by Nikki Logan
‘You hold my self-respect in your hands,’ she said quietly. ‘My career.’
He sighed and held her gaze. ‘I know.’
‘Give me your word it will be handled tastefully.’ That I will be.
‘You have it.’ He stretched out a large hand. ‘On your mother’s memory.’
Ava glanced at his long fingers, at the tanned hand where it emerged from an expensive cuff. She itched to feel that smooth skin. But she forced herself to remember which side of the battlefield he’d chosen just minutes before. She stood straighter.
‘If you had the slightest respect for my mother’s memory you wouldn’t be screwing her daughter over to further your own career.’
Even after nine years she still had enough residual hurt left in her to be satisfied as the colour leached entirely from Dan’s face. Then she turned and walked from his office. It would be too easy to fall back on old times and trust him. She had to remember he was no longer Steve’s best mate and her de facto big brother.
He was one of them.
The enemy.
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOU are kidding, right?’ Ava looked at her brother in confusion. ‘I can’t afford this!’
A magnificent home spread out before her, the deep blue of Sydney Harbour reflecting in its many tinted windows. It was sensational. Shooting six days a week for Urban Nature meant the ninety-minute commute to her south coast home just wasn’t doable. Steve had warned her that city accommodation wouldn’t come cheap, but even so she hadn’t appreciated how much of her lucrative pay-rise would be eaten away.
He’d offered to scout affordable rentals for her in the week it would take her to pack up her life in Flynn’s Beach. They’d looked at three already, but this opulence was by far his most ludicrous suggestion.
‘You don’t get it all.’ Steven Lange took her shoulders and twisted her gently to face the east side of the residence. ‘You get that bit.’
‘What bit?’
‘This bit.’ A smooth voice cut in from her right, and Dan walked towards them, a newly cut key dangling from his fingers. She met his gaze evenly, almost defiantly, hoping he’d never realise she harboured the slightest remorse for the way she’d last spoken to him.
He clapped his hand on her brother’s shoulder. ‘Hey, mate. Good to see you.’
Steve grinned. ‘Danno.’
A bad feeling came over her. Oh, he hadn’t…
‘Come on, I’ll show you around my humble abode,’ Dan said.
She turned and glared at Steve as Dan guided the way to a refurbished arched gate in the large rammed-earth wall that obscured the rest of the house from view. Ava’s heart leapt as she stepped through the pretty gate into a small garden space, and her designer’s eye immediately started doing its thing. There wasn’t a lot of planning evident, but it was lush, flowering and completely unexpected in a house as modern as this one. An ancient birdbath leaned skew-whiff in the garden’s heart. It was designer crooked, dotted with clusters of moss, and looked as if it belonged in a home magazine.
She fought to keep her face from betraying how much the whole setting appealed to her. It was precisely the sort of thing she might design.
‘Garden and price, you said.’ Steve spoke from behind her. ‘They were your criteria. This has a garden, and you can afford it.’
Looking at the affluent surroundings, and considering it was in one of Sydney’s top harbourside addresses, Ava struggled to imagine how she possibly could.
She lifted her chin and stared both men down. ‘It also smacks of a set-up.’
Steve glanced away, but Dan wordlessly led them along a path made of rough-cut stone pavers and into a small guesthouse, which shared one wall with the main building. His tour of the little house ended in an airy bedroom, where he parted timber bi-fold doors and sunshine and fragrance from the garden spilled across the timber floor. Ava caught her breath and had to drag her focus back to her brother before she gave away how beautiful she found it.
Such a shame she wouldn’t get to enjoy it.
Steve flopped onto the sofa in the living area. The throw draped so casually across it looked as if it was worth more than her entire budget lounge suite at home. Dan’s new life certainly was a comfortable one.
‘There must be other places on the list?’ she said hopefully.
‘Nup. Not with ticks in both boxes. And this one’s close to the city and the waterfront as a bonus. You’re not going to see better.’
