Dating and Other Dangers (15 page)

And what was Nadia doing? Screwing around with a jerk who didn’t give a damn about anything other than having a bit of fun. She and he weren’t
together
, they weren’t serious, and Nadia most certainly wasn’t happy. Her career was finished, and so was her fling.

She sent him a text.

Her phone rang three seconds later.

‘Are you okay? Why have you left early?’ he asked the second she answered.

‘It wasn’t my choice,’ she snarled into the phone.

‘What?’

‘I’ve just been sacked.’

‘What?’

‘Gross misconduct. For accessing inappropriate material on the internet. Your blog.’

There was a silence. Then, ‘Where are you?’

‘Home. I don’t want to see you.’

But he’d already hung up.

Twenty minutes later he was pounding on her door and calling for her to let him in. She unlocked the door and glared at him. He pushed past her. She saw him glance at her box of belongings from Hammond.

‘Nadia …’ His tone was too warm—trying too hard to soothe.

And the thing was she
did
want soothing. Her anger dropped the second she saw him and she wanted a hug. She wanted him to tell her it didn’t matter, that it was all going to be okay. She wanted him to tell her he cared.

But she was terrified he wasn’t going to. ‘I don’t want to see you right now.’ She was hot,
shaking, mortified that she wanted his support so badly and sure she wasn’t going to get it.

‘You’re blaming me?’ The soothing bit dropped from his voice.

‘Who else?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He faced her, and to her utter incredulity he was
smiling
. ‘How about yourself? ’

Her stupid eyes flooded with acid tears that burned and made them water all the more. She turned her back on him quickly to hide them.

‘Nadia—’

His hands settled on her shoulders and she quickly moved forward out of reach. ‘I
hate
you.’

‘You don’t hate
me.
’ She could still hear his smile. ‘You hate how much you want me.’

She gasped. So, what? It was only
her
wanting
him
that much? That was exactly what she’d been afraid of. ‘You’re the most arrogant prick I’ve ever met.’ Even if he was right.

‘Nadia.’ He walked towards her, his eyes hot enough to melt Antarctica.

She stood her ground and snarled, ‘You think you’ll make it all better with sex? You think that’ll make everything okay? Have a quick screw and then be gone? That’s
your whole attitude, isn’t it?’ It was on that level that he saw everything and tried to fix everything.

And, yes, she wanted him, but she didn’t want just that from him. All the uncertainty and stress of the week compounded, multiplied, and made everything in her vision wobble like just-set jelly.

‘No.’ He stopped and sighed. ‘I just don’t think this is the calamity you think it is.’

‘Not the calamity—?’ Her jaw dropped. ‘It’s a catastrophe. You’ve messed up my life completely. I hope you’re satisfied.’

‘Nadia, be honest,’ he said drily. ‘You weren’t into that job anyway. You were only there to prove to everyone you could get a job at a firm like that—because you were dumb enough to think people didn’t think you were capable of it.’ The sensual invitation in his demeanour dropped, and suddenly he looked all serious. ‘The fact is your heart has never been in it. You resent the time you have to be there. You give it your best—because you’re incapable of giving anything less—but there are a million things you’d rather be doing. It’s just that you’re too chicken to do them. You’re scared of failing. That’s why you wouldn’t ever identity yourself on WomanBWarned. You’re a coward.’

She couldn’t believe he didn’t get how devastating this was. She couldn’t believe he didn’t acknowledge his own responsibility for this mess and its seriousness. She wanted him to feel the hurt she was feeling. She wanted him to be sorry and show her he cared for her in a way other than sexual. But he didn’t. Hell, she
did
need protection—from herself, for being as naïve as the kid people sometimes mistook her for. For hoping there was more to their relationship.

‘
You’re
calling
me
a coward?’ she yelled at him. ‘You—the guy who
never
takes any risks? You only ever sail in easy waters—avoiding real conflict by keeping any relationship on a sexual footing and never going any deeper.’ She snatched a breath and charged full scorn ahead. ‘You don’t date anyone long enough to get to know them. You don’t invest anything. Certainly you don’t build trust and
talk
to anyone. Then you skip on to find someone else, ensuring you’ve left things easy with the last lover. My website hit-rate matters to me, but it’s nothing on what
you
need from your followers in real life. You send flick-off flowers so those women are left half in love with you and wondering what the hell is wrong with them.’

‘Nothing’s wrong with them,’ he shouted
back at her. ‘But I told you I don’t want complications or scenes.’

‘Or commitment.’ She said the one word he never had. ‘So you escape before it can arise. You hide behind superficial charm. You don’t
want
to care. You’re as bad as your dad.’

‘I’m not,’ he roared. ‘I don’t cheat—’

‘But you
hurt
people,’ she interrupted furiously. ‘You
have
.’ He was now.

