‘What?’ he asked.
But nobody was brave enough to answer.
* * *
Sunshine did not enjoy dinner.
Not that the food wasn’t great—because who couldn’t love a Wagyu beef burger with Stilton, and chilli salt fries on the side?
And Iain had brought sketches of the most fabulous hairstyle for the wedding. Finger waves pinned at the base of the neck and secured with a gorgeous hairclip. Her fringe would be swept aside—please let it be long enough—and similarly clipped above her ear.
But neither the food nor the sketches was enough to take her mind off that damned motorbike, and the fact that Leo, who was so sensible, didn’t seem to understand that it had to go.
So she fumed. And, because she’d always supposed she didn’t carry the fuming gene, the unwelcome evidence that she could get as wound up as a garden variety maniac bothered her.
They’d had sex. That didn’t mean she had a hold over him, of course, but it made him...well...someone more important than a casual acquaintance.
She became aware that Iain was sing-songing her name softly from across the table and snapped her attention back to where it should have been all night.
‘That’s better,’ he said.
‘Sorry, Iain. I haven’t been good company tonight.’
‘You’re always good company, Sunny.’
She smiled at him. ‘You’re too nice.’
‘Nice?’ He gave a short, almost bitter laugh. ‘Was that the limiter?’
‘What? No!’ She looked at him, dismayed. ‘The problem was—is always—that I just don’t want...that.’
‘Someone’s going to change your mind, Sunny—and all of us who have been forced to accept the limit are going to be mighty annoyed.’
All of us? Good Lord! ‘You make it sound like there’s a zombie camp of men out there, slavishly doing my bidding! And nobody is going to get annoyed—because I’m not changing my mind, ever. And I also happen to know you’re dating Louise, so— Oh!’
She stopped abruptly. Stared past Iain.
Because Natalie Clarke, accompanied by a pretty guy vaguely familiar as a model—Rob-something—was being seated at the next table.
Natalie was stunning. Gold skin, glorious copper hair, perfect rosebud mouth, pale grey eyes. She was super-slender, wearing a tight black leather skirt and a cropped black jacket. Black suede boots that made Sunshine green with envy.
Natalie shrugged out of her jacket to reveal a teensy white top; a black demi-bra was clearly visible underneath.
Iain’s eyes went straight to the mother lode!
Sunshine, swallowing a laugh, kicked Iain under the table. Bolt-ons, she mouthed at him.
So? He mouthed back, and the laugh erupted after all.
Natalie, venom in her grey eyes, looked sharply, suspiciously, over at Sunshine and Iain.
Oh. That was just nasty. Imagine if Natalie ever got wind of what she’d done with Leo last night! Crime scene for sure—blood spatter, flayed flesh, ooze, and poison, and possibly a meat cleaver in there as well!
Then Sunshine noticed the tattooed butterflies flitting down Natalie’s arms, and laughed again before she could stop herself.
Oops. Extra venom. And not much of a sense of humour, obviously.
Sunshine shifted her attention back to Iain and made a valiant effort to ignore Natalie—but it was impossible not to hear the overly loud one-way conversation from Natalie to Rob-the-model. All about Leo!
Blah-blah...so boring that Leo never, ever cooked for people outside his restaurants. Ha! Prosciutto fettuccine, anyone? Blah-blah...swank parties with Leo. Blah-blah...celebrities she and Leo had met. Blah-blah...she and Leo, part of the scene. And who said ‘the scene’ with a straight face? Blah-blah, blah-blah!
Natalie was pushing food around her plate as she talked; Rob was at least eating, but he was also smirking. Smirking—was that the most infuriating facial expression in the world?
The two of them would intermittently disappear to the bathroom, then come back talking too fast and too loud. When they disappeared for the fourth time Iain mimed coke-sniffing and Sunshine grimaced.
Natalie and Rob returned to the table and within moments were back on topic: Leo. And then, clear as a bell, ‘I’ll take Leo back when I’m ready—because, no matter what, he’s good in bed.’