She didn’t doubt that for a second. The wash of the harbour was a tranquil soundtrack with the doors wide open like this, and it was just a ferry ride to the central business district. Lord, it was going to be hard to walk away from this one.
She turned to her brother. ‘Come on, Steve, show me the list.’
His hands rose in a mea culpa. Dan spoke from behind her. ‘Ava, take it. Just pretend you’re living next to someone else.’
‘It’s not…’ Lord, how did she begin to explain how she was feeling about all this now it was a reality? Working with him. Sharing a roof with him. Him. While she still felt so exploited.
‘You’re getting mates’ rates,’ Steve helpfully piped up.
She glared at him. That was a dirty pitch. He knew very well that finances were her Achilles’ heel right now. ‘How much?’
Steve looked to Dan for the answer, which meant Ava couldn’t avoid it any longer. She dragged her eyes to his. He shrugged and said, ‘It’s part of your employment package.’
Free? This magnificent light and that gorgeous garden and harbour view were gratis? She forced the excitement down deep, visualised the revised contract she’d only just signed and looked Dan in the eye. ‘No, it isn’t.’
The tiniest hint of colour crept above the collar of his shirt. ‘It’s sitting here empty, Ava, and I’m hardly ever home. It’s no skin off my nose if someone’s living here.’
‘What if you want to have guests to stay?’ she asked.
He clamped his jaw hard. ‘It won’t be a problem.’
Because he had no friends? Or because most were of the female variety and would share his bedroom rather than the visitor’s quarters? That nasty jealous whisper took her by surprise, and she twisted away to cross into the bedroom. Pettiness wasn’t like her.
She looked again at the blossoming garden and imagined how it could look with a bit of time and focus. Then she thought about the many ways that her salary could be better spent than lining a stranger’s pocket as rent. Just like that, a zero fell off her debt to the bank.
She glanced between Steve’s hopeful grey eyes and Dan’s veiled brown ones and chewed her lip. Which made her the bigger fool? Taking the guesthouse or knocking it back?
‘Does it have its own entrance?’ she hedged, desperate to find a valid fault.
‘It’s completely self-contained. And—’ Dan guided her through the suite and out of the rear door, where a Winnebago barely fitted into the carport ‘—it comes with a mobile office. As agreed.’
Ava stepped past his guarded look and into the twenty-foot vehicle, with Steve following close behind. Her heart missed a beat.
‘Courtesy of AusOne, for as long as you’re with us,’ Dan said. ‘You can take this on location and work on your designs between shoots.’
It was ideal. Fully converted as an office space, with a drafting table, desk, filing cabinets and a kitchenette. Every inch of it was modern luxury, and no bigger than the horse-trucks she’d driven without problem for her dad. She was fast running out of good reasons to say no.
She clamped her jaw. ‘Wow. When you guys sweeten, you really sweeten.’
‘The network was…appreciative…of your situation, and eager to ensure you could work on location,’ he said.
She shot him a wry glance. ‘A happy host is a good host?’
He smiled, not quite relaxed, but it was the first she’d had from him since she’d seen him a week ago. The smile before that one had been more than nine years ago, before that night.
She pushed the unwelcome thought from her head.
‘You’re not the host, truth be told,’ he said.
‘No?’ Steve and Ava spoke together.
‘You’re the brains of the outfit. Brant Maddox is the anchor.’
‘Ugh. Maddox.’ Steve stomped out of the trailer in disgust. Ava frowned. Where had she heard that name before?
Dan clarified. ‘Maddox is AusOne’s latest and greatest.’
Oh, right! She grinned as she remembered. Brant Maddox was serious eye-candy. ‘That should get you the female half of Australia watching, anyway.’
Dan held her look. ‘You’ll do all right with the male half, Ava. You forget, I’ve seen the test rushes.’
