She sank her hand into her oversized handbag and held it tight as she asked, ‘What if I don’t have a phone?’
He kept his hand outstretched, palm up.
‘Okay, fine,’ she said, doing a quick, obsessive-compulsive message check before handing it over. ‘But couldn’t you just ask everyone to turn their phone to silent? And confiscate those who don’t comply?’
‘This isn’t high school, Ms London. We believe mobile phones are antisocial. And haven’t you come here today to be social?’
High school is for ever, she thought. Those in new uniforms compared with those in hand-me-downs, all living out the failures or successes of their parents like some great evolutionary joke.
She kept her theory to herself and instead muttered, ‘I came here today because my sister has the kind of big brown cow eyes you can’t say no to.’
He gave her a pink ticket with a smudged black number written upon it in return, then she pressed on into the restaurant.
Weaving her way through the tightly packed tables past a plethora of ‘new school uniform’ types with money and time and an apparent desire to be social on a Tuesday morning, she made a determined beeline for Kensey’s curly brown ‘do. Thus she didn’t notice a gentleman prepare to slide back his chair until it was too late.
She put on the brakes but her inexperience in her high-heeled boots meant she lost her grip upon the swanky silk carpet. Her momentum pitched her forward and everything from that point on seemed to happen in slow motion.
The man turned, alerted by either the whoosh of air she displaced before her, or perhaps the frantic oath she’d emitted a second before that. As she fell she found herself amidst one of those time-stood-still-while-my-life-flashed-before-my-eyes moments as she made eye contact with her attacker, whose features burned onto her brain one after the other.
A toothpick between perfect white front teeth. Smooth dark hair so neat it looked as if it had been cut that morning. A jaw line so defined it made a girl want to reach out and run the back of her finger along it. Dark glinting eyes the colour of the Pacific just before dusk.
Even that tremendous collection of visual stimuli wasn’t enough to stop the laws of physics. Chelsea had no choice but to reach out and grab him by two handfuls of his suit jacket to stop herself from going completely head over heels.
He instinctively slid both arms around her middle, slowing her momentum until she came to a complete stop. Upright, or almost, considering her legs were twisted, she clung. Bodily against him. Her breasts pressed into his chest. Her stomach hard against the zipper of his trousers. Her shaky right knee clamped snug between both of his. She knew enough about the shape of him that in some cultures they’d be considered betrothed.
She curled her fingers gently beneath a lapel or two. His suit felt really nice. Expensive. The fabric was soft and warm. And it smelled so good. Like falling leaves and crisp fresh air. At least she assumed it was the suit. Maybe it was just him.
When time finally caught up with her, the surrounds of the restaurant swarmed in. Clinking cutlery. Tinkling laughter. Steam from the kitchen. The feel of his long thin wallet beneath her knuckles and next to his heart. And the intermingling whisper of the pair of them breathing heavily.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked. His voice was husky. Deep. It rumbled through her hands and into her chest until it found a home deep within her stomach. She gave into the need to lick suddenly bone-dry lips.
‘Hey,’ he rumbled again, and tucked a finger beneath her chin, lifting her gaze to his face as he repeated, ‘Are you okay?’
His skin was unblemished and evenly tanned, his eyes so blue it hurt, and he truly smelled beautiful, like the rainy autumn day she’d left outside. All that glowing, carefree perfection made him as tempting as the yummiest forbidden fruit. But this gal had already eaten away her lip-gloss, her clothes were a decade old, and she smelled like wet dog and mothballs. Thus forbidden fruit would never be hers to have.
She slowly let her grip abate.
‘I’m fine,’ Chelsea said. ‘Dandy, in fact. Embarrassed, but there seems to be no permanent damage to the patch of carpet my boots did their best to take on. It could have been worse.’
‘True,’ he said. ‘If there’d been a dessert cart in the vicinity we would very quickly have become a scene out of a Pink Panther film.’
Her cheeks twitched in amusement. ‘Can’t you imagine a barrage of chocolate cream pies flying through the air and landing on that table of coiffed princesses until they are dripping in pearls and chocolate sauce?’
