Escaping Mr Right - Avril Tremayne

About the Book

Television reporter Chloe Masters is a woman of cool control … except when Casanova rugby league player Nick Savage is around. Then cool control goes out the window. Her boyfriend, Marcus, is everything she ever wanted – but it’s getting harder to deny her body’s reaction to Nick … Nick Savage has been head-over-heels since he first laid eyes on Chloe – just a moment too late to stop her connecting with his teammate, Marcus. But when the goalposts shift and he and Chloe are thrown together on a week away, Nick dares her to get physical in whatever way she wants – with a kiss, a punch or anything in between. And if Chloe claims to feel nothing, he’ll leave her alone for good. How can Chloe say no to a week of mindless passion with the man she hasn’t been able to get out of her head? Trouble is, a lot can go wrong (or right) in a week … Sometimes Mr Right is Mr Wrong, and Mr Wrong is definitely Mr Right …

Contents

Cover About the Book Title Page Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18

Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Acknowledgements About the Author The Contract – Ad and Extract Copyright Notice Random Romance ad

Dedication One of the things I love about this book is the strong bond between the three friends, Chloe, Drew and Evie, so I’m dedicating this book to three of my own friends from my formative school and university days – Eunice Noble, Joady McManus and Cate Carrigan.

CHAPTER ONE

Nick Savage was like the human incarnation of a heat-seeking missile. Unfortunately, his target was me. Always, always, me. I swear I’d only been alone at the champagne bar for one minute and twenty seconds before Nick locked on to my location, at which point I estimated it would take him five seconds to hit his target. Sadly, that didn’t give me enough time to throw myself overboard. It was barely enough time to assume the brace position, ready for impact – switching my regular aloof smile to full-scale hands-off mode, and layering on an extra coating of frost. As it turned out, it took Nick a whole ten seconds to get to me – but only because he’d lost five seconds de-clinging a buxom brunette from his arm. He reached around me to take a pre-poured glass of champagne off the bar. ‘On your own, Chloe. Why?’ As if being on a massive cruiser in the middle of Sydney Harbour, with a whole rugby league team and a gaggle of hangers-on, could truly be classified as ‘on your own’. I raised my eyebrows at him, aloof smile intact. ‘Because I wanted to be on my own.’ ‘Ouch! Poor Marcus.’ And there went my smile. ‘Poor Mar–? Oh for God’s –! I was not suggesting I needed to get away from –’ Stop. Right there. Because Nick knew exactly what I was suggesting. Which had nothing to do with Marcus and everything to do with him. ‘That is so funny, Nick. I almost can’t contain my hilarity.’ ‘Oh, go on, let it out,’ he said, oh-so indulgently. ‘Repression never did anyone any good.’ ‘Ha, ha, h–. Oh, wait a minute.’ I paused, did a little faux yawn. ‘Now where was I? Oh, yes: Ha.’ ‘There now, doesn’t that feel better?’ I regarded him with hostility. ‘What I find interesting is that you’re here on your own. I thought we were all invited with partners today.’ He made a tsk tsk sound that had my palm itching to slap. ‘Now, Chloe, I’m sure you’ve read today’s papers, good journalist that you are, and that means you already know Amanda and I are history.’ He pulled a woebegone face that he knew wouldn’t fool me for a minute. ‘So here I am, lonely and looking for love.’ I flicked a disparaging glance at the hovering brunette. ‘Fast work, in that case. What’s the poor girl’s name, and where is she in the harem pecking order?’ He didn’t even look around. ‘Jane, and she’s a consenting adult joining the harem of her own accord.’ ‘Lucky Jane! It’s every girl’s dream to win a place in such a respected establishment, you know.’ There was an almost infinitesimal pause, and then, ‘Nobody’s hurting anyone, Chloe.’ ‘Hmm. I’m not sure Amanda would agree.’ I smiled thinly. ‘Seeing the man she loves move on to someone else the very day her own break-up makes the news.’ ‘Except Amanda doesn’t love me,’ he said, unperturbed. ‘Oh, that’s right. It’s lust, not love, with you.’ ‘She’s not here to see it, either.’

‘See it, read about it, same thing.’ ‘Camera-free boat, Chloe.’ ‘Well, I’m sure it will be a great relief to Amanda to have a break from the publicity, in that case,’ I said, knowing I should drop the subject but somehow unable to do the sensible thing and let it go. ‘I mean, wasn’t it only last month I read about her breaking up with your teammate?’ I made a little moue of distaste. ‘So … incestuous.’ Nick was nodding, as though at a memory. ‘Jed. Great guy. But no longer my “incestuous” teammate, since he switched teams at the end of last season.’ He raised his eyebrows at me this time. ‘Oh, you didn’t know?’ Another of those aggravating tsk tsks. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve lost interest in your boyfriend’s game so soon!’ ‘Not in the game, only in the tawdry affairs of its players.’ His eyes narrowed fractionally. ‘Just to be clear, Amanda gave the story to the paper, not me. So if you’re getting out the tissue box, do it on my behalf, not hers.’ I managed a dismissive sniff. ‘What is it, Chloe? I don’t have the right to resent getting my sex life splashed all over the papers? Because I can tell you, my sponsors aren’t too pleased. On the other hand, Amanda tells me it’s good for her television career to have her love life in the gossip pages.’ I struggled to find an answer to that, because it didn’t suit my view of Nick. Nick wasn’t the type to be manipulated; he was the type to use and discard women – and yes, I knew women lined up regardless, but that didn’t make his behaviour any more acceptable to me. ‘So tell me,’ he said. ‘Is it?’ ‘Is what?’ ‘Is it a good career move for a person in television to date a footballer? Because I notice you got a nice promotion to Around the Globe after that piece about you and Marcus appeared in the gossip pages a couple of months ago.’ ‘I’m not a starlet, I’m a serious journalist,’ I said coldly. ‘And I’m not dating Marcus-the-footballer, I’m dating Marcus-the-man-I-happen-to-love.’ ‘Well, you love something about him, I’ll give you that.’ Do not rise to the bait, Chloe, do not. ‘I’ll give you a hint about finding true love, Nick, you poor lonely man. It takes being with a person for longer than two weeks.’ ‘Hey,’ he remonstrated with a grin – an actual grin! ‘Amanda was a three-weeker.’ ‘But Sheila who came before her, and Constance who came before Sheila, were two-weeks apiece. I also recall a Beth and a Samantha and a Jess who didn’t even make it past one week.’ I raised my glass in a mock toast, and took a small sip. ‘You’ve been keeping track?’ he asked, still grinning. ‘Sure you’re not a teensy bit jealous?’ I choked on my champagne. The gall of him. ‘Because you know, Chloe, all you have to do is say the word and I’m yours.’ ‘For two whole weeks?’ I laughed, even though I was far from amused. ‘Er, no thanks.’ ‘Why put a time frame on it?’ ‘Because that’s your modus operandi. Lust not love, two weeks, goodbye.’ ‘Well, I’ll tell you, Chloe, I’ll take two weeks, if that’s all you’ll give me. But you can bet I’ll make them the best two weeks of your life.’ And I figured that was about as much as a girl could take without letting fly with a fist – which I’d promised myself never to do again. Ever. It was time to relocate. ‘Excuse me,’ I said, preparing to glide past him. Nick grabbed my wrist before I could effect a getaway. His grin had fled. ‘Why don’t you give the act a rest, Miss Perfect Girlfriend, and leave Marcus to enjoy himself with the guys?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ I said, and my voice was so arctic, Nick should have sustained immediate frostbite to at least one extremity. But Nick was apparently immune to the cold; the bastard was an eyelid droop away from a wellheated smoulder. ‘Beg,’ he said, as though he were rolling the word around on his tongue like a drop of syrup. ‘I like that word coming out of your mouth.’ I snatched my wrist free. ‘Beg is something I’ll never do for you.’ And damn, damn, damn, there was nothing arctic about the way I spat that out! ‘But you just did beg me, Chloe. Although it’s not my “pardon” I’m interested in giving you. I’m interested in giving you something else entirely.’ Oh. My. God. ‘You. Are. An animal.’ ‘As are all humans. Mammals, to be precise.’ ‘Some have just evolved a little further than Neanderthals since the Ice Age.’ ‘That’s me. Savage by name, savage by nature.’ He leaned in, so close his breath stirred my hair, setting off a tiny, unwelcome shiver. ‘But the way I see it, you’re the one trapped in the Ice Age. Brrr.’ Pause as he eased back enough for me to take a normal breath. ‘At least, that’s what you want us all to think, isn’t it, Chloe?’ Enough. I was going. And I wasn’t bothering with an ‘Excuse me’ this time. But his hand shot out again, detaining me. ‘Don’t worry, the thing I want to give you isn’t an orgasm that’ll blow your mind, if that’s what you’re thinking – although I could. What I want to give you, at least at this moment, is advice. Loosen the reins, Chloe. If you loosen the reins, you and Marcus might both find out where you’re supposed to be.’ For a moment, all I could do was blink at Nick, speechless. Blink, blink, breathe, blink – the way I’d trained myself to do, as a way of mastering the urge to scream and thump and claw when things felt like they were spiralling out of my control. ‘I know where I’m supposed to be,’ I said. ‘With my boyfriend. You know, your friend? Teammate? The team captain? That guy? But I’ll tell you what, Nick. If you really think I’ll spoil his fun with the guys, there’s something very simple you can do to keep me away from him.’ I nodded towards the conglomeration of thick-necked footballers surrounding Marcus on the other side of the cruiser cabin. ‘Just go over there yourself. That’s a sure fire way to keep me all the way over here. And while you’re on your way over, try to remember it’s not nice to hit on a teammate’s girl.’ ‘Except under certain … conditions.’ ‘Getting a kick out of tormenting a girl isn’t a valid condition.’ ‘Then tell me a better way to get you to notice me, Chloe,’ he said, and for once there wasn’t even a hint of a taunt – not in his voice, his face or the words. My breath jammed in my throat as I looked at him. His eyes, so dark they were almost black, were both serious and watchful, and there was a grim set to his mouth I’d never recognised before. His hand, gripping my wrist, felt like it was branding me. A little trickle of fear etched a path down my spine. ‘I don’t want to notice you,’ I said. ‘Do you think I don’t know that? But circumstances can change.’ ‘And are you going to enlighten me as to what those changing circumstances may be?’ Another pause while he looked at me. He half-opened his mouth, as though to speak … but then closed it and shook his head. ‘That’s something you’ll have to find out on your own.’ ‘Then I suggest you let go of me. And stop hitting on me – you lack the finesse to carry it off.’ He looked down at where his hand engulfed my wrist. In his grip, my wrist looked thinner and paler than usual. Vulnerable. Or maybe it was just that his hand seemed giant to me, which was crazy, because he was the same size as Marcus. Marcus just didn’t seem so … so Hulk-like, somehow.

‘I lack finesse, do I? That’s okay, Chloe. I have other attributes.’ His fingers loosened; his hand slid up my forearm, then back down. ‘Which you share around a little too freely for my taste.’ A dare-you-to-lose-it look was in his heavy-lidded eyes. ‘I don’t share all my toys, Chloe. Remember that, when the time comes.’ I tried to laugh, tried to scoff, to sneer, to … something. But I wasn’t capable of making a sound. What did that even mean? When the time comes? The time wasn’t coming, as far as I was concerned. Ever. Then, suddenly, my wrist was free, and Nick was stepping back, holding up his hand as though to say ‘best behaviour’. I found myself rubbing my wrist against my thigh because it was tingling, somehow. And I did not want to do any tingling around Nick Savage. In fact, I didn’t want to do any uncontrolled tingling, period. Marcus. I needed Marcus to untingle me. I looked over at him, and I must have been radiating some powerful kind of electromagnetic ‘save me’ rays, because I managed to snag his attention away from the guys – not an easy thing to do once they were deep in football talk. He smiled and waved me over, and I felt instantly steadier. ‘The time you’re thinking about?’ I said to Nick. ‘It’s the twelfth of never. But right now, my boyfriend wants me to join him.’ Nick turned, and I almost groaned as Marcus included him in the wave to join the group. Seriously, could Marcus not see what was happening right under his nose? But it seemed Nick had filled his daily quota of Chloe-baiting, because he did a smile/headshake/hand gesture pantomime indicating he was going out on deck instead. And then Nick turned back to me, and his smile slipped. ‘It won’t be the twelfth of never, Chloe. I won’t wait that long,’ he said, and all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. ‘In fact, time’s almost up.’ And as I stood there, stunned into silence, Nick threw back his champagne and put the glass back on the bar. ‘What are you waiting for, Miss Perfect Girlfriend? Off you go. Run away.’ ‘It’s not running away when you’re going where you’re wanted.’ ‘You’re wanted here. More. By me.’ I stared at him, desperately trying – failing – to keep the panic at bay. It was as though everything was stripped away with those words. No more innuendo. No ambiguity. Nothing that could be brushed off or ignored. I couldn’t pretend to myself that he was just getting a kick out of provoking me, or that I was being overly sensitive, or that I was reading something into his words that wasn’t really there. Blink, blink, breathe. ‘Nick, you have to stop this, or I’m going to have to tell him.’ ‘Go right ahead, Chloe, if that’s what you want to do. I’m not scared of Marcus.’ ‘You should be.’ ‘I’m not.’ ‘Then there’s a little thing called loyalty you might like to consider, instead.’ ‘I have considered it. I admire your loyalty, Chloe, I really do. I always have.’ ‘Not my loyalty. Your loyalty. To him.’ ‘I’ll tell you what, you let me worry about my loyalty to Marcus, and in the meantime, try to peer into your own murky waters. Love, lust, loyalty. What do you want, Chloe? Who do you want? And why?’ ‘You can be sure of one thing, at least. I don’t want you.’ And on those flung words, I stalked off. ‘We’ll see, Chloe,’ he said, just loud enough for me to hear, and as my step faltered, just for a fraction of a second, he chuckled. It’s possibly the most hideous sound in the world, a chuckle. Only villains in melodramas chuckle. Marcus never chuckled, and certainly never at my expense. The moment I reached Marcus’s side he drew me under his arm, despite his attention having

wholeheartedly returned to whatever his teammates were discussing. It was a natural, comforting, takingyou-for-granted-in-the-nicest-possible-way reflex action, which proclaimed to anyone who was interested that we were together. Together. The way we’d been for just over a year. Fifty-two weeks and three days. Steady, strong, united, sure of each other. No sniping. No taunting. No teasing. No … tempting. You’re wanted here. More. By me. I shivered as the words played through my mind, and Marcus rubbed my arm. ‘Are you cold, Chloe? Want my jacket?’ Always so considerate of my wellbeing. That was Marcus, the perfect gentleman. ‘No. No, no, no,’ I said, and rolled a metaphorical eye at the overkill of that – not that Marcus seemed to notice anything amiss with those surplus ‘no’s; he tuned straight back into the conversation. Leaving me free to ponder if perhaps I really should tell Marcus what Nick had said. The problem was, I suspected Marcus would just shrug it off. He simply wasn’t the jealous type. Which I’d always thought was a blessing, me being the ultimate keep-it-cool, scene-free, no-conflict, hold-the-drama type of girl. But in this instance? If I told Marcus, and he did nothing? I had an uncomfortable feeling Nick would take it as an invitation to come and get me. A risk I would not take. Which meant I wouldn’t be telling Marcus a damn thing about Casanova Savage’s unwelcome attentions. Score one for Nick. Something shimmered through me. Like a … a premonition, as I recalled what Nick had said: It won’t be the twelfth of never, Chloe. I won’t wait that long. Change. Something was about to change. Maybe it already had changed. Something I didn’t understand. Loosen the reins and you both might find out where you’re supposed to be. It was there, on the fringe of my consciousness, the something, if only I could concentrate. Block out everything else … I jumped, as I felt a touch on my shoulder. ‘… where you got it, Chloe?’ It was Kelly, one of the girlfriends, and I quickly put together what it was she’d asked me from the envious look she was casting at the tiny handbag dangling from a chain over my shoulder. ‘I got it in Melbourne,’ I said, as I offered up the glittery pink sphere for closer inspection. ‘But it only holds a lipstick and one credit card.’ ‘Who cares? It’s the colour I love,’ she said. And the flicker of awareness was snuffed out. Leaving behind only a hint of … of fear, almost. Blink, blink, breathe, as I looked around at our little group. The girls talking about fashion, Marcus’s muscular arm around me, one of the guys swapping my empty glass for a full one from a circulating waiter’s tray … All those things were as per usual. I told myself that nothing had changed. I certainly didn’t want anything to change. It had taken me long enough to wrench the life I wanted from the chaos of my imperfect childhood, and I liked being exactly where I was. Chloe Masters was no longer that lonely foster kid, being passed on from home to home, like one of Nick Savage’s harem girls. She was a respected television reporter, the poised and stylish girlfriend of one of Australia’s hottest sports stars. She was where she was supposed to be, and she was going to stay there. A year with Marcus. That was a milestone. Admittedly not as long as Kelly had been with Rock, but it demonstrated stability, commitment, permanence. I looked quickly at Kelly and Rock, wondering if they were about to make things truly permanent. A big step. A huge step. But they seemed so happy, surely it was on the cards. Kelly was nuzzling into Rock, blushing, whispering something in his ear as he … he … Oh. Ohhhhh!

Rock was squeezing Kelly’s butt! I looked hurriedly away. Looked back at them. Away. And felt something in my head go ‘click’. I couldn’t remember the last time Marcus had squeezed my butt, or any other body part, for that matter. In private, let alone in public. I counted back, remembering the training sessions, the football functions, the promotional work for sponsors, the community engagements. All major time sucks. Back, back, back, I went. It had to be … two months …? No. No, three months. If I hadn’t had such iron control over my facial muscles, my mouth would have dropped open. Could that really be true? Another quick count, to find that yes, it could. It was true. I hadn’t had sex with Marcus for three whole months. I’d simply taken care of any stray sexual urges myself. Why did it seem worse to realise the last orgasm I’d had was self-produced? In fact, the last two. Make that three. Four. Oh! A spurt of alarm hit me. And doubt. Horrible, crippling doubt. Bad enough that Marcus and I weren’t having sex. Unforgivable that I hadn’t actually noticed until now. So … what? Did I need hormone therapy? Did Marcus? Had Marcus sustained a sports injury to his sex organs that he was too embarrassed to tell me about? Was there something I was doing wrong? Something off-putting about the way I looked, smelled or sounded in the throes of passion? Surely not! I was meticulous about all those things before, during and after sex. So … what? Clearly, I needed to get him into bed immediately and figure it out. ‘Marcus,’ I said softly, tugging on his arm. He looked down at me. ‘What is it?’ ‘Do you know if there’s –? I mean, is there somewhere we can go and be … private? On the boat, I mean?’ ‘What do you mean, private?’ ‘You know …’ Meaningful look. ‘Private.’ ‘Oh, private.’ He gave me a half-smile/half-grimace. ‘Not on the boat, Chloe. Not with these guys all over the place.’ And that was it. Well, that and a quick kiss on my forehead, before he turned back to the conversation with the guys. Marcus had kissed my forehead; Rock had squeezed Kelly’s butt. There was something not quite right about that comparison. It was not a good time to catch sight of Nick Savage through the window, out on the deck. Because seeing him, with a blonde swooning at him on either side, made me wonder what Nick would do if a woman asked him to take her somewhere private. But I knew the answer. She would find herself crowded into one of the bedrooms, the bathroom, a semi-secluded part of the deck, even jammed inside the nearest lifeboat, pretty damn quick. Nick probably had a sixth sense about where to take a willing bedmate, honed by years of illicit sex in public places. The thing I want to give you isn’t an orgasm that’ll blow your mind – although I could. An orgasm that would blow my mind … How long had it been since I’d had a mind-blowing orgasm? Had I, in fact, ever had one? I was horrified to find my body clenching at the thought of Nick alone with a woman … a woman like me … with nobody else in sight, blowing her mind. No! Not going there. I dragged my eyes away from Nick and back to Marcus, who smiled down at me and then, for good measure, gave me another kiss on the forehead. Somehow, I didn’t think Nick Savage was going to kiss either of those blondes on the forehead. Inexorably my eyes followed my thoughts, back out onto the deck where Nick was apparently not at all put

out that the two girls had now physically attached themselves to him. As though he could feel my eyes on him, Nick looked in through the window. Straight at me. And his smile disappeared. The girl on his right slid her hands around his biceps. It was ridiculous – even with both hands she only made it halfway round. Not to be outdone, left-hand blonde got in on the act. Two hands, halfway round his biceps. Exactly the sight I needed to wake up to myself. As if I really wanted to find a private corner with a girl-per-side man like Nick Savage! I was not a biceps-fondling groupie. I was a get-your-butt-squeezedin-private type. I was classy, I was stylish. I was the girlfriend you had for the long-term, not for two weeks. A perfect girlfriend – and there was nothing wrong with ‘perfect’, no matter how Nick sneered out that word. Tossing my hair, I angled myself away from the obnoxious sight of the budding ménage à trois. I looked around at all the partygoers. The surroundings were glamorous, as befitting the brand of Gaz Finaldo, the billionaire owner of both the cruiser and the Sydney Scorpions. Champagne was flowing freely. The party food was exquisite. People were chatting, laughing; a few were even busting out some dance moves. Hunky guys. Gorgeous, fashionable girls. Exactly the kind of event I’d spent my teenage years dreaming of. And I was included. Yep, I’d finally made it. And I had never felt lonelier in my life.

CHAPTER TWO

The cruise progressed the way such events usually did. Marcus was his gregarious self, ensuring we were surrounded for the duration. There were speeches, during which, Marcus was presented with the prestigious team medal, making him even more popular. There was conversation and laughter and entertainment. And, of course, the free flowing booze resulted in a smattering of incidents – one broken toe, a flare gun being accidentally set off, and a girl stripping to her underwear and throwing herself at Nick Savage. Nothing unusual about any of it (except that for once, Nick didn’t seem interested in the nearly-naked girl), but by the time the boat docked I was longing to have Marcus to myself. Just the two of us, calm and steady, so I could re-set my equilibrium. Marcus had booked a limousine to pick us up. Once we were seated in the back and on our way, he reached for my hand in one of those taking-for-granted actions I liked, holding it loosely as he checked the texts and emails he’d received while on the cruise. And just like that, things felt normal again. ‘Ah, I meant to show you this before,’ he said, passing his phone to me. I read the email quickly then handed the phone back to him. It was an invitation to lead a school holiday football clinic in a remote rural community. A great cause, but the timing was hell – hot on the heels of Marcus’s end-of-season trip to Hawaii with the guys. ‘Are you sure you can you fit it in?’ I asked, even though I knew it wasn’t in Marcus – a country boy at heart – to turn down such a request. He smiled at me, all confidence. ‘Too easy.’ ‘Hawaii’s only a week away, and even that’s not nailed down yet.’ ‘I’ll fly out to do a recce at the school on Tuesday, then dot and cross the i’s and t’s for Hawaii on Wednesday night over pizza with the guys, fly to Hawaii as planned, tie up any loose ends on the clinic while I’m there, and when I’m back I can head straight to the school. As I said, too easy.’ ‘Wednesday night?’ I said, with sinking heart. ‘Did you forget you were supposed to come with me to Evie’s for dinner on Wednesday?’ ‘I thought that was tomorrow.’ ‘No, she lands tomorrow. We’re giving her a couple of days to move into Jack’s penthouse before we descend on her.’ ‘Hang on, let me just check what I’ve got coming up …’ Head bent to his phone, he started looking through his calendar, and murmuring to himself. ‘Can’t move that. Maybe that …? Uh-uh, no. How about … Nope, scrap that.’ ‘Drew asked me particularly to get you there,’ I said mischievously, just because I knew it would get a reaction. Drew put Marcus a little on edge. Inevitable, given Marcus was what you’d call a blokey bloke while Drew was … flamboyant, shall we say? ‘Drew?’ Marcus asked, looking at me warily. ‘Why?’ ‘Because he’s got the hots for you,’ I teased. I saw the alarm chase across Marcus’s face, and almost laughed. ‘I’m joking, Marcus. He’s got the hots for half the rugby league players in Sydney, you know that. Look, it’s just a low-key catch-up to hear about Evie’s time in Morocco, but she’ll understand if you can’t

make it. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.’ ‘How about if I popped in for coffee afterwards? I’m sure I could manage that.’ ‘You’re sure?’ He grimaced. ‘I’ll try.’ ‘Okay, you’ll try,’ I said, resigned to the fact that I might see him … but I probably wouldn’t. Silence reigned for a while, and then Marcus put his phone into his shirt pocket and took my hand again. ‘Chloe …?’ He sounded nervous – which made that shimmering premonition take hold of me again. We were sitting together as usual, holding hands like we always did, having one of our normal conversations about who had what coming up … but something had changed. What was it? What? Marcus cleared his throat. Slight pause as I waited for what he would say … and then he shrugged, and smiled, and the moment passed. And I was … glad. ‘I saw you and Nick talking on the boat,’ he said, and I stiffened before I could stop myself. ‘That’s good.’ ‘Is it?’ I asked, searching his face for signs it really wasn’t good. But his face was completely guileless. ‘Of course. Nick’s a great guy and a good friend.’ ‘Mmhmm.’ ‘Mmhmm? That’s Chloe-speak for I don’t agree with you. What did he do wrong?’ ‘Nothing. Nothing … important.’ I forced my body to relax. ‘It was just Nick being Nick.’ ‘What does that even mean, Chloe?’ I hunched an awkward shoulder. How could I put into words that Nick was just always there? Just … there. One eyebrow cocked in secret challenge. That half-smile special of his that he seemed to reserve solely for me, like a wordless I dare you. The way he grinned, which was basically a come-on in camouflage gear. Even the way he walked was an affront. Seriously, Nick Savage couldn’t seem to just walk like a regular human being; he had to stride or swagger or saunter, like he was genetically programmed to be a cocky, infuriating bastard. Marcus tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. ‘Earth to Chloe, come in, Chloe.’ I ran my own smoothing, soothing hand over my hair. ‘It doesn’t mean anything. Nick’s just … confronting.’ ‘That he definitely is.’ Marcus laughed, and squeezed my fingers. ‘Especially for a girl like you.’ ‘What does that mean?’ ‘You know.’ ‘Not in this context, I don’t.’ ‘Goddess-like,’ Marcus said. ‘The goddess – that’s what Evie and Drew call you.’ ‘But that’s just a thing from our university days. A –’ ‘A joke, I know,’ he said, raising my hand to his mouth to kiss the knuckles. ‘Except that it’s not really a joke, and all three of you know it. You’re so … composed. Poised. Never a hair out of place.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘And I mean that thing about the hair literally. Did you even notice that when I tucked that stray bit of hair behind your ear, you had to fix it yourself straight away to make sure it was as perfect as the rest of you?’ My hand practically leapt for my hair, and Marcus laughed again. ‘It’s all tucked away, Chloe.’ ‘Like me, is that what you’re saying?’ I heard myself ask – and irritatingly, Nick’s words bounced into my head. Go on, let it out. Repression never did anyone any good. ‘Do you think I’m repressed?’ ‘I think you’re regal.’ ‘Smooth talker,’ I said, but what was supposed to come out lighthearted came out dull and flat. ‘I like “regal”,’ Marcus said. ‘It’s better than throwing jealous tantrums the way Kelly and Rock do. And don’t get me started on their PDAs.’ He laughed. ‘We’re not like that, you and I. We’re both even-

keel, full sail ahead. It’s why we’ve been so good together for so long. But Nick is –’ ‘Oh, really, we’re going back to Nick?’ ‘– different. Nick has a different effect on you. Something molecular happens when you’re together, like fire and ice.’ Another pause, during which Marcus toyed with my fingers. ‘You couldn’t have the kind of relationship you and I have with Nick.’ ‘I couldn’t have any kind of relationship with Nick,’ I said. ‘Not that I can picture him throwing jealous tantrums like Kelly and Rock either, given how easily he swaps girls with his friends every few weeks.’ ‘That will change when the time comes.’ I made some noncommittal sound. ‘In fact, I think you …’ He trailed off, looked out the window then back at me, and then shrugged. ‘I think you’re a bit tough on him, is all. I wish you’d try to get along a little better.’ ‘I get along well with most of the guys on the team,’ I said, trying to feel my way through the subtext of this very strange conversation. ‘Yes, I know.’ It was a simple acknowledgement, but something felt off about it, like there was a ‘but’ to come. ‘Anyway,’ Marcus said, before I could brood more deeply on what the hell was going on, ‘can we get back to the football clinic for a minute? I wanted to ask you if there was any chance Around the Globe might cover it.’ ‘I’ll check with Larry.’ ‘He’s the chief of staff, right? The manic smoker?’ That was Larry. ‘Yeah. He was talking about something he’s got cooking with Gaz Finaldi just the other day, so he’ll probably be up for it.’ ‘Can you swing it so you can do the story? I mean you, personally? Otherwise I won’t see you for a week once I’m back from Hawaii.’ ‘Me, personally? Uh, no, I don’t think so.’ ‘I thought it would bring us full circle. You know, because we met when you were doing that story, and now, a year later …’ ‘Yes, but a puff piece on the Ginger of the Month calendar shoot in Sydney is a little different from a football clinic in Woop Woop. And …’ Swallow. ‘And besides, kids are not my thing. They don’t take to me. You know that, Marcus.’ ‘I know you say they don’t, but that’s all I know. In fact …’ He leaned a little away from me, as though to better examine my face. ‘Have I ever …? No, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you with a child. Not even my niece and nephews. You’ve always got a reason to dodge them.’ ‘Yes, because they don’t take to me.’ Which was basically unarguable. ‘Or maybe they’re just too messy,’ Marcus said, and laughed. I was not, however in the mood at that point to laugh along about how repressed I could be, so fortunately the car chose that moment to pull up outside my apartment building. Which started a whole other train of thought. ‘Are you staying at my place tonight, Marcus?’ I asked. ‘I could,’ Marcus said, but he sounded doubtful. ‘I just have to check on one thing. It’s a call I’m expecting.’ ‘You can take it here.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a video call from Hawaii. You know I prefer to do those from my place, so let me just …’ Pulling out the phone again, frowning as he pulled up his schedule, shaking his head. ‘No, it’s not going to work. But let’s try for Wednesday.’ ‘Wednesday,’ I parroted, and then, as he grimaced apologetically, ‘Yes, I know, you’ll try.’

Marcus hugged me, kissed me on the forehead, hugged me again, waved me to the door, watched until I got inside … And that was it. I walked slowly to the elevator, pushed the button, keeping it together, together, together. I let myself into my apartment, put my much admired sparkly pink bag on the dining table, took off my shoes, and poured myself a gin and tonic. I wanted to think back over the conversation we’d had in the back of the limo, to try to pinpoint what was bothering me about it. The conversation had been so typical, but I had a sense that there were things that were deliberately not said. And a few things that deliberately were said. About Nick. Nick and me. And suddenly, I was back on the boat, with Nick. The thing I want to give you isn’t an orgasm that’ll blow your mind – although I could. You’re wanted here. More. By me. It won’t be the twelfth of never, Chloe. I won’t wait that long. I’d make them the best two weeks of your life. And I threw my glass at the wall and screamed.

CHAPTER THREE

I was feeling vulnerable as I picked Drew up from work for the drive to Evie’s on Wednesday evening – so, of course, I was not only looking pretty damn perfect in my well cut dress and high heels, but I was at my most rigidly controlled, right down to the hint of amused boredom in my ice-blue eyes. The question was, would my carefully expressed imperturbability throw Drew and Evie off the scent, or arouse their suspicions that something was up? Drew and Evie generally let me get away with my I-am-so-cool-I-could-freeze-you-with-a-glance façade, because they knew it was the ‘me’ I wanted to be. But they also knew the me I didn’t want to be, the down, dark and dirty Chloe, the hidden Chloe. Keeping secrets from them was therefore fraught with danger. If I overdid the ice, they’d suspect something was up and would dig unmercifully until I’d spilled my problem into their communal lap. And God help me if they discovered the problem was of a romantic nature (or, to bald-face it, something sexual). With Drew being the consummate sexual oversharer, and Evie having spent a month in Morocco being twisted into a sexual pretzel by her new fiancé (Drew’s movie star brother, Jackson J Stevens – but that’s another story), I knew they’d get all carpe diem on me, and urge me to cut Marcus loose and head into the wilds with a copy of the Kama Sutra tucked under my arm. And to be clear: I did not want to do that. I liked my life the way it was. With Marcus in it. There was no need for undignified, uncomfortable sexual positions; all I needed was Marcus to be pepped up, as it were. Fortunately, on the drive to Evie’s Drew was so preoccupied with telling me about Jack’s latest phone call to him, he didn’t focus on me at all. Jack had threatened Drew with a slow and painful death should he let any photographers, any media, any anyone, come within cooee of his precious Evie before he got home. Having endured similar calls, I was quick to sympathise by sharing that my most recent telephone conversation with Jack had included an extra special grilling in the vein of ‘you bastard journalists’. Jack was determined to believe I had a level of control over my colleagues that I simply did not have. It was kind of hilarious, but only up to a point. Although we were willing to cut Jack some slack, given he’d almost lost Evie once because of media intrusion in their lives, if Jack didn’t get over it ASAP, we were going to have to kill him to save our own sanity. A view with which Evie told us she wholeheartedly agreed, when we relayed our phone call experiences to her upon arrival, over a hastily poured glass of wine. ‘And it’s been even worse for me,’ Evie said, and told us about her nightmarish trip from Morocco to Australia, which bore all the hallmarks of a military black op, such was the precision with which Jack had planned it: Flown by private plane, whisked through airports by meeters and greeters vetted in advance by Jack, hustled in and out of vehicles with darkened windows. Even the security guys at the apartment complex had been ‘programmed’ to shield her from undue attention. ‘Not funny!’ Evie said, as Drew and I hooted with laughter. ‘I thought for a while there I was going to get an armed escort to go to the bathroom!’ She simultaneously sighed and rolled her eyes – a typical

Evie manoeuvre. ‘What am I going to do with him?’ ‘Wear it,’ Drew said, when he’d recovered his breath. ‘He’ll get a grip sooner or later. Either that or, yes, we will really need to kill him.’ I waved my wine glass for a refill. ‘But I swear if I get one more instruction as your “media adviser”, Evie, I’m going to take a short cut and stab you with an ice pick before he gets here.’ ‘I don’t think we have an ice pick,’ Evie said. ‘Mind you, I’ve only been in the kitchen long enough to put together the risotto and a salad.’ ‘Risotto?’ Drew asked, in failing accents. ‘Yes. We’re having it for dinner.’ Drew shuddered. ‘Chloe, don’t wait. Go search the kitchen. Jack must have an ice pick. Even a sharp knife will do. Nobody will blame you.’ ‘You’re such a bastard,’ Evie said, but she was laughing as she headed for the kitchen. Drew shot me his infamous wild-eye as she returned a few minutes later and deposited our bowls in front of us. One spoonful in, Drew laid his spoon carefully on the table. ‘I have two words for you, Evie,’ he said. ‘They’d better not be “Arborio rice”,’ she warned. ‘Because those were the two words you gave me last time I made risotto, so that’s what I used.’ Drew looked at her, at his bowl, back to Evie. ‘You used Arborio rice and it still turned out like that?’ ‘Suck it up, Drew,’ I said, slipping easily into my usual role of peacemaker. ‘And pour me some more wine.’ ‘Yeah, you just about could suck it up, with a damn straw,’ Drew grumbled, but duly tipped a hefty portion of red into my glass. ‘Well, if I’m going to get that down my throat, I’m going to need some conversational distraction. And I’ll take mine with a serve of hot guy. So come on, Chloe, tell us about Sunday’s harbour cruise.’ ‘What harbour cruise?’ Evie asked. ‘Marcus’s end-of-season party, on the big man’s boat,’ I said. ‘Marcus got the team medal this year.’ ‘Yes, yes, and last year,’ Drew said impatiently, and picked up his spoon to scoop up some rice. ‘But get on to the testosterone part.’ ‘Oh, there was testosterone, all right,’ I said, and realised the tone wasn’t as lightly humorous as I’d intended when they both paused, spoons halfway to their mouths. ‘Spill,’ Drew said, as his spoon landed back on the table. ‘What went wrong – not that I can see how anything could have gone wrong on a luxury cruiser on a perfect spring evening with oodles of hunky guys and, I’ll wager, no gluggy risotto.’ ‘Hey.’ That was Evie. ‘Shut up, Evie.’ That was Drew. ‘WAGs.’ And that was me, plucking a random subject out of the air. It was a believable decoy; I regularly bemoaned the state of feminism as it pertained to the women who threw themselves at sportsmen. ‘WAGs and groupies.’ ‘But weren’t you there as one of those?’ Evie asked. Drew winced, reading to perfection my sharp inhale. ‘Now you’ve done it, Evie,’ he said. ‘Evangeline Parker!’ I huffed. ‘I am not – not – a groupie.’ ‘Well, obviously, I meant WAG,’ Evie said. Not that I was listening. ‘That’s like me calling you a fangirl just because you’re engaged to Jack. And don’t pretend that a few months ago being called that wouldn’t have sent you into an apoplexy.’ ‘Okaaaay,’ she said, looking wary. ‘But I had a phobia. Whereas you …? Well, I honestly didn’t

think you minded the whole celebrity circus thing.’ ‘I didn’t. I don’t. I mean –’ I doodled my spoon through my rice. ‘It’s just …’ ‘Just …?’ Evie prompted. ‘Just nothing. Only …’ ‘Only …?’ Drew asked. ‘It felt different. I felt different. From the others, I mean.’ Evie was frowning. ‘Different as in …? I shrugged, restless. ‘As in … different.’ They waited expectantly. Clearly, I was on the hook. ‘As in one of them was getting her butt squeezed by her boyfriend,’ I offered. ‘Can you believe that? In public?’ Drew and Evie exchanged raised-eyebrow looks. ‘And anyway,’ I went on, ‘why is it that wives and girlfriends of sportsmen get stuck with that silly acronym? WAGS! Why isn’t there an equivalent for guys who are boyfriends and husbands of sportswomen?’ ‘It’s obvious,’ Dew said. ‘It’s all about the letters. I mean, how is BAHs going to work? It’s not.. Or, in reverse, HABs? Nope. Maybe I could invent one. What about – Ouch! Hey, no throwing spoons.’ ‘Drew, I am a woman teetering on the edge,’ I warned him. ‘I will throw the bloody bowl, with contents, at you in a minute.’ ‘Aim it at his head,’ Evie suggested. ‘Less mess for me to clean up if it lands on that massive dome of his.’ She reached for the wine bottle. ‘Or I could just pour you some more wine, instead. Will that help?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, mollified, as she calmly topped up our glasses. ‘And sorry about the spoon.’ Evie dismissed my apology with a forget it wave of her hand. ‘It’s nice to have an occasional reminder that you’ve got a temper in there somewhere.’ Pause. And then, carefully, ‘So, Chloe, how about you teeter over the edge for once and tell us what the real WAG/groupie issue is?’ ‘I’m just … just not the kind of person to …’ ‘To …?’ she prompted. I did a little hair toss. ‘Look, I just don’t get my butt squeezed in public.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Okaaaay.’ ‘And I … I’m not the kind of person to let someone I don’t even know – no, two people I don’t even know, two groupies! – slide their hands around my biceps, oohing and aahing like bimbo-ic morons.’ Drew nodded approvingly. ‘Bimbo-ic? Nice! So who did the biceps grope and are they sleeping with the fishes in Sydney Harbour?’ ‘If that “sleeping with the fishes” thing was supposed to be a mafia impression, it sucked,’ I said. Drew was unfazed. ‘All right then, if you want to delay the inevitable – because you know you’re going to tell us in the end – I’ll find another way to express that. And you will note that just by saying that, I have already given you twenty extra seconds to formulate a response. So, are those girls’ eyes still in their heads, or did you scratch them out?’ He waggled his eyebrows. ‘Not that I wouldn’t do a little bit of sliding my own hands around Marcus’s bulging biceps, if he ever had the decency to offer me the tiniest encouragement!’ ‘Nobody touched Marcus’s biceps,’ I mumbled, and took a quick gulp of wine, ‘Not … his.’ Evie was watching me carefully. ‘If it wasn’t Marcus’s biceps getting felt up, why do you care?’ ‘I don’t. Care, I mean.’ The two of them looked at each other. ‘Okaaaaay.’ Evie – sounding far too grown up and pontificatory for a twenty-two year old. I tried again. ‘It was nobody important, and it didn’t upset me. It’s just …’ I waved an ineffectual

hand. ‘Symptomatic. Of everything that’s wrong with football players. They earn too much, too young. They’re idolised. They’re surrounded by adoring women who never say no to them.’ I could feel the roar and rush of blood in my ears. Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh. It was going to come out. I knew it as I tossed back my wine, as I slammed the glass on the table, as my mouth opened without permission. And there it was: ‘And that’s probably why they’re lousy lovers. Because they don’t even have to try to get laid!’ Silence. Complete and utter, for a long, long moment. And then, ‘Okaaaay,’ Evie said, rolling a WTF? eye at Drew. ‘Who exactly is a lousy lover?’ Drew asked with impressive sangfroid. I went back to rice doodling, using my only remaining piece of cutlery, a dessertspoon. ‘I hope this spoon is not an indication that you’ve made chocolate mousse, Evie.’ ‘And I hope that remark is not an indication that you’re trying to change the subject,’ Evie said calmly. And oh my God, it felt like we’d switched roles. Evie was now the cool one with all the answers, and I was the clueless one needing to be soothed. I opened my mouth, closed it. Doodled. Drew stood and straightened to his full height – and he was tall and lean and strong, so even though he was no over-muscled league player, it was an imposing sight when he did that. ‘Chloe. Evie. Living room. Now. Chloe! Stop pretending to be interested in that inedible risotto. I’m going to mix my famous martinis. If that doesn’t open your mouth nice and wide, I’m calling the dentist.’ Which was how I found myself perched on the very edge of the couch in Jack and Evie’s sunken living room – which, incidentally, looks like something out of Home Beautiful magazine. ‘I’ve always loved this couch,’ I offered, my hand wafting through the air as though tracing the curve of Jack’s ten-seater circular couch. Another hand waft encompassed the ebony coffee table. ‘That, too.’ ‘Are you fucking kidding me, Chloe?’ Drew said. ‘Enough with the game show hostess impersonation. Just get it out, for the love of God! We’re not the enemy, you know.’ The jig was up. I knew it. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll just … get it out, then.’ I sucked down a huge swig of martini and put the glass on the coffee table. One deep breath. ‘It’s quite simple, guys. My love life is dead.’ And finding I needed another glugging slurp of alcohol the moment the words came out of my mouth, I swiped the glass back up off the table and took care of it. ‘Define “dead”,’ Evie said, sipping cautiously. ‘The I-haven’t-had-sex-in-three-months kind of dead. Is that dead enough for you?’ Me, sipping incautiously. ‘Oh,’ said Evie. ‘Oh,’ said Drew. ‘Oh,’ said I. ‘Is that …?’ Evie hesitated, taking another sip, then clearing her throat. ‘Is that bad? I mean, necessarily?’ I gaped at her. All right, Evie had gone an entire year without sex before she hooked up with Jack, but she was weird like that. The don’t-touch-me-unless-you’re-donating-to-a-worthy-cause kind of weird. But really? ‘Gee, Evie, I don’t know,’ I said, all wide-eyed and innocent. ‘How many times do you and Jack have sex?’ She frowned as she thought about that. And then, ‘Per night?’ she asked. Was she serious? Oh my God, yes, she was! ‘Oh that’s just fabulous,’ I said, and threw the rest of the martini down my throat in one go. I held the glass out for Drew to refill. ‘I’m talking per quarter and you’re talking per night?’ ‘Hey, Jack and I are new to this,’ Evie said, but she giggled, way too pleased with herself. ‘Nobody’s that new,’ I said. ‘And certainly not Jack. Just look at the guy! I mean, just … just look at him!’ Pause, as I thought about that. Because Marcus had the ‘look’ too. Which had to mean that hot looks

didn’t necessarily translate into hot times in bed. But maybe there were other elements at play …? ‘Unless Jack’s on Viagra …?’ I suggested, and I confess to being slightly hopeful. Evie choked on her martini and almost coughed up a lung. ‘Viagra?’ she got out, and started laughing. ‘Jesus God no. I’m exhausted enough without any chemical assistance.’ Puh-leease. ‘Okay, that’s just cruel!’ Drew waved a stop-it-immediately hand – not interested in his brother’s sex life, unsurprisingly. He downed half of his martini and that obviously gave him the fortitude to continue, because his next words were, ‘Let’s talk size.’ Evie looked confused. ‘You mean Jack?’ she asked. That girl was cute as a button, but sometimes you just wanted to strangle her. ‘Eeew.’ From a horrified Drew. ‘Evie! Disgusting.’ ‘Oh, so it’s okay to ask me about my partner’s penis, but not Evie?’ Me – who was not answering the size question, no matter what! ‘It’s a sibling thing,’ Drew said and for the first time in living memory, he squirmed. ‘Eeew, God! Anyway, let me re-phrase for all our sakes. Is it a steroid thing? Because Marcus is built like a brick shithouse. So has he … well, shrunk? In proportion to the brick structure, I mean? Those steroids can play havoc with a guy’s sex drive, you know.’ Gape, gape, gape. Me and Evie both at that point. Wondering if he was serious this time. But apparently he was. ‘One,’ I said, raising a hold-it-right-there finger. ‘He is a top athlete and takes no – as in no – drugs! They’re tested, you know, relentlessly.’ ‘Oh yeah. Forgot about that.’ ‘And two …’ I couldn’t resist a satisfied smile at that point. ‘He happens to be hung like a horse.’ Okay – so I was answering the eternal penis size question after all. Drew grinned. Sometimes I think he really is evil. ‘Good to know,’ he said – or should I say, sniggered? ‘Drew, you’re being a dick.’ ‘And isn’t that the word of the day!’ ‘Word of the …?’ I stared at him, kind of loving the way his mind worked, but also wanting to throw something at him. ‘Only you would have the balls to say that,’ I said, as my lip started quivering. ‘Dick and balls?’ he said. ‘That’s some word association you’ve got going on there.’ And the laughter exploded out of me like Mount Vesuvius erupting. Which might not have been appropriate – because the parlous state of my sex life was no laughing matter – but how could I not find that funny? Drew went off beside me, and Evie was laughing so hard she was snorting like a camel. The intercom sounded and Evie, holding her sides and gasping for air, could barely get up to go find out who was down there. Drew and I did our best to get ourselves under control while she was over at the intercom, but it required some digging around for a tissue on my part because I was more than a little snotty. Evie, however, was not only completely under control by the time she came back, but looking conscience-stricken. ‘Who was it?’ Drew asked. ‘Please tell me it’s some guy from the Congo – because I saw some ranking site online that says they have the biggest appendages!’ ‘Cut it out, Drew,’ Evie said, grabbing her sides – as though that was going to stop her laughing. ‘It’s nobody on any online ranking site. Unless Marcus is on a site somewhere. Is he, Chloe?’ ‘Marcus?’ ‘Marcus,’ Evie said. ‘Of the horse-sized appendage. And how I’m going to not look at it is anyone’s guess.’

