THE FLAT IN NOTTING HILL

Love and lust in the city that never sleeps!

Izzy, Tori and Poppy are living the London dream—sharing a big flat in Notting Hill, they have good jobs, wild nights out…and each other.

They couldn’t be more different, but one thing is for sure: when they start falling in love they’re going to be very glad they’ve got such good friends around to help them survive the rollercoaster…!

THE MORNING AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE by Nikki Logan

SLEEPING WITH THE SOLDIER by Charlotte Phillips

YOUR BED OR MINE? by Joss Wood

ENEMIES WITH BENEFITS by Louisa George

Don’t miss this fabulous new continuity

from Modern Tempted™!

Dear Reader,

It was so much fun creating the world of The Flat in Notting Hill with my author friends Nikki Logan, Charlotte Phillips and Louisa George. E-mails frequently bounced between Australia, the UK, New Zealand and South Africa about the four linked books, and as we discussed the storyline we got to know each other a little better—that was a wonderful side-benefit of working with these lovely ladies. I’m sure our editors are quite glad that we live so far apart; I have no doubt that there would be a marked increase in ladies’ lunches and a sharp decrease in productivity if we were closer!

Tori, my heroine, has really, really, really bad taste in men, and I had so much fun writing about her journey to love and acceptance. She’s one of those heroines who wrote her own story; she kept surprising me and she frequently went off, did her own thing and left me scratching my head, muttering, ‘That was not what I’d planned!’ Matt, my hero, wasn’t much better at following orders but, because I’m shallow, he’d just smile at me, flash me his abs, and I’d forgive him anything.

If you’ve picked this book up as a stand-alone, grab the other three books in the continuity and find out how the other flatmates got their happy-ever-after.

With, as always, my best wishes

Joss

PS Come and say hi via Facebook: Joss Wood Author, Twitter: @josswoodbooks or www.josswoodbooks.com

JOSS WOOD wrote her first book at the age of eight and has never really stopped. Her passion for putting letters on a blank screen is matched only by her love of books and travelling—especially to the wild places of Southern Africa—and possibly by her hatred of ironing and making school lunches.

Fuelled by coffee, when she’s not writing or being a hands-on mum Joss, with her background in business and marketing, works for a non-profit organisation to promote the local economic development and collective business interests of the area where she resides. Happily and chaotically surrounded by books, family and friends, she lives in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, with her husband, children and their many pets.

Your Bed or Mine?
Joss Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DEDICATION

To my son Rourke: gorgeous, smart and talented.

As you read this you’ll be about to start an exciting new chapter in your life, but everyone knows that you’ll be perfectly fine and that I’ll be the basket case.

So as you head off I’d like you to remember to be bold, be funny, be you!

Table of Contents

Cover

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

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

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘UH-HUH…YEAH, BABY… Uh-huh…yeah, baybeeeeee…’

Oh, dammit, not porn, Tori Phillips thought, hearing the lusty moans as she closed the front door to Mark’s apartment at the end of a hellish working day. Not at sixthirty on a Friday night when all she wanted was a cup of tea, her soft pyjamas and a silly reality show. She wanted to pull her hair up into a messy knot, eat ice cream out of the carton and be reassured that there were people in the world more screwed up than her.

Please, please, no porn—and, while she was asking, could they have a sex-free night too? She was too tired to play the leading role in Mark’s Kama-Sutra-on-crack fantasies tonight.

‘Mark?’

‘In the bedroom.’

His voice, not deep at the best of times, always got a bit squeakier when he was excited and Tori twisted her lips in irritation. What was he watching, for goodness’ sake? She looked longingly at the cold kettle as she passed through the kitchen.

‘Uh-huh…yeah, baby… Uh-huh…yeah, baby…’

Definitely porn, Tori thought.

Damn. It.

That meant that Mark would be raring to go and she really, truly had a cracking headache. Barefoot in the passage of what was supposed to be her new home, Tori frowned, pushed open the door to the master bedroom and blinked. The TV on the wall was blank and the barnyard sounds came from the vicinity of the bed.

For a moment her brain couldn’t process what she was seeing…another woman with pasty skin, heavy breasts and a rather large bum straddled her boyfriend and was riding him like a demented fairy. Fairy because she had the ugliest, dullest pair of wings tattooed across both butt cheeks. Tori expected her to take off in flight at any minute…

‘Uh-huh…yeah, baby… Uh-huh…yeah…’

Dear Lord, Frantic Fairy came with a soundtrack. Four words, impressive…

Mark turned his head and caught her shocked look. He sent her a sly smile. ‘Tori! It’s about time you got home…we got tired of waiting so we decided to start without you. Get naked and Cinnamon will tell you what to do.’

Cinnamon? Seriously, that was her name? Tori shuddered and wished she could wash her eyes out with antibacterial soap.

‘C’mon, Tori, get over here,’ Mark wheedled, placing his rather small hands on those pendulous breasts. FF looked her up and down but didn’t break her stride.

‘Hey, honey, don’t be shy. I’ll be gentle.’

Uh…like, no, Tori thought, a thousand nos. Call her weird, but if girls didn’t—even her in fantasies—turn her on then there was no chance of her getting it on with a skanky-looking girl with tattooed fairy wings on her butt.

So, apparently there were some things she wouldn’t do for love. This was good to know.

‘Get over here, Vicky…it’ll be fun,’ Mark ordered, pumping his hips.

‘Don’t call me Vicky…’ Tori snapped. Like that was important right now. God. She glared at them both, tasting rage in the back of her throat. The urge to scream at them was overwhelming.

It took a lot of effort for her to keep her tone low and cool. ‘Give me a sec, okay…honey?’ She pasted a thin smile on her face. ‘I’m just going to grab some things and you can carry on. A little warning, though…he’s very quick off the trigger.’

The movement on the bed stilled as they both looked at her.

‘Oh, God, you’re going to be bitchy about this,’ Mark said. Anyone would think she’d caught him drinking milk out of the carton, not screwing a peroxide blonde with inch dark roots.

‘Maybe I should have run this by you before you came home…’ Mark conceded.

Tori lifted an eyebrow. You think? She caught his hips lifting and thought that she might be sick. ‘Are you really going to discuss this while you’re still on the job?’

It was like watching the footage of a really huge natural disaster, horrific but fascinating, Tori thought as Mark patted FF’s hip. She climbed off him and lay back on the rumpled bed, her long-suffering sigh audible from across the room. Mark sat up, his penis—his condom-covered penis…thank God for small mercies!—still ready to party.

So, apparently, he wasn’t completely stupid…

And it was equally apparent, she thought as she eyed his still small but straight-as-an-arrow erection, that she was the only one who Mark couldn’t get a hundred per cent hard for. After all the work she’d put into their sex life, that was possibly an even bigger slap in the face than the fact that she’d caught him doing another woman in their bed and expected her to join in.

Tori briefly closed her eyes before stalking past the bed to the huge walk-in closet, reaching for her overnight bag on the top shelf. She pulled it down and grabbed underwear, some T-shirts and clothes for the weekend.

‘What are you doing?’ Mark asked as she walked back into the room and headed towards the en-suite bathroom. She flicked him a glance. He’d swung his legs over the side of the bed and was looking irritated.

‘Making freaking cupcakes,’ she snapped. ‘What the hell do you think I’m doing?’

‘You’re overreacting, Vicky.’

Tori sent him a look that was designed to shrivel his balls. Damn, it didn’t work. Tori walked in the bathroom and swept her make-up and toiletries from the marble-top counter into the designer toiletry bag she’d bought Mark for his birthday. Walking back into the bedroom, she shoved the toiletries into her bag, picked it up and slung it over her shoulder.