‘You think I don’t know that?’ His voice rose even more. ‘You think I haven’t realised a few new things in this last week? Give me some credit, Nadia.’

‘Why? When you can’t even admit that I’m in a mess and that you’re partly responsible? When all you can offer is a quick frolic like that’s a Band-Aid to fix everything? Yes, I stuffed up—but so did you. And you still are.’

He lifted his hands, shaking them in frustration. ‘What do you want from me? I’m here, aren’t I? I’ve been here all week. Doesn’t that count for something?’

‘What have you been here for, Ethan?’ Panting, she fought back the weak tears as she challenged him. ‘What have you been here
for
?’

‘Well, what have
you
been taking?’ he
sneered. ‘You can’t get enough of what I’ve been offering.’

She shook her head. ‘I was stupid enough to try it your way. To throw caution to the wind—’

‘You’re crippled by caution,’ he shouted over the top of her. ‘It’s so easy for you to believe the worst of me, isn’t it? Because you’re so untrusting. But the person you trust least is yourself.’

‘Yeah? Well, what about you? Who do
you
trust? You say guys don’t like to share—but that’s the most pathetic excuse, and what little you offer isn’t enough. So your father’s a bastard? Why not open up and get over it? You’re the one who needs to vent the bad stuff out.’

‘Oh, like you have? Like you’ve
so
moved on from having some guy screw you over? Yeah, Nadia—you’re so whole and healthy you’ve decided you won’t ever need anyone or anything. You can’t even let yourself rely on someone else to reach up and flick a switch for you.’

At that Nadia hurled the worst she could at him. ‘At least I
care
about the things and the people in my life. I don’t want to be like you. I don’t want to skim through, not feeling anything other than a cheap thrill every now and
then.’ She’d lost everything over something that to him was
nothing
.

He stood very still, staring at her with eyes that had darkened from brown to black. ‘So all we’ve been is a cheap thrill?’

‘At best,’ she snapped, hurt into hyperbole and the denial of her own deeply precious feelings. ‘And all I want now is for you to get out of my life and stay out of it.’

E
THAN
stared at the black characters on the screen so long his eyes hurt. Okay, the rest of him hurt too. His life had never sucked so much as it did right now—and right now he couldn’t see a way to make it better. He’d been in uncharted waters with Nadia—from the moment he’d met her she’d been everything unexpected. It had been as awful and infuriating as it had wonderful. And it had only grown all the more wonderful. And awful.

She hadn’t got the message he’d left on the blog the other day—about letting his actions
speak. Instead she’d misread his actions, and he guessed he couldn’t blame her for that when he’d been too afraid to verbalise them even to himself. He’d never felt this way about anyone before, and he was feeling his way blind. But he’d been trying, damn it—wanting to do more and be more and go further with her than he ever had with another woman. He’d he spent every moment he could with her—wasn’t that caring? What more did she want? This wasn’t a hook-up for him. It was so much more than sex.

But not, apparently, for her. For her this
was
merely a cheap thrill. Yet she’d said she wanted to care—she
did
care about things—so passionately his own blood burned in response to equal hers. So why couldn’t she care about
him
? Was he that unlikeable? That unlovable?

Well, yeah, at heart that was what he was most afraid of. That she’d gotten to know more about him in the last few days and he wasn’t enough—like she’d said in her blog. There was nothing but superficial charm that faded.

Since his teens he’d worked so hard to ensure no one else would ever leave him—being a charming, entertaining brother and son. Being a super-nice date for women— women
he’d left before they left him. He’d worried that if he wasn’t the charming nice guy no one would want to know what was underneath.

With Nadia nothing had followed the usual pattern. They’d been playing a stupid game, flaming their antagonism and attraction, and it had come to matter more than everything else in his life. But old habits died hard, and when he’d been confronted with her looking that pale, her green eyes watering, his instinct had been to hold her and make her smile however he could. And he knew how much Nadia enjoyed his touch. So maybe he’d come on too teasing? Maybe he should have offered a no-thrills hug? But when she’d rejected him so furiously he’d been cut to the quick and retaliated right back. Too hard. Telling her the things he thought with zero subtlety or cushioning. And she’d responded in kind—couldn’t have made it clearer.

For the first time Ethan had been dumped by a woman. And it hurt way worse than he’d ever thought it could because he’d offered so much more to her than to anyone. He’d been trying to give her himself—in his own time. But it seemed that was so little she hadn’t even realised.

He looked at the words he’d typed into the computer—they mocked him with their
uselessness. There was no point in writing anything. She wasn’t ever going to believe him—
in
him.

Once, twice, a hundred times, he slowly depressed the “delete” button.

