Книга - Faking It to Making It

Faking It to Making It
Ally Blake


A dilemma, a deal… a date!Charmer Nate Mackenzie is in the middle of a plus-one dilemma for his friend’s wedding. Any of his recent dates would start dreaming of a solitaire for their own left hand. Worse, going stag will leave him at the mercy of a set-up by his ever-hopeful sisters. Discovering that Saskia Bloom is doing on-line dating research for a website, he strikes a deal. She’ll take the research rather than a relationship and he’ll get a fake date.There might be no shortage of sexual attraction between them – but as complete opposites will they be at all convincing as a ‘happy couple’… ?‘I know it’s a cliché, but I physically could not put this book down!’ – Stephanie, 41, Hampshire www.allyblake.com












“Faking it in front of a guy’s family is hardly a common occurrence in my life. How about yours?”


Nate’s sensuous mouth grew flat, his stare much the same.

“No, didn’t think so.” Saskia reached for the top button of his shirt, her hand hovering an inch from his chest. “May I?”

“May you what?”

“Ruffle you up a little.”

He breathed deep, his chest lifting till the weave of his luxurious woollen jacket brushed the hairs of her arms, creating skitters of…something all the way to her elbows.

His gaze finally left his family home to connect with hers. The tangle of blue was enough to take her breath clean away.

“Ruffle away.”




About the Author


In her previous life Australian author Ally Blake was at times a cheerleader, a maths tutor, a dental assistant and a shop assistant. In this life Ally is a bestselling multi-award-winning novelist who has been published in over twenty languages, with more than two million books sold worldwide.

She married her gorgeous husband in Las Vegas—no Elvis in sight, although Tony Curtis did put in a special appearance—and now Ally and her family, including three rambunctious toddlers, share a property in the leafy western suburbs of Brisbane, with kookaburras, cockatoos, rainbow lorikeets and the occasional creepy-crawly. When not writing she makes coffees that never get drunk, eats too many M&Ms, attempts yoga, devours The West Wing reruns, reads every spare minute she can, and barracks ardently for the Collingwood Magpies footy team.

You can find out more at her website www.allyblake.com

Recent titles by the same author:



THE SECRET WEDDING DRESS

THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

THE WEDDING DATE


Did you know these are also available as eBooks?Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk




Faking It to Making It


Ally Blake






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




Dear Reader


When the hero in this book, Nate Mackenzie, first appeared on the page in my last book, THE SECRET WEDDING DRESS, he was such a doll. Such a charming, industrious, energetic foil for that hero—big, bad Gabe Hamilton.

The more I got to know him, the greater my crush on the guy grew. So handsome, so funny, so strong, so resolute. And did I mention handsome? So when an idea sprang to mind about Saskia Bloom, a hopeful, helpful, sweet, bossy, left-of-centre statistician researching a piece on online dating, I thought, Who better to throw in her unsuspecting path than my darling Nate?

I just love having a vehicle for stories like this—joyful, warm, wacky, fresh, touching, cheeky…and hot, hot, hot. And I can’t wait to sit down and meet my next lucky couple, who are currently tootling along, thinking life’s just dandy, until—WHAM! I do so love my job.

For more about my books swing by my website at www.allyblake.com

Till then, happy reading!

Ally


For team Arabella Rose.



Josh, Laura, Cat, David, Sam, Kristy,

Liz, Emma & Gemma.



It was an honour and a trip, with extra sauce!




CHAPTER ONE


SASKIA BLOOM FICKED her dark fringe out of her eyes and peered through her vintage glasses at her laptop screen before madly scribbling notes on the yellow legal pad under the mouse.

“I’ll eat my shoes if you’re even a day under forty,” she mumbled at the photo of a guy grinning inanely back at her from the Dating By Numbers website.

Undeterred, StudMuffin33 kept on smiling, as if the dauntingly athletic profile was so appealing any woman would let the age-fib slip.

Favourite Movie: The Fast and the Furious

Collects: surfboards

Who’d Play You in the Movie of Your Life? Jason Statham Looking for: an open-minded lady with a twinkle in her eye

Good lord.

Mouse hover and click.

The photo of the next guy gave her such a fright she flinched. BirdLover28 had tufty hair, wore a grimace rather than a smile and had a chicken on his shoulder. A live one, she hoped.

Favourite TV Show: Dr Who (the original!)

Sundays are for: garage sales

Celebrity Crush: Tyra Banks

Looking for: fun in all the wrong places

Alas, Saskia would not be partaking of said fun. For, even though it had been several months since she’d been booted back into the dating pool, she wasn’t online looking for The One. Or a “Saturday night special” as one possibility had so gallantly offered.

Her account with Dating By Numbers was research, pure and simple. She and her business partner, Lissy—together known as SassyStats—had been hired by the site to collate a fun statistical analysis of online dating. In order to do the best job possible, she’d jumped from an aeroplane for a piece on adrenalin junkies. Dived with sharks for a study on phobias. In comparison, creating a dating profile was cushy.

Saskia lifted her booted foot to the chair, wrapped an arm around her woolly-tights-clad knee, and, chewing on the end of a pen, shook her head at the dozen more possibilities in her inbox.

Research or not, it was actually pretty flattering.

With her wavy brown hair, her mother’s olive skin, eyes that were kind of brown and a lean frame that puberty had pretty much ignored, under the right lighting, with humidity low, she could just about pull off cute. The idea that so many guys had considered her for a follow up email was a marvel.

If she’d known this was the response she’d get, she’d have signed up long ago! She’d met Stu in a pub, and look how that had turned out.

There he’d sat hunched in his old coat, looking so dark and mysterious, with pen smudges on his fingertips. He’d looked as if he’d needed a warm meal and a hug. Turned out he’d needed her mobile phone, her TV, her computers, her appliances and more. In recompense he’d left a nasty note, a huge debt and his dog.

Saskia glanced over at Ernest, the big wiry Airedale currently lying on his back, legs in the air, snoring on the dinky old armchair in the corner of her office.

With a sigh, she slid her feet back to the floor and shifted the legal pad an inch. She and Ernest might have discovered a bona fide fondness for one another, but she’d never get used to the angry red envelopes that fell through her mail-slot on a weekly basis. Never wanted to. The only way to make them go away was to work. And work some more. And then, when night fell and her bed was beckoning, get back to work.

Mouse hover and click.

Saskia lifted her hand off the mouse, ready to take notes on the next candidate, but at the sight of him her hand wobbled pointlessly in midair.

She might, in fact, have gasped at the sight, because Ernest suddenly snorted, his legs twitching like an up-ended spider, before settling back into a dream-filled sleep.

Gorgeous didn’t even begin to describe the man. Dropdead, movie star, take-your-breath-away gorgeous came a tiny bit closer. The shot was candid, with the man looking at something over the photographer’s shoulder. Dark blond hair precision cut. Sleeves of a pale blue business shirt neatly rolled up to his upper arms, a vein or two roping from wrist to elbow. A solitary raised eyebrow, a barely there lift to one corner of a truly sensuous mouth. But who’d even notice, considering the guy had the bluest eyes Saskia ever seen.

How does a man who looks like that not have someone in his life? she wondered. Though, considering the fibs the other men had told, she couldn’t count on it!

He did look resolute, as if he wouldn’t be used to hearing the word no, so maybe he was plain mean. Or into cross-stitching. Or he had halitosis. Or really gnarly toenails. Or maybe he was looking for something even more outrageous than “fun in all the wrong places.”

Intrigue levels rising, Saskia wriggled the blood back into her fingers and scrolled to the mini-profile that had been sent out with the guy’s initial contact.

Favourite Book: Catch-22

Drink of choice: double espresso

Thing you say more than any other: Next

Looking for: a wedding date, no strings

Pretty much bang-on to his picture, which was an anomaly unto itself. And Saskia did love an anomaly. That love had sent her from pure statistics into research in the first place. That moment reminded her why, as a seed of an idea sprang to life inside her.