Tittering laugh from Rob.
People at about six different tables were staring at Natalie, entranced.
Sunshine felt her blood pressure shoot up. If she wasn’t a pacifist she would want to slap Natalie for doing this to Leo—and in his own restaurant, dammit! Sunshine’s heart was racing, her brain fizzing. She felt light-headed. She was going to have to do something to stop this.
‘Really, really good,’ Natalie continued, taking in her audience, ‘which is kind of psycho, because he can’t even touch you unless he’s fu—’
Sunshine let out a loud, long peal of exaggerated laughter, drawing all eyes. She felt like a prize idiot, and Iain was obviously uncomfortable, but it was the only option she could immediately think of to shut Natalie up.
Sunshine was racking her brain for a way to proceed when Rob solved the dilemma by jumping to his feet and clutching at his neck.
Natalie stared ineffectually at her choking date.
Someone called out for a doctor.
The manager was racing to the kitchen.
Two diffident waiters approached the table, probably hoping someone would get there before them.
The diners—apparently not a doctor amongst them—seemed frozen. No movement. Just watching.
Sunshine got to her feet with a sinking heart. On the bright side, this dramatic development had shut Natalie up. On the not so bright side, Sunshine suspected she was about to star in the next scene. She hovered for a few seconds. Please someone else help...please. But—nope! Sunshine sighed. So be it.
Focusing her mind, Sunshine strode to the table. ‘Out of the way,’ she said, pushing past a still gaping Natalie.
Sunshine thumped Rob on the back. Nothing. Again. Once more.
Nope. Whatever was lodged in his throat wasn’t going to be beaten out of him. Rob wasn’t coughing, wasn’t making a sound; he was just turning blue. His eyes stared, entreating. His hands tugged at his shirt collar.
Okay, here goes. Quickly, calmly, Sunshine moved behind him, wrapped her arms around him and placed a fist between his ribcage and where she guessed his navel was. Then she covered the fist with her other hand and gave one sharp tug upwards and inwards.
A piece of meat came flying out of Rob’s mouth and he staggered, grabbing at his chair, dragging in breaths.
The restaurant broke into spontaneous applause and Sunshine felt her face heat.
Thank God the waiters were now taking control.
She started to return to her table and saw Leo standing just outside the kitchen. He was staring at her as though he’d just witnessed the Second Coming.
Sunshine couldn’t remember ever being so embarrassed.
She was almost relieved when Natalie’s squeal snagged his attention.
His eyes widened, then narrowed as they returned to Sunshine. Not happy!
Sunshine would have laughed if she hadn’t felt so shaken. What on earth did he believe had just happened? That she and Natalie had been having a friendly chat while Rob stood there choking? Maybe that Sunshine was persuading Natalie, mid-Heimlich manoeuvre, to sing at the wedding reception against Leo’s express wishes?
At this point Sunshine would prefer to hire herself to warble a few off-key songs!
She was almost glad when Natalie, squealing again, rushed towards Leo and threw herself into his arms. Leo, looking frazzled, backed into the kitchen, pulling Natalie with him.
Fra
zzle away, you idiot, Sunshine said in her head, and quickly returned to Iain.
‘You’re amazing,’ he said, standing to pull out her chair.
‘Anyone could have done it,’ she said dismissively. ‘I’m just glad I didn’t break any of his ribs—that’s the main danger. And I don’t want to sit, Iain. I want to go home. I have another high drama to get through tonight: a video call with Jon.’
‘Why high drama?’
Sunshine sighed. ‘You’re not the only one worried about the zombies.’
* * *
‘Jon, you’re wrong.’
Those were the first words Sunshine had managed to edge into the conversation since her initial ‘Hello’ three minutes earlier.
Not that ‘conversation’ described the incendiary soliloquy Jon had been delivering, which covered her unsatisfactory outlook on life, her ill-preparedness to deal with a man of Leo’s darkness, a disjointed reminder to ensure she was taking precautions—which caused her a momentary pang of guilt about the unprecedented lack of a condom last night, although she was on the pill and that had to count for something—and the general benefits of not actively courting disaster.
