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Sapphie opened her mouth to respond but Ruby held up her hand.
‘During that time you didn’t date. You didn’t eat either. But that’s another lecture you’ve already had.’ Ruby tapped her bottom lip, pretending to ponder. ‘And, as I recall, one of the things you said when I picked you up from Tenang two weeks ago was, “I really need a date—bad.”’
‘You said it. Date being the operative word. Date—not business colleague.’
‘That’s beside the point and you know it.’ Ruby dunked a Tim Tam in her espresso. Pushy and sacrilegious. ‘It’s not like you guys are strangers. You hung out all through senior year—’
‘Once again, that was for work. We were Biology lab partners, that’s all.’
Ruby waved the Tim Tam around; it would serve her right if it softened, and the dunked bit fell off and landed on the floor.
‘I’m not that much younger than you, Saph, and I remember the way you’d be after studying with him.’
Sapphie clamped her lips shut. Of course she’d looked different after studying with Patrick. The guy had driven her insane with his lack of concentration and constant distractions.
‘You’d look the same way you did yesterday. Glowing.’
Sapphie waited until Ruby had stuffed the Tim Tam into her mouth so she couldn’t respond.
‘I was a serious student and Patrick’s mission in life was to make our study sessions as hard as humanly possible. He was a pain in the ass. Who may have made cramming for exams bearable with his bickering. So that glow was probably relief that for a few hours a week I could forget about everything else and just be a kid, maybe even laugh a little.’
Ruby’s hand paused halfway to her mouth as Opal darted confused glances between them.
‘As for yesterday? Already told you. I probably caught too much sun while doing yoga out the back.’
Opal smirked at that one, while Ruby shook her head. ‘You know how I feel about you shouldering the load and the unrealistic expectations Mum put on you. Not fair. Not by a long shot. So the fact Patrick made you laugh…don’t you want to recapture that feeling again?’
Ruby didn’t have to say it but the rest of her sentence hung in the air, unsaid…After all you’ve been through?
She knew Ruby wouldn’t let this go until she gave her a snippet of truth. ‘’Course I want to feel carefree, but that’s just it, Rubes. All the meditation and yoga and Pilates in the world aren’t going to change facts. Sure, I’ve learned to chill, but I am who I am, and the best way for me to start feeling good again is to do what I do best. Work. Run Sea-borns. Contribute.’
Ensure she could cope physically with the demands of a job she loved.
That was what had scared her most during recovery—hoping her body could keep up with her mind.
She had so many plans she wanted to instigate, so many ways to ensure Seaborns stayed on top in the jewellery business, but she wouldn’t be able to do a darn thing if her body let her down.
Hopefully, with a little TLC, her battered body would be back to its invincible best soon.
‘Crazy workaholic,’ Opal muttered, pretending she didn’t see the death glare Sapphie shot her.
‘You can still do all those things and have fun,’ Ruby said, slinging an arm across her shoulders. ‘The thing is, if you’re so busy working and getting this showing together, how will you have time to find a date? Bonking Patrick kills two birds with one stone—’
‘How about killing two family members with one stone?’ Sapphie jabbed a finger at the octagonal lapis lazuli pendant hanging around her sister’s neck. ‘That’s big enough to do the trick.’
Opal laughed and pointed at Ruby. ‘She started it.’
Ruby chuckled and squeezed her shoulders. ‘Think about it, okay? You’re busy but you need to have a little fun. Patrick seems like the perfect solution.’
Unfortunately Sapphie happened to agree.
She could protest all she liked but Ruby made sense. She’d be working on this showing with him twenty-four-seven. She wouldn’t have time to socialise let alone date.
Would it be so bad to give in to a little harmless flirtation?
Only one problem. Considering how her body came to life around him, how harmless would the flirtation be?
Several hours later Patrick questioned the wisdom of meeting Sapphire at her place to work.
Keeping his hands off her in the sterility of his office had been difficult enough without this…this…cosiness.
Meeting at the Seaborns showroom should have been entirely business-focussed. Instead they’d reported their day’s progress in an hour and made an agenda for tomorrow in the following thirty minutes. Leaving him pacing the tiny apartment over the showroom while she ‘slipped into something more comfortable.’
Yeah, she’d actually said those words, completely ingenu-ous—until he’d snorted. Only then had recognition dawned.
She’d rolled her eyes at him, accused him of having a filthy mind and strolled into the bedroom, slipping off her towering ebony patent leather pumps along the way.
The black seam of her stockings, starting at her heel and running all the way up her legs and underneath her knee-length crimson skirt had not helped the filthy mind situation.
