by Leah Ashton
‘Which hotel would you like me to book for you in Adelaide?’
When he’d discovered he was not, in fact, booked into his favourite hotel, he’d booked himself in, then sent Lanie a helpful e-mail with the name of the ‘correct’ hotel for next time.
‘For that presentation tomorrow, would you like me to include the numbers from the Jameson project?’
Turned out she’d guessed right with that one...
So a returned wave each morning was both unexpected and welcome. Although ignoring the woman he worked with every single day would have been quite a stretch—even for Gray.
With Gray and Luther little more than specks in the distance, Lanie started walking again and allowed her thoughts to circle back to where they’d been before the flash of Luther’s red coat against the sand had distracted her.
It would be odd, she’d just decided, if she wasn’t jealous of her sister.
Wouldn’t it?
She didn’t know. It was what had got her out of the house so ridiculously early on a work day. She needed the beach. The space, the salt and the sound of the waves... It was all as familiar to her as breathing.
Water had always helped her. Whether chlorinated or not, it was where she gravitated at times of stress. When her dad had left it had seemed natural. He was, after all, the reason she loved water. With an offshore mining job he’d rarely been home—but when he had he’d spent all his time at the beach.
As an adult, she looked back and wondered whether he’d simply tolerated the fact she’d clung to him like a limpet when he was home—rather than her more romanticised version in which she’d told herself she’d been his swimming buddy.
Because surely if he’d really wanted her there he would have bothered to stay in touch after he’d left. Or not left at all.
But if nothing else he’d given Lanie her love of water and the genes that helped her swim very quickly through it.
It had been a mistake to skip the beach earlier in the week. She needed to rectify it. Even today, with the wind whipping off the waves and gluing her long cargo trousers and thin woollen jumper to her skin, it was the right place for her to attempt to organise her thoughts and her reactions.
Sienna had e-mailed her overnight, full of post-championships euphoria. From the magnificence of the closing ceremony to how much fun she was having, through to how she was dealing with the rabid tabloid press after being seen out on a date with a British rower.
Lanie had seen the photos—and the headlines—as they’d made it to Australia too. ‘Golden couple’. ‘Winners in love’.
Jealousy? Whatever it was she was feeling, she hadn’t defined it.
Until Sienna’s e-mail.
It hadn’t been until right at the end, amongst all the glitz and excitement, that her sister had acknowledged how Lanie might be feeling. Her sister wasn’t stupid, or heartless. A bit oblivious at times—but then, that was Sienna.
Somehow, though, Sienna’s awkward attempts at making the contrast in their situations seem somehow okay had hit home harder than anything else.
How are you doing? It wasn’t the same without you. You should be so proud of your personal best, though. Any other year you definitely would’ve made the team.
And so here she was, at the beach.
Walking today, not swimming—but the scale and scope of the ocean helped, just as she’d known it would.
She envied Sienna. She was jealous.
Today she allowed herself to be.
FOUR
The unexpected sensation of warmth against his chest snatched Gray’s attention from the report he’d been reading. He glanced downwards, to discover a trail of pale brown liquid trickling in multiple rivulets down his front.
A brief perusal of the obvious culprit—the takeaway coffee cup in his hand—revealed a leak beneath the lid.
He swore. Loudly. He had a meeting right in this office in less than twenty minutes.
Tossing the defective lid into the bin beneath his desk, Gray downed the rest of his coffee as he tapped a short message into Manning’s internal instant messaging system.
Moments later his office door swung open, although Lanie paused before walking in. ‘You said you had a problem?’ she asked.
He stood, his gaze moving downwards as he surveyed the damage to his shirt and pulled the damp fabric away from his skin. With the other hand he gestured for Lanie to come closer.
Moments later her long, efficient stride had her by his side. ‘Nice one,’ she said, a hint of a smile in her tone. ‘I don’t suppose you have a spare shirt?’
‘If I did,’ he said, for the first time transferring his attention from the shirt to Lanie, ‘would I—?’
His eyes met hers and he momentarily had absolutely no idea what he’d been about to say.
She stood closer than he’d expected. Or maybe it was just her height. When she was in her heels they were very nearly eye to eye, and he still wasn’t quite used to that sensation.
Plus today she looked...different.
Her hair, he realised. It was tied back. It highlighted the striking structure of her face—the defined cheekbones, the firm chin—and her skin’s perfect golden glow.
He’d thought her pretty when he’d first met her, but right now she looked...
As he watched she raised an eyebrow.
Gray blinked. ‘If I had a spare shirt...’ he tried again ‘...would I need you?’
He looked down at his ruined clothing again, yanking his mind back on track. So what if he’d noticed Lanie looked nice today?
Lanie crossed her arms in front of herself. ‘What size are you?’ she asked.
Not for the first time she’d pre-empted his next question.
‘I have no idea.’
She didn’t bother to hide her sigh. ‘How can you not know that?’
Gray shrugged. ‘I shop in bulk. Those couple of times a year I shop, I figure out what size I am then.’
He reached for his shirt, automatically sliding button after button undone. He’d tugged it off his shoulders and gathered the fabric in his hands before he noticed Lanie had backed off a few steps and was currently staring out the window.
