Hope was deep into her friend's latest murder novel she had just published and didn't hear the door. When she felt eyes on her, she looked up and was shocked to see it was the guy from the hotel. Oh my God, she thought.
Mark couldn't believe his mystery girl was sitting on his sister's couch. What the... "How did you get in my sister's house?" He suddenly blurted out. Great, he groaned to himself. You spend three weeks trying to find her and the first thing you do is jump down her throat. Good move.
Hope had no idea what to say. She had never expected to see him again, least of all at her friend's place...Wait. If this was her friend's house, but also his sister's house, then that would make her friend his sister which would mean...
Oh, my God. I screwed my friend's brother...twice; she wanted to die of embarrassment.
Hope was saved answering when Kelly came back in. When she saw her brother she flew into his arms, hugging him like there was no tomorrow.
"You jerk! You should have told me you were in town," she said as she punched him on the shoulder.
"I wanted to surprise my baby sister," he told her. "Who's your friend?" he asked, shooting daggers at Hope.
Kelly got Hope on her feet and dragged her over to make introductions. Then she excused herself to check on the food, leaving Hope and Mark alone.
"You gave me a false name, huh, Hope," he said. Hope didn't know what to say.
She wanted to say: "Well, you see, I ran out of material for my book. I thought I'd like it to have a bar scene in a hotel where the woman gets hit on. So I decided to do some research. I got dressed up and went to a classy hotel bar to see how long it would take and what kind of men would hit on me. After a guy hit on me, I was going to leave but you persuaded me to stay and the rest is history...well, an historical five orgasms, at least."
"Umm," she said instead.
"'Umm?" You sleep with me twice, take off in the middle of the night, and give me a fake name and all you can say is 'Umm?' Mark's eyes flashed.
"Well...erm...you see... has your sister ever mentioned me?" Hope stalled for time.
He scowled at her, Oh, yeah, his sister had mentioned Hope. The friend who wrote fiction and always had her head in a book or a laptop. He snorted. She hadn't that night. She'd dressed differently as well; she stood in front of him wearing baggy jeans and an oversized jumper. The woman he had met at the bar was a femme fatale, a Valkyrie. That woman had worn a slinky red dress that looked painted on, showing off curves to die for, and spiked black heels that made her legs go on forever. Which was the real Hope?
"So your name's not Julie, you don't drive a Porsche. You don't have a dog..." he said.
"No, I do, I mean, I..." Hope stammered. " I just changed my name; the rest was all true."
"Why lie?" he asked, still angry, but now also curious.
"I really hoped you wouldn't ask that," Hope said, fidgeting. "Erm, I was out doing research for my next book." She couldn't meet his eyes. As she tipped her head down her hair fell about her face. With her long, ebony, naturally curvy hair and brown eyes she was the classic Italian beauty. However, she didn't know any Italian and had never been to Italy. Her mother was Italian and her father Scottish. Her mother had died giving birth to her and her father couldn't live without her so drank himself into a coma. Her father's parents raised her in Scotland.
His expression turned dark. "You sleep with men for research." He looked at her, disgusted.
"No!" She nearly shouted at him in frustration. He was making her sound like a prostitute, or worse.
"I was writing a bar scene for my novel... Well, I was at the time, it's finished now." She finally got the courage to glance up at him. The look on his face seemed to indicate he either didn't care or hadn't heard her, and then he started laughing.
When he stopped, he took her chin between his finger and thumb and turned her face up to him. "Scrap it," he said his eyes flashing in anger.
Moving away, she glared at him and protested. "I only used our meeting at the bar, nothing after." Feeling panicked, she said, "You can read it if you don't believe me."
Hopefully he would agree and see that it was nothing. Can he force me to scrap it? She wondered. She couldn't believe it; the one time she decided to do some research in the real world instead of just using her imagination and this guy could screw her -- and not like before. She blushed wildly just thinking about it. She had been so inhibited, and he had the most amazing hands.
"Okay, out." Mark had been so busy glaring at Hope that he missed Kelly returning to the room.
"What? I just got here!" he protested after he realised what she said.
"Yes, but Peter will be here in half an hour and I need to change. We will go for coffee tomorrow. Okay? Okay. Bye," she said, steering Mark to the door. Hope followed, hugged her friend, wished her good luck and told her to phone. Then she walked out quietly behind a very pissed off Mark.
"So do we take my car or yours?" Mark asked when she caught up with him at the elevator. Hope realised he was talking about how they would get to her house; she blushed and looked down, pretending her shoes were extremely interesting.
"Mine," she said needing to feel in control of something. Hope liked to drive, especially her little Porsche which was parked at the back of the building she bought it after her first book got published.
Mark knew he should be walking away. He found her, and she wasn't the woman he thought her to be, but he couldn't deny his attraction. He wanted one more night and hoped that would finally get her out his system.
