by Nancy Warren
Mark blinked. If only he didn’t feel so fuzzy-headed, he was certain he’d see all the flaws in Bronwyn’s idea.
If she’d been thrown out of her apartment, how great a roommate was she going to be even for one night? He was going to need his sleep, so if she was staying here hoping to turn this place into Sydney’s party central, he was going to have to put his foot down.
He’d showered, shaved, and was telling himself he felt fine. He refused even to calculate how long it had been since he’d slept.
While his one night roommate shopped for dinner, he unpacked. Then he set up his laptop at the desk in the fully equipped office area of the big bedroom and checked his e-mail.
And suddenly, California seemed worlds away.
Well, he didn’t trust Bronwyn for a second, but somehow he’d scored a beautiful, sexy woman cooking him dinner and sharing his place his first night in Sydney. A woman who owned a glittery thong. He chuckled. His intuition had been right. He was going to like this city.
After he’d forwarded most of the e-mails to people who could deal with them, he shut down and decided he’d been cooped up long enough. He pulled on running gear and headed out.
He reached for the door handle as the door opened and there was Bronwyn, loaded down with shopping bags and a little breathless from the outside stairs. Her blond hair floated loose around her shoulders, her denim-blue eyes widened in surprise at the near impact. This close, he could see a cluster of freckles beneath the light tan.
She wore a navy tank top with the small Crane logo, and brief white shorts that showed a lot of slim, tanned leg.
She smelled of healthy young woman, salt air, and pineapple.
While he’d checked her out, she’d done the same. “Going running?”
“Yes.”
“Need a map?”
“No.” He had a good sense of direction, and he’d keep his route simple.
She nodded. “Okay. I could give you a key now, but I’ll be here when you get back.”
“I’ll take your set,” he said, keeping his voice even. “Tomorrow.”
Her cheeks grew rosier. “Yes, of course.”
Feeling churlish, he said, “Need a hand with the bags?”
“No, thanks. I’ve got it. I hope you like fish.”
“Love it.”
He let himself out and the warmth hit him along with a salt-tinged ocean breeze, around ten degrees warmer at a guess than the weather he’d left in San Francisco.
Knowing he was probably dehydrated from flying, he stopped at a corner store and bought water, then he kept his pace easy. He nearly collided with three people and awkwardly apologized before he figured out that the same rules of the road apply on the running paths. Left-hand side.
“Sorry,” he said after the last crash.
“No worries, mate,” came the cheerful reply.
Everyone in Sydney seemed cheerful, from the staff at the airport to Bronwyn to the woman in the corner store.
Everyone but him.
It was more difficult than he’d imagined to come to this place, to the very company where so much had been stolen from him. It wasn’t just his woman, but the future he’d so carefully mapped out, his sense of himself as a man certain of his place in the world and certain of the woman by his side.
Jen.
She’d come here a matter of months ago with his ring on her finger and a caterer already chosen for their wedding. Then she’d met Cameron Crane and next thing he knew, she was dumping him on his ass.
He’d acted like a man, of course, and pride had brought him through the first awkward meeting with her and the excruciating one with Cameron Crane himself. She’d stripped him of a lot, but at least she’d left him his professional pride. She’d asked him to come here because he was the best. He was here for the same reason, and to prove to her, Cameron Crane, and anyone else who cared, that he was unmoved enough by the breakup to come and do a job for his ex-fiancée’s new boyfriend.
They hadn’t been right for each other, Jen had told him, but Mark didn’t see it that way. They were both decent, hard-working people. They liked the same restaurants, both loved theater. She didn’t care for baseball, but since he was a fan she’d made an effort, and he’d done the same for her with ballet. Now, instead of a wedding and a life plan, he had nothing.
No. Not true, he reminded himself. He had freedom, and a new cynicism that showed him the error of his former ways. If he’d learned anything in the past few months it was that nice guys like him really did finish last.