‘This is how I normally work out my size,’ he explained, finding the tag beneath the collar. ‘There you go. Turns out I wear a forty-two-inch shirt.’
‘And you’d like me to go buy you a replacement?’
‘Exactly.’
Not meeting his eyes, Lanie turned away from the window and took a step back towards the door. ‘You know, I could’ve just checked the tag for you. No need to...’ a pause ‘...undress.’
For the first time Gray noticed the tinge of pink to her cheekbones. He suspected the right thing to do would be to apologise. But with the words right on the tip of his tongue he paused.
‘My shirt was covered in hot coffee,’ he said, instead. ‘And this way you can take the shirt with you. To check the size or whatever. Here.’
He thrust the shirt out in front of him.
Now she met his gaze, and hers wasn’t bashful any more. It was razor-sharp and most definitely unimpressed.
He just shrugged. He’d done too much second-guessing recently. The equation was simple—he needed a new shirt and quickly. That was it. Anyone walking down the beach most mornings in summer saw a heck of a lot more skin than he’d just revealed to his assistant.
He steadfastly ignored the subtlest echo of Marilyn’s words in his head. Be nice to this one.
Lanie reached out and their fingers brushed as she snatched the shirt away. Gray watched as her blush spread like quick fire across her cheeks, but her gaze never wavered from his.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
She raised the subtlest eyebrow, but remained silent.
&
nbsp; See? He was nice. He checked his watch. ‘You’ve got about ten minutes.’
Gray thought he might have heard Lanie muttering something as she strode out of the room.
Something about remembering money?
* * *
‘He took off his shirt?’
Teagan’s voice was incredulous as she raised the pizza slice to her lips.
‘Uh-huh,’ Lanie said, rounding her kitchen bench to join Teagan at the dining table. ‘I guess it’s not that big a deal. I’ve seen it all before at the beach.’
Teagan chewed thoughtfully for a few moments. ‘You don’t think he was...like...coming onto you or something?’
Lanie just about choked on her own mouthful of pizza. ‘No! I told you. This guy looks like he just walked off a catwalk.’ She shook her head in a decisive movement. ‘It’s more likely he happily whipped of his shirt because he forgot I was female.’
Her friend narrowed her eyes. ‘That’s a pile of crap and you know it. You’re gorgeous.’
Said with the certainty only a best friend could manage.
‘I’m not gorgeous,’ Lanie said, and waved her hand dismissively when Teagan went to speak again. ‘Not in the way people like Grayson Manning are. Or my sister. My mum, even. I’m just not one of the beautiful people. And, honestly, if it means I’d carry on like Gray does, I really don’t mind my ungorgeousness.’
Teagan shook her head in disagreement, but thankfully kept silent.
It had been a great disappointment to Sandra Smith that her eldest daughter had inherited not only the height and athleticism of her ex-husband, but unfortunately also the strong features that were arresting in a man but not exactly beautiful in women. Thankfully two years later Sienna had come along, and was every bit as beauty-pageant-pretty as Sandra.
‘So what are his latest efforts?’ Teagan asked, picking up the unspoken cue to change the subject. ‘Other than the emergency shirt-shopping expedition?’
Lanie shrugged. ‘Same old, same old. Letting me know he needs me to write up a report five minutes before five—so I’m there until seven. Or asking me to book the best restaurant in Perth that is fully booked, for a very important lunch meeting—so I have to go down there and sweet-talk a table out of them. And then cancelling said meeting. Plus, of course, just the general expectation that I can read his mind.’
Teagan shook her head. ‘You shouldn’t put up with this, you know. I’m starting to feel bad. This guy isn’t normal—trust me.’
An unwanted flashback to that more-than-a-glimpse of incredible bare chest she’d seen in Gray’s office very much underlined that comment. No, Gray was not normal. She didn’t understand why, but somehow in his office his chest had been just so much more naked than at the beach. It had felt personal.
Intimate.
She put her half-eaten pizza slice back down on her plate, suddenly no longer hungry.
‘You can quit, you know. I’m sure the agency would find you something else—no problem.’
‘I know that,’ Lanie said. ‘But it’s not so bad. It pays almost double my salary at the swim centre, and I wouldn’t get that anywhere else—anyone but Gray would see straight through my total lack of experience.’
Teagan’s eyes narrowed. ‘There you go again. Underselling yourself.’
Lanie snorted with her wine glass in mid-air. ‘No. You were the one that oversold me, remember?’
Teagan rolled her eyes dramatically. ‘A small detail. The fact is this guy has an awesome PA and he should know it. He’s taking you for granted. Most people would’ve quit by now.’
Based on what she’d learnt in the Manning lunch room, most had. Lanie had a sneaky suspicion that one of the guys in Legal was running a book on how long she’d last.
‘Teags, I could deliver his twice a day triple-shot latte nude and he wouldn’t notice.’
Disturbingly, her friend’s eyes widened. ‘That’s it!’
‘I’m not flashing Gray Manning, Teagan,’ she said dryly.
