by Sarah Morgan
Unsettled, she dragged her gaze to his face. His nose had a slight bump in it thanks to a football injury the summer before, and he had a scar on his chin where he’d head-butted a surfboard and needed fourteen stitches.
Fliss didn’t care. To her, Seth Carlyle was pretty much the most perfect thing she’d ever laid eyes on.
There was something that set him apart from the others. It wasn’t just that he was older, more that he was so sure. He knew what he wanted. He was focused. He made doing the right thing sexy. He was studying to be a vet, and she knew he’d be good at it. He was going to make his father proud.
Unlike her.
She’d made her father disdainful, exasperated and angry but never proud.
And she didn’t want to drag Seth down with her.
She snatched her hand away from his and curled her fingers into her palm to stop herself from touching him. “You should join the others. You’re wasting a perfect beach day.”
“I’m not wasting anything. I’m exactly where I want to be.” His gaze was focused exclusively on her. And then he gave her that wide, easy smile that made her feel as if she was the only woman on the planet. She didn’t know which got to her most—the way his mouth curved, or the way those sleepy dark eyes crinkled slightly at the corners.
Her stomach flipped. After being made to feel unwanted, it was a change to feel the opposite.
What would happen if she put her arms around his neck and kissed him? Would he get carried away and do the wrong thing for the first time in his life? Maybe he’d take her virginity right here on the sand. That would really give her father something to complain about.
The thought made her frown. Not even by virtue of a thought did she want her father to tarnish her relationship with Seth.
“You really shouldn’t be here. With me.” She leaned her back against the rock and gave him a fierce stare designed to repel, but it didn’t work with Seth.
“I saw a car outside your house. Was it your father? He doesn’t usually join you in the summer, does he?”
She felt as if she’d plunged naked into the Atlantic. “He arrived this morning. Decided to surprise us.”
Seth’s gaze didn’t shift. “To celebrate your birthday or ruin it?”
He knew.
She squirmed with horror and embarrassment. Why couldn’t she have a normal family like everyone else? “I didn’t hang around to find out.”
“Maybe he wanted to deliver his gift in person.”
“That’s your father, not mine.” The words blurted out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Mine didn’t bring a gift.”
“No? Then it’s a good thing I did.” He braced one arm on the rock behind her and reached into the pocket of his board shorts with the other. “Hope you like it.”
She dragged her gaze from the swell of his biceps and stared at the cream velvet pouch in his palm. “You bought me a gift?”
“It’s not every day a woman turns eighteen.”
There it was again, that word. Woman. And he’d bought her a gift. Actually chosen her something. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t care, would he?
Her parched self-esteem sucked up the much-needed affirmation. She felt dizzy and light-headed, even more so than she had the time she’d smuggled a bottle of vodka to the beach.
“What is it?”
“Open it and see.”
She took the bag from him, recognizing the shell logo picked out in silver. She knew that whatever was inside it wouldn’t have come cheap. She and Harriet had walked past the exclusive jewelry store when they had occasion to be in town, but the prices had stopped them even staring in through the window. Of course, price wasn’t an issue if your name was Carlyle.
She tipped it out of the bag onto her palm, and for a moment she forgot to breathe because she’d never seen anything so pretty. It was a necklace, a silver shell on a silver chain. It was the shiniest, most perfect gift she’d ever been given.
Forgetting about keeping her distance, she flung her arms around him. He smelled of sunshine, sea salt and man. Hot, sexy man. Too late she remembered that she was wearing only her tiny shorts and a tank top. She might as well have been wearing nothing for all the barrier it created. Her skin slid against his and her fingers closed on those shoulders. Under the silken, sun-bronzed skin she felt the dip and swell of hard muscle and the dangerously delicious pressure of his body.
She knew she should let him go. Her father would freak if he could see her. He hated her hanging out with boys.
But Seth wasn’t a boy, was he? Seth was a man. A man who recognized that she was a woman. The first person to see her that way, and she decided that just might be the greatest birthday gift of all time.
Her father made her feel like nothing, but Seth—Seth made her feel like something. Everything.
“Fliss—” His voice was husky and his hands slid to her hips, holding her still. “We shouldn’t—you’re upset—”
“Not anymore.” Before he could say anything else, she pressed her mouth to his. She felt the coolness of his lips and his sudden start of shock, and she thought to herself that if he pulled away she’d die of embarrassment right here on the sand.
But he didn’t pull away. Instead he tugged her against him with purposeful hands, trapping her against the solid length of his body. Behind her she could hear the rush of the ocean, but here in the privacy of the dunes there was only Seth and the indescribable magic of that first kiss.
As he angled his head and kissed her back, she thought that her eighteenth birthday had gone from being the worse day of her life to the best. Melting under the erotic slide of his tongue and the intimate stroke of his hands, she stopped thinking about her father. All she could think about was the way Seth’s mouth made her feel. Who would have thought it? Who would have thought that good-boy Seth had such a bad-boy side? Where had he learned to kiss like this?
She told herself that she deserved romance on her eighteenth birthday. She deserved this.
