Harlequin KISS August 2014 Bundle (65 page)

‘How?’

‘I’m going to offer her three dates with Noah Braithwaite.’

‘
The
Noah Braithwaite?’ Olivia said.
‘Hollywood heartthrob?’ The penny dropped. ‘Also known as Noah ‘Two Date’ Braithwaite.’

‘Yup. Noah and I are poker buddies—I’ll persuade him. Candice will jump at the chance to be the woman who got a third date out of Noah Braithwaite.’

‘OK. That should work,’ Olivia said. ‘Could you also see your way to getting her to rescind her allegations of me being a man thief?’

‘That’s prong
two of the plan,’ Adam said, and his lips curved up in a satisfied smile. ‘Candice backs down, which leaves you and I still together. So, to prove that I am not a love rat who has abandoned you,
you
are coming to the fashion show as my date. You’ll be icing on the cake of my respectability.’

‘No way.’ The response was instinctive, wrenched from her at gut level.

The previous night had
been bad enough, being paraded as a possible gold-digger or at best a trophy girlfriend chosen for her looks. Olivia had looked up that article in the sleepless pre-dawn hours and knew now what she had already suspected. All Adam cared about were a woman’s looks.

‘Fine. I’ll sweeten the pot. You play the part of my girlfriend at the fashion show and I’ll take you to Zeb.
You
can tell him
about the baby.’

SIX

Adam knew
he’d made her an offer she couldn’t refuse— he just wasn’t sure why he’d made it. Doubtless he could have found a different way to persuade her to continue in her role.

‘You mean it?’ Those hazel eyes narrowed in suspicion, her thoughts presumably mirroring his.

‘Yes.’ And he did.

He’d tracked Zeb down in the sleepless small hours but he hadn’t rung
him. The image of Olivia’s face had been too vivid, her voice still echoing in his ears. Her own father had rejected her very existence, denied her an understanding of her own genetic identity and roots. No wonder she had a need to see Zeb face to face to garner his reactions, good or bad, and Adam had no idea which it would be. And so he’d dropped his phone back on the bedside cabinet and left Zeb
in ignorance.

‘I mean it,’ he said.

‘This charity event is really important to you, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ He hesitated. ‘My mother died from myeloma.’

Her brow pinched in empathy. ‘Oh, Adam. I’m so sorry.’

He clamped his lips into a grim line; it was too late to prevent the words. ‘Don’t worry about it. Point is I want this event to be a success. If it goes well it could become
an annual event. I’ll do what I need to make it work. So are you in?’

‘I’m in.’ Her bare foot tapped a nervous rhythm on the underfloor heated kitchen tiles. ‘What next?’

‘I’ll sort out Candice and then we’ll let the press in. Set the record straight.’

He’d expected her to demur, but instead she nodded as she glanced round and bit her lip thoughtfully. ‘I’ll set the scene. The secret
of a good fabrication is in the detail.’

A pang of suspicion struck; was this an oblique way of telling him that
she
was lying? But now wasn’t the time to wonder—best to file the doubt away for later.

‘Fine. I’ll call Noah.’ He pulled his phone from his pocket. ‘Noah? It’s Adam. Remember that yacht you lost at our last game? Here’s your chance to get it back. But there’s a price.’

‘Isn’t there always?’

Adam swivelled at Olivia’s muttered words but she was on her way out of the kitchen. His gaze lingered on the alluring sway of her hips, the curve of the heart-shaped bottom that had fitted so snugly in his hands.

‘Adam?’ Noah’s transatlantic drawl in his ear pulled his mind out of the gutter.

‘Yeah. Listen up...’

Half an hour later Adam went in search
of his partner in crime to report. A glance into the spare room yielded nothing; the room looked completely unused. Not so much as a strawberry blonde strand of hair on the pillow.

He pulled the door closed and headed for his bedroom—and stopped on the threshold with a gargled snort. Olivia lay on his king-size mattress. Correction: Olivia was rolling around on his king-size mattress. If
he’d wanted his libido to get any more excited he’d have said she was writhing.

‘Olivia?’

Her body stilled, and then with careful, deliberate movements she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

‘I was just...’ She leant over, probably in an attempt to hide the pink-tinted angles of her cheekbones, but inadvertently giving him a glorious flash of cleavage. She tugged
the duvet up to leave a glimpse of the sinfully rumpled black sheets. ‘The bed needs to look like we both...
used
it.’

Her breath hitched audibly as she straightened, and hazel eyes flickered away from his as she swept her arm around the room.

‘What do you think?’

