Sarah’s brother Adam has been educating her best friend Lane in the arts of the Kama Sutra for weeks, all in the pursuit of Lane’s real target, David Bennett. So when Sarah finds herself alone with David at an exhibition, weeping over her own terrible dating history, they strike up a conversation. A budding artist, he wants to paint her, so she agrees in return for a guarantee that he’ll find her a relationship that can last more than three weeks (her rather dismal personal best).

She reassures herself that she isn’t betraying Lane. After all, Sarah wants marriage and two-point-five kids, and David has made it more than clear he will never want that. Plus he’s going to sleep with Lane any day now. Isn’t he?

The Dating Game

Avril Tremayne

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

Extract

Copyright

AVRIL TREMAYNE

Avril Tremayne took the circuitous route to becoming a writer, via careers in nursing, teaching, public relations and – most recently – global aviation.

She hung up her corporate hat in 2013 after returning to her home city of Sydney, Australia, following a three-year stint in the Middle East, turned her mind to becoming a full time author, and has been writing madly ever since.

When she’s not reading or writing, Avril can generally be found dining to excess, drinking wine, talking about travel, and obsessing over shoes.

I’ve been lucky enough to land two dream jobs in my life.

Being an author is one of them – something I’ve longed for ever since I left childhood behind and imagined working for a living one day.

The other was a dream job because of the industry I was in – global aviation and travel – and the crazy, fabulous people I worked with. Without naming all the lovely folk who came into my orbit during my long career in one of the best airlines in the world, I’ll say that in this moment, I’m specifically looking at you Holly, Dickon, Lloyd, Melissa, Joe, Nicky, Lucinda and Sophia.

These are the people who contributed the most to one of the best professional years of my life – the year I privately refer to as ‘The Year of Holly’, in honour of my smart, beautiful PR colleague who decided the time had come to find the man of her dreams and stationed the rest of the team along the sidelines to provide romance advice date by hilarious date.

Which brings me to an acknowledgement that although this book is a work of fiction from start to finish, some of its funniest scenes were inspired by actual events from that time – one reason The Dating Game has become my favourite book.

And for those of you who like a Happily Ever After…? Well, I can tell you that Holly nailed it when she found Mike during that unforgettable year.

Thanks guys – all of you! – for the fun and the memories.

For Jarrod – my nephew

Heroes don’t come any more gorgeous

CHAPTER ONE

… but not six days! Six miserly, measly, paltry, pitiful—

Uh-oh. Fist against mouth. Hold … hold … hooold … aaand … whew! Under control. She was not going to give in to those hideous sobs again, even if she had to stuff her fist down her throat to throttle them.

Not that it mattered if she bawled herself into a snot-laden seizure, since there was nobody here to witness it. Well, nobody except the bespectacled bronze head on the shelf to her right, and ‘Clarence Donleavy’—his name, according to the plaque affixed to his wooden base—wasn’t going to be tattling.

In fact, Clarence was regarding her with unwavering apathy, which Sarah decided was the perfect look to carry her out of the storeroom and back to civilization. She swivelled the wheeled footstool she was perched on so she could face him, contorted her face into what she hoped was a matching expression, realized a more scientific approach would be to actually look at herself while she did it, and reached into the evening bag on her lap for her compact.

But it was her phone that her fingers closed around and lifted out.

Perhaps she should check the message. To see if she’d misinterpreted. Because she might have, mightn’t she?

She brought up the text, read the words …

And her breath eased out like a slowly deflating balloon. Nope. No misinterpretation possible.

Liam had dumped her. At the six-day mark—a new low, even by her plummeting standards.

‘It’s a curse, you know,’ she explained to Clarence. ‘I can’t get Lane and Erica to believe me, but I’m definitely afflicted by some sort of anti-love hex. And it’s so unfair, when I try. So. Hard!’ She stamped her foot for emphasis, which proved a little too violent an action for the footstool, which would have shot out backwards from under her if she hadn’t caught it with a lightning-fast shoe-plant.

And wouldn’t that ice tonight’s cake, to tumble onto the unforgiving concrete floor and knock herself out? Who knew how long it would take for someone to come looking for her?

Someone.

Anyone.

Or maybe, the way her life was going, no one.

‘Not my big, bold brother Adam, that’s for sure,’ she told Clarence, with a snort of disgust. ‘He’s too busy whipping himself into a jealous rage over Lane flirting with the hot banker guy with dimples. And certainly not Lane, who I’m starting to think is too obtuse to notice anything. I’m telling you, Clarence, never set your friend up with your brother for any reason whatsoever, not even to save them from their own insanity, unless you enjoy watching train wrecks.’

She was in the mood for another foot stamp, but decided not to tempt fate with the surprisingly agile footstool. The thought of gasping her last breath, unconscious among a collection of mounted body parts while everyone else in the building was hobnobbing with flesh and blood humans, was too depressing. Instead, she was going to find a bathroom, fix the sodden mess that was her face, and return to the party in the art gallery.

Where, for all she knew, the man of her dreams might be waiting for a newly single Sarah Quinn to find him. And even if the man of her dreams wasn’t out there waiting for her, at least she’d be on hand to stage an intervention should Adam decide to attack the hot banker guy with dimples in a Gladiator meets Walking Dead frenzy.

But first, she’d send a masterfully crafted text to Liam and close that demoralizing chapter of the book of her life.

Depositing her evening bag on the floor beside her, she ran feather-light fingertips over her phone keypad, ruminating over word arrangements. She wanted to sound philosophical, but not stoic. She wanted to express wistfulness but not dejection. She wanted to insinuate that although dumping a girl by text was lily-livered, she was nevertheless relieved. That she agreed it was time for the two of them to call it quits; that she’d been on the verge of severing their connection herself; that he’d beaten her to it by mere seconds.

‘Clearly what I need most is italics,’ she said, and laughed as she caught Clarence’s eye. He seemed to be telling her to stop boring him and get on with it.

‘Okay, okay!’ she said, and bent her head over her phone to start tapping.

Thank you so much for your thoughtful mess—

‘Well, blow me!’

—age.

Sarah’s fingers stilled. Had Clarence offered up that ‘Well, blow me’ in a hallucinatory moment?

Nope, one glance confirmed he was supremely uninterested in being blown by her or anyone else.

Which had to mean the ‘Well, blow me’ had come from a human. A male human she’d been too preoccupied to hear entering her sanctuary. A male human who was now taking an audible breath in, then out.

‘This is more like it,’ the male human said softly, presumably to the room at large, since he could have no way of knowing he wasn’t alone.

Sarah considered doing the sensible thing and walking out of her hiding place with a cheery ‘Hello there’ until she remembered the tear-stained state of her face. Nobody—as in nobody, let alone a guy who, for all she knew, may turn out to be single and ready for a relationship—would be seeing her until she’d visited the bathroom.

Mystery Man, meanwhile, was on the move, his shoes making a tapping noise on the concrete, which meant they had those steel toe tips on the soles that Sarah equated with quality footwear.

Tap, tap, tap. Coming closer.

Sarah’s heart leapt into her throat. She tried to swallow it back down, but it stayed wedged there like a football with a pulse. She waited, listening for where he was heading, hoping he didn’t have a sculpture fetish that would bring him her way, wondering if she could manage to soundlessly extract her compact from her evening bag and check exactly how bad the face situation was …

Stop.

He’d reached the row next to her. The one with the paintings. Tap, tap, tap, as he entered it.

Reprieve!

Sarah’s heart slowly returned to its usual position as a solution to her problem presented itself: wait him out. No guy was going to stay in a storeroom looking at paintings when he could be drinking champagne at a party. She’d give him five minutes, max, to come to his senses.

Sarah heard him slide a painting out. There was a pause. Then the painting was slid back in. It happened again. Again. And it kept happening. Painting out, pause, in, as the little clicks of his toe taps on the floor marked his progress up the row. Five minutes passed. Ten. Occasionally, the pause was punctuated by a low murmur. ‘Brilliant.’ ‘Those colours!’ ‘Is that … yes, it’s gouache, but it looks so …’ ‘How did he do …?’ ‘Ah, it’s been smeared off.’

Fifteen minutes!

Okay, the guy appeared to be as much of an art tragic as Adam, which meant—face it, Sarah—he wasn’t going to leave until he’d checked out every swirl of paint in the place. After which he’d probably wander her way in search of other treasures.

The plan to wait him out, therefore, had to be abandoned, leaving only one option: sneak out while he’s too engrossed to notice.

Sarah looked down at her smack-you-in-the-head chartreuse cocktail frock with its generous scatter of spangles. Then up at the glaring overhead fluorescent bulbs—not what you’d call mood lighting. She doubted she’d make it past the end of the aisle he was in without sending a shaft of searing luminosity to at least a corner of one of his eyeballs, no matter how stealthily she moved or how distracted he was.

On the other hand, so what if he caught a glimpse of a chartreuse spangle? She wasn’t doing anything wrong! No more wrong than what he was doing himself, sneaking into a space signposted Staff Only. She didn’t have to explain herself. She could sail out the door, face strategically averted, giving him the metaphorical finger if he dared to try and stop her.

Still, it would be preferable if she were not caught; how embarrassing, after she’d let so much time elapse! It wasn’t like she could pretend she hadn’t heard him, or she’d been taking a quick nap, or she’d only just that second been beamed down from an alien spacecraft.

Step one, therefore, bearing in mind how the intruder’s steel toe tips clacked on the floor, was to remove her similarly audible ice-pick heels. She slipped her feet, one at a time, out of her gold stilettos, then paused to listen. All she could hear was the whisper of canvases being shifted, interspersed with those murmurs of appreciation.

So far, so good.

She bent down for her shoes and felt her dress pull threateningly across her hips. Don’t tear, please don’t … ah, good! She straightened, shoes in one hand, phone in the other, and paused again. The oohing and cooing in the next row continued. Excellent. She took three silent steps, only to remember—duh!—her evening bag. She looked back, saw it where she’d placed it, on the floor beside the footstool.

Keeping her eyes trained on the end of the row, she edged backwards and adjusted her stance as she considered how best to get her bag while having both hands occupied. Care-ful-ly. She braced her phone hand on the footstool, only to feel another dangerous pull across her hips. This was not going to work. She moved fractionally and the footstool castors gave a little squeak. Uh-oh. Footstool moving. Footstool rolling. Footstooooool—

‘Oof.’ The sound huffed out of her as she landed facedown on the floor. And then she just lay there. One hand still clutched her shoes. The other was stretched out as if reaching for her phone, which had clattered along the floor and slid to a stop at around the halfway mark.

For one long moment, nothing happened.

Had the guy, by some miracle, been too engrossed to hear anything? Cautiously, Sarah pushed up onto her knees … and that’s when she heard those blasted steel toe tips.

So he’d not only heard her, he was on his way to find her, too. Not hurrying, just heading slowly down his aisle, turning at the end, coming towards hers. Stopping.

And there they were. His shoes. Black leather. Perfectly laced, perfectly polished. Nonchalantly classy. Could a pair of shoes look at ease? Because his did. Just hanging out at the end of the aisle asking ‘What’s up?’ in their silent, shoe-like way.

Her eyes moved up, over dark charcoal pants, immaculately fitted suit jacket, tie in red and purple. Red and purple, red and pur-oh.

She’d seen that tie. She knew that tie. Her eyes kept moving along their upward trajectory anyway, because they couldn’t seem to stop. Chiselled, clean-shaven jaw. Slightly hollowed cheeks with the—gulp—dimples.

Hot banker guy.

The man Lane said was so legendary a bed partner, women were lining up for a taste of any body part he cared to offer for their delectation. The man Lane intended to seduce. The man who was, therefore, Adam’s enemy—and by extension, Sarah’s enemy.

‘It’s Sarah, right? Sarah Quinn?’ he asked, and smiled his I’m-so-charming dimpled smile. ‘Lane’s friend? I’m David Bennett. From the bank. Lane’s colleague. We met out in the gallery.’

As though David Bennett didn’t know that every woman at the party knew exactly who he was! The moment Sarah had been introduced to him, his classical good looks, elegantly lean frame, perfect hair and those dimples had walloped her over the head and she’d despaired. How was Adam supposed to compete with a guy who not only looked like that, but was also intelligent, debonair, charismatic, and had the impudence to be friendly, as well, despite Adam glowering at him like the Prince of Darkness?

‘Yes, I remember you,’ Sarah said, and tried her best to inject some hostility into it for her brother’s sake.

But her attempt must have been unconvincing, because David Bennett dared to smoulder as he started towards her, scooping up her phone without breaking stride. ‘And here you are on your knees, waiting for me. Nice.’

CHAPTER TWO

David was laughing as he homed in on his quarry—but only on the inside. He didn’t want to make her any grumpier with him than she already was by laughing out loud, but God, how he wished he could. After all his artistic babbling since he’d entered the storeroom, aimed at encouraging her to give up, step out and show herself, in the end she’d done it via a face-plant without any help from him.

Ah well, the result would be the same. She just didn’t know it yet.

It had been intensely frustrating knowing he needed Sarah Quinn in the first instant of meeting her out in the gallery, and in the next instant knowing just as surely she wasn’t going to play ball. Just one conscious look from her was enough to tell David she knew he’d been angling to get her friend Lane into bed. Not that every girl would view him as off limits in such circumstances, but coupled with the tempestuous dynamic between Lane and the brother, Adam, David didn’t like his odds.

He’d wondered whether some concentrated flirting would get Sarah onside, but hadn’t had the chance to find out; she’d hauled Lane away posthaste as though he’d give them both a disease if they stayed in his orbit, had remained frustratingly out of reach for the next twenty minutes, and then pulled a Cinderella and disappeared.

As much as you could ‘disappear’, wearing a dress that stuck out like a bolt of bright lightning in a sea of drab.

But David had seen where she was heading and kept his eyes surreptitiously on the path she’d taken as he’d beguiled the bank’s VIP clients for the next half-hour, waiting for her to reappear.

She hadn’t reappeared, however, so when Anthea from the bank’s investor relations department had made her third beeline for him with seduction in her eyes, he’d finally run out of patience and headed in search of his quarry.

And here she was. Small but perfectly formed Sarah Quinn. Like a present, gift-wrapped and delivered on her knees—a position he’d happily take himself if it would get him what he wanted faster.

Not that Sarah was staying on her knees. She was scrambling up—not an easy feat in that dress. And she was looking at him like he was the enemy. He was going to have to change that. Charm, flirtation, seduction. Humour, intellect, intensity. He had no idea what approach was most likely to work, but he was ready to try them individually and severally until he found the right lure.