Well, no more. No more mister nice guy, Mr. Responsible, Mr. Sensitive to a woman’s needs. He’d been tossed over for a marginally evolved, hairy brute with a boxer’s nose and a swagger.
If that’s what women really wanted, Mark Forsythe was going to give it to them. And what better place to start than this land of rugged, fierce individualists. And the women! He’d heard about the women. Gorgeous, free-spirited gals who sunbathed topless and partied as hard as the men. He was going to get him some of that. Every night a new woman. Maybe a handful. And when he was through, Jen and his tame dreams would be as much a part of the past as his ambition to be a fireman when he was eight years old.
He’d outgrown that silly red plastic fireman’s hat with the stick-on gold badge, and he’d outgrown the idea of marriage and settling down. Jennifer Talbot had done him a favor by dumping him. Yes, she had.
As he ran the kinks out of his body and the fuzziness from his mind, Mark began to see the humor in the current situation. A gorgeous woman wanted to spend some time with him, and he was doing his best to throw her out.
He wasn’t a fool—most of the time—and since his recent breakup, he’d grown increasingly cynical about women and their motives, about love, and most especially, about marriage. He’d eat this woman’s dinner, let her stay the night, and then tomorrow he’d start on an aggressive plan to turn himself into the hard-bitten playboy that women seemed to prefer.
He’d probably have a lot of fun along the way, too.
He ran three miles or so. He passed families with kids in strollers, and tried not to notice. He passed lovers, arm in arm, giggling softly about their private jokes, and scowled. And he passed a couple of guys like himself. Unencumbered, free to wander with a Saturday morning latte, or run, or do whatever the hell they felt like. His people.
He began to notice the heat, and that sweat was dribbling down his face. Probably it was time to head for home.
He glugged water. The heat was different here. It was November, early summer, and the temperature was climbing by the minute. By the time he’d retraced his steps and returned to the house, he’d gone through two liters of water and still felt thirsty.
He entered the relatively cool entranceway and tried not to drip on the slate tile. “Bronwyn?”
“Yeah?” Her voice floated from the back of the main floor.
“Could you bring me a towel?”
She emerged, slim and golden, her long hair fastened into a sloppy ponytail, sent him an amused glance, and disappeared into the bathroom.
When she emerged with a big white fluffy towel, he had his breathing under control.
“How was your run?” she asked him, her gaze traveling up and down his body in a manner that had sweat breaking out all over again.
“Fine. It was fine. Hotter than I thought, is all.” He felt like an idiot, mopping his face and limbs while she stood watching him. Personal grooming in front of a woman seemed uncomfortably intimate, although she obviously didn’t feel that way; she merely stood watching. He glanced up at her, deciding to play it cool and ask some lame question about what she was serving for dinner, but the words stuck in his throat.
There was a gleam of sexual interest in her eyes that pulled at him. Awareness danced around them, and for a moment he could think of nothing but what she’d taste like.
As though she’d read his mind, her lips parted, and he noticed how young she looked, how fresh and dewy. She wore no makeup that he could se
e. Her freckles weren’t smoothed and hidden by cosmetics, her blue eyes were as clear and dreamy as the Caribbean, her lips plump and pale coral.
He wanted her.
The knowledge made him blink. For all his grand plans to cut a swath through the female society of Sydney, he hadn’t counted on feeling plain, sharp desire for the first woman he met.
Seconds ticked by and neither said a word. Did she move infinitesimally closer? Did he?
A warm droplet of sweat licked at his temple and all at once he realized that he was hot, sweaty, and probably smelly. In no condition to kiss anyone.
He pulled back and got busy with the towel. “I’d better shower,” he said.
“Mmm. Let me know if you need help washing your back.” And with that she turned and headed back to the kitchen, the sway of her hips as provocative as her words.
He thought about it while he showered.
Why not? Why not begin his post-Jen womanizing with a sexy young woman who telegraphed her interest to him in entirely unsubtle terms?
