by Penny Jordan
‘Fine,’ Kensey said with a dramatic sigh. ‘So how’s work?’
‘Great. Fun. Hard. Wouldn’t trade it for anything. The kids?’
‘Great. Fun. Hard. Wouldn’t trade ’em for anything. So are you coming to the Yarra Valley with us this weekend? It’s Lucy’s birthday, remember.’
‘Of course. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
‘You know you don’t have to come alone. If you ever wanted to bring someone…’
‘How about I bring Phyllis? She loves country air,’ Chelsea said, referring to her longest-serving employee, a six-foot-tall woman with short grey hair and a booming voice who terrified the bejeezers out of Kensey.
‘I meant a man.’
‘If it’s that important to you I’ll see if I can pick one up on the road along the way. Tell Greg he’ll have the darts partner he’s always wanted, though I can’t promise the guy will have bathed in some time.’
Kensey’s gaze slid down to the tabletop where Chelsea was wringing her hands. ‘Relax. Please. This is meant to be a celebration breakfast.’
‘I haven’t got the loan yet.’
‘You will. Pride & Groom is just the kind of thing banks want to get their claws into.’
‘You’ve been working on that line for days, haven’t you?’
‘The whole month,’ Kensey said. ‘But I’m serious. You own your shop outright. You’ve been on the telly. You’re a woman. You are quite simply dripping in reasons for them to invest in you.’
Chelsea had a sudden image of the brunette in the black suit dripping in chocolate-cream pie, which made her smile. But when it rather quickly morphed into a certain dark-haired man sans suit and tie dripping in chocolate sauce her mouth began to water.
He’s a prince of the ‘new school uniform’ set, she yelled inside her head. You’re the leftovers of a hand-me-down youth. And never the twain shall successfully mate.
Along those lines Chelsea reminded her sister, ‘You know how much trouble Dad got himself into over the years, borrowing against each new get-rich-quick scheme while the bastards just let him. Keeping Pride & Groom as a one-off, boutique, secure investment wouldn’t be a silly idea.’
And it would remain all hers. Something nobody could take away from her. Even though she had to turn away more clients every time she appeared on TV, or had her salon highlighted in a magazine, making her think Pride & Groom could be really beyond-her-wildest-dreams successful. The problem with that was she’d learnt young just how crushing wild dreams could be if they didn’t come true.
‘Honey,’ Kensey said, ‘you want to update this outfit of yours to something of this century, you’re gonna need more money. You wanna find yourself with more opportunities to go chest to chest with the likes of Hunka Hunka Burning Love over there, you’re gonna need more money. If they offer the loan, take it.’
Chelsea leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, ‘Why? You think he’s a male escort? What is the going rate these days?’
Kensey’s eyes narrowed. ‘No idea. But I do know you’re a fool not to have given him your phone number. Or at least an accidental grope of that fantastic backside.’
Chelsea leaned back and picked up the menu. ‘Maybe next time,’ she said, then did her best to keep her eyes in her head when she caught a load of the prices. Nearly thirty dollars for a poached egg on toast? Seriously. What did these people have to promise the gods to be able to afford to eat like this on a daily basis?
‘He watched you walk the whole way over here, you know,’ Kensey said.
Rather than answer, Chelsea stole Kensey’s iced water and took a sip.
‘Top to bottom,’ Kensey said, ‘with a nice lingering moment spent on your behind.’
‘He was probably trying to see where I was hiding it. If the bank was giving away curvier curves and charging interest then I’d be first in line.’
Boobs that could fill a bra without padding, hips that swung as she walked without the chance of pulling a muscle, the kind of figure that would garner the attention of a man like Mr Suit and Tie without having to literally throw herself at him. Though what she’d do with the likes of such an alien creature if she ever caught him, she had no idea.
‘Truthfully, he was probably making sure I didn’t knock over any other poor unsuspecting patrons,’ she said. ‘Most men like to think themselves knights in shining armour.’
‘Maybe that one really is.’
‘Well, then, he’s the last thing I need. I rescued myself a long time ago.’