‘Yes, I recall what you said about getting blown when you came in,’ she said coolly, and her right eyebrow quirked up in that way that had already intrigued him. Like a sideways question mark, complete with a tiny black beauty spot forming a decisive full stop at the end. ‘But there must have been a lot of women out there proposing service on their knees if you can’t distinguish between the ones who were offering and the ones who weren’t.’

‘I’d say a few rather than a lot,’ he said, all self-effacement as he battled a smile he knew she wouldn’t appreciate when she was trying so hard to sound disdainful.

He heard Sarah give a tiny choke, as though a laugh had taken her by surprise.

Good start.

He fixed a hopeful look on his face. ‘But are you quite, quite sure you weren’t among the ones offering?’

‘Quite, quite sure,’ she said, and rolled her bright blue eyes in a way he guessed she thought was condescending—but somehow was not.

‘Then my hopes are dashed,’ he said dramatically. ‘At least tell me who my rival is.’

‘Your …? Huh?’

‘The man you’re waiting for.’ He watched her closely, saw a tiny start. ‘Ah, you’re not waiting for someone, you’re hiding from someone.’

Sarah shifted from one foot to the other, like she was preparing to take off. Oh, no! That was not happening. ‘I’m not hiding,’ she said, and David was intrigued to see a blush work its way across her cheekbones.

David hooded his eyes and held his tongue. It was a tactic he’d found useful in getting people to talk—the stare and wait. And he was going to get her to talk to him if it killed him. He could talk a woman into anything if he set his mind to it. Out of anything, too.

Sure enough, within thirty seconds, she made an indistinct grumbling noise of surrender. ‘All right, yes, I was hiding. But now my cover’s blown, I guess I’ll … you know …’ Another shift from foot to foot as she looked past him towards the exit.

Nope. Not happening. ‘If you tell me who you’re hiding from, I’ll check if the coast is clear before you go back out there.’

‘It’s not a “who”, it’s an “it”,’ she said. ‘I was hiding in a generic sense. From the whole …’ waving the phone towards the door ‘… thing.’

‘You don’t like parties?’ he asked.

Up went the eyebrow. ‘Who doesn’t like parties?’

Again, he wanted to smile; again, he battled it back. The dimples had to be kept up his sleeve. So to speak. Emergency reserves. ‘So it’s this particular party that’s the problem?’

‘No. That is— I mean— It’s not about the party—at least not per se. It’s …’ She leaned in, as though she was about to get confidential and David waited hopefully … but suddenly she seemed to catch herself, and leaned out.

David took the lean-out to mean he was still the enemy. But he knew he had to be making headway if she could lean towards him in the first place without realizing she was doing it. ‘It’s …?’ he prompted.

‘It’s … a situation. I needed a bit of time alone to sort it out in my head.’

‘And have you sorted it out?’

Silence.

Which he took to mean ‘no’.

Sarah looked to the exit again, and then glanced behind her. His eyes followed hers, landing on the glittery little evening bag near the footstool. She tottered over to it on her insanely high heels and started to bend to pick it up—as awkwardly as she’d got to her feet minutes ago. She put out a hand towards the footstool, for support he guessed, but then pulled it back, with an ‘Oops.’

David moved lightning-fast to retrieve the bag in one low, easy swoop and held it out to her. ‘So your situation isn’t sorted.’

‘Yes and no,’ she admitted, taking the bag and slipping its chain strap over her shoulder.

‘Then I’ll help you sort it.’

She snorted. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Try me.’

Another glance at the exit had David shifting so his body blocked both her line of sight and the path to the door. She’d have to do a full-body-brush past him to get out. She wouldn’t want to do that—but he kind of hoped she’d try it.

‘Come on, Sarah, tell me why you’re crying.’

The look of startled dismay on her face was priceless. ‘I’m not,’ she said, and the blush rushed across her cheekbones again as her fingers went to the clasp of her bag.

‘Telling me, or crying?’

Fumbling with the clasp. ‘Either or, smarty-pants.’

‘Smarty-pants?’ He slapped a hand over his heart. ‘Ouch, that hurts.’

And there was the little choke in her throat as she caught another unexpected laugh. It reminded him of how much she’d been laughing out in the gallery as she crisscrossed the room like a hyperactive Miss Congeniality—right up until the moment Lane had introduced them, which was when things had gone south. But still, he’d bet she spent more time laughing than not, which meant it was time to switch tactics. Seduction was off the table; he’d try laughing her into accepting him.

‘But that’s not the best you can do, is it?’ he teased. ‘Smarty-pants?’

‘As a matter of fact, I can do a lot better than “smarty-pants”.’ She was leaning in again, the gaping bag seemingly forgotten. ‘I happen to have a thesaurus for a brain.’

‘So come on, I’m game. Lay some words on me,’ he invited. ‘I can take it.’

Her mouth started to open. He waited, intrigued …

But nope. She leaned back out and gave her head a firm shake. ‘The crying thing. I really don’t cry. Generally, I mean. But in this instance, there are extenuating circumstances.’

‘Which are?’

‘Not interesting.’

‘But they must be interesting if you don’t generally cry and yet you were crying.’ He looked at the phone in her hand. ‘Even more interesting is why you threw the phone.’

Eyebrow up. ‘This is a new Samsung Galaxy! I didn’t throw it.’

‘Does that mean an old Samsung Galaxy would have been fair game?’

‘I don’t know. Yes. Maybe. No!’

‘I see, multiple choice. So … what? Am I supposed to pick one?’

Another tiny choke. ‘If you must know—’

‘Yes, I do believe I must.’

‘—I was trying to sneak out without you knowing I was in here. Throwing a phone across a concrete floor kind of defeats that purpose.’

‘But if it were an old phone and I wasn’t here, you might have thrown it?’ he mused. ‘Interesting.’

‘Not interesting. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid! And I didn’t throw it, because I just don’t care enough to do that. I don’t care, I don’t—’

Another choke, but different this time. Not laughter. Tears. Sudden, gleaming tears. Well, tears didn’t scare him and wouldn’t deter him. He calmly slid a hand into the inside pocket of his jacket, extracted his handkerchief and held it out with exemplary sangfroid.

‘Why are you even carrying a handkerchief?’ she asked, blinking ferociously as she took it. ‘I mean, a real one—not one of those pretty pocket squares.’ She nodded at the red and grey scrap of silk peeking out of his left breast pocket.

‘I always carry a real handkerchief because you never know when you’re going to need a good cry,’ David said, straight-faced. ‘A pocket square is the equivalent of a new Samsung Galaxy in such situations. No snot allowed.’

And there was the choked-off laugh again, the tears gone like magic. ‘From the look of you, I’d say you haven’t got snot on anything since you popped out of the womb.’

‘Well, not often,’ he conceded, and watched her as she took a deep breath, resetting her equilibrium, and—damn!—looking towards the exit again before he could manoeuvre himself back into blocking position. ‘Are you going to tell me what happened, Sarah?’

‘Why do you want to know?’ she countered.

‘It’s what my ex-wife calls my White Knight Syndrome.’

‘That’s not a real condition!’

‘Sure it is. My ex-wife is a psychologist—she knows these things.’

‘What is it exactly?’

‘An inability to see a damsel in distress without wanting to throw her across the saddle of my trusty steed and gallop her out of trouble. Metaphorically speaking, since I don’t have a steed currently at my disposal.’ He gave her a small smile—enough for the dimples to twitch, because time was a-marching and he figured he’d better intensify his assault. ‘What can I say? I’m a nice guy.’

‘What’s that old adage about nice guys finishing last?’

‘Oh we do, we do,’ David agreed fervently.

She slanted a narrow-eyed look at him. ‘You see, I have a feeling you don’t finish last. Ever. I’d go so far as to say you finish first. Always. And people who finish first all the time are generally not very nice. They’re generally cold, ruthless, uncompromising—’

‘Argh, not the thesaurus!’ he interrupted, throwing up surrender hands. ‘Stop, stop, I beg you!’

And yes! There it was. He’d made her laugh without choking it off. And the relaxed sparkle of it confirmed that laughter was indeed her default setting. It was strangely appealing.

‘I can see you’re going to need a character reference,’ he said with an exaggerated sigh. ‘Let me get Margaret on the phone.’

‘Margaret?’

‘My ex-wife.’ He reached into his pants pocket. ‘Do you want to call her or shall I?’

‘Hey, no!’ Sarah cried, and then she sucked in a breath that was half-outrage, half-laugh. ‘Oh, you … you villain! I believed you!’

‘Smarty-pants. Villain. What next, thesaurus girl? Meanie-beanie?’

‘How about knave?’

‘Not bad.’

‘Dastard.’

‘Better.’

‘Rapscallion.’

‘Now you’re talking.’

‘You weren’t really going to call her.’

‘No, but I promise Margaret really does think I’m nice. So come on, cheer me up: take advantage of me.’

She blinked at him. ‘Take what?’

‘Take advantage of me. Of my niceness. Indulge my White Knight Syndrome.’ He gave her his most innocent look. ‘Why, what did you think I meant? Do you want to take advantage of me in some other way?’ He flexed his dimple-power again. ‘I’m game if you have designs on my virtue.’

‘You’re being deliberately disingenuous.’

‘Disingenuous!’ he said admiringly. ‘Can you give me a really hard word, and use it in a sentence? Like, really, really hard?’

Another of those chokes, but she straightened her shoulders and picked up the gauntlet. ‘“Absquatulate”. Sarah Quinn had been trying to “absquatulate” from the storage room for quite some time!’

‘I’m such a sucker for a girl with words. Sorry, but you can consider your fate sealed. You’re not absquatulating from the storage room, Sarah Quinn—not without giving me my White Knight fix. I’m saving you whether you want me to or not.’

‘You’ve ably discharged your White Knight duty by offering me your handkerchief.’ She smiled, proffering his handkerchief on one upturned palm. ‘Which I hereby return to thee with gratitude, Sir David, unused and snot-free.’

Damn! He was losing her. ‘Yeah, you might want to use it before you face the crowd,’ he said, thinking fast.

She started to wave that suggestion away—but he twisted his face into a theatrical wince, and that stopped her.

‘Oh, how could I forget?’ She dropped the phone into her open evening bag and pulled out a compact. ‘It’s why I was trying to sneak out in the first place. Instead, here I am, standing around, talking to you. All I can say is thank God you’re not him.’

‘Er … not who?’

‘Him. The man of my dr— Oh, never mind!’ She started to open the compact. ‘It’s bad enough that even you should see me looking like— Oh. My. God!’ She stared in horror into the little round mirror for one frozen moment. And then she started manically dabbing at her cheeks with his handkerchief. ‘I need to invest in some waterproof mascara.’

‘Even though you don’t generally cry?’

‘Oh, you!’

‘Here,’ he said, taking the compact off her. ‘I’ll hold it while you do the repair work.’

‘I can manage.’

‘Hey, I’m a nice guy, remember?’

‘Sorry but I’m not sold on the whole “nice guy” thing,’ she said, but she let him hold the compact while she recommenced dabbing at the black-streaked tear tracks on her cheeks. ‘Don’t think I’m not grateful, but shouldn’t you be out there mingling with the bank’s clients?’

‘I’ve done my quota of mingling.’

‘Then shouldn’t you be out there looking at the paintings?’

‘I looked at the paintings out there. Now I’m looking at the paintings in here.’

‘And you got a bonus—Edvard Munch’s The Scream come to life.’

‘Except you didn’t scream.’

‘I was speaking figuratively. I generally don’t scream.’

‘Generally don’t scream. Generally don’t cry. Don’t throw phones—new ones, anyway. And you know big words. I might be falling in like with you.’

‘I have more than enough people in like with me already, thank you.’ She dipped into her bag again and pulled out a lipstick. She smeared on a layer of what looked like glossy rust, then rubbed her lips together. ‘It’s the other part I’m missing.’

‘Other part?’

‘Never mind.’ She turned her head to one side, then the other, assessing her face in the mirror. ‘I’m going to have to put on more mascara.’

‘You look fine without it.’

‘I’m blonde, in case you haven’t noticed. Which means my eyelashes are almost invisible.’ She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. ‘Mind you, you’re blond, too. How did you manage to score such dark eyelashes? Are they tinted?’

‘No they bloody well are not.’

‘Hey, there’s no shame in an eyelash tint.’ She examined his face. ‘Or a facial.’

‘My eyelashes are the result of genetics. And so is my skin, so do not mention the word “facial” to me again if you value your life.’

‘Oooh, touchy,’ she said, and her eyes were doing what he’d never thought possible and dancing. ‘Seriously, though, do you know how much it hurts when a guy gets that combination? Blond, with dark eyelashes?’

‘Yes. Margaret, who is also blonde, used to tell me all the time. Which is how I know I’m not going to win the mascara fight. So go right ahead and slap it on.’

Sarah dug in her bag again and pulled out a tube of mascara. David was starting to think that tiny bag of hers had mystical qualities, given how many objects went in and came out of it. She brushed on the mascara with the speed and accuracy of an expert cosmetician. ‘There,’ she said, putting the tube in her bag along with his handkerchief. She batted her eyelashes at David as she retrieved the compact he’d been holding for her, popped it in with everything else and snapped the bag closed.

‘Hang on, there’s a clump at the corner,’ he said, and reached out to pinch one of her outer eyelashes between his thumb and forefinger. Did she jump a little? He wasn’t sure, but he thought—hoped?—she had. He stood back to examine her. ‘Better.’

‘Your ex-wife teach you that?’

‘Let’s just say I know my way around a tube of mascara.’

‘Oh you do, do you?’

‘Not from personal use, brat!’

‘If you say so,’ she sing-songed, and tried to move past him.

‘Hey—what about my handkerchief?’

She stopped. ‘You want it back?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even though it’s not a Galaxy-esque pocket square?’

‘Even so.’

‘Fine. I’ll wash it and … and … Oh.’ Her eyes widened. Surprise? Fear? No—guilt! ‘I’ll wash it and give it to Lane for you.’

Ah. Lane. The fly in his ointment. ‘I’d prefer you to wash it and bring it back to me yourself.’

Sarah eyed him warily. ‘Why?’

Out of options. ‘Because I want you to pose for me.’

And at last he had her full attention. Which had him questioning why he hadn’t led with that straight off the bat. But he knew why: the possibility of being turned down flat. Her initial animosity had been almost palpable, whereas now, he had something to work with. He’d work with anything she gave him to get her to agree.

‘Can you repeat that?’ she asked.

‘I want you to pose for me.’

‘What does that mean? “Pose”?’

‘Pose as in for a painting. As in I’m entering the Langman Portrait Prize and I want you to be my model.’

‘But you’re a banker.’

‘Who also paints.’

A moment of staring, and then she sucked in a breath and … and bristled? Yes, bristled. ‘Oh, I see!’

‘Oh, you see what?’