Wrenching his gaze away from her, and his mind out of fantasy land, he followed the arc of her hand. Olivia’s bag was
on the floor by the corner of the bed. Her dress was slung over the back of a chair and...and
oh, hell
. Moisture sheened his temple as he spotted the wisp of lace peeping out from under the bed.

‘Hopefully this looks as though I spent the night in here.’ Chewing her bottom lip, she gave a small nod. ‘I’ll hang my clothes up in your wardrobe, too. As an added touch. After all, if we’re saying
we are serious then it may be best to at least imply I’ve stayed here before and I’m staking a claim.’

Doubt assailed him again, battering his mind.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Are you?’ he asked. ‘Staking a claim? Seems to me you’re pretty practised in the art of fabrication, of making a mirage of the truth.’

Her head whipped round at neck-cracking speed. ‘Say
what
? I’m doing
my very best to help you out here, bolster your reputation, and you’re doing what? Still accusing me of scamming you?’

‘I’m simply observing that you are a self-confessed expert liar and you’ve certainly got a whole lot further than any other woman has thus far.’ Hell, he was about to announce at a press conference that she was his serious girlfriend. No one had ever got this far. Except
Charlotte.

Adam blocked off the thought. His ex-wife was not a topic he wanted or needed to consider right now.

Hands slammed on those curvy hips as she shook her head in patent disbelief. ‘Believe what you like, Adam. I thought I was doing a good thing here. Candice is the one whose lies are threatening to derail your charitable event, and...’ She hesitated. ‘She is also sullying your
reputation. That’s wrong. Our lie... Well, it’s not harming anyone and it’s repairing the damage she’s done. I don’t have an issue with that. Do you?’

‘Not a one,’ he said. ‘I’m questioning your expertise. That’s all.’

Back went the teeth over the plumpness of her lower lip. Adam’s gut contracted in a sudden desire to take over the action. To stop talking and start feeling.

Then
she shrugged. ‘I’ve had some experience in the art of dissembling. That’s all. There were times when I was growing up when life was a bit hand-to-mouth and Mum and I needed to fabricate a believable story.’

‘Who for?’

‘Landlords, debt collectors, teachers... Things were a bit complicated sometimes and it was important to put on a bit of a show. No harm done, and when we were flush I
always paid off any debts.’

Adam felt that insidious pull at his chest again. That sense of connection, of the shared experience of a childhood made less than stable by the antics of parents. Different experiences with different outcomes—clearly Olivia and Jodie had a bond that went a whole load deeper than any link he and Zeb had. Olivia and Jodie’s had been forged in love.

Her level
gaze didn’t falter. ‘But I’m not after anything from you, Adam. Except access to Zeb.’

‘OK.’ He stepped forward until they were mere centimetres apart, close enough for him to clock that her chest rose and fell in definite response to his nearness. ‘Got it.’

‘Good,’ she said, and then the silence tautened as tension wove a web around them.

It would be so easy to tumble her backwards
onto the bed and turn one aspect of their shared lie to truth.

Stop.
Not possible. If he accepted Olivia’s story as true then he accepted Jodie to be pregnant with Zeb’s baby. So it didn’t matter that he’d never laid eyes on Olivia until yesterday—didn’t matter they met nowhere on the family tree: the unborn baby would link them together for ever. That would be plenty complicated enough without
throwing sex into the mix.

So...

Drawing from his reserves of will power, he stepped backwards. ‘You’ve done a great job in here. I’ve persuaded Candice to withdraw her story and Noah has agreed to play his part. The press will be here in about half an hour.’

‘Right.’ Olivia blinked and then, taking his cue, she nodded. ‘I need to change. So can I borrow one of your shirts? That
denotes seriousness, doesn’t it? Wearing someone else’s clothes—it’s pretty intimate. Plus I slept in my shirt last night, so that’s a bit grim, and I don’t think the all-black outfit is right. It’s too funereal-cum-cat burglar.’

Adam shrugged. ‘Fine with me.’ He gestured at the wardrobe. ‘Take your pick.’

She glided over to the wardrobe and slid the huge mirrored door to one side. There
was a long minute as she stared inside. ‘Wow! That’s a lot of clothes.’ She turned. ‘How long are you staying here?’

He frowned. ‘I keep all my stuff here.’

‘So you live here? It’s your home?’ Her face was creased with confusion, as though the concept was incomprehensible.

‘I spend most of my time on the road, in one or another of the Masterson hotels. But I spend about a week or
so a month here. So I guess it’s a base.’

Olivia turned to survey the bedroom as if she were soaking in the surroundings anew. ‘It’s very...nice,’ she said.

