One-Click Buy: September Harlequin Presents

by Penny Jordan

  His eyes flew back open. ‘Because…?’

  ‘That’s why I’m trying to track down Chelsea London. For her professional opinion. But I’m now wondering if your opinion might be just as valid.’

  He checked his watch. This day was fast slipping away from him. ‘Unfortunately my only experience with animal-print anything has been with the underwear variety.’

  ‘Yours?’ she asked.

  ‘That I cannot say for fear I might incriminate myself.’

  She paused, and he sensed she was searching for a way to keep him on the line. With a sigh she said, ‘Alas I have other phone calls to make, hopefully with as much fun but more success. Good day to you, Mr Halliburton.’

  ‘Same to you.’ He snapped the phone shut and stared at it for a few seconds as the world continued to walk on by.

  Right. So in the past hour he’d had a woman fall into his arms, one flash her G-string at him, another whisper a suggestion in his ear that would have been more fitting for a key party, and yet another flirt him into intimating he was wearing zebra-print undies beneath his trousers.

  For all the female attention he was getting today it was as if the women around him had some kind of radar. The only time in his thirty-two years on this planet he wasn’t seeking out any kind of co-ed companionship, it took no kind of effort on his part to have it rolling towards him in waves.

  Women… he thought. Can’t live with them…

  He glanced up, caught the eye of an elderly lady with tight purple ringlets. She smiled, and blushed. He wondered if he ought to head straight back to Amelie’s and ask exactly what they’d put into his hollandaise sauce.

  But even as he thought it he knew it wasn’t the sauce. Sure, he was easy enough on the eye, had means, skills and other intangible assets that seemed to appeal to more women than not, but what was happening to him today was something other. Something primal. And it had begun the moment the woman of all things warm and sunny had fallen into his arms and set his pheromones alight.

  Since then he’d been on some sort of constant sexual high. Walking, talking and acting like a normal person, but only half his mind was on real life. The other half had been replaying the memory of the most subtle scent that somehow took him back to a simpler time when all he’d wanted from life was a hug and a kiss before bedtime. Perhaps if he just stopped thinking about her he could get back to work without being mobbed in the street by a hundred ready-dressed brides.

  His phone rang again and he flinched like a spooked schoolboy. He took a deep calming breath and this time waited to see if his address book recognised the phone number. It did. ‘Letitia @ Chic Mag,’ it read.

  Sure, it was one of those computer/organiser/mobile whizbang things that cost a small fortune, but as far as he knew it didn’t have any kind of cognitive memory. Unless he’d saved those details they shouldn’t be there.

  He continued staring at his phone as it played out The Mary Tyler Moore Show theme. Once it rang out, he flipped it open and found himself staring at the large inner screen, which instead of a plain font espousing the name of his mobile phone company had an animated picture of a pink paw-print.

  The truth finally dawned.

  It was not his phone.

  Damien slowly flipped the phone closed and breathed deep through his nose, gaining a lungful of car exhaust and day-old garbage for his effort.

  How could he not have known it wasn’t his phone? Real men loved their electronic toys more than life itself. Hell, every other guy he knew surrounded themselves with 5.1 surround sound, sub-woofers, and fancy walkmans with earplugs and wireless remote who knew what.

  When he’d been talked into trading in his trusty five-year-old Nokia with its comforting scratches and dents for some top of the range gadget, he’d been told it would change his life. And now it had. Right now he had no idea of the address or phone number for the new clients he was hoping to meet, and he had a ring tone that made him seem far from manly.

  ‘Dammit!’ he said loud enough several people took a wider berth around him.

  He reached into his trouser pocket and there was the hot-pink ticket for his phone, meaning the one he’d found on the floor behind his chair just as he’d left Amelie’s hadn’t been his.

  The phone was thankfully unlocked, so he dialled his old friend Directory Assistance. ‘Amelie’s Brasserie, Melbourne,’ he requested when a voice with a light foreign accent answered.

  He saw a gap in the traffic between a tram and oncoming cars and jogged back across the wide street where he found a cab, slipped inside and gave directions back to his Collins Street office.