Mark reached for a robe, pulled it on and ran a hand through his blond hair. ‘This is your fault, you know, you don’t give me what I need.’

‘You’re so full of it. God, Mark, but…what the hell?’

‘I told you that I like it often and I like it varied—’

‘Your often is ridiculous and your varied is halfway to weird! And this—’ she waved her hand towards the bed ‘—this is unforgivable! And, for your information, there is nothing wrong with missionary style on the odd occasion!’

‘You don’t love me enough.’

I don’t love you at all. The thought popped into Tori’s head and it surprised her. Didn’t she? She’d thought she did but then shouldn’t she be feeling a lot more devastation along with her overload of disgust?

‘You’re acting like a psycho and freaking out for no reason,’ Mark told her before yawning, not bothering to put a hand over his mouth.

‘Yeah, you really are hurting the vibe,’ Frantic Fairy solemnly agreed.

She had to get out of here before she killed someone. Seriously. Prison orange was so not her colour.

Tori narrowed her eyes in warning. ‘Screw you. Actually…’ Tori just looked at her lying on the bed—their bed, on the sheets she’d bought and paid for!—naked and checking the messages on her mobile ‘…just screw him.’

All she’d wanted was a cup of tea, Tori thought as she sat in the back of the taxi as it took her home. Home to Lancaster Road, to Poppy and Izzy.

Izzy might not be there, she reminded herself. Izzy was with Harry now, in love and so damn happy it sometimes hurt to watch them. But Poppy would be home…

She just needed to get home and she would feel better. They loved her, they always had, and right now she needed to be around people who did.

Love, her holy grail, her constant search. It didn’t have to be perfect, or a ballad or a fairy tale. She didn’t want a prince but she sure as hell would like to be someone’s princess.

But obviously not Mark’s any more.

‘You…’ Izzy’s voice was loud in her head ‘…are the ultimate bum magnet when it comes to men, Toz. You look around and choose the most screwed-up guy in the room.’

Maybe she did but there was always the divine hope that this man could be the one who could love her; intensely, absolutely, for ever.

She was a master of wishful thinking.

She should’ve dumped Mark ages ago but she’d kept hoping that she could change him, that she’d wake up one day and he’d be…better. And, let’s be honest here, she adored the fact that she was centre of his unwavering attention, of being constantly and continuously wanted. It wasn’t the love she craved but it was something…

It was enough of a something for her to ignore the naughty text messages she’d seen on his phone, the teenager who’d rocked up at the door a couple of weeks ago looking for Mark, not to mention his ex-girlfriend who constantly called. She suspected that he’d dipped his ink in any and all of their wells but she’d never found the—what was Alex’s expression?—the smoking bullet. They’d fought about it—hell, they fought about everything!—and she’d justified staying with him by thinking that their emotional, loud, crazy see-saw of life was better than her being alone and loads better than the cold war she’d grown up in around her parents. Hot fights were always better than derisive comments, sarcasm, frosty insults tossed out with a contemptuous, sneering smile. She’d take loud and explosive over quiet and deadly any day.

At least with volatile you got some sort of warning and you could attempt to avoid or contain the emotional bloodshed.

Quiet but deadly…wasn’t that the perfect way to describe her parents’ formal union? She was quite sure that if she called it a marriage the gods of love would nail her with a lightning bolt.

Mark wasn’t perfect, far from it, but neither was she. But at least they expressed their emotions…loudly and often. Maybe too often to be healthy. And maybe he hadn’t been the poster-boy boyfriend but he was someone to wake up to, go to sleep with. Be with.

Except that his smokin’ bullet turned out to be a freaking nuclear bomb, Tori thought as the taxi pulled up next to her old home, the top-floor flat of a converted fire station with Ignite, an Italian bistro and coffee shop, on the bottom floor.

Wiping her now wet eyes with her fingers, she hauled in her breath and climbed out of the taxi, yanking her overnight bag from the floor.

How was she going to spin it this time? she thought, looking up to the window of Poppy’s flat. Since she was a little girl, Poppy’s home had been hers too, the place and person she ran to when life kicked her to the kerb.

Poppy and Izzy, her oldest friends and the people who loved her best. They’d welcome her back as they always did and then they’d settle in, waiting for the story…because there was always a story. For once she just wished that she had the guts to drop her guard and tell it as it was. That she felt battered and bruised and emotionally flattened. Sad and so damn scared that she’d never find what she needed, what she was really looking for.

Petrified that she would soon be thirty, then forty, fifty and kept around for her charm, her entertainment value, her pretty face but still, under it all, unloved, unvalued and, worst of all, unneeded.

‘Seriously, she was riding him so fast that I thought that her wings were going to launch her off him…’

Tori was in her favourite chair in the eclectic, messy, colourful sitting room of the flat, her bare feet tucked up under her and a glass of red in her hand. Poppy was in the wingback chair opposite her and Izzy sat on the ottoman next to her. Both were doubled over, clutching their stomachs and laughing uproariously.

Yeah, good job, Tori, she thought wearily. You’ve pulled it off again.

‘Oh, God, Tori, stop.’ Izzy whimpered between snorts of laughter. ‘Your love life should be serialised as a soap opera, hon.’

‘And Mark? How did he act?’ Poppy asked, wiping her tears away.

‘He didn’t even bat an eye, just turned and said, “Get naked, join in, and What’s-Her-Skanky will show you what to do.”‘

Two mouths fell open, perfectly synchronised. ‘And you didn’t know about this?’

‘Hell, no!’ Tori made herself smile. ‘If I had, I would’ve had a say in who to pick as contestant number three. But really, God—her? She looked like a walking mattress. Besides, women just don’t do it for me.’

‘You did kiss Melissa Butler.’

‘I was thirteen, Poppy! And you dared me to!’ Tori stared up at the ceiling.

Poppy sat up, leaned forward and sent Tori a searching look. It was her Poppy patented, sneaky you-talk-a-good-game-but-I-know-you-are-full-of-BS look. ‘Are you really okay, Toz? You’re acting like you couldn’t give a damn but—’

Tori tossed her hair and dredged up a reassuring smile. ‘I’m fine, I promise. Mark is welcome to dip his ink into her radioactive well.’

‘Talking of, please tell me that he’s clean and so are you.’ Poppy—Dr Poppy now—asked, frowning. ‘Maybe you should come in for a check-up, let me run some tests. Do a complete physical.’

She was stupid emotionally but she wasn’t a complete idiot. ‘Relax, Pops. We always used condoms, Doctor. No exceptions, ever.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’ Poppy let out a huge sigh of relief and Tori was grateful that she’d never, not once—despite Mark’s bitching—deviated from that rule. And Mark could bitch for days.

‘On another subject…I’m homeless and I need to move back in. Can I have my old room back?’

Poppy and Izzy exchanged a frantic, oh-no look that had her heart crashing to the floor. If she couldn’t move back in then she didn’t know that she could hold it together. The only place she could contemplate being was in this flat, with these people. Poppy looked agitated. ‘The problem is that Alex and Lara are in your room and I’ve rented Izzy’s room to Isaac—’

‘But isn’t he away?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘She can have the boxroom,’ Izzy interjected, ‘since I’ve moved in with Harry.’

Ick, the boxroom. Tiny, cramped, child-sized bed. Jeez, it wasn’t even big enough to swing a fly. No cupboard space, a tiny window and you could hear every noise from the bathroom and its old, rusty pipes.

On the plus side it didn’t have her despicable ex in it. Win.

‘I’ll take the boxroom.’ Tori sighed. ‘Though I think that, as my mates, either you or Alex should consider giving up your rooms because I’ve been traumatised for life. I’m considering bleaching my eyes and brain with acid.’

