My Boyfriend and Other Enemies

by Nikki Logan

  His plan changed on the spot.

  This woman wouldn’t respond to one of his calculated corporate stares. She wouldn’t sell out or be chased off. Waiting her out might not work either. The focused way she persuaded the smelted glass into the shape she wanted with turn-after-agonising-turn of the rod spoke of a patience he knew he didn’t have. And a determination he hadn’t expected her to.

  She lifted the glowing mass—whatever the hell it was going to be when finished—and balanced the long tool on an old fashioned vice, then reached forward with something resembling tin-snips and started picking away at the edges of the eye-burning mass of barely solid glass.

  She was tiny. She’d peeled down her working overalls in the heat and tied the arms around her waist, leaving just a Lara Croft vest top to protect her against anything that might splash or flare up at her from her dangerous craft. Incredibly confident or incredibly stupid. Given how hard she’d worked to catch his father’s attention, he had to assume the former. He’d bet his latest bonus that her eyes would hold an intelligence as keen as the rapidly cooling shards she sliced away from her design—if they weren’t disguised behind industrial-strength welding goggles. In the café, it had been oversized sunglasses. She’d used them well to disguise her surveillance, but he’d finally twigged to how much attention the stranger across the restaurant was paying to his father. And how hard she was working to hide it. The moment she realised her game was up she took off, but not before he got a good look at the line of her face, the shape of her lips, the elfin shag of her short hair. Enough to memorise. Enough to recognise a week later when she turned up in the park across from MooreCo’s headquarters.

  And met his father there.

  She plunged the entire burning arrangement into a nearby bucket of water and promptly disappeared in a belching surge of steam. It finally dissipated and Aiden realised that her body was still oriented towards her open kiln, but her face had turned to where he stood in the doorway, those infuriating goggles giving her the advantage. Tiny droplets of steam clung to every one of the light hairs on her body, making her look as if she were made from the same stuff she was forging.

  But this woman was a mile from fragile glass.

  ‘Mr Moore. What can I do for you?’

  It took him a moment to recover from the brazen way she immediately admitted to knowing who he was. She didn’t even bother faking innocence. More than that, the soft, strained lilt of her voice; nervous but hiding it well. He found it hard not to give her points for both.

  How to play this? ‘You can end your affair with my father,’ was hardly going to effect change. Except maybe to set those tanned shoulders back even further.

  He cleared his throat. ‘I was hoping to purchase a few pieces for our lobby. Something unique. Something natural. Got anything like that?’

  She could hardly say no, he knew; everything she had was like that. He’d taken the trouble to search the web before coming here. Tash Sinclair had quite the reputation in art circles.

  She pushed the enormous tinted goggles up into pale, sweat-damp hair. ‘That’s not why you’re here.’

  Aiden sucked in a slow, silent breath. The goggles left red pressure marks around the sockets of her eyes but all he could look at were the enormous chocolate-brown gems shining back at him, as glorious as any of her glass pieces. And full of suspicion.

  Immediately, a ridiculous thought slipped into his mind. That they had each other’s eyes. He had his mother’s dark, European colouring and her blue, blue eyes. Whereas Tash Sinclair was practically Nordic but with brown eyes that belonged in his face. The combination was captivating.

  ‘It may not be why I came, specifically, but I do mean it. Your work is amazing.’ He wandered permission-less into her studio and examined the pieces lining the shelves. An array of tall, intricate vases; turtles and manatees and leafy sea-dragons, extraordinary jellyfish detailed in fine glass. This wasn’t where she displayed her works but it was where they were born. The genesis of her expensive pieces.

  Only her eyes followed as he moved around her space. In his periphery, he saw her lift trembling fingers to her messy hair, then curl them quickly and shove them out of sight behind her back. His eyes narrowed. Despite working on his father, she could still find time to be concerned about whether she looked okay for him.

  Charming.

  But it gave him an idea. If Little Miss Artisan here was hell-bent on hooking up with his father, perhaps the most effective weapon in his arsenal wasn’t from his corporate collection of steely glares. Or his chequebook. Perhaps it was something more personal.

  Him.

  If she was after the Moore name or Moore money, he had both. Maybe she’d allow herself to be diverted from his father—his married-thirty-years father—in favour of the younger, single model. Long enough for him to do some good.

  If she cared what he thought when he looked at her, then he had something to work with.

  Mind you, if she knew what he really thought when he looked at her she’d probably run a mile. She might work with fire every day but she didn’t look as if she regularly played with it. Not the way he had. He liked it rough and he liked it short and blazing with volatile, brilliant, ambitious women. About as far from a tiny, tomboyish artsy type with big, make-up-less eyes as you could possibly get.

  Which would make it all the easier to remember not to blur the lines. He was the toreador and she was the bull. His goal was to keep her eyes on him long enough that she’d forget her obsession with his father. To keep dancing around her in big flamboyant circles drawing her farther and farther from the family he was so desperately trying to protect.

  His mother had sacrificed her life raising him. The least he could do was repay the favour and help keep her husband faithful.

  If it wasn’t too late.

  ‘Make yourself at home,’ she mocked, one eyebrow raised, stripping off protective wrist covers and tossing them on her workbench.