‘Whoops,’ Drew said, and un-lounged, flicking a vain hand through his thick black hair. ‘I thought we weren’t expecting him.’ I automatically neatened my own hair. ‘He said he might drop by, but I didn’t really think he’d make it. And by the way, the “appendage” thing …? No looking at his lap – either of you!’ ‘Ohhhh, Chloe, not fair,’ Drew complained, but his eyes were practically dancing. Evil, I’m telling you, that guy. But somehow, I felt like laughing again. The truth was, I didn’t really mind if they looked at Marcus’s sizeable package. That was just the way we were, the three of us. I didn’t know much about ‘real’ family, but I knew that Drew and Evie were mine. We were the modern equivalent of the Three Musketeers. All for one, and one for all. And as far as I was concerned, they could do whatever the hell they wanted and I would love them regardless. ‘Okay, look at his lap,’ I said, ‘but try not to let him see you. Especially you, Drew. Don’t make it obvious. You freak him out enough as it is.’ ‘Or maybe,’ Evie mused, ‘we could look at the other guy’s lap instead. Because he looks like he might have some serious size going on there.’ I froze in the act of smoothing my dress over my thighs. ‘What other guy?’ ‘He’s got someone with him,’ Evie added. ‘Cute, from what I could tell on the camera.’ Premonition. ‘Cute as in …?’ ‘Hmm, yeah, maybe not cute exactly. Big. Like … big.’ Giggle. ‘Short hair but not buzz cut. Dark. Dark everything. Kind of … thug? Yeah, sexy thug.’ Drew perked up. ‘Sexy thug? I am so ready for a piece of that!’ But I knew Drew wasn’t getting a piece of that. Because I knew who it was. ‘Forget it, Andrew,’ I said. ‘You always say that.’ ‘Believe me, Nick Savage is not for you, I don’t care how big his biceps are.’ Evie’s eyes widened. ‘Biceps, huh?’ Groan. Drew was shooting his wild eye my way. ‘Those biceps? The bimbo-ic ones?’ ‘Not. For. You. Got it, Andrew?’ ‘You can’t keep them all for yourself,’ Drew protested, laughing. ‘All the straight ones I can.’ And then I realised what I’d said. ‘Hey, wait, no. I’m not keeping Nick.’ Drew grinned. ‘I’m keeping Marcus,’ I said. More grinning – and an annoyingly smug glance between Evie and Drew. I threw my hands up. ‘All right, go for it. Give it your best shot, Drew. Hit on him, see if I care. Because I don’t.’ More of that annoying, between-us, ‘aha’ glancing. I was seriously contemplating throwing my almost-empty glass at a wall, but fortunately the doorbell dinged before I could be betrayed into any more un-goddess-like behaviour. Evie looked at me, as if expecting me to let them in. ‘Hey, it’s your apartment,’ I said. ‘I’ll watch from here.’ ‘Okaaaay,’ she said, and went to answer the door. ‘Welcome home, Evie!’ Marcus said, as he stepped inside. And then he drew her in for a hug, and a kiss on the forehead. And right between my transfixed eyes, it hit me that there was something very wrong with that picture. Marcus kissed Evie the way he kissed me. Hugged her the way he hugged me. Whereas Jackson J

Stevens, in stark contrast, did not kiss me and Evie the same, and never had. Even when Jack was not kissing Evie, back in the early days, he was deliberately not kissing her – like he couldn’t trust himself to even touch her, let alone put his mouth anywhere near her. The difference between the way Jack treated Evie and the way he treated the rest of us was clear as a bell. Feeling a little disorientated, I watched as Marcus introduced Nick to Evie. Nick smiled – friendly and straightforward – at Evie. The way he should have smiled at me, with both sides of his mouth! And then Nick looked into the room, and his eyebrow edged up and the smile changed to the onesided version as he … he looked at me. And something weird happened to the air, some mysterious compression that made my lungs feel like they were being squeezed. Premonition shivered down my spine and kept shivering, until Nick’s eyes shifted to Drew, and he smiled fully again, and the air cleared, and I could … breathe again. Marcus, Evie and Nick all ambled into the living room. Nick sat next to Evie on the couch on the opposite side of the coffee table from me. Marcus smiled at me as he sat beside me, and kissed me on the forehead. Which caused Drew, sitting solo, to point at his own forehead and mouth at me What the fuck is that? – unfortunately intercepted by Marcus, who then looked massively uncomfortable as he asked, ‘Andrew, how are you?’ ‘If I were any weller, Mark, I’d be a danger zone,’ an unblushing Drew said with aplomb. Nick laughed. Marcus, however, stiffened. He hated being called Mark – the same way Evie hated the name Evangeline. And Drew knew he hated it, because I’d told him. A dull ache started throbbing at the base of my skull. It was bad enough having Nick in the room – and why was he even here? – but if Drew was in mischief-making mode, the evening was about to go to hell. Drew introduced himself to Nick – giving him an altogether too-appreciative ogle, which was enough to set my teeth on edge. And then he turned back to Marcus. ‘We were just talking about you.’ I directed a subtle shut-the-hell-up look at Drew, who ignored me to say, innocuously enough, ‘Congratulations on the team medal’. But I did not trust him as far as I could throw him. Marcus said something about it being both a surprise and an honour. ‘Sort of like a surprise present dropped in your … er … lap?’ Drew asked. And yes, Drew looked at Marcus’s lap, and I almost choked, holding in a sudden laugh. Although why I’d laugh when the situation was so dire I didn’t know! If Marcus twigged that Drew had his package under scrutiny, there would be a freak out of epic proportions and I might never get him in the same room as Drew again. Drew really was an evil bastard! Evil, funny bastard, whom I was going to have to eventually murder. ‘The surprise would have been if he didn’t get the medal,’ Nick said smoothly, drawing Marcus’s attention just in time to avert catastrophe. And Nick’s slight flick of a look from Drew to me told me he’d seen exactly what was happening with regard to Marcus’s lap. I was sensing disaster all round. ‘Drew, weren’t you going to make coffee?’ I prompted, which was goddess-speak for get out of the room immediately. ‘Was I?’ he asked. ‘Yes, you were.’ ‘I can do it,’ Evie said, and started to get up. ‘No!’ Drew and I said together. Drew got to his feet. ‘Evie, I love you, but you know your coffee is on the official poisons list, so if Chloe is demanding coffee for some godforsaken reason, I guess I’m making it.’ I stood. ‘I’ll help you.’ ‘No, you won’t,’ Drew replied quickly. ‘You’ll stay and entertain Nick, and Mark will help me.’

‘Oh, um, okay, I guess,’ Marcus said, looking panicked. Yes, disaster was definitely looming. I tried a bit of mental telepathy as I sat again – Drew, do not perve at his package in the kitchen. Do not, do not, do not perve at his package in the kitchen. But Drew, immune to both Marcus’s almost tangible discomfort and my own telepathic attempts, clapped his hands and rubbed them together. ‘Excellent,’ he said, with a look in his eye I did not trust one little bit! ‘You can see if you can get your head around Jack’s espresso machine –’ (which, of course, Drew knew how to operate like a champion barista) ‘– while I make some more martinis for Chloe, who’s been chugging them down tonight like James Bond on a bender.’ Really, it was a miracle Drew hadn’t already been murdered. Nothing like being made to feel like a borderline alcoholic when of the three of us, I was the least likely to get drunk, and certainly the least likely to show the effects of it on the rare occasions that I did. Nick was looking at me curiously. Which, of course, I took for disapproval, given he was the only one of the Sydney Scorpions I’d never seen roaring drunk, apart from Marcus. So, of course, I picked up my martini and drained the last tiny dregs lurking in there. I was seriously considering sticking my tongue in the glass and giving it a lick for extra effect. ‘Want me to get that olive out of the glass and give it a squeeze for you, James Bond?’ Nick asked me, and my hand positively itched to slap him. ‘There’s bound to be a drop of alcohol in it.’ Evie was looking from one of us to the other. ‘She’s not really … I mean …’ ‘She’s nothing like James Bond on a bender,’ Nick said mildly. ‘I know.’ Evie opened her bright-blue kewpie-doll eyes at him. ‘How do you know?’ ‘He doesn’t know anything,’ I put in. Nick didn’t bother to acknowledge that interjection. ‘I’ve known her for a year, and I’ve never seen her drunk.’ ‘Huh,’ Evie said – and I decided I wanted to slap her, too. ‘Known her for a year?’ ‘Yep. Since the night of her first date with Marcus.’ ‘Really?’ Evie said, fascinated. ‘I know it doesn’t sound much like a first date, bringing a girl to a drinking session with half a rugby league team …’ He gave her a what-can-you-do? style shrug. ‘… but at least most of the guys had their significant others with them, so they were on their best behaviour.’ I gave him my most haughty look. ‘Or in the case of those who’d brought their insignificant others, their worst behaviour.’ ‘You’re talking about bad behavior?’ Nick asked, then turned to Evie. ‘She punched me in a fit of temper that night. What kind of behavior do you call that?’

CHAPTER FOUR

Evie’s eyes went saucer-wide. ‘She didn’t!’ ‘She most certainly did,’ Nick said, looking all woebegone. Woebegone! As if. Evie was fascinated. ‘Why did she punch you?’ ‘It started with the WAG guide.’ ‘WAG as in wives and –’ ‘Girlfriends,’ Nick supplied. ‘Yep.’ ‘How funny,’ Evie said, and threw in a completely unnecessary giggle. ‘We were only talking about WAGs tonight. WAGs and groupies.’ She refused to catch my laser-beam glare, and bowled on with, ‘So do you have one?’ ‘Wife, girlfriend or groupie?’ he asked, agreeably. ‘Any, I guess. Although you don’t look married.’ ‘What does “married” look like?’ ‘Not like you,’ Evie said fervently. ‘But you do look like you’d have groupies up the yin yang.’ ‘Yin yang?’ He laughed. ‘Is a yin yang a good thing?’ Oh, for God’s sake! ‘Yes, he has groupies up the yin yang,’ I said through gritted teeth, detesting the camaraderie that was building between the two of them. And this time Evie couldn’t avoid the excoriating look (known in our circle as my gimlet eye) I threw her way. ‘And no, in this instance, yin yang is not a good thing.’ Evie, completely unrepentant, said, ‘One thing I know from being with Jack is that Nick can’t control having groupies.’ Back to Nick. ‘So, what about a girlfriend? Do you have one of those?’ I was going to kill her, in an ice-pick-wielding frenzy. Bury her body beside Drew’s. ‘Not yet,’ Nick answered, with the merest glimmer of a glance in my direction before adding, ‘I’m not in the market for one. At least, not right at this very moment.’ Good Lord, it had to stop! ‘You had a girlfriend that night, as I recall,’ I said, with lip well and truly curled. Nick’s eyes narrowed. ‘She wasn’t my girlfriend.’ ‘Oh, that’s right, she was just your own personal groupie,’ I said. ‘That’s so much better.’ A little extra eye narrowing. ‘Let’s describe it as our first date. Just like it was your first date with Marcus.’ ‘Ha!’ ‘That’s a simple fact, Chloe.’ ‘That’s not a fact. Unless you call it date-like behaviour to send a girl packing halfway through the night, which Marcus did not do to me, so don’t even think about comparing us! I’ll bet you don’t even remember her name.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Er …’ I couldn’t believe it! He was pretending to concentrate, as though trying to recall her name, while simultaneously biting his lip against a laugh. Shameless. Absolutely shameless. He was like the straight version of Drew Stevens, only he wasn’t funny.

I turned to Evie, who was positively bug-eyed. ‘Her name was Ruby, as he very well knows.’ Back to Nick, with a glare. ‘And all she was trying to do was make you like her.’ And it was like a snap-freeze moment. Any hint of laughter – gone. He leaned towards me, over the coffee table, and it was on. ‘I didn’t want her to like me. That was the whole point. Anyone who quotes from that dumbass guide, which she had in her handbag, if you’ll remember, is not for me. And don’t pretend you didn’t feel exactly the same as I did about that guide. I saw you, Chloe. I saw you!’ ‘Oh, I agree, the guide is degrading. What I don’t get is why the next girl was practically interchangeable with her. And the next. And the next. Always the same girl, and yet never the same girl.’ ‘It’s not about who they were, Chloe, it’s about who they weren’t.’ I couldn’t hear that. Wouldn’t. ‘You’re either a slow learner, or you’re fooling yourself about what you like and don’t like.’ ‘I know I don’t need my girlfriend cuddling up to me and saying “well done, honey” just because I kicked a ball. I don’t care if she knows the game, or even if she hates it – and don’t pretend you don’t hate it because I know. I don’t want her feeling like she has to learn my practice schedule, or my teammates’ names, or how many tries I score per season. Jesus, how big a wanker do you think I am?’ ‘Big enough to tell poor Ruby to get lost. While she was sitting on your lap, sticking her hands under your shirt. Nice one. Not.’ ‘I didn’t tell her to go, I told her to stop. She interpreted it, that’s all.’ ‘It– You– Oooohhhhh. I can’t – I can’t believe you.’ ‘Sure you can. You weren’t sitting on Marcus’s lap, were you? You can be damn sure he would have told you to stop. You talk about interchangeable girls, Chloe, but let me tell you, Miss Ruby didn’t really care whose lap she was sitting on. We were the interchangeable ones. Me, Steve, Trevor, Gary. Any one of us would have done. And Marcus?’ He laughed – short and hard. ‘Ruby would have thrown you to the wolves and buried your bones in the forest for a shot at the team captain, so why are you defending her?’ ‘Because I know what it’s like to be that girl – the one looking in.’ The words were out before I could stop them. ‘What the –?’ Frown. ‘What does that mean?’ Oh God. God, God, God! What had I said? ‘Just that I –. That –. I –’ I looked at my hands. Shaking. Close call. Too close. Blink, blink, breathe, blink. Not helping. I turned agonised eyes to Evie, who was sitting, in a state of shock at what was unfolding from nowhere, drink halfway to her mouth. Evie gave me a superfast nod, understanding. ‘She only means –’ ‘Chloe?’ Nick said, cutting her off, keeping his eyes on me. Evie tried again. ‘She means –’ ‘Chloe?’ Blink, blink, breathe, and I shook my head at Evie. I’ve got this. ‘I mean everywhere we go, I’ve seen the girls tying themselves into knots for you. It’s sickening, the way you guys use and discard them.’ ‘More sickening than only being wanted for what’s in your pants? Because that’s all she wanted, Chloe – wallet and junk.’ ‘Well, you brought her! You must have wanted to show her your … your junk. I hear lots of girls are interested in seeing it, Casanova Savage.’ I could hear the jeer, see Evie’s shock, feel the sweat of fury pop out along my hairline. This was not me – and yet it was. ‘I’ll tell you what, Chloe. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.’ ‘Except I don’t want to see yours,’ I said, as the blood raced to my face. ‘You see, you’re not all interchangeable for me, Nick. I don’t choose people by occupation. And even if I did, I wouldn’t be with one of your kind.’ Could his eyes get any narrower? ‘Then what kind would you be with? What does a guy have to do, be?’

‘Easy,’ I shot back. ‘He just has to not be a massive bastard!’ ‘The “massive bastard” being my ‘kind’?’ ‘If the big shoe fits.’ ‘You know what they say about guys with big feet, don’t you, Chloe? You sure you’re not interested in my junk?’ Aaaaand we were back to the subject of the day: size. I heard a strangled snort come out of Evie, and dared not look at her. Thank God Drew was in the kitchen or I would have lost it. ‘Something about matching the size of their inflated egos?’ I managed to get out, forcing my eyes to stay exactly where they were. Do not look at his lap, do not look at his lap, do not look at his lap. He shrugged. ‘That, too.’ ‘So I hear!’ ‘That’s right. “Casanova Savage”. You really have been checking up on me, haven’t you?’ ‘Ha! Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not that interested.’ He leaned further across the table. ‘Shall I make you interested, Chloe?’ I matched him lean for lean. ‘Not possible.’ ‘Is that a gauntlet you’re throwing down?’ he asked. ‘Because you can come over here, sit on my lap, stick your hands under my shirt, just like Ruby, and prove it’s not possible, if you like. But be careful, Chloe. I’m not Marcus, and for you I might make an exception and let you touch whatever you want. No stop sign.’ How could he talk like that? In front of Evie? With Marcus in the apartment? ‘Animal.’ ‘I’ll wear that tag, if it will get you over here. I’ll even let you punch me afterwards if it makes you feel better about it. Hell, I’ll let your boyfriend punch me, too, if you’ll give it a go.’ I reeled back. ‘Stop talking about that punch. I don’t make a habit of punching people. It’s not … not excusable, that I did it. I hate thinking about it. And I wouldn’t have … have lost it if you hadn’t been … been … been looking at me the whole night.’ ‘How the hell was I supposed to not look at you? You were beautiful. You are beautiful. Everyone was looking at you. Why didn’t you punch any of the others, if that was what was bothering you? Why did you only punch me?’ ‘Because you made me feel –’ Stop. Choke. ‘Good start, Chloe. I made you feel. Keep going.’ ‘Like her!’ Out it came, like a bullet. ‘“Bye bye, Ruby, it’s your turn now, Chloe, how about you ditch Marcus and give me a go.” Well, get it through your thick head – I’m not like that. I won’t be interchanged, and I won’t ditch someone just because I get a better offer.’ ‘Better offer. Is that a Freudian slip, Chloe?’ ‘Oh! You! I could –’ ‘Punch me? Go right ahead. I’ll take it, Chloe, I’ll take it.’ ‘Nobody should take that! I don’t like it that you say you will. Just … just leave me alone!’ ‘Now that I can’t do.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Because I saw you, that night. I saw you, Chloe – and now I can’t unsee. I just … can’t.’ Silence. Deafening. Except for my harsh breathing. ‘Okaaaay,’ Evie said when the silence had stretched to an almost unbearable tension. ‘Uh, speaking about … about shirts, that’s a nice one you’re wearing, Nick. I’m not sure inviting girls to put their hands up there is a good thing. It might damage it. Stretch it. You know?’ I looked at her, incredulous. So did Nick. And then both Nick and I looked at his shirt. It was a plain grey T-shirt, not a silk designer number.

Nick looked at me again, lips twitching. ‘Evie isn’t exactly a fashionista,’ I explained, in a voice that had started to shake. ‘Yeah, I got that,’ he said, leaning back at last. And then I was laughing, and Nick was laughing, and so was Evie. As though that disastrous fight had not just occurred. Which was when Drew and Marcus finally re-entered the room, with a tray loaded with coffee, milk, sugar, a couple of frosty looking cocktail shakers, glasses and cups. ‘What, no freshly baked scones?’ I asked, and laughed again. Why, why, why was I laughing? ‘They’re out of flour,’ Drew said, and slid the tray onto the coffee table. ‘And we couldn’t find the aprons.’ ‘You had enough time to get out the sewing machine and whip up an apron,’ I said. ‘A nice frilly one.’ ‘Hmmm, enough time to miss something amusing, at any rate,’ he said, regarding the three of us with a sapient eye. ‘So, what did we miss?’ The laughter dried up – snap – and silence descended. I cleared my throat. ‘Nothing consequential.’ Drew snorted. ‘We were just talking about shoe size,’ Evie said. Good Lord, of all the things to latch on to! ‘Ah!’ Drew nodded sagely. ‘You know what they say about guys with big feet, don’t you?’ ‘No,’ Nick deadpanned, ‘what do they say?’ Drew looked him up and down – lap included. ‘Nothing you haven’t heard before, I’d wager.’ He turned to me, eyes twinkling. ‘Well, 007? Martini?’ I held out my glass and Drew filled it. Marcus picked up his coffee – a nice blokey double espresso that coffee-snob extraordinaire Drew couldn’t have a dig about – and Evie poured coffee from the pot for herself. She looked sideways at Nick, gesturing to the tray, but he shook his head. So what in God’s name was he doing here, other than infuriating me? He was obviously tagging along with Marcus after the Hawaii meeting, but if he wasn’t interested in drinking a cup of coffee, why didn’t he just up and leave? ‘So,’ Drew said, pouring a martini for himself. ‘Mark’s has been filling me in on a charity project the team has going on. It’s right up your alley, Evie.’ Marcus – who should have been pointing out that his name was not Mark – pulled an apologetic face. ‘I know you’re only just back, Evie, so it’s probably not the time to harass you, but this has come up at short notice so I thought that since I was coming here tonight anyway you might let us – me – explain the project, and maybe offer some PR ideas.’ ‘When you say short notice, how short do you mean?’ Evie asked. ‘Five days,’ Marcus said, with another apologetic grimace. ‘It’s happening the same time as our Hawaii trip.’ Evie smiled. ‘Well, I like a challenge.’ Drew got to his feet and threw back his martini as though it were water. ‘I’ll leave you guys to it. Saintliness is not my gig.’ I waited for the similarly unsaintly Nick to make an excuse to escape; he was sure to have a girl stashed somewhere, waiting for him. But instead he did an about-face on the coffee, reaching to pour himself a cup as though he intended to stay for hours. Oh no! No, no, no. I was not going to make small talk with Nick on my own while Marcus and Evie thrashed out a public relations plan. ‘You can’t go,’ I said to Drew. ‘Yeah, I can,’ he said. ‘I drove us here, remember?’ I said, only just managing to control the edge of panic.

‘Well you’re not driving either of us anywhere after all that wine and all those martinis, my girl,’ Drew said. ‘I’ll take a taxi. And you, leave your car in the car park tonight and Mark can drop you home.’ Half-turn to Marcus. ‘Right, Mark?’ ‘Of course,’ Marcus said. When Drew compounded his infamy by leaning down with great ceremony to kiss my forehead, I pinched him. ‘Going to kill you,’ I whispered fiercely, and he had the nerve to laugh. ‘Don’t forget we’re meeting for a drink after work tomorrow,’ Drew said, loud enough for all to hear. ‘You, me, Evie, at Old Fashioned. I’m suddenly craving that cocktail special of theirs. Big Boy’s Brandy. Yum. Nice and creamy.’ He executed a graceful side-step, managing to dodge my pinching fingers before they could inflict any more pain. This was the first I’d heard of our favourite bar, Old Fashioned, offering such a disgustingly named cocktail. Or that we were supposed to be catching up there tomorrow. And frankly, I didn’t want to wait until then to interrogate Drew about what he’d found out while he was playing Betty Crocker with Marcus in the kitchen. Drew looked over at Evie. ‘We can discuss table settings for the wedding, tomorrow, too. And I do not want to hear another mention of a gold chair bow, I’m warning you now.’ ‘Gold chair bows?’ Nick said. ‘Passé, I’m afraid. Don’t do it, Evie.’ Drew, Evie and I all got a case of jaw drop. But Marcus laughed. ‘Nick knows all sorts of weird stuff! Ask him about wild animals.’ ‘Okay,’ Drew said, clearly enjoying himself. ‘What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow? ‘African or European?’ Nick asked, without missing a beat. Gasp – an actual gasp – from Drew. ‘How do you know about Monty Python?’ ‘How do you?’ Nick countered. And that’s when the miracle occurred: Drew smiled. At Nick. As in a real smile! It took a minimum of eight meetings to get such a smile out of Drew – his belief in requiring eight meetings to judge a person’s mettle being absolute – but Nick had managed it in one. It had taken Marcus ten, and I still wasn’t sure he’d cracked it! ‘Okay, you may pass the Bridge of Death,’ Drew said. ‘Now, spill. How do you know about gold bows?’ Nick shrugged. ‘I’ve been to four weddings in the past year, and three of them were gold-bowed up the … er …’ He raised his eyebrows at Evie. ‘Yin yang? Have I got that right?’ Evie giggled like a giddy schoolgirl, and I came to the inescapable conclusion that both my friends had gone stark, staring mad. ‘Evie,’ Drew said, tugging her up off the couch with one of his we-need-to-talk looks, ‘you’d better see me out.’ I strained to hear what Evie and Drew were saying as they headed for the door, simultaneously trying to listen to what Marcus was saying to Nick. End result: I heard nothing. Until the tenor of the conversation between Evie and Drew changed, and wedding words were floating through the air. Bouquet, Venetian lace and … uh oh, bomboniere! Things were going to get ugly if Evie was thinking about wedding favours. Suddenly, there was a loud, ‘Over my dead body,’ from Drew. Next moment, he was zeroing in on Nick. ‘Nick, has anyone, at those four weddings, offered their guests candy-covered almonds in a swan-shaped vessel?’ ‘Um … no,’ Nick said, and started laughing. ‘There you have it, Evie,’ Drew said, all dramatic. ‘Dead. Body.’ I got the wild eye. ‘And Chloe? You are not to go all blancmange and agree with her if she tries to talk you into them.’

‘Hey,’ I protested. ‘I don’t go all blancmange.’ ‘Sure you do. She can wheedle anything out of you. You’re as bad as Jack, the way you indulge her.’ ‘Oh now come on! Nobody’s as bad as Jack.’ ‘You come pretty close,’ he said. ‘Just remember, this wedding is going to make the news, no matter what we do to try to keep it private, so no giving in! Think of how you’d envisage your own wedding and steer her that way.’ My own wedding? Blink. Blink. Breathe. The mere thought was enough to make me hyperventilate. In the whole year I’d been with Marcus we hadn’t even discussed living together, let alone marriage. I wasn’t ready to discuss it. Not with Marcus. Not with anyone. I thought Evie was incredibly brave, signing her life away to one man at the grand old age of twenty-two. By the time my mother was twentytwo, my father was dead and I was in foster care. It wasn’t exactly a comparison that brought joy to my heart. So, no marriage for me. No marriage and definitely no children to tie me up in anxious knots. I found myself reaching for my glass again and drinking too quickly, only vaguely aware of Drew’s final farewells. ‘So where were we?’ Evie asked Marcus, coming back to sit on the couch beside Nick. Marcus looked at Nick. ‘Nick, do you –?’ ‘No,’ Nick said quickly. ‘Thanks, but no more coffee for me.’ ‘Oh. Okay.’ Marcus paused, obviously thinking hard. ‘I – Um … you sure?’ ‘No more coffee,’ Nick said, and his eyes looked like they were about to roll. What was the deal with the coffee? And why didn’t he just bloody well leave if he’d finished his cup and didn’t want another? ‘Okay then.’ Marcus cleared his throat. ‘Someone I … I know is involved with this charity, and he’s hooked in a volunteer group of pilots and flight attendants from AustralAir to give it some support. The airline guys call themselves the Do-It-Right team, and they do hands-on stuff when they’re on their … their layovers, I think they call them …? Or maybe they take leave. Well, whatever, AustralAir comes to the party by rostering the guys to work certain flights together when they’ve got a project coming up, which takes care of getting them where they need to be. And while they’re there they build stuff, or paint it, or plant it, or dig it.’ ‘What’s the project?’ Evie asked. ‘It’s a playground for the kids.’ ‘What kids?’ Evie asked. ‘An orphanage in Manila,’ Marcus said. ‘Sorry, didn’t I say what it was?’ Orphanage. I reached for the cocktail shaker and topped up my glass to the brim. ‘And where do the Scorpions come in?’ Evie asked. ‘Some of us sponsor individual kids,’ Marcus said. ‘Others have pitched in to help buy the stuff to build the playground. We’re also on board to be ambassadors and help raise awareness, if that’s of any use.’ Evie was nodding madly. It was the kind of project that ticked all her boxes – worthwhile endeavor, buy-in from corporate Australia, and the gloss of celebrity to bring extra attention (something Evie had a new appreciation for, thanks to Jack). It was ticking other boxes for me. Orphanage. Forgotten children. Unwanted, abandoned, neglected children. Sad, angry, desperate children. I might not have been an orphan in the strictest sense of the word, but I was all those other things. My mother had never wanted me; she’d simply used me as a bargaining chip to punish my father – who, likewise hadn’t wanted me, but loved to get to her through me. It had been a lightning fast decision for my mother to dump me in foster care the moment my father was gone, leaving me at the whim of people who

might care for me, or just as easily might not. And then the circus really started. Being moved on when it didn’t work out. And on. And on. Hoping someone would want to keep me. Hoping and hoping until I learned not to hope. Not that it mattered anymore. I was no longer that scared, unloved little girl who didn’t know how to stop screaming and hitting and biting and … and raging. So why was I sitting there blink-blink-blinking, straightening my dress, smoothing my hair, trying to make myself calm, controlled and perfect? My chest tightening, squeezing, aching. Wanting to scream. Scream, scream, scream, the way I had those first two years, over and over, before I’d learned to hold it in because it didn’t work. Nobody wanted to keep you when you were angry and needy and demanding. When you screamed, and lashed out and cried. So it was better to be … someone else. ‘Don’t you think, Chloe?’ I jerked, spilling some of my drink on my dress. ‘Sorry, Evie,’ I said, putting down my glass, brushing at the damp spot, then folding my hands in my lap. ‘I was miles away. Don’t I think what?’ I saw Evie look at my hands. They were clenched into fists, so tight the knuckles showed white. ‘We can cover that later,’ she said quickly and smiled blindingly at Marcus. ‘Before we get to that, I’ve got an idea for –’ ‘No, tell me,’ I insisted, and forced my hands to unclench. Just because my boyfriend had raised two projects involving children in the space of a few days was no cause for a relapse, a regression, a capitulation to the past. These were not the bad old days when I couldn’t control myself. I would not give in so easily. I would not give in at all. Evie looked at me, gauging my resilience. And then she nodded. ‘I was just wondering if it’s the kind of thing Around the Globe might cover.’ Putting my game face on, I shuffled past and current stories through my head. ‘Yes, I think so,’ I said. ‘It’s been a while since any of the current affairs programs have done something in that vein, so it has novelty value. But, Marcus, there’ll have to be a player involved or it won’t pack the same punch, and you’ll be in Hawaii, so who’s going from the team?’ ‘Nick is. That’s why he’s here.’ I was so stunned, I had to shake my head to clear it. ‘Nick’s going to Manila? Not to Hawaii?’ ‘Yes, Nick’s going to Manila,’ Nick said dryly. ‘Surprised?’ I looked him straight in the eye. ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, you see,’ he said, in a this-is-so-boring voice. ‘The Sydney Scorpions have a few PR nightmares on their hands and need some positive spin.’ ‘Rob’s sex scandal,’ I said. ‘That’s the main one. Plus Benny and the drugs.’ ‘And they chose you to counteract that?’ I asked. ‘I mean … you?’ ‘Chloe!’ Marcus, looking shocked, gripped my hand. ‘You don’t know what –’ ‘It’s fine, Marcus,’ Nick interrupted smoothly. ‘She can say whatever she wants.’ But Marcus’s disapproval had brought me up sharp, so I forced myself to dial back the animosity. I’d already shown a few too many true colours tonight, and a little neutral beige was called for. ‘I just … I thought … I thought you were committed to Hawaii, Nick, that’s all.’ ‘Someone’s got to take one for the team,’ Nick said, and then came the dare you half-smile. ‘And apparently I rate best with female viewers.’ ‘Oh, I see,’ I said, and I’m afraid I didn’t have quite enough restraint to keep the scorn out of that. ‘Do you?’ he asked. Evie stepped into the fray – possibly afraid we’d get down to actual hand-to-hand combat if another fight erupted. ‘Chloe, you can just give me your chief of staff’s number? I can take it from here.’ ‘Right,’ Marcus said. ‘Settled. Thanks, Evie. So, Chloe, are you ready for me to take you home?’ ‘Yes, please,’ I said. And as I rose gracefully from the couch, I tried to remember what underwear I

had on. Red lace. Good choice. Not that all my underwear wasn’t fabulous, but it had been three months since Marcus had seen any of it, so I was eager to make a good impression. ‘Nick, what about you?’ Marcus asked. ‘I can drop you afterwards.’ Afterwards. The word stuck in my head like a spear. Afterwards. Evie darted a look at me that I interpreted as, Oh shit, no sex tonight. Or maybe that was me projecting. But for once, Nick showed some sensitivity, bowing out of the offer. ‘I’ll find my own way,’ he said. ‘I’m hoping Evie will let me check out the terrace before I leave. I’m thinking about buying an apartment in this building, but it’s going to come down to the view.’ ‘Of course,’ Evie said, latching on. ‘Go on out, Nick. Take your time. As loooong as you like.’ Subtle with the ‘loooong’ there. She’d be giving us an ‘okaaaay’ any minute now. ‘Thanks, Evie,’ Nick said, and turned to Marcus, who was hesitating. ‘I’ll cab it, no drama.’ ‘But we can easily wait for you,’ Marcus offered. As a general rule, I did not goggle, but I’m sorry to say I goggled at that point. ‘Really, there’s no need to wait,’ Nick said, and his mouth twisted, like he was trying not to laugh. If I was envisaging an ice pick for Evie, I was seeing a double-sided axe for Nick. ‘And Chloe looks like she’s ready to … er … hit the sack.’ ‘You sure, Nick?’ Marcus – at which point I added a blunt instrument to my imaginary arsenal, suitable for bludgeoning his thick head! ‘Positive.’ Nick, with his still-twisted mouth. Evie ushered me and Marcus to the door, kissed us both goodnight, and gave my arm an encouraging squeeze. But I was not encouraged. On the contrary, I was extraordinarily discouraged. It was time to face up to the truth: I had lost my mojo. And I had no freaking idea where to find it.

CHAPTER FIVE

In silence, Marcus led me to the little side street where he’d parked. His car was a midnight blue Jaguar and I loved everything about it – the look, the feel, the status symbolism. Everything about it was perfect. But when he opened the passenger door, I hung back. ‘Chloe?’ Nope. I was not getting in. Because once I was buckled in, Marcus would turn up the music, keep his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. And I needed my voice to be what he was hearing, his eyes and hands to be on me. So no car. Not yet. Instead, with a picture of my going-to-waste red underwear in my head, I went off script and after checking there were no passersby in close proximity, I threw my arms around him. And he … let me. He let me. My arms dropped, and I stood there, looking up at him, wondering if Ruby’s WAG guide was available on the internet, because I clearly needed some tuition. Marcus fidgeted with his keys and glanced longingly at the car. But he didn’t speak, and he didn’t move. He just … waited. This could not go on. Forget about dwindling libido, my dwindling self-esteem demanded I fix things between us, because I could not be put in a position where I was flinging my arms around a man in a public street begging for love. Chloe Masters did not throw herself at people and did not beg. ‘Marcus, what’s happening to us?’ I asked quietly. ‘What?’ he asked, and laughed – except it wasn’t really a laugh. ‘Nothing.’ ‘Then kiss me.’ He leaned in but I could tell where he was heading, and I pushed against his chest. ‘Not on the forehead, on the mouth.’ ‘Chloe, I’m tired.’ ‘On the mouth. With tongue. Because I’m tired too, Marcus. I’m tired, but I’m not dead.’ He gave me a little look – which had more than a touch of loin-girding about it – and kissed me on the mouth, with tongue, as requested. Then he drew back, looking both hopeful and doubtful. ‘So are we okay, Chloe?’ Marcus asked. I wanted to say No, we are not okay. I wanted to scream it at him. Blink, blink, breathe. But, ‘Yes, we’re okay,’ I said, because when push came to shove, the alternative – not being okay – was too frightening. Marcus took my elbow. ‘Then come on, get in the car, and I’ll drop you home.’ ‘Are you staying with me tonight?’ The moment the words were out, I regretted them. Because I could read the answer in his guarded eyes. ‘Not tonight, Chloe. I have –’ He stopped, jangled his keys in his hand again. ‘I have another video call about Hawaii.’ I opened my mouth to speak – but before I could get a word out, he laid his fingers across my lips.

‘Tomorrow night, okay?’ And then he winced. ‘Oh, no, not tomorrow night. I’ve got the –’ ‘Hospital benefit, I know, it’s okay,’ I said, and meant it. It was impossible to resent Marcus’s extensive charitable and community commitments. Impossible to resent the promotional work he did for his sponsors. Impossible to resent his gruelling fitness and training regime. It was all part of his job, and my own job in the cutthroat world of television was equally time-consuming, which he likewise accepted uncomplainingly. Really it was impossible to resent even his video call, or the trip to Hawaii after the exhausting year he’d had. ‘Why don’t you re-think tomorrow night and come with me?’ Marcus asked. ‘No, I told you, Becky is covering it for the station, and she’s made it clear an appearance by me will cramp her style.’ I smiled at him. ‘But make sure you give her an on-camera comment, won’t you?’ ‘Sure thing. And I’ll get her some time with Gaz, too.’ ‘Meanwhile, I’ll check my schedule, you check yours, and we’re sure to find one night that will work before you fly out.’ ‘Bound to,’ he agreed, and drew me in for another kiss – this time on the forehead. ‘So are you ready to go, Chloe?’ I stared at the yawning door of the Jaguar but couldn’t seem to make my feet move. I didn’t want to get in the car. ‘Actually,’ I said, thinking quickly, ‘I’ve just had an idea for Manila. About … about tying it in with that school clinic you’re doing when you get back from Hawaii. I’ll just run back up to Evie’s and run it past her and … and Nick, while he’s there. You go on and I’ll see you …’ I gave a small laugh. ‘Well, when we sort out our schedules, I guess.’ ‘Let me walk you back,’ Marcus said, and went to take my arm. ‘It’s only a few steps,’ I said, controlling an impulse to pull away from the touch. Marcus’s trademark solicitousness had never annoyed me before, but at that moment it seemed overdone. A hollow gesture.. I was a stone’s throw from the apartment building. I was also well able to defend myself – not that Marcus had any idea of the way my pre-perfect life had honed my survival instincts; I’d taken damn good care to hide it from everyone except Drew and Evie. ‘Seriously, Marcus, it will be fine. Look, you can even see the entrance to the building from here.’ Reluctantly, he let go of my arm. ‘Fine, then I’ll watch from here.’ ‘It’s a whole … what? Hundred metres?’ ‘Humour me.’ I swallowed a sigh, and managed to smile. ‘Okay.’ ‘And while you’re humouring me …’ He hesitated. ‘Can you try to take it easy on Nick?’ ‘On Nick,’ I repeated. Nick, the ‘great guy and a good friend’. Nick, who’d been hitting on me under Marcus’s nose all year. Take it easy on Nick. ‘It’s a big deal, this story. For one thing, Gaz is gung-ho to get us in the news for the right reasons for a change. And for another, Nick, is …’ Another hesitation, and then a smile that looked just a little forced. ‘Look, just take it easy on him, that’s all I’m asking, okay?’ ‘I’ll be sunshine and light, I promise,’ I said, with my own forced smile. ‘If you will humour me and get in the car.’ Marcus laughed. ‘Okay, okay, I’ll get in the car. But I’m not going until I see you buzzed in.’ I walked back to the building, pretended to push the intercom, pretended to speak. And then I waved at Marcus, with my hand strategically placed on the glass door of the apartment building to give the appearance that I was about to push it open. Finally he drove off, and the tension drained out of me. Of course, I had no intention of going back up to the penthouse – not while Nick Savage was ensconced there charming the wits out of Evie. I’d just needed Marcus to go because I’d felt … smothered. It reminded me of how I’d felt on the boat, hemmed in and yet somehow disconnected. Lonely,

without being alone. And the feeling that something had changed was getting stronger, even though, ostensibly, nothing had changed. Truthfully, even the fact that my sex life had been gradually withering on the vine was hardly the revelation of the century. It had just been happening so gradually, I hadn’t noticed until I’d been forced to see it. ‘Gradual’ could have been the watchword for my relationship with Marcus. We’d met, we’d liked each other, we’d strolled rather than galloped into a partnership. Torrid lovemaking had never been a hallmark of what we had together, and seeing each other seven nights a week had never been the pattern. But we cared about each other. We looked good together. We were good together. Nothing. Had. Changed. And on that note, it was time to go home and choose something irresistible from my underwear drawer in case Marcus and I found a mutually satisfactory night to get together before he flew out. Maybe then we could reconsider the torrid lovemaking aspect, and then I could tell Drew and Evie that everything was back on track. I dug into my bag for the keys to my car, which was parked under Evie’s building – and then I remembered the martinis. Just because I didn’t feel inebriated didn’t mean I was fit to drive. It was going to have to be a taxi. I turned away from building, took two steps … and stopped as I heard two things, one after the other. The apartment building doors sliding open. And an infuriating, drawling, obnoxious voice: ‘Waiting for me, Chloe? I’m touched.’

