Romance for Cynics (6 page)

Instead, it only served to increase her trepidation.

She didn’t need to feel empathy for Cash.

She needed to keep reminding herself that getting up close and personal with her fake boyfriend could only end badly. Especially when she’d be spending a month or two after this ended at his house, remodelling his garden.

With a soft sigh of regret, she slipped from his arms. ‘Blurred lines will only complicate things.’

‘True, but it might be kinda fun?’

Lucy almost capitulated right there and then, his cute, little-boy expression making her heart melt.

But she couldn’t shirk her intrinsic insecurities so easily.

Was Cash only coming after her because of how she looked? Had her makeover impressed him that much that he now saw her as yet another attractive adjunct in his pretty world?

Deep down, she didn’t think so. But she’d developed a hefty amount of self-preservation over the years and she couldn’t let some articulate, intelligent guy who said all the right things and who happened to be drop-dead-gorgeous sway her.

‘Thanks for the rose.’ She unlocked her car before he said anything else to undermine her resolve.

‘You’re welcome.’ He hesitated, as if about to say something else, before shaking his head almost imperceptibly. ‘Enjoy the rest of your evening.’

‘You too.’

Lucy fumbled the keys twice before inserting them and starting the car. Yeah, her steely resolve to keep Cash at arm’s length was working a treat. Not.

He waved as she drove away, struggling not to watch the lone figure in her rear-vision mirror, and resisting the insane impulse to turn around.

SEVEN

Lucy hovered in
the doorway of Melbourne’s premier hotel’s function room, wishing she’d taken Cash up on his offer of a lift.

She hadn’t socialised in a long while and rocking up to this kitschy eighties disco had the potential to unnerve her.

She’d told Cash she’d meet him here but one glance into the crowded room and she knew she’d made a mistake.

Everyone was paired off. Most were fellow competition couples but the dance floor was packed with other bodies, writhing and flinging their arms around and swaying to the beat.

Like her, they were dressed in eighties gear. Ludicrous. But the longer she stood there, watching a few Boy George and Prince wannabes doing their own version of a dance-off, the more she started to relax.

She loved eighties music and often played it on full blast while gardening.

Her favourites were Wham, Tears for Fears and Blondie, and she’d lost track of the number of times Gram had asked her to turn her iPod down when she’d been a kid.

She might have been born at the tail end of the eighties but the music seemed to have seeped into her regardless.

‘Well, well, well. If it isn’t Madonna.’ Cash’s warm breath fanned her ear and a surprising shiver of longing made her rub her bare arms.

She turned slowly, willing her stupid heart to stop racing. Her costume had seemed okay at home, but with Cash standing close behind her the midriff-baring lace top, denim mini and fishnet stockings made her feel naked.

Then she caught sight of him and some of her nerves eased. She laughed.

‘Hey, I’m not supposed to be funny.’ His hand slicked against his greased hair. ‘I’m cool.’

‘John Travolta was cool in
Grease
. You, on the other hand...’ She stared at the skin-tight black leather pants moulding his legs to perfection, and the torso-hugging black T-shirt delineating every tempting ripple, and decided Cash was hot.

‘What about me?’ He squared his shoulders and darn if the action didn’t accentuate his broad chest.

‘You’re late,’ she said, her brusqueness not fooling him for a second, considering she had a hard time dragging her gaze away from his chest to focus on his face.

‘Only five minutes.’ He gestured at his outfit. ‘It takes a while to look this good.’

‘You’re also out by a few years. Wasn’t
Grease
released late seventies?’

‘‘Seventy-eight to be precise but this kind of outfit?’ He gestured towards the leather pants. ‘Deserved an outing.’

She rolled her eyes and struggled not to laugh. ‘Come on, the cameras will start filming in ten minutes.’

He grimaced. ‘Don’t remind me.’

She couldn’t agree more. ‘We don’t have to win the thing, remember? Let’s have a few dances then get the hell out of here.’

‘Agreed.’ He placed a hand in the small of her back, sending a ripple of heat through her. ‘Want a drink?’

Lucy didn’t drink much alcohol and the last thing she needed was to have a drink go straight to her head.

‘No thanks.’

‘Then I guess we dance?’

He didn’t give her time to agree, snagging her hand and tugging her towards the dance floor. While Lucy would never admit it to anyone, she liked the handholding. In fact, she liked being part of a couple, even a fake one.

Adrian might have been a selfish a-hole but in the early days, when she was blissfully unaware of his philandering? She’d loved the togetherness. Being part of a couple had made her feel secure in a way she’d never experienced.

