Her Favorite Temptation

by Mayberry, Sarah

  “I should probably finish my dinner,” she said.

  “Right. Don’t want it to get cold.” There was frustration in his voice and his face.

  For a second she was gripped with the reckless impulse to simply grab him by the shoulders and kiss him, objections, excuses, explanations be damned. Because no matter what he said about this not being a good time for him, he wanted her. She could see it, she could feel it.

  She took another step backward, clasping her hands behind her for good measure. Just in case. “See you later, then.”

  “Yeah, see you later.” He turned away, a frown furrowing his forehead, as though he didn’t understand himself.

  Well, that made two of them. Feeling more than a little thwarted, she returned to her stone-cold chicken tikka masala.

  * * *

  WILL SHUT THE door on temptation and strode into his kitchen, pissed off and turned on in equal measures.

  Until a few weeks ago, he’d always been a little smug about his powers of self-control. He’d never had an issue with drinking too much, had never been the slightest bit interested in drugs, had never had a problem with his weight. He liked to think that when he put his mind to something, he could make it happen.

  Then, of course, he’d met Leah, and learned that he simply hadn’t come up against the right kind of temptation yet.

  Take tonight, for example. He’d gone next door to be friendly. To offer her some support for what he knew must have been a tough conversation. And he’d wound up with his finger tucked inside the pocket of her scrubs, bare inches between them, his whole body urging him to get closer still.

  Not quite the version of friendly he’d been aiming for, but it seemed that when it came to Leah, he had a very slippery grip on his own urges.

  He massaged his forehead, aware the headache that had been sitting in the background all day was ramping up. He checked the time and saw that he was clear to take some more painkillers, then filled a glass with water and swallowed two tablets.

  He remained at the sink, staring at the shiny steel, forcing himself to acknowledge that the headaches had been getting worse over the past week. Not a huge surprise, given his diagnosis, but it didn’t make the situation any less terrifying.

  Despite the fact that he’d been taking steroids for the past four weeks in the hope of shrinking the tumor before his surgery, there was the very real possibility that the thing in his head was getting bigger, putting more pressure on the tissue around it. Hence his more frequent aphasia attacks, the headaches and the occasional numbness in his right hand and foot.

  He swore softly, then picked up his phone and left a message with his surgeon. The guy was busy, but he usually responded to Will within a day or so.

  He was about to set the phone down when it started to ring, Mark’s face filling the screen. Will hesitated for a moment, then forced himself to answer.

  He’d been avoiding calls from family and friends the past couple of days, communicating via email because it was easier to control the conversation that way. Talking to his parents and sisters about his health, the upcoming operation, his symptoms every few days was exhausting and depressing. He’d needed a break, but Mark would worry if he kept cutting him out, and there was only so much selfishness Will was prepared to let himself get away with.

  “Mate. You’re there,” Mark said, the relief in his voice plain to hear.

  “Yep. What’s happening?” Will tensed, waiting for the inevitable soft-voiced questions about how he was feeling, if there was anything he needed.

  “Nothing much, just the usual. Narelle’s freaking out because I want to buy a new kit, Greta’s still teething.”

  Will relaxed a little. “Didn’t you just buy a new kit?”

  “That’s what Narelle said, you traitor. Can’t a man have a little luxury in his life?”

  With the kind of success he and Mark had enjoyed recently, a man could have a lot of luxury, but Mark’s wife, Narelle, was one of the most level-headed, pragmatic people Will knew. It stood to reason that she’d have strong opinions on how much excess a person needed in their life. Definitely she’d have an opinion about how many drum kits a man needed, even if he was a professional musician.

  “Can’t you bribe her? Offer to put in a new kitchen or take her on a holiday.”

  “Mate. Are you trying to get me decapitated? You know she’d tear me a new one if I tried to barter with her. Especially with a kitchen. I can hear the ‘symbol of patriarchal oppression’ speech already.”

  Will laughed. “Oh, yeah. It’d be almost as bad as buying her a household appliance for her birthday.”

  “Yet you still suggested it, you sadistic bastard.”

  “Just testing the waters, seeing how desperate you are.”

  Mark laughed, the sound welcome and incredibly familiar. Mark was one of his oldest friends as well as one half of the band, and they’d been through more than their fair share of good and bad times together.

  “I had a call from Eric yesterday,” Mark said. “He’s got some numbers for us to look at from the last quarter.”

  Eric was their manager, and they talked business for a few minutes, both agreeing that their U.S. sales were scary good before moving on to talk about a merchandising offer they’d had. Nothing heavy, because they’d agreed that any big decisions would have to wait until after Will’s health crisis was over, but Galahad Jones was an unstoppable juggernaut these days and every day brought new complications and opportunities.

  “I’ll pass on to Eric that we’d rather wait and see what else is out there,” Mark said as they wound up the discussion. “There’s no need to hitch our wagon to the first merch company that comes along.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “How’s the flu going?”

  It was a measure of how much he’d enjoyed talking to Mark that Will was able to smile at the question. Mark had held off on the health talk for almost twenty minutes. Must have been killing him.

