by Ally Blake
“Stupid,” Cat called out. “The S-word was ‘stupid’. And that driver was stupid. Right, Sonny?”
Eyes wide, Sonny nodded. “He really was, Mum.”
Then suddenly Sonny tugged his hand from hers and bolted, right as Angus’s deep voice boomed across the lofty space, “Hey! Kid!”
“Uncle Angus!” Sonny cried as he threw himself at Angus’s suit-clad leg.
“Speak of the devil,” Cat murmured as she sauntered up to stand by Lucinda, arms crossed.
Freshly shaven and in a dark charcoal suit, the man did look as if he could charm anyone out of anything. Then, with a growl, he leant over, grabbed Sonny by the waist and flipped him upside down till Sonny’s laughter bounced off the walls.
If Cat’s intention had been to use Sonny as a prophylactic, it wasn’t working, as Lucinda’s heart clutched so hard she winced. But it was a good kind of pain. As it always was watching her two favourite guys together.
Sonny was so thirsty for a good man to look up to and Angus, though he’d never admit it, more in need of a family than anyone she’d ever met.
Then Angus looked up, searching the vast lobby till his gaze landed on hers. And caught. All hooded dark eyes and simmering charisma.
Then Angus ambled her way, slowly tipping Sonny the right way up. And Lucinda felt herself catapulted right back to the night before, standing in the bathroom, hands running over her sexy negligée, thinking about him.
“You need a tissue? To wipe up the drool,” Cat said, right in her ear.
“Oh, shut up.”
“Morning, Catriona,” Angus said as he came to a halt before their little tableau.
“Angus,” she said with a nod.
“This is a nice surprise.”
“Is it?”
Angus had the good grace to grin. Then he turned to Lucinda. The impact of those deep, clever eyes of his made her come over all fluttery. “I found this pet monkey roaming the lobby. Any clue who it belongs to? Or should I give it to lost property?”
“I’m her son!” said Sonny, jumping up and down, trying to catch Angus’s eye.
“Her son?” Angus asked. “Well, hello, Her Son.”
Sonny laughed so hard he clutched his side. “It’s Sonny.”
“Sonny, you say? Well, that’s a far better name.” Angus held out a hand. “I’m Angus Wolfe.”
Sonny flopped a hand into Angus’s.
“This way, remember?” said Angus, catching Sonny’s eye. Then he shifted the limp hand into the proper grip, waited for Sonny to grip harder and they shook three times.
Angus smiled at Sonny. Lucinda smiled at Angus. And Cat groaned as if she was in physical pain.
“Look, Angus and I have about half an hour before we need to get to work.” She could grab a pastry from the conference coffee-cart. “Would you like me to help you guys find your room first?”
“Yes!” Sonny yelled.
“Okay, then. Let’s get this show on the road.”
Lucinda held out her hand to Sonny. He took it, then held out his other hand to Angus.
S-word, S-word, S-word.
When she looked up at Angus he was watching her, his face inscrutable, before he took a subtle step back. “Go on, kiddo. I’ll catch you later, okay?”
“Okay,” said Sonny, his shoulders rounding tragically.
“Oh, good gravy,” Cat muttered. “We were up with the sparrows this morning. I need a lie down. And a coffee. Let’s check out our fabulous room, hey kid? Goodbye Angus.”
“Catriona. Lucinda.”
“I’ll make it quick,” Lucinda promised.
Angus nodded and Lucinda felt the burn of his eyes in the middle of her back until they turned the corner leading to the lifts.
“Do you think it’s going to rain, Mum?” Sonny asked.
Lucinda smiled down at him. “Not a chance.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
BY SIX O’CLOCK that evening, Lucinda’s nerves were shot.
Not from the conference, which was fantastic, and they’d really hit their straps. By then most of the attendees knew who they were—who Angus was, at any rate—had heard that he’d volunteered to help them update their brand and someone had researched him enough to know he was doing the same for Remède.