Lifting her backside from her chair, she flicked through a pile of random papers till she found the press release Marlee at Dating By Numbers had sent over as part of the initial brief.

The number of people who had signed on—and only to that one site—was staggering. All of them had struggled using traditional avenues in their search for companionship, for sex, for love. Including her. And if a man who loved coffee as much as she did, had awesome taste in literature, and looked enough like a young Paul Newman to induce a drool epidemic had reached his thirties without finding someone, what would it take?

She’d been looking for an angle for her infographic, and she might just have found one.

When a massive Big Bang Theory mug appeared next to Saskia’s elbow, she nearly jumped out of her skin. “God, you scared me half to death!”

“Not surprised. You have that weird scientist look in your eyes,” said Lissy. The blue and purple tips of her long blonde locks bounced as she landed with a whump in the bouncy chair on her side of the paint-splattered old table they used as an office desk. “If it was legal I’d marry your espresso machine.”

“Get in line.” Saskia put her glasses on the desk, blinked to clear her eyes and, breathing in the rich scent of the cocoa enriched brew, let the huge mug warm her hands before closing her eyes and taking a sip. After Stu had taken off with everything she’d leased computers but bought a replacement espresso machine. Horse before the cart and all that.

“So, what are we working on?” asked Lissy. “The railway map thing? The business listing thing?”

“The online dating thing.”

“Ooh, much more fun.”

“I’ll drink to that.” They clinked mugs. “I think I’ve just had a bit of a breakthrough. I’m considering adding something extra to my analysis—along the lines of an equation for finding love.”

Lissy stopped sipping at her coffee and blinked. “Like, chocolates plus flowers multiplied by heaps of hot sex equals never having to say you’re sorry?”

Saskia laughed as she scrawled curlicues in the top corner of her legal pad, her mind whizzing now it had hit on something. “Not quite. Mathematics is natural. Love is natural. It only makes sense that it’s mathematically quantifiable.”

Lissy glanced pointedly at the pile of bills on Saskia’s side of the desk which, for the first time ever included a late mortgage payment.

“I wouldn’t be making work for myself, as I’m doing the research anyway,” Saskia said. “And I think it would make a great anchor for the bottom of the infographic.”

Then again, maybe Lissy was right. If Saskia wanted to wrestle back control of her mortgage payments, let alone get back to the renovations she’d been in the middle of doing when Stu absconded, she needed to focus.

Unfortunately, while Lissy was a crazy brilliant graphic artist, to her, focus was a foreign word. “It’s never been done? This love formula thing?”

“Maybe,” Saskia said, enthusiasm spiking again. “Or maybe nobody’s ever tried. Perhaps somebody just needed inspiration.”

“Like when Einstein was hit with that apple.”

“Newton.”

“Whatever. So, what hit you?”

“Nothing hit me.” Saskia made the mistake of glancing at her laptop.

Lissy’s eyes narrowed. Then, quick as a rattlesnake, she spun her chair round the desk and looked over Saskia’s shoulder before she had the chance to snap the thing closed.

“Ha!” Lissy pointed. “Talk about inspiration. Who is that?”

Saskia’s eyes skewed back to the monitor, to the bluest eyes and the hint of what would have amounted to an indecently sensuous smile if the photographer had only been kind enough to wait half a second more. “His handle is NJM.”

“Handle? He’s one of our online dating guys?” Lissy blew out a long, slow whistle. “Why did I let you be the guinea pig on this one?”

“Because you were dating Dropkick Dave and when he saw you smile at the greengrocer he snapped all your carrots in half.”

Lissy winced at the memory. “I’ll admit the guy was high strung—”

Saskia coughed out a laugh at the understatement of the year.

“—but Lordy the man knew how to kiss.” With that Lissy disappeared into a daze. Saskia made a mental note to check Lissy’s phone and make sure Dropkick Dave had been deleted.

With a shake of her head Lissy came to, tiptoed her chair back to her side of the table, and angling her mug at the back of Saskia’s laptop, said, “Stats please.”

Saskia shuffled the mouse and clicked on the link for NJM’s full online profile. The sight of neat and tidy columns, of horizontal bars filled with information, of questions with answers, and she found her zen. “Six-two. Blue eyes. Dark blond hair. Financier. No interests listed.”

Well, now, that just seemed a little sad.

“I put up my hand to give him some!” said Lissy.

Saskia laughed, then realised she was still rolling a finger over the mouse like a caress.

She lifted her hand and cricked her fingers. She was mid-knuckle-crack on her second hand when Lissy came out with, “Screw research. You should date him. For real.”

Saskia’s mouth twisted sideways. She noticed that her hand was on the mouse again, and it had somehow shifted till the little arrow hovered over the bright yellow button with the happy-fonted “Why not?” scripted inside of it.

Why not? “He’s not my type.”

“Honey, he’s everybody’s type. And don’t even try to tell me you wouldn’t be his. You’ve got that sexy geek girl thing that’s so hot right now. And if he’s on that site, he’s looking for love.”

“First, this is a job, not a cattle call. Second, he’s not looking for love—he’s looking for a wedding date. Third, for all we know this is one of twenty dating sites he’s listed on and he’s completely indiscriminate.”

“Wow. Strident, much?”

Saskia breathed out long and hard. “Lissy—”

“I know, I know. You’ll get there when you’re ready. But, sweetheart, how long has it been since What’s-his-name decamped?”

Saskia glanced at Ernest and in a stage whisper said, “Seven months.”

Lissy whispered back. “The dog can’t understand English.”

“Oreos,” Saskia said, this time at a normal decibel level.

Ernest woke with such a start he fell off the armchair. Three seconds later he was at Saskia’s side, paws on her lap, claws stretching out the zigzags on her woollen tights in the hope of finding cookie crumbs.

“Later, baby,” she said, ruffling his ears, and sending him back to the chair with a pat on the bum.

“Way I see it, this is your chance to try something new.” Lissy reached out and turned Saskia’s monitor so she could get a better look at the man thereupon. “Not some indigent fixerupper, but a guy who’s sexy and brilliant. A man who looks like he knows how to take care of himself for once. And take care of you, if you know what I mean?”

Lissy finished with a Groucho-style eyebrow-wiggle, then slurped at her coffee, shuffled in her chair and got to work.

Saskia tried to do the same, cracking the spine of a fresh yellow legal pad, writing “Dating By Numbers” at the top and “Love Formula” beneath. She crossed it out, tried to think of a more appropriate title and, no thanks to Lissy, couldn’t.

Also thanks to Lissy, her mind kept curling back to the same conversation she and Lissy had had a million times over. Lissy postulating that Saskia’s yen for needy guys came down to a childhood spent trying, without much success, to lighten the life of her clueless, maths professor, single dad. Saskia contending that she simply liked who she liked. And if that happened to be men who made her feel indispensable, then what was wrong with that?

Apart from the fact that it never lasted.

Her gaze swept back to the screen and she let it trail over every inch of yum.

NJM looked like the least needy man on the planet. But could he kiss a girl so well she’d forgive him for snapping her carrots? Yeah, she thought, tingles curling into existence inside her belly, I have a feeling he could.

But that wasn’t why she clicked on the happy yellow “Why not?” button on NJM’s email. She had a job to do—a well-paying job. NJM was an anomaly in the heretofore predictability of the remainder of subjects in her study and therefore worth investigating further.

And while she had more work than she would ever have taken on at one time under normal circumstances, a girl had to eat.

Weddings did it every time.

It had taken years, diligence and dogged immovability, but Nate Mackenzie had finally trained his sisters to leave him well enough alone when it came to his confirmed bachelorhood. Until a wedding invite arrived in the mail. Then all bets were off.