  He swallowed a smile and glanced at the still-steaming bucket. ‘What are you working on?’

  ‘It was a practice piece for an ornamental vase. I wasn’t happy with it.’ She pulled the rod and the inadequate creation on the end out of the nearly evaporated water. The glass had completely shattered. She nodded to a series of coloured glass sticks laid side by side on the workbench. ‘Those will be lorikeets mounted around its mouth.’

  ‘I’ll take it.’

  ‘It’s not for sale until I’m happy with it.’ She laughed as she tossed the waste glass into a recycling bin off to one side. The two sounds melded perfectly. ‘Besides, you don’t strike me as someone who would appreciate a pink lorikeet vase.’

  ‘I appreciate quality. In all its forms.’ He lifted his eyes intentionally and locked onto hers. Classic Moore move.

  Doubt-lines appeared between her brows, drawing them down into a fine V. But where he’d expected a blush, she only looked irritated. ‘If you still like it when it’s done, I’ll make you a pair for your reception desk. At a price.’

  ‘I’m not expecting mates’ rates.’

  ‘That’s good, because we’re not mates. I don’t even know you.’ Her dark eyes shone. ‘But you know me, it seems. What really brought you here?’

  Aiden used silence to best advantage in boardrooms. The speed with which an opponent rushed in to fill a thick silence said a lot about them. But the one he unleashed now ticked on for tens of seconds and the diminutive woman before him simply blinked slowly and waited him out, serenity a shimmering halo around her.

  Well, damn...

  He broke his own rule. ‘You were watching us at the café.’

  Those eyes widened just a hint. She took a careful breath, shrugged. ‘Two good-looking men...I’m sure I wasn’t the only one looking.’

  The blank way she said it made it feel like the opposite of a comp
liment. ‘You met my father last week.’

  She took a careful breath. ‘Across the street from your offices. Hardly clandestine. Does your father know he’s being monitored?’

  ‘I was passing by.’ Liar!

  ‘Does he know I’m being monitored, then?’

  Aiden blinked. The woman was wasted in an art studio. Why wasn’t she working her way rapidly up one of MooreCo’s subsidiaries? For the first time he got a nervous inkling that his father’s interest in the pretty blonde might not just be connected to those full lips and innocent eyes. Natasha Sinclair had a brain and wasn’t afraid to use it.

  ‘Have dinner with me.’

  Her instant laugh was insulting. ‘No.’

  ‘Then teach me to blow glass.’

  The shocked look on her face told him he’d just asked her for something intensely personal. ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Make some custom pieces for MooreCo.’ That was work; she was a professional artist. She couldn’t refuse.

  He hoped.

  Those dark eyes calculated. ‘Would I be required to go to your offices?’

  It was a risk, putting her so close to his father, but he’d be there to run interference. Moreover, it would allow him to keep her close; where all enemies belonged. Win her over. And gather more information on what this thing between her and his father was all about. ‘For consultation, design and installation.’

  She wavered. His own brilliance amazed him, sometimes.

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Will you be there?’

  Oh, that was just plain unkind. ‘Naturally. I’m the commissioning partner.’

  If a humph could be feminine, hers was. ‘When do you want me there?’

  He mentally scanned through the appointments he knew his father had, and picked the most non-negotiable one. One taking his father halfway across the city. He named the date and time.

  Nothing wrong with stacking the deck in his favour. It was what he did for a living. Find opportunities—make them—and turn them into advantage.

  She reached up for her goggles. ‘Okay. I’ll see you then.’ Without waiting for his answer, she re-screened her soul from his view, pressed her steel-caps onto a pedal on the floor and turned towards a brace-mounted blowtorch that burst into blue-flamed life.

  Aiden let his surprise show since she was no longer looking. He’d never been so effectively dismissed from his own conversation. Firm yet not definably rude. Had he even had control of their discussion for a moment or was that just a desperate illusion?

  Still, at least he’d walked away with what he’d set out for, albeit via a circuitous route. Whatever Natasha Sinclair and his father had going on was thoroughly outed. And he was now firmly wedged in between any opportunity for her to engage with his father.

  Couldn’t have worked out better, really.

  * * *

  If not for his already monumental ego, Tash would have kissed Aiden Moore.

  He’d handed her the perfect excuse, the other day, to get closer to her mother’s lost love with his transparent commission. She’d been hit on enough times to know the signs. And the likely outcome. Every guy she’d ever dated had started out by buying something of hers. Or expressing interest in it. She’d lost interest in those kinds of sales—those kinds of men—no matter how lucrative.

  She knew from firsthand experience that men with Aiden Moore’s charisma and social standing didn’t plan lifetimes with women like her. Women like her made terrific mistresses or fascinating show-and-tell at boring dinners or boosted your standing in local government in an arts district.

  She’d met—and dated—them all.

  Not that she cared. Aiden was a Moore and she was a Porter-by-proxy and if he hadn’t already joined the dots he soon would and that would be that. Their families’ feud would only add to the antagonism he so clearly felt towards her.

  Because that had to be what was zinging around the room when he was in it.