As big fans of the venerable label, so many came forward with thoughts, advice and stories about the times Remède products had marked different periods of their lives.
Angus had insisted they stick together for the day—take the same sessions, sit in on the same conversations, two heads being better than one. Meaning she’d had to cope with his hand at her back as they’d all snuggled into a lift, the brush of his arm as he’d reached for a pen, the constant hum of his body heat simmering away beside her.
Add the fact that Sonny kept messaging from Cat’s phone asking when she’d be done.
She’d originally booked dinner for two: romantic corner booth in the resort’s premier restaurant. The chef was famous. He’d been on TV. Now, with the conference awards dinner later that night, and her little boy to consider, she’d changed to a table for three at six pm, at the family restaurant with the kids’ play room. That phone call to change the booking had physically hurt.
But she’d long since chosen places to eat according to what Sonny might like on the menu. Turned out, that night it didn’t much help. He was not in an amiable mood.
Sonny was tired of wandering around the hotel. Bored. He didn’t want to answer questions about school the day before. Or how his junior AFL team might have gone without him—probably quite well, as he still preferred making shadow puppets to actually getting his hands on the ball.
By the time they finished dinner, Lucinda had bribed him with promises of hide-and-seek. Later, in her hotel suite. And only if he used his real voice, not the one that came with a pouting bottom lip.
No doubt keen on a break herself, Cat had taken off to the powder room about ten minutes before and was taking her time returning.
It was a blessed relief when Angus appeared in the restaurant.
It was short-lived, though, as a dark-haired woman came walking in beside him. Laughing, touching him on the sleeve.
Lucinda readjusted herself on her seat, tugging on the neckline of her spring-green dress, feeling more than a little over-dressed for a date night at a family restaurant with her son, but her suitcase boasted limited options.
Sonny said, “You feel sick, Mum?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re frowning. Is it food poisoning?” Currently, one of his favourite books was about the human digestive system. “Or gastro?”
“What? No. I’m fine,” she lied as her gaze tugged back to the bar.
To Angus. And his mystery companion. Was she someone from the conference? A random hotel guest, perhaps? She’d been with him once when a random gorgeous woman had walked up to him in the middle of the street and given him her card, saying, “Call me.”
No wonder. He was a gorgeous man. All broad shoulders, strong jaw and dark curls. His hand waved elegantly as he spoke and he had one foot hooked on the small ledge beneath the bar, his body turned towards the woman, who looked at him as if her bones were slowly melting in his presence.
“Uncle Angus!” Sonny cried, leaping from the chair and bolting around the tables.
“Sonny!” Lucinda called, but it was too late.
Angus turned, smiling in genuine joy when he saw Sonny rocketing up to him. He caught the kid mid-fly and held him at eye height to ask him a question. Sonny pointed. Angus lowered the boy to the ground, his gaze searching the restaurant.
Lucinda held her breath until his eyes found hers. They were dark in the low light, his face more familiar to her than her own.
Then something in his expression changed, hardened, smouldered. Even from that distance she felt it like a
sunburn across her cheeks, her bare shoulders, the backs of her knees.
He said something to his lady friend. She nodded, grabbed their drinks and headed towards the other end of the restaurant, away from the kids’ room. While Angus wound his way through the tables to Lucinda.
She was standing before she even realised she’d moved.
“Sorry,” she called when he was close. “I see you’re busy. I tried to stop him.”
He shrugged, just the one shoulder, until his eyes landed on her dress. After a beat or two he looked away, to anywhere but at her. She felt like jumping to catch his eye.
“Enjoying your dinner?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Lucinda, right as Sonny said, “No.”
Lucinda waggled her hand towards Sonny, who was gripping Angus around the middle, trying to drag him away. “Sonny. Sit. Leave Angus be. He has company.”