‘You want to paint me naked, don’t you?’

‘Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of—’

‘Lane mentioned your interest in paintings when she introduced us, remember?’

What the hell? ‘Lane doesn’t know I paint.’

‘Or should I say your “etchings”? I’ve heard nudes are your favourite kind.’

David could actually feel a blush start to heat his face. And he never blushed. Talk about old pick-up lines coming back to haunt a guy! ‘That’s different.’

‘Are you telling me you don’t want to get Lane naked?’

‘Yes, I’m telling you that.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Let me put it in context,’ he said. ‘I did want to get Lane naked, but now I don’t. It’s what you might call a past-tense situation.’

‘That sounds like an obfuscation to me. Only an hour ago, I saw you look at Lane in that … that way. And an hour isn’t exactly past tense!’

‘I may well have looked at her in that “way” an hour ago. But fifty-nine minutes ago, she introduced me to your brother Adam, and it became very clear to me that nobody except him was going to be seeing her naked from now on.’

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ she said darkly—and she was looking at him like he was the enemy again. Ah well, one step forward, two steps back.

‘If you want to talk about people looking at each other in a certain “way”, let’s talk about the way your brother looked at me,’ he said. ‘Like he was visualizing tearing me limb from limb with his teeth.’ He gave an extravagant shudder. ‘I have the strongest objection to being gnawed on by jealous men.’

She looked at him for the longest time, and then said, ‘What if I told you Lane likes you better?’

‘I’d say you’re wrong.’

‘What if I’m right?’

‘You’re not.’

‘They—Adam and Lane—have a very specific relationship.’

‘Which has nothing to do with me.’

‘It might have something to do with you.’

‘It doesn’t.’

She made a huffing sound. ‘Look, can you give me something to work with here?’

Something to work with? One step forward. ‘All right. I’ll say to you that whatever the case, however Lane feels about Adam, or about me, I’m no longer interested in her.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because that would complicate things between you and me.’

She pursed her lips, looking uncertain. ‘You mean …? What do you mean? That painting me is better than having sex with Lane?’

‘I haven’t done either yet, so that’s impossible to answer.’

‘Aha! You said “yet”! That’s a prevarication.’

‘Obfuscation. Prevarication. You’re a tough nut to crack, thesaurus girl. I’ll tell you what. If you’re going to be obsessed with my sex life, there’s an easy solution: have sex with me yourself.’

She gaped at him. ‘You— I— That—’

‘That way, I won’t have the energy to think about Lane, and Lane can concentrate on Adam, and all four of us will be happy.’

‘How do you know I’ll be happy?’

He gave her his best sultry smile. ‘Because I know.’ Pause, while he let that sink in. ‘So, how about it? Will sex with me get you over the line?’

She was laughing, but it was more like a splutter of disbelief. ‘Thanks, but I can have sex any day of the week.’

‘Enough people in like with you, enough people to have sex with. Geez. What’s the missing ingredient?’

‘Never you mind.’

‘Tell me the missing ingredient and I’ll get it for you. I’ll get you anything, if you’ll agree to let me paint you. Whatever you want.’

‘Whatever I want,’ she repeated slowly. Her tongue came out to touch the perfect cupid’s bow of her top lip. One, two, three seconds. And then she popped her tongue back in and took a breath. ‘Whatever I want?’ A question this time.

‘Whatever you want.’

‘It’s a very simple thing, really.’

‘Name it, and it’s yours.’

‘I want you to break my curse.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘I see,’ David said—so calmly, Sarah wondered what it would take to freak him out. A zombie apocalypse?

‘You said you’d do whatever I wanted, and that’s what I want.’

‘The thing is, my experience of curse breaking is a trifle limited. What are we talking about? Stealing nail clippings? Burning hair? Sticking pins in effigies? Dancing around cauldrons? Eye of newt and toe of frog? That kind of thing?’

She laughed—couldn’t help it. ‘Not quite that.’

‘You relieve my mind.’

‘More White Knight Syndrome, less black magic.’

‘So, I’m saving you.’

‘Yes.’

‘From what?’

‘Spinsterhood.’

‘You want to get married?’

‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘In that case, there’s a problem,’ he said, all apologetic. ‘I’m not the marrying kind. It’s a been-there-done-that kind of thing for me.’

Sarah stared at him for a moment, not comprehending. And then: ‘Oh, I don’t want to marry you. No, no, no, no!’

‘No?’

‘No! Aside from anything else, I couldn’t do that to Lane.’

‘I’m very slow this evening, it seems. So let’s leave Lane out of where she doesn’t belong, and perhaps you could simply give me the specifics of what you want me to do.’

‘Okay, specifically, I want you to analyse why I keep getting dumped, and teach me how to stop getting dumped.’

‘Getting dumped is the curse I have to break?’

‘Yes. Tonight was the straw that broke the camel’s back.’

‘You got dumped tonight?’

‘It’s why I was crying. Although I wasn’t crying over him, you understand.’

‘Of course not.’

‘It’s just that the time frame from the start of a relationship to the finish is shrinking. It used to happen at the three-week mark, and that was bad enough! Really, really bad enough. But then three weeks became two, and two weeks became one, and now this last one? Six days. Six discouraging, disappointing, depressing days! How much abbreviation can a girl take? Soon I’ll be the one-night stand girl, and I will die if that happens!’

‘I can see how dying after a one-night stand would make marriage difficult, but I’m not sure a divorced man is the advocate you need.’

‘I regard the fact you’ve been married as valuable augmentary experience. It gives you an extra insight.’

‘Oh, I’ve got insight into marriage all right.’

‘And into women. I mean, you know a lot about women, don’t you?’

‘There’s no way I can answer that without sounding like an egomaniac.’

She giggled. ‘You do know using the word “egomaniac” unprompted in association with yourself on that subject basically gives the game away, don’t you?’

‘Damn, you got me. Yes, I’m an egomaniac, a boaster, a narcissist.’ He gave a what-can-I-say? shrug. ‘And I do, in fact, know women.’

‘I’ll bet you know men, too.’

‘Not in the biblical sense, I assure you.’

‘Stop making me laugh! I mean you know what men like when it comes to women.’

‘Thank God! I thought you were going to start talking about facials and eyelash tints again.’

‘Not all gay guys do that stuff, you know, and not all straight guys don’t. Talk about stereotyping! But if I promise not to ever mention your eyelashes again, will you help me?’

‘Will you let me paint you?’

‘I’ll even pose naked—that’s how desperate I am.’

‘Naked will not be required.’

‘Okay, not naked. To tell you the truth, that’s a relief.’ She leaned towards him and lowered her voice, despite them being the only two people in the room. ‘I’m not what you’d call Rubenesque.’

He leaned in too. ‘That’s okay—I’m not Rubens. Nevertheless, I’d prefer you to keep your clothes on.’

She straightened and thrust out her hand. ‘Then we have a deal?’

He took her hand, but instead of shaking it he turned it palm up, examining it as he rubbed his thumb across the base of her fingers. ‘The only mistake you’re making is choosing the wrong guys. You do know that, don’t you?’

‘There can’t be that many wrong guys in the world,’ she said, and peered at her palm. What was so interesting about it? Nothing that she could see, although something about the movement of his thumb was disturbing. So much so, she found her fingers curling up over his thumb to stop it.

‘I’m starting to think there are a lot of very stupid ones,’ he said softly.

‘I suppose you’ve never been dumped,’ she said.

‘Kelly Greaves when I was fifteen. Janet Clarke when I was … How old was I? Eighteen? Yes, eighteen. And then …’ He trailed off.

‘And then?’

He let go of her hand. ‘Rebel, when I was twenty-five.’

‘Rebel …’ Sarah realized she still had her hand held out, and dropped it, rubbing it surreptitiously against her thigh to try and stop its strange prickling. ‘Unusual name.’

‘Unusual woman.’

‘What about Margaret, who says you’re so “nice”? Because you know “nice” is how they describe you right before they dump you.’

‘Margaret and I weren’t a dumping in either direction. We were a parting of the ways—or in today’s parlance, a conscious uncoupling.’

‘So basically you’ve been dumped three times in your whole life, whereas I’ve been dumped three times in the past two months?’

‘Er …’

‘Really?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Well, let me tell you something: it’s no fun. I’ve been dumped in person, over the phone, in quiet corners, at large gatherings, at home, from abroad, and now by text.’

‘Text?’

‘Text! Next time it happens, I’ll probably find out via Facebook. And if that happens, I’ll be entering a nunnery and taking a vow of silence.’

‘Yeah, I think the vow of silence might actually kill you.’

‘And how will you live with that on your conscience, knowing you could have helped me to— Wait! What? Are you saying I talk too much?’

‘Weeeell …’

Long, staring moment. ‘Oh my God, you’re right, I do! You know, Adam’s tried to tell me that but he’s my brother so it doesn’t count. The truth is, though, that I even talked to Clarence—’ gesturing to the bronze head on the shelf ‘—when I was in here on my own.’ She beamed at David, delighted. ‘See? You’re already helping me! I believe you when you say I talk too much!’

He started laughing. He was also shaking his head.

‘Please, David, help me.’

He looked down into her face, and the laughter faded. He lifted his hand, touched his index finger to her right eyebrow, tracing it all the way down to the little black dot at the end. Half-laugh, half-sigh. ‘What the hell.’

‘You mean you’ll do it?’

‘I’ll do it. Sign me up.’

Squealing, she launched herself at him.

David stiffened as her arms came around him, but it was only for a fraction of a second—and then his arms were circling her, tightening, bringing her harder against him. She heard, felt, him breathe in once, deeply, then slowly out. She became aware of the scratch of his jacket against her cheek. A waft of scent, dark and unsafe. A flood of warmth transferring from him to her. And then, the other feeling, the hardness of him against her belly.

The shock of it had her arching into him, head tipping back, eyes colliding with his—only where hers, she just knew, were wide and awed, his were narrowed and watchful, as though gauging her reaction to him. The alertness of that look, while she’d been all about the heat and sensation, reminded her that David Bennett was a man who knew women very, very well. She’d have to be on her guard. The plan was to use him, not fall for him.

‘Right, then,’ she said, pulling out of his arms and readjusting the strap of her now slightly squashed evening bag. ‘That’s a perfect example of something that needs to be fixed. The way I flew at you just then. Too impulsive.’

‘Really? Because I kind of liked it.’

‘Yes, I could tell,’ she said dryly.

‘You sure I can’t persuade you to have sex with me instead of all this other stuff?’

‘Tempted as I am, sex isn’t that missing ingredient you promised to get for me. I can use you much more effectively as my … What would you call it? My male girlfriend?’

‘Er … no. Do not use the word “girlfriend” to describe me!’

‘For a man who doesn’t look like he’d have any insecurities about his sexuality, you really are touchy.’

‘Keep mining that vein and I’ll be forced to prove that I certainly don’t have any insecurities in that area. And very few inhibitions if it comes to that.’

‘Fine. If you’re going to be super sensitive about it, how about wingman?’

‘Better.’

‘So, wingman, back to the way I flew at you a minute ago. You need to train me out of being so impetuous, or at least help me camouflage it.’ She pursed her lips, looking him up and down. ‘I need a little bit of what you’ve got going on yourself.’

‘Which is what, exactly?’

‘Ennui. It’s quite irresistible to women, as I’m sure you know.’

‘Ennui?’

‘A languorous kind of world-weariness. It’s like you’re chronically bored, and yet amused at the same time. Probably by all of us poor fools trying to be the one to shock you out of your ennui.’

‘I wouldn’t say I’m bored at the moment,’ he said mildly. ‘And I urge you not to try to shock me out of whatever it is I am. It won’t work.’

‘Yes, I like that about you. Your unshockability.’

‘On the other hand, I might shock you.’

‘Oh, I’m quite sure you will, and I’m looking forward to it. I don’t get shocked nearly enough to suit me.’

‘I hope you still feel that way when I say something that makes you furious. I don’t want you stalking off in a snit when I’m only doing what you asked me to.’

‘I generally don’t stalk off in a snit.’

‘And no punching, slapping, kicking or stabbing me, either.’

‘No punching, slapping, kicking, stabbing,’ she said, giggling at the absurdity of it. ‘Should I be writing these down? I mean, is it going to turn into some giant manifesto?’

‘Depends how hopeless a case you are. Which reminds me—how long is it going to take? We need to set a time limit. Because I’m warning you now, I’m not hanging around for ever to walk you down the aisle.’

‘For one thing, I have a father for that. For another, I don’t want to get married right this second. Marriage is a longer-term goal. For now, I’ll be happy to have a relationship that lasts longer than three weeks. Three weeks and one day will suffice.’

‘Three weeks and one day from when? First date? First kiss? First sexual encounter?’

‘Three weeks and one day from … the first date, I think. How will that fit with your painting?’

‘That’ll work. Let’s aim for mutual satisfaction in six weeks’ time. My painting will be finished by then, and if you haven’t already nailed your guy, you’ll at least be on your way to relationship bliss. Does that sound fair?’

‘Sounds very fair.’

‘We’ll meet every Wednesday at my apartment—say, 8:00 p.m. You’ll pose, and I’ll simultaneously preach at you while dissecting your dating efforts. But since we’re both here now, I’ll do a bonus round for you and start my expert tutelage straight away. Here’s something for the manifesto: how to deal with guys who dump girls by text message. Unlock your phone and hand it over so I can respond to that text. And if I find you’ve already sent something mealy-mouthed, I’m going to … Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but it won’t be pleasant.’

‘I don’t generally do mealy-mouthed,’ she said, digging around in her evening bag. ‘In fact, there was a guy—DeWayne Callaghan, if you ever come across him, feel free to spit on him—who wrote something disgusting about Lane on Facebook once, and I favoured him with such an excoriating critique of his post he was begging for mercy within a minute—sadly, before I had the chance to raise the subject of his own critical failing.’

He was regarding her with a fascinated eye. ‘Which was …?’

‘Premature ejaculation, and how I would have loved to share that all over social media,’ she said, then sighed as she brought out the phone. ‘Ah well, lost opportunities.’

‘Good to know that premature ejaculation is not excused,’ David said, through twitching lips.

‘Nevertheless, I’ll delete what I started so you have a clean slate to work with. Aaaand … here.’ She passed the phone to David. ‘What are you going to say?’

‘I need to read his message first.’ He looked down at the phone. ‘Good God! Lusty Liam? Really?’

‘A misnomer, as it turns out, because he was not lusty. More like Lousy Liam, to be brutally honest. Mind you, there was a Randy Rob who wasn’t randy and a Sexy Sam who wasn’t sexy, as well as a—’

‘Spare me! No, I mean it, spare me!’ He dipped his head and read the message. Shook his head. ‘Good Lord, you really can pick ’em.’