‘No, Sunshine, I’m not wrong,’ Jon said, and seemed ready to relaunch.
Sunshine headed him off by jamming her fingers in her ears. She raised her eyebrows, waiting. And at last he smiled.
She removed her fingers from her ears. ‘This is not worth so much anxiety, Jonathan.’
‘I’m worried about you, Sunny. About the way you’ve been living—no, only half living—since...’
She held her breath. Watched as Jonathan hesitated...
‘Ever since Moon, Sunny,’ he continued, but more gently. ‘This four-times-only thing. The blocking yourself off from anything more. It’s not you!’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘It’s not.’ Sigh. ‘I know I’m wasting my breath.’ Another sigh. ‘Well, you will not be able to dictate terms to Leo Quartermaine. Look, Leo is going to be my brother-in-law, and you’re like a sister to me. I need you two to like each other. Calmly, rationally, like each other.’
‘I’m always friends with the men I’ve slept with.’
‘He is not like the others.’
She rolled her eyes. The zombie camp! ‘There aren’t that many of them, you know!’
‘I know Sunshine—you talk a good game, but you don’t fool me. You never have. Sleeping with a guy is the exception, not the rule. But, whether it’s two or ten or a hundred guys, Leo is not like them and he will not be your friend at the end. There are other men in Sydney, and a ridiculous number of them seem happy to have you lead them around by their sex organs. Why did you have to pick Leo?’
‘It kind of— He kind of— Look, the situation picked itself. That’s all.’
‘You mean you had no control over it? Neither of you?’
Sunshine thought back to last night. The way ‘no-touch’ Leo had gathered her in when she’d given him that one hug. How she’d melted just from the feel of his fingers in her hair. The way the kiss had spiralled...
‘Apparently not, Jonathan.’
‘This is bad, Sunny.’
‘I promise not to let it interfere with the wedding.’
‘You can’t promise that. There are two of you.’
‘I’m not going to start asking your permission before sleeping with someone,’ she said, exasperated.
Pause. Silence. Jon looked morose.
‘Jon?’
More silence.
‘Jon—where does that leave us?’
‘It leaves us, very unsatisfactorily, at loggerheads,’ he said. ‘And while we’re there I’m going to raise the other subject you hate. Where are Moonbeam’s ashes, Sunshine?’
Sunshine stiffened. ‘They are in the urn, here in my office, where they’ve always been. Want to see them?’
‘Don’t be flippant. Not about this. She’d hate it, Sunny. You know she would. When are you going to do it?’
Sunshine managed a, ‘Soon.’ But it wasn’t easy getting the word out of a suddenly clogged throat.
‘You’ve been saying that for two years.’
‘Soon,’ she repeated. ‘But now I have to go. I have to finish the new handbag designs.’
‘I’ll keep asking.’
‘I will do it. Just...not yet.’
‘I love you, Sunny,’ Jon said, looking so sad it tore at Sunshine’s heart. ‘But this isn’t fair. Not on Moon. Not on your parents. Not on you. You’ve got to let yourself get over her death.’
‘I...can’t. I can’t, Jon.’
‘You have to.’ Another sigh. ‘We’ll speak soon.’
Sunshine signed off.
Work. She would work for a while.
But half an hour later she was still sitting there, staring at the urn that held Moonbeam’s ashes. The urn was centred very precisely on top of the bureau Sunshine had painted in her sister’s favourite colour—‘cobalt dazzle’, Moon had called it.
Sunny tapped at the computer, found her list of Moonbeam’s favourite beaches. The options she’d chosen for scattering the ashes.
But not one of the options felt right. Not one!
She put her head on the desk and cried.
* * *
When Leo left the restaurant, a little after midnight, he intended to ride home, throw down a large brandy, think about life, and go to sleep.
What a night. Sunshine. Natalie. And the Heimlich manoeuvre.
The bloody Heimlich manoeuvre.
