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“You were in so much pain, so sad. There was something inside me that wanted to stop the hurt. I can’t explain it, but I just knew I never wanted to see you in that much pain again."

I glance downward, embarrassed by his words knotting my fingers together in my lap. I shrug my shoulders not knowing how to respond, until I feel his barely-there touch on the tip of my chin, tilting it upwards to meet his gaze, like he has done so many times before.

"What is it?" he urges.

Taking a slow breath, I gather my words. "You don’t even know me."

"Not as much as I’d like. Not yet anyway," his eyes blaze with emotion.

"Why? So you can get bored and move onto someone else..." I mumble under my breath.

Shit!

Did he hear that?

He eyes me suspiciously.

I shrug, before continuing. "It’s just, you don’t really date anyone do you?” Having to talk about these things out loud is something I’m not attuned to and despite the uneasiness I hold my breath awaiting his answer.

He eyes me more intriguingly. "No. No I don’t really...
date
," he answers before suddenly letting go off my chin and turning away from me, reaching for his juice. "Not since... well not for a long time anyway."

He takes a long deliberated sip of his drink and turns his body to face straight on, dropping his arm from the lounge behind me to the table in front of him.

"Why?" I ask before I have time to stop.

He smiles.
Playfully.

"Ah, now maybe that is a long, complicated story that I am not really ready to talk about just yet." He smirks at me from the side of his face and I remember that same quote I had dictated back at the Sydney restaurant when he probed a little too far for my liking. I am simultaneously taken back by his playfulness, and surprised that he remembered something I had said.

I giggle.

"Well when you are I’d like to hear it, I’d like to hear all about you."

On the way back to my hotel, the silence in the car was quite deafening as was the reminder of our dinner. Strange enough, I was starting to get used to it which made it more familiar. Knowing our date was almost at its end, I was bursting internally to ask him more questions. At the rate I have been going so far, I will never learn anything about him.

"So, you were right about the Sangria," I start. "I did like it. It was really sweet."

A bit of pointless conversation, is a good start for more probing.

I see his lips turn upwards while still focusing his eyes on the road ahead.

"Sweet like you," he whispers to himself before adding more loudly, "I’m glad you liked it."

Oh my.

I’m thankful the car is so dark inside so he can’t see my now red face from his near silent comment. I edge a throaty cough.

"So, the work you had to, ah, focus on today...." I start, as those beautiful women sitting in his backyard flash in my mind. “Did you sort out the emergency?" I add quickly, shaking the unwanted images away.

"It wasn’t an emergency Penelope. Just things going on right now, that’s proving difficult for staff to adhere to their deadlines," he answers through a tense jaw before sighing sorrowfully, bringing his voice back to his monotone. "Sometimes it’s just easier to do things yourself."

Control freak maybe?

"So why have staff for?" I mumble.

"My thoughts exactly!"

Yep. Control freak!

I grin inside. "So, what kinds of things are you working on? Aren’t you in a band?"

"Obviously. But I have other projects I work on as well. I’m into photography and film making..." he trails off like he’s in deep thought. "I’ve been working with some partner marketing businesses in the industry and other things along those lines." He shrugs his shoulders, like he is used to such a hectic schedule. I can’t help but notice how much more voluntary he is with information when it is about his interests. He is obviously passionate about his work.

And I’m technically unemployed!

"Do you even have time to do things you like to do, other than just work?”

"You mean like taking an attractive woman out to dinner?” he teases through his teeth, allowing them to glisten in the dim lighted car. “My life is my work," he responds matter of fact.

"But don’t you find it lonely?"

Contemplating not having any kind of a life except what I do for a living, is really hard for me to imagine. Most of my happiest, most satisfying moments were in my personal life. My heart sobs a little at the memory of those happier times.

"It’s never lonely," he states, like the mere thought is absurd. "Most of the people I work with are friends, family even. And creatively, my work is very fulfilling."

Oh.

An image of the teenage girls screaming after him at The Rocks flashes to mind and I wonder whether that’s the kind of fulfilment he is referring to.

"Which leads me to wonder?”

Oh shit, what?

I turn my eyes toward him abruptly.

"When we met, you didn’t know who I was?"

"Umm, no."

Should I have?

Will he be mad?

Where’s this going?

He ponders for a moment. “Yet after that first night you did?”

"Umm, yes."

He pauses. "And you still chose to come out with me?" He turns his face briefly from the road, looking at me puzzled with intrigue. I screw my face up slightly, still confused by his question.

"Umm, yes. Although, if you remember, I wasn’t jumping out of my skin!" I giggle trying to lighten the current mood. He doesn’t follow.

"So why did
you
decide to still see me?"

I’m so confused.

"Should I not have?" I start throwing around the many flashes from all of our encounters to comments he has made throughout the short time I have known him. Before remembering the assurance he gave me at his Sydney hotel. The remark he made about him knowing, ‘I wasn’t a one night stand kind of girl’.

Is he implying that I am sending him the wrong message?

I willingly came out with him, knowing he probably only fucked women and not dated them!?

Is this what he’s referring to?!

"I didn’t want to be on Google with you if that’s what you mean," I snort sharply, in response to my buzzing thoughts.

"That’s not what I meant. You just aren’t the kind of woman who seems to be interested in… well, what
most
are interested in with me," he rolls his eyes emphasising the word ‘me’. It instantly makes me even more intrigued, when in an instant a thought creeps into my head.