Never before had anyone, or anything, made her feel this way.
And never before had doing the wrong thing ever felt so right.
CHAPTER ONE
Ten years later…
“I’VE DECIDED WE should expand the business.” Fliss kicked off her shoes and left them in the middle of the floor as she walked barefoot to the kitchen. “Have you looked at our schedule for the next month? We don’t have a single available slot. Our referrals have doubled, and bookings are through the roof. Time to capitalize on success and think about growth.” Onward and upward, she thought. It felt good.
Her sister, busy feeding a puppy she was fostering, was less enthusiastic. “We already cover the whole of the east side of Manhattan.”
“I know, and I’m not suggesting we expand the dog-walking part of the business.” She’d thought it over, studied the competition and run the numbers. Her head was filled with possibilities. “I think we should branch out into an area that has a better profit margin. Offer additional services.”
“Like what?” Harriet pulled the puppy closer. “We’re a dog-walking business. The Bark Rangers. You’re thinking of branching into cats? The Meow Movers?”
“We already feed and care for cats if the owner requests it. I’m talking about pet sitting. Overnight stays. Holiday cover.” That part got her sister’s attention.
“You want me to stay overnight in a stranger’s home? Forget it.”
“Obviously the stranger won’t be there. If the owner is in residence they’re not going to need pet sitting.”
“I still don’t like the sound of it.” Harriet wrinkled her nose. “I like my own home. And if I do that, how do I foster?”
“I haven’t worked that part out yet.” And she knew better than to suggest her sister reduce her fostering commitment. There was no way Harriet would ever turn her back on an animal in trouble.
And she didn’t want her sister unhappy.
She’d grown up protecting Harriet. Fir
st from her father, and then from anyone and everything that threatened her twin.
It was protecting Harriet that had given her the idea of starting the business in the first place, and if she was going to expand then she needed to introduce the idea gradually.
She checked her phone for new bookings. “All I’m saying is that I’d like to look at the business more broadly. You don’t need to worry.”
“I’m not worried, exactly. But I don’t understand where this is coming from. Have we had a complaint about one of our dog walkers or something?”
“No. Our dog walkers are the best on the planet. Mostly because you have an uncanny instinct for sensing when someone doesn’t really like animals. Our screening process is excellent, and our attrition rate is close to zero.”
“So why the sudden change?”
“It’s not sudden. When you’re running your own business it’s important to evolve. There’s a lot of competition out there.” She’d seen just how much competition, but she didn’t share that with Harriet. No sense in worrying her.
“But you’ve said yourself that plenty of people who set up as dog walkers are unreliable. People are not going to trust their beloved pets with an unreliable walker. We’ve never lost a client. Never. Clients trust us.”
“And they will trust us in their homes, too, which is why I think we should extend the service we’re offering. I’m considering running obedience classes, too. I can think of a few dogs who might benefit.”
Harriet grinned. “Who was it this time? Dog or owner?”
“Dog. Name of Angel.”
“The poodle? Belongs to that magazine editor?”
“That’s the one.” The thought of it had Fliss rolling her eyes. She didn’t share Harriet’s tolerance when it came to misbehaving dogs. “If ever a dog was misnamed, it’s that one. He may be an angel on the outside, but on the inside he’s all devil.”
“I agree, but I don’t see why one badly behaved canine would make you question our entire business. Our business is fine, Fliss. You’ve done well.”
“We’ve done well.” Fliss emphasized the we and saw Harriet flush.
“Mostly you.”
“That’s rubbish. Do you really think I would have come this far without you?”
“You bring in all the business. You handle the finances and all the difficult phone calls.”
“And you make the animals so happy, and their owners so happy, that our word-of-mouth recommendations are through the roof. It’s our business, Harry. We’re a team. We’ve done well, but now I intend to do better.”
Harriet sighed. “Why? What are you trying to prove?”
“I’m not trying to prove anything. Is it wrong to want to grow the business?”
“No, if that’s what you really want, but I’d like taking the time to enjoy my job. I don’t always want to be rushing to the next thing. And if we expand, we’d have to find premises.”
“Way ahead of you. I thought we could look for something that also has space for an office. Then our apartment might not be flooded with paperwork and I might actually be able to find my bed. And the coffee machine.” She glanced from her phone to the stack of papers on the countertop. It seemed to grow every day. “There used to be a coffee machine hidden somewhere here. With luck I might find it before I die of caffeine withdrawal.”
“I moved it. I had to put it out of Sunny’s reach. He’s chewing everything he can find.” With the puppy still tucked under one arm, Harriet stood up. She pushed Fliss’s shoes to the side of the room and then walked to the kitchen and scooped up the papers. “There’s a message on the machine. I didn’t get to it in time. New business call.”
“I’ll call them back. I know you hate talking to strangers on the phone.” Fliss grabbed an energy bar from the cupboard and saw her twin frown. “Don’t look at me like that. At least I’m eating.”
“You could eat something wholesome.”