‘You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.’

‘Don’t worry, bluebell, if there’s a guy out there for you, we’ll find him.’

‘Bluebell?’

‘Would you prefer rhododendron? What about hydrangea? Agapanthus?’

‘Fine!’ she surrendered, laughing. ‘Bluebell it is.’

‘It’s an eye thing. They’re that colour.’

‘What do I call you, then?’ She peered into his eyes. ‘What colour are your eyes?’

‘Bluebell is taken, aside from being way too girly—and remember, do not mention my eyelashes.’

‘Yes your eyes are very blue,’ she said, but as she looked more closely, more intently, she saw they were the most amazingly dark, swirling, drowning indigo. And something about them, framed in those dark lashes and staring right at her, made her heart do a butterfly-like flutter in her chest.

‘They’re the colour of a bruise,’ David said, looking away from her suddenly. ‘So you can call me Bruiser—a good alpha male name.’

‘Alpha? A-ha.’

‘Remember, my eyelashes are not tinted, brat.’

‘But it’s not very romantic. Bruiser.’

‘Neither am I—just for the record. Now come on, it’s time to text.’

‘What am I going to say?’

‘Depends.’

‘On …?’

‘What he means by the “cultural divide” he says is between you. Is he from overseas? Different religion? A lot older? Surely not younger—you only look sixteen yourself.’

‘I’m twenty-four, thank you. And he’s twenty-eight, which is in perfect proportion. Plus he’s agnostic. And he’s lived all his life here in Sydney, except for three months in Tokyo.’

‘Then I don’t get it.’

‘He means cultural as in him liking foie gras while I love pizza. Him being a Moby Dick kind of guy, whereas I’m crazy about Agatha Christie. The fact that he’s an opera buff, but I’m into pop music. I wear a terry towelling dressing gown, and he has a really short kimono, or whatever you call that thing that’s like a kimono only not as fancy. A bit like a— What’s funny?’

‘Oh God, the vision in my head!’ David choked out. ‘He wears a yukata? A mini yukata?’

‘Is that what it’s called?’

‘Yep. And I’m guessing that’s his way of pretending he knows all about Japanese culture because he lived in Tokyo for a few months when he probably knows squat.’ He started laughing again, and that set Sarah off too. He tried to take a breath, failed, tried again and managed it. ‘Sorry.’ Another quick breath. One more. ‘Okay, I think I’ve got it under control—now you get it together, or I’ll start laughing again.’

‘Okay,’ she managed, in a strangulated wheeze of a voice.

‘Sarah!’

‘Sorry.’ Choke, breath, choke, deep breath. ‘Right. Fine, I’m fine.’

‘So that ludicrous message of his is basically saying you’re not cultured enough for him?’

‘To be fair, he has a point,’ she admitted. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong. I read literary novels, just not only literary novels. I always dress perfectly for any occasion, I know what cutlery to use, chew with my mouth closed, and can hold my own in just about any conversation—I work in PR and events and have a huge range of clients, so that’s kind of mandatory. But I certainly have what you might call unsophisticated tastes.’ She grimaced. ‘You should have seen Adam’s face when I asked him to add Coke to one of his precious single-malt whiskies.’

David’s eyes were heading into fascination territory again.

‘Anyway,’ she went on decisively, ‘it’s now your job to make me worldly.’

‘If you want to present yourself to the world as a foie gras-scoffing, single malt-swilling opera lover, then yes, I can help you pretend to be that. But there are plenty of pizza-loving Agatha Christie readers out there we can target instead.’

‘Have you ever read a book by Agatha Christie?’

‘No, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t.’

‘Ha! You wouldn’t.’

‘Seriously, I would.’

‘Ha!’

‘Enough already with the “Ha!”’

‘So what do you like?’

‘I like pizza, same as you. I prefer wine over beer, cocktails and whisky, and blues over either opera or pop music. And most importantly, I do not wear a yukata and pretend to be Japanese. In fact, if you ever hear that I’ve been caught wearing a yukata outside of Japan, and a mini yukata anywhere on the planet, you’re to shoot me dead.’

‘Shoot you dead,’ she said, eyes brimming with laughter again. ‘Just don’t stab you.’

‘Brat! Still, knowing about the yukata and the foie gras makes the text reply easy.’ Ten seconds later, he was hitting ‘Send’.

‘That was quick!’ Sarah said. ‘What did you— No, what did I say?’

David held out the phone for her to take. The message was short.

Go fuck yourself

Sarah gazed at David in frank admiration. ‘I don’t swear—not when there are so many more fabulous words available—but I have to say, I like that.’ She looked down at her phone again. ‘That’s that bridge burned, then.’

‘Do you care, bluebell?’

‘Not in the slightest.’

‘Good. Now, before we go any further, just for future reference, in the normal run of things you shouldn’t denigrate one guy’s sexual performance to another guy. That’s one for the manifesto.’ He frowned. ‘You know what? I’ll bet Loser Liam would call something a “manifesto”, so we’re going to go for something simpler. What about the rulebook?’

‘The rulebook. Done.’

‘And I hope you appreciate that I’m batting above the average here when it comes to the rules. We haven’t even left the room and you’re up three lessons.’

‘Are we really?’

‘Don’t talk your head off; no dissing a guy’s bed performance to other conquests; be as mean as you like when responding to break-up text messages,’ he said, holding up a finger per point. ‘And on that note, I’m going to block Lousy Lustless Liam, so hand over your phone again. And then I’m going to put my number in there, et cetera, et cetera.’ He busied himself with her phone, then used it to call his own number. ‘There, now I have your number too.’

‘Okay, so now what?’ Sarah asked, taking her phone.

‘Now, let’s get out there,’ he said. ‘I’m going to shadow you—not obviously, but I’ll be close enough to see what you’re up to. I want to see how you flirt. I’ll give you a sign when we’ve found the right guy for you to pick up.’

‘Oh, we’re starting now?’ She looked at the exit. ‘Out there? Together?’

‘We’re on a tight deadline, bluebell. No time to lose.’ He looked curiously at her when she didn’t move. ‘A few minutes ago you couldn’t wait to absquatulate. What’s the sudden problem?’

‘It occurs to me that I may have got carried away in here. With just you and me, it seemed easy. You have a way of …’ She trailed off, not quite brave enough to suggest he was a master manipulator. ‘Of putting women at ease.’ Nice save, if she said so herself. ‘But Lane and Adam are out there and that … changes things.’

‘Changes things how?’

‘I have no idea how they’ll interpret what’s going on with us.’

‘It’s straightforward. There’s nothing to interpret.’

‘Think of the relationship intricacies. What if Lane doesn’t end up with Adam? What if she decides she wants to pick up with you where she left off?’

‘I told you—past tense.’

‘But Adam won’t want me anywhere near you, regardless, if she dumps him. And he’s not exactly the most forgiving guy on the planet, so he might not want me anywhere near you even if she doesn’t dump him, now she’s waved you in his face like a red flag at a tank.’

‘I think you mean red flag at a bull.’

‘Trust me, I mean tank. And I don’t want to have to watch him kill you over something to do with me.’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘And I know I’ll end up hating you if you hurt my brother—if you hurt him emotionally, I mean, because he’d wipe the floor with you physically.’

‘Thank you for that vote of confidence.’

‘I might end up hating Lane, too. And even though I want to slap her right now, I love Lane.’

‘So just wait it out for six weeks and don’t hate either of us until our time’s up. You won’t have to see me again and you can mop up the rest any way you want. I’ll even help you do it.’

Her hands dropped, and she regarded him with disbelief. ‘It doesn’t work like that with feelings. You hate people, you like them, you love them, but you do it unconsciously. Even if you’re ambivalent, it’s not something you decide, it just happens.’

‘In my experience, feelings can be controlled.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

‘I’ve seen it, first hand. In fact, I’m adding that topic to the rulebook—controlling one’s emotions. Meanwhile, bluebell, the choice is yours: confess all, or keep me a deep dark secret. Won’t bother me either way.’

‘How can I keep you a deep dark secret when they’ll see us together out there?’

‘They won’t see us together. Adam dragged Lane off in highly dramatic caveman style ages ago.’

‘What? No!’

‘Why so surprised?’

‘It’s just not him, to go caveman over a woman.’

‘I promise you, he was Grade A Neanderthal. Now don’t make me get all caveman and drag you out to the party.’ Pause, while he searched her face. ‘Are we good, bluebell? All I’m doing is painting you with your clothes on. It’s probably the most innocent thing I’ve done for nine years. Not worth any angst.’

He sounded almost bored. And Sarah felt suddenly, painfully gauche, to be thinking there was anything untoward in what they were doing.

‘We’re good, I guess,’ she said. ‘But I do want to keep it on the down low, at least for now. Until I figure out the … the ramifications, consequences, complications.’

‘Not that there should be any ramifications, consequences, complications, but okay, “the down low” it is. A phrase I never thought I’d hear coming out of my own mouth.’ He reached out a finger, flicked it carelessly against her cheek. ‘Now, let’s go and get you hooked up.’

Sarah smiled, but as they walked out of the storeroom, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d dived headfirst into dangerous seas; the shore of her old life was already receding, the undertow dragging her out of her depth.

CHAPTER FOUR

David Bennett: wingman.

If anyone had told David he’d end a night out trailing after a girl like an anxious duenna after she’d rejected his sexual advances out of hand, he would have laughed his head off.

And yet here he was.

He’d thought he’d swayed the outcome towards sex for a moment in the storeroom when Sarah had arched right into his savagely unapologetic boner. But nope. It was as though she’d made him, somehow. As though she’d twigged that he was testing her. It was a novel experience, being caught out, seen through. And what made the situation even more remarkable was that Sarah had resisted him so easily, right in the middle of telling him he was, in fact, irresistible.

No, he corrected, he himself wasn’t irresistible; it was his air of ennui that was irresistible. And damn if that didn’t make him want to laugh his head off too. Not that laughing deflated his erection; to his surprise, it had the opposite effect.

He wondered how many of the men buzzing around Sarah like bees around a honey pot were being similarly afflicted in the groin area. The thought made him uncomfortable in a way he didn’t understand. Unless it was that he wasn’t seeing anyone in the gallery worth their effort—as he’d been communicating to Sarah via a strange telepathy she seemed to understand innately. It was amazing what you could achieve with a series of finger twitches, glancing frowns, eyelid flickers and half-shrugs. He probably looked like a palsy sufferer to anyone watching closely, but the silent language seemed to do the job.

An engineer called Harry—flick. Edward the dentist—flick. Earnest China expert Felix who’d made a beeline for her and actually kissed her cheek—flick. Four others, gone within as many minutes. It was getting ridiculous. There had to be someone in the room who wasn’t a total loser.

Sarah had obviously reached the same conclusion, because she was converging on him in her tottering-on-high-heels, stopping-for-a-chat, strutting way, with a determined sparkle in her eye. ‘There has to be one who passes muster,’ she said through a too-large smile as she sidled close to him.

‘If you’d stop hitting on the conservative intellectual types, we might find him. Who are you trying to date? Your father?’

‘My father is not conservative.’

‘All right, then don’t deliberately not date your father. Okay, that sounds repellent, but you know what I mean. Either way, no more guys with glasses and pokers up their backsides.’

‘They didn’t all wear glasses.’

‘No, one out of ten didn’t wear glasses. And they all, bar none, had the poker shoved high enough to have them singing falsetto. No, don’t argue, just listen: no glasses, no plain blue ties, no supercilious smirks. Okay?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Okay.’

‘And don’t roll your eyes. You know I’m right.’

‘I said okay, didn’t I?’

‘It’s how you said it.’ He swept his eyes around the room—in one direction, then back … and stopped. Victim located. He cocked his head to the left. ‘Over there. The guy with the dark hair, on the long side.’ Slight pause. ‘Too long, if you ask me.’

‘Hello? You’re talking to me about dating my father but from where I’m standing, I could just date you if that’s going to be your attitude. Are you going to check them for tattoos as well as hair length? What if they ride motorbikes, Dad?’

‘Shut up, brat,’ he said, trying not to laugh. ‘Look at him, not me. Black suit, white shirt buttoned up to the neck but no tie. See? He’s raising his champagne glass to his lips. Good, he’s seen me. He’s coming over.’

‘You know him?’

‘His name’s Craig. He works at the bank.’

‘I thought you said no more conservatives.’

‘Not all bankers are conservative. I’m a case in point.’

‘But you’re only half a banker.’

‘And even a hundred per cent banker would be better than Lacklustre Liam. Who was what, by the way?’

‘A lawyer.’

‘Dear God!’

‘Now who’s being judgemental?’

‘If it makes you feel better, Craig is only half a banker, like me.’

‘What’s the other half?’

‘Jazz singer. And yes, I know pop’s your thing, but at least it’s not opera, so cope with it. Now come here, your lipstick’s smeared.’ He wiped the corner of her mouth with his thumb. ‘There. Better.’

‘What about my—’

‘Shhh, he’s almost here.’

‘Stop shushing me.’

‘Stop needing to be shushed. Now, shhh.’ He turned abruptly to welcome his long-haired colleague. ‘Craig! How are you?’

‘I’m fine, just fine,’ Craig said, but although he was ostensibly addressing David, his eyes were on Sarah. ‘I’m counting this evening a great success, so make sure you say nice things to the CEO, David.’

‘He’s very pleased; he told me earlier,’ David said, and drew Sarah closer. ‘Craig, this is Sarah Quinn, a friend of mine.’

‘Quinn,’ Craig repeated slowly. ‘Oh! Was it your brother I met tonight? With Lane? He said his sister was here.’

‘Yes, that was Adam,’ Sarah said, and if her face had gone a little uh-oh, because this wasn’t exactly a sign that keeping things on the down low was going to work, David suspected Craig wasn’t intuitive enough to notice it.

‘You look completely different,’ Craig said, looking her over.

‘That’s because she’s a girl,’ David said ironically, and thought, Idiot. Up close, he could see that not only was Craig’s hair definitely too long, it also needed a split end treatment.

‘Yes, I can see that,’ Craig said, taking the chance for another up and down examination of Sarah’s tiny frame.

Yep, hair too long and shaggy. Attitude a little sleazy. And it wouldn’t have killed the guy to wear a tie, would it? ‘Craig, mate, you’re giving Superman a run for his money with the X-ray vision.’

Sarah gave one of those little chokes of suppressed laughter, and followed it up with a pinch to David’s thigh—hard enough to make him wince.

‘Actually, I take after my mother,’ she said smoothly. ‘Adam overdosed on Quinn genes.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Do you … um … have a lot to do with Lane at work, Craig?’