Nadia curled in her chair, hugging her knees to her chest, staring at the screen and the blogs Ethan had posted to tease the hell out of her only a week ago. There was nothing new and there was no point looking. No wonder the good feeling had been fading faster—there had been no emotional foundation. At least not from him. Her doubts had only grown as the days had passed, and she’d been right to feel them. Now she knew she wasn’t one to have flings. She couldn’t “use” anyone like that. She only ended up used herself. Just as she’d been with Rafe. She
couldn’t
trust her own judgement.

She heard the ping of e-mails landing and toggled the screen. A few messages on WomanBWarned that she skimmed—then she shot her feet to the floor and leaned close to the screen. Sandwiched between the usual comments were two e-mails that sent adrenalin shrieking down her veins.

CaffeineQueen
and a couple of messages later
MinnieM
—two of the women who’d
posted on the original thread. They’d finally replied to the e-mail she’d sent the night she’d thought Ethan had stood her up. She hesitated, heart battering her ribs. She held her breath and clicked the first.

Total disappointment. There was only a repetition of the same spiel that she’d first put up on the thread—no more detail, no more comment. Nadia frowned and opened the other one.

Same deal. Still, what had she expected? To feel some kind of kinship with these women? She stared for a moment, absently looking at the details at the top—the time it was sent, the date, the name and address …

Wait a minute …

Nadia flicked back to the first e-mail from
CaffeineQueen
. A cold, wet feeling slithered down her spine. She checked
MinnieM
. Then checked again in case she’d made a mistake. But no.

While both e-mails had different names, the actual e-mail address in the pointed brackets was the same.

Two online identities and domains traced back to one e-mail address. One woman.

Nadia’s skin prickled. Tears sprang as the ramifications clanged round her bruised body. So simple. So awful. She’d been so stupid.

She thought back to that very first, fraught meeting she’d had with Ethan, when he’d suggested that her site was open to abuse, to someone taking advantage of it. He’d been right. And she’d been wrong. So very, very wrong.

And all she’d done since was yell at him. Blame him. Hurt him. And why? Because she’d been upset that he didn’t care about her the way she’d come to care for him so quickly?

Well, that was her problem. Not his. And he didn’t deserve to have borne her fury. Most likely he didn’t deserve this other woman’s fury either. Oh, hell. She had to tell him. She had to make it up to him.

And she had to do it now.

With three clicks of his mouse Ethan deleted his entire blog. He hated that she’d lost her job. He’d never intended that she be hurt like this. Yes, he’d wanted to teach her a lesson—but not total her life. And instead of him teaching her anything, she’d made him question everything about
his
life—and he didn’t like the answers he was coming up with. All he wanted now was to get her back. She was already lodged in his heart and there was no getting her out of there. He’d never had to get
a woman back before—until now he’d never wanted to.

Somehow he figured flowers weren’t going to cut it. He was just going to have to become the kind of man she wanted. A man with depth. A man not afraid to take risks—the risk of commitment. A man not afraid to open up and talk.

Well, he’d take a risk now—put his neck on the block for her to take a swing at again.

He banged on her door. It wasn’t that late. Knowing her, she’d be awake.

A woman answered, but not the one he wanted. ‘You’re Megan.’ The flatmate.

She didn’t look surprised to see him. But she didn’t smile. ‘She’s not here.’

His stomach dropped. ‘Where is she?’

‘Gone to see you.’

‘Oh.’ He stiffened to stop from sagging. He’d gone that boneless. ‘My place?’

He hardly noticed her nod. He was running back down the path to catch the cab that had already gone part-way down the street, telling the driver to floor it once he was inside.

Nadia was hovering on the footpath outside his place. He didn’t know if she’d knocked already or not, but she looked about to run, so he grabbed her hand and made use of his superior strength. Only the physical pressure
wasn’t necessary—she walked beside him, even walked in ahead of him, slipping her hand free as she did so.

It wasn’t until they were both inside and he was standing between her and the door that he said anything. His internal organs were working overtime to process the anxiety swamping his system—because she didn’t look good. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ she answered, like an automaton. ‘Do you have a minute?’

‘What’s happened?’

He really needed to know.
Now
. Because she clearly wasn’t here to get back with him. She looked as if her world had fallen apart—all pale and shivery and scared.

She bit her lip. ‘I did some research. I should have done it sooner.’ A tear trickled over.

‘What research?’ He forced himself to stand back—not to swamp her in his arms as he ached to. This time he had to
listen
and then
talk
.

‘I e-mailed the women who’d posted on your thread.’

He froze, dropping his eyes from her to the floor as he absorbed that.
So
not what he’d expected.

‘It was when I thought you’d stood me up and I was mad with you,’ she said quickly.

‘And they wrote back?’ He measured his breathing—and his reply.