Nice?
This was the height of luxury.

Adam followed her gaze to the enormous handcrafted wooden bed, the mirrored wardrobe, the glass desk and the flat-screen television. She’d already seen the lounge, with its enormous cream
leather sofas heaped with textured cushions, the glass dining table surrounded by white leather dining chairs.

‘Glad you approve,’ he muttered, sarcasm dripping from his tone.

A flush bloomed in her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That was rude of me. This is amazing. Honestly. Really impressive.’

‘But...?’ He wasn’t at all sure why but he wanted to know what she thought. Curiosity,
maybe, at her bizarre reaction? Other women oohed and aahed. Olivia Evans was struggling to find a suitable compliment.

Elegant shoulders lifted as she waved a hand around. ‘It’s just not very homey, that’s all.’

Give him strength.
‘Homey?’

‘Lived in. Personal. I mean, did you choose anything at all in here? Or out there? Where’s the clutter?’

‘I approved the design.’ Irritation
surfaced at the defensiveness that caused him to fold his arms across his chest. ‘And I don’t do clutter.’

His childhood home, where he had spent the first eight years of his life with his mother, had overflowed at the seams with knick-knacks and clutter. Maria Jonson had collected souvenirs of all her life’s experiences: snow globes, vases, paperweights, statues, garden gnomes. They had
all ended up in their small terraced house. Maybe because his mum had had some sixth sense that her life was doomed to end way too early.

Sadness weighed heavy in his heart, along with remembered grief at leaving that home, seeing the house and all those precious possessions sold or donated to charity by Zeb.

‘Possessions clutter up life,’
his newly discovered father had told him. He’d
placed a light hand on Adam’s shoulders.
‘I know it’s a hard concept, but you’ll work it out. You’ve got a new life now, Adam. A life of adventure.’

Words that had aroused such a conflict of emotion—sadness, excitement, guilt and fear—and set him inexorably on the path to becoming the man he was today.

Rubbing a hand over his face, Adam frowned. The past wasn’t relevant right now. Neither
were his interior decorating preferences. Or his attitude to clutter. ‘
Anyway
,’ he said. ‘Go ahead. Pick a shirt.’

She turned her attention back to the wardrobe and tilted her head to one side.

‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘For a man who doesn’t like clutter you sure do like clothes. What do you do? Find something you like and order it in every colour? You’ve got three styles in there. Long
sleeves, short-sleeved shirts and T-shirts. Five colours each.’

Impressive. All the clothes were in a jumbled mass, and yet she’d analysed his wardrobe at a glance. Now she was looking at him with a disconcertingly assessing slant to her hazel eyes. To his own annoyance Adam realised he was rocking on the balls of his feet. As if he was uncomfortable.

‘I asked the buyer in the boutique
downstairs to stock my wardrobe. He came up, took my measurements and filled the wardrobe.’

‘So an interior decorator bought your furniture, a boutique owner stocks your wardrobe, and you have nothing personal. That’s so...’

Adam rolled his eyes. ‘Convenient?’ he suggested.

She shook her head violently. ‘
No.
You don’t get it.’ She huffed out a sigh. ‘I know what I’m talking about.
I’m a personal shopper.’

It figured. No wonder she looked so damn good, and no wonder she had taken such care with each and every transformation. Burglar, hotel employee, ball guest, girlfriend... Olivia knew how to dress for every role.

‘I run a company called Working Wardrobes.’ Pride rang in her voice and illuminated the elven features. ‘But the whole point is that I’m a
personal
shopper.’ Her hands gesticulated animatedly as she spoke. ‘I don’t look at someone and think six foot three, dark hair, chocolate-brown eyes, ripped body, so I’ll buy him two pairs of designer jeans and four urban sweatshirts—’ She broke off as his eyebrows rose. ‘For example...’ she added hurriedly. ‘Taking a completely random example.’

Her face creased into a fluster of dismay and he couldn’t
help himself: a snort of laughter erupted.

After staring at him for a perplexed second she curved her lips into a smile and then she was giggling. A full-on giggle that bubbled forth and made him laugh. A proper belly laugh. How long was it since he had laughed like that?

Too long.

Almost as though she was thinking the same thing about herself she stopped, lifted a hand to cover
her lips and stared at him.

Her eyes sparkled and she looked so gorgeous all he wanted was to step forward and plunder the lushness of her lips.

Every which way he went, that was where he ended up.

Leaning forward, she snatched a shirt from its hanger. ‘I’ll go and transform myself,’ she muttered, and scurried towards his bathroom.