  “It’s gone, thank God.”

  “So have you got a new surgery date yet?”

  “Not yet. I’m hoping to speak to my guy tomorrow.”

  “Freaking hell, man. This waiting must be doing your head in,” Mark said. “It’s doing my head in and it’s not even my head.”

  “Let’s just say it’s been bloody trippy at times. Fortunately, as you know, I am excellent at avoiding things when I put my mind to it. And there’s also Leah.”

  He was a little surprised to hear himself say her name out loud. Leah was a part of this strange limbo world he was living in, and talking about her with Mark felt...odd.

  “Who’s Leah?”

  “She lives next door.”

  “Yeah? And how does she like her eggs in the morning?”

  He could hear the smile in his friend’s voice.

  “Believe it or not, I have no idea. We’re just friends.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Will laughed. Mark knew him too well. “I’m not saying I haven’t thought about it. But—” he tried to find a way to explain why sleeping with Leah would feel as though he was taking advantage “—I don’t want to tell her,” he said quietly.

  Mark was silent for a long moment. “I guess you must get pretty sick of talking and thinking about it all the time.”

  “Yep.”

  “I was thinking of coming to the city on Wednesday. You going to be around? If I promise no tumor talk?”

  “Should be. Unless my head explodes between now and then.”

  His attempt at humor was met with an appalled silence.

  “Joke, mate. My head’s not going to explode. I’m much more likely to drop dead on the spot.”

  Mark’s sigh was audible. “You are too freaking funny, you know that?”

  “As
a matter of fact, I do.”

  “Jerk. See you Wednesday. I’ll call when I get there, okay?”

  “Cool. Give my love to the girls.”

  “Consider it done.”

  Will spent the rest of the night online, messaging with some friends in America and generally wasting time until he felt weary enough to sleep.

  He woke at three o’clock with a skull-cracking headache, crawling out of bed and just making it to the bathroom in time to lose last night’s dinner. He’d been prescribed some serious pain meds for this precise situation and he managed to keep them down, drifting into sleep again in the early hours.

  He woke midmorning to the sound of his phone ringing in the living room. Feeling like a zombie, he staggered into the other room and managed to catch a call from his surgeon, Alistair Chang.

  “Morning,” he croaked.

  “Will. Still not over the flu?” Alistair asked, concerned.

  Will cleared his throat. “No, I’m good. Just haven’t spoken to anyone yet today, that’s all.”

  “Good to hear. I’ll ask my secretary to find an appointment for you in the next couple of days so we can give you the all clear and reschedule. How has everything else been?”

  Will sat on the edge of the couch. “The headaches have been getting worse. Woke with a humdinger overnight. Had to take that stuff you gave me.”

  “I see. Anything else that has changed? How is the aphasia?”

  “Nothing since the weekend.” But that had been only a few days ago.

  “So it sounds as though the episodes are becoming more frequent, too. Let’s book you in for an MRI when you come in, okay? Take a look and see what’s happening.” Alistair’s tone was confident, very matter-of-fact. Something Will usually found reassuring.

  Today, not so much.

  “Sure.” Will rubbed his forehead, thinking about his arrangement with Mark. If the times clashed, he’d have to cancel.

  “Anything else you want to talk about?” Alistair asked.

  Sure. I’d like an iron-clad guarantee that not only will I survive you cutting into my head, but also I’ll still be able to write music and play the guitar and be me.

  “Nope. Nothing I can think of at the moment,” he said.

  “I’ll see you later in the week, then.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Will fought the completely irrational urge to throw the phone across the room. It wasn’t the phone’s fault that his life was in the toilet right now. Smashing it wouldn’t change anything.

  The thing was, he’d never been great at waiting. His mother loved to tell the story about how he’d snuck downstairs at five in the morning one Christmas when he was a kid and opened all his presents before anyone else was awake. He’d always gotten in trouble at school for fidgeting in class and distracting others. Music was one of the few things that made time stop for him. He could literally lose days composing a melody or perfecting a lyric.

  But even music was no defense against this kind of limbo.

  His gaze went to where his Epiphone leaned against the wall in the corner. He shrugged. What the hell. He had nothing better to do.

  He collected the guitar, then sat on the arm of the couch, fitting the curved body into his lap, an action that was as natural to him as breathing. He closed his eyes and started to play.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LEAH SPENT THE days leading to her dinner date with her sister swinging wildly between panicky dread and excited hope. She had no idea how Audrey would respond to her overture. She’d like to think that Audrey would be open to them having a more honest, open relationship, but she wasn’t entirely sure that that was true.

  She saw Will twice, once in the foyer when she was heading out for a run, the other time in the hallway as she was coming home from work and he was leaving. Both times they stopped and talked, and the need to keep doing so, to stay close to him, to keep looking into his eyes and listening to his voice, had been almost irresistible.

  As she’d acknowledged early on, he was a compelling man. It wasn’t just because he was good-looking, although she’d be lying if she pretended that wasn’t part of it. His intense blue eyes and poet’s mouth and designer scruff were very, very attractive to her. But his appeal went beyond the physical.