‘Not really,’ Craig said, and David could almost feel the relief ooze out of Sarah. ‘I’m in the public relations department, managing sponsorships and events like tonight’s. I wouldn’t know one of Lane’s economic indicators if it hogtied me and threw me in a truck.’

‘I work in PR too!’ Sarah said eagerly. Too eagerly. David was going to have to tell her to play it cooler. ‘I’m with Frisk & Frolic. We’re doing the PR for the Western Sydney Arts Festival, which is why Lane thought I should come along tonight—in case there were opportunities for cross promotion with this exhibition. It’s travelling around the city, right?’

‘The city and then all over the country,’ Craig said, and the conversation was off and running.

So they had something in common, David thought. Good. Great.

Although working in the same field could end up being a bit yawn-worthy. Maybe Craig wasn’t the best choice after all. David started looking around the room for alternatives, but was brought up short by the sound of Sarah laughing.

He tuned into the conversation, discovered Sarah was taking humorous issue with Craig’s bozo-ish interpretation of one of the paintings on display, and found himself gritting his teeth. Craig was an ignoramus; she shouldn’t be indulging him.

Oh God, he really was acting like Sarah’s father. He needed to start behaving like a normal, mature-but-not-ancient wingman. Who would not be thinking about knocking a guy’s arm accidentally-on-purpose to get it away from a girl’s bare elbow. Who’d be thinking about getting himself laid, now his mission had been accomplished.

Anthea. He would find smart, sexy Anthea, who was as determinedly no-strings as David was, and had given him all the signals earlier in the night. Anthea, who had a calculator rather than a thesaurus for a brain, and whose vocabulary he knew from past experience he could scramble, until the only word she could find was his name, screamed out at the point of climax.

Climax, orgasm, ejaculation. Arrrrrghhh.

‘I knew you two would have a lot in common,’ David said, and only when Sarah darted a surprised look at him did he realize he’d bowled that out right in the middle of one of Craig’s sentences. ‘I’ll leave you to your PR discussion.’

He saw Anthea across the room and headed for her, and the promise of sex. Even though the sure knowledge of exactly how it would go with Anthea filled him with … with ennui!

Enn-bloody-ui.

***

Sarah was very conscious of David across the room, flirting with the buxom bottle-blonde she’d met earlier. Anthea, her name was, and she was waving her sizeable boobs in David’s face so enthusiastically, Sarah suspected he wasn’t going to get his eyes off them long enough to monitor Sarah’s progress with Craig.

A shame, because she’d landed a date with Craig to hear him sing on Saturday night and she wouldn’t have minded letting David know how quickly she’d managed it. After behaving like a lovelorn desperado in the storeroom, her pride could have used the boost. Which, of course, was counterintuitive! If she wasn’t a lovelorn desperado, she wouldn’t have had to ask David to help her in the first place, would she? And really, it wasn’t as though getting dates had ever been a problem. It was what came afterwards she had trouble with. So—reality check—she didn’t have anything to brag to David about yet.

She thought ahead to how the date with Craig might unfold. Cool city venue. Starting with champagne, served in those old-fashioned coupe glasses—the ones Naughty Noel had told her were based on the shape of Marie Antoinette’s breasts. (And hooray that someone’s small boobs had been celebrated once upon a time!) Craig making his way to the stage. A quick wave to her from there, making it clear to everyone she was ‘with the band’. Craig moving to the microphone. Then that first sound of his voice—deep … sexy … jazzy. Enthralling everyone.

Maybe they’d go for a walk in the moonlight after the gig. Stop for supper. He’d want to drive her home, but she’d demur. She lived over the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Mosman, it was too far, a cab would be fine, but maybe next time …?

Or maybe he’d invite her to his place for coffee or a nightcap. Maybe a kiss goodnight would turn into something more. Maybe they’d end up in bed! Just because she’d never gone that far on a first date before didn’t mean she couldn’t. It wasn’t as though holding out until date four or five had ever got her anywhere other than Dumpsville.

In fact, the more she thought about it, the smarter it seemed to find out sooner rather than later if there was sufficient sexual compatibility to sustain a relationship—or, conversely, if a guy was the type to lose interest in you the minute he got you between the sheets. In both scenarios, you could cut your losses and move on all the faster, instead of wasting six days the way she had with Liam.

Maybe she’d get David’s perspective on that next week. Which of course wouldn’t help her on Saturday night with Craig. Unless she could somehow check with David tonight …? She turned in David’s direction, only to see him heading towards the exit.

How could he be leaving?

‘Sarah?’

Sarah jumped, hastily refocusing her attention where it was supposed to be. ‘Sorry, Craig, I was hoping to have a quick word with David.’ She gestured to the exit. ‘But I see he’s heading out.’

Craig glanced over to where David had been stopped on the threshold by Anthea and chuckled. ‘Yeah, looks like he has another engagement.’

Sarah forced out an answering chuckle, but as David finally left the building with Anthea, and Craig grabbed her a fresh champagne from a passing waiter, she decided that without David present to give her the benefit of his tutelage there was no point in sticking around.

For the sake of appearances, she waited until she’d drunk half her champagne before making her excuses, by which time she’d skilfully drawn in three other people to ensure Craig wouldn’t feel abandoned.

She felt vaguely dissatisfied as she hailed a taxi, which didn’t make sense, given everything had gone according to plan. Nevertheless, the dissatisfaction persisted all the way home.

Ordinarily, Sarah would have stopped in at her mother’s for a Frangelico, divulged her latest plan, and asked for an opinion on whether she’d done the right thing—but yesterday, her mother had left for her Mediterranean cruise with Massimo (who seemed set to become her fifth husband), so Sarah was going to be on her own for the next few months.

Not that a four-time divorcee was really a trustworthy love guru. Nor was her mother likely to be objective. Sarah could go on a chainsaw massacre through the city streets and her mother would find a way to make it praiseworthy. Talk about permissive parenting! Adam was always warning Sarah that their mother was her enabler, but Sarah had no complaints.

Well, maybe one complaint, given it had been her mother who’d suggested Adam take on the job with Lane. Not that anyone could have predicted how that would unfold! Adam had been sent to talk Lane out of her insane plan to hire a tutor to teach her to seduce the super-experienced David Bennett; instead Adam had signed up for the job and had been teaching Lane things Sarah didn’t want to know about for the past seven weeks. The mind positively rebelled! Everything had since gone so haywire, nobody knew what was going on! Even Lane and Adam seemed to be playing a clueless game of who liked whom.

Sarah had been petrified Lane would fall in love with her commitment-phobic brother, but according to Lane’s super-intuitive housemate Erica, Adam was the one doing the falling—which made Lane’s very deliberate introduction of David Bennett tonight cause for grave concern. Was David Bennett in Lane’s past or her future or nowhere? David said past, but who knew what Lane wanted?

How was a sister supposed to help her brother under such circumstances? Not, it seemed certain, by getting in the middle of it and posing for his enemy, however innocent the intention. Maybe that was why Sarah really wanted her mother just then—to give her the tick of approval she knew deep down she didn’t deserve.

Or maybe she was more like her mother than she thought. So desperate to find ‘the one’ she’d try anything—even though in her mother’s case ‘the one’ never seemed to end up being ‘the one’ and people like Bertie, husband number four who was just the best, got thrown on the scrap heap for nothing.

Well, at least Sarah could be certain David’s advice would be less ‘enabling’ and thus more effective than any she’d get from Elvira Quinn-Smyth-Jacobs-Grahame! Which still didn’t assuage her conscience but at least meant she wouldn’t be throwing Lane and Adam on the pyre to no purpose.

She headed up the side path to her granny flat, hoping her precious home would soothe her spirits the way it usually did. Her flat was something of a showpiece. Her father was the award-winning architect Xavier Quinn, and because he always spoiled her rotten, he’d designed it to within an inch of its life.

Not to be outdone, her mother—who was a top-notch interior designer—had thrown herself into decorating the space with her usual vivid passion. It might be tiny, but it was exquisite. Kitchen, dining and living areas merging seamlessly. Pale wood finishes. Violet sofa. Crimson coffee table. Hot pink cabinet holding her slightly battered Agatha Christie novels. A wall of shelves displaying her lovingly collected snow domes.

The bedroom was no more than an alcove, painted chartreuse, separated from the rest of the space by a blind in a glorious shade of magenta. French doors opened from the living room and her bedroom onto a superb garden, designed by Adam himself even though he had a team of landscapers at his firm (because her brother was every bit as indulgent as their parents) to provide maximum privacy from whatever shenanigans were going on up at the main house.

The whole of it was like one of her snow domes. An intensely private, tiny world where everything was perfect. Coloured the way she wanted, styled the way she liked, cut off from the wider world, protected, controlled. Not many men cared to make the trek to her place. Many men avoided it out of a misplaced fear they’d be under scrutiny, so close to her mother’s house. But that was the way she liked it—a world where she was in charge of picking and choosing who came and went.

So why, tonight, as she entered and looked around, did she feel out of step with it? Why was she walking around picking up objects then putting them back while trying to imagine what David’s place looked like?

Something about David suggested he’d been born fully matured, occupying his own loft apartment. It would be sophisticated, sleek, stylish, minimalist. Pale, cool, neutral colours. Funky metal accents. An easel positioned in a well-lit corner …

Hmm. From that perspective, he was going to hate her place. He was going to think it was nothing but an overblown, over-coloured, schoolgirl’s cubby house. And she wasn’t even going to be allowed to stalk off in a snit when he told her his opinion.

She realized with a start that she’d picked up her mother’s favourite snow dome—of Rome’s Trevi Fountain—and was giving it a too-frenzied shake. Ha! As though shaking the snow around ever did anything to change the world inside! However manic the shake, the snow still settled to reveal the same idyll. Was that a reflection of her life? Did she need shaking up? Were her insides static? Or maybe there was something significant about the fact that she’d chosen the Trevi Fountain for this abuse? Some deep-seated aversion to her mother’s latest beau, perhaps?

O-kay—that was all a bit deep and disturbing. Which is what happened when she was left to her own devices, without her mother or Lane or Erica to bounce things off. And since her mother was on the other side of the world and there was no way could she talk to Erica or Lane just at the moment without revealing her David Bennett perfidy, it was time to pack away the second-guessing for the night.

She was going to soak her dissatisfaction away in her cedar hot tub, purpose built for her minuscule bathroom (and who cared that David Bennett wouldn’t fit in it without having to break two leg bones?) and then go to bed and forget about David until next Wednesday.

Unfortunately, as she started to drift off to sleep, an image of David, arms circling her in the storeroom, slid into her brain like a serpent that had been biding its time to strike.

She sat up, snapping on the bedside light, hoping the sudden brightness would dispel it, but the picture seemed entrenched. She supposed the miracle would have been if she hadn’t thought of that particular moment once she was in bed. His erection wasn’t exactly a forgettable entity—not at that size!

She’d just bet David knew she was thinking of it, too. It’s not as if he’d been trying to hide it. Not that she believed for a second his state of arousal had anything to do with her specifically. The way Lane had described him, he was the type to always be ready. It meant no more than that tossed-out suggestion of his that they have sex. Nothing more than a bargaining chip—I’ll have sex with you if you pose for my portrait. Arrogant sod!

She giggled suddenly, remembering how he’d described himself: Yes, I’m an egomaniac, a boaster, a narcissist. He had a sense of humour, at least. Which only made him more dangerous.

She gave her pillow a thump, turned off the bedside lamp, and yanked the covers up.

No way was David lying in bed agonizing over everything she’d said and done and thought during the evening. He’d be too busy with Anthea. His hands travelling over Anthea’s balloon boobs. Whispering sex words to her, preparing to plunge into her …

Sarah sat up abruptly and switched the bedside light on again, because the image in her head was wrong. It wasn’t Anthea in bed with David, it was her. Her heart was racing, her muscles were tense, and there was a heavy, pulsing ache between her thighs that made her want to touch herself … and think about David touching her.

This had to stop! Aside from the fact that fantasising about him was disgustingly disloyal, she had more important things to think about. Like Saturday night. She turned off the bedside lamp and determinedly dragged Craig’s face into focus in her badly behaved brain. Craig kissing her … her, sliding her fingers into his hair …

Really, Craig’s hair was a little too long; David was right about that. And it needed a good brush. Although she was fairly certain she’d seen a flake of dandruff on his shoulder at the gallery, and who knew what other dandruff flakes a thorough brushing might dislodge? Perhaps that was why he didn’t brush it?

She sat up and turned on the bedside light again. ‘Really?’ she said out loud. ‘So buy him some anti-dandruff shampoo!’

Off went the bedside lamp again—and at that exact moment, a sound like the clash of cymbals pierced the air and she jumped half out of her skin with a strangled scream. What the—?

Oh! Her phone, in its usual place on her bedside table beside the on-again-off-again lamp, had lit up. Except her phone had never clashed like cymbals before.

She snapped on the bedside light again. One quick glance at the phone told her the clash of cymbals denoted the arrival of a text from David. Or, as he’d listed himself in her contact list, Dreamboat David.

She wanted to laugh, but found herself strangely breathless. Her fingers trembled as she opened the message. She was wildly curious about what he might say … and a little bit apprehensive. But the message turned out to be prosaic:

Address for next Wednesday. SydneyScape Apartments #3011

Before she could start tapping out a response, the cymbals clashed again, making her jump before she could stop herself. She was going to have to change that tone to something less heart-attack-inducing. A job for tomorrow. But for now, she opened the text.

Be there or be square

She was smiling as she composed her own text, but the cymbals clashed once more and a new text popped onto the screen before she could send it:

Or maybe a circle, a triangle and some rectangles

Again, she started tapping out a text, only for the cymbals to clash:

Sorry—cubist joke

Sarah gave up at that point and sent him a simple nerd emoji.

As she slid back under the covers, it occurred to her that if David was texting her, he mustn’t be in bed with Anthea. Not that Sarah cared. It was just a stray thought.

She was still smiling as she drifted into sleep.

CHAPTER FIVE

Five seconds after hitting the intercom outside the glass doors of SydneyScape Apartments, Sarah found herself in an impressive marble lobby. Spying a desk manned by a well-dressed concierge, she headed in that direction, only to be forestalled by the concierge’s regal wave in the direction of the elevators. As she veered obediently, the concierge picked up the phone on his desk—calling David to announce her arrival, Sarah guessed.

The elevator doors glided silently open; Sarah stepped in; they glided silently closed. After a hushed ascent, the elevator stopped with an almost non-existent whoosh at the thirtieth floor, disgorging her onto a plush beige carpet that muffled any hint of a footfall.

