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She blew out a breath and cast him a shamefaced glance from beneath her lashes. ‘Okay, so I might have misled you a bit about that night. You didn’t kiss me. You didn’t even try but—’
‘Then why did you let me think I had?’ Luke dropped his hand from her face and frowned as if he was doing it for The Guinness Book of Records.
Abby’s cheeks were feeling so hot she thought she might end up with a world record herself. ‘I don’t know...’
‘You don’t know?’ His voice had a razor-sharp edge to it that nicked at her nerves.
She bit down on her lip. ‘I guess I was a bit shocked when I found you so out of it that night. I stupidly jumped to conclusions and assumed you were drunk.’
‘But why mislead me to believe I made a pass at you if I didn’t even touch you?’
‘Actually, you did touch me.’
His eyes flared as if her words shocked him to the core. ‘Where did I...?’ He left the question hanging in the air.
‘You put your arm around my waist when I helped you into bed,’ Abby said. ‘And you rested your head on my shoulder and looked at me kind of like you were thinking about kissing me.’ She couldn’t bring herself to mention the way he’d stroked her face.
‘There’s a big difference between thinking and doing.’
Abby looked up into his frowning gaze and blinked back the sting of tears. She’d taught herself not to cry over the years but she was scarily close to breaking point. ‘Please, Luke, don’t make me beg. I’m really sorry about my little white lie. I shouldn’t have made you think you’d almost kissed me. But I have a lot riding on this ball. It’s just one night and then it will be over and I won’t ask you to do another thing for me ever again. I promise.’
‘Why’s the ball such a big deal? Isn’t it just another one of your show pony parties?’
Show pony parties? Was that how he saw her? As some shallow little party hopper with nothing better to do than have a spray tan and get a manicure? Which reminded her—she had to get a spray tan and a manicure. ‘I know my career must seem ridiculously vacuous to a nerdy engineer like you, but I happen to love working at a gossip magazine and tomorrow night is the biggest fundraising event of the year,’ Abby said. ‘There’s a silent auction as well as a live auction and amazing lucky door prizes worth thousands of pounds and a dinner cooked by celebrity chefs to raise funds for a children at risk charity. The ball has a three-to four-year waiting list for tickets. I can’t not go because my boss will fire me when she finds out I’ve been pretending to be engaged all along. And I especially can’t show up without my other half since we were nominated as one of this year’s most popular and influential couples.’
His frown was a deep trench between his night sky eyes. ‘You’re going to have to tell everyone eventually you aren’t in a relationship.’
Abby knew she would have to announce some sort of breakup eventually, but how much easier would that be if Luke stood in as her fiancé at the ball? She could even blog and tweet breakup tips once the ball was out of the way. The thought of telling everyone that she, the relationships expert, was single and still a virgin was not something she wanted to do in a hurry—if ever. ‘But don’t you see? I need a stand-in fiancé in order to break up with him. I’ll find someone for myself eventually. Maybe I’ll try one of those dating apps. But I have to get through the ball first.’
He did an I-can’t-believe-you’re-for-real eye-roll and made a move to the sitting room door, holding it open in a pointed manner. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I have some work to get back to.’
Abby knew this was her last chance to get him to change his mind. ‘Please, please, please do this for me, Luke. Just for a couple of hours. You can leave early—no one will suspect anything. Think of all those poor little disadvantaged kids you’ll be helping. You will literally be changing their lives by pretending to be my fiancé for two hours.’
He kept looking at her without speaking for so long she began to mentally dictate her resignation letter. But then he released a long and weighted sigh. ‘All right—you win. I’ll take you for two hours, tops. But you have to accept this is a one-off occasion and it will not be repeated.’
Abby was flooded with such a tide of relief she had to stop from flinging herself into his arms and hugging him. Or kissing him, which was even more tempting than she wanted to admit. ‘Okay. Okay. Of course. I only need you for one night. I promise.’
They briefly discussed arrangements about Luke picking her up and what to wear and then he walked her to the front door of his house. ‘One other thing,’ he said.