  There was an intensity to him, an energy that, for want of a better term, simply resonated inside her. As though they were two tuning forks pitched to the one frequency, and together they slipped effortlessly into harmony.

  But she was pretty sure she wasn’t the only woman who felt that way around Will Jones. There were websites devoted to his eyes alone. She knew, because she’d had trouble sleeping one night and found herself typing his name into a search engine. She’d felt vaguely stalkerish as she looked at the images people had fetishized, the shirtless candid shots taken when he was on holidays, the more structured, sophisticated ones taken by professional photographers. Will’s fame might be only recent in relative terms, but he had no shortage of fans who were apparently happy to devote hours each day to worshipping him publicly.

  She’d shut down the browser after only a few minutes, conscious that looking at pictures of Will wouldn’t give her what she wanted—him, in the same room as her, teasing her, making her laugh.

  It had served as a timely reminder, however, that she was not the first or the last woman to develop a crush on him, and it was why she’d successfully resisted the temptation to prolong their two encounters. She was working really hard to live up to her assessment of herself as a smart woman, no matter that Will seemed to be sending her mixed signals.

  Her stint in the E.R. ended early in the week, and she frittered away most of the latter half shopping and cleaning out her wardrobe and generally distracting herself. There was no distracting her on Friday, however, and she spent the day fretting before dressing for dinner with her sister. She’d decided to catch public transport into the city rather than have to worry about parking, and she grabbed her coat on the way out. At the last minute, she swung back, making her way to her bedroom. Feeling both foolish and childish, she opened the drawer of her bedside table and pocketed the bag of jelly beans Will had given her.

  For courage, stupid as that might seem.

  Despite the vagaries of public transport, she arrived early, and she paced in front of the restaurant, alternating between wringing her hands together or shaking them out. The restaurant had been recommended by her friend in E.R. as being the latest cool place, but seeing the number of people flowing in and out, Leah couldn’t help thinking she’d made a terrible mistake, that she would have been better off choosing somewhere quiet and unpopular for such a potentially emotional meeting.

  Then she turned and saw Audrey walking toward her, looking amazing in a black wrap dress and knee-high boots, a colorful necklace around her neck. Instantly Leah felt underdressed in her pants and shirt, but she often felt that way around her sister.

  “Hey. I forgot to mention that this place doesn’t take reservations. I’ve put our name down for a table and they’ll text me when it’s ready. We can have a drink in the bar while we wait,” Leah said by way of greeting, very conscious of the nervous tremble in her voice. She leaned forward to kiss her sister’s cheek.

  “Okay. Sure.”

  “The bar’s this way. Apparently it’s the place to be seen on a Saturday night. Lucky it’s Friday, huh, or they’d have to kick us out for not being hip enough,” Leah said as she led the way downstairs.

  She was talking too much. She knew it, but she couldn’t seem to stop it, more word soup spilling out of her mouth when they were shown to an alcove fitted with curved banquette seating and a round table.

  “You want a drink? My coworker said the cocktails are really good. I’m going to have one. You should, too. I know you’re driving, but you can have a couple without it being
a problem. Trust me, I’m a doctor,” she babbled. Then she laughed, a sound roughly on par with the mating call of a hyena.

  Dear. God. She needed to calm the freak down.

  “I’m up for a drink.” Her sister set her bag and coat to one side and picked up the cocktail menu.

  Leah studied her covertly while pretending to scan the menu. Her sister was wearing her hair down today, the ends of her straight midbrown hair just brushing her shoulders. How Leah had envied that hair when she was younger. Once, she’d even slept with a scarf wrapped tightly around her head in an attempt to emulate her sister’s straight locks. She’d wound up with the scarf equivalent of hat hair—not a great look—and endured a day of teasing at school as a result.

  It hit her suddenly that she’d never told Audrey about that. But then there were a lot of things they hadn’t shared as sisters. They’d been too busy being used as each other’s goads by their parents.

  The waitress’s reappearance broke the awkward silence, and Leah seized on the intrusion as though it was a flotation device.

  “What would you recommend? Is there one drink that you’d say was the house specialty? Something we can’t leave here without trying?”

  The waitress gave her a bored look. “Not really.”

  “Okay,” Leah said, running her eye down the cocktail list again.

  “I’ll have a lemon fizz,” Audrey said, handing the menu to the waitress.

  “Great idea. Me, too,” Leah said, even though she had no concept of what a lemon fizz might entail.

  She swallowed nervously once the waitress was gone. “You’re probably wondering why I asked you here tonight,” she said. Then she gave another nervous hyena laugh. “I sound like I’m in an Agatha Christie movie, don’t I? And the murderer is...”

  She started to jiggle her foot, needing an outlet for all the nervous energy building inside her. She wanted to get this right. To say the right thing. She wanted to somehow recast the twisted relationship they’d been forced into, to find some way to move forward as friends. As true sisters, who liked and loved and supported each other.