With no clue what to do with a compliment from Dan Arnot, Ava escaped the modern trailer office and returned into the world’s most perfect guesthouse. Finding an affordable short-term rental in inner-Sydney wouldn’t be easy for the six months she’d be here. This was pure luxury, central, a bargain, and she knew the landlord. All major plusses. And, of course, there was the magnificent light and the garden. She chewed her lip and looked everywhere but at the man standing next to her.
Could she do the girl-next-door thing again…?
Dan watched the conflict play out on Ava’s face and tempered a smile. When she was young she’d used to have out-loud conversations with those voices in her head. Now it looked as if she’d mastered the art of internalisation.
Somewhat.
She’d walked away from him just now with as much dignity as when she’d marched from his office a week ago. Head high, as if she owned the place. Right now she wanted to. He could tell. The way her eyes had lit up when she saw the light streaming in the bedroom, and when she’d walked through the tiny garden courtyard.
But that light dimmed every time she looked at him. Like polished silver instantly aging.
He sighed and carefully closed the door to the trailer behind him, conscious of its price tag. If this season didn’t go well, the leased RV and everything in it would be heading back to the dealers.
Bloody AusOne. He’d brought them a string of winners in his six years there, but one little sleeper in a glutted lifestyle market and suddenly they were sending the boys round. That meant forty jobs on the line—one of them Ava’s.
Another one his. And he hadn’t sacrificed a third of his life to give it all away this easily.
He leaned casually on the doorframe to the bedroom, dropped his voice and brought out the big guns. He knew this woman. At least the girl before the woman. Her habits couldn’t have changed that much.
‘Come on, Ava. Just imagine yourself stretched out in here having lazy Sunday afternoon naps, falling asleep to the sounds of the harbour.’
And just like that he had her. The grey eyes she turned on him brimmed with longing. Then, out of nowhere, his gut tightened, and he got a flash of long afternoons in there with her. But it was a different breed of longing in her eyes, and neither of them were napping.
He blinked the vision clear.
Watching her in the soft glow from outside reminded him of her test shots: how the light had seemed to radiate out from her rather than reflecting off her. She’d been on screen for less than five minutes of the behind-the-scenes special, but the test audience had rated her through the roof, responding unanimously to her vitality, her gentle nature and her absolute love of what she did. And it didn’t hurt that she had a natural, earthy sexiness that any viewer with a Y-chromosome would respond to.
Dan certainly had. Lucky he was known for complete absorption during previews, or his total captivation might have been noticed. Little Ava was a now a certified knockout. Who would’ve thought it?
The last time he’d seen her she’d been all legs and teenage angst. A good kid, with a heart as big as a continent, right on the edge of womanhood, but high-maintenance in the extreme. And definitely not comfortable around him. That much, at least, hadn’t changed.
‘Excuse me.’ Grown-up Ava avoided his eyes as she moved to pass him in the doorway.
He almost—almost—made her squeeze past him, but nine years had cured him of viewing her blushes as sport. He straightened and let her through, ignoring the subtle soapy scent that tantalised his senses and focussing on the challenge at hand.
He needed Ava on this show.
Urban Nature was practically made for her designs. Her talent for turning heavily urban spaces into green ones was as unique as it was inspired. Her proud brother had all too willingly fed Dan’s need to vicariously monitor her progress and every design he delivered convinced Dan more and more that she was the key to a new concept in lifestyle. He’d offered her the designer’s role on the pilot version of Urban Nature through a go-between, knowing she’d never willingly accept a job from him. Then, once she was well and truly hooked, he’d left it to Steve to break the bad news.
That she was really working for Daniel Arnot, scourge of Flynn’s Beach…breaker of hearts.
Destroyer of dreams.
She locked eyes with him from across the suite and then glanced at the door leading to his part of the house. At the spanking new deadlock he’d installed yesterday. She looked somewhat comforted by it.
Dan forced down the regret and guilt at manipulating someone he considered a friend, a mate’s sister. He’d worked too hard and sacrificed too much to retreat now. He had a point to prove to his old man and, by God, he was going to sharpen that point until it glinted.
