Marriage Make-Over

She shot him her steeliest glare. ‘You said that already.’

‘It’s just that it hits me anew each time I see you.’

His coarse grip softened but did not let go. He ran his unfathomable hazel eyes over her, taking in every inch of her that was so different. And she was glad she had made a concerted effort that morning.

Her hair was ironed straight and hanging sleekly past her shoulder blades. But as his gaze raked over it, long where it had once been pixie-short, she could almost feel his craving to reach out and stroke its silky length and she fought the urge to rake it back into an unexciting ponytail.

Her lashes were lathered in their usual black mascara, her cheeks were dusted in a shimmering pink, and her lips were awash with pale rose gloss. Her tight black top was held together with a small clip at her belly and fanned out again to reach the top of her skirt, showcasing décolletage, what cleavage she could muster, and belly, which were flushed with bronzing powder. Her skirt, which was black and pencil-thin, stopped just below her knees and she wore pointy black stilettos.

It was the outfit of a magazine chick, a woman with great self-assurance, and no fear. An outfit Kelly had chosen to get her through the most important day of her life so far. An outfit she had not seen as daring when wearing it in offices staffed mainly by women in similar garb, but standing there under Simon’s unashamed scrutiny she felt half naked.

‘I can’t get over how different you look.’

Kelly knew it too. She looked worn-down, thin.

His gaze finally raked back to hers and her breath caught painfully in her throat as she waited for him to say so.

The enchanting creases slowly, slowly, deepened in his smooth cheeks as an intimate smile lit his handsome face and he said, ‘You are beautiful, Kell.’

She blinked to cover her shock. He had never called her beautiful before. Cute. Adorable. Sexy. But never, ever beautiful.

Only then did she realise with utter astonishment that it was not disappointment or guilt resting heavily in his piercing hazel eyes, but desire. And in complete disregard for the consequences she felt herself leaning into his magnetic pull, being drawn deeper and deeper into his beautiful, longing gaze. Her breath released on a deep sigh and its message was loud and clear. The libido that had reawakened only the day before was up and running full steam ahead. She was turned on beyond measure.

‘Kelly?’

She blinked, rocked back onto her stiletto heels, and turned to the dismembered voice. Maya was standing in the open doorway to the offices, with Judy hovering behind her. Maya looked curiously from Kelly to the man seated nonchalantly on the desk at her side with one hand wrapped possessively around her arm.

‘What are you up to all the way out here, my sweet?’

Simon released his grip and stood, and Kelly knew he was moving to introduce himself. And the last thing she needed was to be shown up as a fraud on her first real day at work. Her world clicked back into focus.

‘This is Simon,’ Kelly shouted, drawing all eyes her way. ‘Simon of St Kilda. He is here to be interviewed for my next column.’

Maya’s eyes opened wide in surprise. ‘Well, well, Ms Rockford. You are a revelation. How on earth did you find this fellow and so quickly?’

Yes, how? How? How on earth? Anything but the facts. Her frantic mind tumbled over the possibilities and came up with…nothing.

‘A woman should never reveal her sources, her secrets, nor her deepest desires,’ Simon filled in the deep silence. ‘Wasn’t that a Kellyism from a couple of weeks back?’

Maya nodded, impressed. ‘I see you are a true connoisseur of our Kelly’s column.’

‘I have read it with great personal interest.’

‘Glad to hear it. I will leave you two to it. Bleed him dry, Kelly. I have a feeling about this one.’

Maya winked at Simon and left in a sparkling silver wake and a wash of expensive perfume, with a madly blushing Judy hot on her heels.

Kelly had gathered her wits and purposely funnelled her tension into sharp anger. She pointed to the front door. ‘Now go!’

‘Can’t. I’m being interviewed by a hot new writer.’

Simon sunk his hands into his jeans pockets, whistled a merry tune, and walked around Kelly and into the offices. She was left alone, pointing to the front door, feeling certain the emphasis on hot was not accidental.

When she caught up with Simon he was wandering through the open-plan room, the eyes of every woman in the place overtly following him. He received a few inviting smiles, a couple of assertive hellos, and even a wolf-whistle from the graphics department.

He turned to Kelly. ‘Which one’s yours?’

She pointed to her tiny desk and suddenly wished she had not made herself so at home so soon. Simon took a seat and pored over the photos stuck to her monitor.

Photos of her last birthday party, with her sitting at the old wooden table in her apartment, surrounded by Cara, Gracie, and other tenants, with sponge cake and cream all over her face. Photos of her cuddling Minky on her single bed. And a more staid photo of her last Christmas, sitting on her parents’ huge leather couch by a ridiculously large tree decorated in elegant silver ornaments. Kelly nibbled on her thumbnail and watched as Simon caught up on her life over the past five years.

Simon looked beyond the family shot and grabbed the one of Minky. ‘Is she…how is she?’