There were two possible downsides. One, she worked for Crane Enterprises. Two. She’d moved her stuff into the place already. If he slept with her, he might need dynamite to get her out. Balancing his lust against practicality, he dried himself on another fluffy white towel and decided to wait. He’d get her out of the place first before he made a move on her.
It wasn’t like she was going anywhere. She worked for the company he’d be consulting with for the next few weeks. He could get to know her a little and make sure she was the kind of woman who could handle a brief fling with a co-worker. That was the sensible plan. And Mark was nothing if not sensible.
Bron debated, for the third time, whether to put the fish on the barbecue or to wait another half-hour. It was eight o’clock and she was starving.
After turning down her offer for a personalized city tour, a picnic at the beach, or a few hours on a sailing boat in Sydney harbor, Mark had claimed work and disappeared upstairs. She suspected he wasn’t working, but napping, and a good thing if he was after the long flight.
But should she rouse him? If she didn’t, and he slept through dinner, he’d wake at some ungodly hour with his stomach rumbling—and he might blame her. Since she was extremely interested in staying in his good books for the next two weeks, she decided to creep upstairs and wake him slowly, then leave it to him if he wanted dinner. If not, she could always put his on a plate for later, though the idea of cold fish in the middle of the night didn’t sound very appealing.
Her tread was soundless on the carpeted stairs and upper hallway, but she needn’t have bothered creeping about. He wasn’t sleeping. From the doorway of his bedroom, she saw him at the desk beside the window industriously tapping away at a laptop computer, an open file folder in front of him. From it spilled a sheaf of papers dense with columns of figures. She shuddered at the idea of anyone cooped up on a sunny Saturday afternoon choosing accounting over pleasure.
It occurred to her that this man needed her help. If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was to have fun.
“Ready for dinner?” she asked.
Across the bed, their gazes met. Phew, he could generate some steam with those eyes of his.
They widened when they took in her outfit, which made her happy she’d spent an unusual half-hour primping. The soft blue and green batik print skirt brushed at her ankles, so he could see the tiny rose tattooed there if he cared to look.
She wore wooden sandals with leather straps, and a blue-green tank top. She’d even bothered with jewelry, donning the opal beads and earrings her brother had given her for her birthday last year.
Her hair shone with brushing, and a light and sexy scent emanated from behind her ears and between her breasts.
If she couldn’t snag Mark Forsythe’s interest with full battle regalia, then she wasn’t the woman she believed herself to be. And he wasn’t the sexually interested man she’d glimpsed in the hallway earlier. The one who was staring back at her right this second.
“Thanks. I’ll be down in five minutes,” he said, blinking. He rose and stretched, and she was conscious of the lean power of his body. Nice, she thought. Very nice.
He smothered a yawn. The bed between them was as crisp and neat as it had been this morning.
“Didn’t you sleep at all?”
“No. I told you. It’s better to stay awake. Prevents jet lag.”
“Right.” She wondered if he was always this rigid. Always so hard on himself. Seemed a shame. What he needed was a little fun. She smiled a tiny smile. “See you downstairs.”
He was as good as his word. In five minutes he was downstairs and, perhaps he’d taken his cue from her, but he’d changed his clothes. Now he wore a gray short-sleeved cotton shirt over navy pants that looked as though they contained silk. And they were sharply seamed as though freshly pressed, when they had to have been crushed in a suitcase for hours and hours.
“Your timing’s perfect,” she said, sliding two brilliantly barbecued fillets onto plates that already contained a pawpaw/mango salsa and green salad. She’d even made a risotto. Sure, it had taken half an hour to clean up the mess she’d made in the kitchen, but the results were worth a bit of mess. “I thought we’d eat out here.”
“Sure. Great.”
He didn’t seem overwhelmed by the romance of the setting, the purply-gray night sky, the soft breeze, the shushing sounds of the ocean. In fact, she wondered if he even noticed.
She set the plates on the table and he waited until she was seated before sitting down himself. Such manners.
There was crisp, chilled white wine from the Hunter Valley, bread, fresh from the bakery looking crusty and golden in the flickering candlelight. Her meal, and her table, looked straight out of an Australian Women’s Weekly glossy magazine. Probably because it was.