CHAPTER SIX

‘As if, egomaniac,’ I sniffed. Nick looked relaxed as he moseyed towards me, but his eyes were sharp, intent on the keys in my hand. ‘So why are you still here?’ ‘I was going to go back up and see Evie, but then I remembered you were there. So I changed my mind. Obviously.’ Smiling at my answer, he stepped closer. ‘I thought you were dragging Marcus home to bed. Wasn’t that the aim?’ ‘Dragging?’ Condescending laugh. ‘I don’t think so.’ ‘So where is he?’ Nick asked, cutting to the chase. I tried my famous gimlet-eye on him, but it seemed to have lost its deadliness – either that or the martinis were having an impact on my facial expressions – because he simply held out his hand, palm up. ‘What?’ I asked uncooperatively. ‘Keys. Hand them over. I’m driving you home.’ I put my hand behind my back. Good Lord, if that didn’t prove the state I was in! If he wanted the keys, hiding them behind my back wasn’t going to stop him. He could bend me like a reed using only half of one muscle. ‘Chloe.’ And it was a warning. ‘I was going to take a taxi.’ Nick just stood there. Implacable, hand out, waiting. I stared at him, wishing I could tell him to shove my keys somewhere that would make sitting uncomfortable. But I was fairly certain he would invite me to try to shove them there myself if I went that route. So, with a huffed out, ‘Fine,’ I slapped the keys – hard – into his hand. ‘There, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?’ he asked, in a soothing tone that, unsurprisingly, did not soothe me. ‘It’s in the car park under the building,’ I said, and stepped past him to punch Evie’s code into the keypad. I sailed into the building, across the lobby, waving blithely at the concierge, and headed for the elevator that led to the car park. I’ll give Nick credit for having the brains to stay silent as the elevator descended and we headed for the car. He knew I was spoiling for a fight and he wasn’t going to give it to me. But when we reached my zippy little Mazda roadster, he sighed. ‘And what is wrong with my car?’ I asked belligerently. ‘Have you noticed the size of me?’ he asked. Size. Again. I was powerless to stop myself looking at the front of his jeans. Uh oh. He was big. Like, big! Blink-blink-blinking, I raised my eyes to find him watching me – and he was not at all embarrassed

to be caught with a hard-on. He was smirking. The next worst thing to do, after chuckling. ‘I didn’t ask you to drive me.’ And hmmm, that came out a little breathier than I would have liked. To compensate, I tried another gimlet eye. ‘You’re basically kidnapping me.’ ‘Get in the car, Chloe.’ I waited for him to try to open the passenger door, ready to rip his head off for daring to commandeer my own vehicle, but he wasn’t stupid enough to do it. Or maybe he was just a Neanderthal who didn’t think he had to open a door for a girl …? Which is what I decided to go with, ‘A gentleman would open the door.’ With hair toss, getting into the car. He didn’t speak until he was squashed into the driver’s seat and had eased the seat back to accommodate his long legs. And then, ‘I thought you might have had a little too much “gentleman” for one evening,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you ready for something else?’ Okay, how was I supposed to respond to that? ‘What do you say, Chloe?’ he asked softly. ‘I say let’s go.’ ‘I’m ready if you are.’ Which could have meant ‘let’s drive’, or something else entirely. Well, I was not going to play innuendo games. So I just sat there, waiting for him to start the car. Silence, silence, silence. And then I snapped. ‘Well?’ ‘Address?’ Grrrr – and it may have actually come out of my mouth, that growl, judging by the way his mouth twisted. How did he manage to keep getting under my normally impervious skin? I dug into my bag, grabbed my purse, fished out my driver’s licence and held it out to him without glancing in his direction. ‘Thank you, Chloe,’ he said, calmly enough to make me want to explode. As he pulled out of the car par and onto the road, I trained my eyes on the view outside the passenger window, and kept them there, watching buildings whizz by, counting streetlights. Anything to take my mind off the feel of his massive thigh pressing against mine every time we turned a corner. Yeah, all right, he had a point about the roadster and how he fit into it. ‘What car do you drive, anyway?’ I asked, disgruntled, as I inched my leg away for what felt like the thousandth time. Pause. Then, ‘Not a Jaguar.’ Not a Jaguar. Not an answer. In protest, I went back to looking out of the car window. By the time Nick pulled into the underground car park of my own apartment building, the silence was gnawing at me, but I was damned if I was going to break it. We got out of the car and he threw the keys to me to lock it. Definitely not stupid. But then, he’d probably infuriated enough women over the years to have learned a few lessons. He strode ahead of me to the elevators – where he was stupid enough to keep the door open for me. ‘It’s my elevator,’ I snapped. ‘I’ll push the buttons.’ ‘I have a button you can push whenever you’re ready,’ he said. I jabbed once, hard, at the button for the ground floor. ‘You live on the ground floor?’ he asked. ‘No, but that’s where I’ll be letting you out of the building, before proceeding to my apartment alone.’ He was biting his lip again, suppressing a laugh, which, of course, completely steamed me. Enough to have me striding out of the elevator almost before the doors fully opened at the ground floor. I hurried over to hit the exit button, wanting him to get the hell out of the building immediately. The doors opened. Go, dammit, go! The doors closed.

But Nick was still standing on the inside. Lips pinched tight, I hit the release switch once more. Doors opened. Waiting, waiting. Doors closed. Nick on the inside. With me. I turned to him. Tap, tap, tapped my foot on the tiled floor. ‘“Thank you for driving me home, Nick”,’ he said in an attempt at a girl voice. ‘I’m not thanking you for foisting your unwanted company on me.’ ‘“Thank you, Nick, for not letting me drink-drive and kill myself”’. ‘I’m not thanking you for saving me from something that was never going to happen. Taxi, remember?’ He stepped closer. So close I could smell the salty maleness of his skin. He breathed in deeply, like he could smell me, too. I hoped he was getting two nostrils full of gin! ‘Chloe,’ he said softly, ‘it’s not my fault Marcus isn’t giving you what you want, but if you tell me what you do want, I’ll give it to you.’ I tried to laugh, but it came out choked and fake. ‘What would you know about a committed relationship?’ ‘I know you’d be upstairs in bed with Marcus if that’s what you had with him.’ No answer to that. Just the hollow ring of truth. ‘I watched you tonight,’ he continued. ‘And I saw what I see every time. You want something he can’t give you, Chloe.’ ‘Stop watching me.’ Through gritted teeth. ‘Or are you telling me that a kiss on the forehead is enough to get you going? That that’s just a prelude, just the way he starts? That the next kiss is different? And the one after that starts a domino effect, right down your body until he gets to that luscious little place between your legs?’ He stepped even closer and stared down at me. ‘Because that’s where my mouth would be right now, if you were in a committed relationship with me.’ Something flashed through me, vivid and hot. No! I couldn’t, wouldn’t feel … that. ‘He –. He kissed me differently. Outside. When there were just the two of us.’ Conveniently not mentioning that I’d had to ask for it. And why was I even responding? Nothing about my relationship with Marcus was any of Nick’s business. ‘Then why aren’t you two upstairs in bed?’ he asked, relentless. But I couldn’t bear to say the excuse out loud – a video call about Hawaii. ‘You know how to operate the door release, now I’ve shown you twice, so see yourself out,’ I said and made for the elevators. But nope – there was his hand, gripping my wrist. ‘Running away again rather than facing the issue?’ ‘There isn’t any issue.’ ‘Give me two minutes and I’ll prove there is.’ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t want to know. What you think you know isn’t important. You’re not important.’ ‘Then stay here with me and you can prove that instead.’ Premonition. No. I wouldn’t accept it. Nothing had changed, nothing was going to. I wouldn’t let it. ‘Will you leave me alone if I prove it?’ ‘Yes, Chloe. I’ll leave you alone. If you prove it.’ Deep breath in. Calm, calm, calm. Deep breath out. ‘Two minutes,’ I said. ‘Start talking.’

But he didn’t talk. Instead, he reached for my hand, held it flat against his chest, over his heart. A tingle started in my fingers, and I knew right then I’d made a mistake. This was a bad, bad idea. Nick looked – no, blazed – down at me. No laughter in his eyes. No softness in his face. I counted his heartbeats as I stared into his dark eyes, wanting to turn away, but unable to move. One, two, three, four. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. And then, he lowered his head. I thought he was going to kiss me and waited while my nerves jangled and my head spun, telling myself I didn’t want this. Did. Not. Want. It. But it wasn’t a kiss. Instead, he nudged his lips against mine. Open. That’s what he was saying. Open for me. Coffee. Salt. Something else. Something I wanted desperately. And my lips fell open, gasped open. I waited for the rush of his tongue, the smash of his mouth, longed for it. But, again … no. He sucked my bottom lip into his mouth. Kept it there, hovering between pressure and release, as every drop of blood in my body rushed between my legs and pooled, heavy and pulsing. ‘You feel it, Chloe, don’t you?’ he eased back just far enough to ask. ‘It’s always been there. Since day one.’ A whimper. That was all I could manage. ‘Ask me to kiss you,’ he breathed against my lips. ‘Tell me to.’ But I couldn’t speak. I was both hot and frozen. Poised, waiting, wondering, caught between guilt and desire. My hand, the one he’d flattened over his heart, was clutching his T-shirt now. Twisting in it. I should not be doing this. Oh but I want it, I want it. ‘No?’ he asked, and laughed softly. ‘Stubborn.’ And then he shifted to my top lip. Licked it, over and over and over, breathing out words in between. ‘Come on, Chloe.’ ‘Ask me.’ ‘Tell me.’ ‘Say it.’ And then, hovering, hovering. ‘I can’t finish it until you do.’ Everything in me coiled. I was panting, twisting both hands in his T-shirt now. ‘No?’ he asked again against my mouth. I shook my head – then whimpered once more, as that slight movement rubbed my lips against his and brought his taste more deeply into me. ‘So if you won’t open your mouth to me, open your legs. Just a little. I need to be there.’ And for reasons I did not understand – at all – I did it. I shifted my feet, and he edged into me, between my thighs. And boy, did he fit. Like a puzzle piece, slipping right into the space. ‘Ahhhhh.’ The tortured sound sighed out of me at the same time as I reached my hands up, dragged his head down, and jammed his mouth onto mine. It still wasn’t exactly a kiss. It was a … a crush. Mouth to mouth, breath to breath, tongues battling to fill and lick and taste. It was about heat and hardness and demand. And as he responded to the desperation of my hungry mouth, he growled low in his throat, his arms closing around me like a vise, his pelvis grinding against me. My blood was roaring as I pushed my body against his. ‘God, God! I am so hot.’ ‘You are,’ he said, mouth breaking from mine. ‘Hot as hell.’ Another deep, dark kiss. ‘And cold as ice.’ Kiss, kiss, kiss. ‘And that’s why I want you so badly.’ Click. A sound. The release at the building entrance, doors opening, a voice, ‘Oops! Sorry.’ Nick and I broke apart, eyes wide, chests heaving. Someone – who knew who? – scurried past with a muffled, tittering, coughing laugh. Ping of the arriving elevator. Doors whooshing open, then shut. We were alone again. And I saw myself as whoever it was had seen me.

Swooning at a well-known rugby league player who was not my boyfriend. Letting him do whatever he wanted to do with me, in a public space. Worse than sitting on his lap, as Ruby had done. A gasping mess, spreading my legs and slapping myself against him. Against Nick Savage! I was every bit as eager, panting and pathetic as every other sports groupie who notched their bedpost. Sex for the sake it, never mind the name of the guy, never mind the guy I already had. I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth, and started backing towards the elevators. ‘Chloe, you know how it is,’ he said and there was an urgency there I’d never heard in him before. ‘You just proved it. It’s not my imagination.’ Shaking my head. ‘No. I don’t want to know.’ He came after me. ‘Everyone – everyone – knows what I want to do to you. Everyone on the team. Everyone in that apartment tonight. Drew and Evie, they know I want you. And you know it. You want me too.’ The words slapped at me. I shook my head, more vigorously. I’d reached the elevator, turned to stab at the button. Stab, stab, stab. ‘Do you think Marcus is blind?’ he pushed. ‘He has to see it. And yet Marcus left you,’ he said, relentless. ‘Thinking you were coming up to the apartment, where I was. What does that tell you, Chloe? What?’ ‘It tells me you’re a bastard, Nick.’ ‘A bastard? Okay, I can wear that. I will wear it. But at least I won’t waste time kissing your forehead. I’ll be kissing your mouth, and your breasts, and between your legs where I know you’re hot and wet and ready for me. Are you hot and wet and ready for him, Chloe?’ I spun around lashing out to slap. But he caught my hand, hard, and held it a few centimetres from his face. ‘Are we back to that?’ he asked, jerking me close. ‘I wish I’d broken your nose.’ ‘You’re welcome to break my nose, or tear my skin with your teeth, or rip me to shreds with your nails. Mark me any way you want – as long as you’re coming when you do it.’ ‘I will not come for you.’ ‘Then I’ll come for you, Chloe. I’ll come for you.’ The elevator door opened, and he released me. ‘Ask me up,’ he said. I made some kind of scoffing sound. ‘Chloe.’ I stepped into the elevator. Straightened my dress. Touched my hair. And then I looked between Nick’s left eyebrow and the wall behind him. As the elevator doors closed, I heard the ‘Fuck,’ that erupted from him. And then, louder, as I started to ascend, ‘FUCK!’ I imagined him punching a wall – hopefully shattering a knuckle – and took some perverse kind of comfort from that. All those premonitions weren’t premonitions anymore. Change. It was here, now. Nothing I could do to push it back. Not now that Nick had kissed me. A shattered knuckle was nothing compared to the grief of knowing I’d betrayed Marcus. Knowing I’d ruined the life I had wanted so badly, fought so hard to get. The perfect future I was building with the perfect man was ruined because of one kiss. I hoped Nick had fractured every bone in his hand. I held it together as I opened the door to my apartment. As I took my phone out of my bag. Tapped for Marcus. Waited for the pick-up.

‘Chloe, I told you, I’m about to –’ ‘I kissed Nick Savage tonight. And now I’m breaking up with you.’ Pause. I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears as I waited it out. Seven seconds. And then he said, ‘Okaaaay.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

There was a deafening silence as I finished telling Drew and Evie my break-up story the following evening over cocktails. And then, ‘Okaaaay,’ said Evie. A word of which I’d had about enough, frankly! ‘You’ve been saying “okay” like “okaaaaaay” since you got back from Morocco,’ I said. ‘And it’s creeping me out. Okaaaaay?’ ‘Okaaaay,’ Evie said, then giggled. ‘All right, enough with the death stare! I’ll ask a question instead. Did Nick call you?’ ‘That’s your first question?’ I asked, incredulous. ‘Yes, it is. So?’ ‘If you think I’m ever, ever, going to get together with Nick Savage, let alone the day after I break up with my boyfriend, who happens to be his teammate and is therefore in his same social circle, and would therefore be off limits even if I didn’t detest him? Well, you’re insane. That is all.’ ‘So, did he call?’ As though I hadn’t just said all that. I threw my hands up in defeat. ‘Yes, he called.’ ‘And what did he say?’ ‘He said: “It’s Nick”.’ She leaned forward. ‘And then what?’ ‘And then … nothing. He hung up.’ ‘He hung –’ ‘It went to voicemail because … Well, because I didn’t accept the call.’ ‘So what happened when you called him back?’ ‘I didn’t call him back.’ I squirmed in my seat as she looked at me reproachfully. ‘He didn’t ask me to. Not that I would have, even if he did ask.’ Evie was frowning. ‘Has he tried to call you again?’ ‘No.’ ‘Are you sure? Because if you’re not used to the number –’ ‘I’m not an idiot, Evie. I … I saved the number. He didn’t call back.’ ‘Oh. Because I could have sworn –’ She broke off, looking sheepish. ‘Well, I could have sworn, that’s all.’ ‘What exactly did you two talk about up there on your own last night to make him your new best friend?’ ‘Oh, nothing,’ she said airily. ‘Just your old street dwelling buddy, Vodka Vern.’ My blood ran cold. ‘You did not tell Nick about my time sleeping rough.’ ‘What? No! God, Chloe, of course not, so stop looking at me like that. Nick told me what happened the night he met you, when you slipped Vern the twenty, that’s all. He volunteered the story of his own accord. It’s not like I was pumping him for information.’ She cast a superior look in Drew’s direction. ‘Unlike Drew in the kitchen with Marcus.’

I turned to Drew. ‘Drew?’ Storm cloud warning. Drew rubbed a cautious finger over his chin. ‘All I did was casually suss out whether there was someone else in the picture. I mean, come on, three months without sex? It flies in the face of nature. It seemed to me the most logical reason was that he was banging someone else.’ ‘Oh, you just casually sussed that out, did you? As if Marcus wouldn’t see what you were up to and clam the hell up.’ ‘Subtle is my middle name, I’ll have you know.’ ‘No, that would be “Dickhead”,’ I said. ‘Well, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of dick, Chloe.’ ‘Dickhead,’ I said. ‘Head.’ But it was no good, I was laughing. ‘And it’s not funny.’ ‘Sure it is. But before we all fall about in hysterics, let me reassure you that there was nobody else. And seriously? I don’t think two-timing is Mark’s style.’ ‘Great! That makes me feel so much better about my own treachery!’ ‘Treachery?’ Drew laughed. ‘Talk about melodrama. It was just a kiss, Chloe, not a full-blown love affair.’ Just a kiss that I could still feel, still taste. I realised I’d put my fingers up to my lips, and hastily brought them back down to curl around the stem of my glass. ‘Anyway, I already knew that wasn’t Marcus’s style so I didn’t need you’re alleged help.’ ‘How did you know?’ ‘Infidelity is not the kind of thing those guys can keep secret. Someone always blabs to the press. Let’s just hope that guy who caught me and Nick in the lobby didn’t have a chance to snap off a pic.’ I frowned. ‘And by the way, what’s with the “Mark” all of a sudden?’ ‘I’ve just decided he looks like a Mark, not a Marcus. Not that it matters, since we won’t be seeing him around anymore. A shame because that boy was some piece of eye candy.’ ‘Boy? He’s twenty-five. Three years older than you.’ ‘Ah, but in the school of life, Chloe, the school of life …’ He trailed off, looking suitably mystical. ‘You are such a wanker,’ I said, unimpressed. Drew grinned. ‘Only if I can’t find a hunk to do the job for me.’ I groaned out a laugh, but Evie, who’d been running a finger around the rim of her glass, wasn’t laughing. ‘So if he wasn’t banging someone else, what was the issue?’ she asked. Drew’s glass stopped halfway to his mouth … and then, with a shrug that was almost infinitesimal, he raised it the whole way and proceeded to toss back half of his Big Boy’s Brandy – which looked a lot like a plain old-fashioned Brandy Alexander to me. ‘Who cares, now we’ve cut him loose? There’s no chance of a reconciliation, is there, Chloe?’ ‘No,’ I said, and stared into my third drink – a whisky sour. Not my usual drink, but after last night, I thought it best to lay off the gin. Gin had a reputation for bringing out the maudlin in people; even worse, back in the day it was considered a leg opener (a nugget of information for which I had Vodka Vern to thank). On either count, clearly it was not a beverage for consumption when the name Nick Savage was going to feature in the conversation. Still, the whisky was going down a little too well. In fact, I was a drink ahead of the others (which was quite a feat, when you were drinking with Drew). ‘So, moving right along,’ Evie said briskly. ‘What are you going to do if Nick calls?’ I stared at her. ‘I’m going to not answer. What the actual hell is up with you, Evie?’ She shrugged. ‘There’s just something between you and Nick. I can feel it. I think that’s the reason you’ve never talked about him. You’ve talked about all the other guys on the team, you know.’ ‘Yeah, there’s definitely something between us,’ I said dryly. ‘It’s called animosity, as you saw very clearly last night. That’s why I’ve never mentioned him.’ ‘Okaaaay.’

‘Evie,’ I said warningly. ‘Oops, sorry,’ she said, and grinned. ‘But seriously, I like him. I like that he riles you up, that he can get your mask to slip. Also, there’s that little matter of you wanting more sex. Hotter sex.’ ‘But not with him,’ I insisted, and picked up my glass, ready to down a nice big swallow. Was alcoholism looming? And did I care if it was? Not much. I really was losing it. ‘Why not with him?’ she asked, as I took a sip. ‘Because if I ever I saw a guy keen to get into a girl’s pants and stay there a while, it’s Nick – in yours.’ I spat the whisky sour back into the glass. ‘Evie! Now look what you made me do. I can’t drink that.’ Drew looked at the glass, apparently seeing nothing amiss. ‘Why not? It’s your own saliva.’ ‘Because it’s gross.’ I waved at the server and pointed to my glass, did a smiley, drinking mime. Message given and received. I slid my barely-touched cocktail to the far side of the table. Drew tossed back the rest of his drink. ‘Grosser than swapping spit with a guy you detest?’ He did his own signalling routine for another drink while I stared at him. ‘Oh my God, you disapprove! What happened, Andrew? Did the Pope call you last night for a heart-to-heart about morals?’ ‘Me, disapprove of a little dalliance?’ he asked, all quelle horreur. ‘I don’t think so. But I don’t relish the idea of you bleeding all over the floor when that little trickle of conscience that’s already bothering you becomes a deluge. As you know it will, Chloe. It’s going to eat away at you, nibbling, nibbling, nibbling, until it half-kills you, and we’re going to have to watch it happen, and funnily enough, I don’t want to see it. Because I love you.’ ‘It’s not … like that,’ I said, and had to swallow. ‘Then how is it?’ ‘Let me put it this way –Marcus’s reaction when I copped to the kiss was so lukewarm, I’d say Nick and I could have traded a few more interesting body fluids than saliva and he would have taken it all in his stride. In fact, it was so lukewarm, it was almost an insult. Seriously, I not only betray him, but do it with one his friends, and that’s not worth even one tiny spurt of temper?’ I sighed. ‘Nope, I can only surmise that somewhere along the way, Marcus lost interest in me emotionally as well as sexually. Galling though it is, that’s the plain, unvarnished truth. So I’ve really got nothing to feel guilty about, have I?’ ‘Except that you will feel guilty, sooner or later,’ Drew said, and sighed. ‘Loyalty is your Achilles heel. And that’s why I wish you’d just switched the order. Break up first, then the kiss. No wearing of hair shirt required.’ ‘You don’t do it in that order,’ I said. ‘You have affairs all the time.’ ‘I’m gay. We’re supposed to have affairs. It’s in the rulebook. In the DNA. In the –’ ‘You are so full of it,’ I said, cutting him off. ‘You’re every bit as loyal as me. Or you would be, if you’d commit to someone. But you don’t commit because you haven’t found the one.’ ‘And neither have you, my darling, for all your determination.’ He waved a silencing hand at me as I opened my mouth to speak. ‘Yes, yes, yes, I know, you felt like you were committed to Marcus, but if you ask me it’s been heading in the wrong direction for longer than three sexless months. It was all getting a little too conjoined-twin-like with you two. Brother and sister sharing the one brain and personality. Even the same hair colour! Kind of creepy.’ ‘We don’t have the same hair colour. His is a deep, rich auburn, not this … this fire engine red.’ He laughed. ‘And that’s the sum total of your response to everything I just said? Well if that doesn’t prove my point. If you were really starry-eyed over Marcus, you wouldn’t be sitting here in ice goddess mode debating your relative shades of red hair. You’d be punching someone, screaming, clawing to get him back, because that is your true nature.’ ‘Yes, the passion was definitely missing with Marcus,’ Evie put in, in her new role of pontificator extraordinaire.

Drew nodded. ‘Yeah, but it’s always missing. That’s the way she likes it.’ ‘Huh? I mean … huh?’ Me – stunned. ‘He’s right,’ Evie chimed in. ‘You talk a good game, Chloe Masters, but you’ve got the goddesses-don’t-break-a-sweat thing happening. I mean, look at that cream leather couch of yours. Lovely to look at, but there ain’t no misdemeanor happening on it.’ ‘Don’t believe us?’ Drew grinned across at me as I sat there like a stunned mullet. ‘Then take a chance and play with the dark thug. I’d lay odds he’ll make you sweat.’ ‘I don’t want the dark thug.’ ‘Sure you do or you wouldn’t have kissed him. You had to want him plenty to do that to Marcus, no matter what state your sex life was in.’ My head was spinning – and it had nothing to do with the whisky sours. It was all about what I’d done. The situation was really black and white, the way Drew described it. I could have said yes or no to the kiss. It had been a choice between loyalty and betrayal, and I’d chosen betrayal. I’d wanted that kiss more than I’d wanted what I had with Marcus. One spur of the moment decision, a momentary loss of control, and I’d made a choice, the wrong choice: Nick over Marcus. ‘Oh my God,’ I whispered. Just three little words, but they pushed Drew into a state of high alert. ‘Jesus, don’t start yet,’ he said. ‘Start what?’ ‘The conscience attack. Remember – Marcus kissed you on the forehead, Marcus didn’t have sex with you for three months, Marcus let you go. He let you go, Chloe. He deserved for you to fuck Nick’s brains out in front of him.’ He grabbed my hand. ‘A kiss? Pfft! Nothing. At least do something worthy of all the angst before you start torturing yourself.’ ‘Like … like what?’ ‘Take the thug out for a spin.’ ‘A spin?’ ‘As in, do the wild thing with him,’ Drew said, as our fresh drinks were delivered, very opportunely. I took a nice big gulp. ‘I can’t do the wild thing.’ ‘Yes you can, if you put your inner control freak out to pasture for a little while.’ ‘But he’s Marcus’s teammate. I can’t do that.’ ‘Nobody’s asking you to publicly date him, Chloe. Keep him a deep, dark secret. That way, if he doesn’t perform to your satisfaction, you can return him to the manufacturer, and Marcus will never know.’ But I was shaking my head before he’d even finished speaking. ‘Okay, if that’s how we’re playing it.’ Drew tapped the rim of my glass with his. ‘I’ve got the perfect person for you. Someone you can have total control over.’ ‘Yes?’ I asked suspiciously. ‘You!’ he said. ‘Orgasm yourself into oblivion, all on your own. No sweat involved.’ ‘Been there, done that, not satisfying.’ ‘Aha! But I’m talking gadgets,’ he said. ‘Of the battery-operated variety. I’ve heard of one called the Vibrating Rock Chick that sounds awesome – if you’re a girl, at any rate. You won’t even have to step into the sex shop yourself. I’ll buy it for you.’ I drew in a shaky, almost-laughing breath. ‘I neither want nor need a vibrator.’ ‘What about a male escort?’ Evie suggested. ‘A male –? What is wrong with you people?’ ‘You say you’re sex starved,’ Drew pointed out, his eyes twinkling like a maniacal disco ball. ‘I would rather remain sex starved than buy a vibrator. And don’t even, Evie –’ Because she’d opened her mouth. ‘I am not interested in either a male escort or Nick Savage.’

‘Okaaaay,’ Evie said, pushing her luck. ‘I’m really not liking you at the moment,’ I said. Drew nudged my drink towards me. ‘Drink up.’ ‘Why?’ ‘It’s time for break-up hair and I have just the stylist for you.’ Evie perked right up. ‘New lover? Can I come too?’ ‘Yes, new lover. Reynold is his name. And yes, you may accompany us. Come on, Chloe – you know it’s de rigeur to change your hairstyle after you’ve visited Splitsville. I’m seeing a pixie cut. You’ve got the cheekbones to carry it off – hell, you could shave a guy’s beard right off with those sharp edges. And I’m a little over all that long, straight hair curtain thing you’ve got going on.’ ‘A fringe,’ I said, unbending. ‘That’s as far as I’ll go.’ Drew sighed. ‘Now you see, that’s not really break up hair.’ ‘Take it or leave it.’ Another sigh. ‘Okay – taken.’ My phone started ringing. Evie looked hopeful. Drew, watchful. I fished my phone out of my bag and checked the caller ID. ‘Relax, guys, it’s Larry,’ I said, and accepted the call. It had to be important for my chief of staff to be calling at this hour. The one-sided conversation must have sounded very strange to Evie and Drew, but they were certainly on the edge of their seats for it. ‘Hi Larry … Yes, I know him … Yes, through Marcus … Manila, yes I know … No, Anita’s got that … No, not me … Oh, he asked for …? He said what …? Since when is Nick Savage calling the … Oh, I see. But I’ve got … All right … But he’s not … Yes, but I just think … Oh for God’s sake, it’s … Fine … Fine, fine, fine!’ I disconnected, sat looking at my phone for a stunned moment. Blink, blink, breathe, blink. And then I looked at Evie and Drew. ‘Guess who’s going to Manila?’ ‘With Nick?’ Evie ventured. ‘You got it,’ I said. ‘Well, well, well,’ Evie said, and blew out a breath. ‘That’s great. Except …’ She and Drew raised their eyebrows at each other. And then she looked me right in the eye. ‘How are you going to cope? With the … you know …’ ‘The children?’ I said, and felt the panic reaching for me, trying to suck me under. ‘I guess we’re going to find out.’ ‘Maybe it’s a sign,’ Evie said. I just looked at her. ‘Nick … kids … things outside your comfort zone …?’ she offered vaguely. ‘What it is, is manipulation,’ I said, cutting off that line of thought. ‘I can’t believe he did this when he knows I don’t like him. Why would he want to be stuck with me for eight days except out of sheer … sheer … perverseness!’ ‘Yeaaaah,’ Drew said. ‘Perverseness isn’t the first reason that springs to mind.’ I sucked back my whisky sour and reached for my bag. ‘Right. I’m getting the fringe, and taking six inches off,’ I announced. ‘That’s my girl,’ Drew said, rolling his eyes. ‘Let’s freak the bastard right out with a shoulder length bob. How revolutionary!’

CHAPTER EIGHT

Drew was being his usual sarcastic self, but I really was more than happy to freak the bastard out, hairstyle be damned. I was going to start with a perfectly nuanced performance of unconcern when Nick called to gloat about getting me assigned to the Manila story. He was no doubt expecting me to spit bile and fury; instead, I would be my cool, professional self, ready to talk about what angles we could explore, the way I would with any major interviewee for a story like this. I’d tell him that I’d always wanted to visit the Philippines, that he’d done me a huge favour by twisting Larry’s arm, and that I was looking forward to the experience immensely. Yes, it was going to be a golden moment, and I could hardly wait for my phone to ring. All through my haircut, I kept my phone in my hand, too preoccupied to care that six inches of carefully cultivated coiffe were being hacked off. I was so preoccupied, I have no idea what I ate for dinner that night, or what I watched on TV afterwards. I took the phone to the bathroom while I prepared for bed, and then actually to bed with me because I didn’t put it past Nick to call in the wee hours when I least expected it. Over the next two days, I pulled together a set of my famous red folders, full of research notes and interview questions. General information about the Philippines, and more specifically, Manila; statistics on poverty and homelessness; the history of the orphanage, which was called the Sunshine Children’s Home; details of other comparable charitable institutions in the area. But with every addition to the files, I found myself checking and re-checking my phone. And even when I wasn’t specifically checking for missed calls, I kept one ear cocked for the ring tone I’d allocated to Nick. (Butthole Surfers’ The Annoying Song– a title that seemed appropriate for the most annoying man in the world.) Once I was home from work, I paced and I stewed, waiting for Nick to call, and checking, checking, checking my damn phone. I knew what he was doing: playing chicken. Who was going to cave in and call first? Well, it was not going to be me. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I preferred to imagine him waiting by the phone, agitated, like me, wondering what was going through my head. That nice little bit of defiance got me through to Sunday evening, which was when it suddenly occurred to me that Nick might not have been waiting by the phone for my call, agitated, wondering what was going through my head. He might, instead, have been making calls to other women, with whom he’d probably been having sex. One after the other. Or perhaps in groups. While not giving me a single thought. Somehow the memory of that message he’d left on my voicemail started reverberating alongside the image of him kissing two busty, blonde, biceps-grabbing bimbos. ‘It’s Nick’. What kind of message was that to leave on a girl’s phone after you’d kissed the bejesus out of her? It’s Nick. Two words. Two freaking words! Like, why bother? Especially if you were going to start indulging in orgies

with other women as soon as you hung up. Well, I was going to delete those words. I didn’t know why I hadn’t deleted them already. I grabbed my phone, called my message bank, finger poised … And stopped as my eye caught sight of those red folders, stacked on the dining table, waiting to go into the briefcase I would take on the plane tomorrow. Out of nowhere, I heard Evie’s voice in my head. Did you call him back? My response, He didn’t ask me to, suddenly seemed lame. I was a journalist and this was a job that had been assigned to me by my boss, regardless of who was pulling what strings behind the scenes. It therefore wasn’t up to Nick to call me, it was up to me to call him. Did I really intend to land in Manila completely clueless about how we were going to interact on the job because of one stupid kiss? Dammit, no, I did not! It was going to sting, calling Nick Savage, but – deep breath – I was going to do it. I scrolled for his number. Finger hovering over the call button, heartrate accelerating, dreading the first contact. Riiiing. I looked at the phone, not quite believing it was my phone that was ringing. And then I saw that it was Marcus, and I automatically tapped to accept the call, sliding in a boneless heap onto the couch, flooded with the oddest mixture of relief and guilt. ‘Marcus! Hi there.’ ‘How are you, Chloe? ‘Fine. Just … fine,’ I said, and then we both lapsed into an awkward silence. ‘So I guess … I guess you fly out tomorrow, right?’ I ventured. ‘Hawaii.’ ‘And you too, I hear.’ ‘You know about Manila?’ ‘Nick told me.’ Pause. More awkwardness. ‘Chloe, I –’ ‘Marcus, I –’ Strained laughter. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to get it together. ‘So you’ve seen Nick, that’s good,’ I said. ‘I was scared you two might … Not that there’s a reason to feel … Nothing to come between …’ Get it together, dammit. ‘I’m glad you’re still friends. Because it was a one-off, just a stupid moment. I’m blaming it on the martinis. Gin, you know. It’s deadly stuff.’ ‘It’s fine, Chloe. I … I understand. In fact I …’ I sensed the hesitation, heard the breath he took, and waited, wondering inconsequentially why I’d never noticed before how uncomfortable my leather couch was. ‘I just wanted to check we’re on the same page with the announcement about our split,’ he said at last – and just like in the back of the limo a week ago, I knew there was something else going on under the surface. ‘Did Tom send it over?’ Tom was the Scorpions’ media manager. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve signed off on it. He said it will go out once we’re both in the air. And no further comment from either of us, right?’ ‘Right,’ Marcus said – and there was another moment of hesitation. ‘I … I want to stay friends, Chloe.’ ‘Me too.’ ‘Whatever happens in the future,’ he added. Alarm bells. ‘What do you mean whatever happens in the future? You’re not dying, are you?’ He laughed. ‘No. Not that I know of, anyway.’

‘Promise?’ ‘Cross my heart and hope to –’ ‘Do not finish that or I will kill you, Marcus!’ More laughter. ‘Let’s catch up when I’m back from Hawaii.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I love you, Chloe.’ I swallowed. Swallowed again. ‘I love you too,’ I whispered, but Marcus had already disconnected. It hit me, then. This was it. Flying to different places tomorrow, the announcement would go out, and we were over. Really, truly, irrevocably over. Blink, blink, breathe, blink, as Nick’s voicemail message started echoing in my head again, like an accusation. It’s Nick. I hadn’t allowed myself to listen to it since that first time. Had I missed something? Something that would indicate that kissing Nick was worth what I’d done to myself, to Marcus? I stood and started pacing as I called my message bank, straining to hear over the thrum of my tooloud pulse. Okay, there it was. The infinitesimal pause. And … and breathing. I could hear Nick breathing. One. Two. And then, It’s Nick. Absolutely no inflection. Another tiny pause. And, yes, one more breath. Hang up. It’s Nick. Two words. Nothing else. I’d decimated my life for two words. Two words … and one kiss. One stupid kiss, a two word message, and here I was, whipping myself into a frenzy over a simple phone call I should be making to an interviewee, more like an insecure teenager after an ill-advised makeout session than a journalist from a top-rating television program. Visualising Nick with other women, as though I cared what he did! Unable to do my job the way it deserved to be done, with my undivided attention, because I was too busy obsessing over who should be calling whom. I don’t know when I’d stated shaking, but shaking I most definitely was. And that was the last straw. Chloe Masters did not shake. Chloe Masters got on with the job. Nick Savage was not important, the job was. Simple as that. It was just a job. A job, job, job, job, goddammit. And not even a difficult job. No hard-hitting exposé of political corruption here, no corporate fraud exclusive. Even a celebrity scandal would have been a bigger deal. Just a job. And the nine red folders sitting on my dining table proved it. Just a job. The research for which I’d been through with a fine tooth comb. Just a job. I knew who to interview, I knew what to ask. Just a job. A feel-good story about a playground. Just a job. Which required me to not become a nervous wreck over making one phone call to an interviewee. I walked over to the dining table to retrieve a notepad from my briefcase in case I needed to jot down a few things when I called Nick. But as I looked down at the stack of red folders, waiting on the table, I realised I was still shaking. Just a job. But one of those folders contained details about twenty-six children. Just a job. And yet I knew exactly which folder out of nine identical ones held the case studies I’d told myself I was too busy to do myself, and had farmed out to one of the researchers. If it was just a job, why hadn’t I read that file? I sat at the dining table and stared at the folders. My mind was awhirl. The kiss. The call. Marcus. It’s Nick. The job. The folders. The children. I could feel the scream building, and if I started screaming I had no idea if I’d be able to stop. This was what happened when you let your guard down. If not for that kiss, I wouldn’t have split with Marcus, Nick wouldn’t have engineered a situation to get me to Manila, and I would not be tearing myself apart at the idea of reading twenty-six case studies. And, oh God, if I couldn’t open the damn

folder, how was I going to cope when I had to actually meet the kids, talk to them, film them? Well, a guard that had come down could go back up, couldn’t it? And maybe reading the case studies was the first brick in that wall. Reading them would be a … a test. Like desensitisation therapy. Focus on the facts and the details, become so familiar with the stories they lose their power to shock and hurt. I grabbed the folder before I could chicken out and opened it. There they were. Twenty-six pages, one photo and one brief per page. Taking a deep breath, I started reading. Honey, found as a newborn in a rice field. Joseph, left in a hospital after a car accident. Grace, forgotten by her father when her mother was placed in a mental institution. Paolo, left at the gates by his poverty-burdened parents, along with his sister and brother – each of whom had their own page. Twenty other pages that I forced myself through, examining every image, reading every word, telling myself if I could do this, it would be one more mark of my success in detaching myself from my past. I could do it. I would do it. When I finally closed the file, there was an ache in my heart and the sting of incipient tears behind my nose. I blinked and breathed the tears away, because Chloe Masters didn’t cry, not anymore – but the ache remained. I tried to put the folder back on the pile, but somehow, I couldn’t do it. My fingers wouldn’t release it. It felt like, if I did that, I would be letting the children go. Twenty-six unwanted, abandoned, unloved children. If there was a silver lining, it was that my anxiety over Nick Savage seemed trivial by comparison. Pathetic, even. And Chloe Masters was not pathetic. Nick Savage was not the story. Nick Savage was maximum half an hour, minimum ten minutes, of my eight-day assignment. One interview, and he would be relegated to being nothing but eye candy for the camera, in the background, wielding a hammer. I did not need to call Nick Savage. I would not call Nick Savage. Instead, I would read the profiles again. I would read them, and then re-read them, and keep rereading them, over and over again, until I could recite them in my sleep, dry-eyed and dispassionately, building my defences to ensure I didn’t crumble on the job. And tomorrow morning at the airport, if I saw Nick Savage, I would do my best to cryogenically freeze him out of my life, using only one baleful eye.

CHAPTER NINE

As it turned out, when I arrived at the airport the next morning, there wasn’t the remotest possibility of my baleful eye getting close enough to Nick Savage to give him a momentary chill, let alone freeze him. He was completely surrounded, and I could only catch glimpses of his body parts as the throng around him periodically shifted. A bit of forearm, a peek at his bent head, a peep of chest as he signed autographs for kids, chatted to parents, posed for selfies with fans, and was ogled by women of all ages, shapes and sizes. For the first time, I deep-down understood how annoying it must be for Evie every time she stepped out with Jack, and why she’d tried so hard to avoid taking him, and everything that came with him, on. Of course, I’d seen the phenomenon with Jack before. But Jack was … well, Jack. Movie stars expected it, and he handled it with ease. I’d experienced it with Marcus too. But again, it seemed kind of normal for him. Marcus was that kind of guy. Charming and friendly, gracious and sociable, and also somehow humbled by the attention. But Nick? Well, Nick was hard and challenging and sardonic. Arrogant, rather than humble. He wasn’t the smiling/laughing/chatting type. It was unnerving to see him behaving in a way that was so at odds with my perception of him. And then he caught sight of me, and like a switch being flicked, he changed. Oh, he still smiled and chatted and signed, but his whole body tensed and the air in the terminal seemed to be suddenly impregnated with Dare you. Which I interpreted as Dare you to come over here. Yes, well no. I was not going to be dared by Nick Savage. Ever, ever again. Turning abruptly, I made my way to the business class check-in, where I took advantage of the queue to call my cameraman, Derek, to check how far away he was. As I ended the call, I felt a fizz in the air, and my shoulders tightened defensively. I didn’t have to look behind me to know Nick was there. ‘Looking nice, Chloe,’ he said. I managed not to turn around as I responded with an offhand, ‘Thank you,’ but I was doing a lightning fast inventory of the way I looked, because I could tell a criticism when I heard one. Criticism in all its forms, veiled and unveiled, had been a specialty of foster mother number three – a girl didn’t forget that stuff. So. Red skirt suit, sexy and expensive; cream silk camisole top; high-heeled pumps in an understated nude; newly bobbed hair swinging free with a sharply cut fringe. Nothing to criticise – but nevertheless, I knew shoe one had been dropped. There was a tiny fingertip brush against the shoulder of my jacket, which I did not deign to flinch away from. ‘Perfect business class attire,’ Nick said. The line moved up by one person. I stepped forward and Nick stepped straight into the newly opened gap behind me. ‘Don’t you want to see what we charity workers are wearing in Economy?’ he asked.

And there it was. The second shoe, dropped. Nick was earning a fortune and was sitting in cattle class; I was earning a pittance by comparison, but was up the front of the plane, courtesy of the television station’s international staff travel policy. And Nick wanted me to squirm over it. ‘As it happens,’ I said, turning slowly with my freeze-eye on, ‘I’m well acquainted with economy class fashions, given it’s my usual way to fly.’ But I examined him, head to toe, in any case. ‘T-shirt. Jeans. Oh – and is that an erection? Again?’ ‘Get used to it,’ he said, and winked. ‘You’ll be seeing a lot of it over the next week.’ Seriously? A wink? I faced the counter again. ‘Let’s hope you’re sitting next to someone who can help you with that. It would be a shame to let that fine specimen go to waste.’ ‘Fine specimen? Why thank you, Chloe.’ It was a good thing I wasn’t facing him or he might have seen the laugh bubbling up before I could choke it back. ‘And who knows,’ I said, through slightly trembling lips, ‘if you can get a little Mile High Club activity on the way to Manila to take the edge off, maybe I won’t have to see it for a few days.’ ‘Hey, I’m up for a little mile high if you are,’ he said, leaning close enough to speak right in my ear. ‘Change your ticket, Chloe. I’ve got a seat reserved for you, right next to me.’ I laughed then – but out of disbelief! ‘Er … that would be a “no”.’ ‘Do it, Chloe.’ In my ear again. ‘We have things to talk about.’ ‘I have all the research I need. All you need to do is step in front of the camera when you’re told to and answer a few questions. That’s a ten minute job. It doesn’t require a whole flight’s worth of discussion.’ ‘I’m not talking about the story.’ I took a moment to gather my composure before responding. ‘If you mean Marcus, I don’t want to talk to you about him.’ ‘Why not? You talked to him about me.’ ‘I mentioned you. It wasn’t exactly a discussion. And that’s different.’ I heard the breath he took. In. Then slowly, slowly, out. ‘If you sit next to me on the flight, you’ll have eight hours to explain exactly how that’s different.’ ‘Anyway, given you’re the one who wants to do the talking, shouldn’t you be the one changing your ticket? It’s not like you can’t afford it, football star.’ ‘Ah, yes, but you see, the more money I spend on my air ticket, the less money the orphanage gets.’ I squeezed my eyes shut. ‘So if you feel like making a donation, the option is there,’ he continued. Goddammit! ‘Think of it as a Vodka Vern moment,’ he added. ‘Giving to the less fortunate, on the down low, no fuss.’ The check-in agent beckoned me forward. Tick, tick, tick, tock. ‘Chloe?’ ‘Oh for God’s sake, all right.’ With a fixed smile, I shook my head at the check-in agent – sorry, my mistake – and left the queue. Without looking at Nick, I headed for the ticket desk, briefcase swinging, dragging my wheelie bag behind me. He grabbed my wrist before I could make a clean getaway. ‘I like the new hair,’ he said. I looked at him over my shoulder. ‘It’s break-up hair, so I have you to thank for it.’ ‘I’m not sorry, Chloe.’ ‘No, I’m sure you’re not.’