‘Scruffy and spoilt as ever.’

‘Missing me?’

‘Not any more.’

He did not glance her way though she was sure he had got her message loud and clear.

‘And your parents?’

‘Painful and…painful as ever.’

‘Missing me?’ He looked up with this question, his expression playful.

This brought a curious smile to Kelly’s face. ‘More than life itself.’

The smile stayed. Five years before, any mention of her parents would have started a fight. They had warned her from the start that he would be like his mother and flee at the first sign of hard work in a relationship and he had never forgiven them for it. And when he had left they had lived for months on ‘I told you so’.

But now here was a Simon who could ask after her parents with a smile on his face, in self-deprecation. Wonder of wonders.

As he put the picture back he bumped the mouse and stared as Kelly’s monitor changed from a star field screensaver to the shot of a crystal-clear ocean with a beautiful white sailing boat bobbing imperiously atop it.

It was the brochure shot of their boat. The one they had spent their brief passionate wedding night aboard. She rushed to her desk and clicked open a Word file, the blank white page obliterating the offending picture.

‘So, where do you want to start?’ Kelly asked.

Simon dragged his eyes from the computer screen, his look filled with questions Kelly did not dare answer, even to herself.

‘You said you were here to be interviewed so we may as well go through with it.’ Kelly made herself busy fluffing about in her filing cabinet until she found the letter. It was crumpled from a moment of wrath when she had rolled it into the smallest ball she could, stomped on it until flat, then shoved it at the very bottom of her rubbish bin. Eventually reason had made her iron it out with her hands but it still looked worse for wear. She could feel Simon’s smile as he saw the paper.

‘I was picturing your face as I did it,’ Kelly said quietly, knowing there were a dozen pairs of ears trained onto their cubicle.

‘I figured as much. So what would you like to ask me?’

Kelly leaned against the cubicle wall, arms folded, as Simon twisted and bounced on her chair. There was no way out of it now. Maya had seen him. She would have to grab a couple of lines for the column to take the edge off Maya’s curiosity.

‘Okay, then. Why do you think you know any more than I do about…?’

‘Love?’ he finished for her in a voice so low and reminiscent of the nights he would whisper such words in her ear by bonfires on the beach.

‘Mmm.’ She could not bring herself to say the word.

‘I don’t claim to know any more than you do. I think I know about exactly the same amount.’

‘Ha!’ She scoffed so loud a couple of female heads turned her way, their eyes alight with interest.

‘You disagree?’ he asked.

‘I’m the one asking the questions here,’ she said through clenched teeth, her glance darting about the room.

‘I have a question for you,’ he said, happily ignoring her protest. ‘Where’s your ring?’

He reached out and took her left hand, toying with her bare ring finger, encircling, stroking, caressing from the tip to her sensitive palm.

Kelly’s gaze rocked back to him, startled. She knew which ring he meant. She yanked her hand away and rubbed at the spot that tingled with the memory of wearing the ring Simon had given her. Such a short time. Such a long time ago.

She shrugged. ‘I haven’t worn it in years. And I’ve moved so many times since then…who knows? Gone for all eternity, I suppose.’

He leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms. His gaze had lowered to her squirming hands so she had no idea how her answer affected him. But it had affected her to her very core. It had dredged up memories and feelings and associations with another time when he had held her left hand with such intimacy.

‘So if you’re the one asking the questions,’ he finally said, ‘come on, then. Ask away.’

Her mind froze. The only other question she could summon at that moment was: Do you feel the same overwhelming and downright frightening sense of sense slipping away that I feel every time we are within touching distance of one another?

So, knowing that was the last thing she wanted to share with Simon, she stood and grabbed him by the hand, dragging him through the room, past a dozen interested onlookers, and into the tearoom, which thankfully was empty.

‘I don’t think this is going to work. I have your letter. That’s enough for me to come up with a perfectly good retort.’

‘Surely I deserve a heads up. I said in my letter that I believe love is alive and well out there. What do you have to say about that?’

She still held his hand. She made to pull away and his free hand put a stop to that, closing over hers so that it was entirely encased in the strong warmth of his grasp.

Kelly was sure she had plenty to say but at that moment her throat had closed over and her pulse had quickened to a rate of knots. She shook her head to clear the indefinable fog that was dampening her perfectly good rage.

‘Simon, just go, please.’ Her voice sounded far away.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No. I did not come here to be interviewed, Kelly, you know that.’

‘So why are you here?’

Please tell me. Whatever the answer, I have to know.

He closed the gap between them so quickly Kelly did not see it coming. His warm, strong hands pulled her to him before reaching up, framing her shocked face as he leaned in to touch his lips to hers.

For a moment Kelly was able to resist. Stunned as she was. But only a moment. Then, with a shuddering groan, her open mouth yielded under his warm, persuasive skill.