While Gram and Pops had showered her with love and doted on her, she wondered if being an only child and without parents had inadvertently taken its toll. Maybe that had been the reason she’d lost her mind over her first steady boyfriend, married him and divorced him all within two years?

She’d examined that excuse at length when she’d first split from Adrian and summarily dismissed it. Because she knew why she’d married Adrian so quickly. She’d loved him. Had been head over heels. And she missed the closeness they’d once had more than anything.

She missed the banter of being with a guy. Missed the teasing and the laughter and the quick-firing barbs.

Cash was an expert at it and she knew that was what made her like him more than was good for her. Along with his sense of humour. His dedication to his business. His body...

That body.

She snuck a sideways glance, the coloured light reflected from a spinning silver disco ball smattering his skin like a kaleidoscope. It didn’t detract from his distinguished features. In fact, as they edged onto the dance floor and a flash of gold highlighted the breadth of his shoulders, he looked like a god.

Then he stepped in close, slid an arm around her waist, hauled her against his body, and she was a goner.

The guy could
move
.

As Robbie Nevil belted out his hit song
C’est La Vie
Cash moulded his body to hers and danced as if he’d been born to do it.

She had no option but to loop her arms around his neck and go with it. Matching him step for step. Their bodies swaying and dipping. Creating a delicious friction that had every nerve ending in her body on high alert.

When one of his hands slid lower to cup her butt, she almost groaned. And when he applied pressure, bringing her pelvis in contact with his to show exactly how the heat they were creating affected him, she strained towards him.

That was when things got really interesting.

Dirty Dancing
might have launched in the eighties but the version Lucy and Cash were producing was definitely an Oscar-winning sequel.

She writhed against him, shameless and wanton and hot. So hot.

The desire between them was palpable. Her skin burned with it. As the music blared and the bass beat pounded through her body Lucy gave herself over to the heady sensation of having vertical sex with her clothes on.

Because that was what they were doing.

Raunchy, debased, bold moves that made her cling to him or fall down in a puddle of lust at his feet.

She buzzed with the need to get naked, such a foreign feeling she almost stopped. But with her body plastered against Cash’s and the insistent throb pounding through her, she couldn’t have stopped if she’d wanted to.

Lucy had no idea when one song ended and the next began, because she’d never been so attuned to another human being before.

All she knew was this man, this moment.

It didn’t surprise her when he nuzzled her neck, his lips grazing the tender skin beneath her ear, moving excruciatingly slowly towards her mouth.

Her head fell back and he claimed her lips in a sizzling kiss that sent her head spinning.

Her mouth opened as Cash applied the slightest pressure, and he didn’t need a second invitation.

They exchanged hot, open-mouthed kisses for an eternity. Savage. Desperate. Unrestrained.

Lucy lost sense of time and place. All she knew was the incredible burning from the inside out, as if the whole dance floor were on fire.

The sound of raucous applause eventually filtered through her befuddled head as she realised the MC for the night had taken to the microphone and they hadn’t noticed.

Cash wrenched his mouth from hers as they stared at each other in stunned silence, their chests heaving, breathing ragged.

The crowd eventually went back to looking at the stage and paying attention to the MC, but Lucy couldn’t tear her gaze away from Cash’s.

He didn’t look like a guy who was acting.

He looked as smitten as she was.

Crap.

‘You’d do anything for the cameras,’ she said, eager to break the unbearable tension between them.

He ducked his head to whisper in her ear, ‘If that was you play-acting, sweetheart, I’ll double your landscaping fee.’

Her heart flipped at his call out. ‘Then you owe me a hundred grand.’

He chuckled. ‘Liar.’

She tossed her head, the scarf she’d tied under her hair flicking her cheek. ‘Okay. So we kissed. Big deal. Bound to happen considering the music and the darkness and—’

‘We’re attracted to each other.’ He ran a fingertip down her cheek. ‘It’s not a crime to admit it.’

Lucy gritted her teeth. No way could she admit to wanting Cash because that would be a giant complication waiting to happen.

She needed that fifty grand for Gram, not to get involved in some weird half-assed relationship that started out fake, yet involved very real sex.

Sex?
Yikes. Was that where this was heading? She really was in trouble.

‘Let’s just keep our minds on the end goal, okay?’

‘And what may that be?’ His hand rested on her hip, an intimate gesture that tempted her to resume where they’d left off: but away from here with fewer clothes on. ‘Seeing how far we can take this attraction?’

She sighed. ‘Positive PR for you. Fifty thousand big ones for me.’

A shadow darkened his eyes and he removed his hand. ‘So that’s all this is to you? Easy money?’