‘And if you’re thinking you’ll find a way to make me hang my head in shame over what we did, you can forget it. I don’t feel guilty.’ But looking into his eyes as I wrenched my wrist free, I could see a flicker of something that told me he did.

I had one small revenge. When Derek agreed to downgrade with me, I made sure he got the seat beside Nick in row fiftythree, while I took the only remaining seat, four rows ahead and across the aisle. And to ensure Nick had no opportunity to uncover my deviousness and somehow have the seats switched again, I avoided the boarding gate until the last possible moment, hurrying onto the flight just before the aircraft doors closed. When I reached my seat, I made a big show of rifling through my bags for what I’d need during the flight, simultaneously casting a surreptitious sideways spy-eye down the aisle, hoping to find Nick fuming. But Nick, seemingly oblivious to my arrival, was deep in conversation with Derek, who was pointing out something in the red folder I’d given him when we’d met at the ticketing desk. Which was when it suddenly dawned on me that if I wanted to talk to Derek during the flight, I would have to go to both of them, supplicant-style. I sat and stared blankly at the video screen set into the back of the seat in front of me, not feeling quite so pleased with myself, after all. And then I began to hear … sounds. A tittering laugh … a squeal … a giggle … Nick’s rumbling voice. A thief-like peek around the edge of my seat showed a gaggle of flight attendants accumulating in the aisle beside row fifty-three. Oh for God’s sake! Didn’t those flight attendants have things to do? Checking that seatbelts were fastened? Tray tables stowed? Bags in the overhead lockers? What if I did need to speak to Derek about something important? Would I even be able to get near him? The squeals and titters wafting up the aisle were reaching a crescendo, making me grind my teeth so hard, I half-expected to be spitting out a tooth chip before take-off. But at last it was time for the safety demonstration, and the aisle finally cleared of flight attendants, and I could at last unclench my nowaching jaw. It was only a brief respite, however, because when the aircraft reached cruise altitude and the seatbelt sign was turned off, it all started again – including the grinding of my teeth. I decided I needed a drink if I was going to get through eight hours of flight attendant flirtation. I pushed the call button twice, and was comprehensively ignored. I looked up the aisle, but saw no flight attendant in sight. No doubt because they were all down the aisle, clustered around row fifty-three, where I was not going to look. It seemed row forty-nine was going to have to go it alone if it wanted a nice stiff … whisky. I’d only taken two steps when the plane dipped, and the seatbelt sign came back on. But oh no, there would be no returning to my seat and buckling up! I was going to get that damn whisky if I had to pour it myself. I made my tottering way up the aisle, gripping the occasional seatback to steady myself as the plane dipped and rolled. I reached the toilets, and there was another, stronger dip – but the galley was so close now, I was not to be deterred. Another jolt, and I reached out to brace a hand against the toilet door … but my hand was grabbed and held against something else. A hot, cotton-covered … chest? I’m not sure exactly how it all went down from that point, because it happened so fast, but somehow there was a grab, a push, a stumble – and I was inside the small toilet cubicle. With Nick Savage.

CHAPTER TEN

Nick locked the door, then looked at me. I gaped at him for a full five seconds. And then I found my voice. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ ‘Getting you alone.’ ‘And if I don’t want to be alone with you?’ ‘I told you, we need to talk. Preferably without an audience.’ ‘I have nothing to say to you that can’t be said with an audience.’ ‘I thought we’d start with you telling me why you didn’t call me back.’ ‘Because – read my lips – I had nothing to say to you.’ ‘You kiss me, then dump your boyfriend because of it, but that doesn’t deserve any discussion?’ ‘It’s had all the discussion it needs – with the relevant party.’ ‘So Marcus is relevant, but I’m not?’ ‘Bingo.’ He smiled. ‘Now you see, that’s a challenge to me.’ ‘The seatbelt sign is on.’ ‘And your point is …?’ ‘We should be going back to our seats.’ ‘Well, Chloe, I look at it this way. Seatbelt sign is on – that means nobody is going to disturb us in here. So …’ He smiled. Dare you. ‘You said a little Mile High Club activity on the way to Manila might take my edge off. And here I am, ready, willing and able. God knows I’ve been waiting long enough to get that edge seen to. A full year.’ ‘A full …?’ Utter, astounded, disbelieving, laughing gasp. ‘You expect me to believe that?’ Because I didn’t. Even if every single gossip column inch about his love life was a lie – as if! – guys like Nick Savage weren’t celibate for more than three days at a stretch. He was like a flashing neon sign: ‘Sex Available Here’. He had not been waiting for me, sex-free, for a year. ‘Why wouldn’t you?’ ‘The ménage à trois that was getting under way on the harbour cruise, for a start. Let’s talk about that!’ ‘I don’t kiss and tell, Chloe.’ ‘Kiss and tell? How … quaint.’ ‘Okay, I don’t fuck and tell.’ ‘You don’t –’ Nope. Couldn’t find a response to that. ‘So what happens in here will stay between you and me, Chloe.’ ‘Except that nothing is going to happen in here.’ He smiled, full of confidence. ‘We’ll see, won’t we?’ ‘No, we won’t.’ But Nick was looking around as though that part of the conversation was done and dusted. ‘Hmm. Maybe I should have upgraded. The business class facilities are a little more spacious. But needs must.

And you look limber enough.’ ‘You know, I’d be tempted if it meant I could flush your head.’ ‘Well, well – that’s an interesting proposition.’ ‘Flushing your head in an aircraft toilet is interesting? Really?’ ‘I’m trying to work out the position that would make that a possibility – and I have to say, I kind of like it.’ ‘Just bend over.’ ‘Oooohhh, Chloe, I thought you’d never ask.’ Unbelievably, I felt a laugh start to gurgle up. I forced it back. ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ ‘Hey, I’d even encourage you to flush my head if that would get you across the line.’ ‘I’m sure the brunette flight attendant with the …’ gesturing to my chest, ‘… would cross the line with you, and keep your hair dry while she did it.’ ‘I’m sure she would, too,’ he agreed. And then he leaned in close. ‘But if I wanted her, she’d be here with me now and I’d already be in up to the hilt. Instead I’m here with you and we’re still at the negotiation stage.’ ‘You’re so arrogant, I’m surprised anything except your swollen head can fit in here,’ I said, and reached around him for the door lock. ‘If you open that door, Chloe, I can promise you there’ll be a scene. Now personally, I don’t care about making a scene. But I’m pretty sure that would bother you an awful lot.’ ‘I want to get out.’ ‘Before we take care of my edge?’ ‘I don’t care about your edge.’ ‘You were interested enough in it at the airport. You’re the one who pointed out that I had a nice, healthy erection. You were so interested, I thought you were angling to get a close-up view.’ The plane dipped again and I fell against him. ‘Feel it?’ he asked. ‘Yes.’ As I stepped back from him. ‘And it’s going to give me nightmares.’ ‘I was aiming more for wet dreams.’ Another dangerous laugh, throttled just in time. He smiled. ‘Come on. Time’s up, Chloe, and you know it.’ ‘Yes, time is up, so let me out.’ ‘You don’t really want me to let you out, do you?’ he asked, and took my face between his hands forcing me to look at him. I wanted to shut my eyes, hide the confusion I knew was in them. Confusion. Apprehension. Something else that was fluttering every nerve in my body. But I couldn’t seem to make my eyelids close. It was a little moment of suspended time, and I was caught in it, helpless. ‘Do you want me to open the door, Chloe? Because if you do, if you really do, I’ll do it, and I’ll let you go. But if I open the door now, and we go back to our seats having done nothing in here, it will be game over. I won’t play again.’ ‘Guys like you don’t have to play,’ I said, all breathy. ‘You don’t have to try to get laid. It just happens.’ ‘Oh, I’m trying, Chloe. I’m trying hard. But as I said, time’s up. Now … or never.’ The aircraft lurched again, and I found my arms going helplessly around him. When the plane levelled out, I drew back. ‘Nick, we have to go back to our seats before we both end up battered and bloody.’ He took my hand, put it over his heart, palm flat, the way he’d done that night. ‘I won’t let you get hurt. I’ll keep you safe.’ I swallowed as I looked up at him. ‘Nobody can promise that.’

‘Not if you won’t let them.’ I felt his heartbeat, strong and heavy, as our eyes locked and held. My breath caught and I thought … yes. And then the plane lurched once more, I staggered backwards, and the moment was gone. I cleared my dry throat. Managed a little dismissive laugh. ‘Yeah, you’re not actually a superhero, Nick!’ He grinned. ‘Sure I am. Erection Man. And you can be –’ ‘Vanishing Girl, that’s what I can be,’ I said, and reached for the lock again. ‘What about being my girl, instead?’ he asked. I froze, staring at the lock. The words ‘Hell no!’ formed in my head. But when I opened my mouth, what came out was, ‘I only just broke up with your teammate.’ ‘History is history, Chloe, whether it’s a day, a week, a year, or a thousand years. This is between you and me now.’ ‘The announcement – about the break-up – isn’t even out yet.’ ‘So?’ ‘So, I couldn’t do that to him.’ ‘You already did. Time to suck it up, princess, because there’s no going back. You kissed me. And that changed everything.’ I was shaking my head. ‘It’s not that simple.’ ‘Yes, Chloe, it is.’ ‘That kiss shouldn’t have happened.’ ‘Except that it did.’ ‘It was just a … a moment. A lapse. I just needed … That night I needed …’ I was floundering, badly. The plane listed suddenly, and as I slipped, Nick grabbed me, pulled me in close, and I closed my eyes because something weird was happening to my insides and I wanted to feel it. ‘The martinis,’ I said, trying to sound dismissive. ‘It was the martinis. That’s why I kissed you.’ ‘Oh, the martinis,’ he said. ‘In that case, this will be easy. I’ll get you as many martinis as you want. I’ll go and drain the business class bar right now! Or – hang on – I’ll ring the call button and have them bring in a full bottle of gin and a bowl of olives.’ I started laughing. How could I not? Until he tipped my face up to his, and my eyelids fluttered open. ‘Do you need a martini, Chloe?’ he asked, ‘No,’ I said shakily. ‘So how about we start with a kiss,’ he said. ‘And then we’ll move on to sex. The way we should have done, that night.’ ‘And what would that have made me, when I was still with Marcus?’ ‘Mine, Chloe,’ he said simply. ‘It would have made you mine. The way you should have been a year ago. The way you would have been, if I’d seen you first. But you have to ask me. You have to choose me. The way I’ve chosen you.’ Ooohhhhh. The words hit, so potent. And what Drew had said was in my head. Keep him a deep, dark secret. If he doesn’t perform to your satisfaction, you can return him to the manufacturer and Marcus will never know. ‘So come on, Chloe, cards on the table. What’s it going to take? ‘Confidential,’ I breathed. ‘Nobody can know.’ ‘Done.’ ‘And … And it’s only while we’re in the Philippines.’ ‘No.’ ‘Yes! Otherwise I can’t do it. I can’t do it to him. I just – God, I can’t believe I’m even thinking about it.’ I pulled out of his arms.

‘Okay,’ Nick said quickly, and hauled me straight back. ‘Only in the Philippines. If that’s the deal, I’ll live with it. But we’re sealing the deal now, right now, while I’ve got you. So come on, Chloe.’ ‘What are we going to do? Play “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine”?’ ‘You see?’ he said, releasing me and reaching for his jeans. ‘I knew you wanted to see mine.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

And holy shit – no pun intended, toilet proximity notwithstanding – did he show me his! In five seconds max, before I could even reach behind for my skirt zipper, his jeans and underwear were down, and he was standing there with his very impressive hard-on on display. Talk about size! He had length and girth and perfect scale – for a freaking giant! There was so much of it, no way could his Tshirt keep it under wraps. So much, I wondered how I was going to cope, having been celibate for months. But by God I was going to give it a go. I started fumbling behind me for my skirt fastening. ‘No time, and no room,’ he said, and relieved me of the need to undress by grabbing the sides of my tight skirt and wrenching upwards. A fraction of a second later, my pink silk knickers were shoved down. And he was looking at ‘mine’ – freshly Brazilianed, which I was thinking was a good thing, going by the hungry look on Nick’s face. He was staring so hard, I thought he was doing some kind of mental scan, storing the sight in his memory banks. And despite still having my skirt on, with my silk camisole top intact, my jacket buttoned, my high heels on, I had never felt more naked, or more open. On display, and just plain ready for sex. It may have been the most bizarre moment of my life. The two of us standing in the tiny toilet cubicle, looking so intently at each other’s sex organs I wouldn’t have been surprised to see little laser-flares shoot out of our eyes. I was longing to touch him. I had never felt so hot and achy in my whole life. And it both scared me half to death, and excited me past bearing. The sudden in-flight announcement startled us into lifting our eyes. The Captain has turned off the seatbelt sign. You are now free to move about the cabin, and our crew will shortly recommence in-flight service. We both grimaced. Our privacy was about to come to an end. ‘Chloe,’ he said, and everything in me fizzed at the husky urgency in his voice. ‘There is no way I’ll last through eight hours sitting out there, knowing what’s under your skirt without having it. And I swear, if someone interrupts us before it’s done, I am going to kill them. So we’re going to have to skip the foreplay. Okay? Are you with me? I have to hear you say you want it too.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ I said, so okay with the hard and fast option, I would have jumped him in the next heartbeat. ‘Hurry. And if you tell me you’re not packing, I’m going to be the one doing the killing.’ He laughed, but the sound was strained, and so was the look on his face as he reached for his jeans, hiked them up just far enough to reach into the back pocket, and produced a condom. ‘Boy scout,’ he said. ‘Always prepared. Take your panties all the way off – that’s all you need to do. I’ll do the rest.’ So there I was, shoving impatiently at my underwear, stumbling a little as the pink silk snagged on one of my heels but ready to rip those kickers to pieces if I had to. Half hopping, skirt bunched up around my hips, not truly believing I was about to join the Mile High Club, but starting to shake with lust at the thought of it. The crackle of the condom wrapper caused a new hit of moisture between my thighs. It was like my body was saying, Hello, we’re ready here, hurry the hell up. Even the prospect of a queue of people outside, crossing their legs because we were denying them access to the toilet, wasn’t enough to contain

it. God, God, God, I wanted so badly to touch him. ‘Let me put it on you,’ I said. He shook his head. ‘Next time. I won’t last if you touch me, and I want to be inside you when I come this first time.’ This first time. Oh God. I had eight glorious days of secret sex coming my way. Three seconds later, the condom was on. And then Nick set his feet, leaned his shoulders back against the door for support or leverage or who the hell cared why, reached for my hips, and asked, ‘Ready?’ I nodded – it was impossible to get a word out. You’d think it would have been awkward. Elbows knocking into walls, heads banging together, feet slipping. But nope. As he slid his hands around to my bottom and tugged me in, I knew it was going to be solid and safe and wonderful. Then he lifted me up, hitched my thighs either side of his hips. ‘Bring your knees up and brace them on the door behind me if you need to,’ he whispered. ‘Do whatever you have to do to feel comfortable, move any way you want – I’ll catch you and hold you no matter what. I’ll keep you safe. Okay?’ Safe. That word again. And it was more than okay, to hear it and know it was true, that I could take what I wanted, how I wanted it, and let myself go. So I slid and scrunched and wiggled in his mountainstrong arms, knowing I could. And he didn’t let me slip, even once, not by a millimetre. He just held me, waiting for me to accommodate myself the best way I could, and then, a harsh breath against my neck. ‘Chloe?’ A question, and he waited until I nodded. And a split second later, he was crushing me closer, pushing inside me, connecting so easily, so beautifully that I couldn’t help moaning. ‘Holy mother of God, you’re it, Chloe,’ he groaned, and then he sucked in a breath as I pushed myself harder onto him. He made some slight adjustment to his position, shifted his feet, gripped my bottom harder, slid further in – again – and then … all the way. Heaven. I ground myself onto him so hard and tight, he almost couldn’t get any leverage to withdraw and thrust again, but the feeling of him inside me, of being completely full of him, was so divine, I couldn’t help it – I just wanted him jammed in me, going nowhere but there. He kissed me, once, hard, on the mouth, and then his head dropped to my shoulder as he inched back slowly, as far as I would let him withdraw, and pushed into me again, slowly, luxuriously. ‘I knew you’d feel like this,’ he said in my ear. ‘Hot and tight and wet.’ I groaned, couldn’t keep it in. ‘I can’t wait to get you into bed tonight,’ he whispered. ‘But right now, I have to tell you, I am going to come. Any second. Let me bring you with me.’ Pause, as he twisted, maneuvering himself a tiny fraction inside me, and hit a spot so perfect, I felt the tell-tale tremors start immediately. There. There, there, theeeeeere. ‘Oooooh. Ohhhhh.’ Me, gasping like a crazy woman, and wishing I could lay him out flat and throw myself all over him. ‘Are you coming?’ he asked. My answer was a wailing, ‘Oh my Gooooood.’ Had my eyes rolled back in my head? Did I care? No, I did not. ‘H–how do you know how to d–do th–that?’ ‘It’s the fit.’ Thrust. ‘Perfect.’ Push. ‘With you. Ah, God. It’s too – Too good. Jesuuus.’ And he slapped his mouth on mine, muffling both our cries with a molten kiss, while I exploded in the hottest, brightest orgasm of my life. He kept kissing me as the fire faded, as my legs slid down either side of him, as he withdrew from me. And then I felt him smile against my mouth. And I found myself smiling back. And we were laughing. And it was perfect.

He pulled my skirt back down. Adjusted the lapels of my jacket. Ran a hand over my hair to neaten it. One more fast kiss, and then he trailed a fingertip over my mouth as though he’d smooth that back into place too – but it felt bruised, and I knew it would be swollen, unable to be magicked back to normal. Still, his tenderness took me by surprise. We’d just had sex, as basic as it could get. Hands-free, sightfree, knees-up, no-foreplay sex in an aircraft toilet – possibly the best sex of my life, but certainly there had been nothing tender about it. So why was he touching me so gently now? I pulled away, and bent awkwardly to pick up my panties off the floor, but he stopped me. ‘Uh-uh. They’re mine for the flight.’ ‘What? No.’ I bent for them again – but he got there first. ‘I need the proof that it really, finally happened,’ he said, tucking them into the front pocket of his jeans. ‘I want to think of you sitting close by without your underwear. I want you to know that the little scrap of silk I’ve got in my pocket is making me remember the feeling of being inside you. And while you’re sitting there, knowing what’s on my mind, I want you to imagine what I’m going to do to you in Manila tonight, when we have a bed at our disposal, and I can use my tongue on you.’ He paused there to give me a groan of a kiss. ‘God, I am hard as a rock again, already. If I’ve only got a week, I’m going to be all over you every chance I get. The minute anyone’s back is turned, whenever you’re within touching distance. I want to make you come a thousand times, so get ready to have my fingers, my mouth, my cock, everything, all over you. Better book in for a week at a spa for when you get home. You’re going to need the rest.’ One more kiss, then he opened the door, pushed me through. The door re-closed and locked behind me. There were three people waiting in a line, all of them staring at me. They knew what I’d just done. I was knickerless in public for the first time in my life. And I just did not give a damn, because I had just been given an orgasm that had blown my freaking mind and was now busily picturing Nick Savage ‘all over’ me. It was going to be a loooong flight.

Loooong … and torturous. Because frequent skirt readjustments were required to ensure I didn’t flash the elderly lady in the seat next to me. And every time I tugged my skirt, I remembered how Nick had kissed me, like it was his last kiss on earth. Which caused a little aftershock to ripple through me. Which caused another skirt readjustment and … Well, you get the picture. It was like a never ending almost-orgasm cycle. Every time I sensed someone walking up the aisle from the rows behind me, I steeled myself for a touch on my shoulder – Nick’s touch on my shoulder – at which point almost-orgasm would doubtless morph into the full on screaming Yes, yes, yes variety. And how I would explain that to the lady in the next seat, I didn’t know! But through a whole meal service and one in-flight movie, my shoulder remained unmolested. So … what was going on? I had no idea, but I could hardly bowl on back to row fifty-three and demand to know why the guy who supposedly wanted to be all over me every chance he got not only wasn’t coming anywhere near me, but was spending his time flirting with a veritable sea of flight attendants. When, finally, the touch on my shoulder came, there was nothing orgasmic about it. Because I knew, even before looking up, it wasn’t Nick. It was too tentative. Sure enough, it was Derek, wanting to talk work. Which was not a bad thing, because I really needed to get my mind out of the … er … toilet if I was to survive the flight. I eased out of my seat – with a new respect for commando-going celebrities (being knicker-free in

public wasn’t for the fainthearted) – and Derek and I discussed options for interviewing a couple of flight attendants from the Do-It-Right team. We decided the best space was near the wing, where there was a little extra room, and then did a quick roam through the aircraft – me going forward of row forty-nine (for obvious reasons) and Derek going backward – for suitably photogenic interviewees. We settled on Barnaby, an enthusiastic guy in his thirties, and Leila, a gorgeous blonde from the business class cabin who had impressive gravitas for a girl who was all of about twenty. The interview started beautifully, and may have kept going that way if Leila’s eyelids hadn’t popped open like a couple of champagne corks shooting out of the bottle halfway through. Something – no, obviously it was a someone – was coming up behind me. No prizes for guessing who could make a girl preen and pat her hair into place mid-interview, as Leila was doing. My pulse kicked and my ears started buzzing as the salty scent of him slid into my nostrils, but at least my freaking eyelids didn’t pop open! On the other hand, I wasn’t processing a word of what was issuing forth from Barnaby’s mouth – but since Barnaby’s mouth was definitely moving, I knew he had to be saying something. And I was going to have to ask him another question when he stopped speaking, hopefully based on what he’d said. Gah! This was not good. And then Nick breathed, and I felt it on the back of my neck, and I almost dropped my red folder. I looked down at my notes, plucked three random questions off the page and bulleted them out – two to Leila, one to Barnaby. I didn’t care what they answered; I’d fix anything clumsy in the edit suite or catch them for another interview on the flight home. I just needed the thing wrapped before I made a total idiot of myself. I almost sagged with relief when it was over, apparently without anyone noticing how I’d winged it at the end. ‘Hey, Nick,’ Derek said, all hale and matey, as he switched off the camera. Only then did I allow myself to turn around, a nice fake oh-I-didn’t-see-you-there expression on my face. But Nick wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at, smiling at, Leila – one of the few flight attendants he hadn’t met, because she’d been confined to the business class cabin. Business class. Where the facilities were more spacious. Spacious enough, perhaps, for Nick to use that eager tongue of his on Leila! Who no doubt wouldn’t have to be talked into sex the way I was, judging by the drool pooling in her mouth. (And okay, I couldn’t actually see any drool, but I was sure it was there.) The combination of Derek’s friendliness, Nick’s smile, Leila’s drool, and the image of the business class toilet facilities zipping into my head irritated me so much, I found myself glaring at Nick. Which I did not want to do, so I turned my back on him (something I seemed to be doing a lot of, and which would have to stop before it became noteworthy) and pretended to listen intently to the discussion Derek was having with Barnaby about vantage points for filming general in-cabin footage. Barnaby interrupted Leila’s flirt-fest with Nick to get her opinion, and the next moment, Leila and Barnaby were leading Derek away for an aircraft tour. Leaving Nick and me alone. ‘What’s bothering you, Chloe?’ Nick asked, the instant the others were out of earshot. ‘Nothing.’ ‘Turn around and face me.’ I turned. ‘Say “nothing” again.’ ‘Nothing,’ I said, raising a cavalier eyebrow. Nick opened his mouth. Closed it. Shrugged. ‘Okay then. Only a few hours until we land. See you

when we get there.’ And that was it. Really? The guy has sex with me in a public toilet, pockets my underwear, and then doesn’t have the decency to investigate what’s bothering me past one lousy question? It made me remember that completely inadequate phone message. It’s Nick. And then, nothing. Nothing! I blinked as I watched Nick make his way back to his seat, stopping halfway for a chat and a laugh with the well-racked brunette. And as he laughed, he dug his hand into the pocket where my knickers were. My knickers. Without even glancing my way as he did it. What kind of bastard chatted up one girl while his fingers were on another’s expensive pink silk underwear? There had to be a message in that. Yeah – don’t let guys take your underwear, numbskull.

By the time the flight landed at six o’clock that evening, I was a mass of jumping, fragile nerves – but only on the inside. The outside of me was all serene goddess. During the scramble to collect luggage, when the subject of hitching a ride on the crew bus to the hotel was raised, I murmured something vague about making my own way because I had something to do en route. And if Nick dared voice one protest about that after the way he’d ignored me on the flight, I would ice him to death with a look. I waited for him to say something. Ready, eager, to annihilate him. But Nick didn’t even look at me, let alone speak. Right, then. Right. Right! One of the flight attendants suggested a group dinner at a restaurant a block from the hotel. The team, plus Nick, plus Derek – and me, if I could make it. I hedged my bets and made a vague reference to perhaps not being able to get there on time, given ‘that thing’ I had to do. And I figured Nick would surely have something to say about that, given his body parts were supposed to be all over mine right about dinnertime. And yes he did have something to say: that dinner was a great idea. Again, without looking at me. That was it. End result: I stood alone in the taxi line, watching the whole group laughing and chatting as they walked to the crew bus. I saw them board the bus. Saw, through the bus window, Nick take the seat beside Leila. Imagined him feeling my underwear while sitting next to that perfect, if somewhat toothy, girl. And I thought to myself, Well, this genuinely sucks.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Somewhere between the taxi ride and the end of my post-flight shower, I’d convinced myself that I was professionally obligated to attend the group dinner, and that that was the only reason I was going. Of course, that was not the reason I was donning a super short cobalt blue swing dress and towering heels, or opting for a tiny mauve clutch instead of my red-folder-holding briefcase; or layering on enough mulberry eye shadow I resembled an exotically coloured raccoon; or lamenting the lost six inches of my hair while I pinned what was left of it in a sex-me-up mess on top of my head. That part was about getting that bastard Nick Savage to notice me, and regret what he would not be getting after dinner. I approached the restaurant as though I were preparing to sashay down a catwalk, and even knowing that everyone inside would be casually dressed and probably almost finished dinner didn’t deter me from my mission. For all they knew, I’d been delayed by an assignation that made my glamour-girl outfit and overdone make-up de rigeur. I entered the restaurant and paused, feigning confusion over where I should head, despite it being blindingly obvious I belonged with the only non-Filipino group in the place. I wanted Nick to get the full effect of my arrival when he looked over at me. I wanted his eyeballs to leap from their sockets. His jaw to drop. His tongue to roll out of his mouth. Derek saw me, and satisfyingly, there was an eye-pop and what appeared to be a silent whistle that had me preening a little on the inside. I waited a fraction longer, my eyes darting to Nick, who was sitting between Leila and an empty chair. But Nick didn’t look up; he just kept talking to Leila, who didn’t look up either. Disconcerting, but I couldn’t keep standing there, all Mr De Mille, I’m ready for my close up pitiable, so I glided towards the table, blink-blink-breathing, adding an extra swing to my hips. Almost there, come on, Nick, almost there, time to speak up, Nick, almost there, look up now, you rat … But he didn’t so much as twitch an eyelid in my direction, even when I reached the table and stopped. There were two seats free. The one beside Nick and one beside Derek. ‘Here, Chloe,’ Derek said, standing and pulling out the chair beside him. ‘I saved you a seat.’ I hesitated for a tiny moment, waiting for the dolt at the other end of the table to give me the opportunity to turn down the offer of the seat beside him. And at last, Nick looked up. I started to smile in a very superior way – not that Nick noticed, because he was looking past me, smiling in a not-superior-at-all way at someone behind me. ‘Bryce, at last,’ he called past me. ‘Come sit next to me. I want to talk to you about the flight.’ Bryce. He wanted to talk to Bryce, not Chloe. I sat in the chair Derek had saved me, as though there was never any doubt that was exactly where I’d been intending to sit all along, and cast a covert glance at this Bryce, who was striding towards the table. And … yowzer! That’s all I’m saying.

Okay, that’s not all I’m saying. I’m saying that Bryce was tall, dark and handsome. I’m saying he had muscles, but he also had elegance. I’m saying he had hair that waved perfectly over his well-formed head. I’m saying he had style. As Bryce took his seat, Leila leaned across Nick to say, ‘We missed you on the bus.’ ‘Yeah, sorry. I saw a mate from Qantas at the airport and got caught up.’ ‘We’re glad you made it to dinner at least,’ she said. Bryce murmured something about his own gladness, then he was looking around the table, exchanging nods and small talk with all the airline staff. He was reaching for the wine glass Nick had filled for him when he got to me. There was the slightest pause, an appreciative widening of the eyes, a very broad smile. Then, ‘Hi!’ he said, with flattering enthusiasm. Ha! That’s what I was talking about. And – hallelujah! – at last, Nick looked at me. No smile. No hello. Just a complete absence of expression which meant … well, who knew what it meant? ‘Bryce, meet Chloe Masters,’ Nick said, in a voice as expressionless as his face. ‘The journalist who’s doing the story. Chloe, this is Bryce Haynes, who flew us to Manila.’ Be still my heart! Bryce was a pilot? The job that topped the list, year after year, of the most respected jobs in the world? How perfect could a guy get? Bryce smiled at me and I pictured it, pictured us. Aromatic candles in the bedroom. A strewn flower petal or two. Me, wearing a silky peignoir, my hair brushed to perfection and my favourite perfume (which is Chloé in case you’re wondering – I know, it’s borderline piteous; what would I have done if my name was Ernestine?) dabbed behind my ears, between my breasts, and high on the inside of my thighs. Bryce was a guy for whom you strategised your underwear. A guy who would appreciate the strategising. You’d know exactly where your underwear landed when Bryce removed it and tossed it somewhere in the room. Know how to swing your hair just so, even in the throes of passion. He was a guy you could dust off your technique for, choosing the exact moment for using that little tongue twist you’d read about, having the wits to adjust your pelvic floor muscles for maximum control over the pace and timing of his orgasm, using that facial expression you’d practised in front of the mirror for the pinnacle moment. Bryce Haynes was not the kind of guy who’d have you scrabbling around in a toilet cubicle, skipping the foreplay just to go for it, fast. There would be no uncontrolled groans, no strangled breathing, no trampling upon expensive pink silk panties in the rush to impale yourself, no hanging on for dear life, or death, or any state in between as you clawed towards the peak. Derek pushed assorted plates of food towards me and I helped myself to a few morsels, although my appetite wasn’t exactly at its best remembering that toilet scene. A quick glance at the other end of the table showed Bryce declining a similar offering. Like me, he wasn’t here for the food. Then Nick said something to Bryce, and Bryce laughed. An open, joyous, uncomplicated laugh. I strained my ears, channelling out the conversations taking place on either side of me so I could tune into that one very particular conversation. ‘… no danger – and don’t pretend a little turbulence scared you.’ Bryce. ‘Actually, I enjoyed the earlier patch of turbulence. Even though I was stuck in the john.’ Nick, with the most infinitesimal glance down the length of the table – making me choke on my wine. ‘That was the worst of it,’ Bryce said, thankfully clueless. ‘The flight was smooth as silk otherwise.’ ‘Silk, huh,’ Nick mused, and looked at me again as his hand dipped under the table. Oh. My. God. He had his hand in his pocket with my panties. A moment later, Nick’s hand was back up, flat against his heart, and my own heart was jumping around in my chest like a flailing fish, because I was remembering him holding my hand there like that when he told me I’d be safe. Bryce was talking, but all I could hear was my pulse whooshing in my ears as that word ran through my head. Safe. Somehow that word was connected with exactly that sight. Of Nick’s hand on his heart.

Like a promise. Cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die. Then Nick removed his hand from his chest and reached for his wine, and I could concentrate again. He turned to Bryce. ‘I was checking our in-flight progress on the IFE system. It’s not my imagination is it, that we that we diverted in that last hour? Because it looked like we were off plan, tracking to the west, and descended to a non RVSM Flight Level.’ Um … hello? Bryce gave Nick a playful punch on the shoulder. ‘Yeah, but no biggie, tech-head.’ ‘What happened?’ Nick asked. ‘Mount Apo near Davao erupted and we had to divert to avoid a volcanic ash plume.’ ‘That explains the diversion upwind with the prevailing westerly winds. Is there any danger – for us, I mean?’ Bryce shrugged. ‘Only if the orphanage were within twenty kilometres of the volcano, which it’s not, so we’re good.’ ‘It seemed a rather big dog leg. Any problems with ATC and crossing airways?’ ‘It helped that ATC gave us descent to a nonstandard RVSM Flight Level.’ ‘I hope our TCAS was working!’ Bryce laughed. ‘We’re here, aren’t we?’ More incomprehensible discussion followed about flight paths, as I tried to come to terms with the fact that Nick not only understood pilot talk, but could also speak it. As in – who in the name of all that’s holy knew? Nick, talking like a pilot? Nick? I couldn’t quite reconcile that side of Nick with the side of him that had said, I want you to imagine what I’m going to do to you in Manila tonight, when we have a bed at our disposal, and I can use my tongue on you. And somehow, Nick using his pilot-talking tongue on me was a little too easy to visualise. Me clutching at the cool sheet as Nick slid down my body, his tongue tracing a line right down the middle of me, past my belly button. Whispering to me in between kisses, You’re it, Chloe. I want you, want you, want you, only you. And then … arriving. That first hot lick, and I would be screaming … I caught myself halfway to hyperventilation and shifted on my seat to try to ease the humming ache between my thighs. As I forced myself back to reality, I found Bryce looking at me expectantly. I gave him an ‘oops’ smile. ‘Sorry, I missed that.’ ‘I was asking if you were planning on being here for the whole week,’ Bryce said, pushing at his hair, which had flopped sexily across one eye. ‘That depends,’ I said. ‘You mean, if we wrap it up early you’ll head home?’ ‘Something like that.’ ‘Then let’s hope we don’t wrap up early,’ Bryce said. He smiled, and raised his glass as if toasting me, and I decided to supplant Nick with Bryce in that hot little fantasy I’d been having. Bryce, a real pilot, with hair long enough for you to actually grab onto, sliding his tongue … His tongue … His … Ah, dammit! The picture wouldn’t form. Maybe it needed … needed … Flower petals. Roses. Red rose petals, the colour of passion. And … and those candles – vanilla, perhaps – surrounding the bed. But before the image would form, Nick was throwing a bundle of notes down and pushing back from the table, and then everyone was standing, gathering their things. As we all left the restaurant, I maneuvered myself closer to Bryce. He smelled like sandalwood. I loved sandalwood. So, a quick re-set of the bedroom in my mind … Crisp white sheets – check. Rose petals – check. Sandalwood candles instead of vanilla – check. Bryce between my thighs, looking up at me through that lock of silky-soft hair … I imagined … imagined … Salt – that’s what I could smell. Spiky hair – that’s what I could feel. And black eyes, shooting

sparks, that’s what I could see. And no freaking rose petals, that’s for sure. Just clothes in disarray and skin and straining muscles. Clearly, something had gone seriously wrong inside my head. We reached the hotel, and almost immediately Bryce disappeared, pleading fatigue, and I was too annoyed with my disordered brain to care about that. But when I realised Nick had also disappeared, a red haze started to form before my eyes. When I got to my room, it occurred to me that I had probably already been Ruby-fied. Traded in for a new model. A flight attendant model. The brunette with the boobs? Leila of the too-white smile? One of the others? All of the others, together, orgy-style? My hands were so tightly fisted at that thought, there was a risk I’d have to break a finger to unclench them. Or perhaps I could just go to Nick’s room and loosen them up by punching him. I envisaged myself knocking on his door. Him opening it, shirt off, hastily donned jeans slipping down his hips. And behind him, an assortment of naked, tousled flight attendants lounging on the bed. And, although I am not proud of this, I actually screamed before I could stop myself. I ripped the carefully placed pins out of my hair, scrubbed off my make-up, set up my laptop on the desk, connected to WiFi, typed Bryce Haynes, First Officer, AustralAir, into the search engine, and hit the return key. When I’d finished searching for Bryce, maybe I’d see what I could find out about the Vibrating Rock Chick. They might be available in Manila, mightn’t they? Not for my own personal use. But to shove up Nick’s – Knock. Once. Hard.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Well, wasn’t that just great? My careful make-up had been demolished, my fancy underwear was stowed away, I was wearing the hotel’s unsexy white terry towelling robe, and I had no Vibrating Rock Chick shaped object to hand. But I was getting ahead of myself. Just because that was the most macho door knock in the world didn’t mean it was Nick. And if it was Nick? Well, I didn’t care what I looked like. In fact, it was much better for him to see that I was not all dolled up and waiting for him, ready to open my arms and legs. On that note, I wiped my palms (which had decided, inconveniently, to sweat) on my robe, took a deep breath, layered on a veneer of unconcern, and walked regally over to the door – which I opened cautiously, while cleverly knuckling one eye as though I’d just woken up. Yep. Nick. Smiling. And swinging my pink silk panties from a fingertip! I gave up the sleepy nonchalance act in a heartbeat, grabbed my panties, cast a harried look up and down the corridor, yanked Nick into the room and slammed the door. He looked me up and down, his way-too-satisfied smile slowly fading. ‘You thought I wasn’t coming.’ ‘I assumed you weren’t.’ ‘Why would you assume that?’ ‘Hmmm, let’s see. How about we start with your attitude towards me at dinner tonight?’ And although my voice was super cool, I could feel my temper about to rampage through my eyeballs. ‘My attitude?’ ‘On second thoughts, let’s expand the timeframe to twelve hours ago. Which was about when we exited that disgusting toilet.’ He raised startled eyebrows. ‘Disgusting?’ ‘You’ve barely looked at me, barely said a word to me ever since that … that … thing.’ ‘That thing?’ ‘Stop repeating what I say.’ ‘I will, as soon as you start making sense.’ ‘I’m making perfect sense.’ ‘What attitude did you want me to have?’ ‘One that didn’t make me feel like a cast off groupie!’ ‘Then stop acting like one.’ ‘Stop –’ Choke – I’m not kidding, I really made a loud choke sound. I was practically incandescent with rage, cool be damned. ‘Stop acting like one?’ ‘Uh oh, repeating. Isn’t that a no-no, Chloe?’ I looked down at my hand, now fisted around those pink silk panties that I never wanted to see again. With a low growl, I stalked over to the desk where my laptop was and threw the panties into the

bin underneath. ‘If I’d known you were going to throw them out,’ Nick said mildly, ‘I would have held on to those.’ ‘You did quite enough holding on to those!’ He had the nerve to splutter out a laugh. ‘What?’ ‘I didn’t expect you to – To – To finger them while you were chatting up other women.’ ‘I wasn’t chatting up other women.’ ‘Ha!’ ‘Just ask me what was going through my mind when I was talking to those other women, Chloe, and I’ll tell you.’ ‘Words are cheap.’ ‘You’re right, they are. Come here and let me finger the underwear you’ve got on instead and I’ll show you what I was thinking.’ ‘I’m not wearing –’ Stop, with a snap of teeth. ‘Not?’ His eyes lit. ‘Really?’ Blink, blink, breathe. ‘Regardless, you won’t be getting within a kilometre of anymore of my underwear. Maybe you should dig those panties out of the bin. A souvenir. To go with the trunkful you already have stashed at your place to remind you of all your one night stands.’ ‘I don’t keep souvenirs of one night stands.’ ‘Then by all means, pull my underwear out of the bin and start your collection.’ ‘We’re not having a one night stand, Chloe, so your underwear can’t be the start of that collection, can it?’ ‘That’s right, it was daylight. A one-day-stand is what we had. A five-minute stand!’ He strode over to me, his own temper starting to climb. ‘You just love misinterpreting me. Why don’t you just come out and ask me about the difference between you and all those other women? Aren’t you interested in what was going through my head when I had my hand in my pocket with that pretty pink silk? Because I’ll tell you.’ My heart started beating wildly, warning me that I did not want to know. ‘I’m not interested enough in you to … to interpret you.’ ‘Then I’ll make this bit nice and clear, so you won’t have to. My so-called attitude was about giving you what you asked for. Confidentiality. Nobody knowing what we’d done. What I wanted to do again the minute we’d finished. That meant I dared not look at you for more than a second at a time, let alone get too close to you, because what I wanted to do to you would have been obvious to anyone with eyes in their goddamn head. And tonight? Well, you see, Chloe, I didn’t really think you’d want me to drag you on top of the table and fuck your brains out in front of ten other people. But you sure as hell didn’t make it easy. The dress, the hair, the heels. They were all for me, weren’t they? A little bit of torture? Well, I’m not into games, not at this point, when it’s patently obvious how I feel about you, so just straight out tell me what you want. Do you want to ditch the confidentiality bullshit? Because I’ll go public right now. I’ll lay claim to you every time I’m within touching distance, and I’ll talk about you every moment I’m not so every other woman knows she’s wasting her time. Then you won’t have to wonder and neither will anyone else. How about that? Just say the word and it’s done.’ If I’d thought my heart was beating wildly before, it was a full-on castanet club in there now, ricocheting off my rib cage. Something about what he said was taking hold, a dark demon, daring me to demand that he lay claim to me right that second. Madness. Absolute madness. That’s what I could see in his eyes – a madness to match mine. ‘No,’ I said, but it came out weak and thready. He grabbed me by the upper arms. ‘Come on, Chloe. You did it with him, all above board and out in the open. Why not with me? Why not me?’

‘Him?’ ‘Marcus.’ Marcus. His name bounced into my head and stuck there. Reminding me of just why this thing with Nick needed to stay secret. I tore myself free. ‘I don’t want a second break-up with a footballer in the news a week from now, making me look like some tragic groupie screwing her way through the whole team.’ ‘Easily fixed. Don’t break up.’ ‘It’s too late. Our joint statement was issued to the media four hours into the flight from Sydney. I’ve already no-commented fifteen times.’ ‘I’m not talking about Marcus. I’m talking about –’ He broke off with an incoherent curse. ‘Jesus, Chloe. Me. I’m talking about me. You and me. Don’t break up with me.’ I laughed … until I saw the grim set of his mouth – and the laughter dried up. ‘You can’t be serious.’ ‘Can’t I? Why not? Explain the difference to me. Help me figure out what it was about Marcus that kept you with him all nice and public for a year, while I get eight days in the shadows.’ ‘I … I … It was … He’s … Look, he’s just different. From you, I mean.’ ‘Oh, he’s different all right. But what way do you mean? Smarter? Richer? Better job prospects after football?’ ‘No!’ I burst out. And then, more controlled. ‘No.’ I shrugged awkwardly, because I couldn’t explain it. ‘Look, this really has nothing to do with Marcus.’ ‘It has everything to do with Marcus. The whole key to you is why you chose him, and why you stayed.’ ‘That’s ridiculous.’ ‘Because you could control him?’ he asked. ‘Is that why?’ ‘If I could control him, we’d still be together, because I sure as hell didn’t want to break up with him,’ I snapped. ‘I just had to, because of you.’ He hadn’t taken his eyes off me for a second. I don’t think he’d even blinked. And I couldn’t bear it for another second, so I turned away, fiddling with the belt of my robe. ‘No,’ Nick said slowly. ‘It wasn’t about controlling him. It was about controlling yourself. You could control yourself with him, and he could control himself with you. That made everything smooth and even and calm and nice.’ He laughed. One short hoot of it. ‘Must have been dynamite in the bedroom.’ ‘You don’t know a damn thing about me and Marcus. About me, period.’ He spun me to face him. ‘I know you can’t control yourself with me. And I know I’m sure as shit hanging on to my own control by a thread whenever I’m around you. Scary, right? Except that I’m not scared.’ ‘That’s not –. That’s –’ Nope, couldn’t get another word to form. ‘It won’t ever be smooth and even and calm and nice with me,’ he said. ‘Because I take you way out of your comfort zone. I want to take you there, Chloe, but I’m not going to drag you. You have to want it the way I do.’ ‘Well I don’t want it the way you do.’ ‘Prove it. Kiss me. Try to control it. If you can, I’ll walk out the door and you’ll be free of me.’ ‘You keep daring me. Giving me ultimatums. Just … just stop it!’ ‘I’m not going to stop until we have the final answer. I’ll keep hunting you until you prove to me you don’t want me every bit as ferociously as I want you. That’s why you have to choose – so we both know.’ ‘All right, I’ll prove it,’ I cried, unable to take the intensity for another second. ‘I’ll kiss you, and I’ll control it, and then we’ll say goodbye.’ ‘What was that about words being cheap? Try some action, Chloe.’ Swallowing, I closed my eyes, tipped my chin up, and waited.