Simon’s beautiful lips tempted her own apart and a hundred distant memories burst to the surface with the unexpectedness of a lightning flash. She could all but feel the hot sun of five years before burn upon her neck as his kiss deepened and enticed and sent melting hot flushes the length of her body.

She stole her hands around his shoulders to bury her fingers deep into his soft hair, the silky sensation so familiar and so missed all these years. One of Simon’s hands followed suit, sliding around to bury itself deep within her tumble of silky hair just as she had sensed him longing to do all morning. His other hand stole around her back, the heat from his fingertips scorching through the thin synthetic fabric of her top. It curved lower, and lower until he cupped her bottom.

Then, having wrapped her up tight in his solid embrace, Simon pressed his body to hers. He was muscled where he had once been lean. And even with the changes to her own physique he fitted as if he had been carved just for her.

And the one blaring thought that managed to seep through her whirling, foggy, out-of-control mind was that she ached to know every single one of those changes up close and personal.

CHAPTER FOUR

KELLYISM:

LOVE AND KISSES SHOULD NEVER BE USED

IN THE SAME SENTENCE,

UNLESS IT’S THIS ONE!

KELLY’S mobile phone buzzed at her hip. The vibration jolted her out of Simon’s arms as if she had been struck with a hot poker.

She pulled away, relieved beyond thought that nobody had walked in on them. That was all she needed: to be caught necking in the tearoom. How could she, the mentor of how to survive without a man, explain that to her new colleagues?

She reached for the phone and checked the text message, blissfully ignoring Simon who was standing in front of her, his hands hanging clenched at his sides, his chest rising and falling with the same power and pace as her own.

‘My real interview is on the phone,’ Kelly said. She looked to him with pleading eyes. ‘So stay, go, do whatever you please, just leave me alone.’

‘I’ll go. For now.’

For ever. Please, for my sanity’s sake, go for ever this time.

He left and she followed. And as he reached the doorway to Reception, he sent her one last glance. One last hot, meaningful, and totally knee-weakening glance. It was all she could do to send him a professional nod and walk calmly back towards her desk. She could feel dozens of pairs of eyes burning holes into her back.

She’d kissed him. What on earth was she thinking kissing him? Sure, he had started it but that was an excuse better suited to the school playground. And she had certainly joined in without hesitation. Argh! She had been trying to send him away, for good, and then she had gone and kissed him! Well done, Kelly. Now he’ll really take your demands to get lost seriously.

She reached her desk and sat down with a punishing thud. A pretty blonde head popped around from the desk across from hers.

‘Hiya.’

‘Hello.’

‘I’m Lena.’ The cute girl extended a plump hand. ‘I’m the restaurant critic. You’re Kelly Rockford, right?’

‘I am.’ Kelly’s breathing had thankfully slowed to a more regular pace. She shook the proffered hand.

‘Glad to have you on board,’ Lena said. ‘Single and Loving It! is a crack-up. My girlfriends and I are totally addicted. One friend broke up with her boyfriend last week and we actually did your ritual night, right down to burning her ex’s photo and dancing around the ashes. Felt so silly at first but my friend is like I have never seen her. She is on top of the world. You saved her, and us from having to put up with the usual blubbering mess we would have had to contend with. You’re a genius.’

Kelly smiled, picturing the night a week after Simon had left when she had performed that ritual herself. Naked on the beach at midnight. Burning every photograph, every piece of physical evidence that he had been a part of her life. Doing everything she could to release her downtrodden spirit and move on. Though she was only now realising the little good it had done in releasing her from his influence.

‘Oh, no. Don’t go thinking I am a genius. Just a medium through which women can be heard.’

‘Believe me. I can’t wait to see what you come up with next. Anyway, grab me if you have any questions about the place. Happy to help.’

‘Thanks, Lena, shall do.’

Lena grinned at her as if she were a movie star and swung back inside her own cubicle.

Kelly took a deep breath and picked up her phone. ‘Judy, could you patch my interviewee through for me? Thanks.’

Kelly sat at Maya’s desk that afternoon as the elder woman glanced over her outline. Her face spread into a wide grin.

‘This is priceless. Is she for real?’

Kelly nodded.

‘Wherever do you find these women?’ Before Kelly could answer Maya waved her quiet. ‘Sorry, sorry, I forgot. “A woman should never reveal her sources, her secrets, nor her deepest desires.” The way that young Simon of St Kilda came out with that line made me want to have secrets just so he could come looking for them!’

‘Maya!’ Kelly could not control her blush at Maya’s ravenous expression.

‘He’s a dish. No doubt about it.’ After a brief sigh Maya continued as though there had been no pit stop in the conversation. ‘So this Gillian woman crashes weddings on a regular basis.’

‘Yep. Every weekend. Sometimes twice a week.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘It seems she just loves weddings. Loves the unadulterated joy experienced on such occasions that you find nowhere else.’

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