Abby glanced up at him. ‘Yes?’
He seemed to be having some trouble keeping his gaze away from her mouth. It kept tracking back to it as if programmed to do so. ‘I might be standing in for someone who doesn’t actually exist but that’s as far as your little fantasy goes. Understood?’
Abby wondered what he meant by such a comment. ‘I hope you’re not thinking I’d want you to actually marry me because that’s just utterly ridiculous.’
‘Good to know,’ he said. ‘See you tomorrow, Cinderella.’
CHAPTER TWO (#u2810455d-ea09-5de9-9528-46c651e99e44)
LUKE CLOSED THE door after Abby left and let out a curse so blue he was mildly surprised to find the walls of his hallway were still white. Damn that girl. How had she got him to say yes? Had she cast some sort of spell on him? Why had he agreed to such a charade? He didn’t do balls. He didn’t do parties. He didn’t even do dinners unless work required it of him.
And he definitely didn’t date.
Since Kimberley’s death he’d had no motivation to date. He felt the urge now and again but he just as quickly squashed it. He was a bad bet when it came to relationships. He had tried with Kimberley. And tried damn hard because with his father playing musical partners like some sort of born-again playboy, Luke had wanted to prove to himself he wasn’t cut from the same cloth. But, for all his efforts to be a good partner, his relationship with Kimberley had floundered and he’d called time on it. He hadn’t felt ready to take their relationship to the next level. Kimberley had stayed overnight several times a week and had even left some clothes and toiletries at his house, but he hadn’t been willing for her to move in with him permanently. It had seemed too much of a commitment. Back then he hadn’t been against marriage, he’d seen it as something he might do one day with the right person, yet over time it had become obvious Kimberley wasn’t the right person.
But within hours of him ending their relationship Kimberley was dead.
The thought of a new relationship made him feel claustrophobic. Like someone was wrapping him in steel cords, pulling them tighter and tighter and tighter until he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think of the word commitment without his chest seizing.
But helping Abby with her little problem... Well, it had been rather nice of her to make sure he was okay that night six months ago, and he was grateful she hadn’t sent his mother and sister into a fit of panic over him ‘drinking’ by telling them about it. Abby had come on her own to pick up something Ella had left behind the day before. He wished he could remember more about that night, but Kimberley’s birthday was always hard and it always triggered a migraine. Always. He’d come home from Kimberley’s parents’ house, where they’d had a cake complete with candles. Even presents she’d never open.
They always invited him and he always went out of respect. Out of duty.
Out of guilt.
There was a part of him that wished he hadn’t opened the door to Abby that night. He’d only been home half an hour and he’d had half a glass of wine—foolish, he knew—to try and ease the tension behind his eyes, but then the migraine had hit him like a sledgehammer and wiped out his motherboard, so to speak.
But he could remember Abby arriving on his doorstep with a sunny smile and those amazingly bright and clear toffee-brown eyes looking up at him like a cute spaniel.
And her mouth.
He had no trouble remembering her mouth. He could be in an induced coma for a century and still be aware of it. Dear God, what was it about her mouth? It never failed to pull his gaze to its plump fullness. It never failed to make him fantasise about how those luscious lips would feel under his. Damn it. It made him think of sex. With her.
Which was downright wrong given she was his kid sister’s best friend.
That was a line he wasn’t going to cross. There were some things you didn’t do, and that was definitely one of them. That was, if he was actually interested in having a relationship with anyone, which he wasn’t.
Not again.
He didn’t want the responsibility of someone else’s emotional upkeep. How could he ever relax in a relationship after being blindsided by Kimberley’s tragic end? Even though he hadn’t loved her, it didn’t mean he didn’t deeply regret her passing. Every day since he’d thought of all the things she was missing out on, the things her family were missing out on. Nothing he could say or do would ever make up for their loss.
He couldn’t do that to another person, to another family. He was better out of the dating game so there was no possibility of anyone getting hurt.
But what was he going to do about Abby?