He laughed in that soft, amused way he had that made me want to punch him. ‘I thought you wanted to control it,’ he said. ‘That means you kiss me. Open your eyes.’ I opened them. ‘Before you do this, know that I’m not Marcus. Once we start, there will be nothing nice about the way I touch you.’ ‘Yes, yes, yes. Words are cheap, remember?’ And as he laughed, I grabbed his T-shirt, used it to drag myself onto my toes, and put my mouth on his. Three seconds, I figured. My mouth on his for three seconds, and we would be saying goodbye and I could stop this torture and get back to my internet search of Bryce Haynes. One, two, three, I counted in my head, and drew back, a whisper away. Let go, my brain told my hands, but my hands were clinging like talons and refused to obey. I could feel his heart banging like a drum, hard and fast. My heels wouldn’t drop to the floor, so I was still on my toes, my mouth hovering near his. I could smell him, feel him. His eyes were boring into mine, hot as hell. Something was niggling at me. Creeping, sneaking into me. A thought, a knowledge, a feeling. And then the word for all of that slid into my consciousness – safe. ‘Nick,’ I whispered. ‘Don’t be scared,’ he whispered back. ‘Just do it. Take it. Anything. Anything.’ And before the last syllable was out of his mouth, my mouth crashed against his and I went wild. I plastered myself against his chest, throwing my arms around him. I swear I would have climbed right up his body if I could have. And he would have been just fine with that. He would accommodate whatever I wanted. He’d said as much, he’d shown me so. Long panting moments as I thrust my tongue into his mouth, out, in, out, in. I could feel the drenching moisture between my thighs. Hot. Hot, hot, so hot. God I had to have him or I really thought I would die. A clash of teeth, and I tasted blood and did not freaking care as long as our mouths were together. I was gasping, trying to get closer, closer. And he just stood there and let me, holding me, holding on, shifting only to make it easier for me to touch him any way I wanted to. And then the shaking started, and I was desperate, arching, pushing against his erection, needing to have it there, just there. I’d never felt like this. Consumed with so much lust, my legs started to give out. ‘Nick, I need … I need …’ But I couldn’t seem to complete a thought, let alone a sentence. All I knew was that I wanted him the way he said I could have him, any time I liked, all over me, and I loved, loved the strength of him that kept me upright even when I thought I would collapse at his feet. ‘Something. I need something,’ I breathed against his mouth, and then I kissed him again, long and hard. ‘Tell me, help me. I need …’ And something about my stupid garbled words must have made sense to him, because the next moment, he took over, and I was facing away from him, and he was behind me, propelling me forward until we were at the bed. I tried to turn so I could land on the bed face up, because it was clear he was about to push me down and come down on top of me. I was anticipating the weight of him pressing me into the mattress, longing for it, already preparing to spread my legs to make it easier for him. But he stopped me again. He leaned in close, pulled my hair to one side, out of his way. He licked my neck. One long, hard stroke of his tongue. ‘Want me to stop?’ he asked. I shook my head, whimpered. No, I didn’t want him to stop. ‘Then say it,’ he said. ‘I need the words, Chloe.’ I closed my eyes, shuddering as he licked again. ‘Don’t stop. Please don’t.’ His mouth was at my ear. I could hear him breathing. Choppy, dragged in, gasped out breaths. All over the place. ‘Nick …?’ And my voice was as shaky as the rest of me. ‘Now what?’ ‘Shhh. Hear what you do to me. I can’t control my breathing, Chloe. Or my heartbeat. Or these

tremors. Can you feel them? Yes, you can, I know you can. Because I want to be inside you so badly.’ ‘Yes, yes, please.’ ‘So you know what?’ ‘What?’ I asked breathless. ‘I’m going to take you just like this, because I can’t wait. I can’t control the way I need you. And I know, I know you want me the same way. Say it. Say you need me.’ ‘Nick,’ I said, and it was an entreaty, pure and simple. He bit the side of my neck, licked there, sucked. ‘Do you need me, Chloe?’ ‘Yes, yes,’ I said, surrendering. ‘I need you.’ And with that, he pushed me onto the bed, face first, and came down on top of me. I could feel him, all heavy muscle, the massive erection straining against my bottom. It was a little bit like the aircraft toilet all over again. His jeans being shoved down, my clothes – in this case, the terry towelling robe – being jerked up. A curse as he grabbed a condom from his pocket – a few condoms, because a couple landed on the mattress near my head – not exactly strewn rose petals! Then came the sound of the condom wrapper tearing. And then he was pushing inside me, so big it should have hurt … and yet it felt just right. And this time, I couldn’t control the pressure or the leverage, so he was free to pull all the way out, before plunging all the way in, hitting that exact spot, over and over, until I was coming. I found myself panting out his name, then screaming it – and as if that was a cue, I felt him jerk inside me, once more, again – and he was coming, coming, coming, so hard and strong, groaning my name. And then … silence. Except for our harsh breathing, gradually slowing. Nick rolled off me, onto his back. I lay there on my stomach, shell-shocked, face turned away from him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and sighed. I felt the bed dip as he rolled towards me. ‘That’s not exactly how I thought tonight would go. Not how I wanted it to be.’ I eased onto my side, facing him. ‘Me neither,’ I said, and my voice wobbled slightly. ‘Oh God, I didn’t hurt you, did I? Chloe?’ I shook my head, reached out, touched his lip. ‘Other way round. I’m sorry.’ ‘What?’ ‘I bit your lip.’ ‘I don’t care, Chloe. I told you, you can do anything you damn well want.’ He pulled my robe down roughly, covering me. ‘Chloe?’ he said. Or maybe asked. It was the first time I’d ever heard him uncertain. ‘Will you let me try again?’ I wanted to say something, but my throat had closed over. I had never come with such strength in my life. Never had sex like it – with no concept of how I’d looked, what I’d said, the way I’d moved. I’m telling you, I’m all about technique, so it was quite a jolt – and don’t get me started on the sweat quotient, which I hadn’t given a thought to! Try to control it. If you can, I’ll walk out the door and you’ll be free of me. It was pretty damn obvious what had just happened had been out of control – for both of us. And yet, he was giving me an out. I had a sudden insight that he was always, always, going to give me an out. It was always, always, going to be up to me. Just like everything had been, up to this point. However aggressively he lobbed the ball into my court, it was up to me how, when, if, I returned it. And somehow, that sudden, inexplicable truth changed everything and made this choice at least, easy, so I said, very simply, ‘Yes.’ He kissed me. Long, slow, sweet. And everything in me stirred, leapt again. ‘Wait,’ he said, as I grabbed for him. ‘I don’t want to wait.’

‘Please, Chloe, let me do it right, just this once. After that, you can crash and burn all over me, I promise.’ He touched my face, and my throat closed over again so that all I could do was nod. Nick got up from the bed and strode towards the bathroom, peeling off the condom as he went and somehow managing to toe off his shoes and kick them backwards, towards the bed, at the same time. I guessed that was experience on display, the ability to do all three things at once. I was very certain Nick’s sexual repertoire was more sophisticated than anything I’d ever experienced. That he’d had sex in more ways than I’d ever dreamed of. In more beds, more places, with more partners, in various states of dress and undress, at all hours of the day and night. By comparison, I was … well, not a Vibrating Rock Chick! There, I’d admitted it. Drew and Evie were right: I didn’t like to sweat. And Nick was right, too: I liked to control myself. I didn’t like the vulnerability of losing myself in lust. Given all that, and the obvious disparity in our skill levels, I was pretty sure Nick would be very ready to move on when our time in Manila was at an end. Which was good. It was … manageable, knowing you were only going to be out of control for a finite period. Which I know doesn’t make a lot of sense, controlling your lack of control, but that’s how I rationalised the violent need in me. Nick came back into the room, reefing his T-shirt over his head. He threw it on his way to the bed without bothering to look where it landed. His jeans and underwear, which had been shoved down just far enough to free himself for that first bout of sex, were pushed off next. He was erect again, which was verging on miraculous, if you asked me. Every part of him was huge and perfect and my fingers were itching to touch him. Naked, he came to me, knelt on the bed beside me, untied the sash of my robe and pushed the two halves open. ‘Jesus, Chloe,’ he said, and his voice was thick and hoarse, ‘I think I could come just from looking at you. But that’s not going to repair my reputation.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I didn’t exactly cover myself in glory tonight. But I’ll do better this time.’ ‘What are your first aid skills like?’ I asked, only half joking, ‘Because if you do much better, I’ll probably have a stroke.’ Laughing, he lifted me up, kissed me as he eased the robe all the way off me. He adjusted the bedclothes beneath me, so that I was laid out on the clean white surface of the sheet. When he positioned my arms and legs, spreading them, I felt like a sacrificial lamb. The wonder of it was that I was perfectly happy to be one. He positioned himself next, kneeling between my thighs, nudging them even further apart to accommodate his massive thighs. And okay, forget the sacrificial lamb – the way he was looking at me made me feel like a dessert buffet. He looked at me for so long, so hungrily, I thought I was going to lose it and actually touch myself! And I certainly didn’t need any more self-gratification in my life! ‘Nick, if you don’t touch me soon …’ I couldn’t believe that was actually my voice, it was so unsteady. ‘Oh, I’m going to touch you, sweetheart. I’m going to touch you with everything I have in me.’ And then he reached between my legs and circled my clitoris with the tip of one finger. Once, twice, again, and just when I thought I would have to grab his hand and drag it hard against me, he edged backwards, lifted my hips, lowered his head, and used his tongue to circle there instead. ‘G-o-o-o-o-d,’ I said, writhing on the bed like a madwoman and clutching the sheet so hard I wondered if I was going to rip it. Shocking, that he could make me so wild, so fast. He stopped, lowered my hips, and looked up at me, eyes hot like coals. ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘I want all of you in my mouth at once. But let’s start … like … this,’ he said and drew me up again to kiss my mouth. ‘You taste so good,’ he breathed against my lips. ‘Can you taste yourself? Having both tastes in

my mouth is driving me insane. I am going to make you so wet … and then I’m going to suck you dry.’ If making me wet was his aim, he was off to a rollicking start. Nobody had ever, ever spoken to me like that and I was scandalised, but I freaking loved it. And then the whirlwind started. Somehow, he was kissing my mouth, and using his thigh – his thigh! – against the core of me, and brushing his chest hair just so against my nipples, all at the same time. How did he know how crazy that would make me? ‘Touch me harder,’ I urged, as I undulated against him, longing for the ache in my nipples, the throb between my knees, to be eased. He kissed me so hard I couldn’t breathe, I didn’t want to, and then I did some desperate kind of shimmy against his chest – seriously, I did not do that kind of stuff, ever – and he gasped, his mouth sliding off mine. ‘God, yes,’ he said. ‘Keep going, Chloe, keep going … and know that I am going to suck those tight nipples of yours until you’re begging me.’ Could he get any hotter? Because I was at begging stage already. ‘I want to suck you too,’ I said, and reached down to take that superb hard-on of his into my hand. He gasped, then groaned, and seemed to grow even harder It felt so good to run my hand up and down the length of him, a little disjointed in my unfocused passion, I didn’t want to stop. Didn’t ever want to stop. ‘Chloe, wait,’ he said. ‘Don’t you like it?’ ‘Are you nuts? I love it,’ he said on a shaky laugh. ‘Everything you do is right for me. Everything. But I won’t last if you touch me for even one more moment. And remember, this one is for me. You do whatever you want next time.’ And suddenly, I was flat on my back on the bed again, and he was straddling me. The look of concentration on his face as his hands reached for my breasts was an aphrodisiac; I’d never before had someone so completely focused on just the sight of me. And then, using the tips of his fingers, Nick started circling my areolae, circling, circling until they were so swollen, my nipples so tight with need, I was whimpering. ‘Do you have any idea how many times I’ve imagined touching you like this?’ he asked, and his voice was hoarse. Yes. No. Shut up. Who cares? Just do it! ‘So now I’m going to do it right,’ he said, and his fingertips were at my nipples now, tiny, tiny circles over the top, the pleasure so intense my hips started rolling up against him. He lowered his head, and his mouth replaced his fingers at one of my breasts, sucking the nipple deep into his mouth, while his fingers kept up that almost unbearably erotic touch at my other nipple. My legs were wrapped around his hips, trying to drag him into my wetness, desperate to come. One hard lick of my nipple and he raised his head to look at me. ‘You’re not making it easy,’ he said. I tightened my legs around his hips, and he groaned, bucking helplessly against me. And yet he still managed to keep himself in check, swapping his mouth to my other breast, fingers pinching my freed nipple, rolling it. ‘Touch me here,’ I said, and thrust against him. But he just kept up the incessant pressure at my breasts, until my nipples were so engorged, so hard, it was almost painful. ‘Nick, I’ll die if you don’t.’ He laughed, low in his throat. ‘Okay,’ he said, and started his descent, kissing his way down my body. Down, down, down, until he was between my legs. He slid his fingers along the creases on the insides of my thighs. ‘Open wide for me,’ he said – and I did, although it was hard to do it when I wanted to squeeze him with my thighs to keep him there and urge him on, urge him in. And then he adjusted his position so that his head was perfectly positioned. His mouth, God, his mouth, just there. He held still for the longest, breathe-you-in moment – and then he swooped. One lush

lick, and then he put his lips around my clitoris and sucked. Bam! Two seconds, that was all it took for the orgasm to slam into me. It was like the speed dating of orgasms. Before I’d recovered, his mouth was working me again, sucking with more pressure, tongue flicking, fingers against my slippery folds. I clutched at his head, dragging him in as soft, desperate, keening cries that I could not stop burst from my lips, because it was rolling around again. ‘I can’t,’ I gasped out. ‘No more.’ ‘You can,’ he said, and suckled gently. ‘Please, Nick, I need you inside me,’ I begged. ‘Soon,’ he promised, and licked me harder, faster – and I was coming again. In. Credible. His mouth kept going at me while he was fumbling around in the bedclothes. Condom, I realised. Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, get it on. Yes! He’d found it, done it, ready to go. A moment later he slid up my body, kissed my mouth again, and with an almost brutal thrust, he was inside me. Shoving himself inside me. ‘You make me crazy,’ he breathed into my mouth. ‘Crazy, crazy, crazy. I want you to come again. I want to make you come harder than you’ve ever come. Better than ever.’ ‘Then do it, damn you, just do it!’ I panted against his mouth, and he laughed and groaned and pushed so hard into me the bed jumped backwards and hit the wall. Time stood still. That’s what it felt like. My own harsh breaths tearing around the room. His too. Rough hands gripping my thighs, pushing them wide, wider and upwards so he could go deeper, mouth attacking mine. ‘Tell me when,’ he demanded. ‘Tell me when, Chloe.’ ‘Now,’ I said as the orgasm tore through me and it felt like firecrackers in my blood, exploding, scorching. One more demented push, and everything in him tensed. His mouth slid over mine – any pretence at finesse gone – and a savage cry ripped out of him. Long, long moments later, he raised his head and looked into my still-startled eyes. There were no words. He peeled off the condom, peered over the side of the bed and dropped it, with a laugh. I scrambled over him to see what he’d done and saw that he’d dropped it into his shoe. (Can you believe that I was not grossed out by that?) ‘Not leaving this bed,’ he said simply, and then rearranged us, so I was lying close to him, my back to his chest. He nuzzled his face into my neck, moving one hand down my belly until it was resting over my pubic mound. Talk about grasping the prize! It was too much. Too … intimate. The sex was over. He should be getting out of bed, depositing the condom in a proper receptacle, the way a normal human being would, then getting dressed and going back to his own room. I tried to edge away as an encouragement for him to get moving, but Nick tightened his hold. ‘Stay there, Chloe. Just … please, stay there.’ He breathed in, long and slow and deep. Then out. ‘Ah, Chloe.’ I stilled, a gargantuan lump in my throat forming from those two little words. Ah, Chloe. Because they sounded sad enough to break a heart. I felt a soft kiss just below my ear, and then he breathed deeply again, like he was breathing me in. Ah, Chloe. Echoing in my head. I wanted to turn completely into him, and kiss him, and wrap him in my arms. Not because I needed it, but because he did. ‘Night,’ he said. And within moments, he was asleep. Three times during the night I tried to roll free of his embrace. Three times, in his sleep, he stopped me, one arm snuggling me even closer, the other shifting so that his hand was actually buried between my legs. Remarkably, his fingers were stroking me – and he wasn’t even awake.

At that point I gave up. Partly because I was enjoying the feel of him behind me, so big and close. Partly because the touch of his fingers sliding lazily back and forth was so bloody fantastic – sexy as hell, but also strangely comforting. Partly because I thought one more attempt to ease free might actually result in his fingers slipping right inside me – and it was disturbing how much I wanted the … the claim of that. Because it did feel like he was claiming me. Or at least, his body was claiming mine. I wondered if he slept this way with all those other women he’d had sex with. Wrapped around them. Keeping them cocooned. Keeping them safe. Ah, Chloe … Ah, Amanda. Ah, Sheila. Ah, Constance, Beth, Samantha, Jess, Ruby … I was surprised to find my fists clenching at that idea. I didn’t like it. Did not like it one bit. And the fact that I didn’t like it? Well, I liked that even less. The whole situation was out of control. I should be running for the exit. Not snuggling back, closer to Nick, running my fingers along the arm that was holding me. Tomorrow. I’d get it all back under control tomorrow. Ah, Chloe …

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I woke to Nick kissing the back of my neck. For one delicious moment, I relaxed against him, my whole body sighing, luxuriating in his closeness. And then I remembered that Ah, Chloe, and stiffened. It was ‘tomorrow’. Time to get back under control. ‘You shouldn’t be doing that,’ I said. He kissed my neck again. ‘Why not?’ ‘Because it’s not what we’re about.’ I waited for what he would say, holding my breath. I felt him tense, but he didn’t release me. ‘What are we about, Chloe?’ ‘You know what,’ I said. ‘Sex, for seven more days. Just … sex.’ Pause. ‘Right?’ I felt the stillness that came into him. Felt his chest expand as he finally took in a breath. His breath against my neck on the hard exhale. And then, ‘Okay, just sex, coming right up,’ he said – and before I could count another heartbeat, he’d sheathed himself inside me from behind. ‘So can I kiss you now, Chloe, since we’re having sex?’ And he moved my hair, bent my head forward, and first kissed, then sucked, the back of my neck. Suck, suck, suck, in time with his slow, voluptuous thrusts. He lifted my leg, pulled it back over his thigh, which made the fit of us even tighter than normal, as well as opening me for his fingers, which went inexorably to the spot, rubbing and pinching. ‘Say my name,’ he said, low and fierce in my ear. ‘Nick.’ Panting. ‘Nick.’ And this time, the orgasm crept up on me, sighed out of me, on a long, sweet, ‘Ohhhh.’ His choppy breaths told me he was close, so I tightened around him, urging him wordlessly on. I wanted to feel the power of being the cause, the reason, the one to do this to him. Needing to touch him, I reached my hands up and back to hold the back of his head, arching my back so he could slip more deeply in to me. I heard that hitch in his breath. Recognised it. Smiled. He was on the verge, about to come. Mine … he was mine … just for this moment … And then a groan, his arms tightening enough to hurt. Freeze. Breath, breath, desperate breath. And then, ‘Fuck this. Fuck it.’ And pulled out of me every bit as suddenly as he’d thrust into me. Huh? I rolled to face him, reaching spontaneously for him. But he’d thrown himself off the bed and was racing to the bathroom, a string of curses hanging in the air behind him. What the …? I scrambled off the bed and followed him into the bathroom. He was leaning a forearm against the wall as he hunched over the toilet. ‘Nick?’ He had to have heard me, but he didn’t turn. I could see his arm working. One, two, three – and then he groaned, then cursed again, low and fluent. I just stood there, stunned. ‘Control, Chloe,’ he said, and looked at me, darkly unhappy. ‘I wasn’t wearing a condom. You didn’t even notice.’

‘But I could have –’ ‘What?’ he said, cutting me off. ‘Given me a hand job? I can do that for myself – as you see.’ He went back into the bedroom, me trailing after him, and looked around for his jeans. As he swooped on them and yanked them on, I reached for my robe, slipped into it and belted it extra tight. For the first time since I’d let Nick into my room last night, I thought about how I looked. Longed for a hairbrush, lip gloss, mascara. Not that Nick was looking at me. He was reaching for his T-shirt, which had landed on top of my open laptop. And then he stopped. With his T-shirt in one hand, he looked at the computer screen, which had jumped to life. He leaned down so he was closer, eyes narrowing, hardening. My heart frog-jumped into my throat and stuck there. I knew what he was seeing. Images for Bryce Haynes Bryce Haynes – Twitter Bryce Haynes – Do-It-Right team Bryce Haynes – LinkedIn Bryce Haynes – Australian & International Pilots Association He looked at me, T-shirt still clutched in his hand. ‘What’s that about?’ Big, nervous swallow. ‘Just … research.’ ‘For the story?’ I wanted to say ‘yes’ but I couldn’t force the lie out. ‘Not for the story,’ he said, deciphering my silence. ‘Well, Chloe, if you’ve got questions, I’ve got answers, so come on. Ask.’ ‘I – I don’t. Have questions, I mean.’ ‘No? Don’t want to know how old he is? Twenty-nine, is the answer. Four whole years older than me. Is that a better fit for you?’ ‘That’s not –’ ‘Single? Yes. Never been married. Recent break up after a long-term relationship, just like you, so you’ll have lots to talk about. But he’s looking for love, not a short-term sex deal, so you’ll need to think about whether you can go there. Oh, wait! You can go there, with him, can’t you? Because he doesn’t know Marcus, you won’t have to explain him to Marcus, and you won’t feel like a groupie trading players, so that makes it okay.’ ‘I don’t –’ ‘Height – five feet eleven inches. Four manageable inches shorter than me.’ ‘Look, I –’ ‘Salary – not as good as mine. But not shabby. And of course, it will climb when he makes Captain, whereas my career has a short lifespan.’ ‘I don’t care about money.’ ‘Sure you do,’ Nick sneered. ‘I’ll bet it’s on a checklist somewhere.’ That seemed to strike him as funny, because he laughed. ‘No wonder you were defending Ruby that night.’ ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ ‘Ruby’s guide has a name – the WAG guide. What’s yours called?’ ‘I don’t have –’ ‘I’ll bet it’s full of little boxes to tick. Looks, personality traits, job. Controllability. Bryce ticks a lot of those boxes. Nice and friendly and steady and respectable. Not dissimilar to Marcus in temperament. Fine, upstanding, responsible, charity-minded. The kind of guy anyone would choose.’ ‘I don’t want to talk about Marcus.’ ‘Of course you don’t, because then you might have to face the fact that you had everything you

wanted in him, but you kissed me. You kissed me the way I always knew you would, like I was the one you’d been waiting for.’ He took a breath, keeping his eyes on me. ‘Or maybe it was just that after a year of having your perfect man in your bed, you needed a little excitement. And now, having been well and truly fucked by yours truly you can – Whoa!’ As he caught my swinging hand. ‘Animal,’ I spat. ‘I’m going to have to buy you a thesaurus. A little variation wouldn’t go astray. Beast, pig, bastard.’ ‘All of the above.’ ‘Yes, all of the above.’ He jerked me in, laid my hand flat against his heart and held it there. ‘So the choice should be easy for you.’ ‘What choice?’ I asked, quailing at whatever it was I’d unwittingly unleashed. ‘Marcus – if you can get him back, that is – or me?’ Nick jerked his thumb at the computer screen. ‘Or First Officer Haynes. If it’s Bryce you want, it’s just as well we kept things nice and confidential. He’s not an animalistic bastard pig of a beast like me. He won’t risk losing a friend just to touch a woman. And he certainly won’t risk losing a brother.’ Another jaw drop. ‘Bryce Haynes is your brother?’ ‘Give the girl a cigar.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Bryce Haynes. Nick Savage. ‘No,’ I said. ‘He can’t be your brother. You have different surnames.’ ‘Ah, well you see, Bryce was the good brother, and got adopted. I was the bad brother, and didn’t.’ One sudden lurch of my heart as I lowered myself to the edge of the bed. ‘You were orphans?’ ‘Definitely a cigar for you, clever girl.’ I sat there, staring at him, trying to make sense of things. Not that there was really anything to make sense of. Nick was an orphan. It was a fact. No deciphering, no interpreting, required. Nick was an orphan. ‘Pilot … brother,’ I said – sounding like a moron, but the synapses in my brain weren’t exactly firing. ‘That’s how you knew the pilot talk.’ I raised my eyes. ‘At dinner. Because he’s your brother.’ ‘I know the pilot talk because I was going to be one.’ Staring. It was all I could do. ‘Somehow I don’t think it’s a compliment that you’re surprised,’ he said dryly. ‘What’s the matter, Chloe? Don’t you think I’m smart enough? According to my aptitude test, I am. I just wasn’t rich enough back then. You see, while Bryce’s parents were paying for his training, I was washing planes out at a little dump of an aerodrome to earn the money for my lessons.’ ‘So you’re really a pilot?’ ‘No. Sadly, there just weren’t enough planes to wash.’ ‘So you just … what? Gave up?’ ‘Sometimes that’s what we have to do, Chloe. We have to give up, even when we want something so badly it’s like a dark ache.’ Dark ache. Premonition. When this – we – ended, that’s what it would feel like. ‘I don’t agree with that,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘The … the pilot thing. You could still do that.’ ‘Would you let yourself have me then, Chloe?’ He asked the question but when I opened my mouth and nothing came out, he bowled on. ‘Really, Chloe, it’s that simple?’ But he didn’t give me time to find a response. ‘Un-bloody-believable!’ He paced away, then back. ‘No. I will not become a commercial pilot, or a journalist, or a cameraman like Derek you can boss around, or a goddamn astronaut, or a corporate CEO, or anything else that might be on your checklist, just to make you choose me. You take me as I am, because you want me as I am, or you don’t take me at all. The choice is yours. Yes or no. And, Chloe? I can live with a no – I’ve lived with it all my life – so don’t think I’ll keep dangling in the wind now we’ve reached this point. I won’t. And I won’t beg, either. Never. You either want me or you don’t. And I can live with no. Got it? Hell, I can choose it myself.’ He didn’t wait for an answer to that, either. Instead, he reached for his shoes, shoved them on his feet. One, then the other. I saw his eyes widen, then close and remembered him dropping the used condom into one last night. ‘And isn’t that the perfect fucking goodbye,’ he said – and then slammed out of the room.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I came cautiously downstairs to board the minivan that was booked to take us to the orphanage, but it wasn’t to find Nick in ‘autograph’ mode, laughing with the team. Nobody would have guessed he’d stormed out of my room with sparks shooting off him and a used condom stuck to his toes a mere sixty minutes ago. When he saw me, he took a deep breath and headed my way. He was wearing well-worn jeans, a light blue shirt and work boots. His shirt collar was up on one side, and I wanted to smooth it down, and the awareness of wanting to do that terrified me. If I touched Nick, and he decided to touch me back, what would I do? Oh God, what? But when Nick reached me, he jammed his hands in his jeans pockets. No touching, then. I breathed a sigh of relief. Or perhaps it was disappointment. I just didn’t know anymore. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, low, so that nobody could hear. ‘About the things I said, the way I said them this morning.’ ‘Does that mean …? What does that mean? That you take it back?’ ‘What is this, high school? No, I don’t take it back. You haven’t given me a reason to take it back.’ ‘So you really want me to choose your brother? Just like –’ finger snap ‘– that?’ ‘Why not just like that?’ he asked, narrow-eyed. ‘You didn’t come running after me this morning to tell me you’d already chosen me, did you? You weren’t about to come over to me just now to tell me that either. You looked like you were about to bolt right out of the lobby for a minute there. I’m still a secret, aren’t I? And you’re still thinking about – Ah, fuck this!’ That last little curse almost cut across the ‘Morning, all!’ that boomed out from across the lobby. Nick stepped away from me and gave his brother, who was heading towards us, a strained smile. ‘Cutting it fine, Bryce,’ he said. ‘What happened to on-time performance? Or are pilots exempt?’ A crack of laughter greeted that. ‘We’re not late. Yet. But I suggest you do your chatting up on the bus, buddy! Here, I’ll show you how it’s done.’ He turned to me, eyes sparkling. ‘Chloe, you look so good today, I’m hoping for extra red lights so I can stare at you a little longer.’ A darting glance at Nick showed him doing a fine impression of a block of granite. There was no sign of the man who’d whispered all those wonderful things to me as he touched me, and held me close all night. No, this stone-hard man was the one who could live with no, who could choose it himself. Who’d said goodbye this morning like he’d meant it. Blink, blink, breathe, blink. All right then, if that was how it was going to be. I gave Bryce my warmest smile. ‘Tell me, Bryce, you being a pilot.’ A dig I hope Nick appreciated. ‘Do you know who invented the aeroplane? Because you look Wright for me.’ Bryce laughed, delighted. ‘A girl who knows the history of aviation? Oh you’re good, Chloe. Very, very good.’ He held out his arm, I took it, and he led me out of the lobby.

As soon as Nick followed us into the minivan and sat beside Leila, however, my bravado started disintegrating. After Nick had stormed out this morning, I’d done a good job of preparing Chloe Masters, journalist, for the day ahead: dressing in my beige linen pants suit, styling my hair into a smooth ponytail, choosing the perfect shoes, the right earrings, packing my briefcase with those all-important red folders. But regardless of my unruffled façade, I’d been badly shaken. The scene with Nick in the lobby shook me a little more. And seeing him sit next to Leila shook me harder again. I found myself plucking a random folder from my briefcase, just to hold it, to give my fidgeting hands something do. All I could think about was the fact that I was the sexual equivalent of pilot lessons. Given up. After only one day.

Nick had said I had to choose, but he hadn’t given me the chance to do it. It was like he’d had a brain snap the moment he’d seen what was on my computer. And that was it. No choice for me to make because he’d made it for me. Despite my long and intimate experience of being passed on from one place to the next during my miserable years in the foster care system, it hit hard, very hard, being passed on to Nick’s brother like a coffee-centred chocolate. You know, those ones in the corner of the box that people take a bite out of before deciding they’ve made a mistake and it’s the strawberry cream they want? How I managed to hold a conversation with Bryce, I don’t know – and don’t ask me what we were talking about because I have no idea. But when the minivan swerved to miss a motorbike and the red folder on my lap slipped, spilling its pages, I snapped to attention. The case studies. Of all the folders to choose, I’d had to go for that one! I made a grab for the pages, but Bryce beat me to it. ‘Are these the children?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ I managed to say, and reached for them. He held on. ‘Can I …?’ ‘Oh. Yes. Yes. Of course.’ ‘Who’s this girl?’ ‘Honey,’ I said. ‘Her name is Honey.’ ‘What about this little guy?’ And what could I do? I had to tell him about the children, one by one. Hearing my voice dispassionately recounting their histories didn’t seem real. It was as though I’d switched to a special part of my brain to deal with what I was saying. A part that was numb and almost soulless and therefore able to get the words out. I knew I should be trying to sound interested, animated, as befitting the stories of twenty-six orphaned children waiting for me to shine a light on them, but it seemed as though the only way I could cope was to go into an emotional lockdown. I’d thought I’d processed this, thought I was prepared for this. A job, just a job, and those pages with the faces and life stories were just photos and words on paper. But at that moment, the situation I was in finally hit home. Those photos and words I’d programmed into my brain like an automaton were children, and I was about to enter their world, and I didn’t know if I was ready. Twenty-six case studies were about to become real. The way Nick had suddenly become real to me this morning. Nick, who’d been abandoned just like I was. Nick, who needed to be chosen. Because like all of us coffee-centred chocolates tossed aside in favour of a strawberry cream, he once hadn’t been chosen either. When we finally pulled up outside a large white building – the main building of the Sunshine Children’s Home – I felt spiritually battered and unable to get out of my seat. Nick, by contrast, bounded out of the minivan and hurried up the steps and onto the large verandah that wrapped around the building, where a middle-aged woman waited. And then he was … he was … hugging her? Yes, hugging her. Before I could assimilate that remarkable fact, everyone was jostling to get out of the minivan, Bryce was tugging me out of my seat, and I was being swept along with the group. I steeled myself for that first sight of the children as I followed the others up the steps onto the verandah, pep-talking in my head. You can do this, Chloe. You can. It’s just a job. Eyes peeled, body straight, ready, ready, ready. But … no children. I released a long, silent breath as the tension eased. Reprieve. But for how long? Nick, widening his eyes at the woman he’d been hugging, inclined his head in my direction. Her response was to hurry over to introduce herself as the manager, Joan – my main contact for the week. I gestured for Derek to join us, and as the three of us discussed filming options, I decided the best way to deal with my stress levels was to get straight to work. So as Joan moved on to introduce herself to each team member individually, Derek and I followed her – Derek filming, while I asked an occasional

question to elicit usable grabs from the team. And then I heard them. They were coming. The children. Feet on floorboards. Doors opening. Oh God oh God oh God. A few seconds, that’s all I had to compose myself before the kaleidoscopic spill of children onto the verandah. Automatically, I looked for Nick – ridiculous, as though he could save me! – but he’d taken himself out of filming range, down one end of the verandah. And then Nick called out, ‘Whoa there, kidlets!’ and started making his way back to the group. No, to the children. He was coming to the children. Halfway, he was stopped by one of them grabbing his leg. ‘Monty!’ he said, laughing, and reached down to lift the little boy onto his shoulders. He kept coming, and they kept going, until he was walking with four other children attached to him. Two were standing on his feet. Another had a grip on the hip band of his jeans and one more was dragging on his back pocket. Nick looked even more gargantuan than usual with an array of kids hanging off him. A cross between Land Of The Giants and an Enid Blyton Famous Five adventure. The muscles of his huge arms bunched as he adjusted the little boy on his shoulders, and my mouth went dry. He was so beautiful in that moment. Surrounded by children who looked like they belonged exactly where they were, with him. Nick’s eyes caught mine, and he smiled, but it was like no other smile I’d seen on his face. It was a self-deprecating, apologetic shrug of a smile. It was … shy, almost. Aaaand … tilt. There went my world, as everything crystallised. Nick knew the children by name. The children knew him. Nick had hugged the manager. Nick’s brother was the conduit to the Do-It-Right team. This project, start to finish, was Nick’s. He was not in Manila to ‘take one for the team’. He was here because he wanted to be. He’d always planned to be here, not Hawaii. Whooooooaaaah. Had it only been yesterday that we’d left Sydney? Because I’d learned more about Nick in one day than I had in the whole preceding year – and yet I still knew nothing. I was so stupefied, it took me a moment to become aware that something was pulling at my jacket. I looked down and saw her … Honey. Black hair cut in a bowl-shape. Eyes, huge and black, blinking at me. Missing a front tooth – I could tell because she was smiling so broadly, I could have given her an on-thespot orthodontic check. Instinct had my knees bending so that I was crouching beside her. ‘Hello, Honey,’ I said, and she smiled even wider. ‘I’m Chloe.’ She patted my cheek with one tiny hand, like she was reassuring me, like she knew, and my heart shredded on the spot. It was just a job – but I wanted to grab Honey and hug her and never let her go. Never, never, ever. My eyes sought Nick again. Nick was one of my breed, one of the unwanted kids. How could he bear it? Seeing, touching these children? I needed to know. Because I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear it. Nick frowned at me, and I knew I must be looking at him strangely. Get it together, get it together. But I couldn’t, not while Honey had her hand on my cheek. Ohhhhhh. It was just so hard knowing there were twenty-six Honeys here, and they couldn’t be mine, she wasn’t mine. It was so hard to stand and see her hand flail for a moment, feel her fingers re-clutch the bottom of my jacket. Don’t touch, don’t touch me or I’ll cry. I could feel Nick’s eyes on me, sharp and curious. I had to get myself together. Now. Or he would see that I was one of them. Any moment now, he would know, like he always knew, that something wasn’t right. That something was wrong with me. And I couldn’t bear that either. Blink, blink, breathe, blink. I plastered on a professional smile as I stepped away, dislodging Honey’s grip on me. ‘Derek, can

you get some footage of Nick with the kids? I’m going to ask Joan to give me a tour, and I’ll see you at the playground in an hour.’

An hour and ten minutes later, I reached the playground site to find work well underway and everyone sweating up a storm. Derek was roaming with a handheld camera, but when he saw me, he came over to run me through the timetable for turning what looked to be a chaotic mess of building materials into a playground. There would be a fort, slippery dips, swings, monkey bars, climbing ropes and a tyre-strewn obstacle course, as well as a track circling the area for riding bikes and scooters. ‘Great, huh?’ Derek said at the end of his enthusiastic recital. ‘Yes,’ I murmured, but my eyes were roving towards Nick. He was doing something with a hammer. Something that made his arms look like they were about to burst through his sleeves, Incredible Hulk style. Something that made me want to whimper. ‘Do you want me to get him for you?’ Derek asked. ‘Hmm?’ Me – trying hard not to whimper. ‘Nick. Do you want me to get him? To interview?’ Waving a hand in front of my face. ‘Hello, anyone home?’ ‘Oh.’ Get a freaking grip – it’s an arm and a hammer, not a naked penis! ‘No, no. No.’ ‘Okaaaay,’ Derek said. (Ugh, someone else with a sudden predilection for massacring the word ‘okay’.) ‘Bryce,’ I said crisply. ‘I want Bryce first.’ Even if ‘Bryce’ and ‘I want’ didn’t feel like they belonged in the same sentence anymore. But what had Nick said, this morning? I can live with no. Hell, I can choose it myself. Well, so can I, I told myself. And maybe I would choose Bryce. Maybe I’d turn out to be Bryce’s strawberry cream. And then we’d see how Mr I’ll-keep-hunting-you-until-you-prove-to-me-you-don’t-want-me Savage felt about it when I went nice and public with his brother. Ha! I tried to be objective as Bryce, trailed by Derek, approached. He was a very good-looking man, better looking than Nick. And what’s more, I could watch him approach without getting jittery. That had to be a plus, didn’t it? Yes. Score one for Bryce. He stopped beside me, and I dragged in a great lungful of him, expecting sandalwood … and my eyes almost watered at his pungent eau de sweat aroma. Okay, so the guy was a bit sweaty. It wasn’t surprising, was it? He’d been doing strenuous physical work in the sun for an hour. Everyone was sweaty. I might even sweat at some point. If I squeezed my nostrils together and mouth-breathed every second time I took a breath, I could get used to it. As I ran through the interview process with Bryce, using that brilliant breathing technique, I was rewarded with a little hint of sandalwood cutting through. Sandalwood, I reminded myself, as I started the interview. You like sandalwood. Score two. Within thirty seconds of the camera rolling, Bryce had a third score on the board. I already knew he was intelligent – hello, he was a pilot! – but sometimes smart people came across as not-so-smart on camera. That was not the case with First Office Haynes, however. He was sharp and clever, reeling off sound bites that were pithy and perfect, completely um-and-ah free. In the one ten minute interview, I got everything I needed on the genesis of the Do-It-Right team, the projects Bryce had been personally involved with and the background on each of the volunteers. He even had the smarts to give his employer, AustralAir, a plug, as well as praising his brother to the skies. Nice job. He was very smooth, very charming, very confident. He was a very ‘very’ kind of guy. A perfect kind of guy. My kind of guy. Well, Nick had said the choice would be easy. And he was right. It was easy, when you looked at it objectively.

But then Nick came towards us, swiping a forearm over his forehead, and three things happened: my heart leapt, my throat dried, and my knees went weak. Which made no sense, because he was not as good looking as his brother. The sight of him should not do that to me, when I had Bryce standing beside me. I was not – not – giving Nick an equal score on visual criteria. With any luck, Nick would smell like the crotch of a thousand camels. He was bound to, with that sweat-soaked shirt. Bryce’s sweat patches – the circles under the arms, a nice dignified V arrowing down from the neck of his T-shirt – were almost stylish by comparison. If I’d had to pinch my nostrils for Bryce, I would need a eucalyptus-scented nose plug for Nick. Any moment now, any second. He was going to pong, reek, stink. Singe the hair in my nostrils. I was going to gag, I was going to … going to … Ah hell. Swoon. I was going to swoon. With lust. Because Nick smelled earthy and salty, and the liquid warmth that hit between my thighs told me I wanted to have sex with him right that second. I wanted to drag him to the ground, tear open his shirt and lick him. This was so not fair. Bryce was smiling, Nick was not. In fact, Nick was looking longingly over his shoulder, as if he had no idea why he’d come over to us and wished he was back wielding his hammer. ‘Is it your turn in front of the camera, Nick?’ Bryce asked. ‘No, no,’ Nick batted the question away. ‘I just wanted to make sure everything …’ He paused, cleared his throat, looked at me, then over his shoulder again, back at me, and then at Bryce. ‘Just checking that everything’s under control over here, before I get on to pouring the concrete.’ Bryce laughed. ‘Of course everything’s okay. Why would you think otherwise? Chloe doesn’t bite, you know.’ ‘Actually, she does,’ Nick said. And he smirked (and you know how I feel about smirking) as he rubbed his fingers idly over one shoulder. For one horrified moment, I stared at the spot he was rubbing. That spot. And suddenly it was there, in my head. Last night. I’d bitten him. Hard. His shoulder as well as his lip. I wished I’d bitten out his goddamn tongue while I was at it! What happened to keeping things confidential for Bryce, who wouldn’t risk losing a brother over me? That was letting me choose, was it? Smirking animal/beast/pig/bastard! Bryce was looking confused – as well he might! And there was only one way forward that I could see. I lowered my eyelids and looked up at Bryce through fluttering, mascara-laden lashes. ‘I only bite if you ask me nicely,’ I said. And as Bryce laughed, exactly as I intended, I turned to Derek. ‘Get Nick miked up, will you?’ Split second of huh? from Nick. And then ‘What?’ Eyes going wide. ‘No.’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘Remember, I bite. And you don’t even have to ask.’ ‘But I – No. No.’ Backing away. ‘Nick, are you not the reason we’re doing this story?’ ‘Well, yes, but –’ ‘Are you not the reason I’m in Manila?’ ‘Ah. You in Manila. You know why I –’ ‘Time to pay the piper, Mr Savage.’ ‘Chloe, please.’ Eyes darting left and right, looking for an escape. ‘Not now, okay? Later. I’ve got concrete to pour now.’ Bryce made squawking chicken noises. ‘It’s not that,’ Nick said, looking daggers at his brother. ‘It’s just … the concrete …’ Bryce slapped him on the back. ‘I can pour the bloody concrete. It’s not rocket science.’ ‘Excellent idea,’ I put in smoothly as Derek advanced on Nick with a lapel mike. ‘No,’ Nick said, looking past Derek to me as I pretended to consult the notes in my folder and bit my lip to stop smiling at this new, flustered side of him. ‘This … thing … isn’t about me.’

