Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  Chelsea harnessed her concentration, whipped it back into line and focussed fully on her sister. ‘Now, enough about me and my behind—what’s been happening in your world?’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Y‘OUR tickets, sir?’

  Damien reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the pink stub for his phone and the grey one for his coat. He handed them over to the skinny blonde femme fatale who’d taken over from the snappish guy as maître d’.

  Ticket stub in hand, she bent to the locked boxes at the bottom of the closet, showcasing the edge of a black lace G-string atop her tight denim.

  ‘Nice,’ Caleb said from behind him.

  ‘All yours,’ Damien murmured back.

  ‘Sure she’s no Bonnie …’

  ‘I thought we’d agreed that name was banned for the meantime.’

  ‘You agreed. I never did. She was smashing. Never in my life seen cleavage to rival hers. She passed your parents’ stringent tests for what a future Halliburton bride ought to be. She looked great in tennis whites and was a far better sailor than you can hope to be. But, for the record, I was the one who told you not to move in with her.’

  Damien bowed to his friend in agreement.

  ‘Now,’ Caleb said, ‘it’s been a good month since you moved out of her place and back into the land of the sane. Time to get back on the horse.’

  ‘Caleb, I was with Bonnie for two and a half years, while you’ve never dated anyone for more than a month. You’re no better than a horse.’

  Caleb threw his hands in the air. ‘Fine. All I’m saying is, if you stop practising, one day you might wake up and realise you’ve forgotten how to use it.’

  ‘Is this where I pipe in and say it’s like riding a bike?’

  ‘If you think that, then I fear Bonnie did a worse number on you than I imagined.’

  Damien turned away. Bonnie hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d taken their relationship at face value and assumed he was committed to the long haul. He was the bad guy. He’d been the one to walk out on her when he’d realised in playing house he’d only been kidding them both.

  ‘But this one is fantastic,’ Caleb said, all but salivating over Ms G-string.

  ‘She’s a teenager.’

  ‘You’re a killjoy.’

  ‘You’re a pig.’ Damien glanced back at the wiggling backside. As far as invitations went, it was pretty clear. Caleb couldn’t be entirely held to blame. So he added, ‘Of course, if the G-string had been hot-pink …’

  She stood and held out his goods. ‘This is them?’

  He glanced at the long black coat and wide, flat, silver and black mobile phone. ‘That’s them.’

  She cocked her hip against the desk, and glanced at Caleb. ‘How about you, honey? Anything here for you?’

  Damien laughed out loud, before grabbing his friend by the jacket sleeve and dragging him from the restaurant and into the fresh air.

  ‘You’re not just a killjoy, you’re also plain mean,’ Caleb said.

  ‘You work for me. And despite your darker predilections, you are this town’s greatest shark when it comes to attracting new clients, therefore you make me lots of money, thus keeping me in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed. So think of me as the guy keeping you out of jail and in gainful employ.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Caleb cricked his neck, and stretched out his shoulders before heading street side to hail a cab.

  Damien slid his arms into his coat and in the same move glanced back through the windows hoping to get one last look at the one woman who had created a stir within what he’d thought had been a pretty impenetrable fortress of anti-female sentiment he’d managed to cling to since leaving Bonnie high and dry.

  After a few seconds he found her. Dark skirt, pale knit top, the dangerous-looking heel of her right boot bobbing up and down rhythmically. Long, silky, caramel-blonde hair cascading down her back in soft waves.

  While the whole room reeked of clashing perfume and aftershave and money, she smelled like. Something soft and homey. Talcum powder? And when he’d talked to her of sunshine the word had just appeared from some deep, dark, murky, poetic place inside him he wasn’t sure he needed to know existed. But the second she’d landed in his arms it had been as though a ray of light had shone through the window of the city restaurant and brightened the dank autumn day.

  For a guy who’d only recently managed to extricate himself from the claws of a woman he’d thought perfectly amiable and in tune with his own life timetable, but who’d turned out to have a ticking internal clock the size of a three-bedroom suburban house, he was pretty captivated by this woman.

