by Jennie Adams
‘Arabella, Sophia, this is Henry’s grandson, Nate Barrett. He was kind enough to take me to the hospital on the way home from work so I could see Henry.’ She drew a quick breath and went on before either of them could interrupt. ‘And you know you don’t have to worry about me, Bella. I’m always careful.’
Except when I’m kissing attractive bosses in deserted hallways. ‘I’m sure Nate has other plans now, though, so he won’t be staying—’
‘Pleased to meet you. Come in for a moment, do.’ As though she hadn’t even heard her sister, Soph grabbed Nate’s arm and pulled him over the threshold and all but directly into her bright, fluffy arms.
Chrissy’s mouth pinched. ‘No need to strangle the man,’ she muttered with ill grace. Soph probably hadn’t listened. She had a way of not hearing things, of going off into her own little world.
Did this sudden warm welcome for Nate mean that her younger sister had her eye on him? Jealousy rumbled.
Bella stood back, arms folded, her modelling career very much in evidence in her stance. Her fitted black catsuit added to the impression of strength and beauty.
She was very much not welcoming Nate with open arms, but some men liked that sort of challenge. It could be a ploy to attract Nate, anyway.
‘So you’re my sister’s new boss,’ Bella said.
Chrissy told herself to calm down. Her sisters weren’t trying to bowl Nate over with their charms. They weren’t like that.
Having got that piece of oversized resentment under control, she turned, still expecting to see Nate standing gobsmacked and silent. Either as a result of Soph’s lovely charm, or Bella’s incredible looks and self-contained poise.
Her sisters might not be throwing themselves at him, but that didn’t change the fact that they were both worth more than a second glance.
He wasn’t gobsmacked, though. He wasn’t even looking at them. Instead, his gaze roved the living room. After a moment he turned to Bella, then Soph, nodded and thanked them for inviting him in. Polite. Bland. Not bowled over.
Something deep inside Chrissy relaxed its guard just the tiniest bit because of that fact. Nate had kissed her, had said he was attracted to her. Meeting her sisters hadn’t distracted him.
The affair idea rose again. Looked even more appealing, damn his hide and her imagination and everything else she could think of to blame. She was mid-contemplation of some very irresponsible thoughts indeed, when Nate spoke again and ruined it all.
‘Why don’t you tell your sisters about the project you brought home?’
CHAPTER SIX
‘OH, WE know all about the project.’
Before Chrissy could stop her, Soph babbled on about the crossword challenge they had planned for the evening, and about Henry’s hopes of winning the contest.
Soph raised a guileless gaze to Nate’s face. ‘You’ll stay, won’t you? Another perspective on the questions can only help.’
That’s just great, Sophia. Tell him everything, why don’t you?
Chrissy glared, not that it did any good. Soph clearly believed Nate Barrett was no threat.
If only she knew. The man is a ten scorch heatwave, and that’s just for starters.
‘You’re working on a crossword puzzle? That’s what you brought home from the office?’ Nate looked relieved, which was kind of weird.
Then his expression took on an edge of fire. His gaze narrowed and he leaned in to say, just for Chrissy, ‘You could have told me, instead of letting me think…’
‘Think what?’ She threw her shoulders back. ‘It wasn’t my story to tell. Henry is very private about his crosswords.’
‘Oh, Chrissy, shouldn’t I have said anything?’ Soph looked chagrined, belatedly. ‘I thought, since Nate is Henry’s grandson—’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Chrissy sighed and gave up.
To her sisters, Nate was simply Henry’s grandson, who worked in the overseas part of the business. It wasn’t Soph’s fault if she assumed Nate would be welcome here to take part in this.
Soph couldn’t know that Chrissy needed to get away from the man before she pounced on him and begged him to kiss her again, either.
‘I don’t want to cause my grandfather distress.’ Nate’s quiet words calmed her.
‘I know. Sorry. It’s a contest entry. Well, you’ll see…’ She hauled Henry’s sheets of questions and answers out of her bag and tossed them onto the coffee-table. ‘This is it.’
Bella riffled through the sheets of paper and groaned. ‘So we need to cut up every question and answer and then start trying to match them? We have to work out ups and downs as well as everything else?’
