LITMIR.BIZ

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She was not that pathetic, that weak! He’d crossed a line as big as the San Andreas fault line and it was not okay! She was worth more than that…

      Mind made up, Tori switched off her mobile, slid out of bed and walked up the stairs to the turret room, avoiding the stairs that creaked and the floorboards that groaned. In the morning, she thought as she opened the door to Izzy’s old room, she would feel better, calmer, and more able to make rational decisions.

      Maybe. Or maybe she’d cave and go back to Mark…

      ‘You’re sounding stronger, Dad.’ Matt leaned back against the headboard, mobile to his ear.

      ‘I’m fine. Don’t worry.’

      Matt twisted his lips at Patrick’s sharp retort. Like him, he hated being fussed over, but Matt wasn’t convinced that his dad was fully recovered from the bout of pneumonia that had hospitalised him at the beginning of August. He still sounded weak, although he tried to hide it.

      And also like him, his father was a night owl and they often spent time on the phone between the hours of eleven and one in the morning. They’d chat about sport or the news and every so often Matt would explain a complicated deal he was involved in. Despite his years spent working in non-profit organisations promoting sport amongst disadvantaged children, Patrick had never lost his cool, unemotional, law-trained mind and his insights were frequently sharp, concise and devastatingly accurate. He had a way of cutting through the waffle and discarding the emotion to reveal the heart of the problem, the soul of the dilemma.

      ‘How’s Angela?’ Matt asked, referring to the woman his dad had met a couple of months ago.

      ‘Fine but she’s not your mother.’

      ‘No one is, no one could be,’ Matt said gently, as he had a hundred times before. And as always he was instantly transported back to those awful months after her death, his dad sobbing at night, grief racking his body when he thought Matt was asleep. How many nights had he been woken by that low keening? How many times had he slipped out of his bed to lie in the passageway next to his dad’s closed door, listening until his father finally stopped crying and drifted off to sleep?

      ‘Twenty-two years, Matt, and I’m still as in love with her as I was. They say that people forget their loved ones, that they don’t remember their faces, their voices. I still remember everything. Her wide green eyes, her raucous laugh, the way she always stuck her tongue between her lips when she was concentrating.’

      And because his dad remembered so much, and spoke of her often, he did too. He’d adored his mother, grieved her death, but her passing had also taught him that marriage and love equated to heart-wrenching grief and he’d decided, at the ripe old age of eleven, to have nothing to do with it.

      They were getting morbid, Matt thought, and changed the subject. ‘So, I think I have a new flatmate…’

      Matt explained the circumstances around Tori’s arrival and soon Patrick was chortling in amusement. His dad wasn’t a prude, thank God. He could talk to him about anything and he did.

      ‘Oh, and I went to see your uncle Alfred yesterday.’

      Matt tuned out as Patrick updated him on the health of his great-uncle and just listened to the comforting hum of his dad’s voice. After his mum died, they’d stumbled through their lives. Patrick had learned to cook and to listen; mopped up spilt milk, broken windows from cricket balls and Matt’s own childhood tears. Cricket had turned to rugby, and excruciating lectures about sex and girls had been suffered through—by both of them—and they’d both had to wrap their heads around his dad dating again. But Patrick had kept his sex life away from him—thank the Lord—and nothing and no one had disturbed their masculine, sports-crazy home.

      It had been a blow to realise that, while he was good at cricket and great at rugby, he wasn’t good or great enough. He was an excellent sportsman but just wasn’t brilliant…he didn’t have enough raw talent to take his sport to the next level. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t work in the field, Patrick had constantly reminded him. He could always be associated with sport…

      And now Matt represented twenty of the biggest names in sport that he personally looked after and his two associates had another sixty they represented between them. One of his tasks while he was in London was to consider hiring a UK-based agent to expand his business.

      Matt heard a noise on the landing outside and glanced at the luminous hands on his sports watch. It was long past midnight and he wondered who else was up.

      ‘Dad, sorry, I’ve got to go. Speak soon and look after that chest!’

      He tossed his mobile onto the side table, sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. His eyebrows lifted when his door handle dipped and the door slowly opened. He’d always had excellent night vision and didn’t need light to discern the slight female form, perfectly curved. As she turned to close the door her slithery robe rustled and he was treated to the most luscious bottom he’d seen in a very long time. Her hair was streaked and her profile, caught in the landing light just before she shut the door, showed a small, straight nose, full lips, deep-set eyes and a round, stubborn chin.

      She stopped by the far side of the bed and he watched as small hands went to the belt on her robe and the fabric slipped off her shoulders revealing perky breasts, a flat stomach, slim hips and those fabulously long and silky legs.

      Birds sang, and an orchestra started playing and he was quite sure that a mountain, somewhere in the world, moved. She was that sexy, he thought, as lust shot straight to his groin and belted up his spine.

      Ah, the actress from earlier.

      Which raised the question: what the hell was she doing in his room?

      Naked?

      Ooh, Tori thought, wiggling under the covers, a nice firm, lump-free bed. High thread count, clean cotton sheets, a decent feather pillow. Thank you, Isaac, for being in Amsterdam or Paris or somewhere else exotic doing cocktailbar stuff and leaving your room empty for me to borrow. She sighed happily. This was a million times better; she could get a decent night’s sleep in this comfy bed and she’d feel so much better in the morning: stronger, bolder, better able to cope. She rolled over on her side and dropped her hand to the mattress…

      Except that wasn’t a mattress. Tori froze. It was warm and hairy and the muscles underneath her hand contracted and released.

      She’d known enough male bodies to immediately realise that she was holding a very muscular male thigh and because she could feel something that felt like a testicle brushing her pinkie finger, she suspected that her hand had landed quite far up his thigh—far as in ‘far too close’.

      Okay, she really hadn’t planned on feeling Isaac up this evening. And why did she immediately feel guilty? Because of Poppy, she realised. Poppy and Isaac had something cooking; what it was she wasn’t sure but it was something…

      And while she had many, many, many faults, stealing her best friend’s man—potential man—wasn’t one of them.

      If she was desperately lucky, then Isaac would be asleep and she could sneak back out and keep her mouth shut for ever and ever and ever…

      Tori, trying to be very stealthy, lifted her thumb off his thigh, then her index finger, middle and ring finger and finally her pinkie. Pulling her hand away, she sighed with relief when there was no reaction from the body and slowly started to inch her way out of the bed.

      A deep, sexy-as-sin voice growled at her through the darkness and pinned her to the bed. ‘Where are you going? It was just starting to get interesting.’

      ‘Isaac?’ she whispered and held her breath, desperately hoping that Isaac had acquired a slight accent she didn’t remember him ever having.

      ‘Nope. Sorry.’

      Sometimes, Tori thought, you are the statue and sometimes you are the pigeon. Obviously her day to be the statue wasn’t quite over just yet.

      The

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