‘
She
did.’ Nadia’s voice cracked. ‘It was only one woman. She’d made up another login. I checked and found she’d done all the others too. I think she made it up.’

Ethan still couldn’t look at her, because seeing Nadia this cut up tore him apart. If he snuck even another glance he’d be over there and stuffing things up again.

‘So you were right.’ She spoke so softly he hardly heard her words—but he heard the heartbreak.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling more sorry for her than he did for himself.

‘How many others are on there, making up rubbish?’ she asked, not seeming to expect an answer because she went straight on, her distress becoming more audible. ‘I really believed in it. I really did.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m so sorry, Ethan. I’ve already shut down the thread. I’m going to shut down the whole site—I just need to give the members some warning.’

She was broken.

Only a couple of weeks ago he’d have been
punching the air and yahooing about the site being pulled. Laughing. He’d never felt less like laughing.

‘I don’t want you to shut it down.’ She really was an idealist, wasn’t she? Believing in the best of people—except for “men like him”, of course. Believing she could make a difference. And she could—she really, really could. But being such an idealist meant she could also be crushed—as she was now. ‘Don’t shut it down.’

‘I have to. This makes it worthless.’

‘No, it doesn’t. You can’t kill all that effort. I saw some of those e-mails. And there were so many other e-mails in those folders. You help people. Just because one woman abused your system it doesn’t mean you should ditch all the others by shutting down the site. Just like the fact that one guy took advantage of you in the past shouldn’t put you off all the rest.’ He
really
didn’t want her to be put off.

‘But it was you she hurt. It was
you
.’

‘And that makes it worse?’ His whisper was as soft as hers.

‘Yes.’

His heart beat unbearably fast, and his eyes stung as if wind had blown sand in them. But he jammed his hands deeper into his pockets, determined to be
honest
and open up to
her. ‘Nadia, what’s on that thread about me is right.’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘It
is
true,’ he argued, aching inside. ‘I guess that’s really why it bothered me so much when I first saw it.’ He looked up at her. ‘Whether I actually went out with that woman I don’t know. But what she said was right—I was shallow. I was arrogant. I played—’ He broke off and laughed painfully. ‘And what you said earlier was even more true. I thought I had it together. My life was settled and easy. And empty. I love my job, but I shied away from relationships because they were too much work. I didn’t want to be like Dad and neglect a woman by spending all my time at work, or cheat. I told myself I was okay because I dated only one at a time. Always nice, never arguing. But really I was just like him. Knowing how to take advantage. Not having the fibre or the soul to commit. I
used
those women. I was shallow to think that everyone was having a good time and no one was being hurt.’

He couldn’t look her in the eyes now, couldn’t face the condemnation he deserved. ‘But you want to know the real pathetic truth, Nadia? You want to know why I didn’t go for more than three dates? Because I didn’t want
to be hurt. You know, he walked out and I still wonder why. Why didn’t he want us? Why hasn’t anything I’ve done been enough to get his affection or attention? I know it shouldn’t matter. I know it’s his loss—but I still feel it. And I hate that rejection. I hate that it matters so much. I don’t want to feel it again. I don’t want to let anyone have that power over me,’ he mumbled. ‘But then I met you, and I’ve had it so wrong. You make me want so many things I never thought I’d want.’

Nadia moved three paces towards him, desperately wanting to touch him but too scared because he still stood so defensively—all shut away and retreating from her. ‘Ethan—’

‘Please don’t come near me. If I touch you now I won’t tell you all the things I need to tell you. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.’

But he didn’t need to be. ‘Ethan, you’re nothing like your father.’ She tried to swallow the burning lump in her throat so she could speak clearly. ‘You’re a fantastic son and brother and uncle. You’re loyal, you’re dependable—there for them when they need you. You know just how to make them smile and feel better. You bring sunshine to their world and that’s such a skill. That’s not superficial. I’m sorry I said you were. Because you’re not. You care too, Ethan.’

He still stared hard at the floor. ‘But I’ve never cared about anyone the way I care about you.’ His voice dropped to almost inaudible. ‘I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you.’

Her breathing ratcheted. The goosebumps of old feathered across her skin. She couldn’t move.

‘You’re the most passionate person I’ve ever met. And I’m don’t mean sex.’ Beneath his tee shirt his biceps flexed. Then he lifted his head and drilled those fiery eyes right though her. ‘Whatever it is you take on, you pour everything you can into it. Yes, you make the odd mistake—but so what? You also achieve amazing things. I love the energy you have for
everything
you do in life. I want to be like that.’ His hands jerked out of his pockets as he suddenly strode towards her. ‘But sometimes it seems like you don’t need anyone or anything. You’re so determined to get out there and achieve it all on your own.’