In the darkness, I can see it. I can feel it. The vulnerability. Despite his abruptness, sometimes rudeness and his extreme lack of opening up about himself - I feel it. A wound.

Maybe he’s been hurt before from someone who has wanted him only for his lifestyle?

Perhaps they left because of it?

Maybe used him for his status?

I let out a silent cry for his tortured soul that has deep unhealed scars. Wounds perhaps we could try and heal together. Busy speculating before I can really think through my next sentence, the words trickle out of me.

"Well, to be honest I was curious. I was a drunken mess the first night we met, but you still insisted on seeing me again. Why?"

He pauses for a moment, and I’m unsure as to whether it’s because he doesn’t want to tell me, or because he is trying to co-ordinate his words into a way he wants to reveal. I wait patiently, the silence in the air excruciating with the anxious wait.

"Well at first because I knew you didn’t recognise me," he starts. "You have no idea how refreshing that was," he sniggers.

I roll my eyes.

"And, well, you are obviously beautiful, but totally unaware, naive to your beauty, which again is refreshing." I notice a genuine smile come across his face and I find myself intervene automatically.

"But I was a complete emotional mess! I mean, unless you just wanted to…..” I pause, blushing, before adding, “I mean, how would you even find that behaviour appealing?" I blurt out, confident that he didn’t want me for that. I wouldn’t be sitting here on the other side of the world with him now if that’s all he wanted from me.

Would I?

"Just wanted to what…?” he teases cheekily, smirking at me making me squirm in my seat. “I didn’t think you were that type of girl," he adds playfully. I cringe.

"I could feel it," he states more seriously, whipping the breath right from my lungs. "I felt some kind of unspoken connection between us. Like I said those sad, but mesmerising blue eyes were in pain. I never wanted you to feel that again. Despite knowing,
really
knowing that the right thing to do was to leave you alone - I just.... couldn’t." He goes silent. Having him tell me out loud that he feels our connection makes me feel some kind of comfort, as I know I feel it too. It scares me, but I do feel it. Despite wanting to push and forge for even more information, I hesitate. He has been so open this evening that I can’t bear to make him continue without angering him. I turn my gaze outside and take in the nightly scenery allowing his revelations to sink in.

As we approach the valet parking area outside the main entrance he abruptly pulls the vehicle to the side of the road and turns off his headlights; breaking me out of my daze.

Oh shit!

Has something happened?

I throw my head back and forth, trying to work out if there was some on road disturbance that may have caused us to halt so hastily.

"Is everything okay? What happened?"

I glance toward him as he sits motionless in his seat. His eyes straight ahead, almost frozen.

"Hey, are you alright?" I ask, as I take hold of his forearm, automatically checking his wellbeing.

What’s wrong with him?

In slow motion, his eyes move toward my outstretched hand that rests above his elbow; his hands still gripping the wheel. He moves his other hand over the top of mine, taking a gentle hold with his arctic touch and circles his thumb across my skin.

Oh my.

I can feel my heart thud boisterously in my chest at the mere sensation of his delicate caress. Before I can fathom anything further, he leans speedily toward me capturing my lips with his. I respond willingly, but by surprise at the sudden impulse. We fervently indulge in our passionate rhythm; all lips and tongues and raw passion. As soon as there is possibly no more oxygen left he stops suddenly. Keeping his face close to mine, allowing me to feel his quickened steamy breath surge over my face. We spend a few moments sucking in air staring at each other, mere inches apart, while our pulses try to settle into their previous state.

“Where did you come from?” he asks curiously, shaking his head side to side. He tenderly strokes the back of his fingers across my now flushed cheek, his gorgeous blue eyes so warm and inviting. They are examining every inch of my face like he is trying to memorise me, as he continues his gentle torture on my skin. I literally float to the ceiling of the car and hold myself to its roof – never wanting these feelings to exit.

"Umm, thank you for dinner," I manage nervously.

He smiles.

"You are more than welcome."

Oooh I like playful Jay.

Like?

LIKE?!

Did I just admit I 'like' him?

I swallow loudly, trying to disperse the sudden anxiety that is filling my body and the ache that is appearing in my chest. The faint echo that has existed, but not felt as much until now.

"I had a great time," his voice interrupts, as he takes my hand to his experienced lips and kisses my knuckles gently. “Be careful, I might not want to let you go,” he adds, as he shoots an ever-so-sexy and seemingly honest glance toward me; his eyes burning in all their blazing glory. They blanket my anxiety protectively, shoving it away with tender care.

I smile sweetly back. “Then don’t,” I whisper.

For only a split second more our eyes lock into an unbreakable hold. He subtly licks his lower lip, gently biting it under his teeth before turning back towards the wheel, switching on the head lights and driving into the valet. The rest happens so fast. We no sooner pull up outside the hotel and the bell boy rushes to my door and opens it.

"Ms Price."

Before I am ushered out, I feel Jay’s careful touch on the top of my hand, which rests palm down on the passenger beside me. I turn my gaze from his hand to his eyes. Those penetrating, scorching eyes that are still on fire from our passionate embrace.

"I will pick you up tomorrow."

I grin sheepishly before taking the bell boys offered hand and swing my legs out of the car. I notice the door close behind me and I give the man a courteous nod, desperately trying not to sneak a look at Jay. I knew if I did, I may do something I could regret. I stride past his vehicle toward the front door before hearing his car hum past quickly and I can’t halt the surge of sadness filling me. He was gone.