‘Eventually, yes. That’s the purpose of the blank spreadsheet at the bottom of the pile. We can pencil things in as we work.’
‘Why is this so important?’ Nate lifted one of the sheets to examine it.
‘It’s Henry’s proposed entry in the largest cryptic-crossword puzzle contest in Australia.’ Chrissy grimaced. ‘One thousand questions and answers. He’s worked on it for almost two years. It just wouldn’t be right if he had to miss out on entering when he’s so close to finishing.’
Nate shook his head in disbelief. ‘Surely he has a copy of the completed puzzle somewhere?’
‘Almost completed, and yes, he had it on his computer, in a separate programme and file to the scrambled questions and answers.’ Henry had been almost apoplectic when he realised he had destroyed that one and only copy. ‘He managed to kill the file. We had a technician in, but it was no good. We’d lost it.’
‘Back-up?’ Nate asked, his expression incredulous.
She shrugged. ‘I always do one, but Henry’s a bit hit and miss about that.’
Soph turned toward the kitchen. ‘I’ll whip up some omelettes and a sticky date pudding. That’ll cheer us up. I’m sure we’ve got the ingredients for both and I found this website of really easy recipes on the internet—’
‘Actually, I’m really craving pizza.’ Bella rubbed her flat tummy and adopted a desperate-for-junk-food expression. ‘Cheese and pepperoni. Yum.’
‘I could kill for a risotto from No. 71.’ Chrissy should have let Bella handle it, but trying to head Soph off at the kitchen pass had become so ingrained that she couldn’t stop herself.
‘Let me order both.’ Nate gave all three sisters a curious look, and drew out his cellphone. ‘It would be my pleasure to buy you ladies dinner.’
In other circumstances, Chrissy would have argued. When the alternative was a night of indigestion from Soph’s cooking, she provided Nate with phone numbers, tried not to feel guilty toward her sister, and made a prediction. ‘I think we’ll have to put our brains to good use tonight.’
By the time the pizza and risotto had arrived, there were chopped-up bits of crossword strewn from one end of the living room to the other, Soph was clearly charmed by Nate, and Bella had thawed sufficiently to bring out their best Chai tea and the china cups and saucers—her favoured means of relaxation.
‘What do you think about this one?’ Nate returned his empty cup to the saucer and held up a puzzle question.
Chrissy leaned forward in her chair to read it, and that leaning brought her almost into his lap where he sat on the floor with his back against the side of her seat.
She gave the puzzle question a cursory examination while her pulse hammered in her ears. He had done that deliberately, just when she had started to relax and think she had things under control.
‘I…uh…’ She cleared her throat to try to rid it of that husky tremor. ‘Actually, I have no idea.’
‘Me neither.’ He smiled a wolfish smile that her sisters couldn’t see, and lifted the pizza box in front of her like a pagan love offering. ‘Tempt you with a slice?’
‘No, thank you.’ And you can stop tempting me with innuendo, too, you sneaky…villain of amorousness.
He gave a low, sexy laugh and went on to converse with her sisters as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The glint i
n his eyes said differently.
Nate had blasted through all her rickety defences simply by smiling at her and offering her pizza. She was so much a goner!
It just went downhill from there. Sensual sighs. Casual touches that were anything but casual. The locking of gazes. Playful arguing that ended in a tussle against the lounge cushions as they fought over a single piece of puzzle.
It was all very subtle. Soph and Bella were absorbed, and Nate was good at masking his actions. But Chrissy hummed all over by the time her sisters decided to retire to bed.
‘It’s been hours.’ Bella got to her feet and stretched. ‘Pack it up. We’ll tackle it again tomorrow.’
‘Just a bit more.’ Chrissy’s gaze was locked on a puzzle question, but her senses were stuck on Nate and the warmth of shared body heat where their outer thighs pressed together in seeming innocence.
How long ago had she joined him to sit on the carpeted floor? Would he stay there with her when her sisters left the room?
You shouldn’t want him to stay there. You should want him to leave, pronto, and you should forget he ever kissed you in the first place.
