And indeed, why not? A shot of Dutch courage might be exactly what she needed to survive the evening ahead.
Leaning forward from his own seat, Cameron filled two crystal glasses meticulously, untroubled when the driver pulled out into the traffic. Not one to usually notice small details of a person’s hands, Peppa found herself practically gawking at his. Long tanned fingers; short, clean nails; a kind of roughness that made her wonder if he partook in climbing or some other extreme sport in his spare time.
He handed her a glass and those hands brushed briefly against hers. She lifted the drink to her lips and took a swig. Hmm…The kind of hands that made her wonder what they’d feel like traversing the planes of her naked body…
Stop!
“Are you okay?” Cameron’s hand settled once again on her skin. This time on her upper arm as he leaned forward in apparent concern while she choked on a mouthful of the finest bubbles ever.
She nodded profusely, coughing and cursing silently at her inability to tell him to remove his hand. He didn’t appear to be fazed at all, which only unnerved her further. The last thing she needed was a severe case of unrequited lust.
“Do you want some water?” Cameron asked, turning away to locate a bottle of ice-cold spring water and then unscrewing the lid.
She took it, careful not to land her fingers anywhere near his. “Good. Idea,” she managed when the spluttering had subsided. This time she drank slowly, cautiously, glancing around the interior of the limo and reasoning it was time to turn her attentions to its exquisite decor and banish the ridiculous thoughts about her boss.
“Nice upholstery,” she murmured, sliding her free hand along the smoky-colored leather. “Pretty Christmas lights.” A delicate string bordered the windows and doors. “Plush carpet.” She tapped her fairy shoes on the thick shag as her eyes came to rest on what looked to be a plasma television.
“Yes.”
She could hear the amusement in his reply, yet realizing she must sound like a child marveling over a new doll’s house—babbling was a terrible habit of hers—she dared not check his actual expression.
“And that there is a high-tech karaoke system linked to the internet, meaning you can choose practically any song ever written.”
“Oh.” Her heart stammered at the thought. Fact was she’d always been partial to karaoke. Nothing like belting out a favorite tune for lifting the spirits.
“Feel free to have a play.” He shifted toward the TV screen and opened a drawer underneath. “The mics and remote are in here.”
Any other time, any other place, any other man and she’d be in that drawer, rifling for the remote and then singing Shania Twain or Abba to her heart’s content, but moments after realizing she’d gotten herself into a bit of a scrape, she’d vowed to keep as low a profile as possible. “Oh no, I couldn’t.”
“Suit yourself.” He slammed the drawer shut with his Italian-shoe-clad foot and leaned back in the seat, taking a swig of champers before commenting, “I suppose your voice gets enough of a workout while you work.”
Having just taken another sip of water, she let the cold caress her tongue as she nodded. At least his words confirmed he knew who she was. For a moment, back there in the car park, she’d wondered, and she’d been debating ever since whether or not to clear the air and make certain. Their paths had never directly crossed at work, yet it appeared he not only recognized her as one of his employees but knew she was one of the fifty or so voice talents.
Respect for Cameron sky-rocketed.
“Relax.” His voice seemed to come from nowhere and she startled, shaking the bottle and then watching in horror as water spurted out of the spout and splattered into a pool in her lap.
Fabulous. Now not only did she look like a glitter-overdosed hooker but also like she’d peed in her pants. She sighed. A great big sigh of resignation.
Before she could say anything or even return the lid to the bottle, he’d located a box of tissues and proffered them with a smile. The first smile that evening which seemed warm and genuine. A smile that had more power than hot chocolate, electric blankets or rustic wood fires in the way it warmed her insides.
A smile ten times more dangerous than his playboy grins.
“Sorry,” she muttered, squeezing her lips together as she yanked tissues from the box and patted them against her dress. “I’m not usually this much of a klutz.”
