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Mike, her best friend’s older brother and the owner of the bar, had asked her to keep an eye on Majed, to give him a hand if need be. As he was letting her crash at his swanky inner-city apartment for the six months of his current overseas sabbatical, it had seemed little enough to promise in return. Mike called her his house-sitter but, as he had no cat to feed or houseplants to water, Sarah had secretly dubbed herself his charity case. Mike had simply taken pity on her.
Pity or not, she’d jumped at the chance to cut forty-five minutes each way from her daily commute.
And keeping an eye on Majed had proved no hardship at all.
Mike had mentioned that he and Majed had gone to university together. She knew where Mike had gone to university. Majed should be a banker or a businessman or some hotshot lawyer. Like Mike, he should have a whole chain of bars, restaurants and resorts across the world—or at least be working towards it. What he shouldn’t be doing was twiddling his thumbs behind some bar in Melbourne.
Oh, right, and you think you’re qualified to be dispensing vocational advice, right?
She winced.
Good point.
She knew all about treading water in a job that was going nowhere. She knew all about not living up to her potential. She ought to. Her mother reminded her of it every single time they spoke.
Majed moved back down the bar towards her and she resolutely shoved her mother’s voice out of her head.
‘Your usual?’
Her usual was a glass of house white. She straightened and rubbed her hands together. ‘I’ll have bubbles, please.’
That eyebrow rose higher. ‘Celebrating something?’
She laughed because she couldn’t help it. ‘I can’t drink alone tonight. Let me buy you a drink.’ He opened his mouth but she cut him off. ‘Be a devil and have a lemon squash on me.’
Shaking his head, he did as she bid, and she noticed that at her end of the bar his smile was more relaxed and his shoulders swung a little freer. The fact he relaxed around her loosened the hard knots that the working day had wound up tight inside her.
He slid a glass of bubbles in front of her and she promptly clinked it to his glass of squash. ‘To the fact that I am now officially a single woman again.’
Stunned midnight eyes met hers and his smile, when it came, was low and long and sent a spiral of heat circling through her belly.
He leaned towards her. ‘You did it? You broke up with Superior Sebastian?’
Ah...not exactly. Sebastian had been the one to dump her. But it came to the same thing—she was single and rid of the awful boyfriend. And Majed looked so happy for her...he looked proud of her. It had been an age since anyone had looked at her like that, so she didn’t have it in her to correct him.
She pointed to herself. ‘Free woman.’ That, after all, was the material point. She then waved her hand through the air, assuming supreme indifference. ‘I’ve kicked his sorry ass to the kerb. Never again, I tell you.’ And she meant it. She was having no more of Sebastian’s on-again, off-again mind games. She couldn’t even remember why she’d put up with it all in the first place.
Majed took a long pull on his drink and she couldn’t help but notice the lean, tanned column of his throat and the implicit strength in the broad expanse of his shoulders. He set his glass down. ‘Never again?’
She shook her head. ‘Never.’
‘Cross your heart?’
She crossed her heart. In one smooth movement Majed leaned across the bar, cupped her face in big, warm hands and then his lips slammed down on hers in a brief but blistering kiss.
When he eased back all she could do was stare.
He frowned. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
She tried to marshal her scattered wits, tried to corral her racing pulse. ‘Oh, yes, you should.’ She found herself nodding vigorously. ‘You really should’ve done that.’
Whatever he saw in her face chased his shadows away. He shrugged, and she swore it was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. ‘I couldn’t kiss you when you were going out with another man.’
Majed had wanted to kiss her? If she’d known that, she might’ve broken up with Sebastian sooner.
Her heart pounded. ‘I was an idiot to put up with Sebastian and his so-called “this is for your own good” sermons for so long. It’s just...’ It was just that sometimes she was hopeless.
Majed folded himself down on the bar until he was eye-level with her. ‘You will get his voice out of your head right now and you won’t let it back in. You hear me? You do not need to lose weight. You do not need to wear more make-up. You do not need to do your hair differently. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with ordering a fluffy duck rather than a martini, because you don’t have to be too cool for school, Sarah Collins. You’re perfect just the way you are.’
She stared at that mouth uttering those delicious words—words she sorely wanted to believe—and her chest coiled up tight and her mouth dried. She glanced up and moistened her lips. He watched the action and midnight eyes glittered and sparked. Her blood pounded so hard it made her thighs soften. ‘Now I want to kiss you,’ she whispered.
‘That wouldn’t be wise.’
But he was staring at her lips with unadorned hunger and he didn’t move away.
‘Perhaps not, but it’d be fun.’
He gave the tiniest of nods in acknowledgement.
She lifted her chin. Mike had asked her to keep an eye on him. ‘When was the last time you had fun, Majed?’
His pupils momentarily dilated. ‘A long time.’
In those eyes she saw unexplained pain before heavy lids lowered to block it from her sight.
She sat back and surveyed him. He’d been counselling her for months now, telling her she deserved something better than a constantly critical boyfriend. And he’d been right—she did deserve better. And so did he. The way he was going, he’d work himself into an early grave.
She pursed her lips. That might be an exaggeration. She was rubbish at the work side of things but she could make up for it on the play side of the equation. ‘Do you ever drink?’ she asked.
He straightened. ‘I’ll be back.’
He moved away to serve a customer. When he returned he folded himself down into the same eye-level position. Did he know how sexy that was? Did he know she’d only have to close the space with a small forward movement to kiss him? If she did...
‘You have very speaking eyes.’
His grin was full of temptation. It was all she could do not to swoon—or kiss him. She settled for grinning back at him instead. ‘I’m feeling happy, free...and in the mood for some fun.’
She’d never been this bold before, but she couldn’t find it in herself to regret it. She’d made a fool of herself over far less worthy things.
She shrugged but she doubted it was one of those confident, nonchalant gestures all the cool girls managed. Something in the gesture, though, made Majed’s face soften. ‘What can I say, Majed? I like you.’
He was quiet for a long moment and just when she’d started readying herself for a hot squirm of embarrassment, and the shame of a kindly worded rejection, he said, ‘Brandy. Sometimes, late at night when I’m home alone, I’ll indulge in a small glass of brandy.’
Her heart grew so big it blocked her throat,