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‘And gone unscathed?’
He laughed. ‘Not exactly.’
A hot ache fired in the pit of her stomach at the deep rumble of his laugh. She lifted her chin and glared at him. ‘Leave me out of your games, Nick,’ she snapped, fighting her body’s traitorous response.
Anger. Her only strength was in anger. She couldn’t afford to weaken. She shrugged out of her suit jacket and opened the back door, tossing it across the back seat. She couldn’t afford for him to see what was in the back. She jerked backwards and slammed the door.
‘They aren’t games, Skye,’ he murmured, reducing the distance between them, looking down into her eyes, at her lips. ‘I’m all grown up now.’
She stepped back, swallowing the ache in her throat and resisting the urge to moisten her lips and look at his mouth. Memories coursed through her mind and body, of the magic his lips could evoke in her, of what they’d once shared, of how much she’d lost.
She pressed her legs against the cold steel of the car, grounding herself. ‘That only means you’re more dangerous than ever.’
‘Thank you.’ He looked down at her, his face half-shadowed. ‘But I promise I won’t bite. Come to dinner with me.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t.’ She looked at her watch and cringed. ‘I have to get home.’
‘Another man?’
She shook her head. The accusation, and his tone, took her back four years. He hadn’t taken her leaving him well—she’d had no choice but to agree to his assumption. Rejecting him totally and utterly on every level had been the only way to ensure that he wouldn’t come after her. ‘It’s none of your business.’
‘I’m trying to make it my business,’ he said softly, his voice deep and velvet-edged.
‘Please don’t.’
‘You’re telling me that you’re not married, not in a serious relationship, yet you’re refusing me?’ He crossed his arms over his chest. ‘On what grounds?’
‘Sanity.’
‘Ha!’
‘Go back to your tall, lanky models, Nick. Leave me out of it.’ Skye grabbed the door handle.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘So, you’re intimidated by what you’ve read in the papers?’
She paused. Darn. She hadn’t meant for him to know how closely she’d been following his life. ‘I’m hardly a model, Nick, and you have to admit they have been your standard fare of late.’
‘Agreed, but that’s not because of their looks,’ Nick said carefully, running his gaze over her as though he was cataloguing just how different she was from his blonde bombshells. Maybe that was the point.
She stared down at the door handle. ‘But they make good trophies hanging off your arm.’ She nearly had enough clippings of him with one pretty woman or another to fill her shoebox—almost as though he was trying to outdo himself, or set a record.
He stiffened. ‘Well, yes, they do, but it’s more that there’s a mutual understanding that the relationships are superficial.’
She let go of the door handle and turned and faced him, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘Do you tell them that?’
He shrugged. ‘Not in so many words.’
‘I wouldn’t think any woman would like to think she meant so little to you.’ She rubbed her arms, her body chilling. Had she meant so little to him? ‘You’re a chauvinistic ass, you know that?’
‘In my defence, I make sure every woman that comes into my life knows how little I think of commitment and marriage and all that junk.’
‘And if she had any argument?’ She knew from experience how clever he was at arguing his point. It was all she could do to keep track of the original dispute and her stance when she’d locked horns with him on one issue or another.
‘You didn’t.’
Skye shook her head. ‘I was young and foolish.’
‘You were beautiful. Are beautiful,’ he said softly.
‘Save your sweet talk for someone who cares.’
‘You don’t?’ He raised his eyebrows, his eyes wide and deep, almost giving him a touch of vulnerability. ‘You don’t think very highly of me, do you?’
She shook her head, not trusting herself to say anything to that. What could she say? He’d been her world…
‘We were good together, Skye.’ Nick’s voice was deep and husky. ‘Remember?’
She swallowed the lump in her throat and shrugged. ‘But some things aren’t meant to be,’ she said as calmly as she could. She opened the car door and slipped inside.
He put a hand on the car roof and leant over her. ‘Some things could be worth another shot.’