“As I said before, relax.” He returned the tissue box to its designated crevice, then turned back to steal her gaze. The way he looked right into her eyes made her helpless to look anywhere else. “Truth is I don’t give a damn about the car. So if that’s what’s making you nervous, forget it.”
“You don’t?” She bit her lip to stop the grin that threatened at the thought she was nervous about the car. His presence had the effect of making her forget all else.
“Nope. I’ll admit seeing that mammoth dent in the beast did take a chunk out of my heart but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.”
“So what am I doing here?”
“I need you to play a role tonight,” he explained. “Act like you were made for the nook of my arm and you’ll have paid your debt. I’ll take you back to collect your car and we’re even. It’s not like I expect anything more.”
At the word more her cheeks instantly flamed. The thought that he expected sex from her had never crossed her mind but now…well…the idea was shockingly enticing.
And laughable. Guys like Cameron McCormac didn’t need to coerce women into sleeping with them. Women’s knees buckled at the feet of men like him.
Which begged the question…exactly why did he need her specifically this evening? Surely he had a little black book thick to bursting with numbers of women more appropriate than she.
Stop thinking, Peppa. Now might be a good time to actually open your mouth and speak. She’d been uncharacteristically mute thus far. “I’ll be happy to play your handbag,” she said with a Cheshire grin.
At his bemused expression, she tried to explain. “You know…hanging off the nook of your arm?”
Still blank.
“Oh never mind.” She waved her hand in front of her face and then leaned over to locate her bag and retrieve her mobile. “I’ll pay my debt but I just need to send a quick message first.”
Aside from the tap tap tap of her phone keyboard as she composed a message to her parents explaining she’d been delayed at work and wouldn’t reach their home in the Blue Mountains until tomorrow, silence filled the air. Once she’d pressed Send, she took the opportunity to glance out the window and suddenly realized they’d taken an exit out of the city. Toward the suburbs.
“Where exactly is this party?” she asked. She’d been thinking the Ritz, the Four Seasons or some swanky all-exclusive-members-only night club but unless they were taking a very long detour, she’d have to think again.
He named a southern suburb, one that screamed “working class” and didn’t have the cleanest reputation.
As she repeated the name, she failed dismally in keeping the surprise from her voice. What could someone like Cameron McCormac possibly find to draw him to such an area? Sure there were pockets of nice streets and the real estate was shooting upward but the majority of residents there were blue-collared families. Something he could never be accused of.
“Yes.” Cameron registered Penelope’s shocked expression and decided perhaps he’d been wrong about her being different from the money-hungry women who frequently angled their cleavages in his direction. Stupid really to judge someone when you hadn’t known them five minutes. To be fooled by an overcoat of glitter and wacky shoes when he knew they were only a costume. “Is that a problem?” he asked dryly.
“Well, no, but…I thought we were going to a party.”
“We are. Christmas at my aunt’s.”
He watched as her eyes widened. He waited for some sort of objection. Instead she blinked and her cherry-red lips curled into the sweetest smile, as if he’d just told
her he helped old ladies across busy highways in his spare time. He tried to ignore it, determined to change the subject, but she got in first, doing that thing all women are good at. She asked a leading question.
“If it’s a family thing, won’t they be surprised to see me?”
He took another sip of champagne, fighting a full-blown smile as he imagined the shock on his aunt’s and female cousins’ faces when he walked in with Penelope. He knew most of them had given up hope of him ever hooking up with another woman again. “That’s the idea. In fact, they’ll be delighted to see you.”
She frowned, fiddling with a few locks of her golden glory. “I think I’m lost.”
He chuckled at her blunt admission, then reasoned it would be best to fill her in on the situation and what he hoped to achieve by bringing a date. “My family is love-crazy. My aunt and uncle have just celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary and you’d be forgiven for mistaking them as newlyweds. My cousins, all paired off like doves, are procreating like rabbits.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Let me guess…they’re trying to marry you off too?”
“Very astute.”