‘There’s nothing easy about posing as your girlfriend for a week, big guy,’ she said, aiming for levity.

She didn’t understand his frown or thinly compressed lips. ‘Fine. Let’s get this evening over and done with.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ she said, half wishing they’d revert to sparring.

She liked light-hearted Cash. Grumpy Cash, not so much, especially when she had a feeling she’d been the cause of his sudden mood.

Thirty minutes later, after dancing to another ten power ballads amid couples jostling for prime dance-floor space, Lucy yearned for a hot chocolate and a warm bed. A bed without Cash in it, despite her treacherous memory replaying that scorching dance-floor kiss at will.

Thankfully, he hadn’t tried a repeat despite the cameras filtering through the couples and shooting random snippets.

Didn’t matter, because every time his hand grazed her hip or touched her waist she remembered. The heat. The skill. The all-consuming desire of being kissed by him; and left wanting more.

‘You okay?’ He tipped her chin up as the last strains of
Bette Davis Eyes
faded.

She nodded. ‘Just tired.’

And incredibly drained. It was hard faking it—and to think this was only the first event.

‘Come on, I’ll walk you out.’ He slid an arm around her waist, solicitous and caring, almost as lethal a combination as his devilish, teasing side.

Heck, who was she kidding? After their session on the dance floor she’d find him singing the national anthem appealing.

However, their escape was thwarted by the approach of one of the organisers brandishing an electronic tablet.

‘You two are gold,’ he said, flipping the screen towards them. ‘That footage of you earlier? It’s had over a thousand votes in thirty minutes.’

Lucy almost asked ‘what footage’ but she didn’t need to, as with a sinking heart she watched her sizzling lip lock with Cash replayed in sharp, pixelated colour.

‘You’re in the lead by a mile.’ The guy beamed like a benevolent father. ‘Keep up the good work and you’ll win top prize for sure.’

As the guy strode away Cash turned to her, took one look at her face, and guided her towards the door.

‘Did you see that?’ she hissed, embarrassment warring with anger, the latter winning out. ‘That clip needed an X rating.’

‘Too right.’

Lucy heard a hint of amusement beneath the pride in his tone, an inflection that made her head snap up to see an ear-splitting grin.

‘You think this is funny?’ she shrieked, hating how shrewish she sounded, hating this out-of-control feeling more.

‘I think it’s pretty damn hot.’ He touched her bottom lip, tracing its contour, making her yearn for him all over again.

But she
couldn’t
want Cash. He had heartbreaker written all over him and she had no intention of offering her heart to any guy ever again.

‘Lucy?’

She frowned and his fingertip drifted up to smooth the dent between her brows.

‘It’s no big deal, being attracted to each other. We’re adults. We’re single.’ His appreciative gaze drifted over her. ‘And you’re smoking hot. Stands to reason we’re going to get carried away occasionally.’

The only thing that resonated from his altruistic speech was the fact he found her smoking hot. And, however much she tried to dismiss his compliments, she loved hearing them. She’d been starved for compliments for a long time, and as the protective barrier around her icy heart thawed a little she knew her defences were at risk of melting completely.

The more time she spent with him, the greater the danger. Which meant she needed to keep things strictly professional.

She stepped back, putting some much-needed distance between them. ‘Forget it. I need to get home and put the finishing touches on your quote.’

If he noticed the enforced chill he didn’t call her on it. ‘No worries.’

But as he held her coat so she could slip into it Lucy had plenty of worries. The main one centred on the guy who was slowly but surely charming his way into her life.

* * *

‘Not so fast, lovebirds.’ Raoul, the PR firm’s marketing whiz in charge of this week, wriggled his way between Lucy and Cash and linked elbows with them. ‘That public pash was gold so why don’t we capitalise on the hype and do your private interview now?’

Lucy swallowed a groan. The last thing she felt like doing now was being asked a bunch of questions she’d probably stuff up because she was still inwardly reeling from Cash’s kiss.

She needed time to regroup. And she was still craving that mega hot chocolate—the only thing that stood a chance of drowning the butterflies still fluttering madly in her belly.

Cash cast a quick glance her way and shook his head. ‘Maybe another time, Raoul?’

Touched by Cash’s intuition, she smiled her gratitude and he winked back.

But Raoul didn’t have the same sensitivity to her need for a break and he bustled them towards a small VIP room. ‘Surely you want to win this thing by capitalising on the hype after that kiss?’

To Lucy’s dismay, they couldn’t back out of this no matter how much she wanted to postpone. They had to make this look as authentic as possible for Cash’s sake and appearing recalcitrant at their first event would raise suspicion.