Sweet Seduction Sayonara (2 page)

T
his really is the end
.

♥ Nicola

T
his one is
straight from the heart and because you asked so nicely. A final look at the guys and gals from Sweet Seduction. A dangerous and delicious short novel all about love at first sight and how it can lead to such beautiful, wonderful, unexpected things. This is Finn’s story, but it’s not just Finn’s story to tell. Because every guy has a great bunch of mates behind him, and if they’re anything like the guys at ASI and ADK, then they’re going to get involved, place their lives on the line, and do whatever it takes to help you out.

“
I
should stay away
. She’s warned me. Her life is too complicated and my name’s not on her dance card. I
should
stay away. But I don’t."

Finn Drake is an ordinary guy. He’s good at what he does. Cares about his mates. And fights his battles through contracts and in sky-rise offices. He’s not a kick-butt ninja warrior. But sometimes that’s just what it takes to win the girl.

Especially when there’s Triads and drug dealers and Yakuza and tattooed thugs and all manner of people after them. Not to mention the girl's father and brother, who happen to think she belongs to someone else.

If it wasn’t for his friends, where would Finn be?

Just as well his friends are professional investigators and hard nosed security experts, mostly ex-military.

ASI comes to the rescue, helping Finn win his girl. Because as far as these men are concerned… once you see what you want, you set out to take it, claim it, and possess it, completely. Finn might have thought he was someone who looked in from the outside, but he soon realises he's just like everyone else. At least, he’s just like his mates at Anscombe Securities and Investigations.

Because Finn Drake wants Momoko Tanaka, and he’ll do absolutely anything to make her his.

T
his 55,000 word
novel is set in the Sweet Seduction World, five years after the end of Sweet Seduction Secrets. It’s told mainly from Finn’s POV, but you’ll find something from Dom, Nick, Ben, Jason, Pierce, Drew, Eric and Adam in there as well. 

L
ast chance
. Last call. For Sweet Seduction. And thanks, guys, for loving them as much as I do.

F
ive years later
…

I
always feel
a little out of place at these things. Like a gummy bear in the middle of a jar of M&M’s. I stand out. But not in a good way. Because who would choose fruit candy over chocolate and peanuts? I wouldn’t. More often than not, I’m the one chasing after Red. But I don’t end up with chocolate, or peanuts for that matter, it’s usually Blue I’m stuck with.

And almond is even more out of favour than fruit candy.

Genevieve’s a Red. So’s Dom. I suppose like attracts like. Which makes my whole situation that much more unappealing.

Even I’m not attracted to gummy bears.

I sigh and take a sip of my Darjeeling. The flavour, while not almond, reminds me I’m the only one here drinking tea. Dom’s drinking an espresso. So’s Ben and Adam and practically every other Red here.

I spy Koki, he’s sipping a soy latte, but I don’t think I can base my standards on him. He’s batshit crazy. I smile to myself, superimposing his perpetually angry face with a yellow M&M. A total nut-job.

My gaze slips off Koki and moves on around the room. Sweet Seduction is shut to the general public this evening, so if you’re here, you’re one of the inner circle. I can lay claim to that auspicious title simply because I work with Dom. Third share of ADK, Anscombe, Drake & Kline, along with Drew.

Who, incidentally, is drinking coffee. Not tea. And his wife is definitely a Red. Through and through. I watch absently as Kelly slips onto Drew’s lap, ruffles his hair and then leans in and licks up his neck to nibble on his ear.

Red and proud of it.

I move on. I’m not a voyeur. Even if it’s hard to ignore those two sometimes.

Boy, am I glad I lost that bet.

“Ollie, stop pulling your sister’s pigtail!” Dom suddenly shouts across the room. With the accuracy of a professional archer, the arrow finds its mark.

“I’m not pulling it!” Ollie shouts back to his father. “I’m seein' if it’s grown any.”

I smile. There’s a reason why I keep coming to these things.

“Drawing tears is not ‘seeing if it’s grown any,’” Dominic argues. Good luck, Dom. That kid’s a chip off the old block.

Arguing is second nature to an Anscombe.

“She’s not crying, Dad,” Ollie points out. “She likes it. Why else she got pig’ails?”

You tell him, Ols. He runs past me and offers up a high-five. I accept the greeting willingly, shooting Dom a smirk. His old man shakes his head disappointingly.

“Egg-zach-y!” Harry Kline adds, in his usual outlandish four-year-old language skills, as his shorter, stubbier legs chase after Ollie. He offers up a fist-bump on the way past, making Dom mutter, “I give up.”

The kids evaporate into the back of the store, losing themselves in the music cave to get up to God alone knows what.

“Tell me you have this problem too,” Dom demands. It takes a second for me to realise who he’s talking to.

Everyone’s dotted around the café, perched on overstuffed armchairs or garishly vibrant sofas. Not exactly facing each other, but close enough to hear what anyone has to say. Friday evenings at Sweet Seduction are a casual affair. Brook actually has his leg slung over the arm of his chair.