“Company?” Angus’s gaze narrowed and finally connected with hers, before gliding over her face, no doubt taking in her warm cheeks, her tight jaw, the flicker of a pulse at her throat. “Ah. Griselda is on the conference committee, just arrived this evening. Elena asked if I could catch her up, so I talked her through what we had so far on the way here, as the committee are meeting for drinks.”
“Oh!” Probably best not to sound quite so relieved. “How did she like the sound of it?”
“As expected,” he said with a smile and a quick half-wink to surreptitiously thank her for her help.
“So, they’re talking sainthood?”
He chuckled, the sound low and deep and intimate. She could feel it travel over her bare shoulders before diving into her belly.
Then his gaze dropped back to her dress and a muscle ticked in his jaw. His eyes seemed to darken a few degrees. And then...
“When they say it’s a small world, they really have no idea,” said Cat as she appeared from nowhere, arms crossed, eyes alight with malevolence.
While Angus came over cool as a cucumber.
Chance were, she’d been projecting anyway. With a jaw like that, muscles were sure to tic. And his eyes were always smoky and dark. It was no wonder she felt constant hot flushes.
“Don’t let us keep you, Angus,” said Cat.
Lucinda shot her a telling glare, but Cat just poked out her tongue.
“No!” Sonny said. “He’s playing hide-and-seek.”
Sonny reached out and slid his hand into Angus’s. Without even seeming to realise it, Angus closed his fingers around Sonny’s.
“You promised,” Sonny said, as if knowing a no was on its way. “You’ve finished dinner. It’s nearly bed time. Hide-and-seek.”
Officially out of the energy to deny him, Lucinda lifted her eyes to Angus.
“He’s wilful,” said Angus.
“He’s eight.”
“He’s you.”
If Lucinda hadn’t already had feelings for the man she might have fallen head over heels for him right then and there. As it was, it took every ounce of that wilfulness of hers not to melt into a puddle at the sight of the big man holding her son’s hand. Not to imagine giving in, telling Angus how she felt, him smiling at her and saying he’d been waiting to hear those words since the day they’d met.
But Angus began bouncing on the balls of his feet and stretching his arms over his head. “Haven’t played in years but I was neighbourhood champ when I was the kid’s age. Keen to find out if I’ve still got it.”
And Lucinda breathed again.
“Okay, then,” she said. “The rules. We team up. That way nobody gets lost for good. We’ll have time limits to each ‘hide’. Grown-ups keep phones on. No hiding outside. No getting in people’s way. This floor only. Once you hide, there’s no moving. It’s not a race. Sonny and I can be on one team—”
“No,” said Sonny. “I want Auntie Cat on my team.”
“Oh.”
If Lucinda sounded a little rebuffed, Angus looked it. She caught Sonny’s eye only to find his jaw was set. “Are you sure? You can go with Angus, if you’d like?
“You always tell me what a good team you and Angus make, when we go through that list you have of what makes a good friend.”
Cat laughed, though there was no humour in it. Then she reached out and took Sonny by the shoulders, moving him into her corner. “Well, I give up. Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”
“Fine,” Lucinda gritted out. She looked at her watch. “So, who’s it?”
Sonny stuck his hand in the air. “Us. We’re counting to one hundred. Go! Mum, hurry, hurry, hurry.”
“Right. Um...okay.” Lucinda grabbed her bag and her phone and checked the table to make sure she’d left nothing behind. She checked her memory to make sure they’d paid.
“Come on, Mum,” said Angus, his voice low, his hand held her way. “Hurry.”
Competitive spirit lit, Lucinda took it and together they fled.
“Excuse me. Sorry. Excuse us.” Lucinda was near breathless with laughter by the time they’d squeezed through the tightly packed tables of the family-friendly restaurant and burst out into the hall.
“Which way?” she asked, turning back to Angus. When she realised she was still holding his hand, she let go and made as if she needed that hand to hitch up her bag. “What do you reckon?”
“I’ve got an idea,” he said, taking her by the hand once more.