‘Then how about a bit of rough and tumble? How long has it been since you indulged in a scintillating affair? No plans. No future. No “what kind of dog does he own and what does it mean in terms of his level of responsibleness?” but just hot, sweaty nakedness—’
‘Okay, I get it!’
Kensey motioned over Chelsea’s shoulder. Chelsea glanced back to find the gentleman making his way towards the front door looking unfrazzled by a single thing in his perfect world, and completely untouched by the eyes of a dozen women burning into his back. He really was so beautiful, so tempting, it physically hurt. But if he took responsibility for another creature more animated than a pet rock, she’d be very much surprised.
‘One night,’ Kensey said. ‘With that. Satisfaction guaranteed.’
Chelsea gave into a few last moments gazing over gorgeous tailoring, dark neat hair, broad shoulders and lithe movement born of pure male confidence before turning back to her sister with a blank face.
‘I told you I didn’t even get a name. And I don’t think skywriting “Trying to track down tall dark handsome man in suit” over the city is going to help. Hot, sweaty nakedness will simply have to wait.’
Kensey raised both eyebrows, sucked in her cheeks and picked up her menu and Chelsea hoped that would be the end of it. Until her sister said, ‘We can switch seats so you can make final eyes at him, if you’d like.’
‘I’m fine. Thanks anyway.’
Besides, the mirrored wall behind Kensey showed him patting his Suit and Tie friend on the back as together they weaved through the tightly cramped tables and headed back to Stock Market Land or wherever it was they stored such glorious, untouchable, never-had-to-work-up-a-sweat-to-get-everything-they-ever-wanted creatures once they’d drifted happily through high school and beyond.
Chelsea harnessed her concentration, whipped it back into line and focussed fully on her sister. ‘Now, enough about me and my behind—what’s been happening in your world?’
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOUR tickets, sir?’
Damien reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the pink stub for his phone and the grey one for his coat. He handed them over to the skinny blonde femme fatale who’d taken over from the snappish guy as maître d’.
Ticket stub in hand, she bent to the locked boxes at the bottom of the closet, showcasing the edge of a black lace G-string atop her tight denim.
‘Nice,’ Caleb said from behind him.
‘All yours,’ Damien murmured back.
‘Sure she’s no Bonnie…’
‘I thought we’d agreed that name was banned for the meantime.’
‘You agreed. I never did. She was smashing. Never in my life seen cleavage to rival hers. She passed your parents’ stringent tests for what a future Halliburton bride ought to be. She looked great in tennis whites and was a far better sailor than you can hope to be. But, for the record, I was the one who told you not to move in with her.’
Damien bowed to his friend in agreement.
‘Now,’ Caleb said, ‘it’s been a good month since you moved out of her place and back into the land of the sane. Time to get back on the horse.’
‘Caleb, I was with Bonnie for two and a half years, while you’ve never dated anyone for more than a month. You’re no better than a horse.’
Caleb threw his hands in the air. ‘Fine. All I’m saying is, if you stop practising, one day you might wake up and realise you’ve forgotten how to use it
.’
‘Is this where I pipe in and say it’s like riding a bike?’
‘If you think that, then I fear Bonnie did a worse number on you than I imagined.’
Damien turned away. Bonnie hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d taken their relationship at face value and assumed he was committed to the long haul. He was the bad guy. He’d been the one to walk out on her when he’d realised in playing house he’d only been kidding them both.
‘But this one is fantastic,’ Caleb said, all but salivating over Ms G-string.
‘She’s a teenager.’
‘You’re a killjoy.’
‘You’re a pig.’ Damien glanced back at the wiggling backside. As far as invitations went, it was pretty clear. Caleb couldn’t be entirely held to blame. So he added, ‘Of course, if the G-string had been hot-pink…’
She stood and held out his goods. ‘This is them?’
He glanced at the long black coat and wide, flat, silver and black mobile phone. ‘That’s them.’
She cocked her hip against the desk, and glanced at Caleb. ‘How about you, honey? Anything here for you?’