It’s Charlie who answers. “Considering Paul’s still in pull-ups, I’d have to pass on that one, Dom.” She offers him a wide grin.

Even Charlie, a former gummy bear, has transformed into a Red M&M.

“Wait,” Dom threatens. “Just you wait.”

“Charlie and Adam won’t have to worry about their kid being argumentative,” Kelly declares. “They’ll just have to worry about him cracking the code to the gun safe.”

Charlie cringes. “That was one time, OK? He’s not even two. He got lucky. You gonna bring that up at every gathering?”

This is my life now. Watching my friends find their happily ever after. Watching them become fat and engorged on love.

Watching them start families. Mini-me’s everywhere.

Kelly beams, reaches out to grab a darting Harry as he sprints by again, and brings him in for a quick hug and kiss, then release. He’s off in the next breath, chasing after the other kids, rounding the retro couches and dodging the hard-to-find CDs out to the back.

The sweet freedom of the cave. Part of me wishes to join them.

Katie comes over, then, snagging my attention. She’s always snagged my attention. Since Dom and I were in law school, I’ve had a crush on his sister. You’d think a guy approaching forty would have stopped having crushes by now.

She’s got a bottle of milk in one hand and a fussing George in the other, and I watch as she settles into the couch beside an extremely proud Jason.

And suddenly I’m remembering why I don’t crush on her anymore. Jason already suspects I’m way too friendly.

“I don’t think any of our kids have a hope in hell of being normal, darling,” Katie offers.

“Speak for yourself,” Nick argues, from across the way. “Ours are little angels.” Everyone groans at his pun. Even I do.

“Of course they are,” Abi agrees. “Getting sung the latest country hits as they drift off to sleep each night is bound to make any child compliant.”

“Makes Nick compliant,” Adam adds.

“It’s not the songs,” Nick drawls.

“Better not be, cowboy,” Eva says with a wink as she slips onto his lap. He offers her a wide grin back, but doesn’t argue the point. How can he? Eva, like the rest of the women here, has her man wrapped around her little finger.

And suddenly my tea tastes bitter.

The banter continues, Pierce and Marie joining in the gentle ribbing, the words, like the love, bouncing back and forth across the room. But I tune it all out, my eyes staring unseeing out of the shopfront windows. Though the scene outside is distorted by the rounded glass, I try to make sense of the imagery.

Just like I’ve been trying to make sense of my life, lately.

“Guess what!” Abi suddenly declares, drawing me back into the land of the living.

“Red, we doin’ this now?” Ben asks, sounding a little amused.

“Why not? We’re all here. This is Family Friday. What better time than now?”

“OK,” Ben agrees, somewhat reluctantly. “But don’t blame me if the booze comes out and you can’t have any.”

She huffs a breath, blowing blonde strands of hair out of her eyes and then turns to the room at large.

“Well, I guess the cat’s outta the bag now,” she grouses.

I suddenly don’t want to be here. Or maybe the thought isn’t a new one. Maybe I’ve been quietly pining for something new. Something that doesn’t remind me I had this once and now I can’t seem to find it again. Something precious and hopeful. Something when taken away leaves only a hollow.

“Tell us,” Gen urges, keeping me present, even when all I want is to float away. To leave.

“Go on,” Kelly adds. “That’s half the fun.”

“We’ll pretend we haven’t guessed a thing, darling,” Katie offers, completely seriously.

I think my heart aches.

“You old dog,” Nick says on a chuckle, slapping Ben on the back.

“Nicholas Anscombe!” Amber scolds. “Let the woman have her moment, for crying out loud.”

“You tell him, babe,” Eric says, stifling a laugh when Nick looks a little sheepish.

I’ve got to get out of here.

“OK!” Abi shouts. All eyes turn back to the blonde. Mine as well, although reluctantly. She swallows. And then smiles. The most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. Big and proud, full of love and relief, and astonishment.

I can’t breathe.

“We did it,” she whispers. “We got the results back today. It worked.” Ben moves in, wrapping an arm around his woman, just as her eyes fill with tears and she drags her bottom lip between her teeth. “We did it.” The last is lost in amongst a soft sob.

Maybe I’m not the only one who’s had trouble breathing.

Ben clears his throat, lays a loving kiss amongst Abi’s hair, and lifts shining eyes to the rest of the room.

“Yeah,” he says. “We’re finally pregnant. Now we get to complain about our kid, too.”

Everyone sucks in a breath of air, realising their banter over the past few years has clearly had sharp claws and they hadn’t known it. For a moment, they feel their pain. And then the cheers go up, and the clapping starts, and shouts and cries of congratulations are yelled across the small space, and someone brings out a bottle of champagne, the cork bouncing off one of the hidden cameras up in the rafters.