If any other woman had uttered those words he would have been prepped for a bout of wild sex. Coming from Sapphire, after ninety minutes of work focus, he acknowledged it for what it was. The simple statement of a tired workaholic who wanted to change out of her business suit.
He knew the feeling. Following her example, he unknotted his tie and stuffed it into his jacket, hanging on the back of a chair. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled them up to his elbows but stopped short of slipping off his pants. Time enough for her to see his boxers.
Chuckling under his breath at what she’d think of that cocky declaration, he wandered around the apartment. The place wasn’t like Sapphire at all, with its ethnic cushions in bright colours, mismatched multi-coloured bottles serving as vases and a stack of chick-flicks in towering disarray next to an ancient DVD player.
She’d told him Ruby used to live here, before she’d moved out recently to be with her husband, and that Sapphire found it convenient while she eased back into the business.
When he’d asked why she had to ease back she’d clammed up and made a big deal of going over their itineraries for the next week.
Discomfort had made her babble so he’d let her off the hook. For now. Day two of the frantic month’s work ahead wasn’t the best time to be interrogating his colleague. He’d bide his time. Maybe a fine bottle of Grange wouldn’t go astray?
Great, not only was he assuming he’d get her naked, he wanted to get her drunk too.
Way to go with his reformation.
Those days of carousing were long behind him. He’d grown tired of the paparazzi’s constant scandalmongering in Paris, had found their scrutiny of his social life tiresome. Sure, his lifestyle had served its purpose, getting them to focus on his wild ways rather than that botched first showing, but it had reached a stage where he hadn’t been able to travel through Europe without some journo assuming it involved a woman, a secret assignation, or both.
And when there was nothing they simple invented it. Funny how one mistake in his past had long-term ramifications. Despite him towing the company line for many years now, he’d never shaken the feeling the paparazzi were one step away from reviving the disaster of his early show.
So he’d played up to the party animal image, hung around Serge despite the two of them growing apart in the maturity stakes, because it had been way easier being seen as a playboy than as a disillusioned guy out to prove himself.
His parents had written him off a long time ago, so nothing he’d done socially mattered. As long as he stuck to the rules where Fourde Fashion was concerned they were happy.
Those rules were mighty restricting, and not conducive to creativity, but he’d done what he had to do the last few years to regain respectability in a cut throat industry that didn’t give too many second chances.
It had been part of his long-term goal to become a valued member of Fourde Fashion, because no way could he pull off his plans unless he had an established name in the biz.
After the ‘ flamboyant, avant garde, cutting edge’ show that had cost the company thousands when he’d first started, he’d learned to bide his time.
He’d known the fashion world would be ready for a contemporary transformation eventually. It was just a matter of when. Lucky for him, that time was now.
He’d watched the tide turn in Europe with increasing excitement. Sure, there would always be a place for classic couture houses like Dior, Chanel and Fourde Fashion, but an influx of young designers had seen a few indie collections that made his blood fizz with anticipation.
The modern wave wasn’t taking over the catwalks yet, but give it time. And he intended on cresting that wave with contemporary designs the fashion world had never seen.
Opening a branch of Fourde Fashion in Melbourne couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. It gave him time to prove he could launch a successful solo show and lend kudos to his upcoming venture.
The one driving force behind everything he did these days.
He picked up a photo of Sapphire and Ruby, with their arms slung across each other’s shoulders outside the gigantic laughing mouth of Luna Park, and rubbed the dust off the glass with his thumb. It must have been taken a few years after he’d left. Ruby looked in her late teens, Sapphire early twenties, but the age difference was more pronounced by the worldly expression on Sapphire’s face.
She didn’t look like a young, carefree woman having a fun day hanging out with her sister at a St Kilda amusement park. The slight crease between her brows, the rigid posture, the half-smile screamed too much responsibility.
He should know. His siblings had worn the same expression since the time they’d graduated from high school and gone straight into the fashion business, taking night courses to stock up on their theoretical knowledge while working alongside their folks during the day. Before they’d all moved to Paris, leaving him behind.
He’d thought it pretty cool at the time, being trusted enough to live with a dotty aunt who didn’t care what time he got home from school or who he brought with him. At least that was what he’d told himself in order to handle the seething emotions he’d hidden deep down.
Though what had he expected? Considering his folks’ focus on Fourde Fashion, it shouldn’t have come as any great surprise that they’d left him behind.
His family were virtual strangers. Living in the same house, barely conversing. Jerome had sat him down when he’d turned twelve and told him the cold, hard facts. With two teenagers, their folks hadn’t banked on having a third child—a ‘mistake’. They had goals to achieve and glass ceilings to shatter.