He’d just hung up from his oldest sister, Jasmine, when the twins, Faith and Hope, came at him, conference-call-style.

“She’s lovely!” one of them exclaimed before even emitting a hello.

He leant back in his office chair, executed a half turn till the sunshine slashing past the Melbourne skyline and through the intimidating wall of windows nearly blinded him. “I’m fine, thanks. You?”

Ignoring his sarcasm, the twins tag-teamed. “Jasmine’s friend makes the best macaroons.”

“I’ve seen photos. She’s just your type.”

He opened his mouth to ask just what his type might be, but he snapped his mouth shut at the last second.

They were good at finding weak spots. He was better.

After all, he’d taught them all they knew: a consequence of becoming the man of the house at fifteen.

He pressed his feet to the floor and a thumb to the temple that had begun to throb. “I’m thrilled you are all so content in your own lives that you have the time to stick your collective noses into mine, but you need to focus your impressive energies elsewhere. Third World hunger, perhaps?”

“But—”

“No more set-ups. Consider that an order.”

At that, a pause. Then lashings of laughter which had his other temple throbbing in syncopated rhythm against the first.

When they shifted into a familiar tune about how his natural born charm and adorable baby blues wouldn’t get him by for ever, Nate slowly turned his chair back to face his vast office as his brain flicked through possible ways to convince them to leave the subject of finding him a good woman the hell alone. He could honestly beg work, but that was nothing new. A weekend was something other people had. He hadn’t set foot on a beach in so long he couldn’t remember how sand felt between his toes. And telling them he was only keen on bad women hadn’t stopped them before; it had merely expanded the pond from which they fished on his behalf.

“I’m seeing someone!” The walls of Nate’s vast office seemed to heave away from him as the import of the words he’d just uttered echoed into the ensuing silence. Damn twins—they were like a pair of hammers banging at an exposed nerve. It had been bound to jerk eventually.

But when the silence deepened, Nate wondered if he’d hit on something inspired. If he oughtn’t to have invented a significant other years ago—someone who travelled often, was ethically against telephones, who had lost her whole family in some tragic accident so he could therefore never subject his love to the pain of meeting his.

Caught up in his own daydreams of freedom, he realised his chance to hang up on a high a moment too late.

One twin said, “Someone who can string a sentence together without saying ‘um’?”

“What the hell do I care?” he heard himself bellow. “So long as she looks good, smells nice and goes home happy.”

“Nate,” they said on twin sighs, with familiar waves of guilt pouring down the phone line. They knew they should be nicer, considering all he’d sacrificed to make sure they were well-adjusted after their father died. Knowing didn’t make it so. They had stubborn Mackenzie genes after all.

“The worst part is I don’t think you’re kidding,” said one.

“That the perfect Nate date wants no commitment, no happy-ever-after, no way,” said the other.

“Find her for me and then we can talk,” said Nate as his office door swung open. Gabe poked his head through the gap. Done with being outnumbered, Nate waved his recently returned business partner in with a brisk flap of his hand.

One raised eyebrow later, Gabe shut the door behind him and ambled across the room to lower his huge form into a chair that would have been plenty big enough for any other man. Gabe, on the other hand, looked as if he’d need a crowbar to get out.

“I have to go,” said Nate. “My ten o’clock is here.”

“Say ‘hi’ to Gabe from me.”

Then, “Tell him if it doesn’t work out with Paige, he can always—”

Nate hung up before any more of that image made its way into his subconscious.

“The girls on the warpath?” said Gabe, as Nate once again rubbed his thumbs across both temples.

“This time, it’s your fault.”

“How’s that, exactly?”

“If you weren’t with Paige, you’d never have met Mae and Clint, who’d never have invited me to their wedding. And Macbeth’s witches wouldn’t have made it their life’s mission to find me a woman.”

Gabe’s dark stare flattened. “Are you wishing away my woman?”

“Not,” said Nate, settling back in his chair. “For years you walked around like a bear with a sore tooth. Now you’re practically cuddly.”

Gabe’s lip curled as he as good as snarled. But then the big guy seemed to soften, sweeten, and the smile that slipped through confirmed cuddly was fine, if it meant he had her.

Hell.

Thankfully Nate was spared, as Gabe’s mobile rang and he answered with a gruff, “Hamilton.”

To think, Nate mused, it felt like only yesterday that together he and the big guy had sketched out their radical dream of a maverick venture capital business on the back of a beer coaster in a pub near uni. And now that crazy dream was a shining beacon of trust, fiscal responsibility and innovation within the morass of world-wide financial tremblings.

Nate had reached the heights he’d envisioned that long ago night, and had soared higher still. He had property all over the world, a stake in some of the most successful businesses in the country, and more money than he could count. And yet the heart of that dream, the pinnacle he’d aspired to, the moment when the pendulum of success had hit its peak and he could ease back, content with his success and enjoy the spoils, had never eventuated.

Every decision, every purchase, every paperclip was still under his tight control—as though if in letting go he’d lose it all. And it wasn’t lost to him that he was nearing the age when his own hard-working father had gone to work one day and never come home.

Gabe hung up and said, “You free for lunch? The gaming guy I was telling you about is meeting me at Zuma at one, and I’m sure having us both there’ll put the requisite sparkle in his eyes to get his scrawl on the dotted line.”

Nate ran his hands over his face, pushing the mounting signs of frustration down deep. “I can swing by at quarter past.”

“Better. Keep ’em keen.” Gabe pressed himself from the chair and only when he reached the door did he look back.

“So, have you got a date for Mae and Clint’s wedding, or what?” Gabe asked.

Nate lugged his stapler all the way across the room. It bounced off the wall a foot from Gabe’s shoulder.

“I take it that’s a no?”

Then Gabe was out through the door, leaving Nate to deal with the onset of a new range of throbs in his temples.

It was a no. And yet he’d told Faith and Hope he was seeing someone. When the actual truth was somewhere in between.

He’d get a damn date, if only to get them off his back for the next few weeks till the big day. But it wouldn’t be anyone they knew. Or even anyone he knew for that matter.

Asking a woman on a date was one thing. Asking a woman to a wedding was akin to smothering himself in catnip and taking a swan dive into a pride of lionesses. There wasn’t a kind way to tell someone with confetti stuck to her eyelashes that it was never going to happen.

But it was never going to happen.

For the six years between the day of his father’s heart attack and the day his trust fund had been opened to him he’d devoted himself to being the man in his young sisters’ lives. They’d repaid the favour by using his toothbrush, and wearing his shirts to bed. He’d asked them to stop and they’d acted out by dating his friends. And no matter how he’d managed to swallow it down, to let them do what they had to do, they’d cried themselves to sleep. He’d heard them, night after night, the sound tearing away at his insides. Until he’d become impervious to tears, to mood swings, to raging hormones and wily feminine ways. It was the only way he’d lived to fight another day.

Two hours after Mae had told him to “save the date,” he’d tagged a research team to find him a dating website. All he’d told them was that it had to boast discretion and success; they didn’t need to know why.

Since then he’d met six perfectly nice, attractive, elegant, smart women, every single one of whom had taken one look at him and sized him up for a tux, a four-bed house and a Range Rover with a reversing camera.

But time had run out.

He checked his email to find another of his “Maybes” had come back with a “Why not?”

More determined than ever, he opened the email. Her tag was Bloomin.

Favourite Pizza Topping: ham & red peppers

Favourite Music: retro grunge

If I Could Be Anywhere in the World I’d Be: right where

I am

Looking for: someone to talk to

Retro grunge? What the hell was retro grunge? Sounded dire. And yet he opened her picture for a second look. And then he remembered.

After an hour of trawling the site that first night he’d hit a point where the string of women in bikinis grinning suggestively at the camera had become a blur. He’d rather have tugged out his own eyelashes than read another thing but the very next picture that had appeared on the screen had been so unexpected it had stopped him short.

