Something to Live for (Moonlight Dating Series) (2 page)

Amelia
pressed her. She said her cousin had used the site and met the lady who was now
his wife. “I mean, that woman must be psychic. Clara’s so right for Ian. She
stuck with him even when he picked her up for a movie date in his wet suit and
flippers. That’s what I call a miracle!”

Melita
chuckled
and said she’d do it, but on her own terms.

She had a
choice. Did she want a tryst, a casual affair or a serious relationship? She’d instructed
Amelia to tick the first option and indicate the date of April third in the
preferences section.

“But don’t
you want a boyfriend?” Amelia had protested. “I always thought you to be the
romantic one yet you’ve been alone so long I bet you forgot how to give a
hickey. You can meet someone for fun but why all this hassle just for a fling?”

“A
boyfriend wouldn’t know what to do with me,”
Melita
insisted. “And I’m not about to dive into the bar scene.”

That was
that.

She was
told the company would take care of all the arrangements but she wouldn’t meet
the guy until the day of. This was a singular condition only for the tryst
category.

It
unnerved her in no small measure but she went for it anyway.
 
She’d experience a forbidden encounter with a
stranger. She wanted
it,
above all, because it was
time for her to do something out of character, and the very notion of it was
just wild and insane enough to tempt her.

Time
passed and she’d put it out of her mind but a week earlier she’d received the
confirmation and details. Misgivings sank their tiny sharp claws into her, and
she considered chickening out.

But when
the dread she’d come to know so well each year woke up with her this morning
and draped itself around her, she knew she’d go through with it.

Melita
ran her fingers through the long chestnut curls she’d inherited from her
mother, switched off the sconces, and left the sanctuary of her bedroom. The
taxi was due any minute now.

No more
would she use her handicap as a crutch. She fully intended for this night to
change her life. She was sure it would. After all, Lagrange had promised an
attractive man, a man of hidden depth, an adventurous man, a man who’d make her
feel
things. It promised her all that
she wanted and more.
 

***

The
Nautica
wristwatch marked seven ten in the evening when
Alex
Moncado
put the padlock on the outer gate to his
art supplies shop. As it clicked in place, the twisted shackles around his
heart responded in kind.

He
swallowed, and thought how much he hated this time of year.
Hated
it with a viciousness that would scare off a champion gladiator readied for the
fight.

Grief steam-rolled over him.
At other times, it was easier to set aside the
rogue waves of sorrow that gripped him now. Really, who hadn’t lost a loved one
at some point? He should know. It was part of the normal cycle of life. Only
that there was nothing normal about what had happened to him. For him it felt
different; it had proved impossible to completely move on.

Even spending
hours at the gym today and tomorrow, or an entire day of extreme trekking
wouldn’t get his mind off things in the end. He’d still lie awake until
midnight, and then drink himself into a stupor until morning, in the futile
attempt to forget the horror that painted his soul with heavy black tar on
every third day of May.

Perhaps
nothing would ever work.

Still,
tonight, he had a plan.

If he made
it to the car and out of the city of Valletta in five minutes, he’d make his
appointment on time.

Jeanette
at Moonlight Dating had informed him via email that a cold supper would be
provided at the meeting venue so he didn’t have to pick up dinner. He
impulsively contacted the service after reading a short write up about it on a
social media site.

The
streets were semi-deserted after seven o’clock on a weekday, when most of the
shops have closed. In moments, he had reached his car three blocks down on Old
Bakery Street. He started the engine and took the usual way out around the four
and a half centuries old city bastions, headed north. After three or so
kilometres, however, he kept straight, directed to the villages of
Mosta
and
Mgarr
, rather than veer
right toward the thoroughfare that led to his apartment. Tonight, he was going
somewhere different.

A couple
of successive potholes rattled the car suspension and jolted his conscious mind
into overdrive. What had gotten into him to do something this insane? He knew
lots of people, and his calendar was full every weekend. He went to a nightclub
and got the pick of the female litter.
Simple and painless.
He visited the gym five times a week, and it showed, although he didn’t care.
He did it to blow off steam – work off the noxious drive that pummelled him –
not to become a babe magnet. Still, women loved a guy who took care of himself,
especially if he wasn’t cocky about it.

He didn’t
need help, not on the surface. But, deep down inside
him
lurked a quiet despair he couldn’t continue to ignore. Loneliness clung to him
like a spectre reluctant to leave a spooked mansion. True, it was by choice. A
deep, emotional attachment can destroy a person, just like the time it almost
crushed him to the point of no return.

It was so
much easier to keep feelings in check, to be genuine and down-to-earth, yet,
stay away from too strong ties that create so much havoc and hurt, or at the
least, disappointment.

 
It was too bad that he couldn’t shake off a
sense of helplessness, for life was flying by and he didn’t have much to show
for it. On the business front, he ran a successful family business, but
personally, he lived with a mask permanently glued to his persona. That mask
was his spectre, his friendly ghost that gave him what he wanted. A life lived
alone, in his small one bedroom apartment in St.
Julians
,
the fun capital of the island.

What he wanted...

Well, he
suddenly wanted to evict that ghost, at least for a night.

He wanted
something more – with an urge so strong that he signed up with Jeanette
Lagrange’s service on a whim. If his friends found out they’d rib him to death,
but this would remain a secret between him and the four walls of his flat.