Poppy stood up, patted her shoulder and took her wine glass. ‘Yeah, you’d think that. Here’s an idea—while you’re suffering in the boxroom, think about choosing a man a couple of steps up the evolutionary scale from pond scum next time, okay?’

‘Yes, Mum,’ Tori grumbled.

‘Seriously, she was riding him so fast that I thought that her wings were going to launch her off him…’

Matt Cross held the front door to his new digs open and considered reversing back through it. He instantly recognised the tone and notes of girl talk and it wasn’t something he wanted to interrupt by walking into the lounge. He supposed that this was something that he’d have to put up with, together with scented rooms, lingerie and a slew of empty wine glasses scattered throughout the house.

It had been a long time since he’d shared a flat with anyone. Sharing a house with Poppy and Alex would take some adjusting to, but at least his clients didn’t know where he was and couldn’t rock up on his doorstop at all hours of the day looking for reassurance or company.

His eyebrows lifted at the drawling, low-pitched voice that sounded as if it belonged on the other side of a phone-sex conversation. Matt, not wanting to give his presence away, left the door open and peeked through the doorway to the lounge and saw the perfect profile of a streaky-haired woman with mile-long legs.

Whoah! Sexy.

Matt dragged his eyes away to look from Poppy, his landlord, to Izzy, whom he’d met before. The knockout must be—geez, what was her name? Laurie? Laura?—the third of the three original flatmates he had yet to meet. Izzy was bent double, wheezing with laughter, and Poppy was wiping her eyes.

Her smile was negated by the fact that she was clutching the stem of her wine glass so hard that he thought it might break at any minute. Mmm, she didn’t think her story was quite as funny as they did.

Now that was interesting.

Then she lifted her face and stared at the ceiling and he caught the sheen of tears in her eyes, her rapid blinking. Hello…she was seriously distressed. Matt’s instinct was to head straight for her, to gather her up and to tell her it was okay to let those tears fall.

Weird, slightly scary, since he didn’t even know the woman. He watched, fascinated as she rearranged her features so that she looked like any other carefree woman in her mid-to-late twenties with wide eyes and a wider smile.

Oh, she was an excellent faker.

‘He didn’t even bat an eye, just turned and said, “Get naked, join in and What’s-Her-Skanky will show you what to do.”’ She carried on with her story.

Now he had the urge to rearrange some clown’s face.

Matt turned and lifted his eyebrows when Alex, Poppy’s brother and another inhabitant of the flat, stepped into the spacious hallway behind him.

‘Women just don’t do it for me.’

‘You did kiss Melissa Butler.’

‘I was thirteen, Poppy!’ she howled. ‘And you dared me to!’

Alex lifted his eyebrow at Matt before looking through the crack of the door and wincing.

‘What’s Tori’s story this time?’ he asked in a low voice, also seemingly reluctant to walk into the lounge.

Tori…Matt tested the name on his tongue and found that he liked it. He rubbed his hand over his forehead.

‘I just got here but, as far as I can tell, she got home and her partner had arranged a surprise for her,’ Matt quietly replied as he dropped his laptop case to the floor next to the battered hall table.

‘Tori loves surprises so what’s the big deal?’

‘The surprise was a threesome which I gather she didn’t expect and certainly didn’t agree to.’

Alex tossed out a curse. ‘And, let me guess, Tori’s pretending it’s a joke. Classic Tori.’ Alex shrugged out of his coat and Matt saw his fist clench, release and fist again as he struggled to control his reaction. ‘I’d happily rearrange his face, the bastard.’

Interesting, Matt thought. He knew that Alex was with Lara and could see that the guy was crazy mad over her. So why the instinctive reaction to protect Tori? And why didn’t he like it? ‘So that’s the third friend they are always talking about.’

‘Mmm. She, Poppy and Izzy have shared this flat for years and years but Tori moved out a couple of months back. I’m in her old room and you’re using the turret room—Izzy’s old room.

‘I warned her about Mark. God, why didn’t the bloody woman listen?’ Alex muttered. Matt was beginning to think that none of her friends liked Tori’s threesome-loving boyfriend. Alex peeked through the door and raised his eyebrows when he heard Tori laugh. ‘She’s taking it very well…knowing how melodramatic Tori can be, I expected her to be throwing glasses and, possibly, furniture.’

Matt shuddered at the thought. He was grateful that she wasn’t; he had to deal with enough drama from his clients without coming home to a hysterical, furniture-throwing woman.

And he put up with a fair amount of drama from his sports-star clients. As their agent, looking after the business side of their sporting careers was easy, he could negotiate deals blindfolded, but playing the role of psychologist, older brother, agony aunt and best friend was emotionally draining. That was why he was renting this room in an eclectic flat on the fringes of Notting Hill for the duration of his stay in London. He loved his job but he had so much to do while he was over here that he didn’t want, or need, his UK clients dropping in on him at odd hours of the night or day.

Having them calling him all the time was enough of a pain. He was pretty sure that he was getting a repetitive strain in his elbow from constantly holding his phone to his ear. He planned to have a mini-holiday from being their agony aunt, their solver of all problems. As for women…he was sort of avoiding them too since his last hook-up back in Cape Town turned out to be a mini-stalker, utterly determined to be the first Mrs Cross.

There had only ever been one Mrs Cross—his mum—and he had no intention of changing that.

Ever.

Alex reached for his coat and shrugged it back on. Grabbing Matt’s coat off the hook, he slapped it against his chest and tipped his head.

‘Tori is the type that when she walks into a room and she’s happy, birds sing, mountains move and the lights grow brighter. When she’s miserable, tsunamis form, lava churns and demons howl. She sounds reasonably together now but she can turn on a dime. Besides, do we really want to hear about their thoughts on our junk?’

‘Really don’t.’ Matt nodded his agreement.

He was happy to leave, if only to give the distress-concealing, lava-churning beauty some space. The friends wouldn’t be able to talk, or chew the heads off bats, or do whatever females did when their worlds got turned on their heads if a stranger was in the room.

‘Let’s go to Isaac’s place and grab a beer,’ Alex suggested. ‘He’s not there but what the hell?’

‘Which bar? He has a couple.’

‘Red. It’s an easy tube ride. We’ll sneak back in later when the coast is clear.’

That, Matt decided, resisting the impulse to take another peek at the woman who could launch tsunamis and make demons howl, was the best idea he’d heard all day.

As they clattered down the stairs Alex threw a conversational grenade over his shoulder, straight at Matt’s head. ‘By the way, I’ll wipe the floor with your face if you mess with Tori.’

Matt nodded. Warning received.

CHAPTER TWO

TORI, LYING ON THE super uncomfortable, lumpy and thin single mattress in the cramped boxroom, looked at the flashing display of her mobile and ignored Mark’s call.

What number call was that? Sixteen, seventeen? She placed her forearm over her eyes, feeling drained, exhausted and so, so empty. She’d acted her ass off earlier but she knew that her friends, especially Poppy, hadn’t bought it. Some of it but not all; they were too perceptive for her own good. Sometimes she thought that Poppy and Iz laughed because, knowing her so very well, they knew that was the reaction she was most comfortable with, because she always handled hurt with humour.

Tori hiccupped a sob and couldn’t believe that she was crying over a man…again. It was what she did, she thought, a pattern of behaviour that started in her childhood and she’d yet to break. She’d throw herself into a situation, looking for attention—love, affirmation—and when it ran out, sometimes in minutes, sometimes days, weeks, months, she’d be left feeling flattened and…less than.

She was so tired of feeling less than. But the reality was that she’d never been enough…not for her parents, not for her previous loser boyfriends, definitely not for Mark.