One of the little flashes of memory Luke had of that night was Abby’s chestnut hair tickling his face when he leaned his pounding head against her shoulder. Her hair smelt of spring flowers. Her touch... He couldn’t remember if she’d touched him first or if he’d touched her...
But no matter. The crucial thing was he remembered how it felt. It was the same feeling he had when he’d touched her face earlier. Her skin was as soft as the petal of a magnolia bloom. Her nose had a cute dusting of tiny freckles over the bridge that reminded him of chocolate sprinkled on the top of a cappuccino.
He might not have kissed her that night but he’d sure as hell wanted to. He remembered all too clearly. How could he forget a mouth like that, migraine or not? He’d thought about that mouth for the last six months. Thought and fantasised about holding Abby in his arms, touching her, kissing her.
And, yes, God strike him down, making love to her.
Luke wasn’t sure why he’d finally agreed to be her stand-in fiancé. Well, maybe he did know. Seeing Abby’s tears had triggered something in him. Worry that she would do something. Something silly and reckless that would destroy...
He pulled away from the thought. No, Abby wasn’t like Kimberley. Abby was pragmatic and resourceful and resilient in a way Kimberley hadn’t been. Abby’s tears were understandable given the ball was a big deal for her. It was two hours of his time and he surely owed her that since her Florence Nightingale act six months ago.
Two hours pretending to be Abby’s Mr Perfect.
How hard could it be?
* * *
Abby was trying to pull up her zip at the back of her ball gown when she heard Luke arrive at her flat the night of the ball. She gathered the back of her dress in one hand and shuffled out of her bedroom to answer the front door. She hadn’t seen Luke in black tie before. Even in casual clothes he was traffic-stopping gorgeous. But in formal attire he would have stopped air traffic. Possibly even a space shuttle. At take-off.
He was certainly stopping her breath. She had to swallow a couple of times to get her voice to work. ‘H...hi. I’m having some trouble with this zip. Do you think you could give me a hand?’
‘Sure.’ He stepped inside and closed the door. ‘Turn around.’
Abby held her breath as his fingers drew the zip up her back, the gentle brush of his knuckles on her bare skin sending a shiver shimmying down her spine and straight into her lady land. Secretly fizzing and smouldering there like an ignited wick. She could feel the tall frame of his body within half a step of hers, triggering her hormones like they had never been triggered before. It was as if her body recognised something in his—something deeply primal and elemental. Her senses were singing like a mezzo-soprano in the Royal Albert Hall. If she so much as leaned back she could be flush against his chest and hips and...other things.
Male things.
But the zip would only go to a certain point.
‘There’s a bit of fabric caught up in the mechanism,’ Luke said and continued working on it, bending over so his warm breath as well as his fingers brushed over her skin.
She suppressed a shiver and breathed in so he could gain better access, at the same time breathing in his aftershave, this time lemon and lime and a faint trace of bergamot with an understory of country leather. She couldn’t stop thinking of his hands going lower, dipping down to the curve of her bottom, caressing her, shaping her, slipping his fingers between her legs...
Finally the zip moved all the way up and Luke stepped back. ‘That’s done it.’
That’s done it all right. Abby hadn’t felt so turned on in her life. She turned around and hoped her wicked thoughts were not painted bright red on her face. But it certainly felt like it. If she didn’t stop blushing soon she’d be able to turn the heating down. Or off. ‘Erm... I have something else for you to do... I’ll just get it from my bedroom.’
Abby came back out with the fake diamond pendant she wanted to wear and handed it to him. It was a very good fake. You could hardly tell the difference. Hardly. ‘The catch is so tiny I can never do it up by myself.’
Luke trailed the fine chain over his fingers, his narrowed gaze examining the ‘diamond.’ ‘Who bought you this?’
‘You did.’
His brows came together. ‘When did I ever—?’
‘Not you as in you,’ Abby said. ‘You as in Mr Perfect. My fiancé.’
His expression seemed to suggest he thought a white van and a straitjacket might be handy right about now. ‘Are you serious? You actually buy stuff and pretend it’s from someone who doesn’t exist, other than in your imagination?’
