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Casting one last look at what she saw in the mirror, she left her room and jogged down the stairs.
Having set out the pizza box, plates and kitchen roll on her coffee table, Luke was on his knees picking up the wild flowers Daisy had pulled up from the garden. Next to him was a plastic beaker that he had filled up with water.
Bugger.
How could you stay mad at a man who put wilting wild flowers into water after your daughter had finished trampling her toys all over them?
He looked up as she entered the room and she could feel his eyes on her as she snagged herself a slice of pizza and a plate to put it on.
With her hands full she realised he had moved her bag, complete with all the underwear samples she carried around with her, to her favourite chair and the only place left to sit would be on the sofa next to him.
‘I see you’ve been checking out my underwear again,’ she said as she yanked off a piece of kitchen roll to use as a napkin.
‘Of course,’ Luke grinned, ‘but only as a way of getting into your purse. I had to take it all out to find your money for the pizza guy.’
‘Was there enough in there?’
‘Sure,’ Luke said, and the way he turned from her to put the bunch of flowers into the beaker and set them on the windowsill, Sephy knew that there hadn’t been.
‘How much do I owe you?’
‘Forget it,’ he said, walking over to open the pizza box.
‘No, I will not forget it. I said I’d pay. I’m paying. How much did you have to put in to make up the difference?’
‘Ten.’
Sephy reached over, set down her pizza and rose to her feet at the same instant Luke tried to walk past her and take his seat on the sofa. Their eyes locked as they brushed up against each other and when she pushed her hand into the pocket of her skinny jeans, Luke seemed to press closer, bringing with him a sizzling heat that had all her thought processes scattering.
Sephy’s insides felt as if they were tied to a bungee rope and were hurtling towards the ground before being yanked back up, and then Luke was springing backwards and she was finally remembering why her hand was in her pocket and withdrawing some notes.
Silently she passed him a ten.
Silently he took it from her and shoved it into his jeans pocket before snapping up the control to mute the volume on the TV.
‘I don’t mind if you wanted to watch that,’ Sephy said, glad her voice sounded normal, while everything else inside of her was screaming ‘how do I make it go back to the way it was before I asked him to model for me?’
As if Luke was thinking the exact same thing, he grabbed up his plate and said calmly, ‘You don’t think we ought to try and get past this new weirdness between us?’
‘Weirdness?’ she stalled, her mouth going dry. ‘What weirdness?’
‘The, “you asking me to pose nude in photos to sex up your ad campaign, and me saying no” weirdness.’
‘Oh, that,’ Sephy forced a grin. ‘I’m over that. Although, for the record, I did not ask you to pose in the nude. At least, not entirely,’ she added.
‘So even though you don’t have a model booked and the launch is in less than two weeks, you’re completely okay with how things are?’
Aiming for nonchalance, Sephy waved the hand holding the slice of pizza. ‘Everything will work out,’ she said.
‘You’re not even looking for a model, are you?’ Luke said on a huff of breath.
She stared at the silent TV. ‘I told you – I can’t afford one.’
‘And I told you I’m perfectly happy to help you out with that.’
‘No thanks,’ she said, shoving in a huge mouthful of delicious hot pizza in a bid to keep from following up with a lecture on how she didn’t need anyone’s money.
‘Have you come up with an alternative?’
‘I have chosen to let the banners stand as they are.’
‘And you’re completely happy to do that?’ he pressed.
‘No Mr Spanish Inquisitor,’ she said, with a roll of her eyes, ‘but I have to work with what I have. And what I have is a professionally shot ad campaign that I paid a lot of money for.’
‘Sephy –’
‘What?’ Sephy whipped her head around to look at him, ‘I asked you for help, but you said “no”.’ There was a flash of guilt that dulled the green of his eyes and she really didn’t like how that made her feel, so she added, ‘which you were perfectly entitled to do. I’m a big girl, Luke. I’m not going to hold that against you.’
