by Nikki Logan
He pulled her close, away from any prying ears in the outer office, sure that at least one of them was supplementing their income courtesy of Bill Kurtz. ‘Your logic is fuzzy at times, kiddo. You want to punish them by proving them right?’
‘Don’t call me that.’ She stiffened. ‘I’m not a kid any more.’
‘No, you’re not.’ He kept her wrist in his velvet grip, and the husky tone in his voice had her glancing up at him in the half-darkness. ‘I realised that the moment I walked into the wardrobe trailer yesterday.’
His thumb grazed over her pulse-point. She swallowed. Hard. ‘I’m fine now, Dan. You can let go. Hissy fit is over.’
He didn’t let go. ‘What are you doing for dinner?’
The rapid change of subject had her reeling. That or the feel of his skin pressed so perfectly against hers. ‘Uh…I hadn’t thought about it. Something simple?’
‘Want some company?’
The thought of eating in the guesthouse alone with Dan was too much to contemplate. ‘I was thinking of trying one of the local cafés.’
‘Aardvark is good.’
She couldn’t help a laugh. ‘The mammal or the venue?’
When he released her hand, Ava felt the loss keenly. ‘It’s a waterfront café. Excellent chilli mussels.’
Sheesh, was there a single button that Dan hadn’t remembered? The idea of a whopping great bowl of her favourite mollusc dominated her mind the moment he planted it there.
‘Okay.’ Without even touching her, Dan held Ava in complete thrall. She was powerless to move. She stared at his handsome face and wondered what he was working up to say to her. It looked serious.
‘Mr Arnot?’ A voice interrupted from the outer office.
Dan tensed immediately, but didn’t take his eyes from Ava’s. ‘Yes, Grace?’
‘Mr Kurtz on line one. He says it’s urgent.’
A moment went by before he peeled his gaze away and the lights suddenly brightened. Ava blinked. There was not a trace in his expression of the gentle coaxing of barely moments ago.
Had she completely imagined it? Wishful thinking?
He nudged her towards the door. ‘After all, we both have to eat. Might as well do it together.’ The words were impersonal. Convenient. All business.
I must have imagined it. She sucked in a baffled breath, then walked alone out of the room.
Dan swore and turned to his empty office. It wasn’t often he felt comfortable in his own space, regardless of its splendour. Standing in the dark with Ava he’d felt as close to relaxed as he ever had here.
‘Line one, Mr Arnot.’ Grace called a reminder through to him. He snatched the phone and punched the blinking light with a brisk greeting.
‘How did our new talent go this week?’ Bill Kurtz wasted no time with niceties. His questions were usually loaded, and Dan knew the Executive Producer would have seen each day’s footage before he had himself.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Great, in fact. A few tech issues, but nothing we can’t iron out tomorrow.’
Kurtz snorted. ‘Better than good, I’d say. She’s a doll. And she’s the perfect accessory for Maddox.’
‘She’s more than an accessory, Bill. She gives the show its street cred—’
‘Course she does, course she does…’
Okay, so you’re not looking for conversation. So what do you want?
Kurtz barrelled on. ‘She wasn’t really dressed the way we expected, though…’
Ah.
‘But the whole farm girl thing worked for me,’ Kurtz said. ‘Fresh-faced. Innocent. That was a good call on your part.’ Dan gnashed his teeth. ‘The client will be happy, and if the client’s happy…’
…Kurtz is happy. Dan knew it well. Just as he knew what happened if a client wasn’t happy. He thought of Ava, waiting for him downstairs, and how he’d bundled her so rudely out of his office. This was not a conversation he’d want her to overhear. But Kurtz wasn’t as livid as he’d been expecting. Which made him immediately suspicious.
‘Was there something else, Bill?’
‘Just one thing…’
Here we go…
‘About Maddox. I like what’s going on with them in the dailies. That spark. They work well together. I want you to exploit it, Dan.’
Dan’s lips tightened; his tone cooled. ‘In what way, Bill?’