  That alone should have made him run a mile. His conscience still smarted at the way he’d led Bonnie on, even if it had been unintentional. But he didn’t run. Instead he watched Little Miss Sunshine lift a forkful of strawberry pancakes to her lips.

  It had been a month, longer really, since he’d been that physically close to a woman. All that purely feminine warmth wrapped in a package tall enough to look him in the eye in her high heels. And she had looked him in the eye. Dead on. Direct. With the golden eyes of a lioness.

  He turned around to see Caleb waving his arm like a maniac as he unsuccessfully tried to hail a cab. So he went back to watching the caramel-blonde fingering a double string of tiny gold beads around her neck.

  He let himself wonder if she owned a hot-pink lace G-string. He imagined what it would look like wrapped around her slight curves like a picture frame, no stockings, leaving the lean length from her hips to the tops of those sexy boots naked so that a man could slide his hand beneath her skirt and touch warm, bare skin…

  ‘You coming?’ Caleb called.

  Damien blinked and turned from the restaurant window to find Caleb halfway into a yellow cab. He cleared his throat when he realised he wasn’t in the frame of mind to sit. ‘You take it. I’ll walk. I have a new client near Flinders I hoped to see in person today anyway.’

  ‘Fine. Whatever.’ And Caleb was gone in a screech of burning rubber.

  Damien glanced back into the restaurant one more time, but his view was obstructed by a table of newcomers, more clones in black skirt suits and glossy hair and no doubt lashings of perfume, hugging and kissing cheeks and discussing how to lock unsuspecting men into matrimony.

  The lure of the female abruptly and thankfully negated, he drew his coat tight about his neck, looked upward to find the earlier rain had already stopped and stepped out into the teeming morning city foot traffic.

  ‘Are you going to finish those pancakes?’ Kensey asked after the ‘who’s the hottest guy on Grey’s Anatomy’ argument had hit a lull. ‘I’m starving. Probably because I’m pregnant.’

  Chelsea let her fork drop to her plate. ‘Did you just say that you’re—?’

  ‘Up the duff,’ Kensey said. ‘With child. Bun in the oven. I did. I am.’

  Chelsea’s gaze slid across the table to Kensey’s large water glass, not the usual fancy-looking cocktail heavy with tiny paper umbrellas or pink plastic flamingos she ordered any time she had an adult meal without her kids in tow.

  ‘Wow. But didn’t Greg just have the …?’ Chelsea mimed a pair of scissors.

  ‘They did tell us it doesn’t work right away, takes a few weeks to be sure. But it was our anniversary, and we were both in the mood, and the kids were all asleep by nine.’

  Well what do you know? Kensey was pregnant with her fourth. The crazy number that meant she needed a people mover and extensions to the holiday hut in the Yarra Valley they could barely afford. It meant chaos. Yet Kensey looked so sublimely happy. Chelsea felt an unexpected surge of bitter-sweet envy form in her veins.

  ‘How far along are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Eight weeks, give or take.’ Kensey let out a long shaky breath and Chelsea realised this was half the reason behind the big fancy breakfast and she’d been so tunnel-visioned about her own issues. She was a bad sister. ‘I have no idea how we are going to do this.’ />
  ‘You’ll be fine. You guys are always fine.’

  Kensey grabbed Chelsea by both hands. ‘If you believe in my judgment so much, then let me find you a man of your own so we can have babies together. Imagine a brood with dark hair and blue eyes like that Mr Handsome burning love from earlier.’

  ‘Whoa there, partner. You’re the one who ended up with the white-picket-fence gene while I got the modicum-of-business-sense gene. Both miracles considering our parentage. Besides, can you imagine that guy coming anywhere near the Pride & Groom? He’d be covered in white dog hair the minute the door let in the slightest gust of wind. Karma would crucify me for daring to mar such perfection.’

  ‘Well, so long as it’s something of great magnitude keeping you from grabbing such a man with both hands. What was wrong with the last guy again?’

  ‘Gay,’ Chelsea shot back.