  Amelie’s answered.

  ‘Damien Halliburton here. I breakfasted with you guys today and managed to pick up the wrong phone.’ He pulled the phone away from his ear for a second to get the attention of the cab driver. ‘Left onto Russell will be quicker this time of day.’

  He waited for the grovelling and simpering on the other end of the phone to die down before interjecting, ‘Can you check box J? It’s empty? Right.’

  Plan B. Which was…

  Perhaps he ought to get the cabbie to make a sharp turn and get him back there a.s.a.p. so that he could search for it himself. And if the caramel-blonde happened to still be there he could also…what?

  He glanced at his watch. No time. And the gent on the other end of the phone was talking again.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Damien said. ‘I’ll sort it out myself.’

  He snapped the phone shut tight. It made a softer, more worn-in sound than his did, meaning it belonged to someone who would be missing it. Christy something or other. No, Chelsea. Chelsea London. An apparent expert on zebra-print dog collars. He couldn’t have had the same type of phone as another executive type with big muscles and an even bigger stock portfolio, could he? No, it had to be some broad with parents who should be shot for giving her such an unforgivable name.

  The cab pulled up outside the imposing thirty-storey building that housed the Keppler Jones and Morganstern Trading Company. He tossed the driver a twenty and hit the ground running.

  Chelsea kissed Kensey goodbye at the cloakroom at Amelie’s and stood watching her sister walk away with a lightness in her step.

  Kensey’s news was lovely. Despite their erratic and fly-by-night childhood her sister had made good and then some. They both had. There was really nothing for Chelsea to be feeling this edgy about.

  ‘Your ticket, ma’am,’ a girl behind the counter said.

  ‘Right.’ Chelsea searched her handbag. The pockets of her jacket. Down her bra where she often slipped notes to herself when she didn’t have her phone or pockets to hand. She glanced up to find the blonde watching her blankly.

  ‘I seem to have misplaced it.’

  ‘It’ll be hot-pink. Hard to miss.’

  ‘Yet visualising it still hasn’t helped it appear.’

  The blonde raised an eyebrow. Chelsea took a deep breath and managed to count to seven before she leant over the counter and said, ‘It’s black. With a silver spine, off-white buttons, and if you flip it open it will have this picture upon the screen.’

  She slipped the blonde a Pride & Groom business card with the hot-pink dog-print logo upon it. The blonde took the card and then her right eyebrow joined her left.

  ‘Cool. You work for those guys?’

  ‘I am those guys.’

  ‘Ri-i-ight. Weren’t you on the telly a few months back? On that celebrity pet show? You’re the one who clipped that rock star’s poodle and he freaked out that you’d swapped his dog, and sued you.’

  The rock star had threatened to sue, had been appeased by the show’s producers that the dog was his just with a haircut, and by the next day couldn’t even remember a word of it. Pride & Groom’s business had doubled overnight, making Chelsea believe whoever said all publicity was good publicity deserved a cookie. ‘I am the very one,’ she agreed.

  The blonde tipped her chin and looked up at Chelsea from beneath clumpy eyelashe
s. ‘I have a Basenji. Any chance you could swing me some freebies?’

  Chelsea blinked back. ‘Any chance you could find my phone? Black, silver, off-white keys…’

  The blonde smirked and ran a finger along the wooden boxes until she found the only one that was locked. She pulled out Chelsea’s black and silver friend. ‘This it?’

  Chelsea slid it out of the girl’s hand and wrapped her fingers around the familiar length, comfort seeping into her joints at having her life somewhat back under her control. ‘This is it.’

  ‘Any time you need a table at short notice, just ask for Carrie. That’s me.’

  ‘Thanks, Carrie. I’ll keep it in mind.’

  The give and take of commerce, Chelsea thought as she snuck a knee-length wool scarf from her handbag and wrapped it twice around her neck and headed outside into the crisp, but at least now dry, Melbourne autumn morning. Luck out with the right product and today you were on everybody’s speed dial. Dream too big in the slight wrong direction and tomorrow you’re toast.