Just when he needed so badly to think of Sunshine as frippery and irresponsible she had to go and save someone’s life—and then look surprised when people applauded her for it. The difference between Sunshine’s calm, embarrassed heroism and Natalie’s ineffectual hysterics had been an eye-opener of epic proportions.
And it had come after the Moonbeam story, which had already had his heart lurching around in his chest like a drunk.
So he needed home. Brandy. Thinking time. Bed.
He wasn’t sure, then, why he left his motorbike where it was and walked to Sunshine’s apartment block.
She would be asleep, he told himself as he reached the glass doors of the entrance. But his finger was on the apartment’s intercom anyway.
‘Hello?’
Her voice was not sleepy. And he remembered, then, that she worked mostly at night.
‘It’s Leo.’
Pause. Then buzz, click, open.
She was waiting at her door. Barefoot. In a kimono. Seriously, did this woman not own a pair of jeans or some track pants? Who slummed around alone in their own home after midnight looking like an advertisement for Vogue magazine in a purple kimono complete with a bloody obi?
Her hair was loose, her face pale, her eyes strained.
He was going to thank her for saving Rob’s life.
He was going to ask her why she knew how to do the Heimlich manoeuvre.
He was going to tell her that he’d found out exactly what had happened and that he was an idiot for thinking, when he’d seen her near Natalie, that—
She cleared her throat. ‘I didn’t talk to Natalie except to tell her to move out of the way.’
‘I don’t care about Natalie,’ he said—and realised that he really, really didn’t.
‘Then why are you here?’
‘I’m claiming assignation number two,’ he said, and kissed her.
SIX
Sunshine drew him backwards into the apartment. Kiss unbroken.
Leo slammed the door with his heel. Kiss unbroken.
Sex—just sex, Sunshine said to herself.
Leo pulled back as though she’d voiced the thought, looking at her with eyes smouldering like a hungry lion’
s.
Sunshine grabbed his hand and dragged him to the bedroom. Kissed him again as she flipped the light switch and the fairy’s lair lights she’d had embedded in the ceiling winked to life.
He angled her so he could kiss her harder, harder. He started to shake—she could feel it—and he broke the kiss, his breathing ragged. He rested his cheek on the top of her head as he held her in his arms, his freight train heartbeat beneath her ear.
She heard him laugh softly and pulled back, watching as he took in the room.
It was pink. Every shade of pink from pale petal, to vibrant sari, to raspberry. The walls were the colour of cherry blossoms, stencilled in white in a riot of floral shapes and curlicues—like an extended henna tattoo. There was a chaise-longue, footstools, a window seat curtained off with diaphanous drapes. At one end of the room was a half-wall that divided the bedroom from the dressing room, with its orderly arrangement of garments, shoes, and bags, which in turn led through to her bathroom.
A scene was painted on the dividing wall: a woman donning a flowing deep rose robe. Sunshine had made it a 3D work of art, building an actual Louis XIV gilded dressing table and mirror into the scene.
There was a lot to look at.
Leo moved towards the bed, which was king-sized, shrouded by fuchsia hangings and piled high with cushions in macaroon pastels. He touched the gauzy curtains.
‘Seriously, Sunshine?’ he asked, a smile in his voice.
Sunshine arched an eyebrow. ‘If you want to get laid tonight, I suggest you keep a civil tongue in your head.’
‘That’s not where my tongue wants to be.’
Those words made her toes curl.
‘Come here, let me undress you, and we’ll find some place to put it,’ Leo said softly.
Sunshine walked over to him, her heart jumping.
His hands reached for the obi.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘I need to warn you—I’m...scarred.’
He waited, hands at her waist.
‘The accident. I have a...a scar. Two, actually. Not...small.’ She hunched a shoulder, suddenly self-conscious. ‘I don’t want you to be shocked.’
His response was to slowly, slowly unwrap the obi from around her waist, then the under-sash. The kimono fell open and Leo sucked in an audible breath.
Harlequin KISS August 2014 Bundle Page 49