‘So? It’s all for a good cause,’ Abby said. ‘I help people. It’s what I do. I help them have better love lives.’
‘While presumably having no love life of your own.’ There was a dry edge to his tone.
‘Like you can talk.’ Abby turned around rather than face his piercing gaze. She had her hair in an up-do that gave him free access to her neck but even so every fine hair reacted to the presence of his fingers with tingles and shivers that went straight to her core.
‘How do you know I don’t have a love life?’ she said, turning back around once the necklace was in place. ‘I might have dozens of secret lovers stashed away.’
‘None of whom you’ve managed to convince to take you to the ball.’ He shrugged at her beady look. ‘Just saying.’
Abby wasn’t going to go into the details of why she’d got to the age of twenty-three without having dated regularly or had sex with anyone. Even Ella didn’t know the full story. How could she tell her best friend her mother was a heroin-addicted prostitute? And that hearing her mother service her clients in the next room—and in the same room when she had been under three—had seriously messed with Abby’s sexual development? She had only been kissed a couple of times and had called a halt before anyone could get any closer. She even wondered if she was frigid.
‘I would have dated someone well before this but I got the job at the magazine, which, quite frankly, I didn’t expect in a million squillion years to get,’ Abby said. ‘I was the least qualified candidate but somehow they chose me. I wrote my first couple of columns about my childhood sweetheart and somehow the readers assumed he actually existed. And then because they loved hearing about him so much I had to keep running with it.’
‘How long have you worked at the magazine?’
‘Two and a half years.’
His frown hadn’t left his forehead but was now even deeper. ‘You’ve been pretending for two and a half years that you’re—?’
‘I know it sounds crazy. It probably is crazy but I wanted that job so much and I was prepared to do anything to get it.’
‘Anything?’
Abby did a little lip chew. ‘Well, maybe not anything, but pretending to be engaged to a guy who ticks all the boxes wasn’t that hard. I mean, guys like that must exist, right? People do get married and live happily-ever-after.’
‘Just as many end up in the divorce courts.’
‘Just because your parents went through a hideous divorce when you were a teenager doesn’t mean—’
‘If we don’t get going soon your two hours will be up before we even get to the ball,’ Luke said, tinkling his car keys, his look more forbidding than a Keep Out sign on an army-training minefield.
Abby picked up her wrap from the back of the sofa where she’d left it earlier. She wrapped it around her shoulders, refusing to be daunted by the boxed up set to his features. ‘If Kimberley hadn’t died would you two have got married?’
‘Abby.’ His voice was like a stop sign.
‘I’m sorry. Am I being pushy? I just wondered how long you dated.’
His lips were pressed almost flat. ‘Three years.’
‘Did you ever discuss it? Marriage, I mean?’
A muscle flickered near his mouth like a faulty switch during a power surge. ‘Look, do you want me to take you to this damn ball or not?’
Abby hadn’t worked in journalism for nothing. She had been known to get blood out of stones before. Whole litres of it. It was a trick of hers to get people talking about themselves so she didn’t have to share anything about herself. ‘Were you in love with her?’
He opened the front door and jerked his head towards the exit. ‘Out.’ His eyes were dark and brooding with bottled-up anger. Anger or something else...
Abby shifted her lips from side to side in a musing manner. ‘Are you angry with me or at life in general? Grief can do that to—’
‘Don’t play the amateur psychologist with me,’ he said. ‘Save it for those foolish enough to fall for it.’
‘I’m sensing a little resistance from you on the subject of your relationship with—’
‘I wasn’t in love with her, okay?’ He took a deep breath as if to calm himself, one of his hands rubbing over his face like he wanted to erase something. ‘And no, I wasn’t going to marry her.’
‘But you still miss her.’
He gave a movement of his lips that was closer to a grimace than anything near a smile. ‘She was a nice young woman. She didn’t deserve to have her life cut short.’
Abby touched his arm. ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you moved on with your life. You don’t have to grieve for her for ever.’
The way he looked at her made her insides suddenly quiver. ‘Are you offering yourself as a replacement?’