‘Hell, I don’t know. Throw them together more. Give ’em more interplay. Sex it up a bit. You’re paid to work that stuff out.’
Dan pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. ‘Sex it up?’
‘Audiences love chemistry, Dan. Will they? Won’t they? The wondering…’
‘We’re a lifestyle show, Bill. Not daytime,’ Dan said.
The phone almost frosted over in his hand. ‘This is not a negotiation, Dan. I want to see sparks flying between those two. You have a reputation as the go-to-guy for brave programming, so let’s see a little courage here. Stretch the envelope. Prove that our faith in your choice of presenter was not misplaced.’
As if they hadn’t forced his hand to consider using Ava like this in the first place…Dan’s jaw ached. His dentist was going to be buying a new Mercedes if he didn’t ease up on his enamels.
But he knew when to affect a strategic retreat. The harder Dan leaned, the harder Kurtz would lean. It was a case of pick your battles with the unpleasant senior executive. If it had been just him at risk he’d have leaned harder; it was in his nature. But with forty other employees and their jobs in the mix…forty-one if he counted Ava…he’d have to suck it up.
This time.
Ava and Maddox. His stomach turned over. ‘I’ll see what I can do, Bill. We’ll need to introduce it slowly or audiences won’t buy it. Don’t expect a Royal Wedding.’
‘Not for a moment,’ came the insincere response. ‘I just expect you to do the best thing by the network. I know how much it means to you.’
The older man rang off, leaving Dan glaring angrily into space. Kurtz knew exactly how important Dan’s career was to him, how ruthlessly he’d worked over the past six years to make it to producer. A few more wins and he was on track to be the youngest executive producer Australian television had ever seen. What a handy tool to wave around in his face. To threaten him with.
Sex it up.
Dan grunted. There was no question Ava wouldn’t tolerate it. Most likely she’d tell him and the network exactly where they could shove their sparks. He hadn’t needed to grow up with her to know that. He tugged his suit jacket on over his Hugo Boss shirt. Immediately he flashed back to draping his shirt around Ava’s bare shoulders, to her standing between his arms, afire. It was disturbingly vivid.
His body tightened.
He sighed. He’d seen exactly what Kurtz saw. There was a noticeable…something…between his two co-stars—a relaxed kind of ease. He tried to imagine how it might be to be on the receiving end of that ease and couldn’t. Ava just wasn’t comfortable around him.
But there was a connection there with pretty-boy Maddox, and Dan’s order—his job—was to play on that connection. His mind raced. He could increase the number of their scenes together, look for opportunities in the editing. Let it evolve…naturally.
That way he would be keeping his word to Ava and keeping faith with the network. Simple.
Right.
‘You sure you didn’t miss any?’ Dan smiled across the table.
Ava folded her serviette and placed it on her spotless plate with no remorse. She’d soaked up the last traces of chilli sauce with crusty bread. Frankly, she’d almost licked the bowl clean while he watched, gobsmacked. Well, if he’d forgotten what a woman eating looked like, that was on him.
‘I grew up around a bunch of men. If you left it you lost it.’
Dan laughed. ‘I know. I was there. I did warn you their mussels were good.’
‘You weren’t kidding.’ She patted a hand on her stomach. ‘Fortunately I can work it off walking home. Which I should do soon if I
’m going to be on set on time tomorrow.’
Dan stood and moved around to slide her chair out. Thank goodness his mood had lifted almost the minute they sat to eat in the crowded café. She wasn’t ready for another dose of surly Arnot. Whatever had been bugging him when she left his office seemed to have sorted itself.
‘My shout,’ Dan offered smoothly, sliding his gold credit card across to the pretty cashier who’d been working hard all night to get his attention. And failing.
‘That’s not necessary…’ Ava reached out and stalled his fingers with hers, embarrassed. This was hardly a date. Even if her tingling fingers hadn’t got that message. She curled them safely into her fist.
‘Corporate gold, Ava. It’s on the network. It’s the least they can do.’