Tori rolled over onto her side and groaned as a particularly large lump dug into her ribcage. On the plus side, she didn’t love Mark, hadn’t been able to open herself up to him and reveal the chronically insecure woman below her flash surface. Maybe if she found a man she could do that with, someone she allowed to peek below the partygirl, flirty-girl surface, maybe that would be the man she could fall in love with, the man who would give her the love and attention and the stability that had always been beyond her reach.

Tori thumped her wafer-thin pillow and rolled over again. This bed was disgusting, the room small and cramped. When she and Poppy and Iz shared this flat—happy, happy days of laughter, girl chats and wild parties—Izzy had used this room to store her clothes and Poppy her medical tomes. This bed had been a place to throw stuff on, now it seemed to be a repository for the lost and strayed, first Izzy, then Lara, now her.

But everything was changing…The flat was like Love Central recently, with Izzy falling head over heels in love with Harry and Alex losing his heart to Lara.

But she’d rather be here, in this horrible bed in the tiniest room in the house with friends who cared about her, than back at Mark’s with or without his plus one. This flat, originally a fire station with its exposed red brickwork and crazy plumbing, was the place she felt most like…well, herself, and the people who lived within its thick walls were more family than her own flesh and blood. Especially Poppy, who knew her in and out and roundabout.

But really, this bed…she’d never get to sleep.

‘Isaac is away…’ Poppy had said.

Isaac is away…mmm, gorgeous Isaac. If he were in residence she’d consider making a play for him; he would be a super excellent way to forget Mark. Tori bit her lip…except that there was a weird vibe between Poppy and Isaac, something that would have her hesitating if Isaac were around…

But, right now, the bed in the turret room directly above her head was big and comfortable and, best of all, empty! She could, at the very least, get a good night’s sleep, something she knew would be next to impossible in this coffin.

Her mobile buzzed again and Tori sighed at the display. For a minute she considered answering it, considered allowing Mark to talk her around, to persuade her to jump into a taxi and come home. She’d make him grovel and, after endless hours of discussion, she’d have a warm body to curl up around tonight…

No! She was not that pathetic, that weak! He’d crossed a line as big as the San Andreas fault line and it was not okay! She was worth more than that…

Mind made up, Tori switched off her mobile, slid out of bed and walked up the stairs to the turret room, avoiding the stairs that creaked and the floorboards that groaned. In the morning, she thought as she opened the door to Izzy’s old room, she would feel better, calmer, and more able to make rational decisions.

Maybe. Or maybe she’d cave and go back to Mark…

‘You’re sounding stronger, Dad.’ Matt leaned back against the headboard, mobile to his ear.

‘I’m fine. Don’t worry.’

Matt twisted his lips at Patrick’s sharp retort. Like him, he hated being fussed over, but Matt wasn’t convinced that his dad was fully recovered from the bout of pneumonia that had hospitalised him at the beginning of August. He still sounded weak, although he tried to hide it.

And also like him, his father was a night owl and they often spent time on the phone between the hours of eleven and one in the morning. They’d chat about sport or the news and every so often Matt would explain a complicated deal he was involved in. Despite his years spent working in non-profit organisations promoting sport amongst disadvantaged children, Patrick had never lost his cool, unemotional, law-trained mind and his insights were frequently sharp, concise and devastatingly accurate. He had a way of cutting through the waffle and discarding the emotion to reveal the heart of the problem, the soul of the dilemma.

‘How’s Angela?’ Matt asked, referring to the woman his dad had met a couple of months ago.

‘Fine but she’s not your mother.’

‘No one is, no one could be,’ Matt said gently, as he had a hundred times before. And as always he was instantly transported back to those awful months after her death, his dad sobbing at night, grief racking his body when he thought Matt was asleep. How many nights had he been woken by that low keening? How many times had he slipped out of his bed to lie in the passageway next to his dad’s closed door, listening until his father finally stopped crying and drifted off to sleep?

‘Twenty-two years, Matt, and I’m still as in love with her as I was. They say that people forget their loved ones, that they don’t remember their faces, their voices. I still remember everything. Her wide green eyes, her raucous laugh, the way she always stuck her tongue between her lips when she was concentrating.’

And because his dad remembered so much, and spoke of her often, he did too. He’d adored his mother, grieved her death, but her passing had also taught him that marriage and love equated to heart-wrenching grief and he’d decided, at the ripe old age of eleven, to have nothing to do with it.

They were getting morbid, Matt thought, and changed the subject. ‘So, I think I have a new flatmate…’

Matt explained the circumstances around Tori’s arrival and soon Patrick was chortling in amusement. His dad wasn’t a prude, thank God. He could talk to him about anything and he did.

‘Oh, and I went to see your uncle Alfred yesterday.’

Matt tuned out as Patrick updated him on the health of his great-uncle and just listened to the comforting hum of his dad’s voice. After his mum died, they’d stumbled through their lives. Patrick had learned to cook and to listen; mopped up spilt milk, broken windows from cricket balls and Matt’s own childhood tears. Cricket had turned to rugby, and excruciating lectures about sex and girls had been suffered through—by both of them—and they’d both had to wrap their heads around his dad dating again. But Patrick had kept his sex life away from him—thank the Lord—and nothing and no one had disturbed their masculine, sports-crazy home.

It had been a blow to realise that, while he was good at cricket and great at rugby, he wasn’t good or great enough. He was an excellent sportsman but just wasn’t brilliant…he didn’t have enough raw talent to take his sport to the next level. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t work in the field, Patrick had constantly reminded him. He could always be associated with sport…

And now Matt represented twenty of the biggest names in sport that he personally looked after and his two associates had another sixty they represented between them. One of his tasks while he was in London was to consider hiring a UK-based agent to expand his business.

Matt heard a noise on the landing outside and glanced at the luminous hands on his sports watch. It was long past midnight and he wondered who else was up.

‘Dad, sorry, I’ve got to go. Speak soon and look after that chest!’

He tossed his mobile onto the side table, sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. His eyebrows lifted when his door handle dipped and the door slowly opened. He’d always had excellent night vision and didn’t need light to discern the slight female form, perfectly curved. As she turned to close the door her slithery robe rustled and he was treated to the most luscious bottom he’d seen in a very long time. Her hair was streaked and her profile, caught in the landing light just before she shut the door, showed a small, straight nose, full lips, deep-set eyes and a round, stubborn chin.

She stopped by the far side of the bed and he watched as small hands went to the belt on her robe and the fabric slipped off her shoulders revealing perky breasts, a flat stomach, slim hips and those fabulously long and silky legs.

Birds sang, and an orchestra started playing and he was quite sure that a mountain, somewhere in the world, moved. She was that sexy, he thought, as lust shot straight to his groin and belted up his spine.

Ah, the actress from earlier.

Which raised the question: what the hell was she doing in his room?

Naked?

Ooh, Tori thought, wiggling under the covers, a nice firm, lump-free bed. High thread count, clean cotton sheets, a decent feather pillow. Thank you, Isaac, for being in Amsterdam or Paris or somewhere else exotic doing cocktailbar stuff and leaving your room empty for me to borrow. She sighed happily. This was a million times better; she could get a decent night’s sleep in this comfy bed and she’d feel so much better in the morning: stronger, bolder, better able to cope. She rolled over on her side and dropped her hand to the mattress…

Except that wasn’t a mattress. Tori froze. It was warm and hairy and the muscles underneath her hand contracted and released.

She’d known enough male bodies to immediately realise that she was holding a very muscular male thigh and because she could feel something that felt like a testicle brushing her pinkie finger, she suspected that her hand had landed quite far up his thigh—far as in ‘far too close’.