A woman in her late twenties sitting in a café, with a shaggy scarf-thing around her neck, dark hair in a messy twist that just reached one shoulder, and an old felt fedora perched on top of her head.

Nate leaned his elbow on the desk and rested his chin between thumb and forefinger. With the other hand he zoomed in till her eyes filled the screen. She was attractive, in an off-beat kind of way, with her fine chin, fine nose and soft pink lips curved into an easy smile. But those eyes of hers were something else. Wide-set, the colour hovering on the edge of brown, the long dark lashes creating sultry shadows below.

But within them was the most captivating thing about her, that one thing that had eluded him for so long…Contentment.

He wasn’t sure he even knew what that felt like any more. And here, at his fingertips, was a woman who claimed to be happy being right where she was.

Without another thought he hit “Reply,” picked a time, asked her to pick the place. Even if he’d built a client base on becoming on a first-name basis with some of the best chefs in town, in this case it was far better to go somewhere atypical or it would get back to his sisters.

It always did.

And a man had to have his priorities straight.




CHAPTER TWO


FOR ALL ITS family name, Mamma Rita’s Italian restaurant in Fitzroy was dark, sensual and bohemian, a hotspot for artists and hipsters. If conversation was your bag the beer garden at the back rarely saw beer and reeked of the sweet smoke of the philosophical thinker. Saskia, though, loved it for the great food, and for a girl on a budget one decadent meal filled you up enough not to have to eat for another twenty-four hours.

Dolled up in her favourite batik pants, sandals made in Nepal and an upcycled scarf she’d made herself from an old T-shirt, Saskia sat fiddling with the piece of string she’d tied around her wrist to remind her of…something as, with scientific appreciation, she watched the man who’d just walked through the front door.

The photo of NJM hadn’t lied, though it could be accused of under-representation. He looked immaculate; his dark suit crisp, the knot of his deep red tie tight, his shoulders broad and proud. And as a waitress approached the naturally provocative curve of his mouth hooked slowly into a nearly-smile. Even from across the restaurant Saskia saw the poor girl’s knees buckle.

He really was beautiful. But, even better to Saskia’s mind, beautifully anomalous.

It didn’t make sense, and to a mathematician there was no more satisfying moment than when the seemingly senseless finally added up. Lissy dated bad boys because she wanted to drive her rich parents crazy. Ernest liked Oreos because she’d shared hers with him the day Stu had left. But why would a man who looked like that need to go online to find a date to a wedding?

Saskia ran a hand over her hair which was—by feel at least—not doing anything overly crazy. He must have caught the movement as the next moment his eyes found hers.

Wow, she thought, her lungs tightening and her tummy tripping over itself in rhapsodic pleasure, those eyes should be classed a lethal weapon.

He lifted his hand in a wave. She did the same.

Thus unfrozen, Saskia shuffled her fork as if it was important she do so at that very moment, and told herself to get a grip. This was research, not a real date. And if a chat with NJM of the blue eyes, dark suit and sinfully sensuous mouth could help her nail the angle that would take her infographic from informative to viral, then she’d just have to suffer through a date with the guy.

As her research subject began to stride her way Saskia made to stand. In pressing her hand to the table, her palm landed on her fork, sending it flying across the room.

Saskia watched, mouth agape, as it spun towards the table of a young couple, where it landed with a series of less-than-musical crashes, causing the girl to scream at the top of her lungs.

A pair of waiters in black and white zipped out to clear the mess, calm the girl, and offer free desserts.

“Need this?”

Saskia dragged her eyes from the disaster zone in the direction of a rumbling deep voice. Her eyes hit jacket button, rich red tie, jaw carved by the gods, a mouth tilted at the corners, a nose like something freed from Italian marble and smiling blue eyes that made the straight lines and curlicues flittering through her head scatter like bowling pins.

And then her focus shifted and she noticed he was holding a clean fork.

“Right,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. “Thank you. Not one of my more elegant moments.”

NJM’s mouth curved into a deeper smile. It was a mouth made for smiling, she decided, amongst other things.

“Shall we?” he said, motioning to the table.

He waited for her to plonk into her chair before he eased his large frame into the seat opposite, popping his jacket button and running a hand down his perfect tie. His nails were as neat and tidy as the rest of him. His fingers were long and graceful, yet exquisitely masculine.

She lifted back out of her chair and held out a hand, “I’m Saskia. Saskia Bloom.”

“Nate Mackenzie,” he said, his nearly smile stretching out into the real thing, taking him from beautiful all the way to heartbreaking.

Maybe he had a third nipple. Or ate with his feet. But so far, Saskia saw no obvious reason a man like him couldn’t find love on any street corner in the free world.

“A friend and I had a bit of fun guessing what the NJM stood for,” Saskia said.

“Care to fill me in on your guesses for the J?”

Juicy, she thought. Jpeg. Junk. “Not so much.”

The smile was back, and so were the curly tingles in her belly. Charisma, she told herself. Something chemical—hormonal, perhaps, or to do with endorphins. Not her field.

“Jackson,” he proffered. “It was my father’s name.”

Her researcher’s ear pricked. “Was?”

A beat, then, “He passed away several years back.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. Mine too. I mean, his name wasn’t Jackson, but my father passed away a few years ago.” When, Nate gave her nothing, just that face, and the promise of that smile, she blundered on. “I don’t have a middle name, though. My mum died having me and it was all my father could do to name me at all. Even then it was after the doctor who’d given him the bad news. Or so went the story he told me every day on my birthday—”

Apparently she was going to blunder on till the end of time, as her research subject sure wasn’t about to stop her. To stop herself, she reached for the massive jug of iced water, but Nate got there first. Perhaps it was gentlemanly behaviour. More likely, considering the fork incident, the guy was a quick learner. She sat on her hands as he poured her drink.

“So,” she said, after managing a drink without spilling any on herself, “is this how your blind date’s normally go? A slapstick show followed by the comparison of dead parents?”

“Not so much,” he said, his smile only going as far as his eyes, which somehow didn’t diminish the effect one jot. “Yours?”

“You’re my first.”

“Ah, a virgin.”

“Noooo. Not for a looong time.” Then, as it sank in, “An online dating first-timer? Yep.”

She wasn’t a natural blusher. Not by a long shot. But something about this guy had her blood in a spin.

“Ready to order, cara?” asked the owner, affectionately known as Mr Rita—a tall, skinny man in his sixties who sported a nifty little moustache.

Saskia shook herself upright. “Um, sorry! Haven’t even looked at the menu. Can you give us another five?”

She shoved a big plastic menu at Nate to distract him from Mr Rita’s not so subtle winking and thumbs up, then she set to studying the menu as if she didn’t know the thing off by heart.

As they put their orders in with Mr Rita a few minutes later Saskia’s phone rang. She didn’t need to glance at it to know it was Lissy, calling in case she needed a fake emergency. She quickly switched it to “Do not answer.”

“Your back-up plan?” Nate asked, motioning to a passing waiter for the wine list. “That was early.”

“My what?” she said, sliding her phone into the big bag at her feet.

His eyes slid back to her. Knowing. And blue. So very, very blue.

With a laugh, she admitted, “Spot-on, smart boy. Like you didn’t have me pick the restaurant so nobody you know would see us together.”

For the first time his eyes lost that permanent glint and he looked honestly surprised. And for the first time she felt as if she wasn’t on the back foot but leading from the front, where she much preferred to be.

“Am I wrong?” She leaned a little his way, her palms flat on the table.

“No,” he said, blinking. “And now I hear out loud how that sounds I feel like I ought to apologise.”

