by Nikki Logan
Harry held out his hand to Alex, who had to drop his off her neck to shake it.
That fact pleased Harry just a little too much.
‘Looks like your sector is clear, Alex,’ Izzy cut in before the two of them could launch into the full brothers-in-arms thing. And, astonishingly, given Alex had probably been up all night doing whatever—or whoever—it was that Alex did while the rest of the world slept, that was true. Clearly, his years in the military had made him super-efficient at manual tasks. Or he had a heap of manly angst to work out of his system.
Or maybe both.
‘Give me another job,’ Alex urged. ‘Before I fall asleep.’
She consulted her list. ‘We need an observation hide built.’
‘A what?’
‘Like a cubby house. But at ground level. For wildlife watching. Think you could manage a fast ’n’ dirty little hide?’
‘I excel at fast and dirty.’ He looked directly at Harry. ‘Sounds like a job for two.’
No! No, no, no…
No together time. No ‘tell me about her childhood’ moments. Not that Alex’s knowledge went particularly far back. But he was more than capable of blurting out all her nowhood secrets, which was just as problematic.
How infrequent her male visitors were. How broke she was. How she’d floated around the flat all the next day after their one night together.
And the one after it.
‘I’m sure Harry needs to stay with his team. This is a development day for them.’
Blue eyes twinkled. ‘They’re doing fine without me hawking over them. I’d be happy to get on the tools for a bit.’
Alex pushed upright. ‘That sounds like a man who’s built a thing or two.’
‘Back home.’
‘Australia,’ Alex announced, wandering off with Harry in tow. ‘Always wanted to go there…’
Let the bromance begin…
The only satisfaction Izzy got was from imagining the showdown between Poppy and Alex when she found out how abysmally he’d discharged this particular duty. Unless, of course, his real mission was to find out a heap more about their overnight guest. If that was the case he’d just positioned himself perfectly. That was the thing about interrogation. It often worked two ways.
Harry loped behind Alex along the edge of the wetland—resplendent in a pair of beat-up old Levi’s, boots scuffing the sodden turf like some kind of outback cowboy—but he turned back long enough to toss her a troublemaker’s grin.
The player is about to get played, methinks.
Lord knew what Harry would do with concentrated access to her life.
Ugh.
Mud splattered up and out as she slammed her pitchfork into a thick clump of watery weeds and she took particular delight in stabbing it deep into its core. The perfect tool for venting her suspicions about Harry’s motives.
And though she had a lot to vent, there were, conveniently, tonnes of the stuff choking the little wetland. She twisted the fork to loosen the root mass, lifted it free of the water and plunged it down again, and again, deep into the weed clump’s heart.
It wasn’t Harry, but it would vicariously do.
* * *
Half an hour in Alex Spencer’s company, and Harry already had a good idea of what Izzy’s childhood must have been like and how it must have shaped her. Not that Alex was talking out of school; Harry practically heard the point at which the guy made the choice to spill. The clunk of decision. So, as casually as it was being delivered in between their measuring and sawing and hammering, something told Harry it was one hundred per cent deliberate. There was agenda in there somewhere.
‘You really like Izzy,’ Harry quizzed.
‘Yeah,’ Alex snorted. ‘Because one sister clearly isn’t enough.’
Sister. The message seemed clear but it was probably healthy to double-check. That hand on her nape had seemed über-casual but you could never tell with housemates. A living room was a very short and convenient space to cross.
‘So, I don’t need to apologise for anything?’
‘About Izzy? No.’
Okay, treble-check, then. He pulled another batten across the joists and sent a couple of nails driving deep.
‘For me, access to the friends was the upside of having older sisters,’ he eventually said.
‘Not that friend,’ Alex swore, as solemn as an oath. ‘Izzy’s…different.’
Yeah, she was. Which made the casualness of what they’d done stand out in neon in the emerging observation hut. And which was probably the whole point of the conversation. But he wasn’t about to apologise for what they’d shared, spontaneous or not.
He didn’t do regrets.
‘She’s also an adult,’ he said, carefully.
‘Those girls have known each other since they weren’t.’ Alex glanced up, considered him. ‘But, yeah. She is.’
And that was that. Protection implied. Threat tacitly received.
All obligations fulfilled.
‘So, you knew her when she was younger?’ he asked.
‘She came home with my sister for a few holidays. I wasn’t always around much but I met her a few times. Poppy’s little shadow.’
Again, hard to imagine. When he’d imagined Izzy, he’d always pictured her in the centre of everything. Surrounded by people. Although, lately, there was mostly sweat in his imaginings. A lot of sweat.
And only one other ‘people.’
‘She’s grown up, then.’
‘With a vengeance.’
‘Why didn’t she go home to her own place on holidays?’
‘That’s something you’d have to ask her.’
And there it was. The big black line in the sand defining Alex’s loyalty. He was happy to speak up for her, but not about her. That, more than anything he could have said, confirmed their relationship.
Sister/brother.
Something deep inside Harry cranked down half a notch.
* * *
‘Not bad skills,’ Alex commented, looking over Harry’s deck work a short time later. ‘You sure you work with numbers?’