Damien laughed out loud, before grabbing his friend by the jacket sleeve and dragging him from the restaurant and into the fresh air.
‘You’re not just a killjoy, you’re also plain mean,’ Caleb said.
‘You work for me. And despite your darker predilections, you are this town’s greatest shark when it comes to attracting new clients, therefore you make me lots of money, thus keeping me in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed. So think of me as the guy keeping you out of jail and in gainful employ.’
‘Whatever.’ Caleb cricked his neck, and stretched out his shoulders before heading street side to hail a cab.
Damien slid his arms into his coat and in the same move glanced back through the windows hoping to get one last look at the one woman who had created a stir within what he’d thought had been a pretty impenetrable fortress of anti-female sentiment he’d managed to cling to since leaving Bonnie high and dry.
After a few seconds he found her. Dark skirt, pale knit top, the dangerous-looking heel of her right boot bobbing up and down rhythmically. Long, silky, caramel-blonde hair cascading down her back in soft waves.
While the whole room reeked of clashing perfume and aftershave and money, she smelled like…Something soft and homey. Talcum powder? And when he’d talked to her of sunshine the word had just appeared from some deep, dark, murky, poetic place inside him he wasn’t sure he needed to know existed. But the second she’d landed in his arms it had been as though a ray of light had shone through the window of the city restaurant and brightened the dank autumn day.
For a guy who’d only recently managed to extricate himself from the claws of a woman he’d thought perfectly amiable and in tune with his own life timetable, but who’d turned out to have a ticking internal clock the size of a three-bedroom suburban house, he was pretty captivated by this woman.
That alone should have made him run a mile. His conscience still smarted at the way he’d led Bonnie on, even if it had been unintentional. But he didn’t run. Instead he watched Little Miss Sunshine lift a forkful of strawberry pancakes to her lips.
It had been a month, longer really, since he’d been that physically close to a woman. All that purely feminine warmth wrapped in a package tall enough to look him in the eye in her high heels. And she had looked him in the eye. Dead on. Direct. With the golden eyes of a lioness.
He turned around to see Caleb waving his arm like a maniac as he unsuccessfully tried to hail a cab. So he went back to watching the caramel-blonde fingering a double string of tiny gold beads around her neck.
He let himself wonder if she owned a hot-pink lace G-string. He imagined what it would look like wrapped around her slight curves like a picture frame, no stockings, leaving the lean length from her hips to the tops of those sexy boots naked so that a man could slide his hand beneath her skirt and touch warm, bare skin…
‘You coming?’ Caleb called.
Damien blinked and turned from the restaurant window to find Caleb halfway into a yellow cab. He cleared his throat when he realised he wasn’t in the frame of mind to sit. ‘You take it. I’ll walk. I have a new client near Flinders I hoped to see in person today anyway.’
‘Fine. Whatever.’ And Caleb was gone in a screech of burning rubber.
Damien glanced back into the restaurant one more time, but his view was obstructed by a table of newcomers, more clones in black skirt suits and glossy hair and no doubt lashings of perfume, hugging and kissing cheeks and discussing how to lock unsuspecting men into matrimony.
The lure of the female abruptly and thankfully negated, he drew his coat tight about his neck, looked upward to find the earlier rain had already stopped and stepped out into the teeming morning city foot traffic.
‘Are you going to finish those pancakes?’ Kensey asked after the ‘who’s the hottest guy on Grey’s Anatomy’ argument had hit a lull. ‘I’m starving. Probably because I’m pregnant.’
Chelsea let her fork drop to her plate. ‘Did you just say that you’re—?’
‘Up the duff,’ Kensey said. ‘With child. Bun in the oven. I did. I am.’
Chelsea’s gaze slid across the table to Kensey’s large water glass, not the usual fancy-looking cocktail heavy with tiny paper umbrellas or pink plastic flamingos she ordered any time she had an adult meal without her kids in tow.
‘Wow. But didn’t Greg just have the…?’ Chelsea mimed a pair of scissors.
‘They did tell us it doesn’t work right away, takes a few weeks to be sure. But it was our anniversary, and we were both in the mood, and the kids were all asleep by nine.’