She shrugged, pointed out a bottle of red from the list in his hand. “If you’d taken one look at me and walked back out the door then you would have owed me an apology. It was only sensible of us both to take measures. I mean, you should see the lies the other guys on the site tell about themselves.”

“Lies?” he repeated, as if it had never occurred to him.

Saskia counted off her fingers. “Your photo might have been a fake. You might have been lying about your age, your weight, your occupation, your name, your reason for joining the site. You might have been a psycho killer.”

With each less-than-flattering “might have been” Nate’s surprise, if anything, seemed to wane. The glint was back, and he too leaned forward. She caught a hint of purely masculine spice curling above the saucy scents of herbs and garlic.

“So, if you met a man in a bar, on a train, or jogging in the park, you’d have more faith that he wasn’t a psycho killer?”

“I don’t jog.”

His mouth kicked, as if his smile surprised even him.

Her cheek twitched in response. He noticed, and the glint in his eyes changed. Deepened. Found some kind of heat. At which point his gaze dropped to her mouth, the dip at the bottom of her neck, then moved back to her eyes.

While Saskia struggled to remember how to breathe.

But while Nate Jackson Mackenzie, with his good looks, air of money and charm that could lure a siren to dry land, was probably used to having women fall all over themselves whenever he walked into a room, Saskia wasn’t most women.

Which was why, when he stretched out a leg beneath their small table, his calf connecting with hers and shooting sparks up her leg, she said, “I didn’t sign up to Dating By Numbers in an effort to find my one true love.”

The slight rise of an eyebrow gave her the impression he didn’t believe her.

Wow. Okay. So that irked. Maybe that was his great flaw: he could be irksome.

She whipped her bag onto her lap, found a business card and thrust it in his direction. “I’m a freelance statistical researcher working on an infographic about online dating for the website.”

She could have pumped a fist in the air at the surprise that coloured his eyes at that one! And then from one heartbeat to the next his brow furrowed and she saw the brain behind those dauntingly beautiful eyes whir into life. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might leave, but the longer he sat there, staring at her card, the more she wondered. And hoped that he’d stay.

He finally, finally, pocketed her card and said, “And to think you all but accused me of being a possible psycho killer.”

“I’m a mathematician,” she said. “Not exactly the same.”

“I thought the point was that people lie.”

“I—What?” Irked didn’t even touch on how that made her feel. Punctuating her words with a waggly finger, Saskia said, “I said I was looking for somebody to talk to, which is completely true.”

One eyebrow cocked. “Safer to say it was bending the truth?”

“Not even slightly. It’s not my fault if you misunderstood my meaning.”

She crossed her arms, knowing she sounded defensive. But it was hard to be all sweetness and light when he was watching her the way he was. All charm and half smiles were gone as he looked her over, as if he was sizing her up for something. Hopefully not a hole in the ground.

Then he did some surprising of his own when next he said, “My motives for dating online aren’t altogether pure either.”

Ignoring the “altogether pure” jab, Saskia attempted to raise an eyebrow right back at him. But she’d never mastered the skill, so probably ended up looking astounded. She schooled her features back to normal. “You said you were after a date for a wedding?”

“I am. But recent events have meant my needs have altered a little.”

“Do I need to call my back-up plan?”

He laughed—a deep, rumbling sound that made her knees clench together.

“The greater problem, for me, is that I have three sisters who seem to think it’s their mission in life to find me a wife. Thus, I let slip that I already have a date for the wedding, and that this date and I are…seeing one another.”

“Let me get this straight. There are no women in your life who would happily go with you to a wedding, so you made one up?”

“Not one who would understand that it wasn’t the beginning of something more.”

Okay. Now she’d met the guy, she could see that. Saskia felt herself nodding.

He went on, “What I need, Saskia, as well as a wedding date, is someone who would be willing to pretend to be my girlfriend.”

Still nodding, she realised he’d stopped talking and was looking at her intently. As if waiting for an answer.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?”

“Are you dating anyone at the moment, Saskia?”

“Am I—?” Saskia thought of Lissy, Dropkick Dave and snapped carrots. “I wouldn’t have signed up to a dating site if I was.”

“But you’ve signed up even though you’re not looking for ‘The One’?”

Her mouth twisted. He had her there.

“So, how do you feel about bending the truth just a little while longer?”

Saskia blinked, the meaning of his words coming through slow and sluggish. “You want to do all that…with me?”

His nostrils flared slightly, as if he was weighing his options one last time. Well, to hell with that. She was nobody’s—

“Yes,” he said with a determined nod.

“Right.”

Saskia so wished she had pen and paper at hand as whatifs, problems and possibilities, questions and escape routes burst inside her head, spearing away into a million tangents.

“But…can’t you just tell your sisters no? Tell them…what-ever your problem really is?”

Secret wife? Secret difficulty in the bedroom? Secret identity? She itched to ask.

But when a muscle flickered in Nate’s cheek and a moment later he lifted a thumb to his right temple, she thought best not. Best not tell him his idea was crazy either. Pretend girlfriend. Sheesh! Only he didn’t look crazy. He looked as if he was at the end of his rope.

And just like that the curly tingles in her belly pinged into perfect straight lines.

Could it be possible that Nate Mackenzie needed her after all?

It had been months since she’d felt that flicker of purpose. Just because one man had thrown her benefaction back in her face so cruelly, it didn’t mean she wasn’t damn good at it.

“You’re serious?” she asked.

Nate’s thumb stopped rubbing his temple and he looked her dead in the eye. Saskia tried her very best to not wriggle as all that gorgeous intensity trickled through her like over-carbonated bubbly.

“As serious as a man can be,” he said.

Mr Rita and his boys arrived at that moment, with plates of colourful bruschetta and fat, shiny strips of barbecued calamari and green salad. But, while Saskia usually had to stop herself from leaning over and kissing the plate, her eyes never once left Nate’s.

“Buon appetito!” said Mr Rita.

As one Nate and Saskia said, “Grazie.”

And then they both smiled.

Saskia took a breath. “I’m…” Flabbergasted, bemused, actually considering this? “I don’t know how to put this, but I’m not sure if I can pull it off. You’re—not the kind of man I usually date.”

“You might be surprised to know you’re not the kind of woman I usually date either,” said Nate, laughing as if the world had finally found its natural order.

She kind of wanted to kick him in the shin. In fact…

“Oof!” he said, sitting up and rubbing at the spot.

“Sorry.” She shuffled on her seat, as if that had been her intention the whole time. “So how would this work, exactly?”

“It’s the first Saturday in spring. You free?”

She did the math in her head. “I believe so.”

“That’s how it’s done.” And then he smiled, as if the deal was done. Poor love. He had no idea what he was in for.

Saskia bit into her calamari, enjoyed every succulent drop, before asking, “So, what do I get out of it?”

“Hmm?”

“The deal. You’re getting a girlfriend…” She paused when the guy actually winced at the word.

“What do you want, Saskia?” he asked, charm forming between the words like mercury.

“I want what I wanted from the beginning. To get the low-down on online dating.” But if she could save time, money, by having a guinea pig do it for her…

“Here’s the low down,” said Nate. “It’s as much of a crap shoot as closing your eyes and picking someone out of the phone book. I should know. You’re my seventh.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You’ve asked six other women to pretend to date you?”

His mouth kicked into a smile while his eyes came over all dark and intense, lit with that flicker of heat. “I’ve been on six dates,” he corrected. “I asked only you.”

“Oh.” Well, that was kind of nice. “But I still need first-hand experience for my study—”

He shook his head, his eyes not leaving her. “No dating between now and then. I won’t either. Goes without saying.”

“Good to know. But I was actually going to suggest that maybe you could be the subject of my piece.”

A muscle flickered in his cheek and she wondered how long it would be before he was rubbing at that temple of his again. “Saskia, I’m not talking to you about my dating habits. My private life is just that. Private.”