She was trying so hard to be charming, attractive, and hospitable that she was getting on her own nerves. The trouble was, that for all her talk about moving in with a friend temporarily, she didn’t have a friend left who’d take her in. It wasn’t really her fault; it was just that there were always incidents when she was around.
She didn’t blame her friends. If she’d been them, she wouldn’t invite her to stay, either. If they didn’t end up with some dickhead who’d fallen for Bron singing at the top of his lungs in the wee hours, they got hassled by credit people. Very annoying.
She poured wine before Mark had a chance to refuse, and raised her glass in a toast. “Welcome to Australia.”
He grinned and clicked her glass with his own. “Thanks. And thank you for this meal. It looks great.”
“It’s barramundi, a whitefish you won’t find in North America.”
“Wonderful. I’m starved.”
She tucked in, happy that the fish tasted as good as it was supposed to.
“Hey, what’s that bird?” he asked, staring past her shoulder.
She glanced over to where he pointed and laughed. “That’s not a bird. It’s a flying fox. There must be a fruit tree around somewhere. They’re fruit bats, really. They sleep all day and then go feeding at night.” Even as she spoke several more of the dark-winged creatures flapped past.
“I read about them, but they’re so much bigger than I thought.” He sounded carefree in that moment, when he lost himself in the thrill of a new sight.
The breeze whispered by her cheek, warm and soft as a lover’s caress. In the distance, she heard good-natured, back-and-forth joking coming from the beach. Closer in, she heard the steady hum of traffic below. The scent of barbecuing meat traveled over from next door; recognizing it, she laughed. “That’s what you almost got. Lamb. You’ll probably get that tomorrow.”
He smiled, but a crease formed between his eyes. “I don’t want to be rude about this, but you won’t be here tomorrow.”
“I didn’t say I’d cook it for you, did I?” she said, exasperated. “I’ll shove off,” she paused, leaned forward, and said slowly, enunciating each
word, “if you don’t want me.” She knew damn well he did want her. As she wanted him.
Although she’d wanted him a lot more before she’d heard his plan to be a lad about town.
Mark drank a lot of the fancy bottled water she’d put on the table, but he drank his share of the wine, too, she was pleased to note, and he seemed to relax.
“So, what do you do at Crane?” he asked.
“I’m with the product marketing team. We’ve got the lion’s share of the Oz and Kiwi markets, but we’ve been really busy since Jennifer Talbot arrived. She’s come up with some great ideas for the American launch,” she said with enthusiasm, then could have stabbed her tongue with the fish fork as Mark’s interested gaze clouded over.
“Anyway,” she babbled on, “I’m also the head designer for our women’s clothing line, which mostly means I get to boss about the real designers.”
“Do you like working for Crane?”
She wasn’t certain whether he meant Cam or the company in general, but having stuffed up once, she played it safe and decided to assume he meant the company. “I love it. The people are mostly young and really fun. We all love surfing. That’s a prerequisite of working there.” She looked over. “Do you surf?”
“Not since I grew up.”
“Right.” She imagined that insult was leveled at Cam and not her. Still, it rankled. “You’d be surprised how many adults do love to surf. It’s our biggest growth area.”
“Forget the job, what about you personally?”
“I grew up right here in Sydney. Mum was from the country, but after her first husband was killed in a machinery accident, she moved here and worked in an office. That’s where she met my father. He’s an engineer.”
“Brothers or sisters?”
“A half-brother.” Cam was her half-brother, and she was surprised Jen hadn’t mentioned that when she’d told Mark about the job. Although, since she’d dumped him, they probably didn’t chatter a lot about office gossip.
The last thing Bron wanted was to bring Cam’s name into the conversation. The less they talked about Jen or Cam, the better. “He’s eight years older, so I grew up more like an only child.” She shrugged. “I took clothing design at school and now I have a good job and some great mates. When I’m not working, I love to surf and party. That’s my life.”