  ‘Okay, so maybe your reasons for sending your menagerie of admirers on their merry way are becoming more sensible over time. Less like purposeful sabotage. By the time you’re in your fifties you’ll give some poor guy a break when you finally realise they are not all deadbeats like Dad.’

  Chelsea glared at her sister as she grabbed her plate back. ‘Maybe I will finish those pancakes after all. And I sincerely hope you’re having triplets.’

  Damien’s mobile phone chirped melodiously.

  He vaguely recognised the ring tone as the theme song from some girly TV show. The Gilmore Girls? Laverne and Shirley? Bloody Caleb must have been mucking around with it at some stage that morning.

  ‘Halliburton,’ he answered in a clipped tone as he checked the street for traffic before jogging across in front of a slow-moving taxi.

  ‘Ah, hi,’ a hesitant female voice said. ‘Is this the Pride & Groom salon?’

  ‘Nope. Sorry. Wrong number.’ He snapped the phone shut. And moved into the stream of pedestrian traffic heading uptown.

  The phone rang again. This time he recognised it instantly as the theme from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Bloody bloody Caleb. In a fit of guilt he’d let Bonnie keep the lease on his old apartment and been living with his best friend ever since. He really would have to get off his friend’s couch very soon.

  ‘Halliburton,’ he answered.

  This time there was a pause. ‘I am calling for Letitia Forbes from the special features desk of Chic magazine,’ the hesitant female voice said once more. ‘Is Chelsea London nearby?’

  Damien pulled up short. He turned to look over his shoulder to see if perhaps this was some kind of joke and Caleb was following at an indiscreet distance. But all he saw was a wall of people looking as drab as the grey sky above. He slipped out of the stream and ensconced himself against the window of a comic-book shop.

  ‘I’m in Melbourne, Ms Forbes. London is on the other side of the planet.’

  ‘I know where Chelsea, the place, is. I’m looking for Chelsea London, the proprietor of the Pride & Groom salon. This was the phone number I was supplied.’

  ‘Apologies. Still can’t help. I am the proprietor of a day trading institution, Keppler Jones and Morganstern, this is my number and all I know of Chic is that my little sister used to hide it from my mum when she was fourteen.’

  Letitia Forbes’ assistant laughed a pretty tinkly laugh that was all flirtation and no substance. Damien appreciated it for what it was, but it did nothing to move him. Not like when the caramel-blonde had blinked up at him with her golden eyes and made him give in and slide his hands that much further around her waist, lean in that much closer to capture the scent of her hair…

  He closed his eyes to squeeze out the unwelcome wave of pure lust swarming over him.

  ‘So what do you know of animal-print dog collars?’ Letitia Forbes’ assistant asked.

  His eyes flew back open. ‘Because…?’

  ‘That’s why I’m trying to track down Chelsea London. For her professional opinion. But I’m now wondering if your opinion might be just as valid.’

  He checked his watch. This day was fast slipping away from him. ‘Unfortunately my only experience with animal-print anything has been with the underwear variety.’

  ‘Yours?’ she asked.

  ‘That I cannot say for fear I might incriminate myself.’

  She paused, and he sensed she was searching for a way to keep him on the line. With a sigh she said, ‘Alas I have other phone calls to make, hopefully with as much fun but more success. Good day to you, Mr Halliburton.’

  ‘Same to you.’ He snapped the phone shut and stared at it for a few seconds as the world continued to walk on by.

  Right. So in the past hour he’d had a woman fall into his arms, one flash her G-string at him, another whisper a suggestion in his ear that would have been more fitting for a key party, and yet another flirt him into intimating he was wearing zebra-print undies beneath his trousers.

  For all the female attention he was getting today it was as if the women around him had some kind of radar. The only time in his thirty-two years on this planet he wasn’t seeking out any kind of co-ed companionship, it took no kind of effort on his part to have it rolling towards him in waves.

  Women … he thought. Can’t live with them …

  He glanced up, caught the eye of an elderly lady with tight purple ringlets. She smiled, and blushed. He wondered if he ought to head straight back to Amelie’s and ask exactly what they’d put into his hollandaise sauce.