My eyes meet Ben’s across the raucous crowd. I nod my head in congratulations. He holds my gaze for longer than necessary.

Ben’s a Red. So’s Abi. But that doesn’t mean he can’t see the gummy bear in their midst.

For a moment I don’t feel quite so out of place.

And then the kids all rush back in, being chased by Daisy, and pandemonium unleashes.

I lose sight of Ben and Abi, in the celebrating crowd, and head toward the front of the shop, needing air. Needing space. Needing to get my shit together.

The cold air blasts my cheeks as soon as the door swings shut behind me. Small whorls of debris lift off the ground, scurrying along the gutters of High Street. I pull out a pack of cigarettes and light one. Then lean back against the lingerie shop’s frontage.

High Street is quietening down for the day, but the odd store still has lights on inside. Industrious employees locking down their merchandise for another day. Saturday is High Street’s big day. Sweet Seduction will be packed from the moment its doors open until they close again. This small window out of time is all we get to enjoy our haven without interruption.

And here I am having a sneaky smoke outside.

I flick ash off the end of my cigarette and contemplate my life. I’m professionally successful. I’m fit and active. I have a fantastic bunch of mates.

And if I could trade it all tomorrow for a white picket fence and all that entails, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I blow a ring of smoke out and stare up at the twilight sky. The smoke drifts away on the breeze, disappearing before I’ve even inhaled again.

It’s time for a change. It’s time to man up and shake off the gummy.

I walk over to the trash bin and stub out my cigarette on the side, my gaze caught on movement at the end of the street. A shadow darting around the corner, and slipping into the alcove of a high end fashion store, long since closed for the night.

For a moment, I think nothing of it, but then the figure slips out of the shadows, dark hood pulled low over their face, hiding their features, and I know they’re up to no good.

Sweet Seduction is my second home. Genevieve like a sister to me. High Street is my community. There is no way I’m going to let some punk kid graffiti the storefronts in my hood.

“Hey!” I shout, taking a step across the street toward them.

Just as a dark van pulls to a stop a few feet away from the figure and throws open a side door like some scene out of an action movie.

The hooded figure is looking toward me, distracted by my shout, so doesn’t react in time when the bulky, but surprisingly quick, man in the rear of the van reaches out and snags onto their cloak.

It all happens a little too quickly then. I realise the figure’s not up to no good, but trying to escape it. And I’m running and shouting as the front window of the van rolls down and a fucking gun is aimed at my head, and the cloak is pulled off the figure, and a small frame darts away to the side, offering a sideways kick to the brute’s head.

Which is deflected by a thuggish arm, a snarl now on the bulky attempted kidnapper’s face, and the gun fires.

I’m still running, so momentum more than any martial instinct has me rolling out of the way, the hard concrete of High Street biting into my shoulder, but adrenaline keeps the pain at bay. I come up onto my feet, still moving forward, when I see the small figure, now noticeably dressed inappropriately for such an undertaking, is in hand to hand combat with the brute from the rear of the van.

The one in the front can no longer get a bead on me, but I hear his driver’s door open on the other side of the vehicle and I know any second he’ll be around the grille aiming that gun back at me.

I’ve got seconds and I’m unarmed, but too much inaction of late has me moving inexorably onward. As though risking my life for a stranger is the sanest thing to do. The small figure, a woman I abstractly notice - maybe it’s the fact she’s wearing a tight fitting red silk dress with a high split in the thigh that tells me that little fact - is holding her own with the brute from the back. So I crouch low at the left front of the van, unsure what my next move is, but hyped up on go-go juice.

I can hear the woman grunting, a soft burst of air as she strikes out, but I don’t look back. Reaching up slowly, I test the door handle of the van, finding it unlocked, and open it. I see a shoe, highly polished and definitely high end, under the bumper, and then he’s around the front of the vehicle and I’m swinging the door with all of my might.

And it cracks him on the head.

He goes down like a thousand year old kauri. I wince slightly when his skull connects with concrete.

Spinning back around I find the woman and the last man moving at a speed that boggles the mind. One arm up, deflecting, the other out, connecting, a leg, a torso shift, a spin and high kick, and back to an arm, hand, knee, elbow, fingers, hand, arm, elbow, foot. All in such rapid succession I’m stunned immobile for a brief moment, and then I glimpse a bat on the floor of the van.

Reaching in I consider the implications of what I’m about to do. As a lawyer, I’m well versed in self-defence legalities and arguments. And using a bat against a foe who is only using his fists is not as defensible as one might think.

But then my eyes dart to the still open door, the dent on its surface, and the out-cold guy on the ground. His gun resting beside him.

Yeah, we passed defensible arguments five minutes ago.

I swing the bat and connect with the head of the brute still flinging punches at the woman.

He goes down like a thousand year old kauri, too, and all that breaks the stunned silence of the moment is the crack of his skull on pavement and the woman’s soft, rapid breaths.