, a bit of casual male companionship wouldn’t go amiss, not to mention the occasional bout of life-affirming sex. She knew none of that was going to happen if she refused to be open-minded about meeting new men.
The idea of having life-affirming sex with Ron made her cringe, so Alice wasn’t so sure being open-minded had a lot going for it.
“Yeah, so I said to the guy, ‘I can’t do a deal for any less than forty-five thousand’. This is a Peugeot we’re talking about. Beautiful midnight blue, only two years old. Driven by a boring old coot who never pushed it past sixty—you know what I mean?” Ron laughed, making the scent of scotch waft over Alice’s face in an unpleasant wave. “Did he take me for some kind of chump? My ass, Steelers were going to do him a deal for thirty-nine ninety-nine.”
“Steelers?”
“The imported car dealer down the road. I told you that already, Alison.”
Alice figured he must have mentioned it during one of the many diatribes in which she’d drifted off to compose a mental shopping list. Milk, bread, peanut butter. A big inflatable mallet to hit Yolanda over the head with.
Alice pushed out a sigh. Okay, cancel the mallet. Yolanda was sixty-eight and way too sweet to inflict even pretend violence upon. “It’s Alice,” she halfheartedly corrected him.
“Right, right.” Ron nodded, his attention no longer on her. He swiveled on his barstool and caught the bartender’s eye. Then he swirled the ice in his nearly empty glass and held up two fingers.
He hadn’t even asked her if she wanted another chardonnay but apparently she was getting one. Alice knew she had already wasted enough time with this guy and certainly that Ron could do without another double scotch on the rocks. Yet she bit down on her impatience to leave, wanting to make sure she had enough justification for Yolanda as to why Betty’s lovely son wasn’t her type.
Alice suppressed a sigh. She supposed there could be worse ways to spend her Friday night than drinking wine in the pleasant ambience of one of trendiest wine bars on the Gold Coast. The girl in the corner playing acoustic versions of modern hits wasn’t half-bad. Might as well let Ron buy her another drink before she headed home to her lonely apartment.
Besides, she could always throw the fresh drink in Ron’s face if things got any grimmer. “Forty-five thousand dollars seems a lot to pay for a car,” she remarked as their order arrived.
Apparently her comment came under the definition of sacrilegious in Ron’s little universe. “For a mint-condition Peugeot 307 sport model, double overhead cam, variable valve camshaft and gloss paint? That baby goes from zero to one hundred in ten seconds. Any guy who is gonna skimp on the vehicle that is gonna be his ride has lost his balls. You know what I mean?”
Alice had no earthly idea. “So you’re saying a man’s ride is somehow indicative of his manliness?”
Pleased with her understanding of the situation, Ron winked at her. “Exactly. I mean, I’m sure you check out a guy’s ride before you,” his smile widened into smarmy territory as he reached across from his barstool and put his hand on Alice’s knee, “ride. If you know what I mean.”
Alice glanced down at his hand. He had surprisingly nimble fingers for such a beefy guy. Even as she stared, they slithered uninvited beneath the hem of her all-purpose little black dress, inching dangerously close to the lacy tops of her thigh-high stockings. She’d donned the sexy lingerie two hours ago with the utmost optimism. She should have known better.
“My apartment has a great view of the beach. Feel like taking a drive?”
Oh good grief. This had gone far enough. Alice set her wine on the bar before she gave in to the temptation to toss it in Ron’s face after all. He might deserve it but she’d never done anything that radical in her life. Maybe she simply wasn’t the drink-tossing type. “Itching to show me your double overhead cam, Ron?”
“Oh yeah. Definitely.” His fingers advanced, traveling far beyond appropriate. He gave her an oily grin. “So you’re into it?”
“Forget it, mate. Cars don’t impress her.”
The voice came from behind her and at the sound of it Alice turned and came face-to-face with a trendy purple-and-black-striped business shirt and purple silk tie. A black suit jacket hung casually unbuttoned from an impressively wide pair of shoulders.
The outfit belonged on a billboard advertising high-end menswear. She looked up and saw eyes as blue and clear as swimming pools looking down at her. The face belonged on a billboard too, what with the strong jaw, straight nose and soft lips. And he smelled good. The subtle hint of some classy aftershave clung to his clothes, tickling Alice’s olfactory senses and making her forget all about the cloying scent Ron had splashed on.
It took Alice a few seconds to find her voice. “Excuse me—do I know you?”
Mr. Handsome placed a hand to his chest as though fending off a fatal blow. “How soon she forgets.” He moved forward, inching into the space between her and Ron. The wine bar was crowded with the after-work drinks crowd, forcing the guy to stand pretty close—so close Alice felt the body heat radiating from him. His eyes flickered in Ron’s direction before refocusing immediately on Alice’s face with a gaze like twin blue lasers. “What’s this? You’re dating again already?”
“Yeah, she is,” Ron piped up, giving Alice’s knee a possessive squeeze. “She’s dating me.”