  She pulled her hair out from under her tight scarf as she headed down the street towards the underground car park where she’d left the Pride & Groom van.

  And promptly began dreaming big in the exact wrong direction. Each footstep heralded the memory of another delicious moment locked in the arms of a tall dark handsome stranger from so far on the other side of the tracks he was in a different postcode.

  And Kensey had made a point that had hit deep.

  She was twenty-seven years old. Self-sufficient. Post puppy fat and pre middle-aged spread. She could still touch her toes and her hair had yet to turn mousy. These were meant to be her golden years, yet the only man she’d purposely dressed up for in weeks was the bank manager.

  She felt a sudden desire to turn on her high heels, march back into the restaurant and ask the blonde if she could find out the booking name and phone number of Mr Suit and Tie. Even though he’d been too beautiful for her, too beautiful for anyone bar maybe three or four of the world’s top supermodels, he’d looked at her as if…as if he’d wanted to see more of her.

  The way his arms had tightened around her, the way his gorgeous blue eyes had darkened, made her feel that having a man like him hold her, touch her, bury himself in her, call out her name, even just the once, would be some kind of validation that she was young and single and would be perfectly fine if life deemed she remain that way evermore.

  But then again, if she ever had the chance to experience such a dreamy specimen, would she, being of London genes, find it impossible to appreciate ordinary pleasures ever again?

  CHAPTER THREE

  DAMIEN burst into Caleb’s office without knocking. ‘Don’t laugh or I will hit you.’

  Caleb didn’t laugh. He was too busy running a lazy hand through his short hair while a tall lean blonde straightened her skirt. She gave Damien a quick smile before sliding out the office door and shutting it behind her.

  ‘Do I know her?’ Damien drawled.

  ‘Zelda’s from the typing pool. She was replacing my printer cartridge.’

  Damien nodded. ‘That was nice of her. But how about you stick to looking after your own printer cartridges while in the workplace? My workplace. For which I am legally liable. Now, I need your help.’

  Caleb sat back in his chair and leant his chin on steepled fingers. ‘What’s up, boss?’

  ‘You know how I suggested we try Amelie’s because they don’t let anyone use their mobile phones? How I railed that it might well become the one place in this city where a man could eat in relative peace?’

  Caleb nodded, feigning deep understanding, though when he leaned forward and started fiddling with the mouse on his desk Damien knew he had to be quick.

  ‘In some kind of karmic response to my admittedly anti-technology sentiments, when I picked up my phone from the cloakroom, they gave me the wrong one.’

  Caleb glanced up at the phone Damien held by his finger tips. ‘Looks like yours.’

  ‘But it ain’t.’

  ‘But it looks like it…’

  Just then the offending machine began to ring. The two men stared at it as it blared out its powder-puff tune.

  ‘That’s not your phone,’ Caleb said, deadpan. ‘Give it to me.’

  Damien pulled it out of Caleb’s reach. ‘Every time you go anywhere near my computer I end up with porn pop-ups I have to call on others to delete. Now every Friday for the past two months Jimmy the IT guy has asked me if I want to join him and the other techies at the Men’s Gallery.’

  ‘I can’t put porn on this phone by simply answering it.’ Caleb clicked his fingers, and, half believing him, Damien handed over the offending instrument.

  ‘This is Caleb,’ he said after answering the phone, leaning back in his chair, and proceeding to ask sensible questions. When Caleb’s voice dropped and he began to have a chat, Damien kicked hard against the side of his desk.

  ‘Right, nice talking to you, Susan,’ Caleb said, then hung up. ‘She was returning a missed call herself. Didn’t know whose phone it was. If you’d let me talk for a few more minutes we might have figured it out between us.’

  ‘Nevertheless.’

  ‘I think it’s a chick’s phone,’ Caleb said.

  ‘I do believe it is. Someone rang earlier looking for a Chelsea London.’

  ‘Now why do I know that name?’

  ‘You don’t,’ Damien said, knowing that Caleb wouldn’t spot the obvious.

  Caleb grinned. ‘You bought a chick’s phone.’

  ‘On your recommendation.’