He looked as if he meant it. But Saskia had always found that men liked talking about themselves. So she wasn’t really worried on that score. She’d find a way to get to the heart of the man—especially if she had a few weeks to do it. At the thought of a few weeks in the company of this man the curls of sensation were back in her belly.

“So when’s our next date?” she asked.

A frown creased his brow. “The wedding.”

“But what if someone asks how we met? If they ask you about my home, my family, my friends, my work? What’s an infographic?”

“I’m sorry—a what?”

“An infographic. It’s what I am working on for the dating site.”

He looked pained.

“It’s a diagram that shows information—stats, links, comparisons—in a bright, attractive, easy-to-digest contained image. We need a little background to do this properly, Nate. I can put it together, if you’d like. Research is my thing.”

A list of dry questions, she thought, warming to the idea, with some curve balls thrown in. Classic stat-collection technique. He could tell her a lot that way without even meaning to.

“Or how long will it take for your family to think you’ve just made me up?” When his cheek twitched again she knew she had him. “We’ll need to set up a couple of meetings between now and then. Casual get-togethers. Coffee, perhaps. We both like coffee. The Art Gallery has an Impressionists exhibition. Or we could go ice-skating. I don’t mind.”

Keeping him thinking about places he clearly did not want to go with her gave her the chance for the other half of her brain to create the research project in earnest. Questions piled up inside her head with such speed it made her breathless.

And as she was getting excited by the research, the layers upon layers of information this man could provide for her love formula, she remembered the pile of red envelopes wavering on her desk.

Her excitement deflated like a pricked balloon. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“Why not?”

The why was like a pain in her belly—one that was lessening by the day, but would remain till the day the last red envelope landed in her mailbox. “Time, I guess. More than anything.”

“An hour together here and there should suffice,” he said.

“Well, now, that’s about the most romantic thing a nearly pretend boyfriend has ever said to me.”

His mouth did the surprise smile thing—the one that gave a hint of straight white teeth and lit his intense eyes with genuine laughter. “What’s the problem? I’m a problem-solver. It’s what I do. Money, time, space, audience, you need it I provide it.”

“You’d be cutting into my worktime. I need to work.”

“Why?”

He was so sincere, so keen, she made a quick decision to tell him the truth. Part of it anyway. Not bend the truth, just not tell all.

“I have…debts.” Yet her chin lifted as she said it.

His long, slow breath in made her stomach hurt. Then, with a nod, he said, “I’ll take care of them.”

She shot out a laugh so loud the table shook. “Just like that? A blank cheque?” When he didn’t laugh back she realised. “You’re serious?”

“Deadly.”

“But I haven’t even said what I owe!”

He gave a slight lift of the shoulder, as if she could name her price. “Consider this negotiation, Miss Bloom.”

Miss Bloom now, was it?

“You have a debt. I have the means to wipe it from existence. I have need of a date to my friends’ wedding, and you seem amenable to the terms and conditions that come with being said date.”

“You pay off my debt—I pretend to be devoted to you?”

He eased into a smile this time, slow and sensual. A frizzle of energy lit her belly and she felt a sudden need to swallow.

“Seems more than fair,” said Nate.

“Seems like a version of the oldest profession,” she muttered.

Clearly not softly enough. “I’m not asking you to sleep with me, Saskia,” he said.

“Stop,” she said, her cheeks feeling like little spots of heat. “Now you’re just gushing.”

His laughter was soft, a low chuckle. And then he leant back in his chair, watched and waited.

A pretend boyfriend. A date to a wedding. No more red envelopes. No more reminders of Stu or his letter. The time and the means to get back to renovating the first place she’d ever rightfully called home.

“For the sake of argument,” she said, “would you change your mind if I told you this is what it would take?”

She threw out the hefty figure that covered Stu’s debt only, which she knew to the nearest cent, and he didn’t even blanch. Maybe if he’d flickered an eyelid, lost a little colour in that healthy face, or if his long fingers had gripped a napkin in despair that would have been the end of it. But for his complete lack of reaction she might as well have been asking for a tenner for the cab home.

And from one heartbeat to the next she considered his offer.

Seven months she’d been living under the weight of it. Seven long months of driving a banged-up car, of trawling online sales to replace every piece of electrical equipment she needed to make a living. Of taking menacing late-night phone calls from debt collectors, legal threats, her mortgage squeezing tighter and tighter. Of being romantically stagnate…None of the debt was her fault, but she was too bone-deep humiliated to do anything but absorb it.

Nate watched, bluer than blue eyes taking in her every breath. The guy was smart, gorgeous, clearly better than welloff. He wasn’t going into this thing desperate or despairing. He was doing a deal with all the cool of a business decision. Why couldn’t she do the same?

“Do we have ourselves a deal?”

“I get the feeling I’m going to regret this…” she muttered, then held out a hand. He took it and she felt a frisson of heat and something else—electricity, perhaps—shooting up her arm.

Then Nate said, “Who knows? Maybe I’ll be the time of your life?”

And with that came a big wallop of charm so bright she had to blink against such brightness.

It occurred to her belatedly that while she’d thought she’d had him on the ropes, distracting him with talk of infographics and ice-skating, he’d actually been in charge the entire time.

She waited till the buffet of charm subsided, before saying, “Who on earth filled your head with that rubbish?”

“Three sisters. All of whom you’re going to meet Sunday week at my mother’s house.”

On that note their dinner arrived: steaming pasta piled high with glistening red sauce, pungent with Italian herbs. The homemade bread oozing with butter. And for the first time ever at Mamma Rita’s Saskia lost her appetite.

After dinner—as always, Saskia insisted on going Dutch which, considering the amount he was about to lay down for her services, might have been a tad redundant—Nate walked her through the restaurant and outside where the breeze was brisk, the final notes of winter trying one last stir.

“Where are you parked?” asked Nate, pressing a hand to Saskia’s lower back.

She actually felt the warmth of him through her top.

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

“I walked. I don’t live far.” She’d planned on walking back too, only now she could afford transport. “I’ll grab a cab.”

One nod, then Nate looked across the busy street and with a determined wave hailed a cab. He opened the back door for her and she leaned in to give her Brunswick address to the cabbie.

She stood to say goodbye, or thanks, or see you soon, or whatever a girl was meant to say to her new faux-boyfriend.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Saskia Bloom,” Nate said, taking the decision out of her hands.

She placed her hand in his to find it enveloped in his strong, steady grip. “We’ll see, Nate Mackenzie,” she said.

Nate’s laughter was low—a rumble that slid down her arm and faded into the darkness. Leaving them looking into one another’s eyes. Hands still held. Two strangers who had just made a deal to pretend to be more.

Saskia moved in for a goodnight kiss on the cheek…right as Nate let go and pulled away.

Oh, God. He’d meant to give her a handshake while she’d—argh!

Saskia saw the moment Nate knew it, and as blood rushed from every extremity to land hard and fast on her cheeks a smile tugged at the corner of Nate’s mouth.

She opened her mouth to say…Well, she didn’t get a chance to say anything, as Nate’s hand slid to her waist and he pulled her close.

His blue eyes were shadowed, the street light creating a halo around his dark blond hair. He looked cool, steely, all greys and blues. And yet his touch was hot, as if a furnace burned just below the surface.

His nostrils flared as he moved in slowly, giving her time to call a halt.

But in the face of all that heat and strength, the scent of man, and after seven long months with a wiry, snoring, biscuitoholic dog her only male companionship, she wasn’t going anywhere.

A small smile kicked at the corner of his sensual mouth and then, easy as you please, he brushed his lips lightly across hers.

When she didn’t push him away, or knee him, he pulled her closer still, shooting sparks of awareness all over her body. Then, with another soft, tantalising press of his lips, he teased her, drawing out the kiss until her lips parted on a sigh.