‘Hmmm?’ Me – aiming for preoccupied. ‘I can’t do this,’ he said, as Derek, inexorable, finished with him. I closed my folder and looked at him. ‘You told me you rated best with female viewers. Joan told me you need more money to expand, so you can take in more children. Put those things together.’ He was rigid with discomfort as he looked from me to Derek. It was if he were waging an internal war – and both sides were losing! Swallow. Swallow. Eyes squeezed shut. Another swallow. Then he blew out a breath, opened his eyes, and nodded. ‘Fine. Where do you want me, Derek?’ Three minutes later – I dared not take longer than that to get it underway in case he bolted – I started with a super easy question. A throw away, to get him feeling more at ease, because we hadn’t had a warm-up chat. What did he think of the Philippines? Anyone could have answered that. It was a beautiful, friendly country. People who’d never been to the Philippines could have tossed out an answer! But not Nick, who just stared at me, incapable of even blinking, apparently. Hmmm. I tried another throw away – how long had he been involved with the Sunshine Children’s Home? I knew the answer because Joan had told me. Four years – almost inconceivable to me that a twenty-one year old would have shouldered such a responsibility, but there you go. All he had to say was ‘four years’. Instead he said, ‘Er.’ ‘Can’t remember?’ Me, a little stunned at how hopeless he was. ‘Two, no three. Ah hell.’ He looked a nanosecond away from a meltdown. ‘Four! Four years, dammit.’ I heard Derek choke on a laugh; Nick heard it too, because he did a weird smile/grimace thing and slapped himself in the head. Not joking – he actually slapped himself in the head. And, oh my God, I wanted to hug him – that’s how adorable tough-guy giant bastard Nick looked at that moment. I asked two more easy questions. He stuffed up both answers, and started looking over his shoulder again, ready to flee. But no way was I giving up. The interview with Nick really was the main attraction for viewers. I had to get him on camera; if I came home without it, my chief of staff would kill me. And it looked as though it might take the whole week to get something useable, so I figured I should get started without delay. ‘Let’s stop for a moment,’ I said. Nick breathed out a big sigh of relief. ‘I told you I couldn’t do it,’ he said, and reached for the microphone Derek had clipped to him. ‘Hey, not so fast,’ I said, grabbing his hands. He looked into my eyes, confused and unhappy, and my heart snagged painfully. The way he looked, the way he smelled, his big rough hands tensing in mine – something about that combination made me long for him. ‘Trust me,’ I said softly. ‘I’m not going to make you look bad.’ He looked down at my hands gripping his, and his shoulders slumped – as much as two veritable mountains of muscle can slump – and he nodded. ‘Right,’ I said, releasing him. ‘Just give me a minute, and breathe in and out a few times while you wait. And try to relax, okay?’ I buried my head in my red folder, formulating and discarding a full range of clichéd questions. I was almost about to give up and reschedule the interview, when the right approach darted into my head out of nowhere. I just knew how to work it. ‘Are we good to go, Derek? Right.’ I turned to Nick, watched him suck in another breath, then stiffen as the camera rolled. And I rapped out: ‘So, Nick Savage, you’re in Manila to “take one for the team”. It must have been difficult to give up the team’s end-of-year trip to Hawaii to make up for the latest Sydney

Scorpions sex scandal.’ Nick looked shocked, then furious, in quick succession. Priceless. And then, ‘What the fuck kind of question is that?’ ‘A simple one,’ I said. ‘Was it hard to give up Hawaii to cover for your disgraced teammate?’ Aaaand zing! Everything about him switched on. ‘Take a walk through the streets of Manila and see the way the kids live, homeless and hungry, with only themselves to rely on, and tell me if you’d choose a holiday in Hawaii instead.’ ‘That’s all very well to say, but –’ ‘I’ve seen children scavenging from rubbish tips for something to use or sell. I’ve seen them forced by poverty into prostitution. Kids who’ve become gangsters, because at least there’s some pride in it. What does that tell you, when that’s the only option you have to feel proud of yourself? What do you think this is all about here?’ ‘You tell me.’ ‘It’s about hope. Hope that maybe, just maybe, a kid with no chance will actually get a chance. Get an education, the ability to make a life.’ ‘Twenty-six children? That’s what you have here, right? That’s a drop in the ocean, surely. It’s futile, isn’t it?’ ‘So … what? We do nothing? Tell our twenty-six kids that! Yes, we could take fifty times the number of children we have and still not scratch the surface. But it’s not just us here. There are other groups – and individuals – all trying to make a difference. That means we’re not the only drop in the ocean. Put us all together and there are buckets full of drops. But the Sunshine Children’s Home is … is …’ He flung out his arms, made some kind of frustrated, explosive sound that just worked. ‘The kids … I just … I love them, I guess.’ His hands went scraping though the short strands of his black hair. ‘I’m not putting this well, but … but … All we’re trying to do is make a little difference. That’s …’ Shrug. ‘All.’ ‘But not everybody has the luxury of flying overseas and getting their hands dirty building something.’ ‘No, not everyone has the luxury of flying in and doing something hands-on. But there are other ways to help. Sponsor one of our kids – hell, sponsor a kid from any of the great organisations here. It only costs a hundred and twenty dollars a month to house, feed, clothe and educate a child. You don’t have to come yourself and build a playground – there are lots of ways to help.’ ‘So, the playground. Who needs a playground when there are kids hungry in Manila?’ ‘In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be any need for anything. In a perfect world, kids wouldn’t be hungry. In a perfect world, they’d be loved and protected. In a perfect world, every kid would have a playground to go to. And I wouldn’t be on television, begging for help.’ He shook his head, and one of his hands went tearing through his hair again. ‘Oh, for a perfect world, hey?’ And then he squeezed his eyes shut, ripped off his lapel mike, and looked at me with eyes that were practically spitting. ‘Enough. I can’t believe –’ He whirled away. Then straight back. ‘Why did you do that to me?’ ‘I don’t know how to break it to you, Nick, but your on-camera personality sucks.’ ‘I know. I’m not … Look, I know, I know. Why do you think I didn’t want to do it? And then you go and ask –’ He broke off, threw his hands up. ‘I can’t believe you did that. It’s supposed to be a feel-good story about an orphanage. We’re supposed to get money out of this. And you had to go and get all Sixty Minutes on me.’ ‘I’m not using the questions, Nick, just your answers. We’re filming my questions separately. And that was perfect, what you said. I just needed to shock it out of you.’ ‘You can’t use my answers, Chloe. I wasn’t perfect. I sounded like a fuckwit. I’m not letting you do that to the orphanage.’

‘We need you on camera or the story won’t air.’ He was looking mutinous. ‘Then I’ll read out a statement.’ ‘And put everyone to sleep?’ I shook my head. ‘Not happening, Nick.’ ‘Then you can use Bryce. Yeah, Bryce. He can be the main spokesman. Or Joan – she’s brilliant on camera. And … and … Marcus. I’ll get Marcus to do an interview back in Sydney to cover off the Scorpions angle. You know he’s better than me.’ ‘But he’s not you. And you’re the draw card here,’ I said. Nick just shook his head. ‘And if Marcus is better than you,’ I went on, ‘it’s only because he’s had plenty of practice, whereas you …? Nick, answer me this – not for the camera. Why didn’t you front up about this at Evie’s last week instead of pretending it was something you were being dragged into? Why doesn’t anyone back home know about this? After four years?’ ‘It’s not about me, that’s why,’ he said shortly. ‘Look, if you need me on camera, just film me. I don’t have to open my mouth. Derek – you can just film me, can’t you?’ But Derek, who’d taken the camera off the tripod, muttered something along the lines of ‘leave me out of it’, and beat a hasty retreat to film the action over at the concrete pouring. Back to me. ‘Chloe, it will work better if you just get me doing stuff, the manual labour stuff, and someone else answering the questions. I’m fine with that.’ ‘It doesn’t work like that, Nick. I call the shots.’ ‘So maybe you can tell me how you’re going to call the shots when it comes to interviewing the kids.’ Frozen moment. ‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at,’ I said cautiously. ‘I’m saying the children scared you and I want to know why.’ ‘I wasn’t scared.’ A short, disbelieving laugh greeted that feeble pronouncement. ‘I’m not used to them, that’s all,’ I said. ‘So you’re not going to tell me?’ ‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Long, probing look, and then he shook his head, disgusted. ‘I’ll send Bryce back over. He knows the right things to say on camera.’ And he started to stride away. No. He couldn’t leave. Not like that, with me lying, and him knowing I was lying and giving up on me. Giving up. ‘Nick.’ Pause, but he didn’t turn back. ‘I don’t want Bryce,’ I said. Which wasn’t what I’d intended to say, but there it was, said. Heartbeat, beat, beat. And then he kept going. Did he even hear me? I saw him reach Bryce, clap a hand on his shoulder. The differences between them seemed so great at that moment, it was hard to believe they were brothers. ‘I don’t want Bryce,’ I said again. A whisper, an acknowledgement to myself. Because I knew I really didn’t want elegant, sandalwood-smelling, camera-ready Bryce. I wanted raw, tough, strangely shy, endearingly awkward, exasperating Nick. As I went about my work and the day progressed, I saw Nick get sweatier, more dishevelled, grimier. Saw him hit his thumb with a hammer and swear his head off. Saw him get scraped and bruised. Bleed from an assortment of nicks and cuts. And I started to wonder if I had a touch of the Stephen Kings about me, because I wanted to suck every drop of the blood he shed. It wasn’t normal, to want someone like that, surely to God. Or maybe it was. Because when our tired, dirty group got back to the hotel and disbanded, and that one hard rap

sounded on my door, almost before I’d had a chance to get into my room, and I opened it and saw Nick’s face …? Well, I knew that if I wanted to suck his blood, he was going to let me.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘Did you mean it, Chloe?’ he asked. I wasn’t going to pretend to misunderstand. ‘Yes, I meant it. I don’t want Bryce.’ ‘Good,’ he said, and turned to leave. ‘Wait! Where are you going?’ Half-turn back. ‘I’m filthy. I’m going to go get cleaned up. I just didn’t … I mean, last night, you thought I wasn’t coming to you. Tonight, I wanted to make sure you knew that I was. But first I have to – What?’ Because I was literally dragging him in. And as soon as he was in, I slammed the door shut and threw myself at him. I knew he would catch me, that he would hold me, that he would let me do whatever the fuck I wanted. Grab, climb, burrow. Scratch, wrench, bite, punch. I wasn’t going to wait for him to take a nice, civilised shower, because all those things I wanted to do, I wanted to do now. Immediately. It was like a fever in my blood, a sickness, and I couldn’t help myself. His arms closed around me, held me, lifted me, adjusting the way they always did to my slightest movement. Hard as steel … and yet, not hard at all. ‘Help me get closer,’ I said, trying to wrap myself around him. ‘I need … need …’ ‘Me,’ he said, and kissed me with something close to brutality. ‘Me. You need me, Chloe.’ A mad scramble of limbs, clothes being dragged out of the goddamn way, condom wrapper torn open, rough shoves at my pants, his jeans. And just like that, Nick was inside me, I was coming, he was coming. Orgasm Central, I’m telling you. Feral, hard, driven. Done. Silence. It seemed that post-coital silent moments were going to be routine with Nick. Awed moments. Waiting for my senses to settle. Not believing what I’d just done. Not believing how I’d done it. ‘Sorry,’ I said, burying my face against his chest and sucking in the salty, sweaty smell of him that I still couldn’t seem to get enough of. ‘Sorry for what, Chloe?’ ‘For being like that. Rough, and … and …’ But I couldn’t finish. Because there was a lump in my throat. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said, and his hand was stroking my hair so gently, I wanted to cry. ‘You can crash and burn all over me, as much as you want, and I’ll take it.’ ‘Crash and burn. You said that last night.’ I eased back, enough that I could look up at him. ‘Is that what I do? Is that what it feels like to you?’ ‘It feels – you feel – like everything I want.’ ‘That’s not an answer, Nick.’ Long, sighing moment while he resettled me against his chest. ‘If you really want to know, it feels like you’re punishing me.’ ‘For what?’

‘I don’t know, Chloe. Maybe because you want me as much as I want you. Because I know you don’t want to want me. It’s why you punched me that first night.’ ‘No, that was … different. That was – I was with Marcus, you were with Ruby, and –’ ‘I wasn’t with Ruby, Chloe, not from the moment I saw you. You walked in, and I wanted only you. I wanted your hands on me, any way I could get them.’ I felt the laugh rumble in his chest. ‘I just didn’t expect the first time you touched me to be a punch. But hey, I like surprises.’ ‘I don’t want it to be like that. I don’t … I don’t punch. Not anymore.’ ‘What do you mean, not anymore?’ ‘I used to have anger management issues. When I was a kid.’ ‘Oh, when you were a kid.’ ‘Yes, all right, I still have a few,’ I confessed, rolling my eyes. ‘But that’s not really me. It’s the black swan version. Sometimes she takes over, but not … not often.’ ‘I like black swans better than the white ones, so I’m cool with that.’ I snorted. ‘Remember what happens in Swan Lake? The lovers die because of that evil black swan. The prince shoots the nice swan, the perfect one, with an arrow; she dies in his arms; he drowns himself.’ ‘Chloe, there’s only one you. Black and white. Fire and ice. It’s a combination that seems to be irresistible to me.’ ‘You’re certifiable. Nobody liked –’ Oops. ‘Nobody likes crash-and-burners. Not for long.’ ‘Not for long? It’s a year and counting, Chloe. I just wish I’d taken you off him that first night. We’d be a lot farther along now, and maybe the crash and burn would be a Saturday night special by now. You know, along with the latex nurse’s uniform and the fluffy handcuffs.’ ‘Saturday night special?’ I asked, and started to laugh … until the rest of what he’d said sank in. That was wrong. Had to be wrong. ‘But Nick, you couldn’t have just taken me off Marcus. Like, bam, the time is nigh, let’s do it.’ Pause. Then, ‘Couldn’t I?’ ‘Um – no!’ Another small pause. ‘So why did you punch me that night, Chloe?’ And it all came back in a rush. That first night. Marcus, with me. Nick, with Ruby. The other guys with their partners. And yes, okay, it wasn’t exactly every girl’s idea of a dreamy first date, but it had been friendly and fun. Right up until the moment Ruby had shown me that WAG guide of hers. Startled, I’d looked to Nick, wondering if that was some requirement for him, and found his eyes were already on me, hot and heavy. He’d shrugged, and up went his eyebrow. And he’d smiled, the half-smile. And that was how it had started. One shared moment. Then all those things happened. Vodka Vern, Ruby leaving, Nick waylaying me when I came out of the bathroom, asking me about Marcus and why I was with him. And me punching him. Punching him! Because … Oh my God. No, no, no, please. But there was no holding it back. It was roaring in my head. Because punching him was safer than what I wanted to really do to him – which was slam him against the wall and kiss him. Punching was like some bizarre self-defence mechanism, born out of a need to make him not want me. A need to not want him. A need not to feel wild and jealous and angry, the way I felt when I looked at him with Ruby. I didn’t like that wildness, I didn’t trust it. I needed stability if I were to maintain the self I had constructed. I needed … ‘Marcus,’ I said, and pulled out of Nick’s arms. ‘Because I needed Marcus, that’s why.’ ‘Whatever it is you think you needed, you wanted me, Chloe. You wanted me!’ ‘You say that like it’s something to be proud of.’ ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

‘Just because you want something doesn’t mean you just … just take it! You talk about whisking me out from under Marcus’s nose without even a thought for him. But do you know what Marcus told me? He told me to take it easy on you. And that’s the difference between you two, isn’t it?’ I looked around the room, disgusted. ‘“Take it easy on poor Nick!” Somehow I don’t think a crude affair in a hotel room is what he had in mind when he said that.’ Instantly his eyes narrowed, mouth tightened. ‘I don’t want you to take it easy on me. I want you to be however, whoever, whatever, you want to be. Now come back here, Chloe.’ ‘I can’t, Nick,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to be the black swan, I want to be the white one.’ ‘Okay then, I’ll take the white one.’ ‘The white one wouldn’t have done this to Marcus. Doesn’t it bother you, even a little? What we’re doing?’ ‘No,’ he said, short and sharp. ‘I don’t believe you,’ I said, because I saw that tiny flicker of doubt in his eyes again. ‘There’s only thing I’d change – I’d do it sooner. And frankly, I’d tell Marcus to go fuck himself if he had a problem with it, instead of dancing around him for months.’ I opened my mouth, but he cut me off before I could form a word. ‘I mean it, Chloe. I’d choose you over him. I did choose you over him. I’ve wanted every cool-headed, hot-tempered inch of you since that first night. And I don’t need to sit through Swan Lake to get into that poor drowned schmuck’s head. Frankly, I’m getting tired of drowning.’ ‘What does that mean?’ ‘It means it’s about time I knew if I was wasting my time. So, I’ve told you I would choose you over him. Now, how about you tell me if you would choose me over him?’ ‘Why would he want me back, after what I did?’ ‘That’s not the question, Chloe.’ ‘There’s no choice to make.’ He reached for my hand, held it over his heart. ‘Sure there is.’ ‘Then help me,’ I said, wailed, begged. ‘Tell me about those circumstances. The ones you said would make what we’re doing now okay.’ Throb, throb, throb. His heart under my palm. ‘Can’t it be enough that I want you so much it’s killing me?’ I tested that in my head. Nick, wanting me that much. More than anyone had ever wanted me before. It sounded so beguiling. But just this morning, he’d been ready to palm me off onto his brother. Just like Ruby and all those girls who came after her, farmed out to his teammates. One thing goes wrong, the girl doesn’t fit, or she says or does the wrong thing, or the novelty has worn off, and bam! She’s packed off to the next guy to try again. I’d thrown Marcus away to become a groupie. It was a bitter pill to swallow. ‘Well, Chloe? Isn’t it enough?’ he demanded. ‘It’s enough for the rest of our time here, Nick. That’s all.’ ‘Marcus got a year.’ ‘Yes, but he loved me. And love has to be more, be worth more, than having the hots for someone.’ His mouth twisted. ‘And when was the last time Marcus expressed this grand love for you? Tell me that!’ ‘Sunday,’ I said. ‘He called me, and he told me that he loved me. That he loves me.’ ‘He called you on Sunday and said he loved you?’ Nick’s hand slid off mine, like he’d suddenly lost the strength to keep it there. ‘What else? What else did he say?’ ‘We talked about the announcement of our split. Timing, wording …’ ‘And he told you he loved you.’ A statement, like he was getting it clear in his head. ‘Yes,’ I said, but I was suddenly uncertain. Something felt wrong. ‘And can I assume you told him you loved him too?’

I lifted my chin. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ ‘Oh, only because you broke up with him.’ I slapped my hands over my ears. I couldn’t bear to hear those words just then. Nick yanked my hands down. ‘Hear it, Chloe. Face it. You broke up with him. And he let you do it.’ ‘I can’t bear to hear it – not from you.’ He stared at me. ‘Not from me. Because … what? It’s all my fault? The break-up is all big bad Nick’s fault?’ And then he laughed – harsh and cold. ‘Un-fucking-believable.’ Another laugh. ‘You love each other, but one kiss and it’s pfft, sayonara, have a nice life, and that’s my fault?’ ‘To understand it, you’d have to understand the concept of … of loyalty and … and commitment.’ ‘Oh, I see. Loyalty and commitment. Huh. Go figure.’ I drew myself up. ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic.’ ‘No? You’re about to fly to Manila with the lust-crazed animal who came between you and brave, loyal, committed Marcus. Our loving hero calls to wish you a friendly bon voyage. He doesn’t demand that you tell me and your boss to fuck off. He doesn’t insist you stay with him in Sydney, or fly with him to Hawaii, and make it work between you. Somehow, despite that cosy and romantic phone call, you’re not only still broken up, but you’re a world away with the guy who did the breaking.’ Another of those laughs. ‘That’s love, is it?’ ‘You wouldn’t understand the first thing about love,’ I said, fooling myself that the sneer in my voice could do the job of repudiating what he’d just said. ‘No, I guess I really don’t.’ His eyes went hard as stone as he unbuttoned his shirt. Then he all but tore the shirt off, turning his back to me. ‘You don’t do that to someone you love, do you, white swan?’ I sucked in a breath and held out a shaking hand to touch the scratch marks I’d made. ‘Oh, Nick.’ He spun to face me, throwing the shirt aside. ‘I don’t suppose you ever did that to Marcus, did you?’ ‘No. I … No.’ ‘Of course you didn’t. Because he didn’t need to be punished. And he wouldn’t have let you do that to him, anyway, would he? Would he, Chloe?’ Pace, pace – away, back. ‘Well, you can keep that tepid thing you call love. I don’t want it from you. Ever. I’d prefer to mate, the way we’ve been doing, than to have you love me like you loved him.’ My teeth had started chattering. ‘M–Mate?’ ‘Yes, mate. Like those swans of yours. They mate for life. Eagles, wolves, too.’ He smiled at me – and he actually looked like a wolf. ‘Does that scare you, Chloe? The idea of mating, for life, with me?’ I tried to laugh but it didn’t quite work. ‘What is this, the Discovery Channel? We’re human beings, Nick. Human beings don’t “mate”.’ ‘Want me to show you my back again?’ No! ‘And animals don’t negotiate eight days’ worth of … of mating. They just do it, once, and it’s over.’ Pause. ‘So just to be clear … Just so I’m not the one misinterpreting this time … So I’m not disrespecting your undying love for some guy who –’ Stop. Breath. ‘Am I still going to get the rest of my allocated time? I mean, I’m assuming if it’s not love, we’re free and clear to keep going, right? No threat to Marcus if there’s no love involved. And he’ll never know, so he can’t be hurt by it. That’s why it was only ever going to be while we were safely tucked away in the Philippines, why it had to be strictly confidential. For him, right?’ One of those silences. During which I became almost unbearably conscious of every sound, every scent in the room, the slight rawness on my face where his unshaven face had rasped me. Tension, thick and drowning. ‘Yes, for him,’ I said, but I knew deep down that was only half the truth. The other half was all mixed up with my own desperate need for control. I wasn’t that little girl being passed along every time I

made a mistake, not anymore. This time, I was in control of the end date. ‘Seven nights including tonight,’ Nick said, as though he were underlining a clause in a contract. ‘You’re mine for the week.” ‘Yes,’ I said, and marvelled that with all those thoughts of guilt and betrayal and control and fear twisting into thick skeins in my head, I could still feel a thrill at the thought of that. ‘And we keep going, no matter what?’ Nick pushed. Do something worthy of all the angst before you start torturing yourself … ‘Yes, we keep going, as agreed,’ I said. ‘Unless you … Do you … Do you want to stop?’ I had no idea why I’d asked that, giving him an out when I wanted him so much, my body was practically weeping for him. ‘Yes, I want to stop,’ Nick said, and the shock of that almost stopped my heart. Until he added, ‘But I can’t, Chloe,’ and my blood flowed again. ‘So … what?’ I breathed out. ‘So I guess you keep punishing me, and I keep taking it.’ I started to shiver – which of course Nick saw, and the next moment, he was pulling me into his arms, sighing as he settled me against his chest. ‘Just one stipulation,’ he said. ‘We do it your way first – and I promise you, I can handle a bit of rough if that’s what you need, so give it all you’ve got.’ Then he tightened his arms around me. ‘As long as, on the second go, you let me do it my way.’ ‘What if there’s no second go?’ This time when he laughed it was low and a little bit tortured. ‘I can pretty much guarantee there’s going to be a second and a third go. If it doesn’t kill me, a fourth, too. Every night, every morning. And if I could work out a way to sneak you off during the day for a fifth, believe me, I’d do it.’ I wondered if he could feel my smile against his bare skin. ‘So, what’s your way, Nick?’ ‘Come with me, under the shower – because I’m not sure how you can stand the smell of me right now – and I’ll show you. Words are cheap, remember?’ And then he took my mouth in the deepest kiss of my life. And I was glad, because that meant I didn’t have to think. I only had to feel. And what I was feeling was perfect.

The next two days followed a pattern. Nick would arrive at my room, I would attack him, which would be followed by sex ‘his way’ – which meant slow and thorough, with something happening to at least three of my erogenous zones simultaneously. Sleep. Then I’d wake in the morning with Nick wrapped around me, his fingers between my legs. (I know this sounds perverted, but I can’t begin to explain how lovely it was to know that was exactly where they’d be when I opened my eyes.) We’d have sex again ‘his way’, followed by a shower together where he invited me to attack him ‘my way’ if I was up for it – which, of course, I was. Then Nick would hurry back to his room and, separately, we would arrive in the lobby for the minivan transfer to the orphanage. During the day, I spent my time between the playground and the orphanage proper, doing progress reports to camera and interviewing orphanage staff and members of the Do-It-Right team – all while pretending I didn’t see the children, pretending Honey wasn’t even there. I knew I was going to have to interview the children, but I seemed to have gone all Scarlett O’Hara over it – the whole I-can’t-thinkabout-that-right-now, tomorrow-is-another-day routine. But when the team downed tools on our fifth day in Manila, Bryce announced work on the playground was ahead of schedule and would finish two days early – and that meant it was time for Scarlett O’Hara to exit stage right, and for Chloe Masters to stop pushing the children out of her immediate consciousness, step onto the stage, and do her damn job. It also meant I had only two nights left

with Nick. And I was shocked to find that the reality of saying goodbye to him panicked me as much as the idea of getting up close and personal with the kids. The thing is, Nick had been my own personal buffer zone – not only taking my mind off the children, but also somehow blocking those shimmery premonitions of uncontrolled change that I dreaded. When I was with Nick, there was barely time to breathe, let alone think about anyone or anything else. But when I was alone, my past caught up with me. Not only the distant past, which was front and centre every time I opened that particular red folder, but the recent past, which manifested through quicksilver memories of Marcus. The way Marcus smiled, so easy and uncomplicated; how it used to feel when he took my hand or put his arm around me, so steady and comforting; how he’d looked and sounded when he’d told me to take it easy on Nick, so kind and understanding. And with those increasingly frequent memories came the feeling that there was something I should know, something I should do, ask, see – all wrapped up with deep, distressing, horrible remorse. Two more nights with Nick, and I would have no choice but to face what I’d done. Two more nights, and I’d be flying back to Sydney to confront the giant hole I’d ripped in my life when I’d broken up with Marcus. But two more nights was not tonight, and not even tomorrow. And so I bargained with my conscience, Scarlett style, to keep that torment at bay, at least. To let myself be consumed by Nick for two more nights. To take what I could, before I dealt with what I couldn’t. But that night, our second last, Nick didn’t knock on my door. Instead I got a text message: Need to go out tonight. May be back late. N.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

So what did that mean? That he would come to me when he got back to the hotel? Or that he’d see me in the morning? I was going with the former, on the basis that with only two nights left, there was no way he wouldn’t turn up. I just didn’t know what ‘late’ meant. But whatever it meant, I needed something to do to escape my dark thoughts about the children, about Marcus, about Nick, and what it would be like when he was no longer in my life. First, I grabbed the red folder with the profiles, but I already knew the words by heart and the children’s faces were etched into my brain deeply enough to have me seeing them in my sleep, so revisiting the case studies was a pointless exercise that would stress me out to no purpose. Next, I started doing a little suitcase reorganisation, but within minutes, it hit me that packing was an acknowledgement that my Philippines idyll was ending, and the reality of that was taking on increasingly nightmarish proportions the longer Nick was away from me. I decided, instead, to concentrate my energy on controlling how this second last night with Nick would go. How I would look, smell, act, be. So I showered, washed and styled my hair, perfumed myself, trowelled on some make-up, then decided to don some fancy underwear for the simple reason that Nick still hadn’t managed to actually see any of my fine and fabulous underthings on my body. I scrutinised each piece, wondering what had induced me to bring so much (seriously, it was as though my subconscious had known I’d be having a hot affair) and decided on a body suit in sheer forest green mesh. I intended to open the door to Nick without covering up. And then we’d see who attacked whom. By that time, it was eleven o’clock, but a check of my phone revealed no new messages. I was entering blink, blink, breathe, blink territory, so it was with a grim kind of determination that I grabbed a tiny bottle of gin from the mini bar, fixed myself a stiff drink, and turned on the television. A hundred checks of my phone later, it was midnight. And that was when I decided Nick wasn’t coming after all. It was a hard truth to face, that he would willingly forgo one of our last two nights together. I wasn’t sure how I should feel about that, but I certainly didn’t feel good. Objectively, I knew it shouldn’t matter. Very soon, I wouldn’t have the right to wonder where Nick was, or who he was with. The same way Nick wouldn’t have the right to wonder what I was doing, with Marcus when we met up again, or anyone else for that matter. But those things were in the future, they didn’t belong to the here and now. In the here and now, Nick Savage was mine. Mine, all mine, dammit! And I wanted to know where he was and who he was with and what the hell was going on! In short, I was jealous. Jealousy was an unwelcome emotion for a girl who prided herself on her self-control, so I tried hard to throttle it back. Whatever happened tonight, by the morning, I had to be able to pretend there was nothing between me and Nick aside from professional courtesy. And to be honest, drawing a demarcation line between our professional relationship during the day and our totally unprofessional relationship at night had been getting steadily more difficult, so I really needed to get it together ASAP. I’d caught myself staring at Nick across the hotel lobby that very morning,

and only Derek waving a hand in front of my face had snapped me out of it. And this afternoon, on site, I’d almost grabbed Nick’s hand when he walked past me –it was instinctive, a reflex, dangerous. Remembering that was my cue to start worrying how much more difficult it would be to maintain the charade of businesslike courtesy after a night without Nick. Would I be more or less inclined to touch him? And if I messed up … Hmmm. Would it really be so bad if I messed up and touched him in front of the others? Just … touched him? Like, say, ran my little finger over that patch of skin behind his left ear where I’d discovered he was ticklish …? I smiled, remembering what he’d done last night when I’d touched him there. He’d picked me up and wrapped my legs around him and –. Okay, maybe I wouldn’t try exactly that in public. Maybe a fleeting brush against his forearm would be safer. Or what about his thigh, if I sat next to him in the van, just a touch, as though to get his attention? Nobody even needed to see that. Although I wasn’t sure at this stage that even a perfectly innocent shoulder bump wouldn’t have me launching myself at him and licking him. That was a new habit of mine, whenever I had a millimetre of his skin close to my mouth. Licking him. Licking! I mean, come on, who licked people? He wasn’t a freaking candy apple, was he? He wasn’t even sweet. He was salty. And nobody interested in their health liked an excess of salt. Too much salt was bad for you. Not to mention how many germs I’d transferred from his skin to my taste buds. But it was no good. I still wanted to lick him. Right now. Right. Now. But he was not here to lick! That was an inescapable fact. So I should stop thinking about him and go to bed, alone, and sleep, alone. I scrubbed off my carefully applied make-up, removed the bodysuit, and flung myself onto the bed, where I couldn’t seem to get comfortable. A thump of my pillow didn’t do anything to improve either my state of comfort or my temper, so I thumped Nick’s pillow instead. It wasn’t until about the tenth whack of that poor abused object, when I saw a few feathers floating in the air, that I realised I was completely out of control. This did not bode well for the next morning’s professional courtesy, so I took a long, deep breath, and forced myself to get up and got the bathroom to splash water on my face. As I looked at my damp and angry face in the mirror, I did my best to argue myself into a state of greater serenity. I wasn’t a nymphomaniac. One sex-free night wasn’t going to kill me. Even if it was the second last night, goddammit to hell! No, seriously, after having had such an unaccustomed amount of sex over the past few days, my body could do with a rest. Even if I was so wired I could scream my lungs out. Which of course betrayed an appalling lack of self-discipline, and if that was what I was reduced to, it was for the best that Nick was calling it quits ahead of schedule. It wasn’t as though I were some desperate groupie who couldn’t tell when her use-by date was up. I’d just make sure he knew I wasn’t going to be available tomorrow night should he have a sudden change of heart. The deal-breaking, reneging, welching BASTARD. It was definitely time to get back to reality. I might even take Drew up on his offer to take me shopping for a Vibrating Rock Chick when I landed in Sydney. A vibrator was much more reliable than a heartless beast who sent you a text message leaving you up in the air while he was out with another woman, a woman you wanted to crush, kill, destroy, right after you smashed his head in! Okay, so it seemed the talking-to I was giving myself to coax myself towards serenity was an abject failure, so I tore back into the room, threw myself on the bed again, reefed Nick’s pillow up, held it

against my face, and screamed satisfyingly into it. And then smell of the pillow infiltrated my senses, and I screamed again – not so satisfyingly. Okay – throw the pillows off the bed. Done. Hmmm. The sheets. He was on the sheets, too. Rip them off the bed. Done. Cleary, I should have ditched the environmental consciousness and got the hotel to change the damn bedding every day instead of every second day. I would do that first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, I would – Knock. Once. And every word I had just said to myself became meaningless, and I was racing to the door, flinging it open. Nick was slumped against the jamb, looking exhausted and somehow melancholy, and my insides did some weird swirling, melting, psychedelic thing that made every vestige of anger in me drain away, leaving me lightheaded. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance you considered coming to my room to wait for me?’ he asked, stepping inside as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of condoms. I closed the door. ‘You said you were out.’ ‘I’m back now.’ ‘No kidding,’ I said, and although my voice was dry, happiness was bubbling up in me like a broken fountain on gush mode. Nick tossed the condoms onto the bed, then frowned. ‘What happened to the bed?’ ‘I could smell you. It was … frustrating me.’ ‘Then come on,’ he said. But his eyes had shuttered. He took a deep breath, then braced for attack. And I surprised us both by dropping to my knees before him. ‘Chloe, what are you doing?’ he asked. ‘Figure it out,’ I said, undoing his jeans and dragging them down. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Yes,’ I responded, and eased his underwear over his hips and down his thighs. ‘Wow.’ I was a little daunted, I’ll freely admit. ‘You are so damn big.’ ‘Then don’t,’ he said, and his hands reached for my underarms, trying to lift me. ‘I want to. I want to suck you dry the way you do to me.’ He groaned, his fingers moving to my hair. ‘Although I’m going to warn you, I might not be great at it,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t do this. Often, I mean. And you have a way of making me forget all about technique.’ A low, incredulous laugh. ‘You think I care about technique?’ ‘I’m hoping to make up for it with enthusiasm. Because I love licking your skin …’ I licked the tip of him. ‘And I have to tell you, I want you in my mouth so much I’m ready to come just thinking about it.’ I ran my tongue from the base of him to the tip. ‘Chloe, I mean it, you don’t have to – Fuuuuuuuck.’ I’m guessing that last bit meant he liked the way I eased him into my mouth and sucked. His hips bucked once, twice, before he could control himself, and I shifted so that I could hold him more securely at the base, and sucked harder. ‘Jesus, Chloe, I … Aaahhhh. God. God. God help me. Ahhhhh.’ Okay, so he seemed to have lost the power of a sensible speech. I felt a little drunk at that. Drunk too, with the feel of him, the taste of him. I wanted to make him hotter, make him lose it completely, sweat

and buck and spill. I could feel the battle going on, through the clench and strain of his thigh muscles, his restless hands in my hair – he wanted to grab and twist and thrust, but at the same time, he was trying so hard to be gentle. ‘Chloe,’ he tried again, his voice raw. I ignored him, and instead, took him more deeply in my mouth, increasing the pressure, playing around the base of him with my fingers. Cupping him, stroking between his legs. Then everything in him tightened, and my name ripped out of him. He was coming, and cursing too, as I continued to suck him. Another sound, a surrendering groan, and his whole body relaxed. I released my hands, let him slide from my mouth, and looked up at him, smiling. One last stroke of a finger along the softening length of him. He reached for me again, and this time I let him draw me up and pull me in. I kissed the side of his neck, and felt him tremble. ‘Chloe,’ he whispered again. I waited for whatever he was going to say – but it seemed that it was only my name that was going to be forthcoming. I found myself wanting to cry, and I had no idea why. So I opted for a mood-breaker. ‘I wonder if you’re ever going to actually see me in my underwear, Nick. I think you’d like it. It’s expensive, you know.’ And we both started laughing. Laughing, laughing, laughing … and then … no laughter. Just Nick smoothing his hand through my hair. ‘It’s not your underwear I’m interested in, Chloe,’ he said. ‘Or your perfect makeup. Or your perfect hair. Or your clothes. Wear everything or something or nothing. Put it all on, take it all off. I’ll want you, whether you’re in all of it or none of it.’ And then I felt him take a deep breath. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Round two, right? Crash and burn.’ ‘Okay, round two,’ I said, raising myself onto my toes, drawing his face down and kissing his cheek. He flinched. ‘Not like that, Chloe.’ I kissed the other cheek. ‘Chloe, come on,’ he said, sounding a little freaked out. I licked his top lip, fluttered there like a butterfly. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. ‘Kissing you,’ I whispered, and managed a kiss to his neck before he jerked me away from him. ‘You can’t do this to me,’ he said. ‘Do what?’ ‘Change the rules – when you’re going to fly out and leave me in two days. You can’t get all …’ He waved a hand. ‘You know, tender. And stuff. You can’t do that.’ ‘Can’t I?’ ‘No,’ he said, and swooped. Dragging me in, lowering his head, mouth diving onto mine. Long, long moments of sucking, dragging kisses. ‘Come on, Chloe, come on,’ he urged, when I stayed pliant in his arms, letting him ravage my mouth. Then he was lifting me, spinning, so my back was against the door. ‘Come on, Chloe,’ he said again, frantic now. ‘Fuck me, like usual. Do it.’ Instead, I kissed the corner of his mouth, ran my hands into his hair, undulated against him. I could practically feel the panic steaming out of his pores as he pulled me roughly away from the door, started backing me towards the bed, fumbling with my robe and dragging it off. And then I was falling backwards onto the bed. Nick’s breathing was ragged as he followed me down, knees between my thighs. Hands scrabbling over the mattress, feeling blindly for a condom as he kissed me, sliding it on – seriously, he could get hard in a nanosecond. Another kiss, deep and dark. ‘Chloe,’ he sounded almost despairing as he sank himself inside me. ‘Do it. Bite me, scratch me, hit me.’

But the only thing I did was envelop him in my arms and cling to him, squeezing everything inside me tight to make this good for him. I didn’t need to punish him, didn’t want to hurt him tonight. It was gone, that urgent need. I just wanted to hold him and accept that we were connected, the way he’d always said. ‘Chloe,’ he breathed into my hair. ‘What is this?’ ‘Shhh,’ I whispered back. ‘Please, just … just … Ahhhh,’ as he slid into me again. ‘Perfect.’ And it was. The connection, the fit, the everything. ‘Nick. I love what you do to me. Love it, love it.’ He twisted slightly, crushing me close enough to crack a rib. His mouth slid off mine, gasping for air like he couldn’t breathe. Long, beautiful, voluptuous thrusts, over and over, silent except for his ragged breaths. I wanted it to go on forever, never stop, never, but at last I felt him clench, ready to come but holding back, waiting for me. One, two, three more thrusts and I was there. Coming. With him. So beautifully in synch. Silence. Again. And then he rolled so that he was next to me on the mattress and pulled me into his side. We stayed like that until our heartbeats settled. And then he kissed me, but not on the mouth. He kissed me … wait for it … on the forehead! And the real shock of it was that it quivered all the way down to my toes, in a way Marcus’s kisses never had. ‘You said you’d never do that,’ I said, and my voice was a little wobbly as I tried to make sense of my reaction. ‘I say a lot of stupid shit,’ he said. Then he was off the bed, heading into the bathroom. I followed him in. ‘Where were you tonight, Nick?’ I asked, as he turned on the shower. He got under the spray and drew the shower curtain around, blocking me. ‘Why do you want to know?’ ‘I’m just interested,’ I said, leaning against the sink. Pause. ‘Okay.’ Another pause. ‘When you interviewed me, I talked about the kids living on the streets in Manila. Tonight, that’s where I was, with a priest I met on my last visit.’ ‘I didn’t know you were religious,’ I said cautiously. ‘I’m not. But Father Mulvaney walks the talk, and I … I like him, respect him. I wanted to see what he sees when he goes into town three times a week to buy dinner for one of the gangs.’ ‘What did you see?’ I asked, as my palms started to sweat. Silence. Stillness. All I could hear over my own heartbeats was the water running. No soapy scrubbing was happening on the other side of the curtain. And then, he said, ‘Rugby boys, they call them.’ ‘I would have thought playing sport was –’ ‘It’s not rugby league or rugby union.’ Another pause. And then the soap sounds started up again. ‘Rugby is a solvent, a glue. The kids are glue sniffers.’ ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Oh.’ ‘It helps moderate their hunger. And I guess it gives them some kind of escape from their crappy lives as a side benefit. But, of course, then they need to support their addiction and that leads to – What …?’ Because I was opening the shower curtain. ‘Chloe?’ Stepping under the spray beside him. ‘I’m sorry, Nick,’ I said, and put my arms around him. ‘There’s nothing to be sorry about,’ he said, sounding gruff – but his arms closed around me, the way they always did. ‘It’s just the way it is.’ ‘I know, but I’m still sorry … for you … that you had to see it.’ ‘And if I didn’t see it? It wouldn’t change the fact that it exists. Someone has to see it, Chloe. It might as well be me.’ ‘It’s just … I don’t think you’re as tough as you like people to think.’ I looked up at him. ‘In fact, I think you’re soft.’

He laughed. ‘I’m not soft,’ he said, and nudged me with his burgeoning erection. ‘Feel that? It’s getting harder by the second with you in here.’ But I wasn’t to be sidetracked. ‘Nick, why do you like to pretend you’re an ogre?’ He started washing me with the soap. ‘It’s not pretence.’ ‘Sunshine Children’s Home? Feeding the homeless?’ ‘The orphanage – that’s just money, easy to give when you’re making a fortune. And feeding those kids? I’m here, so why not?’ ‘Because it hurts you, to see them.’ ‘Ah. Is that why I got the blow job? Sympathy?’ ‘No! I just –’ ‘Don’t, Chloe.’ He turned off the taps and looked at me. ‘Just … don’t, okay?’ ‘No, it’s not okay.’ ‘Then make it okay. The way you make everything else in your life okay.’ ‘What does that mean?’ ‘You know what it means, white swan. Hide it, bury it, paper over it. It’s why you spent a whole year not wanting to know a damn thing about me. Or nothing good, at any rate. One way to keep me at bay, right?’ The taps went back on, and he recommenced washing me. ‘And that’s okay. I get it. I do.’ ‘But I want to know about you now.’ ‘Why? When we have only two more nights together?’ But I didn’t have an answer to that, so I took the soap off him and started washing him. ‘Sauce for the goose, right?’ I said, when he tried to snatch the soap back. ‘Hmm, cooked goose. And I have an idea where I’d like to shove the cooking thermometer.’ And I let my soapy fingers drift. Nick grabbed my hand, laughing. ‘You know, I’d let you – as long as you promised to go in after it.’ I started laughing, ‘You are so much like Drew, it’s disturbing.’ ‘I’m okay with that. I like Drew.’ I frowned before I even knew I was doing it. ‘What is it?’ Nick asked, smoothing a wet finger over the creases in my forehead. ‘Nothing, except … Marcus didn’t like him.’ ‘Well, each to their own,’ Nick said, and turned off the taps again. He pushed the shower curtain out of the way and reached for a towel. ‘I don’t think it’s so much that he didn’t like him. More that he didn’t feel comfortable around him. Weird, when I think about it, because –’ ‘Are we really going to talk about Marcus?’ Nick interrupted, wrapping the towel around his hips. ‘Because I have to tell you, Chloe, I’m not up to it. Not tonight.’ I swallowed. ‘But it’s nearly time to … to …’ ‘See him again?’ He sighed. ‘I know. Just … not tonight, okay?’ I grabbed a towel for myself. ‘Fine. What do you want to talk about, then?’ ‘You could tell me where you thought I was tonight. Out whoring, I suppose.’ ‘That thought did cross my mind. You’re well known for sleeping with every available woman. And there are six just on the Do-It-Right team who’d take you on in a flash.’ He touched my face. The tiniest gesture, and one that had tremors running through me. ‘For the longest time, I’ve only wanted to sleep with one, and she hasn’t exactly been available. I’ve been feeling like one of those hyenas on the Discovery Channel, hunting down the zebras every night waiting for a show of weakness so I can make my move.’ I laughed. ‘A hyena? You’re not exactly terrifying me with that image.’ ‘Hey, those hyenas are scary bastards. They’re like machines. They can go for several days without water. Did you know that?’