Okay, she really hadn’t planned on feeling Isaac up this evening. And why did she immediately feel guilty? Because of Poppy, she realised. Poppy and Isaac had something cooking; what it was she wasn’t sure but it was something…

And while she had many, many, many faults, stealing her best friend’s man—potential man—wasn’t one of them.

If she was desperately lucky, then Isaac would be asleep and she could sneak back out and keep her mouth shut for ever and ever and ever…

Tori, trying to be very stealthy, lifted her thumb off his thigh, then her index finger, middle and ring finger and finally her pinkie. Pulling her hand away, she sighed with relief when there was no reaction from the body and slowly started to inch her way out of the bed.

A deep, sexy-as-sin voice growled at her through the darkness and pinned her to the bed. ‘Where are you going? It was just starting to get interesting.’

‘Isaac?’ she whispered and held her breath, desperately hoping that Isaac had acquired a slight accent she didn’t remember him ever having.

‘Nope. Sorry.’

Sometimes, Tori thought, you are the statue and sometimes you are the pigeon. Obviously her day to be the statue wasn’t quite over just yet.

The bedside light snapped on at the same moment that Tori bailed out of bed, the hounds of embarrassment snapping on her heels. She was halfway around the bed and still eight feet from where she dropped her robe—serve her right for being a slob and just dropping clothes on the floor—when she realised that he could see her in all her naked, jiggling glory!

‘Eeep!’ She instinctively slammed her forearm against her boobs, cupped her pubic strip with her hand and stood there with her mouth hanging open, a deep red flush covering every inch of her body.

Help, help, help, help, help…

What to do…? What to do…? What to do…?

Seeing the corner of the loose duvet draped over the corner of the bed, she yanked it up and bailed underneath it, only taking another breath when she knew that every inch of her body was covered. Of course, she could still feel the long, long length of him—they were only separated by the sheet—but at least he couldn’t see her!

Dear Lord, who was he? She was going to kill Poppy, slowly and with an evil smile on her face.

Tori felt fresh air slide in under the duvet and knew that he’d lifted it up to look at her. She turned her face into the mattress and gnawed the bottom of her lip.

‘Hey there…’

Ooh, he had the nicest voice. Deep, mellow, like an aged whisky on a freezing winter’s night.

‘Want to come out from under there so that I’m not talking to your—admittedly gorgeous—tortoiseshell head?’

Tortoiseshell? Say what? Tori frowned while her brain turned over his words. Huh, he must mean her hair and the various shades of colour. Browns, reds, blondes…tortoiseshell. Dave, her hairdresser, would love that description.

Okay, so not the point.

Tori pulled her face out of the mattress, breathed deep and lifted her eyes and found herself looking up at a bigger, broader and—obviously—hairier chest than hers. He had just the right amount, she thought, a perfect black T that dusted his pecs and drifted into a luscious line that flowed over a stone-hard A-pack. The sheet covered his hips and she managed to contain her sigh of disappointment. Her eyes ambled upward again, noticing a crescent-shaped scar on his lower rib, the flat masculine nipples, muscled shoulders, thick arms, an angular jaw covered in black stubble, a wide mouth tipped up in amusement and eyes the colour of…

‘British racing green,’ she murmured, the words sliding out of her mouth.

‘Excuse me?’

She wanted to wave her hand but instead she held the duvet to her chest. ‘Your eyes, they are the exact shade known as British racing green,’ she said, blushing and ducking her head into the mattress again. She sounded like such a twit; she’d snuck into his bed—naked—and she was wittering on about his eyes.

They were beautiful but…really?

Oh, fudge. Her face flared and she hoped he didn’t notice. There was only one way to get out of this situation and that was to brazen her way through it. She wasn’t in PR for nothing, she decided, and had plenty of practice.

Taking all her courage in both hands, Tori kept the duvet firmly in place and wiggled her way up so that she was sitting upright, the duvet tucked under her arms.

‘Hello,’ he said, his mobile mouth quirking up in a half-smile.

‘Um…hi.’ Tori pushed her hair out of her face and straightened her shoulders. ‘Sorry about this.’

‘I got to see a gorgeous naked girl. No need to apologise.’

Ignoring the flare of heat that she knew was still staining her cheekbones, Tori pushed her hand through her hair and smiled her patented I’m-a-girl-of-the-world smile. He didn’t need to know that she was feeling anything but and her spirit was, well, not broken…cracked, dented, bruised? Bruised. That was the perfect word for how she was feeling…along with battered, drained and a healthy dose of smarting.

But since she had many years of practice of hiding her feelings she just kept that stupid smile on her face and carried on bluffing. ‘So, I guess the question is, who are you and what are you doing in Iz’s bed?’

‘Matt Cross and I’m renting the room for the month while Isaac is away. And that raises the question, what are you doing in Izzy’s, Isaac’s, temporarily my bed?’

‘I heard there was a good-looking guy in it and thought I’d check you out.’ Tori regretted the words before they even left her mouth.

‘If that was true then you wouldn’t have spent the first five minutes burrowing under the covers whimpering with embarrassment,’ Matt calmly stated.

So the guy wasn’t afraid to call BS. Good to know.

‘So, give me another explanation,’ Matt asked, after bunching up a pillow and placing it between his head and Iz’s iron headboard.

‘I’ve just had a really bad day and I wanted a decent night’s sleep. The bed in the boxroom is a torture device and I knew that Isaac was away so here I am.’

‘Here you are,’ Matt agreed. ‘So, I’m presuming you’re Tori of the bad boyfriend and the Frantic Fairy story of earlier?’

‘How on earth do you know about that?’ Tori demanded.

‘I was in the hall when you were concocting the story for Izzy and Poppy. That has got to hurt like hell.’

Concocting? That was an interesting, very truthful, turn of phrase. Tori cursed silently and bit her lip. She was sitting in bed, naked, with the hottest man she’d—literally—stumbled across in her life and he knew that her boyfriend had brought home another woman for a threesome. And he was sympathising with her…

Could this evening, possibly, get any worse? ‘Oh, I was about to kick him into touch anyway so I don’t really care,’ she said, lying her head off. She did not need his sympathy or, worse, his pity. God.

‘You have piggy eyes from crying. And your words and body are stiff with tension. Oh, yeah, you talk a good game but it hurts. How can it not?’

Tori sighed. She was not one of those women who cried well…She didn’t have gentle tears that rolled out in perfect droplets and didn’t wreck her make-up. She gushed and she was obviously violently allergic to her own tears because her eyes swelled up and turned blood red, her face blotched and Rudolf envied her nose. As a result, she generally avoided meeting flame-hot men until she looked normal again. No wonder Green Eyes was looking at her as if she were an alien species…not generally the reaction she normally got when she found herself naked in a man’s bed. She’d never been particularly vain but she knew that men generally found her attractive. It was mortifying to be the object of pity, of concern, of zero sexual interest.

Focus, Tori, and start thinking of a way that you can get out of here with your dignity and pride intact. Actually, she’d settle for just getting out; pride and dignity were on their own.

I could seduce him…

Whoa, whoa, what? The words popped into her head and her eyes widened. Bad, bad idea, terrible idea, are you nuts?

He’s a good-looking guy…

He’s every gorgeous male celebrity wrapped up in one delicious package but that doesn’t mean that you should make a play for him. You’re upset, feeling emotionally beaten up and you never make good decisions when you’re in this frame of mind…so keep your big mouth shut! Dear God, you are a basket case, Phillips.

Great sex—he looked the type who knew what he was doing in the sack—and a soft bed, a body to curl up around afterwards…

‘Down, Tiger.’ That dark-chocolate voice broke into her chaotic thoughts and she bristled at the undisguised amusement she saw in his eyes, in the tilt of that sexy mouth.