‘Right. You’ve decided not to resent that the one time you asked me outright for something, I said no?’
‘That’s right, because the last time I checked, I wasn’t a child.’
‘Ha. Let’s put the clucking like a chicken on the evidence table.’
Sephy blushed. ‘That was a mistake.’ She took another bite of food and, after swallowing, said softly, ‘I really don’t resent you for saying no.’
Luke turned back to the TV and lifted the pizza to his mouth before dropping a casual, ‘You know, you could ask Ryan to be your model.’
Sephy snorted and lowered her plate to her lap in shock. ‘I am not asking Ryan.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because.’
Luke turned his head to watch her closely. ‘Because…?’
Because he’s not you.
Sephy was very afraid her eyes had become rather round and large as the realisation that she hadn’t even considered asking Ryan, or anyone else, took proper hold.
Ryan may still have his bad-boy, wild-child looks, but his previous lifestyle had added a tired and jaded edge and, if anything, he now looked like a man who simply wanted peace in his life.
Luke, on the other hand, looked…
Sephy fiddled with the crust of her pizza.
Luke looked like still waters ran deep.
Luke had this quiet, serious and confident, can-take-care-of-himself presence.
But then those dimples would come out to play and that automatically translated as ‘and-I-am-more-than-capable-of-taking-care-of-a-woman’s-needs-at-the-same-time’.
The moment she’d seen Luke holding her bra, she’d known unequivocally the response images of him would evoke. No, she couldn’t afford a professional model, but the truth was she didn’t want a professional model. She wanted Luke.
Not for herself. Obviously. She already knew that kind of complication would lead to her losing his friendship.
Picking off a piece of pepperoni she popped it into her mouth, curled her tongue around it and then said, ‘I’m only just getting to know Ryan again. We’re,’ she broke off to search for the right words, ‘we’re both somehow the complete opposite of how we were when we knew each other the first time round.’
Luke said nothing and, after a moment, reached past her for another slice of pizza.
Sephy’s gaze fixed on his sinewy forearm and the twist of brown leather cord that wrapped around his wrist and rubbed up alongside his chunky, masculine watch. She wondered if the leather had been a gift. God, his hands and arms really would have looked so wonderfully sexy in those photographs.
‘So how is it all going, with Ryan?’
‘Huh?’ She really, really had to snap out of sinking herself into the mental images she kept dreaming up to re-shoot her ad campaign.
‘I was asking about Ryan. It’s all going well?’
‘I guess,’ she answered and then frowned. ‘At least I thought it was.’
‘Why, what’s happened?’
Sephy didn’t know whether to tell him. She was probably worrying about nothing.
‘Seph,’ Luke pushed and the hint of protectiveness in his tone made her smile.
‘He broke up with his girlfriend.’
‘I see.’ Luke finished off the last bite of his pizza, tore off a piece of kitchen roll, rubbed it between his hands until it formed a ball and tossed it onto his plate. ‘And that’s your problem because?’
‘It’s not really,’ she answered, telling him what he wanted to hear and wondering if anyone would ever believe she could care about Ryan simply because he was the father of her child and not because she was starting to develop feelings for him again.
If there was one thing Sephy could rely on about herself it was that a lesson learned was a lesson learned. She didn’t do repeat mistakes. Years of trying to get her father to notice her had taught her that life was too short to keep banging your head against a brick wall.
‘You’re worried Ryan’s going to relapse?’ Luke asked.
‘Maybe.’ It was a distinct possibility. Breaking up with his girlfriend was Ryan’s first real test after coming out of rehab four months ago. What if the upset made him start gambling again?
Her sister Nora was engaged to Ryan’s brother Ethan and Sephy had been dithering over whether she should ring Ethan and let him know. She kind of hoped Ryan had already told him and had been leaning on him for support, but Nora hadn’t said anything and that made her question what shape Ryan was really in.
‘Haven’t you got enough to be worrying about at the minute?’ Luke prompted. ‘Ryan Love is not your responsibility.’