“And would that be so bad?” Penelope asked, exchanging the water bottle for her glass and leaning back in the seat again. She tugged at the bottom of her skirt, seemingly trying to cover a bit more flesh. He wished she wouldn’t bother.
“Marriage, I mean.”
At her clarifier, he whipped his eyes from where they’d lingered too long on her thighs and answered decisively, “Yes, that would be terrible.” He didn’t tell her he’d been there, done that, got the welts across his heart to prove it. “Besides I’m old enough to make my own choice and, year after year, I have to sit there and smile politely, make passable chit-chat over dinner with women they deem suitable. Boring women.”
“Poor Cameron,” she crooned, tilting her head to one side and offering what was clearly fake sympathy.
She wasn’t sympathetic, she was bloody amused. And her wicked, almost seductive grin leaped right off her face, threatening to knock his restraint right into the next century. He sat on one hand and grasped his glass more firmly with the other.
“Too right poor me,” he answered, returning her smile. “You should see some of the shockers they’ve thrown at me. So, if I’m forced to spend one more Christmas Eve with a strange woman, it might as well be one I find entertaining.”
“Strange?” The mock outrage in her voice echoed in the confined cabin of the limo.
He nodded, making a point of scrutinizing her outfit.
“You do recall this is a costume,” she said, but squirmed a little anyway and crimson blossomed in her cheeks. “If you’d let me go home and get changed, I could have been quite presentable. Believe it or not, I scrub up quite well.”
“I believe it.” Truthfully he didn’t find her strange at all. Sexy-as-all-hell, endearing, witty…so much so in fact that he was seriously questioning his decision to take her to Rose’s for Christmas. There he’d have to share. And right now sharing was the last thing on his mind. Instead he fantasized about wining and dining and then taking her home to his place and losing the fairy attire in a slow and tantalizing manner. It was all he could do to summon the self-control not to tap on the glass and demand the driver turn around and head back to the city. Straight to his Point Piper apartment.
“Trust me, my nieces will love your outfit and there wasn’t time to change. I’m already late because of Molly’s party.”
“Ahh.” She offered him one nod of her head. “In that case, shouldn’t we get to know each other better?”
He swallowed at her words as the first interpretation of her suggestion rushed to the forefront of his mind, which in turn sent a short, sharp message to his groin. He swallowed the urge to wrap his hand around the back of her neck, draw her fine lips up against his own and kiss her senseless. If they started, he couldn’t guarantee they’d stop and he wouldn’t disappoint Auntie Rose. He cleared his throat. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
“You want them to think we’re dating, right? So they don’t try and set you up with anyone in the foreseeable future.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, if we were dating, there’d be certain things I’d know about you and things I’d expect you to know about me.”
“Such as?” He rubbed his jaw line, trying not to tense at her suggestion. When it came to women, he no longer did the getting-to-know-you bit. He didn’t like to know whether a woman preferred cats over dogs, chocolate over ice cream, winter over summer. Nothing Personal was his motto. He only cared whether she preferred bikinis over G-strings and even then he wasn’t fussy as long as, when the underwear was discarded, they matched each other sexually.
“Such as how many sugars you take in your coffee?”
“Trust me, my family like to party. There’ll be no coffee drinking tonight.”
She refused to be deterred. “That’s beside the point. If we were together, I’d know the little things.”
“Black, no sugar,” he conceded. After all, it wasn’t like this was real. “What about you?”
“I don’t drink much but when I do it’s with milk and one sugar. What side of the bed do you sleep on?”
“Sweetheart, if we were sleeping together, there’d be no sides. It’d be a case of who’s on top and who’s on the bottom.”
“Are you trying to make me spill my drink again?” Only the slight wobble of her fingers and a beautiful blush in her cheeks gave any indication she wasn’t as unaffected as she wanted to pretend.
“Not at all. Next question?”
They continued tossing almost inane questions back and forth like tennis stars knocking a ball across the court. Only, unlike opposing players, they inched closer and closer, so that when they arrived at his aunt and uncle’s house, their thighs were practically touching and the heat between them could have ignited a bushfire.