He didn’t waste a second, his tongue tracing her teeth before sweeping inside her mouth. She gripped his jacket as, arching against his hands, into his heat and hardness, pleasure tugged at her belly before pooling lower.

The cold night air pressed in on her back as his heat burned her front. Heat won, pouring through her as the kiss slid into something deeper. Nate fisted his hands in the back of her top and Saskia rose to her toes, sinking completely into the kiss, into him.

As she began to feel drugged, hot and flaky, nearing the edge of control, Nate pulled back.

When she finally found her breath, Saskia asked, “What was that for?”

“Credibility.”

She glanced up the street to find a few late night stragglers looking in shop windows and ignoring them completely. “I reckon the cabbie’s convinced.”

Nate laughed, the sound reverberating through her still pulsing body. “So am I, to be honest. A hell of a lot more than I was five minutes ago.”

Saskia blinked up into Nate’s hooded eyes. When she licked her lips his grip tightened, and Saskia could feel her pulse whumping all over her body as her heat levels ramped up in preparation for more…

Then Nate neatly pulled away, making sure she was steady before he let her go completely. She wasn’t. Steady. She was wondering if she’d bitten off more than she could chew.

Hands now in pockets, all that latent heat trapped behind a wall of cool, Nate said, “Six weeks and a bit. And a wedding.” As if she might need some kind of warning.

You kissed me! she ached to throw it back at him, but she’d been all too willing to let him.

“And debts paid off,” she said instead, getting the feeling it would become some kind of mantra in the weeks to come. “And if you decide to be helpful and tell me about your dating life, I’ll be all ears.”

“Sweetheart, I’d pay double what you asked not to have to talk.” He held the back door of the cab as she slid inside. “I’ll call you soon.”

Saskia nodded, and as the cab drove away she couldn’t help but look back, to find him standing on the footpath, watching her too. Tall, broad, hair gleaming under the lamplight.

She lifted a finger to her mouth, which still tingled from the attention of his wonderful mouth.

There goes a man I could forgive for snapping my carrots, she thought. And probably a lot worse.




CHAPTER THREE


NATE RAN TWO hands over his face, trying to get some blood flowing to his brain. He was working more than ever; the number of emails bouncing into his inbox every minute proved it.

Ignoring them as best he could, he concentrated on the contract on his desk. Bamford Smythe, the “gaming guy” whose start-up company BamBam Games Gabe had discovered, had signed an exclusivity agreement with BonAventure, and now they were in the process of nutting out the finer details of the capital investment.

Smythe was pessimistic, pedantic and paranoid that everyone was trying to steal his ideas. Thankfully he was also brilliant. Nate just had to keep him on a short leash—which was turning out to be akin to lassoing a Tasmanian devil.

A knock at the door and a glance at the watch strapped to his wrist told Nate that it was three already. Dammit.

Rubbing a hand up the back of his neck, he called, “Come in.”

The door was opened tentatively, followed by a head poking around the door. “Hiya.”

“Saskia.”

After their date he’d emailed her with a half-dozen questions—basic stats about age, family, schooling. Then she’d called, suggesting they get together for a “get to know one another” in a “pretend we’ve had a half-dozen dates” kind of way. He’d told her to make an appointment, hoping she might waver. Alas, she wasn’t easily swayed.

Nate waved her in with one hand and finished annotating with the other. “Won’t be a sec,” he said, glancing up as she sauntered in. But his hands stopped midscrawl when he saw what she was wearing.

Her hair was tucked beneath the same fedora from her online profile picture, her legs were swimming in wide calf-skimming pants that looked like they’d been cut from a Hessian sack, sandals were tied up over her ankles, and she wore a brown cardigan she near got lost in, and a scarf long enough that a lesser woman would have stooped under its weight.

A thread of tension shot through him, landing with a twitch at the corner of his right eye as he considered what his family would be expecting. Certainly not this gamine creature who looked as if she might start sprouting poetry or drawing in chalk on his office floor.

What had he been thinking?

She shot him a quick smile as she took a curious tour about the room, her wide eyes shadowed beneath her hat, her lips soft and pink. The memory of how they’d felt beneath his own hit him and hit him hard—her gentle heat, her soft sighs, her sweet response that had licked at something deep inside him. Okay, so he’d been thinking of kissing her from nearly the moment he’d sat down.

She unhooked a satchel from her shoulder and dumped it unceremoniously on the sleek cream leather couch on one side of the room, bending over to rummage through it, giving him a nice view of a pretty fine backside. She might be slight, but he’d felt enough curves as she’d pressed into him to give any red-blooded man pause.

“Gotcha!” she said, standing upright, her profile lit with a happy little smile.

Contentment, he thought again, feeling something akin to envy at her easy pleasure. At how he’d barely swiped his mouth across hers before she’d started trembling.

He ran a hand up the back of his head several times to get his brain into gear. It was fine. Under other circumstances their unexpected chemistry might be a hindrance, but in this case it would help make them convincing.

And the deal was a good one. Saskia seemed cluey—the kind of person who just got on with things. She didn’t seem demanding, or clingy, or prone to tears and pouts. The antithesis of his sisters, in fact.

His tension eased. A little.

She caught his eye, then waved a couple of folders at him before throwing them onto the coffee table, where his assistant had earlier left an assortment of nibbles for their meeting, and moving his way.

“Your desk is so neat!” she said as she moved to perch on the edge of the black chair on the other side of his desk. The chair that had made Gabe look so big only a few days before made Saskia look like some kind of waif. “How do you know where anything is?”

“It’s where it’s meant to be.”

Her mouth twisted sideways. Then she shrugged. “What are you working on?” she asked, pitching forward. The whirls of lace beneath her cardigan scooped low, giving him a glimpse of the sweet rise of the flesh within.

“Contracts,” he said, endeavouring to keep his eyes on hers even as his body reacted viscerally, remembering how she’d felt in his arms—warm, soft, all woman. “New gaming company.”

“Which one?”

He hesitated, old habits dying hard.

“I’ll know them,” she promised, misunderstanding his silence. Then, pointing at her chest, said, “Maths degree, remember? Nerd girl.”

She looked so expectant, which only made him clam up more. It was a spontaneous reaction, brought on by years spent with women and their need to ask questions, to talk, to pry, to get to the heart of every damn matter. The more they wanted, the less he had to give.

He saw the moment she realised it. Her eyes widened and her lips pursed into a small O. “You’re not going to tell me, are you? Is it confidential? No? Okay. But what will I say if anyone asks me about your work? That you keep a tidy desk?”

He laughed before he’d even felt it coming.

If nothing else, he liked her. Honesty and decency shone through the quirkiness. And even beyond the signs of attraction that had led him to email her in the first place aside, their kiss had been natural, raw, effortless. And wanted. By both sides. This could work.

“BamBam Games,” he said.

Her eyes widened, her mouth twisting as she gave a long, low drawn-out, “Reeeeally?”

All that lovely cocky certainly was swept away. “Problem?”

“Not necessarily. Bamford Smythe is a genius. He’s going to change the world.” Under her breath she added, “Or destroy it from the inside of a cave somewhere.”

Nate cricked his neck. “You know the guy?”

“Of him. Lissy, my business partner, did some work for him once. The logos and icons on his website are her work.”

Nate clicked over to BamBam’s website for a quick reminder. It was slick, cool, with an aura of hipster that BamBam…Bamford had never given off in person. Now he knew why.

Then he realised Saskia was still talking.

“…and M&M’S. The guy is spookily addicted to M&M’S. So good luck!”

“Right. Thanks.”

“Finish your thought and then we can get started,” said Saskia, pressing herself to her feet, ridding herself of her long cardigan and tossing it towards the couch.

When she rounded his desk and headed to the wall of windows in only a lumpy lace tank, the beige pants and bondage sandals, Nate found himself watching her walk. Relaxed, easy, a neat little sway to her hips.