‘Excuse me?’

‘That mind of yours is working the angles; flipping through your options.’

Tori licked her lips and looked for and found her coolest expression. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘You know exactly what I’m talking about,’ he drawled. ‘But, okay, let’s spell it out…you’re running through scenarios; you’re not happy that I know that you had a horrid experience at the hands of a man who, frankly, needs someone to teach him how to treat a woman. I’d be happy to oblige. You’re also telling yourself that you don’t want to go back to that bed or, if you were honest, admitting that you don’t want to be alone.’

He’d be happy to beat Mark up for her? Now there was an idea…concentrate Tori! As nice as his statement made her feel, he was still looking past her breeziness to the truth below and she didn’t like it and she wanted him to stop. She scowled at him. ‘Nonsense.’

‘Honey, if you weren’t scared of being on your own you wouldn’t still be in this bed, you would’ve hightailed it out of here the minute you realised you made a mistake. Instead, you’re lying there looking like a wet dream thinking about making a play for me, thinking about whether you could seduce me or not.’

Dammit, this guy was perceptive.

‘You probably could; I’m a man and you’re…’ his eyes flicked up and down her body ‘…you’re seriously hot.’

Dark blue eyes collided with green and that lightning rod of attraction arced between them. Tori could see herself writhing over that body, her hair trailing along his chest, across his stomach. As if he knew what she was thinking, his Mr Get It On tented the bedclothes. Oh…oh, wow.

‘You need to stop looking at me like that or else you’re going to be flat on your back in ten seconds and I’m not going to able to stop what comes next.’ Matt growled. Tori pulled her eyes back up to his and saw that his gaze could melt her panties…if she were wearing any. Dear Lord, if she scooted over just a bit she could have those big hands on her body, that mouth on hers…

‘You’re killing me, woman,’ Matt muttered, his thumb lifting to press her bottom lip. ‘But sleeping with me isn’t the antidote for whatever happened tonight.’

Tori swallowed and looked at her hands. ‘I told you, I was about to kick him into touch anyway.’

‘No, you weren’t. You know it and I know it,’ Matt said, his voice gentle. God, she could cope with attraction and lust and flirting but she couldn’t cope with this stunningly attractive man looking past her brave girl façade and seeing the mess she was inside.

Matt leaned sideways, dropped his arm and when he straightened again, he clutched a navy T-shirt in his fist. Shaking it out, he draped the hole over her head and the big shirt fell over her chest. She slipped her arms into the shirt and allowed the duvet to drop. She hauled in the masculine scent of his deodorant and aftershave and that essence of masculinity that made her girly stuff hum. ‘Thanks.’

Matt grunted, shoved the covers off and in one fluid movement stood up and stalked naked across the room. Tori’s eyes followed the most excellent back and butt and long, muscled legs to the chest of drawers and sighed with frustration when he yanked out a pair of sweatpants and covered all that lusciousness up. Damn, damn, damn…she wasn’t finished perving yet. Then Matt grabbed another T-shirt and pulled it on.

She thought she heard him mutter something about being a saint and stupid before he turned back and resumed his place next to her on the bed. He sat up so that his back was against the headboard and crossed his legs at the ankles.

Serious eyes met hers and Tori licked her lips at the compassion she saw within them. Then she yelped when he leaned forward, snuck an arm around her waist and hauled her up to him. His big hand forced her head onto his shoulder and his other hand rested on her lower back.

Tori lay in his embrace, her body radiating tension. What did this mean? Was he actually going to try and seduce her after all? And if he was, where was the kissing, the touching? Instead, Matt just switched off the light and they lay in the darkness and Tori felt his chest rise and fall beneath her cheek, heard the solid, reassuring thump-thump of his heart.

Inexplicably, tears started to build again and before she could stop them, they rolled down her face and dropped onto the material of his shirt. Matt’s hand tensed and relaxed on her back and then he patted the top of her butt. That little tap was like the secret code that opened the gates to waterworks hell and her tears started to fall, thick and fast.

Matt didn’t say anything, but just held her and allowed her to cry. Silent, long, scary tears that didn’t seem to want to stop…tears that sucked her energy out of her, making her feel bone-deep tired. She closed her eyes against the burning sensation and it felt so good that she just kept them closed.

Tori sniffed, thought about lifting her head off his chest, decided she was too comfortable and stayed where she was. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me that it will get better and that worse things in the world happen to good people every day?’ she asked. ‘Aren’t those the platitudes people dish out at times like these?’

‘It will get better and worse things do happen but that’s not what you need to hear right now.’

Tori looked up at him, his profile strong in the room full of shadows. ‘What do I need to hear?’

‘You need to hear that it hurts because it matters, that he treated you badly and that was wrong. You have a right to cry, to feel sad, to feel used.’ Matt stroked her hair. ‘You are allowed to feel miserable and you are allowed to show people that you feel miserable.’

Tori turned his words over in her mind, knowing that there was a fundamental truth within them but not able to grasp it, believe it. It was as if it were a finger of fog drifting past and her fingers kept sliding through it. Eventually she gave up trying to capture that nugget of truth and just listened to the thump-thump of Matt’s heart.

Tori had no idea when she fell asleep…just that she did and it felt good and right. For the first time in a long time, in a stranger’s arms, she felt safe.

Accepted. Enough.

Feeling as if she could just be…

CHAPTER THREE

TORI WOKE UP with a massive erection pushing into her lower back and she sighed with pleasure. Keeping her eyes closed, she stretched and wiggled her butt into that thick, hard long length of him. The hand on her breast tightened in response and a masculine thumb flicked over her nipple, pulling it into a hard peak, the cotton fabric adding to the pleasure.

Cotton fabric, T-shirt…Matt’s T-shirt. Dear God, she was in bed with Matt, the sexy stranger from last night who’d held her, for the longest time, while she’d cried.

She’d cried? God, no.

She could cope with people thinking she was a diva, a bitch, a crazoid, but fragile? No bloody way! Dammit, she seldom cried and she never, ever, ever cried in front of anyone, she thought as her body tightened with tension. She’d never felt safe enough, especially not as a child, and that habit had carried over into her adult life. No, it was a lot easier, safer to put a smile on her face and fire off a joke…

She couldn’t believe that she had blubbed all over Matt, all over a stranger! She’d had a couple of one-night stands over the years but the walk of shame was nothing to how mortified she felt right now; this was like doing the walk of shame naked, across broken glass and hot coals.

He must think she was weak and helpless and…wimpy.

She was Tori Phillips and she didn’t do wimpy…and there was no way that she could let this man, this gorgeous, sexy über-masculine man think that she was delicate, helpless…vulnerable. She wasn’t any of those things…and, if she was, she didn’t want him realising that she was.

She’d prefer to poke her eye out with a hot stick.

‘Bad idea, Cross,’ she thought she heard him mutter as his hand left her breast. Tori felt him kiss the top of her head; it was a placating, gentle, there-there kiss and it raised every hackle she had. She didn’t need his pity or his sympathy…and she’d make damn sure that when he thought of her he wouldn’t think of the snivelling, pathetic creature that had fallen asleep in his arms.

And there was only one way she knew of that would burn that image out of his head…

Sitting up, she whipped the T-shirt over her head and swung her leg over his hips and straddled him, her feminine core pressed into his erection. Tori cursed the fabric of his sweatpants and wished she’d yanked them down before positioning herself. Now she’d have to get off him, pull his pants down…

Matt’s huge hands on her hips kept her from wiggling and he looked up into that part-angel, part-devil face and sighed. Her eyes radiated determination but he could still see mortification lingering there. Yep, there was too much of her brain involved in this decision. She wanted him, it seemed that they were instantaneously, fiercely attracted to each other, but there was something else in her eyes, in her expression that hinted at an emotion other than ‘let me lick you from top to toe’.