She felt a laugh bubbling up in reaction to the almost unnatural silence … until the sight of David leaning against the doorframe of his apartment along the corridor immobilized everything about her, even her vocal cords. All she could do was stare. He was wearing well-worn jeans and a T-shirt that fitted him like a second skin, and he looked even more delectable than he’d looked in a suit. She couldn’t quite believe that she’d had the nerve to make a deal with this handsome, poised, intimidatingly perfect man.

And then he smiled, and Sarah found herself walking, Pied Piper style, towards him.

‘What’s in the suit bag?’ he asked, when she reached him.

‘What I’m wearing,’ she said, sounding a little too breathless for her liking. She cleared her throat. ‘For the painting. It wasn’t an easy decision to make.’

He stepped into the apartment, holding the door open for her. ‘No? Why so hard?’

‘Well, it’s a portrait.’

‘Yeees.’

‘And I want to look … historic. I first thought maybe a business suit, but that seemed kind of boring. Next, I went for a day dress—one with poppies, very cheerful—but who wants to be quite that casual on canvas?’ She stepped over the threshold. ‘I also tried on a basic black ensemble, but it smacked a little too much of a crime writer’s publicity shot, so, I … I … Oh!’ As she took in the big, airy room.

Bright, exotic rugs scattered across dark wooden floorboards. A couch in a deep, velvety orange. There was a low wooden coffee table, two cabinets holding intriguing treasures and several tables topped with quirky artefacts. The walls were covered with modern paintings of different styles and sizes. There were two groupings of Aboriginal spirit poles in earthy colours each side of French doors that opened onto a deck, through which Sarah could see a beautifully lit sculpture soaring skywards, the twinkling lights of the city almost close enough to touch, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the distance. There were doors at either end of the room. Sarah guessed one led to the kitchen and dining room; the other to the bedrooms and bathrooms.

‘Uh-oh, you’ve stopped talking!’ David said, laying the suit bag across the couch. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Your apartment,’ she answered, and then laughed as the rest of what he’d said hit her. ‘Oh, you! I don’t talk all the time, you know.’

‘Well, I haven’t slept with you, so I can’t say what happens then.’

‘Ha-ha-ha.’

‘So what’s wrong with my apartment?’

‘It’s just not what I expected.’

‘What did you expect?’

‘Something a little more Don Juan, only modern.’

‘The mind boggles at what a modern Don-Juan-style apartment would look like.’

‘To start with, it would have nude etchings!’ she said smartly.

‘I’m never going to live down those etchings, am I? Thank God I’m not painting you naked or you’d have me pegged as a dirty old man.’

‘Actually, how old are you?’

‘Thirty-four—old enough to be deemed decrepit by your peer group. But I’m not dirty, I promise.’ He grinned. ‘Although I can be, on request.’

‘And how often is that requested?’

‘More often than you’d believe. Why? Are you sorry you didn’t take me up on my original offer?’

‘Oh, if I’d known it was dirty sex on offer, who knows what I might have agreed to?’ She gave a gusty sigh. ‘Ah well, lost opportunities—a bit like that premature ejaculator I told you about last week.’

‘Hey, don’t rope me in with any premature ejaculators!’

‘Well, I haven’t slept with you, so I can’t rule you out there.’

‘You’re such a brat,’ he said, laughing.

She poked her tongue out at him, and then looked around again. ‘Seriously, I love this. It makes me think that perhaps you’re going to—’ She stopped herself. It didn’t matter if David Bennett liked her backyard granny flat. He’d never see it. ‘Never mind. Are any of the paintings yours?’

‘That landscape.’ Pointing. ‘The dancers.’ Point. ‘And the still life over there.’ Another point.

She walked closer to each in turn, examining them carefully. They were completely different subjects, but had a common style. Jagged lines, harsh brushstrokes, violent splashes of colour.

‘They’re sort of … brutal,’ she said.

David had come up behind her. ‘I was in a brutal frame of mind at the time. But don’t worry, bluebell, I’m not feeling brutal at the moment; you’ll turn out differently.’

She turned to him. ‘How am I going to turn out? You’re not really going cubist on me, are you? Because I was envisaging something more glamorous, along the lines of Gustave Leonard de Jonghe. Timeless elegance. The kind of portrait you can hang at the top of a sweeping staircase today and it will still look good in fifty years. It’s a matter of … of posterity. I mean, spare a thought for all those people who had their portraits done in the Eighties and now have to look at themselves with mullet hairdos and shoulder pads! Now they could have done with a bit of cubism. But the dress I brought with me has a touch of the 1930s about it, and the Thirties have stood the test of time. Plus, I’m really hoping my feet are going to make it into the painting because the matching shoes are gorgeous.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ David said, and his lips were doing that twitch she’d figured out meant he was trying not to laugh. ‘You get changed and show me, and then we’ll see.’ He gestured to the door leading off the room to the right. ‘The guest bathroom is through there, first on the left.’

‘Okay, but while I’m gone, try to visualize Gustave Leonard de Jonghe’s Dressing For The Ball.’

‘Just be gone, brat, or the only thing I’ll be visualizing is your backside under my hand.’

‘Oooh, promises, promises,’ Sarah said, and as he made a grab for her, she yelped and jumped backwards. ‘All right! Going!’ she said, laughing.

‘Good!’ he said sternly, but he was laughing too.

***

David wasn’t sure what to expect of Sarah’s take on a nineteenth-century painting in a 1930s-style dress, but when Sarah re-entered the room with a ‘Ta-da!’ and a twirl he was momentarily speechless.

She looked good, but in a bad way. An uncomfortable way.

The dress was a rich, deep ruby, with ruching from bodice to hip that made her shape seem sexier than it had last week. And the red shoes? Six inches of wet dream.

‘Did you wear that for your date with Craig?’ David asked, before he knew the words had formed. Not that the question wasn’t reasonable—everything about her dates was within range as far as he was concerned. But the challenging tone that went with them, not so much. Because there wasn’t anything to challenge. He’d practically set the damn date up for her, hadn’t he? She was free to wear whatever the hell she wanted.

‘Of course not,’ she scoffed, apparently either not noticing or not being offended by his tone. ‘A jazz bar screams basic black. But how did you know about the date?’

‘Well, duh, we work in the same office. I introduced you. Of course he told me he was taking you out when I … er … accidentally ran into him.’

‘Accidental, huh?’

‘That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.’

‘So I guess you accidentally ran into him afterwards so you know what happened on the date, too.’

‘He’s interstate this week so no, but— Hang on. Why? What hap—’

‘And if I had worn this dress, what would you say?’

‘I’d say it was overkill.’ At least for that dipshit. ‘So what did hap—’

‘Where do you want me to stand?’

‘Not stand, sit.’ He gestured to an armchair. ‘There.’ Pointing to the small table beside it. ‘And up to you, but I poured you a glass of wine to help you relax.’

‘Thank you,’ Sarah said, sitting. She picked up her glass and took a sip. ‘Now what happens?’

‘Now you talk while I sketch.’

‘Talk. Okay. It’s nice and warm in here.’

‘Reverse-cycle air conditioning.’

‘I love your couch.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘The rugs, too.’

‘Glad to hear that, as well.’

‘So … the portrait. What’s it going to be? Watercolour? Oil?’

‘Oil.’

‘Where’s the painting equipment?’

‘I’ve turned one of the bedrooms into a studio.’

‘Why don’t we do the sketching part there?’

‘Because.’

‘I like the view. Through the French doors.’

He stopped sketching and looked at her. ‘Okay. Pause it there, bluebell. Are we doing eye of newt and toe of frog, or are we just going to talk about paint colours and fabric swatches?’

She looked at her lap, tapping one foot, then the other, on the rug, which he assumed was the seated equivalent of shifting foot to foot, which he’d seen her do in the storeroom when she wanted to bolt. And he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

‘What happened on Saturday night, Sarah?’ he asked, and he accepted the challenging tone this time because this he needed to know. If that mongrel had stepped out of line with a girl David had introduced him to, he was going to beat the crap out of him and then make him eat it.

‘Nothing,’ she said, and sighed. ‘Really, nothing. It’s just … I think it was a failure. Sorry to disappoint you.’

Stand down, David. ‘Are you going to give me the details?’

‘I’m not sure there’s a lot to tell. I’m not even sure what went wrong. Or what constitutes an important date indicator, for that matter. So maybe you can ask me questions. For example, does it matter what he wore?’

An image of Craig in a yukata flashed in David’s head and those hairs on his neck stood to attention again. Not that he cared, even if she’d seen him stark naked … except that he did, dammit! It was too soon. And Craig wasn’t … wasn’t worthy. He should have put a stop to Craig at the gallery the minute he’d assessed the sleaze quotient. ‘Yes, it matters,’ he said, and could tell from the snap in his voice that his temper was on a leash.

‘Black pants. White shirt. Green vest.’

And relax. Not naked.

‘And a fedora,’ she added as an afterthought.

‘A what?’

‘A fedora. It’s a hat.’

David bent his head down, and started sketching. ‘Yes, I know what a fedora is.’

‘Are you laughing?’

‘I’m trying, manfully, not to.’

‘Then maybe control your dimples.’

‘They’re a law unto themselves.’

‘Oh, they so are not. But come on, what else do you need to know?’

‘Did he pick you up?’

‘No. I live across the Bridge. I never expect to be picked up from home. It’s too inconvenient. Even though Adam says anyone who doesn’t want to come and pick you up for a date isn’t worth the effort.’

‘I don’t care what your brother says, you don’t let a new guy know where you live. So your answer is right, but your motivation is wrong: it’s not about what’s convenient for the guy, it’s about weeding out the psychos and stalkers for the girl. Rulebook moment.’

‘Weed out psychos. Check.’

‘Big check, or I’ll be the one going psycho. Okay?’

‘Okay. Although Adam seems to think the threat of him beating the living daylights out of any guy who lays a finger on me is enough to keep them in check.’

‘Violence is never the answer. Avoidance is the key.’

‘And then of course, I live in a granny flat out the back of my mother’s house, so she’s usually in screaming distance in an emergency.’

‘Usually?’

‘Well, she’s jaunting around the Mediterranean at the moment before heading to Italy with her new boyfriend Massimo, so she’ll be away for a few months.’

‘Now there, you see? You just rattled that off to me without giving it a second thought. If we were at your flat, any curb on my behaviour your mother’s proximity may have had would be instantly negated.’

‘Oh. Yes. I see. Should I not have told you that?’

‘You can tell me anything. It’s everyone else you need to be cautious about. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

He sighed. ‘So you met him at the bar …’

‘Yes.’

‘And, presumably, he bought you a drink before he took to the stage.’

‘Yes.’

‘Sheesh, it’s like getting blood out of a stone,’ he said, and stopped sketching to fix her with a no-nonsense look. ‘What did he buy you?’

Pause. Long.

‘Sarah?’

‘All right. Passion Pop. A bottle. For us to share.’

‘What the actual fuck! Did you drink it?’

‘Um … yes?’ she squeaked.

‘Um … no! Unless a guy knows you very well, he shouldn’t order a drink for you without asking what you like. Especially an abomination like Passion Pop—Jesus H Christ!—but not even a bottle of Cristal—which, incidentally, only a poser would buy for you on the first date.’

‘You poured me a glass of wine without asking what I wanted, and this is only the second time we’ve met.’

He bent his head forward to the sketch again. ‘Ah, but that just happened to be the wine I’d opened for myself, and this is my apartment not a wanky jazz bar, and we’re not on a date.’ He stopped suddenly, looked up. ‘And you can tell me—right now—if you don’t like it, and I’ll get you something else.’

‘I like it.’

‘You’re blushing. And to prove to you how well I know women, I’ll tell you that I worked out the first time you blushed that you do that when you lie.’

‘You did?’

‘I did. Now, for rulebook: hanging out with girls who agree with everything you say and like everything you like is boring. Don’t ever do that unless you really do agree with everything a guy says and like everything he likes. And if you do truthfully agree with everything he says and like everything he likes, dump him anyway. I’m telling you—boring!’

‘Fine. You found me out. I don’t like the wine. I don’t like Pinot Noir at all. Happy?’

‘Fine. I’ll get you something else.’

‘Fine. But am I supposed to like Pinot Noir?’

‘Fine. Hang on! What?’

‘I mean, is it unsophisticated to dislike an entire grape varietal?’

‘Who the hell cares?’

‘I do.’

‘Well, Sarah,’ he said, ‘I could bang on about their being Pinot Noirs and Pinot Noirs, but that would make me an insufferable prick. So why don’t you just tell me what wine you actually like? Or do you hate wine, and I need to mix you a cocktail?’

‘Fine. In white wine, I like Chardonnay, as long as it’s super cold. In red, Shiraz.’

David laid his sketchbook on the coffee table. ‘I don’t have any Chardonnay quite that cold, so Shiraz it is.’

***

As David disappeared through the doorway Sarah presumed led to the kitchen, she contemplated getting up to re-examine his paintings for clues about his ‘brutal frame of mind’. Why brutal? What had happened? It was a mystery. He was a mystery. And she was intrigued—almost enough to not care if he caught her snooping.

But before she could give in to curiosity, David was back with a decanter and two glasses. He poured a glass for Sarah and one for himself, and as she sipped, he picked up his sketchbook and started drawing again.

Silence.

And then he sighed and put down his sketchbook again. ‘Why can’t you sit still?’

‘Drinking wine requires movement.’

‘It’s not the wine. It’s this …’ He squirmed, demonstrator-style. ‘You’re fidgeting.’

‘Maybe I’d better top up my wine. That might help me relax.’

‘Drink away. But if you slide into a drunken stupor and I have to book you in for AA meetings at the end of this, I won’t be impressed.’

‘Do not slide into drunken stupor. Check.’

‘Brat,’ David said, and went back to drawing.

While he sketched, Sarah pondered the idea of being still. She’d never thought of herself as either still or not still—she just was. ‘Is it a good thing?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘Stillness.’

‘It’s neither good nor bad. Like Pinot Noir.’

‘But you like it, right?’

‘Yes.’ He raised his eyebrows meaningfully at her. ‘Especially when I’m sketching.’

‘Oh, you! Seriously, is it an attractive quality in a woman?’

‘It suggests a certain confidence, to be still. And confidence is always attractive.

‘So, yes.’

‘So, yes, I guess. Now, back to Craig. What happened post-Passion Pop?’

‘We talked.’

‘About?’

‘Music.’

‘And what did he think of your preference for pop music?’

Sarah did the foot tap thing again.

‘Saaaaraaaah? You did tell him, right?’

‘It didn’t come up.’

‘Blushing.’

Her hand came up to her cheek. ‘Oh, but it’s not a lie. Not really.’

‘You were at a bar, where he was scheduled to perform, talking about music, and he never asked you what kind of music you liked?’ He shook his head. ‘Not buying it. I mean, he’s a moron but not that much of a moron.’