‘Oddly enough, I did not know that.’ ‘And in just one feeding frenzy, they can eat up to a third of their body weight.’ I stared at him as the truth dawned. ‘Oh my God, you really do watch the Discovery Channel, don’t you?’ ‘Well, yeah,’ he said, and shrugged. And … blushed. And it was like a light turned on inside me. One moment, I was standing there, relatively normal, surprised that Nick did anything as mundane as watch nature documentaries. The next moment, I was in love with him.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It wasn’t supposed to happen like that, was it? When your hair was wet and ratty, your face bare of make-up except for a few leftover mascara smudges, when you were wrapped in a hotel towel, talking about hyenas, which (apologies to hyenaadmirers) have to be the ugliest animals on earth. Yet there it was. It had happened. I was in love. Nothing else mattered. Not the way I looked. Not the fact that we were in a bathroom, minus the rose petals, candles and champagne. Not Marcus – what I’d had with him, or what he’d think of what I had now. All that mattered was Nick. The sure, deep knowledge of him that was winding itself into my heart. The way he looked at me, and breathed me in, and held me like he’d never let go. The orphanage. How he braced for me, and took whatever I did to him. The rugby boys. The things he whispered to me when he was inside me. Waking up with his fingers in their favourite spot. Even the fact he’d thrown a used condom in his shoe rather than get out of my bed. This was love – and everything I’d ever felt before was nothing. ‘What?’ he asked, all defensive and utterly adorable – which I took to mean I’d been standing there, probably looking like a stunned, love-struck idiot, for quite some time. I raised one eyebrow and gave him a half-smile. Dare you. ‘Just thinking about eagles.’ He looked suspicious. ‘Eagles?’ ‘Eagles. And the way they mate.’ He stared at me. Blink, blink, blink. ‘I’m trying not –’ He stopped. Frowned. ‘Chloe.’ Stop. ‘I don’t want to misinterpret, but …’ Another stop, as he scrubbed a hand through his wet hair. ‘Okay, just tell me, what do you mean?’ ‘I mean I’m interested in exploring that mating thing. The one where it’s done for life.’ I waited for him to grab me and kiss me. Instead he headed out of the bathroom. I followed him, startled to find him getting dressed. ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Back to my room.’ ‘Wait, and I’ll come with you.’ ‘No, Chloe. You stay here and think carefully about what you’re getting yourself into.’ ‘Why don’t you just tell me what I’m getting into?’ ‘I’m not a saint.’ ‘Okay, well that’s a shock!’ Eye roll. ‘Not a saint. Got it.’ Jeans being zipped up. ‘I’m not … nice. What I did to Ruby …? I’d do it again.’ ‘To me? You’d do it to me?’ ‘What? No! I’d do it to get you.’ ‘Okay, in that case I can live with “not nice”.’ T-shirt going over his head. ‘I’m not Marcus.’ ‘Not Marcus. Tick.’ ‘I mean it. I’m the jealous type. You kiss another man, and it will not be a case of “okay so we’ll break up but I love you and hope you have a nice time overseas with the motherfucker”. Got it?’

‘I … think so. Although I got the impression you didn’t think it was worth breaking up over a kiss.’ ‘I won’t forgive you if you kiss another man, Chloe. I won’t. I mean it.’ ‘Okay! Sheesh! No kissing other men. Vice versa applies too.’ ‘You’re not getting it. Once you choose me, that’s it. I’ll go ballistic if you change your mind. I’ll never forgive you. Never.’ ‘God, Nick, do you want me to choose you or not?’ ‘I want you with your eyes wide open. So don’t get all caught up in “Oh. Nick’s so sweet, looking after orphans, feeding street kids” and all that bullshit. Just remember. I ditched that girl the night we met because I saw someone I wanted more. I would have ditched any and every girl you’ve ever seen me with, on the spot, if you’d crooked your finger at me. I’ve fucked a thousand girls before you and haven’t cared about any of them. I tried like hell to get you into bed behind your boyfriend’s back. I made your boss send you here just so I could get into your pants.’ ‘I know all this. It’s getting boring.’ ‘Chloe, open you goddamn ears. I was a street kid. I’ve sniffed glue. I’ve stolen, and fought and … and … What are you doing?’ ‘Taking off my towel.’ ‘Well put it back on, I’m not finished.’ ‘Okay, towel going back on. But can you speed it up?’ ‘I’m the animal you always said I was. I was a rotten kid. And I’m still rotten.’ ‘Who says you were a rotten kid?’ ‘I’m a Savage, not a Haynes, remember?’ Oh God, that hurt. That … hurt. Enough to steal my breath for a moment. ‘Well that … that family, the one that didn’t take you? They’re stupid. And … and cruel. And just stupid. Splitting up two brothers. I can’t even – Can’t imagine. Horrible. Unfair. Inhuman.’ ‘They were smart not to take me. I was a troublemaker. I can’t fault them.’ ‘How old were you, Nick? How old?’ ‘What does it –? Oh for God’s sake, six. I was six.’ ‘A six year old is not a troublemaker,’ I said fiercely. ‘A six year old is a grieving little boy, that’s all.’ ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Tears in my chest, my throat, clogging the back of my nose. ‘I do know, Nick, because I was a grieving little girl. And nobody wanted me, either.’ One step towards me, then he stopped. ‘Are you saying …?’ He shook his head, as though trying to clear it. ‘No.’ I said nothing. ‘No.’ he said again. ‘Tell me it’s not what I think.’ ‘W–What is it you’re thinking?’ I asked, breathless. ‘You’re not adopted.’ ‘No, I’m not adopted. I had a mother, but she didn’t want me. And neither did anyone else.’ And wham, I was in his arms – it was as if I’d been teleported there, it was so fast. ‘I can’t believe … How could someone, anyone, everyone not want you?’ ‘It was more like, how could they? I was angry, always angry. When I was first placed in foster care, I screamed all the time. And I was violent. I hit, and slapped and bit and I … I punched. Ha! Imagine that! And there were other things. Lots of things. I ate too much. Or I was too smart-mouthed. Too brainy. A show-off. I liked reading so I snuck the books – stole the books – from the other kids, which made me a thief. And then I was getting too old, and people preferred the little ones. Too old and too … too pretty. A temptation to sons, fathers, uncles, friends. Even though it was only a problem once. Just once.’ I shuddered, remembering that, and Nick tightened his arms. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes, it does. I want to kill them all.’ I laughed softly. ‘Yeah, well, I wanted to do that, too. Instead. I started twisting myself inside out to be perfect, but it never worked. I couldn’t … fit. Nobody ever wanted to keep me. So, I guess what I’m saying is, I know what it’s like to not be chosen. I know what it’s like to be a street kid, too, Nick, so don’t think that scares me.’ ‘What?’ ‘After that one time, when one of the fathers tried it on, I bolted. I slept rough for a while, and that’s when I finally met a case worker who cared enough to get me on the path to a scholarship for university.’ I peeped up at him. ‘How did you think I knew Vodka Vern? Not that he recognises me these days, but I still give him money when I see him, because I know how wonderful it feels to have something to spend any way you want to. Free and clear. No questions asked. I was trying to be discreet, but you caught me.’ ‘I was watching you like a hawk. Of course I caught you.’ ‘And you said …’ ‘I said he was just going to buy booze with it, and you asked me, very frostily, if I liked being told what to do with my money.’ ‘And you said no,’ I said, and tucked myself back into my spot, my cheek against his chest. ‘And then you one-upped me by giving him a fifty on his next go-by.’ ‘Marcus never told me about … about …’ ‘Marcus doesn’t know. Only three people know. Drew … Evie … you. That’s the way I want it. Because that’s not me anymore. Not … me. I won’t let it be me.’ ‘Ah, Chloe,’ he said. My words, the words that were just for me. He kissed the top of my head. ‘The kids. Is it going to be hard for you, tomorrow?’ ‘Yes, it’s going to be hard,’ I said around the lump in my throat. ‘I’ll be there.’ I nodded, and he kissed the top of my head again. And that was all. The story was out, over with, moving on. Easy, because he was one of my kind and he just knew. I turned my head so I could kiss his chest. ‘Thank you, Nick,’ I whispered. ‘Hey, you can kiss any part of me you want. Higher … lower.’ I choked on a laugh. ‘You know what I mean.’ ‘Yeah, I know.’ Silence, as he just held me, stroking his hand up and down my back. And then, tentatively, ‘So … what happens next?’ ‘We go public.’ Tiny pause. ‘What do you have in mind?’ ‘Hmm, something I saw on Gaz’s boat, that evening on the harbour.’ ‘You’re not talking about the ménage à trois, are you?’ ‘What?’ I spluttered, and thumped him on the shoulder. ‘No!’ ‘Good, because I’m not into sharing.’ ‘You were that night!’ ‘Not sharing you,’ he clarified. I sighed, liking the sound of that. ‘So …?’ he prompted. ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘Oh, well I’m embarrassed to say it now, it’s so tame by your standards.’ ‘Hey, I can be tamed!’ ‘Like hell. But all right, if you insist. I’m going to squeeze your butt.’ And then, ‘Hey!’ as he grabbed my backside. ‘I said I was going to squeeze yours!’ ‘Squeeze it now.’ ‘No, that’s not public, I’m going to do it tomorrow night, when we’re out for those celebratory

drinks Bryce has organised.’ Nick laughed, and started backing me towards the bed, peeling off the towel on the way. ‘Come on, you can do a practice run, can’t you?’ ‘But the sheets. I should put them back on the bed first.’ ‘Fuck the sheets,’ Nick said, and pushed me onto the bed. He dropped to his knees, tugged me towards him so my backside was on the edge, and nudged my legs open. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked. Stupidly, because it was obvious! ‘Kissing you,’ he said, and put his mouth on me. And as my eyes rolled back I my head, I thought, Fuuuuuck the sheets.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The next morning, I was woken with a deep, luscious kiss. ‘What?’ I asked drowsily. ‘You said you wanted me to see your underwear, so get up and let me watch you put some on.’ ‘Ugh.’ That was me – pulling a pillow over my head, because I was basically worn out. Orgasmed to the edge of death. Laughing, Nick dragged the pillow off my face, kissed me again, and wrenched me up. ‘And I’m in the mood to have my butt squeezed in front of everyone, so I thought we’d renegotiate the timing.’ ‘To when.’ ‘The lobby, before we hit the road.’ ‘No.’ ‘Then how about once we’re in the minivan?’ ‘No.’ ‘How about at the playground?’ I started laughing, ‘No, no, no, you desperado!’ ‘Dammit.’ Grin. ‘Well, in that case, can you squeeze it now to tide me over?’ I was still laughing. ‘Okay, turn around, bend over.’ But he didn’t turn around. Instead, he clutched me close and kissed me. ‘No regrets, right?’ ‘Didn’t we settle this?’ ‘Yeah, but I …’ He trailed off, and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. ‘You …?’ Frown. ‘You what, Nick?’ Little frozen moment, and then he smiled. ‘You know, I think I’ll check out your underwear next time. For now, come on, shower time. I’m not getting in without you.’ I groaned, flopped back on the bed and drew the pillow over my face again. ‘Come on, Chloe. Butt squeezing ahoy. Don’t make me hurt you.’ ‘Yeah, as if you could,’ I said. But I had a sudden, horrible premonition that he would. And you know what? Being psychic is not all it’s cracked up to be.

When we disembarked at the Sunshine Children’s Home, Nick turned, stuck out his backside and gave it a pat, and I started laughing again. Not that it got his butt squeezed for him, but at least Nick’s incorrigibility got me smiling – a much better facial expression than a rictus of terror, which was my other option for the day, given the interviews with the children were hanging over my head. I managed to keep smiling when I collared Joan to discuss which children would be best for the camera. I kept it together as we whittled twenty-six down to five. But I slipped up at the end, when Joan suggested adding one more to the list: Honey.

‘Honey?’ Me – instant alarm. ‘Yes. Why not? I’ve already cleared it.’ ‘Cleared it with whom?’ ‘Her new parents,’ she said. ‘Oh.’ It was like being doused with ice water. ‘I didn’t know about the … the …’ ‘Adoption? The news came through overnight. She’ll be off to America next week.’ ‘That’s … brilliant.’ ‘Yes, we’re all very happy.’ But my hands were clenching in my lap, and that shock of icy water was spreading through my veins. But I want her. The thought was there, as though it had formed itself. I want her. I do. Mine. Hands unclenching, clenching, unclenching, clenching. ‘Chloe, are you all right?’ Joan asked, concerned. ‘Yes,’ I said, and forced my lips to stretch wider, just in case I’d stopped smiling. But had I stopped? I didn’t know. I might be looking like a demented clown, stretching that smile unnecessarily. ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, and added a laugh. Happy, happy, happy laugh. ‘Yes. So … um …’ Breathe, breathe, dammit breathe. ‘Let’s … Let’s rearrange things.’ Racking my brain, needing to find a way to avoid a close encounter. Group activity. Group, group, group. Racking, racking, racking. ‘I know, let’s get all the kids down at the playground. We’ll … paint. Yes. All those tyres need to be painted and kids like painting, right? Bright colours. Good for the camera. Fun. Kids like fun, don’t they? Yes, I’m sure that will work. But I – I need – I need –’ ‘Chloe?’ She was starting to worry, I could hear it. ‘Clothes. I need to change.’ I smiled again and it felt like my face was cracking. ‘I’m going to go back to the hotel and get changed.’ Getting out of my chair. ‘And then I’ll be back. I’ll be … back.’ Laugh. Laugh. Yep, I was heading for a straitjacket and couldn’t seem to help it. ‘Like Arnold Schwarzenegger.’ Getting my things together. ‘You know. Arnie. The Terminator.’ ‘Okaaaay,’ Joan said – and that struck me as so funny, I started to laugh harder. I was still laughing as I left Joan’s office. And then somehow I was on the verandah, looking out at the lush garden, at this place that was full of life and colour and hope, and I stopped laughing. Because I was not full of those things. I was full of anger and bitterness. I was selfish, and desperate, and stupid. Grieving because a little girl I hadn’t even let myself touch, a little girl I’d been trying to ignore, would never be mine. I felt my eyes start to sting and blinked furiously. I would not cry. Crying never helped. I knew that. I’d learned that. And this wasn’t a time for tears. Honey had a new life waiting for her. Someone wanted Honey to be their family. She deserved that. Every child deserved that. To be wanted. To find a home. I knew what it was like to want exactly that. It wasn’t Honey’s fault I’d never found it; it was my fault. Because I wasn’t sweet and charming and adorable. I was just … me. Hurt and angry and mistrustful. The girl nobody ever wanted for long. I could see Nick coming towards me, running at me, and knew in some dim recess of my fractured mind that Joan must have called him. He was going to see how imperfect I was. So consumed with grief for myself, I couldn’t be happy that one gorgeous, innocent little girl was going to have the wonderful life I’d never had. Would he want me, when he saw me like this? I tried hard to pull it together, but before I could even square my shoulders, he was there, pounding up the stairs, reaching for me, pulling me against his chest. ‘I’m here,’ he said. And I burst into tears. Not pretty, delicate tears. This was like a roar, a rush, through the floodgates. I couldn’t stop them, all I could do was hang on and sob as Nick rocked me, soothed me. A minute, an hour, forever later, it started to pass, but I was shaking, my head aching, my heart bruised.

‘Are we going to talk about it?’ Nick asked at last. ‘I don’t have the right clothes on,’ I said – as though that fact were a three act tragedy! – and started crying again. ‘Okay,’ he said – like a normal person would, one who didn’t think you were losing your marbles. No okaaaays here. ‘What clothes do you need, and we’ll get them.’ ‘Jeans. I need jeans,’ I said, still crying. ‘And a shirt. And … and sneakers. Because we’re going to paint. With the ch–children. We’re going to p–paint.’ ‘Right, so the minivan will take you – us – back to the hotel so you can get changed.’ ‘No, not you. You need to finish the work. We need to finish so I can go. Because I can’t bear it, Nick. I can’t take it. Not for one more minute. Not when she – Oh Nick, she’s being adopted.’ ‘I know, sweetheart.’ More crying. Was it ever going to stop? ‘So you have to stay.’ ‘Okay, I’ll stay, and get it all finished. I promise.’ I looked up at him. ‘Promise?’ ‘Promise.’ And he tucked me back in my normal position, under his chin. ‘And tomorrow, we’ll go home.’ I stayed in his arms, taking deep, shuddery, going-to-stop-crying-now breaths, while he ran his hand over my hair. ‘We can’t go home,’ I said at last. ‘Because there are the others.’ ‘The others?’ ‘The other children. We need to find families for them, too. How are we going to do that?’ He sighed. ‘There are processes for this, Chloe.’ ‘They’re not working. They don’t work. They never work. You know that.’ ‘They worked for Honey.’ ‘But can’t we –? I mean don’t you ever want to … to adopt one of them?’ ‘Why? Because nobody wanted to adopt me?’ He sighed again. ‘Chloe, it’s just not possible to adopt every child in the world.’ ‘But … one? What about just one? Because you said … You said, when I asked you about this place being just a drop in the ocean, you said there were a lot of drops. And you – I – could be a drop, right?’ He tilted my face up. ‘How is that going to work, Chloe?’ ‘I don’t know. But there’s a way, isn’t there?’ He was shaking his head before the words had even left my mouth. ‘You don’t just pick a kid and head to the airport with her. The checks and balances are intense. And here, in the Philippines …? In your specific case, the first obstacle is that you’re too young. Next, you’re not married. And no, there’s no shooting off to Vegas and coming back for her. You have to be married for at least three years. Even then, it can take years. It took Honey’s new parents twelve months, and they’re Filipino.’ ‘But Joan said American.’ ‘They live in America, but they’re Filipino. And they’re Catholic, very religious. That’s important here. They’ve been married for eight years, and are unable to have a baby. They’ve spent a lot of time with Honey, and they’re madly in love with her. You can see how that’s perfect, can’t you?’ ‘I – I – Yes,’ I said, but my voice was wobbling perilously again. Nick took my face in his hands. Wiped at my tears with the pads of his thumbs. ‘It’s not going to happen for you this time, sweetheart. You can see that too, can’t you?’ And I burst into tears again. ‘Ah, Chloe,’ he said, and hugged me close. ‘But I want her, too,’ I said – well, sobbed – into his chest. ‘I know you do.’ That was all. No arguments. No persuasions. Just acceptance, and a willingness to

let me bawl my eyes out. ‘But sometimes we have to give up.’ ‘Yes,’ I said. And because it was oddly comforting to hear that, I managed to stop crying long enough to take another of those shuddering breaths and calm down. ‘I see, I do. I’m okay now, Nick.’ He released me slowly. ‘Are you going to be able to do the filming this afternoon?’ ‘I have to,’ I said, and tried to smile. He touched my lips. It reminded me of the time in the aircraft toilet, when he’d tried to smooth them back into place. ‘Well, I’ll be there too. So if it gets too much …’ ‘I can do it. I can.’ He looked at me for the longest moment. And then he smiled. ‘Yes, you can. Okay then, let’s find the van.’

By the time I returned to the orphanage, suitably attired, I had myself well under control. And my timing was perfect. Fifteen minutes to check the preparations Nick and Derek had made – the tyres positioned, paint cans lined up, paintbrushes waiting – and then the children arrived. As the children chose their colours and started painting, I roamed from one to the next to the next, wielding my own paintbrush and asking about their favourite school subjects, hobbies, what they wanted to be when they grew up, how they felt about the playground – a different question for each child. Some of the answers were funny, some thoughtful, some heartbreaking. And despite the ache in my soul, I managed to smile, and encourage, and paint, and nobody could tell that my palms were sweating (hey, everyone was sweating) and my heart was beating a drum solo. Yep, I was holding it all together. Right up until Honey came over to me and waved her paintbrush. And that drumming heart of mine became a timpani orchestra. How was I going to talk to her on camera? I was quaking as I beckoned to Derek, but as I started to crouch beside Honey, Nick was there. ‘I thought you wanted me on camera again?’ he said. ‘How about if I ask Honey the questions, just to mix it up a little?’ My throat was too tight to talk, so I nodded, and tried to smile. And just like that, as though Nick had no issue with stepping in front of a camera, he took over. And I loved him like a maniac at that moment. Nick knelt beside Honey, while I held the boom mike and Derek filmed, and asked her about ice cream, and favorite colours, and the games she liked to play. And then he looked at me, nodded once – like he was giving me a bit of his own strength in that one movement – and returned his attention to Honey to ask if she knew where she was going to be living soon. Honey smiled wide enough to light up a universe. ‘Mummy and Daddy taking me home.’ And she touched the little gold cross that was hanging on a chain around her neck. ‘See?’ she asked, which I assumed meant the cross was a gift from her parents. It was our closing shot. It had to be. The perfect ending: hope. An image that eased the crushing weight around my own heart. Blinking back a fresh round of tears, I motioned to Derek that we were done. ‘Right, Miss Honey,’ Nick said, and made to stand up, but Honey turned into him and snuggled into his chest – accidentally painting a red streak on his cheek at the same time. Nick looked at me, his eyes suspiciously bright. And I thought, So much for the tough guy. Because it was becoming increasingly clear to me that he was not tough. At all. Honey glowed up at Nick and touched the red mark on his cheek. ‘Is red your best colour?’ she asked. ‘Yes, so can you paint some more?’ Nick said instantly, and she giggled, and painted a matching stripe on his other cheek.

And I thought if Nick stood and turned his gorgeous butt to me right at that moment, I’d be squeezing well ahead of schedule.

The bar Bryce had chosen for the celebratory drinks was in Makati. The group was leaving the hotel together, but I opted to meet them at the bar instead, because I had some serious primping to do. Not that I was going to be wearing a short swing dress and nonsensical heels – not this time. Well, all right, I was wearing nonsensical heels, in silver, but at least I was in jeans (super tight ones, I confess). And if my top was provocatively small and red and spangly, so what? Just because the dress code was casual didn’t mean I couldn’t try to knock my boyfriend’s socks off, did it? My boyfriend. Words I couldn’t quite believe I was about to say about Nick, out loud and in company. But just as I was preparing to leave my room, I got a call from Larry, my chief of staff, sounding me out about staying in Manila for a couple of days, even though we’d finished filming, because of a storm warning that had been issued for the Philippines. ‘Of course,’ I agreed. ‘But it’s not a typhoon, is it?’ ‘Not yet. But it might turn into one, and it would be good to have someone on the spot if the shit hits the fan.’ We debated at what point we would make a decision – apparently an overnight upgrade to storm warning signal #3 (which would predict winds of up to 185 kph within eighteen hours) would be worth the expense of keeping me in Manila – and by the time we’d finished, I was late. I arrived at the bar to find it was going to be a let-your-hair-all-the-way-down night. The bar was lively, vividly lit in blues, purples, pinks and reds, the music was thumping, and the team had put a serious dent in what looked an endless line of tequila shots. The look Nick sent my way as I called out an all-inclusive greeting to the team was indecent enough to telegraph to everyone within a ten kilometre radius that he’d seen me naked a time or two. It made me wonder if he’d been tossing back a few tequilas himself, because he looked super edgy, almost feverish. In fact, something about him was making me nervous – enough to reach for one of those shots and down it as he started making his way towards me like one of his blasted hyenas on the hunt for zebra blood. It was almost a relief to feel my phone vibrate in my jeans pocket. I dug it out, doing a quick scan for a quieter area, and spied an outdoor deck. With an apologetic grimace for Nick, I headed that way, answering without checking the caller ID. ‘One minute,’ I yelled into it. Then, ‘Whew,’ stepping out into the night air. ‘Sorry about that.’ Laugh. ‘That’s okay.’ ‘Marcus?’ ‘How’s it going, Chloe?’ ‘Oh … fiiiine.’ Slowly, because I wasn’t sure why he was calling. I didn’t want him to call, not tonight, when I was about to go public with Nick. Two days, just two more days, was all I needed. ‘I hear it’s all finished so you’re coming home early,’ Marcus said. I blinked in surprise. ‘Who told you that?’ ‘Oh, so he hasn’t –? I mean I just … That is … Nobody, really … I just … thought …’ ‘Nick?’ I asked, trying to understand. And it was as though I’d summoned Nick, because there he was, stepping onto the deck, looking for me. Premonition. Something was about to change. ‘When did you speak to Nick, Marcus?’ ‘An hour ago. I just wondered … I mean, I thought I should check in with you, too. To see how things … Um …’ But the words trailed off. And then Marcus cleared his throat. ‘I wanted to see how things were going. Between you two. Before you get home. Before I get home. Before … well, before.’

The deck felt like it was tipping beneath me. I needed to hold onto something. Blink, blink, breathe. ‘I’ll see you when we’re both back in Sydney and we can talk about it then,’ I said. ‘Chloe, it’s not –’ But I disconnected before he could finish, because Nick had reached me. ‘So, is it butt-squeezing time?’ Nick asked, all jovial. And I knew, right then, that he and Marcus had cooked up a plan between them to move me on. ‘I think you know that time has come and gone, Nick,’ I said carefully.

CHAPTER TWENTY

‘What –. What does that mean?’ ‘It means that was Marcus on the phone. But you already know that, don’t you?’ ‘Oh.’ Nick licked his lips – something I’d never seen him do. Nerves. He was nervous. ‘Marcus knows what we’ve been doing, doesn’t he?’ I asked. ‘Not exact–’ ‘Marcus really doesn’t care what we’ve been doing, does he?’ ‘He –’ ‘Marcus and you decided, together, what we’d be doing, didn’t you?’ ‘It’s not like that,’ he said. ‘You interchanged me. Like one of those groupies.’ My breaths were coming fast and furious, my hands clenching, my pulse thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings. His mouth tightened. ‘If you were a groupie, Chloe, I would have had you a year ago.’ I was blinking again. ‘You –?’ Choke. ‘So that’s why it took a year? Because I wasn’t a groupie? Thank you. Thank you so much!’ One of his hands went scraping through his hair. ‘No, it took a year because you wouldn’t open your goddamn eyes and see me. See him.’ ‘Oh, my eyes were open. They were seeing you very clearly, Casanova Savage, trading girls with your teammates. But I never thought Marcus –’ My voice broke on his name. ‘I can’t believe he did this. I can’t believe I did this. I knew better than to do this.’ I spun away, wanting to run, but Nick grabbed me by one swinging forearm and spun me right back. ‘Better than to do what, Chloe?’ ‘Better than to fuck one of you … you … players.’ ‘Fuck? Really? Is that what we were doing last night? Fucking?’ His jaw was so tight, it looked like it would crack if I tapped it with a fingernail. ‘Maybe you should be asking which player your precious Marcus wants to be fucking instead of you,’ he threw at me. Like, actually threw it. And then his eyes widened. ‘Holy fucking shit.’ I’d sucked in a breath, preparing to spit out a little more vitriol, but it stuck in my chest. Blink. Blink. Breathe. Blink. Images flashing through my head one after the other, like screen grabs. Me, mystified after the first time I made love with Marcus, because it wasn’t as earth-shattering as I’d expected it to be. Marcus, kissing my forehead. Marcus, cringing that time I’d lap-danced him. The multiple underwear fails. Marcus tired and busy and … and tired again. Video calls keeping him home. Marcus’s flare of panic as he headed into the kitchen with Drew that night at Evie’s. Click, click, click, and there it was. The picture, in focus, at last. ‘Chloe!’ Nick cried, as I wrenched my arm free. ‘It’s not as bad as you think.’ That breath that was stuck in my chest started wheezing thinly like I had emphysema. ‘So Marcus wants to fuck a player? Like, generally? Or you, specifically, Nick?’ ‘He’s not – He didn’t – Chloe, listen. He didn’t even know himself until –’

‘Three months ago,’ I supplied. ‘When he stopped wanting to have sex with me.’ ‘One month ago,’ Nick corrected me. ‘One month, that’s all. That’s when he knew for sure.’ ‘Oh, one month, that’s all,’ I said with a brittle, humourless laugh. ‘Tell me, did you know, one month ago?’ He stood there, silent, licking his lips again. ‘Did you, Nick? Did you? Tell me, goddamn you. Tell me now if you knew a month ago.’ ‘No,’ he said, and I thought, Thank God. But I thought it too soon, because he added, ‘I knew eighteen months ago. Before he knew himself. Or at least before he let himself know.’ I couldn’t breathe for a moment through the shock, the pain. He stepped towards me. ‘Don’t look at me like that.’ I held up my hands, staving him off. ‘So you knew even before he …? We …? Oh my God. Oh my God, my God, my God. How? How did you know? Are you … You’re not … Are you? Are you gay, too?’ ‘Am I –? Jesus, Chloe, you know I’m not!’ ‘What would I know? I dated a gay guy for a whole freaking year and didn’t know!’ ‘Come down to the dark end of the deck and I’ll prove how straight I am.’ ‘Then maybe you’ll be kind enough to do the decent thing and tell me just how you knew before he did.’ He licked his lips again. ‘He got drunk one night and …’ Shrug, awkward. ‘You know he doesn’t drink a lot, so it … it affected him. And it … He … Look, I don’t think he even remembers that he touched me.’ ‘He touched you. He touched you and you knew. He touched me, and I didn’t.’ My knees started to buckle, but Nick grabbed me before I could collapse and hauled me upright. ‘You can handle this, Chloe.’ ‘No,’ I said to his chest. ‘No, I can’t. I can’t.’ ‘You can. You can. Look at me. Look.’ But I kept my eyes on his chest. ‘So eighteen months … but he didn’t know … only you did. And then … one month ago … but he was still with me a month ago …’ I looked up then, almost too dazed to focus on Nick’s face. ‘When was he going to tell me?’ ‘When you both got back to Sydney.’ ‘I see,’ I said, but I really didn’t. ‘But he told you first.’ ‘He came to see me after you broke up. The kiss, you told him about that kiss, and he wanted me not to sweat it. We talked about it, about you. I told him what I was going through, how I felt about you. And he … he told me what he was going through in return.’ ‘So he didn’t tell me. And then you didn’t tell me.’ ‘Chloe, be fair. He’s a rugby league player, a sports star. Coming out is going to be a big deal. He’s only just getting used to it himself.’ ‘So … what? He was scared I’d steal his thunder and out him in a tell-all? Or was it you who thought that? There has to be some reason you didn’t tell me. It would have made getting into my pants easier, you know.’ ‘I didn’t want to tell you because I wanted this thing between us – between you and me – to be about us. I wanted it to be because you wanted me, not because you wanted to … to prove something to him. I wanted you to choose me, Chloe. And you did. I want you to choose me again now. Now that you know everything. Choose me, Chloe. Choose me.’ He took my lifeless hand and brought it to his chest, over his heart. And the tears started to well in my eyes, because that gesture didn’t make me feel safe anymore. ‘Don’t cry, Chloe. Please, please don’t.’ I shook my head, tears cascading. ‘I didn’t cry. Not for years and years and years. I trained myself

not to. And then you brought me here, and now … Now, look what you’ve done to me.’ ‘Shhh, shhh,’ he said, pulling me in, wrapping me up. ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry.’ ‘You cut a deal, didn’t you? How did it go? What did he say? ‘I’m gay, so take her off my hands so I don’t have to break it to her?’ Something like that? Did he tell you he’d already paved the way for you, by telling me to be nice to you? Did you think it wouldn’t matter to me which one of you I was with? Just like all those other girls in the harem? The harem, where everyone’s an adult and nobody’s getting hurt?’ ‘Ah, Chloe. Don’t do this to yourself.’ ‘Don’t say that! Ah, Chloe! Like that. Just … don’t! And don’t tell me not to do this to myself. I didn’t do this to myself. He did it to me. And you did it to me. Can you believe he said he loved me? He said that, less than a week ago. And I told you what he said. I told you, you bastard.’ My breath hitched, painfully, as I tried to struggle out of his arms – no luck though, he held me so tightly. ‘And you saw what it was doing to me, the … the guilt of being with you, of wanting you. And you could have helped me, you could have let me off the hook, you could have said, Don’t feel guilty. Chloe, because he’s gay and he can’t love you, but you never said a word.’ ‘He does love you, Chloe. And you know you love him, too, just not like … like that, not like us. And if you’d just stop and think, stop and think, Chloe, just for a minute, you’d see that nothing’s changed.’ I stopped struggling and stared up at him as my mind did a little boggle. ‘You’re defending him now?’ ‘He can’t help this, Chloe. He shouldn’t have to help it. It’s just the way it is. He didn’t want to hurt you. He never wanted that.’ ‘Yep, defending him. Funny, you weren’t defending him when I told you he called me and told me he loved me.’ ‘He wasn’t supposed to call you before we left. He wasn’t supposed to confuse you, ever. He wasn’t supposed to call you tonight either. But he got an attack of conscience because he’s met someone and he wants to explore it and he wanted to make sure you had time to come to terms with it before he does. I told him to leave it to me. I told him we were going public, that I’d handle it after that. But you were late getting here, and so he called before I could …’ He stopped, looked at me, and closed his eyes. Opened them. Swallowed. ‘And I’m not putting this right, am I?’ ‘Oh you’re putting it right, Nick. It’s all making perfect sense.’ Something was starting to sputter to life inside me – replacing maudlin self-pity with icy fury. I’d been played, well and truly. I was Ruby, passed on, traded to the next player, no big deal. Interchangeable. ‘Now how about I stop struggling and you just let me go?’ I said coldly. ‘Let me go right now.’ And I must have sounded like I meant business, because his arms dropped from around me. I stepped back, smoothed my hair into place. ‘Remember what you said, Nick? Sometimes we have to give up, even when we want something so badly it’s like a dark ache? That’s how I wanted you, Nick. Like a dark, a very dark, ache. All twisted around with guilt, because of what I’d done to Marcus, and fear, because you brought out the old me, the savage me, the explosive me, the black swan, the me I don’t like. But now …’ I stopped to take a calming breath. ‘Well, now, because I really don’t like that black swan, and I really don’t like you, I’m giving up, that way we sometimes have to do.’ It was as though the blood drained right out his face. ‘You can’t do that.’ I raised one eyebrow. ‘I already have.’ But Nick was shaking his head. ‘What’s it going to take?’ he asked, and I could hear the panic in his voice now, feel it as he punched a fist against his chest. ‘Come on, do it. Hands, fists, feet. Slap me, punch me, kick me. Whatever it takes to get it out of your system, I don’t care. Just don’t look at me like that.’ ‘Goddesses don’t hit,’ I said unemotionally. ‘You’re not a goddess, Chloe. You’re a girl. My girl. And my girl can do anything the hell she wants.’

‘Except kiss another man, right?’ I said. ‘The one thing that you won’t forgive.’ And when he flinched, I knew with certainty that it was exactly what I was going to do. It would hurt him, the way he’d hurt me. And it would set me free, free of the dark ache that was just too painful to keep. ‘Why not, right? I mean, all it’s going to take is a hotter girl and you’ll ditch me the way you ditched Ruby.’ ‘Remember what I said, Chloe. I don’t share my toys.’ ‘Seems to me you and Marcus – Marcus, for the love of Christ – have done a bit of toy sharing, so don’t be a hypocrite. If you were okay about a kiss ending my last relationship, surely it’s appropriate that a kiss end this one too.’ ‘I won’t forgive you,’ he said – but he wasn’t reaching for me. He just stood there. Letting me go. He wasn’t going to tell me he loved me, that he would fight to keep me, that we were mating for life and I’d damned well better accept it and stay with him. Eagles, wolves, swans – black and white. And my heart … broke. It broke. So I pasted on a smile and strode indoors, refusing to check if Nick was following me, making for our table, where everyone was still laughing and drinking. One, two, three – that’s how many shots I downed, one after the other. And still nobody paid me the slightest heed. Come and get me, Nick. Come and get me, claim me, tell me you love me, say you’re keeping me. I waited, reaching for a fourth shot. No hand landed on my shoulder. No arms dragged me back. Fourth shot downed, I looked around me, spotted Bryce, and headed straight for him. Bryce looked startled as I stopped in front of him. And then startled became fearful as he looked past me – the Nick Savage effect. Nick was watching. Good! Because I was about to go public. I put my arms around Bryce’s neck, pulled his head down almost violently, and kissed him. I counted out the kiss, feeling nothing but rage and hurt and wrong. Six seconds. That’s how long it took for Bryce to overcome the shock that kept him immobile and push me away. Six seconds. And it was done. I turned to see what Nick was going to do. He was coming towards the table, but not looking at me. Bryce raced over to him, started to speak, but Nick stopped him, hugged him. A headshake, a tight smile, and then Nick handed over a wad of cash to Bryce, turned his back on all of us, and headed for the exit. The noise in the bar faded to nothing as I watched him leave. There was a dull ringing in my ears. It was a comfort, almost, because it meant I only had to concentrate on that, not on Nick leaving, or on Bryce heading back towards me looking ready to tear me limb from limb, or on the rest of the team, Derek too, staring at me. And then Bryce was grabbing my elbow, dragging me out onto the deck, whirling me to face him, and I stiffened my backbone. ‘That’s your version of going public, is it?’ Bryce spat at me. ‘Did he tell you that’s what we were –’ ‘Yes, he did.’ ‘I didn’t give him permission to talk to you about me.’ ‘I don’t give a shit,’ Bryce said. ‘I’m his brother.’ As though that were enough of an explanation. ‘He’ll find a new girlfriend within two days,’ I said, and tried to walk past him. Bryce grabbed my arm, held on. ‘Really? Is that what you think?’ His lip curled, melodrama style. ‘Then maybe it’s just as well it’s all off.’ All off. All … off. And along came the first inkling that I’d just made a huge mistake. ‘Why wouldn’t I think it?’ ‘Well, Chloe, you see, Nick has never had a girlfriend. You are – sorry, were – his first.’ I spluttered out a disbelieving laugh. ‘That’s not true, he has –’ ‘Sex?’ he finished for me. ‘He has sex? Of course he does. He’s twenty-five years old and has a

dozen women a night throwing themselves at him. Did you think he was going to let it shrivel and fall off waiting for you?’ ‘I – I – No. I –’ ‘Jesus, he probably would have let it shrivel off waiting if he thought he ever stood a chance. But he never thought he did.’ ‘H–He trades girls in, fast. Maybe you just don’t realise what’s he’s like. That he doesn’t care about any of us.’ Bryce snorted. ‘I know him like the back of my own hand. He couldn’t even bear to trade in Dad’s rust bucket car. Dad had a friend who was keeping it for us – specifically for me. But when I didn’t want it, Nick took it. He’s still driving it. That’s how loyal he is. And it’s no vintage Porsche, let me tell you.’ ‘Or a Jaguar,’ I said, as what I’d done hit me full force. ‘It’s not a Jaguar.’ Stricken, I looked into Bryce’s unsympathetic eyes. ‘What have I done?’ ‘Well, Chloe, if I were a betting man …? I’d say you’ve lost him.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I’d lost him. It took four hours to accept that. Because first I had to rush back to the hotel to see if he came knocking on my door, the way he usually did. (He didn’t.) Then I had to ask at the front desk if he’d even come in. (Yes – and then checked straight out.) Next, I had to call him, and text him, and call and text, and do it again; the same message every time: Please, Nick, let me explain. (No response.) And after that, I had to sit on the edge of the bed, hugging Nick’s pillow, trying to work out exactly how I’d ‘explain’ things, on the off chance he did decide to call me back. Payback – betrayal for betrayal, for conspiring with Marcus behind my back. Rage – at being made to feel like a gullible fool, thinking I was actually good enough for someone to want to keep. Pride – because having a guy tell you he’d waited for you for a year despite your committed relationship with another man lost some of its wow factor when you discovered your ex-boyfriend was re-gifting you to his friend. Fear – that the life I’d built for myself, the image I’d crafted, the very person I’d become … those things were nothing but lies. Need – to know that he would accept me, even at my worst, and forgive me whether I was perfect or not, well behaved or not, black swan or white. Defensible, all of it. And maybe Nick would have understood. Except that, one – he wasn’t giving me a chance to say all that; and two – the guy I’d chosen to kiss was his brother. The same brother who’d been chosen over him as a child. The brother who’d got those pilot lessons that Nick had missed out on. One thing was for sure. We were two broken souls, Nick and I. Damaged. Tough on the outside, fragile on the inside. Flawed to the bone marrow. It was no real surprise our break-up was a hot, chaotic mess – so different from my bloodless break-up with Marcus, which I’d calmly talked over with Evie and Drew over cocktails. Drew had said if I’d really been starry-eyed over Marcus, I wouldn’t have been sitting there in ice goddess mode, calmly debating our relative shades of red hair, but punching, screaming, clawing to get him back, because that was my true nature. I’d never considered myself starry-eyed over Nick – and God knows he’d been at pains to make that an impossibility by pointing out his flaws to me – but the whole punch, scream, claw thing felt about right. I would have done anything. Nothing mattered but Nick. So when Larry called me in the sleepless hours of the morning to tell me the storm warning had been upgraded and I’d be staying on in Manila, it wasn’t the reporting opportunity of my life that I thought about. Instead, I was consumed by images of Nick, on one of the last flights out of Manila, being attended to in the business class toilet by flight attendants with glow-in-the-dark teeth and

perky breasts. ‘Goddesses rise above jealousy,’ I said to my scratchy-eyed reflection in the bathroom mirror. But given that I could visualise knocking out at least one of Leila’s perfect teeth, I knew that either that was bullshit … or I was no fucking goddess.

Doing news updates outdoors during increasingly crazy weather was not exactly a picnic over the next twenty-four hours, but the wildness suited my mood. The only thing that really bothered me about the job was Larry’s constant reminders to ‘colour’ my reports more vividly with horrifying statistics. Typhoon Haiyan – more than six thousand deaths. Typhoon Bopha – more than six hundred. Tropical Storm Washi – more than a thousand. Typhoon Fengshen – more than five hundred deaths, and more than ninety thousand affected. That was Larry, not happy unless someone else’s misery was bringing him ratings, and all out thrilled when the storm was officially upgraded to #4, which meant a typhoon would hit Manila in twelve hours. And okay, I understood how the media worked, but it was hard to be objective when you were talking about a crisis that directly threatened people you cared about – in this case, the children and staff at the Sunshine Children’s Home, which was at an elevation that made it prone to flooding, in addition to very likely having its trees uprooted and buildings torn apart. Every time Larry called me (which was often!) and every time I got a timing update (also a lot), I called Joan to make sure she was ready to evacuate the moment it was called for. I knew I was driving poor Joan nuts, but I just couldn’t help myself. Eventually, outdoor reporting became impossible. The air was hazy with cloud and rain and winds were at racing speed. So of course, I called Joan. And at last, she lost it. ‘Chloe, we know!’ she said. ‘We are prepared. The storm shutters are on the windows, our utilities are turned off, the trees are trimmed, the gutter cleaned. We are evacuating as soon as I hang up. So please, let’s all save our phone batteries for important things. I promise you, Nick has it all under control.’ Blink. Rewind. ‘But … Nick’s in Sydney.’ There was a slight pause at the other end. ‘I have to go.’ ‘No! Don’t hang up! Just tell me. Is he … Is he evacuating with you?’ Joan sighed. ‘What do you think?’ ‘I think no.’ ‘He’s at the playground, seeing if there’s anything left that he can secure or dismantle.’ Heart in throat. ‘And then?’ ‘Then he’s staying to keep an eye on things.’ I signed off, and started looking for a vehicle.