Well what do you know? Kensey was pregnant with her fourth. The crazy number that meant she needed a people mover and extensions to the holiday hut in the Yarra Valley they could barely afford. It meant chaos. Yet Kensey looked so sublimely happy. Chelsea felt an unexpected surge of bitter-sweet envy form in her veins.
‘How far along are you?’ she asked.
‘Eight weeks, give or take.’ Kensey let out a long shaky breath and Chelsea realised this was half the reason behind the big fancy breakfast and she’d been so tunnel-visioned about her own issues. She was a bad sister. ‘I have no idea how we are going to do this.’
‘You’ll be fine. You guys are always fine.’
Kensey grabbed Chelsea by both hands. ‘If you believe in my judgment so much, then let me find you a man of your own so we can have babies together. Imagine a brood with dark hair and blue eyes like that Mr Handsome burning love from earlier.’
‘Whoa there, partner. You’re the one who ended up with the white-picket-fence gene while I got the modicum-of-business-sense gene. Both miracles considering our parentage. Besides, can you imagine that guy coming anywhere near the Pride & Groom? He’d be covered in white dog hair the minute the door let in the slightest gust of wind. Karma would crucify me for daring to mar such perfection.’
‘Well, so long as it’s something of great magnitude keeping you from grabbing such a man with both hands. What was wrong with the last guy again?’
‘Gay,’ Chelsea shot back.
‘Okay, so maybe your reasons for sending your menagerie of admirers on their merry way are becoming more sensible over time. Less like purposeful sabotage. By the time you’re in your fifties you’ll give some poor guy a break when you finally realise they are not all deadbeats like Dad.’
Chelsea glared at her sister as she grabbed her plate back. ‘Maybe I will finish those pancakes after all. And I sincerely hope you’re having triplets.’
Damien’s mobile phone chirped melodiously.
He vaguely recognised the ring tone as the theme song from some girly TV show. The Gilmore Girls? Laverne and Shirley? Bloody Caleb must have been mucking around with it at some stage that morning.
‘Halliburton,’ he answered in a clipped tone as he checked the street for traffic before jogging across in fr
ont of a slow-moving taxi.
‘Ah, hi,’ a hesitant female voice said. ‘Is this the Pride & Groom salon?’
‘Nope. Sorry. Wrong number.’ He snapped the phone shut. And moved into the stream of pedestrian traffic heading uptown.
The phone rang again. This time he recognised it instantly as the theme from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Bloody bloody Caleb. In a fit of guilt he’d let Bonnie keep the lease on his old apartment and been living with his best friend ever since. He really would have to get off his friend’s couch very soon.
‘Halliburton,’ he answered.
This time there was a pause. ‘I am calling for Letitia Forbes from the special features desk of Chic magazine,’ the hesitant female voice said once more. ‘Is Chelsea London nearby?’
Damien pulled up short. He turned to look over his shoulder to see if perhaps this was some kind of joke and Caleb was following at an indiscreet distance. But all he saw was a wall of people looking as drab as the grey sky above. He slipped out of the stream and ensconced himself against the window of a comic-book shop.
‘I’m in Melbourne, Ms Forbes. London is on the other side of the planet.’
‘I know where Chelsea, the place, is. I’m looking for Chelsea London, the proprietor of the Pride & Groom salon. This was the phone number I was supplied.’
‘Apologies. Still can’t help. I am the proprietor of a day trading institution, Keppler Jones and Morganstern, this is my number and all I know of Chic is that my little sister used to hide it from my mum when she was fourteen.’
Letitia Forbes’ assistant laughed a pretty tinkly laugh that was all flirtation and no substance. Damien appreciated it for what it was, but it did nothing to move him. Not like when the caramel-blonde had blinked up at him with her golden eyes and made him give in and slide his hands that much further around her waist, lean in that much closer to capture the scent of her hair…
He closed his eyes to squeeze out the unwelcome wave of pure lust swarming over him.
‘So what do you know of animal-print dog collars?’ Letitia Forbes’ assistant asked.