Sara Craven - His Inexperienced Mistress - Girl Behind the Scandalous Reputation / The End of her Innocence / Ruthless Russian, Lost Innocence

And his.

Although she shouldn’t be. Tristan had been angry and had shut her up in the most primitive way possible. It didn’t make it right—in fact it was downright wrong—but then so had been her response. She should have slapped him, not kissed him back. All she’d done was confirm his view that she was easy. A view she already knew would be impossible to reverse, so why even try? It wasn’t as if he would believe the truth anyway.

‘Well, let’s see…’ Lily paused, avoiding Jordana’s interested gaze and counting on her fingers. ‘First there was Clem Watkins, and then Joel Meaghan. Then—’

‘Joel Major, you mean? And Clem? The guy from the gym squad?’ Jordana scoffed. ‘He had a nose that looked like he’d gone ten rounds with a hockey stick and he thought the ozone layer was a computer game.’

Lily pasted on a smile. ‘He had good teeth, and he realised his mistake about the ozone layer almost straight away.’

‘After everyone laughed. How could you have been in love with them? You didn’t date either one.’

And that, Lily thought as she tried to ignore Jordana’s frowning visage, was one of the problems with ad-libbing. Or telling white lies. You made mistakes.

Like forgetting that your closest friend was also at the dinner table and knew almost all of your teenage secrets.

‘I’m not interested in your high-school dalliances, Lily.’ Tristan cut in scathingly, his voice rising over the sounds of laughter in the background. ‘I do want to get home tonight. Let’s talk about men you’ve been in love with.’

Ha!

‘Let’s not,’ Lily said, dismissing him with one of her enigmatic smiles. ‘You’d be bored silly.’

‘Humour me,’ he insisted, his tone intimate as he shifted his hand along the back of the velvet seat. ‘Who’s the current love of your life?’

His thumb grazed one of her shoulderblades and the heat of his touch burned through her thin blouse like dry ice.

Lily jerked forward and pretended she had been about to place her water glass back on the table.

He had done that deliberately, and if she hadn’t agreed to put on a united front for Jordana and Oliver she’d happily tell him where to go.

Looking at the sexy little smile curving his lips, she knew he knew it. Which only fuelled her ire. If he thought he had the upper hand in this situation he had another thing coming.

‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ she cooed, reaching across and placing her hand a little too high on his thigh, and patting him as one might a family pet. ‘You already know everything there is to know about me. Remember?’

She felt a spurt of pleasure when Tristan looked taken aback by her action.

‘I thought it was your contention that I didn’t?’ He replied lazily, smiling a devil’s smile and clamping his larger hand over hers, effectively imprisoning her palm against his muscular thigh. ‘I’ve always believed it’s better to go directly to the source when you want to find something out.’

Lily’s smile froze as his steely thigh muscles contracted beneath her palm. Her fingernails automatically curled into his trousers and she gave serious consideration to piercing through the heavy fabric to the flesh beneath.

Heat surged through her body as he squeezed her hand and locked his darkly amused eyes with hers. Lily shifted her gaze to the twinkling lights of the park through the unadorned windows before managing to recover her equilibrium enough to flick her dismissive gaze back over him.

‘How very open-minded of you,’ she purred pointedly, digging her nails into his thigh once more before dragging her hand away.

Lily had wanted to put Tristan in his place, but instead he threw his head back and laughed—a delightfully masculine sound that was like fingernails down a chalkboard to her highly strung emotions.

She could see Jordana and Oliver looking perplexed, and then Tristan smiled at her. ‘That’s just the kind of guy I am,’ he said, picking up his wine glass and holding her gaze as he stroked his thumb over the stem.

‘I take it that was an in-joke?’ Jordana offered, jolting Lily’s attention away from Tristan.

‘I don’t know.’ Lily sniffed. ‘I didn’t find it funny at all.’

‘Well, regardless, now I’m even more confused.’ Jordana tilted her head. ‘Are you seeing someone, Lil, or not?’

Lily saw the open curiosity in her friend’s face and wished she could rewind the last few minutes—because Jordana was far too nosy and would no doubt start hassling her about how hard she worked and how she needed to get out more.

‘No.’ She sighed, and then, feeling herself observed by Tristan’s sceptical gaze, added, ‘No one of any importance, that is.’

Let him make of that what he would!

‘Well, good,’ Jordana surprised her by saying. ‘Because like Tristan, you’ve gone for completely the wrong partners so far. But—’ she raised her index finger as Lily was about to intercede ‘—as you’re my best friend I’ve decided to help you out.’

‘How?’ There was nothing scarier than Jordana on a love mission.

‘Ah, not telling. Let’s just say I have a little surprise for you during the wedding celebrations.’ Jordana cast Oliver a conspiratorial glance from behind her crystal wine glass.

Lily didn’t even try to smile.

‘Jordana, what are you up to?’

‘Now, don’t be like that,’ Jordana admonished her. ‘I know how hard you’ve worked the past couple of years and it’s time you cut loose a little bit. Look around, Lil.’ She waved her glass towards the row of white tabletops. ‘Have some fun, like your peers.’

Lily gave her friend what she hoped was a good-natured grimace. Jordana was sounding more and more like her old therapist, and that was just plain scary. ‘Jordana, you’re starting to scare me, and—much as I hate to agree with Tristan—I think you’re so loved-up at the minute you’re blinkered. I’m very happy as I am. I don’t want a relationship. I like being single.’

‘I’m just loading the gun, Lil, you don’t have to fire the bullets,’ Jordana returned innocently. ‘Now, how about a pot of tea to finish off?’

‘We really should be going,’ Tristan said. ‘Lily’s tired.’

Lily looked at him, surprised he’d noticed. She was tired, but she’d do anything to prolong the time before being alone with him.

‘No, I’m not.’ She smiled brightly. ‘And I never finish a meal without a cup of peppermint tea.’

‘I’ll have one too,’ Jordana said.

Tristan and Oliver both raised their hands to signal the waiter at the same time, and Lily couldn’t help laughing. Clearly Jordana had found herself an alpha male top dog to stand up to her overbearing brother.

The waiter took their order and Lily excused herself to use the bathroom.

Tristan frowned at her as she stood up, and she knew exactly what he was thinking. ‘Be a dear and mind my handbag, would you?’ she said to him, tilting the smaller satchel she had brought along in place of her tote precariously towards him and enjoying the way his eyes flared at her provocative move.

Serve him right for asking her such a personal question before, and trapping her hand against his thigh.

‘Lily! Hi.’

Lily looked up into the mirror above the handbasin into the gorgeous face of a previous co-star she had shot a film with two years ago.

‘I thought it was you. Summer Berkley—we worked together on Honeymooner .’

‘Yes, I remember.’ Lily wiped her hands.

Summer was a quintessential LA actress, with the tan, the boobs, no hips whatsoever and the hair just so. But she had a good heart, and a genuine talent which would eventually take her further than all the rest combined.