‘Your choice, but don’t whine to me if you’re tired in the morning.’ Bella cast Nate a thoughtful glance, then gave a sniff and left the room with Soph.
‘I think your sister is wondering if she should be protective of you right now or not.’ Nate’s low words sent shivers over her. Made her think of all the ways she could get into trouble with a man on the floor in the middle of a paper-strewn living room.
‘Bella’s the eldest. She felt obligated to watch out for all of us when…’ She trailed off, not about to discuss her parents’ abrupt removal to the other side of the world.
Instead, she stared again at Henry’s clue, Wheels avoid unmarried floral posy (7) (4) (5) (movie), and willed herself to be calm and unaffected.
And then she looked up. Nate watched her as though he might like to have her for dessert instead of the sticky date pudding Soph had offered.
Suddenly, dessert seemed like a wonderful idea. Provided it involved Nate and kisses on the floor.
Next thing you will throw yourself at him! Which really couldn’t be allowed to happen.
‘Driving Miss Daisy,’ she blurted, and dived for the pile of now much mangled, cut-up answers strewn across the sofa. All her ideas of playing the femme fatale disintegrated in a bout of well-deserved nervous tension.
‘I’ll bet there’s a match for that somewhere.’
‘Christianna.’
Her full name. For the second time. On Nate’s lips it sounded so good.
‘Yes,’ she babbled. ‘We all got the full treatment with our names. Arabella, Christianna and Sophia. That’s Soh-fee-ah, as in Loren. Our parents weren’t into ordinariness, although in the end they should have called me something plain. Like Jane. Not that I’m saying Janes are plain because clearly that would just be silly.’
She ground to a halt. ‘I’m sure you’re not interested. They’re just names, after all.’ Names handed out by parents who had later found the trauma of raising two reasonably acceptable daughters and one severe disappointment too much to be endured.
‘Where are your parents now?’ One side of his mouth had kicked up, but now he sobered. Waited for her answer. Looked as though he really cared one way or the other.
Chrissy wanted to blurt out the whole horrible truth. All she said was, ‘They’re overseas.’ As far as she knew, it was still the case.
‘Well, my, will you look at the time?’ She abandoned the cut-up crossword answers, sprang to her feet and made an elaborate show of glancing at her wrist.
Her gambit would have worked better if she had had a watch on. ‘You must be exhausted. No doubt you’re wishing we hadn’t kept you so long, although we made reasonable progress if I do say so myself.’
‘You’re gabbling.’ He stood, clasped her hand and tugged her forward. ‘It’s sexy. Watching you eat risotto is sexy, too. And the way you stretch the mozzarella on the pizza slice, then wrap it around your finger—’
Sexy? Gabbling? He had watched her eat and found that appealing, too? That certainly put a cork in her babble. And wrecked her filigree-thin resistance to him. ‘Ah—’
‘I want to stay, Chrissy, but I don’t think that would be smart.’ His smile had a hint of self-deprecation in it. ‘I’m not sure I could be a gentleman.’
‘Oh. Right. Um…’ He was halfway to the door before she caught up physically. Mentally, she was still somewhere back in Can I match this crossword clue?
Tell the truth. It had nothing to do with cryptic puzzling. She was deep in reacting to his comment about her—according to him—sexy ramblings and munchings, and to his clearly spoken desire to remain here with her, even though he believed it would be unwise.
That was the reality of it.
‘Do I want to know what you’re thinking?’ Nate stroked his fingers across her cheek, just as he had done the first day they met. ‘Or would I wish I hadn’t asked?’
‘You’d wish…’ This time she knew his touch. That fact should have reduced its impact. Instead, it increased her longing for more than a touch. Even though she couldn’t trust him to want her for more than a moment.
He caressed her neck once, then dropped his hand and stepped away. ‘I had no right to question you about the contents of your bag. I’m sorry.’
She wanted his touch again. Shouldn’t have, but did. ‘Why did you question me?’
For a moment he hesitated. ‘It was nothing. Just a stupid thought, but Chrissy, if you’re in some sort of trouble…’ He broke off and clamped his jaw.