She froze, her heart skipping a beat, looking up into his eyes, their brilliant blue colour shining in the light from the car. ‘What are you saying?’
He shrugged. ‘Come out to dinner with me.’
She shook her head. She was dreaming. Her wish could never come true. Nick Coburn was driven by his career—nothing else mattered. ‘I told you, I can’t.’
‘Tomorrow night, then?’
She shook her head, fighting every nerve in her body and every dream in her silly head. There was no future with Nick Coburn.
He pulled back, straightening tall. ‘I’m not going to give up on you easily.’
‘Then I’ll make it hard.’ Skye slammed the door of her car and shoved the key in the ignition. She twisted it and the engine roared to life.
She flicked on the headlights and pulled out of the car park, vividly aware of the dark form standing rigid, watching her.
She had too much to lose to make anything easy for Nick, way too much. And she knew him too well to let him anywhere near her defences, because when she was with him, she didn’t have any.
Nick was a disaster waiting to happen.
CHAPTER FIVE
SKYE pushed open the front door to Camelot, her mind a jumble of clients, times and Nick.
She looked down at her watch. She was late this morning, but she’d had to make up for coming home so late last night.
She hoped her mother would recover quickly so she didn’t have to keep working to this extent, especially anywhere near Nick.
She froze in the doorway. The foyer was filled with flowers—yellow roses, red roses, pink roses, white roses, carnations, daffodils and bunches of mixed blooms, all vibrant with colour. She breathed in the sweet scent, as if she’d stepped into a flower shop or a much-loved garden on a warm spring day. ‘What’s all this?’
Riana stuck her head out from behind a grove of carnations. ‘It’s what it looks like—a lot of flowers,’ she said, a cheeky grin across her face.
‘Nice to see you.’ Her younger sister was an amazing designer, specialising in wedding gowns, with an artistic temperament and a total disregard for office hours. She flitted in and out as she pleased, doing her gowns, and that was about all.
Riana picked up a rose and put it to her nose. ‘And nice to see you. Mum being sick must be a bummer for you.’
Skye nodded. ‘Rick’s being romantic with Tara again, is he?’ Skye’s chest filled with a beautiful warmth as she looked around the foyer. She was so glad her sister had found someone to love, and someone who loved her so much. It made her think that happy-ever-afters weren’t so impossible after all.
She pressed her lips tightly together, fighting the sting behind her eyes. Tara was so lucky.
Skye pulled one of the closest yellow roses towards her and dragged in the warm, rich scent. It was her favourite flower. She remembered all the times that Nick had brought home yellow roses for her.
He’d been an amazing lover. Romantic and caring—in the hours they had together, just brief snatches in time. The rest was work. All work. His driving need to be all he could be his primary focus.
She’d accepted that, and loved that passion for his work in him. She was busy too, and it was only later, when life had thrown her a curve-ball, that she had discovered there would be no future for her with Nick Coburn.
‘No.’ Riana rearranged the flowers in one of the bouquets. ‘The flowers are not for Tara.’
‘You?’ Skye could imagine her younger sister having a string of boyfriends willing to make such a grand gesture for her. She was pretty, young and full of energy.
Riana smiled. ‘They’re for you.’
‘Me?’ Skye’s breath caught in her throat, her heart pounding against her chest. She stepped forward tentatively, touching the small card that lay nestled in the nearest bunch.
Say Yes.
Nick! She’d thought yesterday that he was bluffing. Today…She looked around her and cringed. He had to have bought the entire florist’s stock!
She bit her bottom lip. She knew what he was like with challenges in his life—tenacious, stubborn and devious, not to mention dogged. She’d seen him go after cases, seen his determined study at night, seen how his mind worked.
She was in trouble!
‘So, are you going to say yes to the mystery guy? It isn’t John, is it?’
She shook her head. John. She hadn’t thought of him at all. She slapped her forehead. ‘I forgot to call him back.’ He was the latest in a series of dates set up by her mother, okay company but nothing like Nick.