‘What are you doing, Tori?’

Tori lifted her perfectly arched eyebrow and sent him a naughty smile as her hands skimmed over his stomach. Pity her eyes didn’t echo it. She wiggled against him and he couldn’t help pushing up into her. Damn, she felt hot and wet and so amazingly wonderful.

‘You seem bright enough, you figure it out.’ Tori leaned forward and nibbled his bottom lip with her teeth. His tongue shot out to taste her mouth and he pulled it back at the last minute. If he kissed her, if he moved his hands off her hips, he wouldn’t be able to stop rolling her over and plunging inside her.

She was perfect: long neck, slim shoulders, perky breasts that filled his hands and topped with blush pink, ultra-responsive nipples. A flat, flat stomach and a meticulously groomed strip of light brown hair that hinted at her natural colour. And the heat and moisture between her legs suggested warm, wet honey…

‘This isn’t a good idea.’ he muttered against her lips. It so is, Mr Long and Strong protested. ‘Not. A. Good. Idea.’

‘You saying no?’ Tori teased, her pointed tongue licking the dent in his cheek that his mum used to call a dimple but he called a pain-in-his-shaving-ass.

Was he saying no? Well, he was trying to…He had no moral objection to making love to a gorgeous woman but he wasn’t sure of her motives, of why she was doing this. If it was only about pure sex he’d be all over her like a rash but he could still feel the tension in her, could see the flickers of emotion in her eyes that told him that there was a whole bunch of this puzzle he was missing.

He knew what pure lust looked like and there was nothing like it in her eyes. Mortification, determination, a little crazy maybe…pure lust, not so much.

Matt didn’t like puzzles and he didn’t like uncertainty and false motives.

‘I’m saying no.’ They were the hardest words he’d ever said but he forced them between his teeth, made his lips spit them out. Tori sat up slowly, her face utterly confused.

‘What?’

Matt gripped her hips, bunched his muscles and with a grunt lifted her off him and onto the mattress next to him. He rolled his legs out of the bed, stood up and walked towards the door and scooped up her dressing gown, which he threw in her direction.

His mobile chirruped that he had a message and he glanced at the screen. A client, of course. He ignored the message, thinking that he should deal with one problem at a time.

‘You’re saying no?’ Tori demanded.

Matt winced.

It wasn’t even seven o’clock and he needed an aspirin. Actually he needed sex but since he’d just shot that in the foot, he’d settle for aspirin. His mobile chirped that he had another message.

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ Tori demanded, finally pulling on her dressing gown and covering up that take-me-now body. Long and Strong sighed and began to settle down. Thank God for small, or, in his case, not so small mercies.

Matt kept his voice calm. ‘Look, I just don’t think it’s a good idea…It’s never a good idea to nail someone else just after you were dumped.’

‘I wasn’t dumped!’ Tori’s face scrunched up in fury as she scrambled out of his bed. ‘I left him!’

‘Whatever. And you’re in someone else’s bed not twelve hours later. You’re vulnerable and sad and it’s a recipe for a disaster.’

‘It was a recipe for a mutual orgasm!’ Tori howled. ‘What are you, the male equivalent of a prick tease?’

Whoah, that wasn’t fair. His eyes narrowed in warning. ‘I never led you on—you were the one crawling all over me. Look, Tori, we’re going to be living in the same flat for the foreseeable future…and all we’re going to do is complicate the situation. Alex will rip my head off if I sleep with you when you are feeling vulnerable and hurt and I’m just a rebound screw for you.’

‘I am not vulnerable. I am fine,’ Tori said through gritted teeth.

He didn’t believe her and wanted to call her on it, but thought he’d just inflame the situation more. Instead he just motioned to the door. ‘Why don’t you get going before the rest of the flat gets wind of this…if they haven’t already?’

‘I don’t care if—’

‘You should,’ Matt interrupted. ‘You should care what the people who love you think.’

Tori tightened the sash of her dressing gown and pushed her messy hair away from her face. Her chin lifted as she gave him a look that was meant to eviscerate all his internal organs. ‘You’ll regret this.’

Matt scrubbed his face with his hands and then placed them on his hips. He watched as Tori stalked over to the bedroom door, yanked it open and slammed it so hard that the entire building shook. Well, if their flatmates weren’t awake yet they would be now…

Matt crossed over to the window, yanked the sash window up, placed his hands on the sill and breathed in the chilly morning air. It was a good substitute for a cold shower and he felt himself shrink to everyday proportions. He’d done the right thing, he assured himself. He didn’t need any complications in his life—and Tori had complications graffitied all over her in DayGlo spray paint—and sleeping with his brand-new flatmate would cause complications he didn’t need.

He especially didn’t need the protective Alex beating the snot out of him for taking advantage of her.

Okay, so…interesting start to his month in London.

She wasn’t his type? Seriously?

His words reverberated around her brain as Tori sat at the kitchen table later that morning, scowling into the mug of coffee cradled in her hands. How could he say that when she had the proof that she was exactly his type pressed hot and flush and throbbing against her, begging to slide on in?

Not her type? She was old enough to know that men thought that any naked woman floated their boat.

As God was her witness he was so going to regret those words. It was the second time she’d been verbally, emotionally slapped by a man in two days and she was sick of it. She was Tori Phillips, the life and soul of any party, champion flirt; she made people laugh and people liked her, dammit. Men loved her…

And he would too. Tori narrowed her bright blue eyes, deep in thought. Her pride demanded that she take some sort of action to bring him down a peg or two—or sixty thousand—and she was just the girl to show him the error of his ways. She tapped her French-manicured nail against her coffee mug; she could unleash the full power of her charm on him and when she had him at her feet and begging, she’d watch him squirm as she walked away.

Poppy might be smart, Iz ambitious but, by God, she was the most charming and, undoubtedly, the most stubborn and…and…and unforgiving of the bunch.

And, also the most screwed up of all of them. Why couldn’t she just shrug off his words and let it go? Was she that insecure, that crazy? Yeah, she was. She wasn’t book smart like Poppy, who was her stable rock, calm and in control. She wasn’t like Iz, ambitious and driven. Iz had recently given up her high-flying career to work as a fund-raiser for charities, she had found Harry and was deliciously happy, but she knew what she wanted and how to get it.

No, Tori was the clown of the group, the emotional firecracker, the one they worried about, talked about and tried to keep grounded. She was capricious—she worked in PR, could anything be more flighty than that?—and she was emotional and high-maintenance. Or so they kept telling her.

Her friends loved her, dearly, but she knew they despaired of her. She knew that they desperately wanted to say ‘I told you so’ about Mark. Poppy, the mother hen, wanted to scoop her up and wrap her in cotton wool.

She would be fine…She’d pick herself up and dust herself down.

Tori smelt Poppy’s scent before she even heard her and sighed with pleasure when Poppy’s slim arms wrapped around her chest from behind. Poppy rested her temple against hers while Tori held her arms. Her best friend, her oldest friend. It was so good to be home…

‘You okay, Toz?’

‘I’m fine,’ Tori replied as Poppy let her go. She looked up into Poppy’s doubtful face. ‘I’m fine, Popsicle. I promise. I’m bruised, not heartbroken. I’m considering sending Mark a thank you note…something along the lines of “thanks for waiting until I’d spent so much time with you and done so much with you to show me that you are, actually, a sex-addict sociopath”.’

Poppy smiled. ‘We knew that already.’

‘Thanks for the warning,’ Tori grumbled.