‘If he’s a moron, why did you introduce me to him?’

‘Because I’m a moron.’

She started laughing. ‘Oh, you!’

‘It’s true. I’ll choose better next time. Now come on, spit it out. Music.’

‘The subject really didn’t come up, because …’ Her eyes squeezed shut. ‘Because I told him jazz was my favourite type of music before he could ask me and that was the end of that.’

‘I see,’ David said.

Sarah opened one cautious eye, then the other, biting her bottom lip.

‘Stand up and go over to the glass doors, will you?’ David said.

‘Why? Are you going to make me jump off the balcony?’ she asked with a nervous half-laugh, clutching her wineglass like a lifeline.

‘Yes, if you do something like that again. But for now, just move. Okay, stop … right … theeere, good. Turn side-on.’ Sketch, sketch, sketch. ‘What else did you and Craig talk about?’

‘Golf.’

‘And?’

‘Football.’

‘Okay, I think I can see what went down. You talked about everything that interests him, and nothing that interests you.’

‘But I told you, I can talk about—’

‘Anything, yep, got it, PR girl. Face me.’ Pause while he drew. ‘And then he sang.’

‘Yes.’

‘Was he any good?’

‘Truthfully, he was singing in the wrong register.’

‘So he sucked? Come on, gloves off.’

‘He was … not good.’

‘So when he rejoined you, you said … what?’

‘You don’t really think I was going to tell him how bad he was!’

‘There are ways, and there are ways.’

‘Whatever “ways” there are, they’re not my ways, are they? I’ve clearly been doing things the wrong way my entire life.’

‘Hey, enough with the italics! Just tell me what your “way” was on Saturday night.’

‘I told him he was brilliant,’ she mumbled. ‘As anyone with a modicum of … of politeness in their character would have done.’

‘His mother, maybe. No—don’t argue.’ He started sketching again. ‘Rulebook: excessive politeness does not a memorable date make. It’s the same in principle as agreeing with everything a guy says.’

‘Okay, but he didn’t seem bored.’

‘Turn a little to the left, but keep looking at me.’ Pause, while he looked between her and his sketch. Then, super-innocent: ‘So he called you on Sunday, I suppose, after you were so obliging as to sing his praises and agree with everything he said?’

‘No, but I didn’t really want him to. And anyway, they never call the next day, do they?’

It was a rhetorical question, but David answered it anyway. ‘Yes, Sarah, they do. If they’ve had a great time and they want to have another one, they call you the next day. Sometimes they even call you later that night.’

‘Or text?’

‘Or text.’

‘Like you texted me?’ she said, and laughed.

Pause, and then David batted that away. ‘Yeah, don’t get too puffed up in your own conceit there, bluebell. It’s Craig who should have been doing it. Craig, your date.’

‘Well, Erica never seems bothered by it when they don’t call straight away.’

‘Who’s Erica?’

‘Erica Wilder. One of my two best friends. Lane’s housemate. She’s a flight attendant.’

David’s eyes widened appreciatively. ‘A flight attendant?’

‘What is it with guys and flight attendants?’

‘It’s a women in uniform thing.’

‘More like a mile-high club fantasy.’ She took a giant sip of wine. ‘Before you get carried away, I’ll tell you what I told Adam: Erica has a boyfriend. And about a hundred guys waiting in the wings hoping Jeremy drops dead.’

‘Adam? And Erica? I thought he wanted Lane.’

‘Long story, which I am not going to go into.’

‘Well if Erica could get your brother’s eyes off Lane after what I saw of him at the gallery last week, she must be something else. And you’re telling me there’s nothing special about flight attendants?’

‘It’s not about her job. It’s about …’ waving her wineglass ‘… her.’

‘Beautiful, is she?’

‘Very.’

‘Smart and confident and classy?’

‘Very.’

‘Experienced with men?’

‘Very.’

‘And these men swarming all over her never call her the next day?’

‘I … She … They … Hmm …’ She frowned, like she was trying to pull up memories. ‘Maybe it’s that she doesn’t always take their calls.’

‘Ah, now that’s quite different.’

***

David could tell the moment the implication sank in because her eyes bugged out. ‘That means they just don’t call me the next day. Or even the day after that. Or in Craig’s case, four days after! Well if that doesn’t totally … totally … Oh! And those dimples of yours are not helping me feel better about it.’

‘You’ve really got it in for my dimples tonight. Most girls like them.’

‘I’m not most girls,’ she said darkly.

‘You don’t like them?’

‘Not tonight, I don’t.’ She looked at him. ‘And there they go again! Indenting, in that infuriating way.’

‘So tell me, bluebell, dimples aside, are you sticking with me, or are you going to sack me as your adviser and hire Erica the paragon of feminine pulchritude?’

She pursed her lips for a long, thoughtful moment. And then she said slowly, ‘Erica’s advice usually ends with her saying there are plenty of fish in the sea, so get out my rod and reel.’

‘Good advice, if you’re angling for a cyclothone.’

‘A what?’

‘A cyclothone. The most common fish in the sea. They’re everywhere. But you see, I don’t think you want an everywhere fish, bluebell. You want something like a Fan Caulofrino Fin Fish—very hard to find, but once it’s attached to a female, it’s hers for life.’

‘Hers for life,’ she repeated thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I like that. It’s exactly what I want. Someone for life.’

‘And now that you’ve let me compare your future husband to a truly hideous-looking fish, I think it’s time we talked about the negs.’

‘The what?’

‘The negs. You’ve heard of guys negging girls, right?’

‘No.’

‘But I’ll bet it’s been done to you, even if you didn’t know it was happening. Guys do it all the time to good-looking girls, trying to take them down a peg or two in the hope of getting laid.’

‘Charming.’

‘Actually, it’s pathetic, but it seems to work.’

‘Example?’

He put his sketchpad down. ‘Say we’re in a bar …’ Walking towards her. ‘And I come over to you.’ Stopping in front of her. ‘I’m nervous as hell, because you’re a ten and I’m barely scraping a seven on a good day. So I might look at your hair.’ Looking at her hair. ‘And I nod, as though to say, Not bad. Not good mind you, but not bad. You’re starting to think there’s something wrong with your hair. But then, I say, “Nice,” and you’re feeling better. Maybe even starting to preen. Until I add, “You’re doing the two-tone hair on purpose, right? Blonde with black roots? I didn’t know the 1980s Blondie thing was back in fashion, but you go girl.”

‘And voila! You’ve been negged. You’re going to speak to me, and it’s not because I gushed about your pretty blonde hair, but because I rearranged our relative social values. I’ve indicated you’re not that special. I’m saying that even though twenty other guys have been kissing your tush all night, I’m not going to. I’m not responding like all those other guys—therefore I have a power those other guys don’t. You want to know why I’m not tripping over my tongue for you. You’re wondering how you’re going to get me kissing your tush like everyone else.’

‘Well, I’m certainly not wondering if my dark roots are showing, since I’m a natural blonde.’

‘Maybe you’ll tell me that … but that still means you’re talking to me, doesn’t it?’ And then he smiled, and his eyes dipped to just below where the ruching of her dress finished, low on her belly. ‘Natural blonde, huh?’

She looked where he was looking and her mouth dropped open. ‘Oh. My. God.’

Up came his eyes, brimming with silent laughter. ‘See? The conversation is begun, whichever way you want to play it.’

‘I need to see this in action.’

‘Any nightclub, any bar, any weekend, you’ll see it. And the thing is Sarah, you can turn the tables and do it yourself. In fact, I want you to do it. To try it, at least.’

But she was shaking her head vehemently. ‘Sorry, I can’t see myself talking about a guy’s pubic hair, even tangentially. Not going to happen. I need another example.’

‘Okay. Craig’s fedora—God, the options! But we’ll do an easy one. Something like, “My grandfather always told me gentlemen only wore hats outside—is this a new thing, wearing them indoors?” See? It doesn’t have to be vicious, just something to show him that you’re not going to fawn all over him. Once he knows he has to work to get you, he’s invested. He’ll be plotting to get you out on another date, calculating how soon he can call you.’

‘Hmm, I think I get the idea,’ she said, but she sounded doubtful.

He was close enough to smell her, now. To touch her. To … taste her. What would she do if he licked her, just below one of her ears, where the delicious scent she was wearing would be warm and heady?

Jesus! Where had that sprung from? No licking allowed.

He hightailed it back to his sketchbook, flipped to a fresh page, and started drawing hard enough to tear through the page. He rubbed a thumb over the tear, as though that would smooth out his own sudden edge.

‘But it seems a terrible way to live, hurling insults at each other,’ she said.

Time for a fresh page, some lighter pencilling. ‘You don’t live like that—it’s just how you meet. And the goal isn’t to insult someone. It’s just a way of piquing a little interest where you might otherwise have struggled to be noticed. Once you’ve hooked your fish, you can pack away the bait and start to get to know the other person.’ He looked down at his sketch, then back to Sarah. ‘Face me straight on. Yes, good.’

‘I just can’t quite believe that tactic could really work.’

‘Then I guess I’ll have to prove it to you. What are you doing Saturday night?’

‘Having a drink with Erica, and I can’t not go because she’ll smell a rat.’

‘Oh, I want you to go! The legendary Erica is the perfect target.’

‘Perfect tar—?’ She stopped, looking confused … and then suddenly not. ‘Oh! No! No, you’re not going to neg Erica?’

‘Sure am.’

‘In front of me?’

He was sketching again. ‘No point otherwise.’

‘It won’t work.’

‘If it doesn’t, I’ll buy you a bottle of Passion Pop.’

‘Ha ha ha! Anyway, we’ll never know because, I can’t let you try. Not with Erica.’

He stopped drawing and looked at her. ‘Because …?’

‘Because of Lane. Not that Lane is going to be there, but Erica knows who you are and she’ll tell Lane. And I …’ She shrugged, looking sheepish. ‘I still haven’t worked out how to tell Lane what’s happening here.’

‘But I’ve never met Erica,’ David said—and then the truth dawned. ‘Wait! Are you telling me I’ve been discussed between the three of you as a potential lover for Lane?’

‘Well … yes. But in a highly complimentary way.’

He started laughing. ‘If I’d known Lane was that interested, I’d have moved faster and nailed her.’

‘It’s not funny, you … you …’

‘Bastard?’

‘Beast.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Animal. Swine, rat, skunk, dog.’

‘Going the whole barnyard are we?’

‘Brute, monster—’

‘Aaand I think we have it covered.’

‘Maybe you should have moved faster,’ she said hotly. ‘Then I wouldn’t be here now, and Adam wouldn’t be looking so miserable, and I … I … and … ooooohh. You know what? I want to punch you, even though I don’t generally punch people.’

Could a pixie look fierce? Because that’s what Sarah looked like: a fierce pixie. He wanted to hug her. He threw his sketchpad and pencil onto the coffee table. ‘Come on. Take your best shot. Get it out of your system.’

‘I’m not going to punch you. I just want to.’

‘So unclench that fist you’ve got going there, champ,’ he said, and almost laughed again as she looked down at it as if she’d never seen her own hand before. ‘Sarah? Sarah! Listen to me.’

‘No.’

‘Yes. It’s important.’ He waited until she looked at him—well, glared at him. ‘Lane and me? It’s ancient history, and I’m not the kind of guy who looks back. So you keep me a secret, even though I think it’s stupid, that’s fine by me, no problem. But I swear, if you start getting all violent and tortured over something that did not even come close to happening …? Then not only am I going to go all cubist on your arse, but I am going to make sure your shoes don’t make it into the painting either. Got it?’

She kept glaring at him, but finally, with a stamp of one foot, capitulated. ‘Okay! Got it! No need to have a coronary.’

‘Fine.’

‘Fine,’ she sniffed.

‘And I have a solution for Saturday night, so you can relax about that, too.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’ll use a false name. What do you think about Lucas Green? It has a suitably MI5 feel to it. Matches the whole “down low” ethos, don’t you think?’

She laughed then, and he knew she didn’t want to so it charmed him all the more. ‘For a banker, you’re kind of out there, you know.’

‘Yes, I do seem to be these days. But then again, I’m only half a banker. So, when and where on Saturday?’

‘I’m meeting Erica at six o’clock at Midnight Madness in Newtown—do you know it?’

‘Yes, I know it. Unfortunately.’

‘Hey, what’s wrong with it?’

‘Let’s just say it attracts quite a young crowd.’

‘Um … yeah! In case you hadn’t noticed, I happen to be young.’

The simple comment pulled David up short, and he looked at her, really looked at her, absorbing the truth of that. She was young—in years, in appearance, in outlook. Why was it shocking him to acknowledge that when it was the simple truth? ‘Yeah, I guess you are, aren’t you?’ he said, and stuck on a smile he couldn’t quite make himself feel. ‘Okay then, Midnight Madness it is, and I’ll try to repress my old-man shudders.’

‘Thank you sooooo much.’

‘What time should I arrive?’

‘Between six-thirty and seven?’

‘Done. Now, lean a little towards me, that way you do.’

‘What way?’ she asked, and David could only marvel. She really had no idea.

‘Like you’re going to tell me a secret.’

‘Like this?’ Leaning.

‘Perfect.’

‘I was just thinking …’

‘Hmm?’

‘What you said about Craig. What do I do if he calls me?’

‘You tell him you’re not interested. But you’ll be blocking him anyway, so he won’t be able to call.’

‘I will?’

‘You will.’

‘Then what will you do if he asks you about me?’

‘I’ll tell him you’re not interested.’

‘Are we sure I’m not interested?’

‘We’re sure. We don’t date people who wear fedoras inside bars and then don’t call us for four days.’

She sighed. ‘Good thing I didn’t follow through on my compatibility plan, then.’

‘Your what?’

‘I’ve been weighing up the pros and cons of having sex as early as possible in a relationship. Is it something you do yourself? Have sex on the first date?’

His pencil stopped on the page. One, two, three beats, and then he looked over at her.

‘So that’s an affirmative,’ she said—and talk about smug! ‘As I already knew.’

‘Whoa! Just— Whoa! In my case, they’re called one-night stands, because I’m not interested in a relationship. Your case is completely different.’

She shrugged—a little too casually. ‘But it still makes sense to fast-track the easy stuff, if you ask me.’

‘Easy stuff? Sex is the easy stuff?’

‘Yes. Does the sex work—yes or no? If the answer is no, you can call it quits with minimal time wasted. If the answer is yes, you move on and explore the more emotional areas.’ Another shrug. ‘It’s like snipping off the low-hanging fruit first.’

‘Low-hanging—?’ David took a deep breath, and then surprised himself by bursting into laughter again. ‘Remind me to keep the scissors and my low-hanging fruit out of your reach!’