I ended up with an ancient truck, which I had to drive on my own. And I’m not ashamed to say I was terrified. The truck had a bench seat and loose seatbelts, and gusting winds made controlling it, as I bounced and slid along the seat, quite a feat. I was cursing and praying and cursing some more, promising myself that if Nick suffered some injury just to save a playground, I would kill him, and if he wasn’t injured …? Well, I’d kill him anyway just for making me think he might be. By the time I reached the orphanage, my heart was in my throat and pounding there. I nevertheless threw myself out into the storm and headed for the playground. Five water-logged, wind-buffeted steps in, I knew this was a very bad idea. How long did it take to secure a playground? Nowhere near as long as it

had taken me to drive there, I had a shrewd notion, which meant Nick had probably finished and gone elsewhere. He might have opted to escort the others to safety. Or he may have barricaded himself inside the building with no idea I was out here. And even if he saw me, by some miracle, he would likely –. ‘Aaaaaarrrrggghhhhh.’ Yep, that was a scream, coming from me. I defy anyone not to scream when they’re grabbed from behind in a ty-fucking-phoon, with the wind yowling like a werewolf and making it’s impossible to hear someone sneaking up on you. But one jerk backwards, a collision with a rock-hard chest and I relaxed, because I knew it was Nick. ‘What are you doing here?’ was shouted in my ear. I twisted to look at him, and briefly considered screaming again – he looked terrified enough to freak me right out. But I had to tell him that it was my turn, now. So, ‘Coming to you for a change,’ I shouted back. Something fierce flashed across his face, and then he grabbed my hand and ran with me, back to the truck. He yanked the passenger door open and all but threw my sodden self inside before striding around to the other side. ‘Buckle the fuck up,’ he ordered, jumping into the other seat and dashing the rain from his eyes. ‘But I –’ ‘And shut the fuck up while you’re at it.’ He yelled that – unnecessarily, because the noise of the wind and pelting rain was muted inside the truck and there was no reason not to speak in an almostnormal voice. Jaw clenched, he started the truck and spun the wheels, turning it to exit the orphanage gates. My nerves were donning their riot gear as the minutes ticked by, preparing for a fight. Nick was looking stormier than the weather. This was not going to be a Hallmark card moment of loving forgiveness, I was fairly certain. I’m blaming nerves for the fact that I went with, ‘Nice weather we’re having,’ as a conversation starter, complete with sickly smile. For my trouble, Nick shot me a look that could only be described as incendiary. So I decided to try something more direct. Attack being the best form of defence, et cetera. ‘You didn’t call me back.’ Another incendiary look, with a snort of disbelief thrown in for good measure. ‘Well?’ I demanded. ‘Why didn’t you call me back? I would have expl–’ ‘Shut up, Chloe, or I will open your door and throw you out.’ Okay, we were getting somewhere. ‘Now you see, I don’t believe you’d really do that.’ Incendiary look number three came my way, with a barely restrained growl. ‘It’s the Discovery Channel in you,’ I added bravely. ‘Your instinct to save the zebras from the hyenas.’ ‘Discovery Channel lets the zebras get eaten, Chloe. That’s the natural order of things.’ ‘Well I don’t like the natural order of things.’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘You have to control the natural order so that everything is perfect. No basic instincts allowed.’ That wasn’t sounding too hopeful, and a lesser woman might have been daunted by the scorn in his voice. But figuring that at least he wasn’t telling me to shut up, I was ready to persist. ‘You know, Nick, I’m not so good with ultimatums.’ ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘You said I had to shut up or you’d throw me out of the truck. That’s an ultimatum.’ ‘Thanks for reminding me. Now, shut up.’

‘One of my foster mothers once served me the same plate of sliced tomatoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, three days straight,’ I said, not shutting up. ‘She knew I hated tomatoes, but she’d served them up for dinner anyway, and when I left them on my plate she was furious over the waste of food. So she said I wouldn’t be eating again until I’d swallowed them.’ I saw Nick’s eyes close, just for a couple of seconds. Sympathy? I wasn’t above using it to my advantage. This was not a Saints Anonymous meeting. ‘Want to know what I did?’ Not that I intended to wait for his answer because I suspected it would be ‘no’. ‘I ate them for dinner on the third day, and then I went to the bathroom and vomited them straight back up.’ ‘What’s your point, Chloe?’ ‘You kept serving me up plates of tomatoes. Ultimatums. I kept having to choose, whether I was ready to or not. You had a year to think about me, yet you gave me less than a week to think about you. And I … I vomited.’ Okay – not the nicest analogy, but he had thrown that used condom in his shoe, so I knew he could take a certain degree of grossness. ‘So it’s my fault?’ he asked, a little too outraged for me to mistake his attitude for poor-little-fostergirl sympathy. ‘What you did? My fault?’ ‘No, but you know my temper. What did you think I was going to do when I found out you and Marcus had been trading me?’ And okay, both of us were raising our voices unnecessarily by then. The next second, he was pulling over to the side of the road, screeching to a halt, turning to me. ‘And what did you think I was going to do? Do you think it didn’t bother me, wanting you the way I did, knowing what I knew? I kept trying to get you to open your eyes and see him but you wouldn’t. A year, you had together, and yet you’re telling me it was my job to out him? Once he actually got up the guts to come out to me, do you think, do you really think, I should have come running to you to blab? Was that the only way to get you, by throwing him under a bus? I can only imagine what you would have thought of me for doing that. A friend doesn’t tell another friend’s secrets. I thought you, of all people, would get that.’ ‘That’s the whole point! Loyalty and … and fairness. The minute, the second, I kissed you, I called him to tell him. Why couldn’t he have done the same thing, the minute he knew he could never want me that way? It’s not about being gay, you idiot. I don’t care if Marcus is gay. Bring it on, bring it right on! He could have told me anything – he didn’t love me, he’d met someone else, he was giving up sex, whatever he wanted – as long as he set me free when he knew he could never want me.’ ‘That still doesn’t make it my fault. Do you remember, what I told you, that night we kissed? I’d sat there, in Evie’s apartment, watching him not want you all fucking night, when I would have killed to have you. And you ripped into me because he left you for me to drive home. I said to you, It’s not my fault Marcus isn’t giving you what you want, but if you tell me what you do want, I’ll give it to you. And I would have. I would have given you anything.’ His hand came down, bang, on the steering wheel, making me jump. ‘It wasn’t my fault, Chloe. But you’ve blamed me all the way along. Not looking too hard at what was up with Marcus, because you wanted the illusion, that fucking illusion of perfection, but not telling me what you wanted either. Instead, I had to guess and hope and try, and you kept punishing me every time I got it wrong. Why? Why did you keep punishing me?’ ‘Because I thought – I thought – Oh, God.’ I stopped, because my breath was hitching and I could feel those bloody, bloody tears building. Nick shook his head, disgusted at my inability to tell him even then. He went to re-start the truck, and I reached over and grabbed his wrist to stop him. This was it. Last chance. ‘Because I could, Nick,’ I said. ‘Because I could. You let me, so I did it, because I thought – I thought you would somehow still want me. Every bad-tempered inch of me, you once said. The black swan.’ I covered my face with my hands as the tears shook me. ‘Because I could.’

‘But when does it stop, Chloe? When do your black and white swans figure out they want the same thing?’ he asked tiredly, and his hand was there, in my hair, just for a moment, giving me hope. ‘When do I get my turn? To know that you’ll want me, no matter what? I thought we were there. That last night … I thought we were there, but we weren’t, were we? Not if you could do that to me one night later.’ I dropped my hands, looked across at him, blinking the tears away. My bottom lip was trembling, but I caught it between my teeth and controlled it. Something about his voice told me I needed to hear what was coming in all its unadorned glory, like it or not. Nick brushed at my tears, smiling so sadly I almost couldn’t breathe. ‘Chloe, I never made a secret of how I felt about you, not since day one. Everything – everything – I saw that night, I wanted. The way you looked, obviously. You’re so beautiful to me. Icy eyes, fiery hair. Hot and cool on the inside too. Tough, but not. Slipping money to a homeless guy, and then getting snippy about it when you’re caught out. I admired the way you stuck up for Ruby, crazy though that sounds. It was the first time I saw myself the way you saw me, like a heartless, whoring bastard, and I admit I deserved every name you called me, and a few more I called myself. But most of all, I wanted the girl who punched me when I tried to entice her away from her date. You weren’t going anywhere with a guy who’d ditch his date the way I did, and you weren’t ditching Marcus, not for anything, and certainly not for a guy like me. I loved that. I wanted that. For me. All of it, for me. The clear-eyed way you chose a side and just … stuck there, because it was right, and people deserved that respect.’ ‘Then I don’t understand the problem.’ ‘The problem is you didn’t stick to me. It took you a year to kiss me, Chloe; it took you less than one lousy week to kiss Bryce. And I just can’t live knowing you’re going to choose someone else.’ ‘But we were mating for life. Swans, wolves, eagles, us.’ He re-started the truck, pulled erratically out onto the road. ‘Ah, but there’s a built-in loophole, Chloe. When one dies, the other can go on and find a new mate.’ ‘But we’re both still –’ ‘I’m as good as dead, Chloe.’ ‘Let me prove that you’re not.’ He shook his head. ‘I dare you,’ I said, trying his own tactic. ‘Pull over again and kiss me. And if you still say you don’t want me, I’ll believe it.’ ‘But I do want you, Chloe. Sometimes, however, we have to give up, even when we want something so badly it’s like a dark ache.’ He smiled, looking infuriatingly, disgustingly brave and romantic, as he said those words I never, ever wanted to hear again. ‘So I’m going to say this now, because I want it off my chest, and then we’ll let it go. I love you. And don’t say it back.’ Because I’d opened my mouth to blurt it all out. ‘Just don’t, Chloe. I don’t want to hear you say it. You play it too safe to be in love the way I am. You crave perfection, and I’m not perfect – as I told you, and told you and told you. I screwed up on the Marcus thing, but I’d already told you I’d do whatever I had to do to get you. It just happened to be a shitty thing to do and I knew it all along. But it doesn’t change the fact that I did it. I’d probably do it all over again. In other words, I am not white swan material. I’ll wear that. Now, please, can you wear what you did to me?’ He pulled into the kerb and stopped with a jerk of the handbrake. ‘And on that note, thank God we’re here.’ He pointed to the right. ‘See that blue door? Through there and you’ll be safe.’ ‘What about you?’ ‘I’m not your concern.’ ‘I’m not leaving you.’ ‘Yes, you are.’ ‘If you die, I’ll never forgive you.’

‘Well, we’re racking up all those things we won’t forgive, so just add it to the tally.’ ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Back to the orphanage.’ ‘What happens if the buildings are destroyed in the typhoon?’ He looked at me like I was talking gibberish. ‘Then we rebuild.’ ‘So … you’ll give me up, but not a building?’ ‘I didn’t give you up. You chose.’ ‘And now you’re choosing. You are such a damn hypocrite. So I kissed your brother. I didn’t enjoy it, you know. And he certainly didn’t. And that’s what you choose not to get over? That? The Nick I want wouldn’t say sayonara, have a nice life, because I made one mistake. The Nick I want would fight for me, and let me tell him that I will never, ever touch another guy. The Nick I want is not some pathetic onestrike-and-you’re-out bastard, not when he knows how important it is to me, to be so … so … Oh God, forget it. This whole thing is pathetic. You’re pathetic.’ ‘Chloe …’ Warning. ‘Don’t “Chloe” me, you coward,’ I shouted at him. ‘All this talk about wanting me and waiting for me forever is all very well, but as we’ve said a time or two, words are cheap. What you’re really doing is passing me on, just like every other person in my life has done because I’m too much trouble. Well, here’s some news for you – I can live with “no” just like you can. And next time you take one of your groupies to bed, you think about all that bullshit you fed me about taking the black, the white, they grey, the whatever-the-fuck swan. I will move on, and I won’t pick a guy who gives up at the drop of a hat. And meanwhile? Well, you can kiss my arse!’ I reached for the door handle but before I could get it open, Nick was there. Hello, eat your heart out, Usain Bolt. That’s how fast he was. Wrenching open my door, unbuckling my seat belt, shoving me across the bench seat and somehow managing to yank me back at the same time until my legs were out of the truck and he was between them. The wind was raging, the rain pelting his head, his back, my dangling legs. ‘Do you really want me to kiss your arse, Chloe?’ he demanded. ‘Do you? Do you?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, and raised a trembling hand to touch his cheek. ‘I want you to kiss any part of me you want.’ He jerked his face away from my hand, and somehow turned me so I was flat on the seat, on my stomach. My jeans were wrenched down, my underwear, torn off. Not joking – eighty dollars’ worth of powder blue lace ripped and removed – wooshka! And I didn’t give a good goddamn. He bit, then kissed, then licked the left cheek of my bottom, then the right. I could hear him breathing, so ragged each dragged-in piece of air was like a cry. One rough shove, and my legs were as spread as much as my bunched jeans would allow. Almost before I could compute that, his tongue speared inside me. Once, twice, three times. Then his fingers were there too, rubbing that favourite place of his, thumb and forefinger rolling, rolling. The wildness of the weather, the sensations he was building in me, the fact that it was him … everything felt feral, elemental, exciting beyond belief. A breath, a groan, and his mouth replaced his fingers, sucking, kissing, licking. And I was coming and crying and calling his name. But almost before the last spasm rolled through me, he was tugging up my jeans, dragging me out of the truck and back into the rain. ‘Wet enough for you?’ he asked –a loud, grotesque facsimile of my opening conversational gambit about the weather. The rain was everywhere, drenching, slapping, suffocating. I realised I was shaking – emotion, reaction, despair – and wrapped my arms around myself to try to stop it. ‘W–What was that, Nick?’ For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer me, that he hadn’t even heard me over the roar of the wind and his own heaving breaths. ‘Nick?’ He breathed in, shoved two hands into his sodden hair, breathed out. His face had gone blank, his

eyes shuttered. ‘That was me kissing your arse, Chloe.’ He smiled – wolf-like. ‘Now, you think about that when you move on to that guy who doesn’t give up at the drop of a fucking hat. And meanwhile, consider yourself kissed goodbye. That’s how my kind – animal-beast-pig-bastards – do it. Worthy of the Discovery Channel. This hyena has eaten its last zebra.’ What could I do? Shaking like a leaf, in shock, drenched, heartsick, I made my struggling way through the wind, towards the shelter. Hand on the door, I let myself turn back, heedless of the rain that was mixing with my horrible tears. The rain that didn’t quite block the sight of Nick, back in the truck, slumped over the steering wheel, his head on his arms. His shoulders were shaking. He was crying. And my broken heart shattered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

‘What the fuck happened to your hair?’ That was Drew, two days after I landed in Sydney, as I stepped into Jack and Evie’s apartment for my birthday dinner and was passed around the three of them for a kiss. I shrugged. ‘You told me a pixie cut was real break-up hair. And on the subject of break ups, Andrew, you might have mentioned you’d given Reynold his conge. And welcome home, Jack, by the way.’ ‘Conge?’ Drew asked. ‘How sophisticated.’ ‘Reynold is heartbroken, in case you’re interested,’ I said. ‘I’m more interested in what made you go the full chop,’ Drew said. I tossed my … head. ‘I broke up.’ ‘Yeaaah, I recall that warranting a fringe and six inches.’ ‘It did, when I broke up with Marcus. But now I’ve broken up with Nick.’ ‘Okaaaay,’ Evie said, and I gave her such a gimlet eye. ‘Well you’ve only been gone eleven days, so that’s quick work!’ she said. ‘Actually, the affair itself was six and a half days,’ I said, for the sake of accuracy. ‘It was pretyphoon.’ ‘And how does a mere six-point-five day affair warrant a pixie cut?’ Evie asked. ‘Let’s just say it was an intense six-point-five days,’ I said. ‘Actually, the whole eleven days was intense.’ Talk about understatement! My whole life had changed in those eleven days. I’d been through two typhoons – a physical one and an emotional one. I’d done some of my best work – one feel-good story and one natural disaster. I’d been up close and personal with children, not only at the playground, but also recording their stories on my phone in the shelter as a solo operator, like the grown-up professional I was supposed to be instead of the basket case I’d been up until that point. I’d discovered I didn’t have to be the old Chloe or the new one, that if I happened to be both Chloes, the world wouldn’t stop turning. I’d learned what it was to be wanted, really wanted, to the edge of madness, and that that was exactly how I liked it. I’d fallen in love … then thrown it away because I’d learned that lesson too late. Did it show, I wondered, when Jack looked searchingly at me as he handed me a drink? ‘What is it, Jack?’ ‘I just like the haircut.’ I laughed, as I looked into my glass. A good old martini, which had started it all. Well, what the hell, I thought. Make me maudlin, open my legs, who cares? It’s my birthday – a date nobody except these three had ever bothered to celebrate. Why not? I looked up at Jack. ‘I’m glad,’ I said. ‘But if you really think that scant few inches of gin is going to drag out the details of my disastrous love affair, you have a lot to learn.’ ‘Oops, sorry,’ Jack said, and remedied the drink situation by topping me up from the ever-present cocktail shaker.

‘Well,’ Drew said, almost rubbing his hands in anticipatory glee, ‘I think my birthday present is going to come in very handy given all the intensity that is buzzing around the room. Come on, let’s open presents before dinner.’ So we settled in the living room, and as I sank into that gorgeous coffee-coloured semi-circular couch, I was moved to confess, ‘You know, I really don’t like my couch.’ ‘He-llo!’ Drew said, ‘Nobody does. It’s death to the coccyx, that couch of yours. I prefer Evie’s lumpy old black corduroy number to your cream leather confection.’ ‘Hey,’ Evie protested. ‘Hey yourself,’ Drew said. ‘I see that you haven’t transported that monstrosity to the penthouse.’ ‘I wasn’t going to let her,’ Jack said, and twirled one of her ringlets. All three of us looked at him – and in unison, burst out laughing. ‘What?’ Jack asked, but a smile was lurking. ‘You let Evie do whatever she wants,’ I said. ‘Well … yeah!’ Jack said, and dragged Evie in for a lingering kiss. Blink, blink, breathe. Recalling Nick dragging me into his arms as though he’d protect me from the universe. Just like Jack did with Evie. Drew came to sit beside me and clasped my hand tightly. ‘Bleeding all over the floor, darling?’ ‘Yes, although as it turns out, that guilty conscience you were so worried about was trumped by something much more painful,’ I said. ‘Tell me, Drew, did you know? About Marcus being gay? You did, didn’t you?’ ‘I didn’t know, but I guessed. That night when we were all here, there was just … something.’ ‘Well, can you tune up your gaydar before I land a new guy?’ I asked. ‘It will save me a sexless three months at the very least.’ Laughing, he pulled me in for a hug. ‘Open those presents.’ And then to the canoodling Jack and Evie, ‘Oi, you two. Presents. And not that godawful scarf Evie bought her.’ ‘Hey!’ Evie again. ‘Well for God’s sake, Jack.’ Drew. ‘Can’t you get her a stylist?’ Without waiting for an answer, he gestured to the two wrapped gifts on the coffee table. ‘Mine are much more interesting. Therapy, almost.’ I reached for the first one, and started laughing as I uncovered my very own Vibrating Rock Chick. ‘I’m not sure about the purple,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why, but I thought it would be flesh-coloured.’ ‘Just use it with pride,’ Drew said. Halfway through unwrapping the second present, I started laughing again. Two Ken dolls emerged. One dark haired, one red-haired. Well, sort of red-haired. ‘So you already knew about me and Nick before tonight?’ I said, smoothing my finger over darkhaired Ken’s head. ‘Who told you?’ ‘I cannot reveal my sources,’ Drew said. ‘The journalistic code.’ ‘Hmph. I don’t trust you,’ I said, but really, I couldn’t get up the energy to interrogate him. He nodded, looking sage. ‘Very wise.’ Jack had picked up the other doll. ‘Where did you find a red-haired Ken?’ ‘Oh that!’ Drew threw out a dramatic hand. ‘Can you believe there is no red-haired Ken? Not that I could find, anyway.’ Drew sounded outraged. ‘I had to dye it that colour.’ Evie prodded the front of red-haired Ken’s pants, giggling. ‘I want one!’ ‘You do not,’ Jack said, but he was laughing too. ‘And that’s not all,’ Drew said, snatching the doll out of Jack’s hands. ‘Now, Marcus’s pants are padded with a lock of his own hair. I snipped it off in the kitchen because I had a notion we’d be needing it. Nick’s …?’ Taking the doll from me. ‘I had to use a cotton ball, but you can get some chest hairs or a few pieces of fingernail or something off eBay, can’t you, Chloe? Don’t all those sports guys have illicitly

obtained pickings for sale on there?’ ‘And why would I need Marcus’s hair or Nick’s fingernail?’ I asked. ‘Well, duh, Chloe! They’re voodoo dolls.’ He presented me with a pin cushion that had been tucked in with the dolls. ‘Stick them with one of these pins, right where it hurts, and Bob’s your uncle.’ ‘God,’ I gasped around full-blown hysterics. ‘Have I told you lately that I love you?’ ‘I’m always up for a Van Morrison song,’ Drew said, laying the dolls lovingly on the coffee table. Not a good time for the intercom to buzz, because all four of us were practically convulsing. It had to buzz three times before Jack recovered enough to answer the summons. ‘Hide the Ken dolls,’ he said, coming back. ‘Or at least, the black-haired one. Nick Savage is on the way up.’ ‘Okaaaay,’ Evie said, and I threw a cushion at her – which she threw back, leaving the dolls where they were. ‘Does he know I’m here?’ I asked. Jack gave me a WTF look. ‘Well he could be here to check out the view,’ I said, unconvincingly. ‘He knows you’re here,’ Jack said, and added a completely unnecessary, ‘You idiot.’ But I had no comeback. I was too scared to open my mouth in case the anxiety that was expanding in my chest took that as an invitation to burst out of me in a scream. Not one distinct thought seemed to be able to settle in my head. Only some amorphous how/why/what jumble, formed from equal measures of dread, fear, lust and indescribable joy. Doorbell. Door opening. Oh God. God, God, God. I wasn’t going to look. Drew, beside me, calling out: ‘We were just talking about you.’ ‘Nice or nasty?’ came the rumbling response. ‘I’m on the fence,’ Drew said. ‘And believe me, that’s never been said of me before!’ ‘That surprises me, given how nice and … pointy, shall we say? … a fence can be.’ ‘So it’s going to be like that, is it?’ Drew said with relish. ‘In that case, let me ask you if it’s true what they say about your biceps?’ ‘I don’t know, what do they say?’ ‘That a normal human can only get its hands halfway round.’ Laughter from Nick. And at last, I risked a look to see Nick angling his shoulders so his biceps were held out chicken-wing style. ‘Want to try?’ Nick asked Drew. Evie was rolling her eyes at me so crazily at that point, I couldn’t work out if she was trying to say something or having a fit. Drew was similarly wild-eyeing all over the place. It was basically off-thecharts nuts. ‘Okay, I’m off the fence,’ Drew said. ‘Nice and nasty – exactly how we like them around here. Chloe, you’re going to have to kiss and make up with him.’ ‘I like that idea,’ Nick said, and then he smiled at me – that rarest smile, the shy one. ‘I heard it was your birthday, Chloe, so I brought you a present.’ I wondered what he would do if I melted in a puddle and told him to just mop me up and take me home, but was saved from that ignominy by Jack (clearly the only adult in the room), who calmly announced he was whisking Drew and Evie off to the deck for a wedding planning meeting. ‘Ooh, Jack, we’re going to miss the fun,’ Drew complained, but nevertheless allowed his brother to bundle him off. ‘Sing out if you need adult supervision, Chloe,’ Jack said, but the look he shot over his shoulder was

at Nick, and there was a very clear warning in it: behave with our girl. And then the three of them were gone, and I was on my own with Nick, and there seemed to be a whole host of Discovery Channel wildlife rampaging through my gut. ‘I like the hair.’ That was Nick’s opener. ‘It’s break up hair,’ I said flatly. ‘Ah, I see.’ Pause. ‘Must have been some break up.’ ‘It was brutal.’ Silence. Then, ‘Is that a martini?’ he asked me, nodding at the drink clutched in my rigor mortis fingers. ‘Yes.’ ‘Does that mean I’m going to get into your pants tonight?’ I tried to squelch my laugh, but couldn’t manage it. ‘That depends,’ I tried to say. ‘What about if I do this?’ he asked, and strode over to me, dropping to his knees, taking the cocktail glass and putting it on the coffee table, then grabbing my hands. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I think it’s called begging.’ ‘You said you’d never do that.’ ‘I say all kinds of stupid shit.’ ‘You said you’d never forgive me.’ ‘Stupid shit, I’m telling you. I’d forgive you if you slept with the whole Sydney Scorpions team and put the sex tape on YouTube, if you’ll forgive me in reverse for being a complete dickhead and take me back.’ ‘Yeah, right!’ ‘Is that a reference to my forgiving you or your forgiving me?’ ‘Your forgiving me.’ ‘Well, I admit, I wouldn’t be happy about a sex tape.’ ‘Didn’t think so.’ ‘The thing is, I haven’t stopped thinking about what you said, in the truck. About me being a coward. You were right, I was a coward – scared of what I’d do if you chose someone else and I lost you. But I know that’s stupid, because I’m the lost one, now that I don’t have you, and it hurts like crazy, and I just don’t think I can live without you.’ My heart was squeezing painfully, fearfully, hopefully. ‘So …?’ ‘So I’m going to be the Nick you want. The one who fights for you, no matter what you do or say. The one who believes you when you say you will never, ever touch another guy – and please, God, let that be true, at least when it comes to the team and the sex tape thing, because that would really try me. But basically, sex tapes aside, what I’m saying is that I’m giving you a blanket “I forgive you” for the rest of our lives. I’ll not only let you walk all over me with high heels, I’ll buy you the shoes to do it. I’ll do anything, say anything, take anything … as long as you’ll say just once that you love me.’ ‘You said you didn’t want me to say that. You ordered me not to.’ ‘Hello? Stupid shit?’ I laughed again, but the tears were there too, stinging behind my nose. ‘Can’t you say it, Chloe? Just once? You don’t even have to mean it.’ ‘Oh, Nick.’ ‘Just once.’ I dragged him up, off the floor, and stood with him, slotting into my favourite position, in his arms, head under his chin. ‘We’re eagles, remember?’ I said. ‘Eagles soar, they don’t grovel.’ The kiss on top of my head was both fierce and gentle as he tightened his arms hard enough to cause spinal injury. ‘So the whole mating for life thing. Is it … Is it on? Despite the fact that I’m a fuckwit?’

‘It is so on, it’s welded on,’ I said. ‘You know, I think we’ve cornered the market on fuckwittery between us, and I like it like that,’ I said. ‘Here – I’ll show you. Evie? Drew? Jack? We need you guys in here.’ Three seconds – that’s all it took for them to tumble into the room. Which led me to conclude there had been not one word uttered about the wedding, because their ears had been straining to hear what was going on. Even not-so-adult-after-all Jack was looking caught-out. ‘I need witnesses,’ I said. And then, to Nick. ‘Turn around.’ Nick was smiling. And then he started laughing, as I grabbed his butt with both hands and squeezed. ‘Now that,’ I said over my shoulder to my friends, ‘is a public butt squeeze. It means I’m committed.’ ‘Or maybe that you should be committed,’ Drew said. ‘To an asylum.’ I snorted. ‘Yeah, in a bed next to you and your voodoo dolls.’ ‘Is that what these are?’ Nick asked, picking up his Ken doll. ‘Yes,’ I said, and waited to see what his reaction would be when I added, ‘That’s you.’ He examined it more closely, then shook his head. ‘Needs more stuffing down his pants in that case. And that –’ nodding to the other doll ‘– is a horrible dye job. Marcus’s hair is a much deeper red than that.’ ‘Hel-lo Mr L’Oréal,’ Drew said admiringly. ‘Shut up, Andrew.’ That was me. ‘Yeah shut up,’ Nick echoed, but then flashed him a smile. ‘Or you won’t be able to hear Chloe cough up those three little words she was on the verge of saying.’ Drew gave me a tut-tut look. ‘She hasn’t said them? Chloe!’ ‘She was waiting until she could do it in public,’ Nick explained. ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘but you need to give me a piece of fingernail, Nick.’ ‘To go with the piece of yours still stuck in that scratch on my back?’ he asked. ‘Hey,’ I said, blushing and laughing simultaneously. ‘Not in front of the guys.’ ‘Why not? I thought that was how we rolled in this group?’ Drew looked at Evie. ‘If she doesn’t want him, I’ll take him,’ he said. ‘Oh, she wants him all right,’ Evie said. ‘Just like I said all along,’ ‘Yes, she wants him,’ I concurred, as Nick looked down at me, hope and glory in his eyes, and love and wonder and everything my hungry soul had wanted for so, so long. ‘So that means …?’ he prompted. ‘We really, really don’t need to say all this stuff in front of my friends.’ ‘What about the butt squeeze?’ ‘I was making a point.’ ‘Well, I know you’ve had the “size” discussion. Doesn’t that make them my friends too?’ I threw my hands in the air. ‘All right, I give in. I love you. In public. Done.’ ‘Say it again.’ ‘Once! You said once.’ ‘Yeah, but this is not the time to be stingy. And I was thinking, for the first week or so, once an hour would be appropriate after the hell you’ve put me through.’ ‘You put me through a little bit of hell too, you know.’ ‘For less than one lousy week! That’s nothing.’ ‘I’m not saying it once an hour.’ ‘What about if I let you punch me?’ ‘I’m not doing that anymore. You see, I met this guy in Manila, and he kind of cured me of that bad habit.’ He kissed me, so passionately, I half-wondered if I was about to get nailed on Evie and Jack’s

couch. ‘Is it getting hot in here?’ I heard Jack murmur, and then laugh as Evie punched him. ‘I thought we weren’t punching anymore.’ ‘No, Chloe’s not punching,’ Evie said. ‘So, Evie,’ Nick said, tucking me under his arm and turning towards her. ‘What do I look like now?’ ‘Huh?’ ‘You said last time that I didn’t look married. What do you think now?’ Evie giggled. ‘Well, I’d have to say, you kind of do.’ ‘Good,’ Nick said, ‘because it’s how I feel.’ He glowed down at me. ‘So, Chloe, if we’re going to get onto the adoption thing we need to start getting runs on the board. And I guess that means …’ Digging in his back pocket and pulling out a ring. ‘… I have to give you your present.’ ‘Really. We’re doing this in public too?’ And then I looked at the ring, which had a diamond the size of a boulder in it. ‘And you drove here sitting on that?’ ‘It’s a diamond, they’re tough.’ He took my hand and slid it on my finger. ‘Tougher than my backside, as it turns out. But you know, Chloe, you can kiss my arse if you want. You owe me for the one in the truck. Want me to bend over now?’ I waved a hand at the purple monstrosity on the coffee table, laughing too hard to speak. ‘What?’ Nick asked. ‘Vibrating Rock Chick’ I gasped out. ‘For when you bend over. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it once or twice.’ He winced, but he was laughing too. ‘Ouch. Not exactly what I had in mind. But hey, if you say it again, that you love me, who knows what I’ll let you do?’ And then he stopped laughing, and took my hands in his again, and kissed the finger with my engagement ring on it. ‘I love you, these guys know it, so say yes, throw in that extra “I love you”, and we can all go out on the deck and talk weddings. Because if anyone knows how to throw a wedding it’s me, and I’ll even let you have gold chair bows and candycovered almonds in swan-shaped vessels.’ ‘You will not.’ I smiled up at him. ‘The vessels will be eagle-shaped.’ ‘Is that a yes?’ ‘That’s a yes, let’s get married.’ ‘It’s not official until you saaaay …’ ‘I love you?’ ‘Minus the question mark.’ ‘I love you,’ I said, and then took a deep breath, and smiled up at him. ‘I really, really love you.’ Almost before the last word was out of my mouth, Nick was kissing me like the madman he was. And then, as the others broke out in spontaneous applause, he smiled against my mouth, then slowly released me and turned to them. ‘Did you know she propositioned me in the aircraft toilet on the flight over?’ ‘That’s not how I remember it,’ I said. ‘But you keep going, Nick Savage, and I’ll tell them about the time you wore a shoe with a used condom in the toe.’ ‘Bring it on, my little black swan,’ Nick said, and laughed. ‘Bring. It. On.’ And as he kissed me again, Evie, Drew and Jack looked at each other and said in unison, ‘Okaaaay.’

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge, with thanks, the assistance of Phill Rosen, who contributed the pilot talk that is incomprehensible to the rest of us. I’d also like to thank my journalist friends, who double-checked that I had Chloe doing her job properly.



Avril Tremayne After a highly successful career in corporate communications, Avril Tremayne decided she needed a little more romance in her life. And having tried her hand at shoe selling, nursing, teaching, and short-order cooking, before braving the corporate ladder as a high flying executive mixing it up with the business elite and an occasional celebrity, Avril has gathered more than enough raw material to kick-start a swag of tall tales. She lives in Sydney, Australia, where her husband and daughter try to keep her out of trouble – not always successfully. She’s a mad keen traveller, with more favourite cities than should be strictly allowable, and loves giving travel advice to anyone who asks – and a good few who don’t! When she’s not writing or reading, Avril can generally be found eating – although she does not cook – drinking wine, and obsessing about shoes. If you enjoyed Escaping Mr Right, you’ll love these other stories by Avril Tremayne …

The Contract by Avril Tremayne Lane Davis has never had time for love. Hard work, dedication and focus got her through uni and now she’s a successful economist with qualifications in all areas – except the bedroom. When a colleague airs those bedroom sheets in public, Lane decides it’s time to upskill. She’s always studied her way to success, so why not hire a teacher to help her out now? It’s just a business deal – three months of private tutoring, no strings attached. Easy – or it would be, if the lessons didn’t make her weak at the knees … Her proposed teacher, Adam Quinn, has his own agenda. His sister – one of Lane’s best friends – wants him to scare Lane into giving up her crazy scheme. But once he meets Lane, he can’t quite bring himself to reject her. If Adam’s going to teach Lane just one thing, it’s that love can get in the way of even the best intentions … Learning the art of seduction has never been so much fun. Available now! Read on for an extract …

CHAPTER ONE

Where was he? Thirty minutes late was too late. Late enough for Lane to wonder if, perhaps, Adam had changed his mind and wasn’t coming. Lane swallowed, trying to get her head around that. Around the idea she might have to go back to the drawing board. She didn’t want to face that possibility. It had been excruciatingly embarrassing getting to this point; the thought of starting again was enough to make her feel faint. She took a deep, calming breath as she looked around her living room, checking again that nothing was out of place—which she’d already done a dozen times—and calculating how long it would take Adam to drive from his house in out-there Newtown to her house in not-so-out-there Mascot. Fifteen minutes, tops. Still … he may have been caught up on a building site. Or stuck in traffic somewhere – it happened sometimes, people getting caught up near the airport, when they were driving to her place. She took another deep breath. Settle down, Lane. There’s no reason for him to back out. Any man would jump at the chance—that’s what her friend Sarah had said. Sarah had told her that he, specifically, had jumped. He knew the score, and had already agreed. Tonight was just a formality. Signatures on the page. Lane felt her hands start to clench, and wiggled her fingers to ease the tension. Nerves. She hated nerves. Had perfected the art of not letting them show, no matter how much her insides rioted, because the flustering, dithery fluttering of them made her look like a twit. Logical, rational financial economists did not flutter. Or pace floors, or chew fingernails. They crunched numbers and analyzed data and predicted trends so high-yield decisions could be made, built on a sound base. A sound base. That was one way of looking at the succinct checklist she’d prepared for tonight, to review with Adam before they signed the contract she’d drawn up. The checklist. She would just have one more read. That would help calm her down. She walked swiftly to the glass-topped coffee table, bent to reach into the briefcase beside it and slid out the paper-clipped pages. Three of them. Neat. Error-free. Black type on white paper. He’d already agreed, she reminded herself, drawing in another one of her silent, secret, calming breaths, as she skimmed the words she knew practically by heart. It was a straightforward arrangement— nothing to panic over. Adam didn’t even have to like her. Liking wasn’t a prerequisite on either side. Although, of course, it would be easier if they did like each other. And really, they probably would. Lane liked his sister, Sarah. Sarah liked Lane. And Sarah adored Adam. Logic suggested there would be a mutuality of liking in there that would encompass Lane and Adam in some way, right? Still, the most important thing was that he had the credentials for the job. Sarah had assured Lane that Adam was the quintessential alpha male—a concept Lane didn’t quite believe in—with hordes of women making booty calls with impressive frequency.

Twenty-nine years old. Builder. No unmanageable character flaws. No disgusting habits. Clean, handsome, not a psychopath. What more do you need Lane? And Lane had been so happy to get her problem sorted out, she hadn’t given much thought to Adam as a flesh-and-blood being. She’d been relieved, of course, about the ‘clean’ and ‘not a psychopath’ bits, but she didn’t care about ‘handsome.’ She hadn’t been particularly interested in what he looked like, which was why she hadn’t been worried that the photo Sarah had emailed her had been grainy and out of focus. Now, though, thinking of that dark shadowy image when she was on the very verge … There went her fingers again, tensing up. Stop it! She slid the checklist back into her briefcase. Walked to the entrance hallway, listened carefully for sounds of arrival. Nothing. She checked her watch. She would give him ten more minutes. She caught sight of her face in the mirror above the glass-topped hall table. Pale—but that was normal. Blue eyes almost too calm—so deceptive. Lips very faintly smiling—nicely controlled. Hair pulled off her face—no stray wisps. Perhaps the hair was too severe. She tugged a few copper-red strands free of the confining band and tried to arrange them around her face. Hmm. Messy. Unattractively messy. She removed the band completely and retied her hair into a ponytail at her nape. It would just have to do. She gave up on the mirror and ran her eyes, as best she could, over the rest of her. She hadn’t had a clue what she should wear tonight and had ended up staying in the square-cut navy suit she’d worn to work. Plain. Businesslike. Boring. She sighed. It was so hard, the clothes thing. And tonight, harder than usual. How did you manage to look attractive, but not flirtatious? Appealing, but not desperate? Like you weren’t trying too hard, even when you were? All right, she officially hated this! She was calling it off. He was too late. It was too late. What had she been thinking? She walked purposefully back to her briefcase and wrenched out the checklist, the contracts, ready to rip the pages to shreds. And then it came. The sound. A car pulling up. Stay calm. Breathe. Breathe. In—out—in—out. Maybe it’s not him. Her front gate squeaked. Oh God, he’s here. He’s actually here. Something being muttered outside the front door. A curse? Oh. Oh, oh, oh. The knock was loud and short. Two raps. Lane closed her eyes, just for a moment, gathering her courage. To calm herself, she neatened the edges of the pages that were thankfully unripped, then positioned them on one end of the coffee table and headed for the door. He wouldn’t notice the tremors in her fingers, she told herself, as she reached for the door handle to let him into her house. And then the door was open and he was there. She stared at his work boots and scanned up past his blue jeans and faded black shirt. Chest. Neck. Face. Ohhhhhhh God. She was looking up—and she was five feet ten! Her mind went blank. She was staring. She knew she was staring, but she couldn’t seem to stop. He looked … he looked … good.

Not conventionally handsome, but … oh, my, it seemed the alpha male concept was real after all. He waited, unsmiling. ‘Oh,’ she said, feeling breathless, and thrust out her hand to shake. ‘You must be—’ ‘Yes, I must,’ he said, and took her hand—not to shake it but to hold it. As she blinked up at him, he drew her close to him. Close enough that Lane could smell the soapy scent of his skin. He smelled wonderful. He drew her a little closer and she stumbled, catching her heel on the hallway rug. He reached out his other hand to steady her, gripping her arm. Two hands on her now, reeling her in. ‘Careful … Lane,’ he said softly, lingering over her name. Her heart lurched and started beating fast as their eyes locked. His eyes were dark. Black almost. With laugh lines fanning out from the corners. He must laugh all the time, Lane thought. But he wasn’t anywhere close to laughing now. He seemed about to pull her even closer—could she get any closer?— then stopped. Frowned as though he’d lost his train of thought. Released her and walked inside. Lane rubbed at her arm, just above the elbow, where his hand had gripped her. He hadn’t hurt her, but she had felt him right through the dermis and down to the bone. Squaring her shoulders, Lane turned to face him. He stood dead center of the living room, looking around without any indication he liked what he saw, which was basically her mother’s cast-off furniture. Lane saw him glance at the canapés she’d arranged on a white oval platter in the center of the coffee table. She fought a blush. It was so obvious, now she’d seen him, that Adam Quinn wasn’t a canapé eater. And suddenly she felt like she was pretending to be a grown-up. Blue suit. Canapés. What would he expect next? Scrabble board, lap rug, and cup of hot cocoa? He turned and faced her. His lips were smiling but his eyes were not. ‘Now where were we? Ah, yes, I must be—’ The smile vanished. ‘Adam Quinn. Reporting for duty.’ Reporting for duty? Another deep breath. ‘I was hoping we could approach this situation with some … sensitivity.’ Adam looked down at the coffee table. ‘It will take more than smoked salmon on rye to achieve that, don’t you think?’ Lane felt her stomach dip. ‘Sarah said you were willing,’ she said. ‘I know what she said.’ Adam’s voice sounded almost like a growl. Something wasn’t right. She ran her eyes over him, trying to work out what it was. Her heartbeat, which hadn’t yet recovered from his entrance, kicked up an extra notch. Black hair, close-cropped in a don’t-mess-with-me style. Stubble on his jaw. He wasn’t only tall; he was incredibly big, too. He filled her living room the way an army tank might. The fact that he was watching her just as intently as she was watching him made a funny, jittery feeling that wasn’t exactly nerves erupt in her stomach. Was he disappointed, now that he’d seen what he’d be working with? Was that the thing that wasn’t right? Her? Could he tell, just by looking at her, what a massive job he had ahead of him? Perhaps she should let the poor guy off the hook. Tell him thanks, sorry for the inconvenience, I’ve changed my mind, goodbye, give my love to Sarah. But … he was here. And he smelled wonderful. And he looked like … well, like he could teach her things she’d never even imagined. She could find someone else, her rational brain argued. Or maybe she could just buy a book or a DVD. Or look it up on Google—and get three trillion suggestions she could spend the next few years sorting through. Her nostrils flared as she caught that soapy scent again. No—she was not going to resort to Google or a book or a DVD, and she was not going to find

someone else. She didn’t want to take any more time. She would do this, and she would do it with him. He’d already agreed and she was holding him to it! He would just have to suck it up and make do, regardless of what he thought about her. She didn’t care what he thought of her; she wasn’t paying for his thoughts. She set her jaw. ‘Adam, have you or have you not agreed to help me?’ ‘Yes, but—’ ‘Good. Regarding the smoked salmon, I was aware of the inconvenient hour I chose for this meeting, so I thought you might like some refreshments. But of course, you’re late, and I imagine you’ve eaten. Fine. I’m happy to get down to business straightaway.’ Adam crossed his arms over his chest in what Lane considered a very … well, ‘alpha male’ pose. ‘By all means, Lane, let’s get down to business. Oh, sorry, should I call you Lane? Perhaps you’d prefer Miss Davis? Ms. Davis? It’s not Dr. Davis, is it? Because I know you were some ace university student, right?’ Lane did not allow even the flicker of one eyelid as she picked up her briefcase and retrieved the all-important paperwork off the coffee table. ‘It’s Ms., but Lane is fine.’ ‘All right. Lane.’ He drew out the sound of her name until it was thick and honeyed and beautiful. Lane caught her breath before it could hitch in her throat. Checklist. Checklist. Concentrate on the checklist. But her eyes didn’t seem to want to focus on that perfect document in her hand. ‘Then let’s move on,’ she said. ‘We can sit at the dining table and get away from the smoked salmon. Follow me, please.’ She could feel him following, though he lagged several steps behind. The knowledge of him was as pervasive and intimate as a layer of musk oil on her skin. She was about to contract Adam Quinn for three months of sex. God help her. The Contract is available now on ebook – click here to read on!

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. Version 1.0 Escaping Mr Right 9781925324198 First published by Random Romance in 2016 Copyright © Avril Tremayne, 2016 The moral right of the author has been asserted. A Random Romance book Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060 www.randomhouse.com.au Random House Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com/offices.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Tremayne, Avril, author. Escaping Mr Right/Avril Tremayne. ISBN 978 1 92532 419 8 (ebook) Man-woman relationships – Fiction. Love stories. A823.4 Cover image © BlueSkyImage/Shutterstock Cover design by Isabel Keeley-Reid

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