It would have been impolite to pull away a second time.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, her high heels tap-tap-tapping as she jogged to keep up with his long, loping strides.
“Our tree.”
“Our tree?” she asked. Only to pull up short when they rounded a corner to find themselves facing the humungous fiddle-leaf fig behind which she’d dragged him the morning before.
Before she could demur, Angus grabbed her by the hips, spun her about and pressed her behind the big, fat leaves of the fiddle-leaf fig.
She turned at the corner to complain about the manhandling only to have him place a hand flush over her open mouth while he held a finger to his own.
Then she heard it: Sonny barking orders, his voice growing in volume as it neared. “This way!”
“Slow down, mate.”
“Come on!”
When the voices neared, instinct had Lucinda grabbing Angus by the shirtfront to pull him closer, using him and his big, dark form to shield her. She pressed her head into his chest and locked her knees to stop them from jiggling away the excess of adrenaline pouring through her body.
“Run, Auntie Cat!” cried Sonny, close by now. “Angus is really fast.”
“How would you even know that?” That was Cat.
“He told me. It doesn’t matter if you’re wearing the wrong bra, you have to run!”
When Sonny’s voice faded into the distance, Lucinda began to laugh.
Angus removed his hand from her mouth and rubbed his thumb against his palm as if rubbing away a tingle. Her head still against his chest, his deep voice rumbled right through her as he said, “That was close.”
Lucinda looked up. The fact that she still had a handful of shirt and was using it to pull him to her was clearly not lost on either of them—Angus’s eyes were pitch-black, his jaw as hard as granite, his heart thunderous beneath her hand.
“Too close,” she said, waggling her eyebrows in an attempt at levity, but the huskiness of her voice gave her away.
Slowly, she unpeeled her fingers, one by one, before leaning back into the corner, as far as she could go, until none of her was touching any of him.
His usually perfect shirt was all squished and messed up, so she gave it a tug, lining up the buttons before ironing the crushed sections with her hand. She could feel the bumps of his chest, his ribs, his abs...
Swallowing hard, she carefully lifted her hand away.
“
So,” he said. “What now?”
On any other man that deep, devilish tone would have made her sure it was an invitation. Lucinda looked anywhere but at Angus, lest he see it in her eyes.
“Should we move? It’s pretty tight back here.”
“Can’t. You made the rules. No moving.”
Right. She and her rules had a lot to answer for this weekend. “Then we wait.”
But not like this. Not face to face.
So, she sat, sliding ungracefully down the wall, knees bent up to her chin, dress tucked discreetly behind her thighs.
After a beat, Angus turned his back to the wall and did the same.
“Lift,” he said.
She let out a little whoop when he grabbed her by the ankles. Then, realising what he was trying to do, she held onto the feathery layers of her skirt as he stretched out his long legs beneath hers before gently lowering her legs on top of his. He held her ankles a moment before sliding his hands away.
Then he closed his eyes and let the back of his head hit the wall behind him.
“You okay over there?” she said, her voice sounding strangely intimate in their little tree cave.
“Big day.”
“Was.”
“This is the first time I’ve been able to catch my breath.”
“Comes from being a wanted man.”
Eyes still closed, Angus’s smile grew. Slowly. Enticingly. “It is nice to be wanted.”
“I’m sure.” She’d meant it as a joke, but even she heard the caustic edge.
She regretted it the moment Angus opened his eyes and tilted his head her way. Shadows poured over his strong features, creating hollows beneath his jaw, his bottom lip. Their faces were so close, she breathed in the air that he breathed out.
“Don’t tell me you’re still smarting about Dr Whatsit?”
“Nope,” she said, shaking her head. “Last night I got to thinking. There’s a pattern. With the men in my life.”
She caught his eye, waited for him to say the word “boundaries”, but he simply waited for her to go on. And, shrouded by the intimacy of their strange, leafy hidey hole, she found herself saying, “I can’t seem to keep them. The men in my life. They seem to find it all too easy to leave.”