Jerome’s advice had been simple: if he didn’t expect anything he wouldn’t be let down.
He’d remembered that when they’d left him behind, but it hadn’t made the pain any easier.
They’d cited a logical reason, of course: wanting him to finish his education at the prestigious private school so he had a ‘good grounding in order to enter the family business’ when he joined them.
No choice. An order. One that he’d been determined to ignore until he’d got lousy grades for his final exams and realised he’d rather be doing something creative than bumming off his folks.
When he’d joined them in Paris and the PR magazine job had fallen through he’d been determined to prove his worth. He’d been given free rein to demonstrate what he could do and ended up costing the company and losing his parents’ respect because of it.
In not following protocol, being cocky and over-confident, he’d let his family down. And it seemed as if nothing since had been able to convince them of his seriousness when it came to work.
The long hours he put in, the extra duties he assumed, the collaborations he worked on—all had garnered the barest of recognition from his folks. Sure, they’d given him an end-of-year-bonus like the rest of their workers but the acknowledgement he secretly craved, where they’d recognise his creativity as being ahead of its time, had never come.
Until he’d realised something. He could never be who he truly wanted to be while under the Fourde Fashion brand.
For that was all his parents cared about: living up to their name, producing the same kinds of clothes with a different twist according to season and year. They wanted to deliver on the promise of sameness, while he longed to be different.
It made good business sense, and their long-standing reputation in the fashion industry was testament to it but he was tired of being part of a crowd.
He wanted to stand out—wanted his designs to stand out.
But first he had to ensure Fourde Fashion in Melbourne produced the best show Fashion Week had ever seen.
His swansong for Fourde’s and a launching pad for him.
Doubts plagued him—had he read the fashion scene correctly or was the timing all wrong again—but he’d never know unless he tried.
He’d mentioned leaving the company to his folks and they’d hardly blinked. No begging him to stay. No heaping praise on him as a valued worker. They’d given him the customary brush-off with ‘we’ll discuss this later’ and assigned him to head up the Melbourne office.
If they thought the token CEO role would make him stay with the company, they were mistaken.
He appreciated the opportunity, but that was all it was. An opportunity for bigger and better things. Done his way.
And then he’d put his other plans into action.
‘Don’t know about you but I’m starving.’ Sapphire padded silently into the room, barefoot, hair down, clad in worn denim and a teal tee, and he took extra care replacing the photo on the table, so he wouldn’t give away the slight tremor of his hands. Hands that wanted to be all over her.
She frowned when she noticed he’d been checking out old photos. ‘I’m ordering take-out. You’re welcome to stay.’
He should go.
He should grab his stuff, head for the office, and bury himself in work all night in an effort to forget how sweet and tousled and available she looked right at this very minute.
He should remind himself how important this showing was, and how getting involved with Sapphire Seaborn on any level other than business was a monumentally daft idea.
‘Sounds good,’ he said, silently cursing his weakness when it came to this intriguing woman.
‘Fancy anything in particular?’ She rifled through a stack of restaurant flyers next to the phone, glancing up when he didn’t answer.
She had Indian in one hand, Thai in the other, and all he could think was how he’d like to devour her.
His hungry gaze started at her feet, the high arches and long toes, moved up legs encased in denim that could have been poured on, skirted around the area that had driven his decision to stick around, lingered on her small, firm breasts before eventually meeting her eyes.
He’d expected censure and condemnation for his blatant perving. He hadn’t expected an answering heat that had him hard in a second.
If she gave him a sign—any sign—that she wanted this as much as he did he’d vault the sofa and take her up against the wall.
He willed her to say something, to be brave enough to articulate what was zapping between them.
For the decision had to come from her. He knew what he wanted—hot, wild sex—but would she view it the same way?
Sapphire was so intense, so focussed, would she read too much into a quickie to take the edge off?
He’d never mixed business with pleasure before, had turned down numerous models, campaign managers and even rival CEOs. It never did to complicate matters. But this time with Sapphire he’d compartmentalise.
But would she be able to do the same?
His fingers curled into his palms and he clenched his hands into fists, holding himself perfectly still. He couldn’t afford movement, for when he did move it would be in a beeline straight for her.
Their gazes locked for an eternity—his taunting her to accept his unspoken dare, hers surprisingly bold.
He waited, unaware he’d been holding his breath until she broke the deadlock and his lungs emptied in a rush.
‘I fancy Thai.’
Not quite the I fancy you he’d been hoping to hear and not half as satisfying he’d hazard a guess.