  But even as he thought it he knew it wasn’t the sauce. Sure, he was easy enough on the eye, had means, skills and other intangible assets that seemed to appeal to more women than not, but what was happening to him today was something other. Something primal. And it had begun the moment the woman of all things warm and sunny had fallen into his arms and set his pheromones alight.

  Since then he’d been on some sort of constant sexual high. Walking, talking and acting like a normal person, but only half his mind was on real life. The other half had been replaying the memory of the most subtle scent that somehow took him back to a simpler time when all he’d wanted from life was a hug and a kiss before bedtime. Perhaps if he just stopped thinking about her he could get back to work without being mobbed in the street by a hundred ready-dressed brides.

  His phone rang again and he flinched like a spooked schoolboy. He took a deep calming breath and this time waited to see if his address book recognised the phone number. It did. ‘Letitia @ Chic Mag,’ it read.

  Sure, it was one of those computer/organiser/mobile whiz-bang things that cost a small fortune, but as far as he knew it didn’t have any kind of cognitive memory. Unless he’d saved those details they shouldn’t be there.

  He continued staring at his phone as it played out The Mary Tyler Moore Show theme. Once it rang out, he flipped it open and found himself staring at the large inner screen, which instead of a plain font espousing the name of his mobile phone company had an animated picture of a pink paw-print.

  The truth finally dawned.

  It was not his phone.

  Damien slowly flipped the phone closed and breathed deep through his nose, gaining a lungful of car exhaust and day-old garbage for his effort.

  How could he not have known it wasn’t his phone? Real men loved their electronic toys more than life itself. Hell, every other guy he knew surrounded themselves with 5.1 surround sound, sub-woofers, and fancy walkmans with earplugs and wireless remote who knew what.

  When he’d been talked into trading in his trusty five-year-old Nokia with its comforting scratches and dents for some top of the range gadget, he’d been told it would change his life. And now it had. Right now he had no idea of the address or phone number for the new clients he was hoping to meet, and he had a ring tone that made him seem far from manly.

  ‘Dammit!’ he said loud enough several people took a wider berth around him.

  He reached into his trouser pocket and there was the hot-pink ticket for his phone, meaning the one he’d found on the floor behind his chair just as he’d left Amelie’s hadn
’t been his.

  The phone was thankfully unlocked, so he dialled his old friend Directory Assistance. ‘Amelie’s Brasserie, Melbourne,’ he requested when a voice with a light foreign accent answered.

  He saw a gap in the traffic between a tram and oncoming cars and jogged back across the wide street where he found a cab, slipped inside and gave directions back to his Collins Street office.

  Amelie’s answered.

  ‘Damien Halliburton here. I breakfasted with you guys today and managed to pick up the wrong phone.’ He pulled the phone away from his ear for a second to get the attention of the cab driver. ‘Left onto Russell will be quicker this time of day.’

  He waited for the grovelling and simpering on the other end of the phone to die down before interjecting, ‘Can you check box J? It’s empty? Right.’

  Plan B. Which was.

  Perhaps he ought to get the cabbie to make a sharp turn and get him back there a.s.a.p. so that he could search for it himself. And if the caramel-blonde happened to still be there he could also … what?

  He glanced at his watch. No time. And the gent on the other end of the phone was talking again.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Damien said. ‘I’ll sort it out myself.’

  He snapped the phone shut tight. It made a softer, more worn-in sound than his did, meaning it belonged to someone who would be missing it. Christy something or other. No, Chelsea. Chelsea London. An apparent expert on zebra-print dog collars. He couldn’t have had the same type of phone as another executive type with big muscles and an even bigger stock portfolio, could he? No, it had to be some broad with parents who should be shot for giving her such an unforgivable name.

  The cab pulled up outside the imposing thirty-storey building that housed the Keppler Jones and Morganstern Trading Company. He tossed the driver a twenty and hit the ground running.

  Chelsea kissed Kensey goodbye at the cloakroom at Amelie’s and stood watching her sister walk away with a lightness in her step.