‘No, no. Not that—at least not exactly.’
‘Partial nudity, then?’ Lanie said. ‘You know, I reckon if I borrowed one of Sienna’s skirts it would be so short and so small that—’
‘You’re not taking this seriously.’
Lanie raised her eyebrows. ‘I didn’t realise you were.’
Teagan’s wine glass made a solid thunk as she placed it firmly on the table. She leant forward, meeting her eyes across the half-finished pizza.
‘Make him notice you. Make him appreciate you.’
‘And what would be the point?’
‘Because you deserve it.’
It was lovely, really, what Teagan was doing. Lovely, and kind, and all the things that Teagan’s friendship always was. Plus also one of the things it occasionally was.
Misguided.
‘I’m fine, Teags,’ she said. ‘Really.’
She didn’t need Teagan—or Gray as her proxy—to be her cheerleader.
She knew Teagan was worried about her—worried about how she was handling the continuing publicity around Sienna and her success.
But she was fine. She had a new job that paid well. A fresh start.
Not that working for a grumpy property magnate had ever been a particular dream of hers.
She looked across at Teagan. ‘So you can put the pink hair dye or whatever you were planning on hold for now.’
‘I was thinking more along the lines of a gorilla suit, but...’
And then they both laughed, and Gray and his shirtlessness was—mostly—forgotten amongst talk of Teagan’s latest disaster date, the cooking-related reality TV show they were both hooked on, and anything and everything else.
Except, of course, swimming. Or Sienna.
* * *
Lanie’s phone rang far too early the next morning.
She rolled over in the narrow single bed she’d grown up in, reaching out blindly with one hand towards her bedside table. Typically, she managed to knock the phone to the floor rather than grab it, so it took another twenty seconds of obnoxious ringing and fumbling around on her hands and knees in the inky darkness before said phone was located.
‘Hello?’ she said.
She’d been too disorientated to read the name on the screen, and besides it was most likely Sienna. Her sister hadn’t quite managed to figure out the whole time difference thing.
‘I need you to come over.’
The voice was deep and male. Definitely not her sister.
Lanie blinked in the semi-darkness. Dawn light was attempting to push its way under the edge of the bedroom’s blinds with little effect.
‘Gray?’ she asked, although it was a rhetorical question. Of course it was. ‘Do you know what time it is?’
‘I have a flight to Singapore that’s boarding in a few hours’ time—so, yes, I do.’
There was a long moment of silence as Lanie considered hanging up on him.
‘Oh,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m sorry. I woke you.’
Lucky.
‘Can you come over?’ he repeated. ‘Now?’
‘I’d rather not,’ she said honestly. ‘What’s the emergency?’
Now it was Gray’s turn to go silent. ‘Oh...’ he said again, and his surprise that she hadn’t just dropped everything to come to his aid was apparent even in that single syllable.
At work Lanie could roll her eyes at his unreasonable requests—probably not as subtly as she should—or she could tell herself it was her job or whatever. But just before five in the morning...
No. There was a line, and Gray had definitely just stepped over it.
‘It’s my dog,’ he said.
Instantly Lanie felt terrible. ‘Is he okay?’
‘Yes,’ Gray
said. ‘But I forgot to organise someone to walk and feed him. Rodney used to sort it out for me, but I guess I didn’t mention it to you.’
Lanie supposed he got points for not making that somehow her fault.
‘And you couldn’t e-mail me about it?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I need you to come over now so I can explain what he eats and where to walk him, and—’
‘Okay, okay,’ she interrupted on a sigh. There was no point asking him to write it down. Gray just didn’t work—or think—like that. In his head it would be far more efficient for her to come over and for him to tell her. ‘I’m coming over.’
Ten minutes later she knocked on Gray’s front door. He lived only a few kilometres away from her, but unsurprisingly his house was right on the beach. It was gorgeous in an angular, modern, mansion-like way. At this hour of the morning the street was silent, save for the muffled crash of waves.
The door swung open, but before she could even say hello his back was to her as he walked away, already shooting out instructions. Luther, at least, bothered to greet her. He sat obediently for his welcome pats, then pressed his head against her thigh as she followed Gray down the hall. Lanie had thrown on an old tracksuit, and her sandals thwacked loudly against the pale, glossy porcelain tiles.
‘So, Luther is a red setter,’ Gray was explaining. ‘And he’s on this special prescribed diet as he has a few allergies. It’s essential he only eats this food...’ Gray opened up one of the many, many drawers in a huge granite and glass kitchen to point at neatly labelled tubs of dog biscuits. ‘Otherwise he gets sick and—well, you don’t want to know what sort of mess that makes.’
Lanie raised an eyebrow as she considered the size of Luther and the fact that every bit of the house she could see was decorated in shades of white and cream. ‘I can imagine.’
Gray met her eyes for a second and one side of his mouth quirked upwards. ‘I’d advise you not to.’
Automatically, she grinned back.
When he smiled, his face was transformed. She wouldn’t say his expression softened—there was something far too angular and intense about Gray—but there was certainly a lightness, a freshness. And a cheeky, intriguing sparkle to his gaze.