  Nathaniel had told her to put their family differences out of her mind. But it was easy to be dismissive of a family feud when you were the cause of it. She had simply inherited it. So had Aiden.

  She jogged up the railway-station steps into daylight and wandered towards the Terrace, her trusty sketchpad under her arm. The excitement of a new commission bubbled away just beneath the surface, hand in hand with some anxiety about seeing Nathaniel again. So publicly. He’d changed an important meeting when he’d heard she was coming in, embracing the opportunity to get to meet her in a work capacity. To legitimise all the sneaking around they’d been doing.

  She was sure they both considered it worth it. They spent hours chatting about her mother, about their families, their lives. Nathaniel Moore wasn’t a man to regret his choices but he was human enough to need to set some ghosts to rest. And she was motherless enough to want to hang onto Adele Porter-Sinclair no matter how vicariously.

  ‘Natasha. Welcome.’

  The silken tones drifted towards her from the kerbside taxi in front of the MooreCo building just as she approached it. Aiden leaned in to pay the driver, then turned and escorted her into his building with a gentle hand at her back. She ignored it steadfastly.

  The first time she’d been here, she’d been too nervous to appreciate her surroundings. Now the enormity of this opportunity struck her. MooreCo’s lobby was high, modern and downright celestial with the amount of West Australian light streaming in the glass frontages. Tiny dust particles danced like sea-monkeys in the light-beams. The best possible setting for glasswork.

  ‘You’ll just need to sign in.’ Aiden directed her to the security desk.

  Once she was done, the security guard slipped her an ID tag and smiled. ‘Thank you, Ms Sinclair. I’ll let Mr Moore know you’re on your way up.’

  The deep voice beside her chuckled. ‘He knows.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Moore, I meant the senior Mr Moore. He’s waiting for Ms Sinclair’s arrival.’

  The masculine body to her left stiffened noticeably. Couldn’t be helped. Nathaniel was an adult and could socialise with whomever he chose. Whether his son liked it or not.

  Aiden’s jaw clamped tight. ‘Up we go, then.’

  The elevator ride was blessedly short and horribly tense. Aiden’s dark brows remained low even as he stole sideways glimpses of her in the mirrored wall panels. Tash did her best to remain bright and carefree even though she was sure it was infuriating him further. The elevator climbed and climbed in silence and, just as Aiden opened his mouth to speak, it lurched to a stop and a happy ding ricocheted around the small space.

  Saved by the bell. Literally.

  The elegant doors parted and Tash all but fell out, eager to be moving again. A familiar face waited at the landing. She stepped forward and extended her cheek for Nathaniel’s waiting lips.

  ‘Natasha. Such a delight to have you here. An unexpected delight.’ He directed a look to his stony-faced son. ‘I was not aware that the two of you knew each other.’

  ‘I might say the same, Father.’

  He ignored that. ‘I believe you are to create some wonders for our entry lobby, Natasha? I look forward to seeing the designs.’

  ‘I look forward to working with you—’ common courtesy demanded she say it ‘—both. Shall we get started?’

  They turned down a long hall. ‘Your meeting with Larhills?’ Aiden murmured towards his father.

  ‘Conveniently delayed.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Tash saw the older man slip his hand onto his son’s shoulder. ‘A change of fortune. I wouldn’t have appreciated missing Natasha’s visit.’

  Aiden held the boardroom door respectfully. ‘How do you know each other?’

  ‘I knew her mother.’

  I loved her mother. Tash heard the meaning behind the words ringing as cl
ear as the elevator bell. Even Aiden narrowed his gaze as he followed them into the generously appointed boardroom overlooking the wide blue river to the leafy riverside suburb beyond it.

  ‘But I didn’t know of her stunning artistic talents until very recently,’ Nathaniel went on. ‘Let’s see what she can do for our shabby foyer, eh?’

  She could practically smell Aiden’s frustration and confusion, and a small part of her pitied him. If not for the predatory way he’d tracked her down and tried to ask her out. If not for the likelihood that he’d toss her out on the street when he found out she was a Porter in disguise. Commission or no commission.

  But the anxious furrow that he hid from his father wheedled its way into her subconscious and brought an echoing one to her brow, and she felt, for the first time, guilt for barging into their perfectly harmonious lives with her bag of secrets.

  She placed her hands serenely on the polished jarrah table. Timber was too clunky and dense to have ever interested her much but she recognised the craftsman and knew his price tag. Just a pity she wasn’t planning to charge Nathaniel for this commission. No, this would be a gift from her mother to the man she’d loved.

  ‘Your foyer light is perfect for glasswork,’ she opened, speaking to Nathaniel. ‘Well oriented for winter light and high enough for something cascading. Something substantial.’

  Aiden’s left brow peaked. ‘We’ve gone from a pair of vases to “something substantial” very quickly.’

  She turned her eyes to him. ‘The space determines the piece.’

  ‘I would have thought I’d determine the piece,’ he pointed out, ‘being the commissioner.’

  She flicked her chin up. ‘Commissioners always think that.’

  Nathaniel laughed. ‘It may be your commission, Aiden, and your creative offspring, Natasha, but it’s my building. So it seems we’re equal stakeholders.’