The man’s eyes darted sideways to the table of women who had been eyeing Chelsea as she had walked in. And he said, ‘It would certainly have added a dash of sunshine to such a drab morning.’
As he smiled at her some more, his eyes now twinkling, his toothpick twirling as though behind his teeth his tongue was hard at work, Chelsea’s stomach felt unnaturally hollow. And she didn’t think it had all that much to do with hunger for food.
She smiled back, all lips, no teeth, and then proceeded to disentangle herself as elegantly as she could manage. But once she’d let go she discovered she’d scrunched up his lovely suit lapels something awful. She spent a good ten seconds flattening them out, running her hands along the soft wool, which did little to hide the hard body beneath.
‘Though I’m not sure I could handle any more sunshine than I have right now,’ he said, his voice ever deeper, and so close she could feel the air of every word brush against her fast-warming cheek.
She bit. ‘And why’s that?’
‘I’ve never before had a woman fall for me quite so quickly. Usually I count on an introduction and a little flirtation before the sunshine part.’
She glanced up into his eyes again. Deep. Absorbing. Blue as the heavens. He was pure charm. And she had the distinct feeling he knew it. Which meant he also knew she was no longer hanging onto him for balance.
She stopped her fussing and said, ‘One little hint? Next time you’re looking to land yourself a girl, don’t bother with the chair. Props are for amateurs.’
His playful smile faded until it was no more than a glimmer in his eyes. He breathed in through his nose, she felt it in the swell of his chest, and then realised that to all intents and purposes she was still feeling the guy up. She gave his lapels one last tug, then said, ‘Now nobody will know I was ever here.’
He removed the toothpick and with his deep voice so low only a person a mere breath away would be able to hear him he said, ‘I’ll know.’
His words slid through her, hot, liquid, and unimpeded by any kind of sense or self-defence. In a stab of unadulterated desire it occurred to her that if she slanted her head an inch, two at the most, she could find out if his smiling lips tasted anywhere near as good as they looked.
She took an abrupt step back and bumped his table hard enough his full latte glass rocked mercilessly and sloshed a gulp or two over the edge. Mr Suit and Tie leapt for the glass and caught it just before it tilted all the way over.
Free of his autumnal scent, his magnetic gaze, and the pleasure of luxurious wool, Chelsea slid out of his gravitational pull. ‘That’s my cue to leave before I accidentally set you on fire.’
‘No, wait,’ he said, putting the glass back on the table, and patting down the polished wood with a napkin.
But she hitched her handbag higher onto her shoulder, and then eased around him and hurried to join her sister on the other side of the restaurant.
Kensey stood, kissed her cheek. ‘Tell me you got his phone number,’ were the first words out of her mouth.
Chelsea dumped her bag beneath the table, sat, then threw her hands over her face, cooling her hot cheeks with her freezing palms. ‘And when was I meant to have done that in between throwing myself in his arms and knocking over his drink?’
‘What’s your number, honey?’ Kensey said. ‘You can find time between anything for four such important words. Especially for such a specimen as that one.’
‘You’re comparing Greg to that?’
Chelsea glared some more. ‘Don’t you dare intimate Greg isn’t the best thing that ever happened to you.’
Greg with his thinning hair and thickening middle wasn’t Chelsea’s type, but every time she saw the two of them together it only reminded her she shouldn’t be so picky. Kensey and Greg were mad for one another while she didn’t have any man who’d take her hand as they walked down the street, whose shoulder she could lean on at the movies, to hold her when she fell asleep.
‘How do you think a girl gets herself married these days?’ Kensey asked. ‘It takes putting herself on the shop shelf to begin with.’
‘I like dating,’ Chelsea said. ‘Especially men with muscles and dark eyes and all their teeth. I’m on the shelf.’
‘Right. With a big Do Not Feed the Animal sign slung around your neck. One sideways glance at another woman, one bounced cheque, one hint he might have feet of clay and you bite the hand that fondles you. Whereas that creature over there is so-o-o on the shelf fluorescent lights aim towards him wherever he goes.’