No one
would ever find out that he craved the company of a different sort of lady. He
had specified “intelligent”, above all else. Classy but not conceited.
Feminine but not prissy.
A woman who would look beyond his
physical shape and see the man he was beneath, without him having to explain or
prove anything – only for a night.

It felt
like he was looking for a girlfriend. No, he wasn’t, was he? He just wanted an
evening with someone who didn’t spend hours talking about the highlights in her
hair and the wild parties she’d attended during her latest trip to Ibiza.
If that evening came with chemistry and passion, all the better.
Jeanette had also shared that many couples hooked up for the long haul after
meeting through her.

He didn’t
necessarily want that. He just wanted to
be.
. . what did
he want to be?

Surprised.

He drove
to a dead end and turned left toward
Mgarr
, and a
little ways further, right onto a country road. About fifty meters onward he
came upon the gated entrance to a private property. The gate was open so he entered
the long driveway. The tyres kicked gravel and dust in the pitch dark that led
to a converted farmhouse where the email instructions specified he’d meet his
company for the night.

He noticed
no other cars were parked there when he switched off the engine. Perhaps she
hadn’t arrived yet.

What did she look like?
According to the custom profile he
was forwarded, this was a very particular lady and he needed to go slow with
her. That may mean one of two things—she either wasn’t used to meeting men this
way, or she was as unsure about this as he was.

The solid
wood front door was slightly ajar so he didn’t have to use his key. He
discarded it on the inlaid wood console table by the entrance and walked into a
welcoming, classic modern sitting room steeped in earth tones. His feet stepped
on an expensive-looking brown and beige Persian rug that covered most of the
floor.

Someone
had put money into this place. After looking at the outside, one wouldn’t think
that such luxury and comfort waited inside. It was a two hundred year old
structure, painstakingly renovated with a welcoming, state-of-the-art interior.

The large
room flowed into an L-shape that carried beyond a large teak dining table with
seating for six.

“You can
close the door behind you,” said a lilting voice from the back of the L-shape.

His
stomach made a flip like that of a schoolboy’s with a budding first crush.
Laughing inwardly at the thought, he clicked the door shut and walked past the
chocolate leather couch, around the table, toward the beautiful voice.

He found
her sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen counter. A couple of large trays
laden with cold meats, cheeses, and assorted appetizers sat untouched in front
of her.

She turned
toward him and looked straight into his eyes. Her eyebrows drew together.

“You must
be starving,” she said.

Upon
meeting her gaze, his belly did a bigger flip and he had difficulty swallowing
a big lump that lodged in his throat.

God, she
was beautiful.

He stared
at her. Soft burnished locks flowed richly around her oval face to just below
her collarbone. Tall and trim, she wore a simple silk green sheath dress that
stopped above the knee and unpretentious flat gold sandals.

 
An artist’s muse.

The best
part of her, though, were
her eyes.
Fine
jade eyes that looked at him, into him, through him.
There was something
infinitely alluring about that light green gaze. It was unique, and
frightening. It was… intense. Would any man be able to keep secrets from this
woman?

A deeper
frown creased her brow. “Is something wrong?”

His gaze
fell to her full lower lip that she was now biting on. “No.”

Boy,
was
he charming tonight. If he went on this way, she would think him a dunderhead
and call off the whole thing.

“I was
saying that you must be hungry,” she tried again, while she extended a hand
toward him.

“As a
matter of fact, I am.” He was at her side in two strides and took her offered
hand as he sat on the stool next to her. It was supple and warm against his. He
briefly rubbed his thumb above her knuckles and raised her hand to his mouth to
drop a light kiss on it.

She
laughed,
a sweet, musical sound. “Men haven’t done that in
centuries.”

“Does it
matter?”

“No, but
you don’t need to seduce me. We both know why we’re here.”

“It
doesn’t mean I should take you for granted,” he argued.

“Touché,”
she replied with a grin. “So let me say ‘hi’ in my own way,” she added, before
she picked a stuffed olive from the tray and slid it between his lips.

He should have
told her what that erotic gesture did to him, to his base lust. But instead he crushed
those words underneath the bitter flesh of the fruit. It tasted like hot
chillies going down, set him alight.

She studied
him with narrowed eyes, as though she struggled to focus on his face. His hand
cupped her cheek, because he found himself unable to keep from touching her.

“Something the matter?”

“Just
trying to
see
you better,” she said,
while emphasizing the word “see”.

He
laughed. “I am right in front of you.”

“I suppose
you weren’t told that I’m fairly blind. Not totally, but I can’t see well,
either,” she admitted matter-of-factly.

Now
serious, he had both hands around her cheeks. His thumb traced the bottom
contours of her eyes, precious like rare gems.

That’s
what it was then, that special something about them. That intense gaze…

“Tonight
you don’t need to see,” he said, his voice raspy. “All you need to do is
feel
.”

He kissed
her, not like a gentleman, not gently and with care, but with an alien need
that assailed all his senses. It upset him at some deep, elemental level.

Why?

That was
one thing he shouldn’t have done. If this woman managed to get under his skin
so fast, what would happen by the end of the night?

He’d be
utterly lost.

Chapter Two