“You’ve found another victim so soon?” Blue Eyes tilted his lips at her. “I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose. You never did like to waste time.”
Alice swiveled on her barstool so she was fully facing the stranger who seemed to think they knew each other. The action had the dual effect of wresting her knee from Ron’s unwanted grip. “I think there’s been some mistake.”
“You bet there has been,” Ron declared bluntly. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, mate, but the lady and I are having a private discussion.”
“About cars, I heard. You might as well give it up, mate. The only thing the lady knows about cars is how to wreck the paintwork. But hey,” he held up his hands in a suit yourself gesture, “you want to risk yours, I guess that’s none of my business. I was just trying to help out.”
The man moved on, leaving Alice to blink in continued confusion. He found an empty spot at the horseshoe-shaped bar right behind Ron, where he ordered an imported beer.
Alice was still trying to figure out what had happened when Ron turned on his stool, putting his back to Alice so he could face the other man. “What did you mean by that? About your paintwork?”
“Just that she took a crowbar to the hood of my Alfa,” Mr. Purple Silk Tie replied. “Made a real mess of it too. I don’t even want to tell you what she did to the upholstery.”
“An Alfa, huh?” Ron said, warming to the topic. “I’m guessing…the GT coupe.”
“The Spider. Carmine red, it was. Beautiful.” He referred to Alice with a nod of his head. “At least it was until she got ahold of it. All because she found a list of women’s numbers on my mobile phone. Possessive one, she is. But then you must have figured that if you met through the service.”
Alice could just make out what they were saying above the chatter of other patrons but hearing and understanding where two different things. Putting her foot on the rung of the barstool, she levered herself out of the seat to gain some height. Craning her neck, she tried to see around Ron’s shoulder. “Excuse me, there seems to be a misunder—”
“The service?” Ron asked.
“Jeez, I’m sorry. I didn’t even introduce myself.” He stuck out his hand, as amiable as can be. “I’m Damien De Luca.”
“Ron Akron,” Ron replied absently. “What service?”
“Subs for Doms Dot Com. They set you up with her when you registered, right?”
Alice gaped.
“No!” Ron spluttered.
“No?” Damien’s brows arched. “Hmm. She was pretty active on there back when we knew each other.”
Alice’s heel slipped on the chair rung, causing her to fall back into the seat with a plop. She shook her head, trying to clear it. Either this guy had mistaken her for someone else or he was certifiable.
Ron whirled on Alice. “You’re not into…you know, stuff like that, are you?”
She’d never even heard of subsfordoms.com. Alice opened her mouth to say so, when she caught the expression on the mysterious Damien De Luca’s face, which she could just see around Ron’s bulk. Mirth, as if he was having a hard time holding back a laugh. She read his amusement loud and clear before he swiped his Heineken off the bar and took a gulp straight from the bottle. This was no case of mistaken identity. He was messing with her date on purpose.
The nerve! And why on earth?
“Alison?”
Anger at the presumptuous stranger morphed back into impatience with Ron. “I said my name is Alice.”
At her tone, Ron reared back, swaying on the barstool in his eagerness to put distance between them. What a difference the possibility of her being a whip-wielding Dominatrix had made. There was genuine alarm in his eyes. “Okay, don’t get aggro. My Mercedes isn’t even mine—it’s leased.”
“Leased?” He’d thought he could impress her into bed with a leased Mercedes? How very charming. She looked at him askance. “Where’s your sense of commitment, Ron?”
“Whoa. I never said anything about being the commitment type.”
Alice fancied she could see the man breaking out in hives right before her eyes. Pressing her advantage, she placed a hand on his leg, inching her fingernails up his thigh. Ron flinched. Seemed he didn’t like being physically harassed any more than she had. Alice smothered a grin. Let’s see how you like it, buddy. The beautiful stranger might have started this line of discussion but she could certainly use it to suit her own ends.
“But I expect a certain level of devotion from all my boys, Ron,” she purred. “You’ll get used to the collar, and pain makes pleasure that much more intense.”
“Collar?” Ron’s face started to turn as purple as Damien’s silk tie. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Just because a woman knows her needs and demands they be met, is that insanity?” She dug her fingernails a little harder into Ron’s fleshy thigh and lowered her voice. “Have you ever worn a cock ring, Ron?”
Ron’s response was to leap off his barstool and back away from her as though he’d just discovered she had rabies. “No! That’s just sick!”
Alice let out a put-upon sigh. “If you can’t fall into line with what I want, I don’t see this relationship going anywhere.”
“We don’t have a relationship. I bought you a drink, that’s all.” Ron jabbed a finger at her. “You. Stay away from my car. And you,” his pointed finger swung to Damien, “you can have her.”
Ron made a departure that could only be described as panicked. Once he was gone, as smoothly as though things had turned out exactly as he’d intended them to, Damien De Luca took the seat Ron had vacated. He turned so he was facing Alice. Their knees almost touched. He openly assessed her with those sparkling, audacious eyes. “Did you hear that? Ron says I can have you. So how about I buy you a drink?”