The anticipation pulsing in his chest was all about his career goal suddenly being a heck of a lot closer. It had nothing to do with the woman looking back and forth between him and her brother.
So when she thrust out her hand and said, ‘Okay. I’ll take it,’ the rush he felt could only have been the thrill of victory.
Couldn’t it?
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHAT the..?’
Dan lengthened his strides as he approached the production trailer parked at the rear of the industrial property where they were shooting. More than one crew member had turned his head in the direction of two frazzled female voices—one raised and indignant, the other softer, more urgent. He climbed onto the trailer step with only a cursory knock and flung the door open.
On the periphery of his vision he saw the warning gaze of Carrie Watson, their make-up guru, but his attention was entirely consumed by five foot four inches of Ava.
Very angry Ava.
‘Is this your idea?’ she blazed, straight at him.
She stood, hands on hips, clad only in low-slung cargo shorts, which revealed a mile of tanned leg, and a brief—make that a minuscule—tank top. It was small, white, and disturbingly tight, with a logo for a popular brand of power tool stretched across her full chest. Every curve—and Ava had definitely been standing at the front of the queue when those were being dished out—screamed notice me.
‘I’m digging a garden, Dan. Not dancing on a bar.’
He forced his eyes away from that logo. The last time he’d seen Ava in anything less than corporate wear she’d been sixteen years old. And this was definitely less. Way less. He sucked in some air.
‘I’m not wearing it.’ She stood legs apart, ready for a fight. A blistering one, by the looks of her.
His attention snapped back to her face as cold fury seeped in. This was not the outfit he’d signed-off on. No, this had network written all over it. It was only the first day of filming and Bill Kurtz was already playing games. He bustled past her to rummage in the small clothing rack in the corner.
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ he said, reaching to pull a crisp pale blue shirt from its hanger.
‘That’s Brant’s shirt,’ Carrie hastily warned him. ‘We need it for the next set-up.’
Dan fumed and shoved it back on the rack, glancing at Ava’s clothes draped over the chair. She couldn’t wear her own blouse; it was too busy for television. But she couldn’t wear that…outift…either. It was completely the wrong image for the show.
Besides, h
e’d given her his word, and that get-up protected no one’s integrity. Least of all his. He prowled around the trailer, looking for inspiration.
‘They’re going to want that logo in there, Dan,’ Carrie reminded him unnecessarily.
‘I know, Carrie. Just let me think.’ Frustration made him short. They were filming in an industrial area, twenty minutes from the nearest shopping mall. That was a one-hour round trip the schedule just couldn’t afford. The cursed network would know that.
He swore again.
His gaze landed on a blue singlet that sat unopened in its packet. On Ava it would be no better than her tank top, but it gave him an idea. He tugged his Yves Saint Laurent business shirt out of his waistband and made quick work of the dozen buttons.
‘Here.’ He thrust the still-warm shirt at Ava. ‘Put this on over the top.’
It was too large by far, but she slid it on, and Carrie fashioned the excess fabric into a knot at her waist. The sponsor logo was still easily visible, but the result was infinitely less gratuitous.
Dan did his best not to look too closely. ‘The shorts have to go, too,’ he said. Exactly how Kurtz imagined those would work when Ava was digging in a garden bed in several shots…Oh, he knew exactly what Kurtz had imagined.
‘I have cargo pants for tomorrow, Dan,’ Carrie said, reaching to a low shelf.
‘Perfect. Wear those,’ he barked at Ava, then turned and nailed Carrie with his glare. ‘Burn the shorts.’
He yanked the blue singlet from its packet and stalked out of the wardrobe trailer, tugging it on. He knew he’d snapped at both of them, but he was still reeling from his reaction to the skin-tight tank top. That chest. Those legs.
She was practically his little sister, for crying out loud.
He tucked the singlet in, not caring how ridiculous it looked over suit pants. It wasn’t a patch on how ridiculous Ava would have looked in the get-up the network had switched to. Thank God he’d been on set today.
He was going to have to watch the filming like a hawk.