‘I didn’t think so. John doesn’t strike me as the romantic type and especially not the type to splurge a heap of his hard-earned money on this—’ Riana drew in a deep breath ‘—amazingly romantic gesture.’
Skye wished he had. John would have been easier to handle than Nick Coburn, and she suspected that romance wasn’t exactly what Nick had on his mind…
‘So what should I tell him?’ Riana looked at her expectantly, brushing her dark hair off her face, looking as much like a manic matchmaker as their mother.
‘Nothing.’
Riana raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at her.
‘Where’s Maggie?’ She was usually in at this time of day. And, of all people, Riana would know—the two of them hung out together a lot of the time.
‘She called in to say she felt sick.’ Riana perched herself on the small corner of the reception desk that didn’t have flowers on it. ‘She figured a day of rest, chicken soup and watching a soap or three would fix her up. And I decided that I could man her desk for her while I design the Macdonald gown, and Tara’s, too.’
‘That’s great. Thanks.’ Skye bit her lip. The last thing they needed was Maggie out sick for any length of time.
‘So—’ Riana clapped her hands and grinned. ‘Who should I tell that answer to?’
Skye stiffened. ‘Nothing to no one.’
‘No reply? To this? Are you crazy?’
A delivery man strode into the room with flowers in his arms. ‘Another delivery for Skye Andrews,’ he stated dryly. He placed the three foot high bouquet of red roses, complete with glass vase, on the floor beside Maggie’s desk.
Riana stared at the vase then at Skye. ‘We’ll drown in flowers if you don’t answer him.’
‘Okay, we’ll answer him.’ Skye looked around the offices, willing her mind to work. ‘Where’s the shredder?
‘You’re not going to shred all these beautiful flowers? You can’t,’ Riana squeaked. ‘Skye?’
Skye strode across the reception area and froze in her office doorway. If she’d thought there were a lot of flowers in the foyer there were twice as many in her office. Every surface was covered in them.
‘Riana!’ She turned back to her sister.
Riana strolled up to her, standing beside her in the doorway. She shrugged. ‘The first delivery guy was here waiting when I opened up this morning.’
Skye stared at the beautiful bouquets. Just how many deliveries had there been? ‘How am I going to work?’
‘Say yes.’
She shook her head. The fact that every flower was one of her favourites and there weren’t any that she disliked meant something. Did Nick keep notes in his little black book on each woman he dated—how else could he have remembered?
Skye strode across her office to her desk. If he thought that she was still the young girl she’d been when he’d first met her, he was mistaken. She’d grown up. She wasn’t going to roll over and accept anything at face value, especially this.
She knew what he was like, knew what games he liked to amuse himself with, knew how much he enjoyed getting people to roll over on their previous decisions and come round to his way of thinking.
He wasn’t going to get that sort of satisfaction from her, not after everything she’d been through.
If Nick Coburn wanted to play, fine. She had a few games of her own!
Nick flicked another page in the deposition, glancing at the phone again. Any minute now and she’d call him and say yes. He couldn’t help but smile.
Her place would look like the Botanical Gardens by now. He couldn’t help but smile. If she had been in any doubt that he was serious about his invitation to her, she wouldn’t be now.
He looked at the clock on the wall. Hell, she was stubborn. She’d lasted longer than he’d first thought she would. How many flowers did a girl need to conclude he was seriously interested in taking her out?
Nick would do whatever it took. Money was not an issue. He felt a swell of satisfaction. Just to think it made him taste his sweet success. He’d done what his father, and his brother, hadn’t.
Marrying his mother at twenty-two had, as far as his father was concerned, put paid to his aspirations of becoming a lawyer. He said it had doused his energy and his drive, sucking away his commitment to going back to school.
Nick knew his father had struggled to make enough for their family to get by, sometimes doing two shifts at the factory.