‘Courtesy of years of not being allowed to participate in sports after school. I channelled my energy in the workshop—’
Harry sucked his lips shut.
The truth had just slipped out, completely unguarded.
That never happened.
Alex lifted red-rimmed eyes. ‘The school have something against contact sports? Or were your parents just overprotective?’
Just…
His parents were trying to protect something, right enough, but it sure wasn’t him. He was the only boy after three sisters. The moment their mother had popped out a boy, his parents’ sex life pretty much ceased. Clearly the concept of a ‘spare’ was outweighed by their long-standing animosity. And with a father as misogynistic as Weston Broadmore, his older sisters counted for little but corporate mergers.
So it was all down to him. Their future. His own. Everyone who worked for them.
And if something happened to him they’d have to start over.
And that wasn’t going to happen.
So, no one wanted the heir to the Broadmore fortune breaking his neck in a rugby tackle gone sour. Or falling off a high board. Or driving in a vehicle less sturdy than the Hummer he was gifted at seventeen. The media deemed it a clichéd status symbol and judged him accordingly. In reality, it was the compromise he’d had to make to be allowed to drive himself around like a regular person. Either that or a Mack truck. And it was only his father’s utter unfamiliarity with the kind of machinery that existed in expensive, modern boarding-school workshops that meant he was allowed to work with timber for leisure.
Or maybe Weston Broadmore just figured that a figurehead didn’t need all his fingers to sign things.
‘Yeah, overprotective.’ He grunted.
Alex echoed it.
A good grunt between men was worth a dozen conversations.
And it was what finally made Harry realise why those e
arlier words had slipped so effortlessly from his lips. Spencer probably wasn’t actually trained in military interrogation, it was just that he was as easy a conversationalist as Harry’s own mates back home.
He glanced out to where Izzy and a fellow volunteer slogged away clearing a particularly weed-choked patch of waterway. He’d only seen her in full corporate mode or full party mode or, just the once, full naked-passion mode. But, she gave just as much of herself to this menial task as she did everything else.
‘She always such a perfectionist?’ he said without taking his eyes off her.
Alex’s feigned obliviousness wasn’t fooling anyone, and they both knew it. ‘Yup.’
Yup. He couldn’t help but smile; Alex was his kind of people.
‘I think we’re done here,’ Harry said a while later, stretching the cricks out of his back and examining the finished floor of the little timber hide. Someone else would have to do the walls on another day but with him and Alex on the job it sure wouldn’t sink into the bog.
‘I should go check on my team,’ he murmured. ‘Thanks for the company.’
Alex stood and tossed his thick gloves into the box of borrowed tools. ‘I might head home for some sleep.’
‘It’s middle of the afternoon.’
‘I was up all night.’
‘Doing what?’
Alex looked him straight in the eye. ‘My best work.’
A laugh barked out of him, drawing Izzy’s concerned gaze from across the brook.
Oh, yeah, definitely his kind of people.
‘See you around, Alex.’
Or not, as the case would probably be. Loyalty to Izzy would almost certainly mean any offers for a pint would go unacknowledged.
Shame, really. Friends were thin on the ground, over here.
He glanced at his watch and then made a beeline for his team, half of whom were milling around, taskless, the other half of whom were still working like Trojans. No different here than in the office. Some people kept the air flowing, others just used it up. But, as he went, he made sure to pass by Izzy, who was pink with the afternoon sun and damp from good honest hard work.
That appealed to him on a level he barely understood.
‘I’m going to let my people go,’ he called across to her when she looked up and caught his eye. ‘Thanks for the opportunity today.’
Thanks for getting me out of the office.
Thanks for getting a hammer back in my hand.
Thanks for your super-soldier flatmate and the moment of homesickness that came with him.
‘Harry!’
He turned as she pushed her long, strong legs through the thick watery reeds. When she got to him she was breathless—still inexplicably pleasing—but it was hard to know whether it was exertion or nerves.
‘Do you think you could see your way clear to approving the payout of my separation pay and leave?’
The anxious little gnaw at the corner of her mouth told him she wasn’t comfortable having to ask for her basic rights. And the flip of his stomach told him he should never have trusted Rifkin’s people to do the right thing. They were still smarting from Izzy’s departure. Probably taking their sweet time intentionally.
‘You should have had that weeks ago.’ He tried not to sigh. ‘I authorised it a few days after you left.’
‘Well, clearly someone disagrees with that. I’ve had nothing.’
‘That’s bollocks.’
‘I can assure you it’s true.’
‘I mean it’s bollocks you’ve had to wait. It’s your money.’ He distributed the sawdust from the hide fairly liberally through his hair on his forked fingers. ‘And it makes us look desperate.’
‘Desperate?’
‘To keep you. By holding out. As if you were going to change your mind and come back.’
His glance dropped to her lips before he realised what was happening. He ripped it away but not before she noticed.
‘I’m not,’ she bristled.
‘I recognise that. HR is clearly just in denial. I’ll get it sorted.’
‘Thank you.’