Chelsea scoffed, then twisted to sling her cropped jacket over the back of her chair and spared a glance back through the restaurant to the man in question. He was standing talking to another guy in a suit. One hand was pushing his jacket back as he searched his trouser pocket, revealing an expanse of neat white business shirt stretched just tight enough across a broad chest to make it difficult to look away.
Like the first wisp of smoke heralding a coming fire, a thread of longing curled through her stomach. Her fingernails dug patterns into her palms as she imagined tearing open that flawless expensive starched white shirt until the buttons popped off.
She blinked hard at the ferocity of her reaction. It wasn’t as though she didn’t come in contact with any number of good-looking men every day of her life. Her job gave her a veritable platter to choose from. Nice men, responsible men, men who loved dogs, men who were well and truly within her comfort zone.
In the past couple of months there had been an Alsatian owner who was also a plumber. Cute. Brawny. He’d unblocked her pipes in the shop but not in any other way worth mentioning. She’d let him go when he’d let on he loved betting on the greyhounds. Then there’d been the Bijon Frise owner, a single dad who only had the dog as he’d inherited it in his divorce along with the kids every second weekend. She’d let him go when he’d cried watching a long-distance phone ad. And the consultant with the matching set of fox terriers called Mitsy and Bitsy. She’d turned him down after one dinner for obvious reasons.
But comparing those dating experiences with three minutes spent looking into a pair of Pacific blue eyes made her wonder briefly if responsibility, sense, and comfort were all they were cracked up to be. Mr Suit and Tie and Flirty Look in the Eye made her hanker for fire, flash, flare, electricity, excitement, heat, danger, no care for the consequences.
Right then a dark, glossy brunette in a tight black skirt suit and heels so high Chelsea felt dizzy just looking at them walked by, landed a flat hand upon Mr Suit and Tie’s chest and leaned in to whisper something in his ear. Mr Suit and Tie laughed, said something that made the brunette flutter a hand across her face before sauntering away swinging her hips like a pro. He paid attention for a few moments, and then pulled a flat black wallet from the inner pocket of his jacket before letting it swing back into place.
Chelsea came to as if fairy dust had suddenly cleared from before her eyes. She turned back to Kensey, who was watching her with a knowing smile on her face.
‘He’s a man. He’s moved onto the next sure thing,’ Chelsea insisted with a scowl. ‘Big surprise there.’
‘Fine,’ Kensey said with a dramatic sigh. ‘So how’s work?’
‘Great. Fun. Hard. Wouldn’t trade it for anything. The kids?’
‘Great. Fun. Hard. Wouldn’t trade ‘em for anything. So are you coming to the Yarra Valley with us this weekend? It’s Lucy’s birthday, remember.’
‘Of course. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
‘You know you don’t have to come alone. If you ever wanted to bring someone…’
‘How about I bring Phyllis? She loves country air,’ Chelsea said, referring to her longest-serving employee, a six-foot-tall woman with short grey hair and a booming voice who terrified the bejeezers out of Kensey.
‘I meant a man.’
‘If it’s that important to you I’ll see if I can pick one up on the road along the way. Tell Greg he’ll have the darts partner he’s always wanted, though I can’t promise the guy will have bathed in some time.’
Kensey’s gaze slid down to the tabletop where Chelsea was wringing her hands. ‘Relax. Please. This is meant to be a celebration breakfast.’
‘I haven’t got the loan yet.’
‘You will. Pride & Groom is just the kind of thing banks want to get their claws into.’
‘You’ve been working on that line for days, haven’t you?’
‘The whole month,’ Kensey said. ‘But I’m serious. You own your shop outright. You’ve been on the telly. You’re a woman. You are quite simply dripping in reasons for them to invest in you.’
Chelsea had a sudden image of the brunette in the black suit dripping in chocolate-cream pie, which made her smile. But when it rather quickly morphed into a certain dark-haired man sans suit and tie dripping in chocolate sauce her mouth began to water.