‘I know. I just want him to be the best version of himself. You know? For Daisy. She deserves to have a decent father figure in her life.’
‘She was doing okay before he came along.’
Sephy’s heart dipped at Luke’s automatic defence of her, and then dipped again because she knew that Daisy had already lost her granddad and the special bond the two of them had developed. Then, just as they were all getting to know Jared again, he’d had to return to his own life in New York.
The only constant male figure in Daisy’s life was Luke and in those hours before dawn when Sephy did most of her waking-up-in-a-cold-sweat-parental-worrying, she acknowledged her friendship with Luke was getting to be dangerously close to something she counted on. What if Daisy became too attached to Luke and Luke finally found someone to get serious with and drifted out of their lives?
‘All I really want is for Daisy to get to have that balanced parenting that Ryan could add,’ she admitted to Luke. Before Ryan had broken up with his girlfriend, Sephy had only allowed a few short visits so Daisy could start getting to know him. She hadn’t wanted to force too much contact until she could trust Ryan to stay in the area and want a relationship with his daughter. Now, she worried that if Ryan was struggling and needed to concentrate on himself for a while, and Daisy noticed, things were going to get messy.
‘I’m already dreading how to handle the teenage years,’ Sephy continued. ‘It’ll be just my luck if she ends up like I was at that age.’
‘And how were you when you were that age?’
‘I was –’ Sephy broke off as memories flooded her of all the times she hadn’t so much as snuck back into the house late at night as deliberately announced her return as loudly as possible. Back then she had seen any attention as good attention. She cleared her throat and finished with, ‘Let’s simply say I was not the best version of myself that I could have been.’
Luke looked like he wanted to know more, but she was suddenly filled with the need for a little reciprocation. ‘What were you like as a teenager?’ she asked.
He hesitated, as if quickly weighing up what to go with before finally responding with a one word answer of, ‘Shy.’
Sephy blinked. ‘Shy?’
‘Yep,’ he confirmed, staring down at his hands and flexing his fingers, as if he was deliberately trying to remain relaxed.
‘You?’ Sephy repeated, dumbfounded. ‘You were shy?’
‘I know.’ He flicked a quick glance at her. ‘I guess you can’t even imagine what that would be like, can you?’
‘Guess not.’ There had never been any room for shyness in the King household. ‘Is that why you wouldn’t entertain the idea of doing the photo shoot?’
‘Little bit, yeah.’
Sephy couldn’t believe the quietness she’d always appreciated in him might stem from shyness.
‘I guess I forget that because you don’t look like your typical geek. That doesn’t mean you’re not more comfortable surrounded by and communicating via a bank of computers, but you’re not shy around me,’ she added, thinking aloud.
‘You’re right, I’m not.’
Sephy was still trying to work out a way of asking him precisely what he meant by that when he sat back against the sofa cushions, reminding her how close they were and forcing her to appreciate that it wasn’t that her sofa was miniscule, it was that Luke could hold his own in the large-male-presence stakes.
‘Tell me about why you chose to specialise in underwear rather than outerwear,’ he asked in a fast-and-smooth change of subject that had Sephy needing a moment to catch up.
She stared fixedly at the lingerie on the armchair she usually sat on and decided to accept his change of subject on account of it meaning she could talk about something she understood, as opposed to what might or might not be going on under the surface of their friendship.
‘Why did I choose lingerie? I guess underwear is all about foundation.’
‘Not sexiness?’
Sephy’s nose wrinkled as she smiled, because what woman didn’t like to wear something that made her feel feminine, pretty, seductive and hot? ‘That too – but mostly designing lingerie is about getting the structure right.’
Luke appeared to think for a moment. ‘Feeling rock solid underneath equals feeling invincible on the outside?’
‘Um, yeah.’ Wow. Sephy let her breath out softly. He got it. She tried not to be too impressed.
‘What if someone prefers going commando?’ Luke asked.