It sure was. Ava laughed and let AusOne buy her a meal. Moments later they were walking away from the busy café strip towards Dan’s street. Hers now, too. She risked a glance in his direction. He’d been nothing but charming throughout dinner but was patently preoccupied. Several times she’d caught him looking at her strangely, as though he were just about to ask something. Then he’d drop those killer lashes and when he looked up again the strangeness would be gone and they’d go on talking—about the old days, Steve, her dad.
Even at one point her mum, whom Dan had mourned as if she’d been his own. She practically had been. It was she who had convinced Ava’s father to let Dan stay as often as he needed to when he was a boy. So they knew he was at least sleeping in a safe place.
Dan took her elbow and steered her across the street between the cafés and the waterfront walk. A thousand lights sparkled across the harbour and cast a pretty glow.
‘I lived for Friday nights back then,’ he said, his eyes searching the water. ‘Did you know that?’
Ava shook her head slightly. ‘All I knew was you’d turn up on a Friday night like clockwork. There was a standing invitation.’
‘Dinner at the Langes was the highlight of my week. So normal. I even got to play big brother for a night. I used to wish there were seven Fridays in a week.’
Ava flushed. There’d eventually come a point when she’d no longer been able to think of him platonically at all, and she’d barely been able to tolerate the meals which had grown increasingly frequent and increasingly awkward as her awareness of him had grown.
He kicked a stone to the side of the path. ‘I missed those dinners after I left.’
Just the dinners, she told her racing heart. Not her. She mustn’t read into it. ‘Did you miss the surfing?’
She’d never forgiven herself for attacking his surfing that night on the beach. For sneering about his inability to make the pro circuit. He was still the best surfer she’d ever seen. Fearless. Inspirational.
Just part of the reason she’d been so crazy about him.
He studied her as they turned across a park towards the waterfront, his brows drawn together in a frown. ‘No. If I hadn’t given away surfing I never would have gone to uni. And if I hadn’t studied business there’s no way I’d have found my way here. We all grow up.’ He sighed. ‘But some days I’d just like to sit at that table again and flick peas at the kid across the table, you know?’
Ava smiled. ‘You always missed.’
‘You always ducked.’ He stepped sideways suddenly and nudged her with his hip, the way he’d used to when they were kids. She laughed to cover the zing that raced through her at the simple contact.
We all grow up.
And apart. The man he’d become was a hundred miles from the almost-man she remembered—the hotshot surfer whom everyone had expected to turn pro; the boy with a father but no family. She wondered whether she’d changed, too. The essential Ava.
‘You’ve done well,’ she said. ‘Maybe it was all worth it?’
‘I’d like to think so.’
‘Word on the street is that you’re the it-boy in television,’ she said.
“Word on the street’? What, you’re hanging out with the boys in construction now?’ His sideways glance was warm and close. Her heart kicked over.
Was he flirting with her?
‘Okay, word in the catering van. I have ears. And Brant knows a lot about the business.’
He slowed as they approached Ava’s little gate. She was happy to slow with him. She was enjoying this rare chance to connect with the old Daniel. No strings. No agendas.
‘I don’t want to talk about Maddox.’ His brown eyes didn’t quite meet hers.
‘You don’t like him?’ she said.
‘I didn’t say that. He’s very good at what he does, and he rates his socks off.’
‘But?’
‘But…I just don’t want to talk about him. Not tonight.’ He stopped under the stone arch which formed the gate to her little garden. His eyes were suddenly masked.
Tonight?
The word hung like a firework in the sky, all bright and hard to ignore. It made Ava suddenly aware of who and where they were: a man and a woman on a warm, moonlit night against the sparkling lights of Sydney. With a whole night ahead of them.
It almost made it possible to forget everything that stood between them.
He rested his forearm on the rammed-earth arch above her head, and it brought his body closer to hers. Her mouth dried as she looked up at him. He was still the best-looking man she knew. Brant might be beautiful, but it was a manufactured kind of beauty. The moonlight accentuated the line of Dan’s jaw, his cheekbones and the ridge of his firm brow. The essential maleness of him stirred the same appreciation in her now as it always had.