He’s a prince of the ‘new school uniform’ set, she yelled inside her head. You’re the leftovers of a hand-me-down youth. And never the twain shall successfully mate.
Along those lines Chelsea reminded her sister, ‘You know how much trouble Dad got himself into over the years, borrowing against each new get-rich-quick scheme while the bastards just let him. Keeping Pride & Groom as a one-off, boutique, secure investment wouldn’t be a silly idea.’
And it would remain all hers. Something nobody could take away from her. Even though she had to turn away more clients every time she appeared on TV, or had her salon highlighted in a magazine, making her think Pride & Groom could be really beyond-her-wildest-dreams successful. The problem with that was she’d learnt young just how crushing wild dreams could be if they didn’t come true.
‘Honey,’ Kensey said, ‘you want to update this outfit of yours to something of this century, you’re gonna need more money. You wanna find yourself with more opportunities to go chest to chest with the likes of Hunka Hunka Burning Love over there, you’re gonna need more money. If they offer the loan, take it.’
Chelsea leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, ‘Why? You think he’s a male escort? What is the going rate these days?’
Kensey’s eyes narrowed. ‘No idea. But I do know you’re a fool not to have given him your phone number. Or at least an accidental grope of that fantastic backside.’
Chelsea leaned back and picked up the menu. ‘Maybe next time,’ she said, then did her best to keep her eyes in her head when she caught a load of the prices. Nearly thirty dollars for a poached egg on toast? Seriously. What did these people have to promise the gods to be able to afford to eat like this on a daily basis?
‘He watched you walk the whole way over here, you know,’ Kensey said.
Rather than answer, Chelsea stole Kensey’s iced water and took a sip.
‘Top to bottom,’ Kensey said, ‘with a nice lingering moment spent on your behind.’
‘He was probably trying to see where I was hiding it. If the bank was giving away curvier curves and charging interest then I’d be first in line.’
Boobs that could fill a bra without padding, hips that swung as she walked without the chance of pulling a muscle, the kind of figure that would garner the attention of a man like Mr Suit and Tie without having to literally throw herself at him. Though what she’d do with the likes of such an alien creature if she ever caught him, she had no idea.
>
‘Truthfully, he was probably making sure I didn’t knock over any other poor unsuspecting patrons,’ she said. ‘Most men like to think themselves knights in shining armour.’
‘Maybe that one really is.’
‘Well, then, he’s the last thing I need. I rescued myself a long time ago.’
‘Then how about a bit of rough and tumble? How long has it been since you indulged in a scintillating affair? No plans. No future. No “what kind of dog does he own and what does it mean in terms of his level of responsibleness?” but just hot, sweaty nakedness—’
‘Okay, I get it!’
Kensey motioned over Chelsea’s shoulder. Chelsea glanced back to find the gentleman making his way towards the front door looking unfrazzled by a single thing in his perfect world, and completely untouched by the eyes of a dozen women burning into his back. He really was so beautiful, so tempting, it physically hurt. But if he took responsibility for another creature more animated than a pet rock, she’d be very much surprised.
‘One night,’ Kensey said. ‘With that. Satisfaction guaranteed.’
Chelsea gave into a few last moments gazing over gorgeous tailoring, dark neat hair, broad shoulders and lithe movement born of pure male confidence before turning back to her sister with a blank face.
‘I told you I didn’t even get a name. And I don’t think skywriting “Trying to track down tall dark handsome man in suit” over the city is going to help. Hot, sweaty nakedness will simply have to wait.’
Kensey raised both eyebrows, sucked in her cheeks and picked up her menu and Chelsea hoped that would be the end of it. Until her sister said, ‘We can switch seats so you can make final eyes at him, if you’d like.’
‘I’m fine. Thanks anyway.’
Besides, the mirrored wall behind Kensey showed him patting his Suit and Tie friend on the back as together they weaved through the tightly cramped tables and headed back to Stock Market Land or wherever it was they stored such glorious, untouchable, never-had-to-work-up-a-sweat-to-get-everything-they-ever-wanted creatures once they’d drifted happily through high school and beyond.
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