For once, on arrival at this house, the tension in Cameron’s body wasn’t caused by bitter memories and mental discomfort—it was purely physical. And he knew there’d be only one fail-proof way to decimate it. Almost blinded by the flashing Santa perched up on his aunt and uncle’s roof, he picked up his gym bag, resolving to hold it in front of his groin while they walked toward the house and he imagined it was raining ice-cold hail.
“Cameron!”
The door swung open before they’d even stepped onto the porch. Christmas carols blared from the stereo inside and he could already smell the delicious festive fare. Chelsea, his youngest cousin, held her arms open wide. He grabbed Penelope’s hand, his fingers squeezing a secret message of allegiance at the same time as Chelsea’s mouth dropped wide open.
“Well, hello there,” she said, her eyebrows stretching. The action caused the silly reindeer ears upon her head to jiggle. “Cameron, you sly dog, you didn’t tell us you were bringing someone special.”
As was the way with this lot, she turned before he had a chance to reply and hollered into the house. “Hey, everyone, Cameron’s brought a…a guest.”
Even the nieces looked up from where they were playing with the train set that chugged around the tree every Christmas. Auntie Rose bustled in from the kitchen, a faded apron with the logo of an Aussie Rules football team hanging around her waist. She rubbed her hands against the garment and then stepped forward to wrap him in one of her famous hugs.
“It’s good to see you, sweet stuff.”
Cameron dropped the gym bag to the floor but held firm on to Penelope’s hand as he tried not to flinch.
When Rose finally let go, he tugged Penelope into his side and refused to ponder how nicely she fitted. “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Penelope.”
Peppa’s insides warmed in a way she knew they shouldn’t. Although Cameron didn’t say girlfriend, lover or even friend, the inflection in his voice and the way his eyes never faltered from her face as he drew her close made her feel special. It was a facade. Yet, his family obviously jum
ped to the right conclusion—that she was his significant other—and the smiles stretching across each and every face told her this fact pleased them immensely.
“So lovely to meet you and what a fabulous outfit,” said the woman Peppa guessed to be his auntie as she swept her into her arms. Peppa hugged her back, surprised but loving the discovery that his family was so warm and touchy-feely. Just her kind of people. “I’m Rose, but please, call me Auntie Rose.”
She meant to explain her costume, but Auntie Rose stole Peppa’s hand from Cameron before she had the chance and swept around the room introducing Cameron’s five cousins, their spouses and his nine nieces with a personalized introduction for each of them. Peppa pondered how much this woman reminded her of her own mother. Or rather how Marcy Grant would have been if Mother Nature had blessed her with a body that let her live up to her dream. Fussing around lots of children and grandchildren, loving every minute of it.
Instead, tomorrow’s Christmas at her parents’ would be intimate and quiet. The love would be there, the warmth, the absolute joy that comes with spending time with those nearest and dearest to you, but three people could never achieve the atmosphere that buzzed in this house.
When the introductions were over, Chelsea ushered Peppa into a comfy armchair adorned in a bright, multicolored crochet blanket. The small room was packed to the cornices with people but everyone wore giant grins and silly Christmas T-shirts. Everyone except Cameron that is.
“Now Uncle Cam’s here, can we open the presents?” asked a sing-songy voice from the floor near the Christmas tree.
“Please, go ahead.” Cameron stepped forward and upended his gym bag in front of his bouncing nieces. “Why don’t you start with mine?”
As the girls scrambled to the impressively wrapped pile, Peppa watched, fascinated and curious to find out what Cameron had purchased. Out came top-of-the-range dolls, a new hot-pink stereo for the eldest niece, magazine subscriptions, cool clothes, movie tickets, a pretty pink-and-purple tea set. He’d successfully catered to every little girl fetish. Peppa found it difficult to connect this man with the boss she’d never before met but had heard plenty of tales about at the office.
One Perfect Night Page 3