Sarah’s eyes dropped to the front of his jeans.

‘Thank you!’ David said, when she started giggling. ‘Nice to know my genitalia is the source of some amusement to you.’

‘I haven’t actually seen it so I can’t say.’ Another giggle. ‘Although I certainly felt it last week in the storeroom.’

‘It’s a mystery to me why you haven’t been murdered yet,’ David mused, and when she giggled again said, ‘All right, brat, let’s back up a step. Tell me: did you want to have sex with Craig?’

‘I definitely thought about it.’

‘So that’s a “no”. Because if you wanted to have sex with him, you would have had it, trust me.’

‘But he didn’t call me, which has to mean he wasn’t interested in having sex with me.’

‘Different things, sex and dating,’ he said dismissively. ‘I’ll bet he kissed you goodnight—or at least tried to.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘How did he kiss you?’ David asked and then regretted the question. The idea of messy, sloppy, long-haired Craig with his mouth near Sarah was making him feel queasy.

‘What do you mean, how?’

Oh God. And now he had to get specific with his words? ‘Cheek, mouth, tongue?’ he got out. ‘Did he whisper anything?’ Dear God. ‘Sniff you?’

‘Cheek. Then mouth. No tongue. No whispers. No sniffing. And I was wearing Jasmin Noir.’

Okay, that was too adorable not to enjoy. ‘Jasmin Noir and he didn’t even sniff you? God, what a slow top!’

‘Dimples! I can see them! And stop twitching your mouth.’

‘Sorry, but it’s funny. So … what did he smell like?’

She frowned, as though trying to recall, but in the end, shook her head. ‘I don’t think he was wearing any cologne.’

‘Now there you’re wrong. Craig drenches himself for a regular day in the office, so I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest he wears at least a hint of Old Spice when he’s on a date.’ Which meant what? Not much of a kiss had occurred—that seemed certain! Good. Craig was the worst possible choice, a huge mistake on David’s part. ‘So … what? Didn’t he get close enough for long enough?’

‘Of course he got close enough. I told you, he kissed me.’

‘What did he do with his hands? Where did he put them?’

‘On my shoulders. Hey!’ As David shook his head, disgusted … and relieved. ‘It was a simple goodnight kiss, not a deep-dive tonsillectomy!’

‘And you didn’t like it, did you?’

‘It was … all right.’

‘Wow. That good, huh?’

‘Well, it wasn’t bad, anyway.’ She sounded exasperated … but then her eyes narrowed slightly and her tongue came out to tap her top lip for a moment. Next moment, she was depositing her wineglass on the closest table. ‘I’ll show you.’

And as Sarah started walking towards him, David’s mind went completely blank.

***

Sarah wasn’t sure what she was doing was a good idea, or even why she was doing it, but she was doing it anyway.

David had gone as still as a statue. He didn’t move even when she took the sketchbook and pencil from his slack hands and put them on the coffee table. She was close enough to smell him now, in a way she couldn’t remember smelling Craig, and concentrated on trying to define what it was about the scent of him that was so alluring. Patchouli … dark rose … brandy cream. Delectable.

David’s nostrils had flared, like he could smell her, too. Why, oh why, wasn’t she wearing Jasmin Noir? Maybe then, she wouldn’t be kissing him, he’d be kissing her. Wait! What? No! This wasn’t a real kiss. It was a demonstration.

Demonstration, she repeated in her head as she put her hands on David’s shoulders.

She raised herself as high as she could on her toes, and brushed her mouth against his cheek. A quick swirl of impressions assaulted her. That wondrously complicated scent. The raspy feel of the stubble on his cheek, against her mouth. The way his shoulders tensed suddenly under her hands. How his body seemed to lock. Her thumping heart. The slap of need low in her belly. A desire to touch her tongue to his skin, slide her hands over his chest.

She adjusted her stance, subtly bringing her thighs closer together because she wasn’t sure they wouldn’t go in opposite directions if she didn’t take charge of them, then chastely pressed her lips against his. She wanted to sigh, and lean against him, and keep her mouth there. She had to force herself to count in her head—one, two, three, four, which she judged was the length of time Craig’s kiss had taken—then force herself to come down off her toes.

‘Like that,’ she said, all breathy. When David only watched, unsmiling, she added, ‘Only if we wanted to be strictly accurate, we’d have to reverse positions. You know, make me the one being kissed.’

‘So like this?’ David asked. But he didn’t wait for an answer, simply put his hands, heavy and hard, on her shoulders and leaned down.

Sarah waited, breath held, her heartbeat kicking up an extra notch. An indistinct plea formed in her head for something, some contact. But he didn’t kiss her. Instead, he put his cheek on hers. Rested it there for a long moment, breathing her in. ‘Not jasmine,’ he said, against her ear. ‘Vanilla.’

She nodded, too full of heightened expectation to speak. And then David shifted, his hands tightening, mouth touching her cheek for a long, lingering moment. Moving to her mouth, staying there for one, two … three … four … five … Oohhhhhh.

He eased back, looked down at her. ‘So … Did you like that, Sarah?’

‘It was …’ Beautiful. Intense. Amazing. More, I want more, I want— No! That wasn’t the deal. She had to stop this now. She cleared her throat. ‘Okay.’

Silence, deep and heavy, as a shiver trembled through her. He touched her hot cheek, as though he were testing the blush she knew was there. Lying—he knew she was lying.

‘Just okay?’ he asked softly, and something flared in his eyes that was completely different from his usual slightly bored amusement. ‘Then I think we’d better analyse it.’

‘I don’t unders—’

‘What was wrong with it?’

‘N-nothing.’

‘But nothing was especially right with it, either. Was it too wet?’

‘No.’

‘Too dry?’

‘No.’

‘Too tentative?’

‘No.’

‘Was I too aggressive?’

Sarah licked her lips as though recalling the kiss—saw his eyes zoom in on her mouth, and found herself licking her lips again. ‘No.’

‘Taste bad?’

‘Wh—? No! You tasted like … like wine. At least … Did you? I don’t know. That was a closed-mouth kiss.’

‘Ah, I see.’

‘And seriously, there was nothing wrong with it. I just … it just … was okay.’ Blushing hard. ‘Same as Craig.’ Blushing harder.

‘Same as Craig,’ he repeated, and there was that flare in his eyes again. Danger. ‘I think you know I can’t leave that comparison unchallenged, Sarah,’ he said, and then he smiled—minus any hint of a dimple. ‘So brace yourself.’

CHAPTER SIX

As David stared down into Sarah’s big blue eyes, common sense nudged at his frontal lobe, telling him he was making a mistake. But it was no match for the roar of blood in his veins urging him to prove he was nothing like that anaemic fedora-wearing fucker Craig.

David had the moves, he had the technique, and he had the control to employ both with clinical accuracy. He could get a woman halfway to orgasm from one kiss if he chose to. And at that moment, he chose to, goddammit.

He wrapped his hands around Sarah’s upper arms, and the frailty of her, the ease with which he could circle her arms with a hand apiece, sent the warning whispering through his head again: mistake. For a split-second he hesitated—but then Sarah swayed towards him, her eyelids fluttered closed … and taking her mouth became his sole focus. Her breath hitched, and he fucking loved that sound, the vulnerable anticipation of it. When her teeth bit and released her bottom lip, it was the final trigger; he might slow things down, but he wasn’t going to stop.

He drew her in so their chests were just touching, just—God, the torture—and put his mouth on hers for a long, long moment as he absorbed the feeling of having her there. Half of him wanted to slam her against his body and go for broke—the crazy half. The other half, the part of him that was still sane, was scared he’d hurt her if he let himself lose it; she was so damn small.

So he reined himself in hard, comforting himself with the knowledge that there was no need to rush, that it would go further when the time was right, that he could take the time to savour this first real taste of her. He rubbed his mouth softly, inexorably, against hers, waiting for a sign that she was ready for him to go deeper.

It came, the sign, almost immediately. A soft hum that had her lips puffing open. David sucked her top lip into his mouth, using lips and teeth and tongue to explore and taste. She moved impatiently against him, trying to get closer than he would allow, nudging her mouth against his, urging him on, urging him … in? Yes, in. Ahhh, God, yes. He wanted in. In the next second, his tongue was inside her mouth, licking deep and sure, and she was curling her own tongue around his, and it was thrilling the hell out of him. Harsh breaths mingling, bodies twisting, her hands gripping the sides of his T-shirt in greedy fistfuls.

In the midst of it all, he became aware of her thigh sliding up his own, like she was climbing him. Climbing, Jesus God! Well, he could help her with that. He pulled her closer, plastering her against him at last, keeping her right there as he battled to control himself … But it was a lost cause; he was going to explode if he didn’t get her edged into a more strategic position. He slid his arms around her, held her closer still, closer dammit, for a red-hot minute, then slid his hands down to grip her bottom. He lifted her against him until the juncture of her thighs was right there, where he needed it, where he was aching, throbbing for her.

Her hands were in his hair now. He wanted to rip the dress off her, tumble her to the couch, shove himself so deep inside her she’d never forget it. He hitched her again, rubbed against her to the point of lunacy, took a hurried step towards the couch. He was going to have her, take her, right now.

A bump, a clatter, and the warning leapt into his head: You are not in control any more. No, he wasn’t going to hear it, wasn’t going to stop, didn’t want to stop. One more step, and his foot slipped on something. What was—? Ah, the sketchbook. But … how …?

Crystal-sharp image of the two of them. Stumbling for the couch, mouths fused together. Sarah, one leg hitched on his hip, her other foot dangling. Her other foot dangling … having hit the coffee table and knocked the sketchbook to the floor without either of them noticing.

You are not in control.

He raised his mouth from hers, lowered her until her feet were on the floor, released her, drawing in lungfuls of head-clearing air, struggling against the need to reach for her again as he saw her chest rising and falling in dramatic surges like his, her bead-hard nipples pushing against her bodice.

One of her hands came up; a trembling finger traced her darkly swollen top lip. And then her eyes dropped to the front of his jeans where he wouldn’t have been surprised to see his zip exploding from the pressure of his epic hard-on. But there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could do about that, short of excusing himself to jack off. Given she’d felt his erection two weeks in a row now, she was probably starting to think it was his natural state.

Which was better than the alternative—that it was specifically her he wanted, to the point of bursting. A truth he didn’t like, didn’t want, wouldn’t acknowledge.

‘So, Sarah,’ he said, and welcomed the chill he could hear in his voice. ‘Are you going to tell me that was “okay”?’

‘That was a little bit more than okay,’ she said shakily, and smiled.

The smile. Her mouth. So sweet and pliant. Almost too perfect to be real. He wanted to touch it, touch her. God, this was bad.

‘Rulebook moment,’ he said, very deliberately not smiling back at her.

‘Rulebook?’ she asked, and something flickered and died in her eyes as a frown slowly replaced the smile. ‘I see.’ She patted the flared skirt of her sexy scarlet dress into place, smoothed a hand over her hair, made a small adjustment to one shoulder strap. And then she smiled again. She’d pulled herself together, it seemed—which irritated David almost enough to kiss her again, because she should not be able to pull herself together like that, not when he was still having trouble keeping his hands off her.

‘Rulebook,’ she said again. ‘So what’s the takeout? Okay is not okay? Something like that?’

‘Nothing like that!’ he snapped. And then, more temperate, ‘I mean … yes.’

‘I see. Not!’

‘Look, the thing is, you’ll know when it’s time to have sex, and it’s not when a kiss is just “okay”, the way it was with Craig. Not even when it’s “a little bit more than okay” either, like it was just then.’ Liar. ‘You wait. Until it’s tense and electric, and your insides are clenching, and your blood is boiling, and your skin is tingling …’ He was going to fucking die in a minute. ‘And then you’ll know it’s time. Whether it’s the first date or the fiftieth.’ He bent down to sweep the sketchbook up off the floor, then inclined his head towards the French doors. ‘Now, let’s keep going.’

***

Let’s keep going?

How was a girl was expected to ‘keep going’ when her body was screaming for an orgasm? As in screaming for it! If he could get her that far with one kiss, Sarah didn’t want to think what she would have been reduced to if he’d actually got his hands on the good stuff. A begging, mewling, grovelling mess, no doubt!

Let’s keep going?!?!?!

Easy for him to say.

Which of course was the crux of the problem. It had been easy for him to say.

Rulebook moment. A splash of cold water on a hotplate. The coolness of him, when everything inside her had felt so indescribably hot. At least it had stopped her from flinging herself at him and demanding he not only keep kissing her, but put that supersized erection of his where it could do them both some good! How embarrassing would that have been?

And how … how traitorous, to not even think of the after-effects, of how she’d face Lane, face Adam, if things had gone any further. All things considered she should be thanking David for stopping when he did, not resenting him for it. And she would be thankful, just as soon as her hormone levels returned to an acceptable level.

Everything aside, though, that zinger of a kiss proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that David was the right man to break her curse. Boy, oh boy, did he know women! He was so far above Craig as to be in a different stratosphere. He was the apex, the apogee, the pinnacle. The zenith of men. The final frontier. The summit, the high point, the capstone, the climax.

No! Not the climax.

She refused to even think of the word ‘climax’ in association with David Bennett, who definitely wasn’t thinking in those terms in relation to her, or he could have had her, right there on the couch.

The only conclusion she could draw was that his kissing her had nothing to do with him wanting to have sex with her. It probably had precious little to do with the rulebook either. Nope, her best guess was that David had wanted to teach her a lesson because he hadn’t liked being lumped in with Craig as an ‘okay’ kisser. He’d decided to demonstrate his mastery with disinterested precision—warning her to brace herself, positioning her as he’d wanted her, coaxing her to set the pace, bringing the kiss to an end the moment he’d fulfilled his goal.

A salutary reminder to use him, not fall for him. In fact, she was going to look on it as a bonus lesson.

But lesson time now appeared to be well and truly over for the evening, because since they’d taken up their respective positions, not a word had been spoken between them.

Sarah had been consumed with the memory of that spectacular kiss, which explained her contribution to the heavy silence, but what was David’s story?

He seemed to be in his own world, scowling as he drew. Was his morose silence a temperamental artist thing? If so, she hoped it wasn’t going to be the pattern for the next five weeks. Excessive silence was always so oppressive.

‘The Langman Portrait Prize,’ she said, latching on to the least controversial subject she could think of, just to hear a voice in the gloom. ‘Have you entered it before?’

No answer. David simply kept sketching, and brooding.

She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘I guess you must have. Who did you paint last time?’

He stopped, then. No, it wasn’t so much a stop as a start—an almost violent one—as he stared down at his sketch. ‘No,’ he said, but it had to be to himself because that was so far from an answer to her question as to be classified a non sequitur. Unless he was a question behind …?

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