Not a mote of self-awareness about the woman—as if it didn’t occur to her he might be paying such close attention. That from his angle the afternoon sun sluiced through the window making the buildings glow gold and rendering her lightweight pants all but see-through.

Her silhouette showed off lean legs, gently curving hips and a round, high backside. He curled his hands into his palms till the nails bit deep. Despite the test kiss, she wasn’t his to touch. It hadn’t been part of the deal.

Her hands went to that waist and she stretched out her shoulders, as if opening to the sun. His blood rushed every which way but loose.

“Shall we do this?” Nate said, his voice gruff.

Saskia turned and he waved a hand to the couch.

Saskia picked out a strawberry before unwinding and kicking off her shoes, taking off her hat, ruffling her hands through her kinky dark hair. Then she sat in one corner, leaving the length to him, one foot under her backside, the other curling its toes into the thick white rug.

She made it look so…comfortable. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had anyone barefoot in his office before. He was pretty sure he liked it.

“So?” she said.

“You called this meeting, Miss Bloom,” said Nate as he took the other corner. “You have the floor.”

“Miss Bloom, is it? Well, then, we are all business.”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth, her lips closing around the red fruit. Then, with a soft sigh, she picked up the two neat leatherbound folders with leather ties from the coffee table and handed one to him.

“Flash,” said Nate, amazed that his tongue worked when it felt as if it was tied in knots.

“Stationery addiction.” She waved a hurry up hand, practically bouncing in her seat as she waited for him to pull out whatever was inside. “I know it’s a little more than we agreed to but I’m a sucker for a new project. There’s nothing like it—blank paper, freshly sharpened pencils. Anything’s possible.”

“Before real life gets in the way?”

She shrugged, as if she was still convinced one day things really could work out as she hoped they might. An optimist was Saskia. With Pollyanna tendencies. Nate made a note to remember that.

He opened his folder to find his emailed questions, only she’d expanded them to include a slew of small details, rich details—the kind of details and funny stories people tended to discover about one another on the first few dates. And his were all filled in.

“You researched me,” he said, eyes widening as he read on. School subjects, overseas trips, friends past and present, sports played, prizes won, legs broken and a full list of companies he’d invested in, complete with links to interviews he’d given to financial magazines and websites.

“Don’t get too excited. I do this for a living, remember. I just found what was out there.”

“I’m not sure excited is quite the right word.” He looked up to find her nibbling at her lower lip.

“I’ve overstepped the mark, haven’t I? Argh! Lissy calls it my Puppy Syndrome.”

She held up her paws and panted and Nate’s blood rushed south with such speed he had to grip the couch.

“But I just like being helpful. Here, give it back. We can start over. Pretend it never existed.”

Was she kidding? She’d just saved him hours. In Nate’s world that made her akin to the perfect woman.

He pulled his dossier out of reach and looked down at hers, gripped in her hot little hand. He found himself…not excited, exactly, but intrigued as to what was contained therein. “Swap.”

She blinked, her lashes jerking against her cheeks, then did as she was told.

Nate opened the first page, speed-reading past schooling—state run. Tertiary education—scholarships. Work—applied mathematics with government agencies, before she’d moved on to build her own business—research with a bent towards the statistical.

He slowed when he hit her favourite books, movies, TV shows, as a tumble of odd and wonderful nuances meshed together to form a picture of not just a set of sultry eyes and kissable lips but a woman. The Princess Bride nestled alongside Aliens and The Breakfast Club, Ray Bradbury butted up against Sophie Kinsella and John le Carré. And a litany of real-life adventures flew before his eyes.

Compared with him, she’d lived three lifetimes.

“You’ve really eaten live witchetty grubs? And—” he glanced down “—you were an extra on The Hobbit?”

A smile hooked the corner of her lips, soft pink and warm. “All of the above. They taste better warm. Like nuts. Witchetty grubs, I mean. Not Hobbits,” she corrected.

Laughing, Nate said, “Who knew statistics could be so much fun?”

That just lit her up—eyes bright, smile wide, cheeks pink, she glowed like a touch-lamp on level one. He wondered what it would take to light her up all the way.

Clearing his throat, he closed the folder.

Just in time for her to add, “My dad was a maths professor, so we lived in university housing, holidayed on campus. He never left his rooms if he could help it, while I’d sneak out and find people to talk to about things other than chaos theory. To ask about dinosaurs and rainbows and France. Being a university, there were always people happy to oblige. I found there’s always potential to learn something new. You only have to ask. So I never say no to possibility.”

“Never?”

That earned him a sassy grin. One he felt right deep down inside.

“What was your father like?” she asked. “Was he a lot like you?”

“A good deal.” Worked a lot, took responsibility seriously, blue eyes that laughed easily.

“How did he and your mother meet?” Her chin rested on her knee, her eyes the picture of innocence. But she’d forgotten, he had three sisters. Her nugget about her own father suddenly made perfect sense. She wanted to get inside his head. He almost felt sorry for her that she was going to waste her time trying.

Nate said, “If it’s not in the dossier let’s consider it extraneous to the project.”

Thwarted, she twisted her mouth.

“So,” he said. “Tell me something about me.”

“You’re testing me?” she said, sitting straighter.

“If you can’t pull it off what good are you to me?”

“Fine,” she said, crossing her legs on the couch, eyes burning into him, bright with challenge. “Bring it on.”

“Favourite colour?”

“Blue.” She looked around his white, silver and pale blue office and said, “But you’d have to be colour blind to miss that. Pick up your game, Mackenzie. You’re dealing with a pro.” She crossed her arms beneath her small breasts, pressing them up, creating swells above the neckline of her top.

“Pets?” he said, his eyes lifting to stick to hers.

She snorted out a laugh. “I’d bet my life savings that you’re not home enough to keep a cactus alive, much less a goldfish.”

Considering he’d wire-transferred those life savings into her bank account only a couple of days before, he knew that wasn’t much. But she was right. “You?”

“A dog.”

“Really?”

“You don’t like dogs?”

“I like them just fine. So long as someone else is in charge of feeding, washing, walking, cleaning up after them. What kind of dog? Please tell me it’s not the kind that fits in a handbag.”

“Ha! He’s an Airedale named Ernest. He belonged to an ex who thought he was going to be the next Hemingway. Turned out he was more opportunist than writer—he left Ernest behind as payment for the TV and stereo he took in his place.”

“Ever get them back?”

She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. But he was a master of body language, knowing when to attack a deal and when to take a breath, and by the hunch of Saskia’s small shoulders it mattered.

“Charming,” said Nate, his tone belying his sudden desire to find out the guy’s name and hang him from a balcony till he coughed up the goods.

“I came out with the better end of the deal.”

“Good dog?”

“Sheds like nobody’s business, has a wonky ear, will take a man down for an Oreo. But he’s never gonna steal my TV.”

Finding it hard to reconcile the woman before him being involved with the kind of man who could do that kind of thing, he moved on. “Family?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re a middle child—older sister, younger twin sisters.”

“A psychologist’s dream.”

“I’m an only child, remember, so get in line.”

He laughed and settled back in his corner of the couch. She settled back in hers. Game on, her smile said as she spoke. “Your mother is still about. Your father died when you were fifteen. A day before your fifteenth birthday, in fact.”

Nate’s throat closed over at that last part—a small fact he usually left out, as if it was one intimacy too far. But he’d brought up the subject of family. He’d asked for it.

She opened her mouth as if to say more, but he quelled her with a look. Then she brought her knees to her chest and snuggled in against the cushions as if she belonged there.

“Women?” Nate asked, even while he wondered instead about this woman, about the kind of men she normally dated. No doubt men with goatees and sandals swarmed around her in droves. Unless she preferred her men clean-cut in suits.





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