LITMIR.BIZ

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benefits was as far as you ever intended to go? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. At all. Of course.’

      Scott stared at Willa, speechless. Rob blew out a not laughing, I promise breath. Kate was biting the inside of her cheek, in the same predicament as Rob.

      ‘After what happened in the Whitsundays I—’ At last Willa stopped. Blushed very prettily—as Willa did everything.

      Scott was still staring, frozen, praying she was not going to finish that.

      ‘Oh,’ Willa said. ‘Well. Anyway. Kate is the best family lawyer in Sydney, as well as being a wonderful, kind, compassionate—’

      ‘Thank you, Willa,’ Kate interrupted smoothly. ‘But I’m not quite ready for sainthood.’

      Scott, unfreezing, saw the flush of pink that slashed across Kate’s high cheekbones—not pretty, stunning!—and decided it was time to take control of the conversation and get his seduction back on track.

      Leaning into Willa conspiratorially, he said, ‘I hear Kate’s also a Rubik’s cube champion.’

      Kate choked on her punch, trying—again—not to laugh.

      And somehow that made Scott want her even more. He needed to get her away from everyone immediately. Out onto the deck into that particular corner that he knew from previous forays at Willa’s harbourside mansion was very private, screened by a giant pot plant.

      But any chance of getting Kate alone was snatched from him by another of the old Weeping Reef gang, Amy, who landed in their midst—because Amy never merely appeared anywhere—accompanied by her flatmate Jessica, who’d become an honorary gang member despite never having been near the Whitsundays.

      Seduction plans were officially on simmer—but not off the heat. Half an hour—that was all he needed. Half an hour and Kate Cleary would be his.

      Amy gave Scott a smacking kiss on the cheek before enveloping Kate in a hug.

      ‘Kate!’ she squealed. ‘It’s been an age.’

      Kate laughed as she returned the hug. ‘Well, two weeks, anyway—you didn’t drink so many mojitos at Fox that you’ve forgotten?’

      What the hell…? Scott wondered if he was the only one of the group who’d never met Kate. Well—him and Willa’s brother, Luke, who was still in Singapore. Was this some kind of Weeping Reef conspiracy? Would Chantal turn up at last—because God knew how he’d deal with that—and Brodie? He could picture Brodie sauntering over, snatching the heart of another of Scott’s women…

      Not that Kate was Scott’s woman.

      Jessica and Kate were hugging now. Okay—this was officially out of control. Even Jessica knew Kate?

      ‘It wasn’t the mojitos that were news at Fox,’ Jessica said. ‘It was one very particular martini.’

      The blush was back on Kate’s cheekbones. ‘The less said about that the better,’ she said with a theatrical shudder.

      Scott was suddenly desperate to hear the story. ‘You don’t like martinis?’ he asked—only to have Willa, Amy and Jessica burst out laughing.

      He looked at Rob, who gave him a don’t ask me shrug.

      ‘It was a dirty martini,’ Amy said, putting him out of his misery. ‘Bought for her by Barnaby, my arch nemesis at work, who just happened to be drinking at Fox too. Blond, blue-eyed and gorgeous—that’s Barnaby. Thinks he’s God’s gift to marketing. And to women. And to be honest, he kind of is. Just not to Kate.’

      Kate shook her head, laughing, as though batting the subject away.

      ‘It was the way he said “dirty”,’ Jessica put in, helping herself to a glass of punch. ‘It’s one thing being presented with a dirty martini. It’s quite another to have it presented with a slimy pick-up line. “Just how dirty do you like it, baby?” Yep—that would make any woman want to jump you. Not.’

      More laughing from the girls as Kate covered her eyes with a hand.

      Rob was practically cringing. ‘Seriously?’

      Willa kissed Rob’s cheek. ‘Not all men are as evolved as you, Rob.’

      Rob turned to Scott. ‘You ever used that one?’

      ‘Dirty martini? Nope. And, given the reaction Barnaby got, I doubt I ever will. Although in my youth I did once embarrass myself with a comment to twin girls about a Ménage à Trois.’

      Jessica’s eyes bugged. ‘Twins? Like…a real ménage à trois? Or is that the name of a fancy-pants cocktail?’

      ‘It’s a cocktail,’ Scott assured her. ‘And delicious, apparently—because, as it happens, they both ordered one and made very…approving…noises.’ He cleared his throat, all faux embarrassment. ‘As they sipped, I mean.’

      ‘They ordered one apiece—with a side order of you?’ Amy asked, batting her eyelashes outrageously.

      Scott smiled. The lazy, teasing smile he reserved for flirty moments with women he wasn’t ever going to take to bed. ‘A gentleman never tells a lady’s secrets.’

      He saw something flash across Amy’s face. Something like…distress? But it was gone so quickly he wondered if he’d imagined it. And the next moment she was laughing again.

      ‘Well, anyway, enough with the “in my youth” talk. If I’ve got my arithmetic in order you’re twenty-seven—one measly year older than me. And I’ll have you know I still consider myself to be in my youth.’

      An odd gasping sound from Kate had Scott turning to her. It looked as if she’d spilled punch on her dress, because she was brushing a hand over the bodice. It must have been only the tiniest drop—he certainly couldn’t see any sign of it—but the next moment Willa was ushering Kate to the guest bathroom and Amy was asking Rob what exactly was in the punch, because she’d never seen Kate’s nerves of steel so much as bend before, let alone be dented.

      The punch, apparently, was a combination of vodka, white wine, white rum and champagne, with an occasional strawberry waved over the bowl—that did not sound girly! It was a miracle everyone in the house wasn’t stumbling around breaking bits off sculptures, staggering into walls and pitching face-first into pot plants.

      But Scott had a feeling the potency of the brew was not the problem with Kate. She’d looked sort of shocky. Surely not because of that harmless ménage à trois talk? She was too sophisticated for that. It would take him two minutes, tops, to explain that away. Which would leave him twenty-eight minutes to charm her out of her panties.

      But twenty minutes later Scott hadn’t managed to get near Kate. Every time he took a step in her direction she moved somewhere else. As if she was on guard against him—which was crazy. Almost as crazy as what the sight of her loose-hipped, strolling, rolling walk was doing to his testosterone levels. Sexiest walk ever.

      At the twenty-four-minute mark, as he made what felt like his hundredth attempt to reach her and she replaced the stroll with a dash—an actual freaking dash—towards a small group of people whose average age looked to be a hundred and four, he realised she really and truly was on her guard.

       Oh, my God.

      He was chasing her and she was running away. This had never, ever happened to him before.

      And as he watched her, trying to figure out what the hell had gone wrong, the last six minutes of his self-allocated thirty minutes’ seduction time ticked away…and she was gone.

      Disappeared. Like Cinderella, but wearing both of her take-me-now shoes.

      He fingered the card she’d given him.

      Weird. Very, very weird. A mystery.

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