Long before she should have been appreciating maleness. Her body quivered an alert. Time to change the subject.
‘Did you ever sort things out with your father?’ She winced as soon as the words were out of her mouth.
His whole body changed in an instant. His voice was curt in the quiet of the night. ‘Next topic.’
Right.
‘I guess some things don’t change.’ She didn’t mean to say it aloud, and she barely did. Her body instinctively responded to the pain in his clipped words, wanting to heal him.
He looked at her steadily, his gaze softening and flitting over her face and shoulders before returning to her lips. Her heart fluttered helplessly. When they finally zeroed in on her eyes, his own had darkened two shades. Thick lashes swept down over them.
‘While others change massively,’ he murmured. ‘How can I be standing here contemplating kissing the kid I flicked peas at?’
His hand dropped from the archway to rest gently on Ava’s bare shoulder, his thumb toying with the thin straps of her summer dress where they crossed her suddenly scorching skin. Her heart pounded against her chest as though desperate for oxygen.
Her lungs certainly were.
This was a bad idea for so many reasons. But for the life of her she couldn’t dredge up one.
This is Daniel. Beautiful, gorgeous, talented Daniel. And he was on the verge of kissing her. And she wanted that. Very badly.
How many kinds of masochist was she?
I will never be with you, Ava. His words echoed in her ears, forcing her body into action. She straightened against the little rendered archway and tried to think of something clever to say—something brilliant and witty and diverting—but she came up desperately short.
So she just stared at him, wary.
‘God, Ava,’ he breathed, dropping his hand. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You deserve more than your boss pawing you at your front door.’
Expensive aftershave mingled with the scent of raw man, seeping into her blood, racing narcotic-like through her veins. Waves lapped on the nearby waterfront. The aged archway pressed grittily into her shoulders. A phone rang somewhere nearby. She forgot to breathe.
I will never be with you, Ava. A voice screamed at her to remember, trying to make a dent in the bubble of awareness suddenly growing around them. She was supposed to move away. That would be the smart thing to do. But, God help her
, only one part of her could move—and it wasn’t her feet.
She straightened towards him, drawn like a magnet to his heat, and raised her eyes.
He bent cautiously towards her, his dark hair slipping down his forehead. A question burned bright in his gaze, but his lips separated just slightly as he zoomed in on hers. Such beautiful lips.
The phone pealed a second time. Her phone, inside the guesthouse. She ignored it. Dan’s eyes held hers intently and his hands moved up to frame her face, strong fingers sliding behind her jaw and tipping her mouth towards him. The feel of his skin brushing against hers caused her legs to tremble and an impatient pulse kicked in deep inside her.
For the love of God, kiss me!
The phone shrilled a third time.
His mouth traced along her jaw just a millimetre above her flesh. He was scenting his way to his target, his breath hot against her skin. The excruciating trail robbed her of what precious little air remained in her lungs. Ava’s fists clenched in his jacket to hold herself up.
And…finally…he touched his mouth to hers.
The charge that had built between them for over a decade was expelled the moment their mouths met. At the first caress of his soft, warm lips Ava jerked backwards into the rammed earth. With solid rock behind her there was nowhere else to go but ahead, into him. She closed the distance, sliding her mouth over his with a hungry moan.
Nine years of hunger. More.
‘Ava…’ he groaned against her lips. One large hand closed around her nape while the other slid to her waist, pulling her tight against him. Her own hands drifted deliriously against his broad chest as she tasted and tested and discovered his lips. Opening her mouth to him was as natural as the night going on around them.
Her face turned towards his like a moonflower straining towards its god. Dan splayed his legs slightly, to fit better against her small frame. Her head fell back as he stroked his tongue in and out of her mouth, tangling with hers, tracing the shape of her teeth on a long, pleasured growl. Every twist, every tangle was an erotic dance, increasing the voltage between them. The earth began to spin. Electricity buzzed, chemicals surged and Ava knew without a shadow of doubt that she would never experience a kiss quite like this again.