‘You wouldn’t have listened to it,’ Poppy replied.

Tori waved her hand in the air. ‘It doesn’t matter—all men suck.’

Poppy put the kettle on the gas and shook her head. ‘When are you going to start making better choices when it comes to men, Tori?’

‘I have no idea,’ Tori replied honestly.

Poppy shoved a tea bag into her mug and poured water on top. She prodded the bag with her finger and Tori winced, resisting the urge to hand her a spoon. Poppy lifted her amazing eyes and Tori saw that they were filled with worry…again. ‘Something has got to change, Tori.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’ Tori pushed her cup away. ‘I should’ve listened to you…’

‘Will you listen to me now?’ Poppy leaned against the counter and sipped her tea while she waited for her response.

‘Maybe.’ She wished she could say yes but she didn’t want to promise Poppy anything she couldn’t deliver. She took her promises seriously.

‘Take some time before you hurtle into the next crazy relationship. Stop confusing sex with love…Have sex if you have to but stop looking for love and investing in the man too soon. And you have to start choosing men who aren’t complete idiots, Toz. You can’t shake the asshat tree and expect a good man to fall out.’

Did she do that? Did she fall too hard and too fast, getting all her hopes up on something she deep down knew wouldn’t last? Did she deliberately choose men who she knew were going to disappoint her? Hurt her? Was she a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Tori dredged up a smile. ‘I hereby hand over my right to pick my own boyfriend because I obviously don’t know what I am doing.’

‘I’d do a happy dance if I actually believed that,’ Poppy retorted. ‘I just wish your heart would learn that it doesn’t have to get involved in every situation. Its job is to pump blood, that’s it.’

Tori, thinking that they’d spent far too much time talking about her obviously ridiculous love life, nodded at Poppy’s white coat. ‘Are you working today?’

Poppy grimaced. ‘Yeah, sorry. How was your night in the boxroom?’

Interesting. Tori wrinkled her nose. ‘Horrible. I want my room back!’

‘I know and I’m sorry. But hang in there—Lara and Alex have been talking about taking a holiday soon, they want some sun…and some alone time, I suspect. When they go you can temporarily move back into your, their, room. And Isaac is away, by the way.’

Yeah, well, she’d found that out the hard way! Tori heard the twitch in Poppy’s voice and her antennae picked up. She might be the one who was always in a crisis of one sort or the other and she did have a…ahem, colourful romantic history but she was emotionally intuitive and had always wondered why Poppy was so anti-relationships. They could talk about everything and did, except Poppy’s personal life, which was a no-go, never-discuss area. Poppy, fun and self-effacing, was so universally adored that it was sometimes hard to remember that she hadn’t ever—that Tori could remember—brought a man home…

But whenever Isaac’s name was mentioned, whenever Isaac was around, Poppy vibrated with an energy that was weird and, if she wasn’t mistaken, sexual. Isaac pushed Poppy’s buttons and Tori was just glad that someone did.

‘Oh, and Isaac offered his room for the month to Matt Cross, an old friend of his.’ Poppy glanced at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go; introduce yourself to Matt when you see him.’

She had. Matt had seen all of her.

Poppy banged her cup into the sink, whirled around and cupped Tori’s face in her cool hands. ‘I love you and I’m glad you’re home. And you deserve to be in the boxroom for making me worry about you.’

‘I think the punishment is a bit too harsh for the crime,’ Tori grumbled as Poppy grabbed her bag and flew out of the kitchen. ‘Love you!’

‘Isn’t it a bit early in our relationship to start throwing the L-word around?’

Tori whirled around to see Matt standing in the doorway, dressed in an old pair of jeans and a button-down black shirt, the cuffs rolled back from his wrists, his mobile in his hand. His damp hair was pushed off his face but he hadn’t shaved, black stubble shadowing his jaw. He was magnificent naked and, in the weak early winter light pouring in from the kitchen windows, almost as sexy dressed.

Tori swallowed down a snarky retort and ignored his amused smirk. Resisting the urge to throw something at him, she pulled out a wide, fake smile and gestured towards the kettle. ‘Morning. Would you like some coffee?’

A quick frown pulled his brows together. ‘Sure.’

‘Milk, sugar?’

‘Black. Why are you being charming? Are you planning to throw something into it while I’m not looking?’ Matt sat down in the chair she’d vacated and stretched out his long, long legs.

Don’t tempt me, buster. But losing my temper again will only show you what a shrew I can be and you will never make another move on me if I act like a Macbeth witch. And I need you to invite me back into your bed so that I can shove the offer so far down your throat that your toes will bulge.

Tori smiled. ‘I had a rough day yesterday and wasn’t at my best.’ That was an understatement. ‘I misjudged the situation this morning so no harm, no foul.’ Tori glossed over her epic temper tantrum and ignored his raised eyebrow. ‘You are…obviously…unaccustomed to strange women rocking up in your bed and reacted badly.’

Matt’s mouth quirked up. ‘Not so unaccustomed,’ he said under his breath. His mobile rang and he glanced down at it, twisting his lips. ‘Excuse me while I take this.’

Tori listened with half an ear to his brief conversation, before turning away. Oh, taking him down was going to be such fun. She dumped coffee granules into his mug and threw some water into the cup. She placed the coffee mug on the table, deliberately leaning over his shoulder and allowing her arm to brush his. His body tightened in reaction and Tori saw—sensed—the shiver of attraction that ran through him. Not trusting her instincts, she walked to the chair opposite him, sat down and watched as his eyes, jade green this morning, drifted down her throat and flicked over her breasts as he wound up his call. She leaned back in her chair, draping an arm over the back, and knew that the action lifted her breasts against her tight purple long-sleeved T-shirt.

Yeah, take a good look at what you can’t touch, dude.

Tori’s mobile chirping from the table broke their eye contact and she picked it up and glanced at the text message. She frowned when she saw her mum’s name on the display. Her mum never sent text messages and called even less frequently. Acknowledging that she had a daughter who was twenty-five-plus would mean admitting that she wasn’t actually thirty-five herself, something Kay wasn’t prepared to do.

Planning to meet up with your father at the end of the month in London. I suppose we should have lunch with you.

Suppose we should have lunch? Jeez, Mother, sound a little enthusiastic, won’t you? I am your only child…

Matt lifted his cup and gestured with it. ‘You okay?’

Tori sent him a cool look. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Apart from the fact that I have parents who suck?

‘Your eyes…they went flat. Message from your creepy ex?’

‘No,’ Tori replied. ‘But those should start up as soon as he is awake.’ Tori saw his eyes drift down her chest and stop in the area she was pretty sure her nipples were lazing around.

‘Hey! Want to bring your eyes up a foot or so?’

Matt’s smile was slow. ‘Toothpaste.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Toothpaste on your shirt. Oh, you thought I was checking out your rack. Sorry, no…do you normally dribble when you’re brushing your teeth?’

Matt hid his smile in his coffee cup as Tori glanced down at her chest and her blush spread up her neck and into her face. She cursed, rather sexily, and jumped up and stormed out of the room. He watched her very, very fine ass walk away, knowing that her eyes were flashing with irritation.

Better irritation with him than the pain he’d seen in them earlier…

When she was out of sight he rubbed his hand across his face. He’d thought she was a knockout last night but in the light of day, even covered by clothes, she was enough to have his heart slamming into his ribcage in excitement. Stunningly exciting multicoloured hair—streaks of blondes, browns, reds—eyes the colour of a perfect African summer’s night, a pert nose and a body that just wouldn’t quit. A very impressive rack—he was going straight to hell for that lie, of course he had been looking at her breasts—a tiny waist, flared hips and legs that, as he’d seen last night, were long and lean.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.