“This is wholesome.” She flicked the button on the coffee machine. “So going back to my plan—”
“I don’t want to spend the night in someone else’s apartment. I like my own bed. We’d have to recruit, and that would be expensive. Could we even afford it?”
“If you’d been paying attention at our last company meeting, you wouldn’t be asking me that question.”
“Was that the ‘meeting’ where we had take-out pizza and I had to bottle-feed those kittens?”
“Same one.”
“Then I don’t think I gave you my full attention. Just give me the top line.”
“It’s the bottom line that should interest you, and the bottom line is looking good.” Fliss poured coffee into two mugs, her head buzzing. With each new success, the buzz seemed to grow. “Better than our wildest dreams.” She eyed her sister. “Not that you’re the wild-dream type.”
“Hey, I have wild dreams!”
“Are you naked in them and writhing on silk sheets with a hot, naked guy?”
Harriet turned pink. “No.”
“Then trust me, your dreams aren’t wild.” Fliss took a mouthful of coffee and felt the caffeine bounce through her system.
“My dreams are no less valid than yours just because the content is different.” Harriet settled the puppy in his basket. “Dreams are to do with wanting and needing.”
“As I said—naked, silk sheets, hot guy.”
“There are other types of wanting and needing. I’m not interested in a single night of sex.”
“Hey, if he was hot enough I’d be willing to stretch it out a few days, at least until we’re both dying of thirst or starvation.”
“How are you ever my twin?”
“I ask myself the same question frequently.” About as frequently as she counted her blessings. How did people survive without a twin? If her childhood had felt like being trapped in a windowless room, Harriet had been the oxygen. Together they’d discovered a problem really did seem smaller if it was shared, as if they could carry half each and make it weigh less. And if Fliss knew, deep down, that her sister shared more than she did, she comforted herself with the knowledge that she was protecting Harriet. It was something she’d done all her life. “It’s because I’m your twin that I know your dreams as well as I do my own. Yours would be a white clapboard beach house, picket fence, a sexy doctor who adores you and a menagerie of animals. Forget it. If you want that kind of relationship, you’re going to need to read about it in a book. And now back to business. I think the Bark Rangers could legitimately offer pet sitting and even possibly dog grooming and obedience training. Think of it as an extension of what we do. We can offer packages where we—”
“Wait a minute.” Harriet frowned. “Are you saying you think romance only exists in books?”
“The type of romance you want only exists in books.”
“You only have to look at our brother to know that isn’t true.”
“Daniel fell in love with Molly. There’s only one Molly. And they’re basically together because their dogs are best friends.” She caught her twin’s eye and shrugged. “All right, they seem happy, but they’re the exception, and it’s probably because Molly is a relationship expert. That gives her an unfair advantage over the rest of us.”
“Maybe instead of expanding the business, you could take more time for yourself. You’ve been working at top speed since we started this business. It’s been five years, and you’ve hardly paused to breathe.”
“Six years.” Fliss grabbed a yogurt out of the fridge. “And why would I want time to myself? I love being busy. Busy is my drug of choice. And I love our business. We have freedom. Choices.” She nudged the door shut with her bare foot and saw Harriet wince.
“I love our business, too, but I also like the parts of my life that have nothing to do with the business. You’ve made a huge success of it, Fliss.” She hesitated. “You don’t have anything to prove.”
“I’m not proving anything.” The lie slid off her tongue while the voice inside her head shoute
d more loudly than usual. Useless, worthless, never make anything of yourself…
“Don’t you ever want more out of life?”
“More?” Fliss thrust a spoon into the yogurt, deciding it was time she shifted the conversation. This was starting to feel uncomfortable. “I’m young, free, single and living in New York City. What more is there? I have the world at my feet. Life is perfect. I mean, seriously, could life be any more perfect?”
Harriet looked at her steadily. “You didn’t do it, did you?”
Fliss’s heart started to pound. Her appetite vanished.
This, she thought, was one of the disadvantages of having a twin. She could hide the way she was feeling from everyone else in the world, but not from her sister.
She put her yogurt down and decided she needed to work harder at it. She didn’t want Harriet to know that she was terrified. It would make her anxious. “I was going to, I really was. I had the building in sight and I’d memorized what I was going to say—”
“But?”
“My feet wouldn’t go that way. They were glued to the spot. Then they turned around and walked in the opposite direction. I tried arguing with them. I said, ‘Feet, what do you think you’re doing?’ But did they listen? No.” And since when had she been so pathetic? She gave what she hoped passed for a careless shrug. “Please don’t say what I know you’re about to say.”
“What was I about to say?”
“You were going to gently point out that it’s been three weeks since Daniel bumped into him—”
“Seth,” Harriet said. “At least say his name. That would be a start.”
The start of what? She didn’t want to start something she’d worked hard to put behind her.
And she couldn’t blame her sister for pushing because she hadn’t been honest, had she? She hadn’t told Harriet how she felt.
“Seth—” His name stuck in her throat. “It’s been three weeks since Daniel bumped into him—Seth—at the vet practice. The plan was that I’d take control of the situation and go and see him in order to avoid an awkward encounter in the street.”
“You’ve changed the plan?”