He cleared his throat. ‘No problem. Sorry you haven’t had it yet.’
A month ago he would have added some kind of quip about how many lattes or pedicures she’d have to skip. But a month ago he hadn’t seen this side to her. And something told him she’d be DIYing pedicures for a while.
Unless… He turned back.
‘Are you okay for…? Do you need a—?’ He reached for his wallet without even thinking.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, straightening up, her mouth tight. ‘I don’t need your charity. Just your action.’
Which he’d just promised to give. But she’d managed to make a well-intentioned gesture into an insult.
As usual.
‘I’ll see you Friday, then.’
That had her pausing and half turning back to him. ‘Will you? Where?’
‘I assumed you were going to the big Titan soirée? To make some new contacts?’
She blinked at him. ‘Right. Yes, I’ll see you there.’
And didn’t she sound delighted about that?
SIX
There was a time that Izzy would have spent a week preparing for a party like this.
New dress. New hair. Facial, mani and pedi. Strategic hour or two in a solarium three days prior for that perfect golden glow by the weekend.
Not because she felt particular pressure to look good, and not because she got particular gratification from it. More because she loved the ritual. The anticipation. Party prep prolonged the fun. Especially with girlfriends along for the ride.
But not this one.
Not only was there no money to indulge a week of anticipatory expenditure, but she wasn’t at the party to look good. In fact, looking too good at this kind of event could be detrimental to her purpose. Like an estate agent turning up to your house in a Ferrari. It made people wonder exactly where the money they were handing over would be going.
Parties like this one, hosted by the fund-sourcing group, Titan, were opportunities to impress but not parade. Make connections but not a splash. So it was important to look good… just not too good.
Her breath caught as her eyes filled with the sight of him, all suited up, striding through Titan’s guests towards her. God, what was it about a man in an expensive suit…?
Her lids lowered marginally.
Hang on, that was a particularly expensive suit. Like the eleven-micron wool all over again. ‘Izzy. You look nice.’
Any other party—any other man—and she’d have been offended. But with Harry it was totally possible that he was being simultaneously genuine and provocative. He just couldn’t help himself.
‘Hello, Harry.’ The words were solid but her voice rose, breathless and curious.
His lips twisted. ‘Is that a question or a statement?’
Ridiculous how her heart tripped over its own feet just at the sight of him. They’d only slept together once. Twice, technically, but only one night. And, yes, that night might have changed things between them—and her feelings about everything that had come before it, as new sunglasses changed the way you saw the whole world—but it was still a past-tense kind of thing. And yet there was the unmistakable thumpety-thump of her ridiculous heart. As far as it was concerned, the offences of their past were completely forgiven.
Extraordinary the difference it made knowing how someone looked when they came.
‘No question. I just…that’s a really nice suit.’
He glanced down. ‘Are you going to want to touch me again?’
Heat rushed straight to her cheeks. ‘No.’
‘Shame.
‘But you gave me such grief over the clothes hanging in my room, and that’s…Brioni?’
Ka’ching!
‘Every man should have one really good suit in his wardrobe,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that what they say?’
‘How do you possibly know that?’
‘Sister
s.’ Those broad, Italian-tailored shoulders lifted briefly and it was all she could do not to fixate on how the skin over those nicely shaped muscles had flexed and stretched as they’d rolled around on her bed. Or how they’d felt under the curl of her fingers.
She tossed her short hair back and realised he’d started a new conversation while she’d been indulging her hormones. ‘Sorry…what did you say?’
‘Soonest begun soonest ended,’ he repeated, glancing around them, assessing the room. Looking distinctly unimpressed to be there, actually.
‘Not me,’ she replied. ‘I paid a fortune for my ticket tonight. I’m going to wring every drop of value from it.’
‘Can I offer you a suggestion?’
The way he’d ‘offered’ her fifty grand? What strings would come with the benefit of his wisdom?
‘Can I stop you?’
The lip-twist turned into a full-fledged smile that had her heart a-thumping again. It also brought his eyes squarely back to hers. The first time he’d really seen her this evening.
‘Don’t chase the money.’
‘Meaning?’
‘You want the best return on your ticket investment? Half this room is money, and the other half wants that money. You’re going to struggle to get so much as a handshake here tonight. Maybe your hours are better spent networking with future clients?’
She turned and stared at the crowd.
‘You’re on, what, fifteen per cent commission?’
‘Twenty.’ Higher than most others in her field, but neither she nor The Lutra Trust knew that when they all agreed to it.
‘Twenty per cent of fifty thousand will barely keep you in shoes. You need new clients.’
‘Actually, hats are my drink of choice,’ she quipped. ‘But maybe I’ll just get more funding for the client I have. Thought about that?’
‘I have a better idea. Why don’t you stick with me, tonight?’
The instant thrill the mere thought of that gave her was warning enough. It couldn’t be a good idea. ‘And what use is that?’
‘Because this is a much faster way into conversations with organisations that are so busy scoping me out they don’t realise they’re being scoped in return. And this way, you’re viewed as a conduit, not competition.’
That was true. Every person here was competing for the same corporate dollar.