  ‘That was a month ago. Times change. I can’t see the future.’

  ‘I wonder what they did with my old one. Do you think it’s too late to get it back?’

  ‘Far too late. If they haven’t melted it down they’ve donated it to a museum.’ Caleb’s thumb began zooming over the keys at lightning speed.

  ‘You’re going through her personal files?’ Damien asked.

  ‘That I am.’

  ‘Good idea.’ He moved behind Caleb and looked over his shoulder at the bright flashing screens.

  ‘No photos of herself or her friends. Means she has no friends or isn’t the cutest thing on her block. But we do have photos of…’

  Damien’s eyebrows lifted and he was sure Caleb’s did the same. The first photo they came upon was of a black studded dog collar. He should have guessed.

  ‘Kinky,’ Caleb said.

  ‘Just your type,’ Damien said.

  ‘Ha. Ha. Okay, moving on, in her diary we have “breakfast @ Amelie’s with Kensey”. Kensey. Sounds like the name of a fortune-teller. Ooh, maybe this Kensey knows what they’ve done with your old phone.’

  Damien closed his eyes for a moment. ‘So now what?’

  Caleb held up the phone to the light pouring through the office window as though that could make it magically ring again. ‘What happened when you called your phone number to see if this Chelsea chick has your phone?’

  Damien squeezed his eyes shut all the tighter as he mentally berated himself. The caramel-blonde had done more than awoken his dormant hungers; it seemed she’d also dulled his brain cells in the process. That had never happened to him after not having seen a woman he was keen on naked. In fact, he couldn’t remember feeling such debilitating mind fuzz upon actually seeing a woman he was keen on naked.

  It occurred to him in some kind of cruel flash of remembrance that he’d even remained focussed in every which way during the worst of the fights leading to the eventual Break Up. Bonnie had declared him a dyed-in-the-wool Halliburton incapable of a committed relationship other than with his work. And he hadn’t even thought to argue.

  Damien looked at his watch. The markets had been open almost an hour and he’d not placed one trade for a client. So much for his impassioned commitment to his work. He clicked his fingers, and Caleb handed over the phone.

  He pressed it to his ear and paced to the window, looking out over the Melbourne city skyline. The n
ow bright blue skies streaked with perfect fluffy white clouds mocked him as the phone buzzed ominously in his ear.

  Just as Chelsea pulled into a parking garage beneath the imposing Brunswick Street building, the phone on the passenger seat began to vibrate so vigorously it almost fell off the seat.

  She jumped in fright. She never used vibrate. Her phone was far too important for all that silent-mode nonsense. She made a mental note to write to the restaurant and let them know their cloakroom staff had been mucking about with her ring tone.

  She grabbed it, and her bag, and leapt out of the van. She screened the call. Her right foot slid to a stop in a pile of white gravel when her own mobile number looked back at her.

  She glanced about her. Hippies, Goths, punks and innumerable other marginal folk who gravitated to the funky urban je ne sais quoi of inner city Brunswick Street brushed past her on the pavement, but she saw nothing in any of their faces to help her make sense of her current situation.

  Her tone was more than a mite cautious when she flipped the phone open and said, ‘Chelsea London speaking.’

  After a pause, a deep male voice said, ‘Chelsea London, am I glad to have found you.’

  She began walking again, this time more slowly. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘My name is Damien Halliburton. I’m a day trader with Keppler Jones and Morganstern.’

  A day trader, she computed. Was that some kind of market-research thing? Ooh, she hated those guys! Phone calls just as she’d settled down to lasagne, red wine and House. Though at least this one’s voice was something out of the ordinary. Booming deep, slow and easy, like really good pillow talk.

  God! Was her mind now permanently switched to hot, naked, sweaty mode?

  She shook her head and pressed the phone tighter to her ear so Mr Pillow Talk could feel the full force of her disappointment that a man with a voice like his had taken on such a job.

  ‘Mr Keppler-Jones or Morganwhoever, I never answer surveys, never tick the “please send me more information” boxes on forms. Didn’t you know that Australia’s privacy laws actually refer to you as well as the rest of the population?’