She frowned. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Never mind. I’ll pick you up in the morning. Ten o’clock. We’ll find out if Henry’s feeling any better.’ He turned and left without a backward glance.
I won’t go to the hospital with him. It’s not like he invited me. ‘I don’t like dictatorial males.’
‘Same.’ Soph’s hand tightened on a section of her hair.
‘Ow.’ Chrissy rubbed her scalp. ‘What are you doing?’
Soph eased her movements. ‘Sorry. I’ll be more careful.’
The doorbell rang. Chrissy’s body jerked reactively, and Soph pushed her back down onto the stool. ‘Wonder who that is. I’m certainly not expecting anyone.’
‘Neither am I.’ Bella stopped her Pilates exercises, shrugged her newly created silk wrap on over her exercise gear and headed for the door.
Chrissy knew who would be on the other side of the door. She suddenly panicked, and motioned Bella over to the makeshift hair salon in the kitchen while making frantic shushing motions at her.
Bella rolled her eyes, but stalked closer on silent feet. The doorbell rang again.
‘What’s the problem?’ Bella whispered.
‘It’s Nate. He’s come to take me to see Henry.’ Chrissy strained to sit still while Soph continued to work on her hair. ‘Tell him I’m not here.’
‘Well, that makes a lot of sense.’ Bella’s eyebrows went up. Then down into a frown. ‘All right. Whatever you say.’ She strode to the door and opened it a crack. ‘Hello.’
Nate’s deep voice drifted into the apartment. ‘I’m here for Chrissy. We made arrangements to visit Henry this morning.’
Chrissy fought the urge to drop to her knees and crawl using the furniture as a shield until she reached the safety of the bedroom she shared with Soph. What on earth had come over her? Five minutes ago she had intended to go with Nate, just to tell him to steer clear of tempting her.
Now she wanted to stay right away from Mr Nate Barrett of the kissy lips and sexy smile and—
‘Shall I come in to wait?’ The calm, determined tone came clearly to her despite the fact that her head was currently smothered in Sophia’s green and black frog-clad bosom, while her hair was being tugged this way and that by her busy, determined hands.
Soph bashed her elbow on a cupboard and gave a soft, irritated snarl.
‘Hold still, will ya? I’m almost done.’
‘That’s what you said an hour ago.’ Chrissy strained to get a glimpse of Nate through the crack of door Bella had opened when he arrived. Why didn’t Bella just get rid of him?
‘Chrissy’s, uh, not available,’ Bella said, and tried to close the door again.
‘Can’t you finish it, Soph?’ Chrissy wriggled on the kitchen stool.
‘I’m almost done, and what’s your problem, anyway? Why don’t you want to go with him?’ With a flourish, Soph stood back. ‘There. You look great. I think. No. No, really. You do.’
Chrissy bit back a doubtful comment. Soph was trying so hard to be a great hairdresser. She had to practise on someone. ‘How many colours did you say you used?’
But Soph had disappeared into the bathroom, muttering about not being caught dead in her nightwear.
Unable to contain her curiosity about the conversation going on between Nate and Bella, Chrissy edged toward the door. Bella had that stiff look and, from the peek she got of him, Nate seemed to be chafing where he stood on the front step.
As Chrissy approached, Nate spoke again. ‘Did you make the robe you’re wearing?’ The topic of Bella’s sewing had arisen last night during the crossword-a-thon. In fact, a lot of topics had arisen. Soph was a bit of a blabbermouth. ‘It’s—ah—it’s very colourful.’
‘Yes, I made it. The fabric was a gift from Chrissy. I thought she might have told you.’ Bella’s gaze narrowed. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘No reason.’ It was then that Chrissy saw that Nate had the toe of one shoe jammed in the doorway, and realised he was making small talk in an effort to get Bella to let him inside.
He inched his foot forward. ‘I know you said Chrissy wasn’t here, but I thought I heard her voice.’
‘Chrissy isn’t…that is, she’s sort of….’ Bella flapped a thin, elegant hand. No doubt she could feel Chrissy breathing down her neck from behind, and she hated any sort of prevarication. ‘Sophia is still in her pyjamas, so it wouldn’t be appropriate—’
