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‘Want to tell me what this machine has ever done to you?’ Ryan asked her with a grin.
‘Sorry,’ her breath came out in a rush and she realised she’d been pressing every button on the darned thing in her quest to exhaust her overactive imagination and beat it back into submission.
Ryan reached out and re-set the pace on the machine, and Sephy started to feel like she wasn’t going to have a heart attack after all.
‘You okay?’ he asked, running his gaze over her. ‘Only Ethan will kill me if I let one of our clients get injured.’
Ethan Love was the founder and CEO of the chain of deluxe gyms that made up Love Leisure. When Ryan had gone to him for help with his gambling addiction, Ethan had wanted to ensure his brother had a place to live and a place to work when he got out of rehab, so he had bought and refurbished this building, turned it into a branch of Love Leisure, and had then trained Ryan to manage it for him.
‘Actually, it’s good you came along,’ Sephy admitted. ‘I guess I got a little carried away trying to work through my –’ she stopped. She definitely didn’t need to be telling Ryan what was going on with her.
‘Frustrations?’ Ryan quipped.
Sephy felt herself blush as she heard the sexual connotation in the word. ‘Er, yes.’ Good grief, what was the matter with her? This was testament to how shaken up she was after Luke’s proposal. Non-proposal proposal, she reminded herself. She really was going to have to do better at remembering the fake part.
The fake part, after all, was probably what was going to allow her to agree to it.
Sephy’s stomach lurched – was she going to agree to it, then?
‘So you want to tell me what has you so frustrated, over a coffee?’ Ryan invited, thankfully interrupting her tracking mentally back to the one person she’d come in here to get a break from. ‘I seem to remember that was your drink of choice.’
Sephy stepped off the machine. ‘Can’t think of a better legally addictive stimulant, can you? Oh, crap,’ she put a hand up to her mouth, feeling all kinds of stupid. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to –’
‘Use the “A” word?’ Ryan shrugged. ‘An addict is what I am – what I’ll always be.’
‘Put a “recovering” in front of it and we’re all good here,’ Sephy said, and then was immediately worried. Aside from having Daisy’s best interests at heart, she wasn’t sure she should be telling Ryan how to talk about, or deal with, his problems. ‘Okay,’ she muttered, ‘Not my place, so sorry again.’
‘Relax. No offense taken. Come on. I know a great place around the corner that’s opened up. Or did you come in here for a quick workout before needing to be somewhere else?’
As Sephy eased into a couple of light stretches to cool down she determined to ignore the fact that she could feel Ryan’s eyes making a slow sweep of her again. Straightening up she confessed, ‘Actually I came in here hoping you would be around so that I could talk to you.’
The smile that lit up his face held such a potent reminder of the charming bad-boy she used to know that Sephy caught her lip between her teeth. She was under enough stress to be feeling like one sharp shock away from a meltdown as it was, so she pushed down the fear he was flirting with her.
As his eyes came up to meet hers she returned his stare steadily. Ryan’s old modus operandi had been to hide pain under slow, sure, wicked smiles and easy flirtation, so maybe that was what he was doing now.
‘I wanted to see how you were,’ she said, hoping her serious tone would cut through the mask.
‘Me? I’m fine.’
‘You are?’ Sephy searched his face for signs, but found it hard to get past that swagger of his. ‘Look, Heathstead is a small town. I heard about the breakup with Michelle and so I wanted to check. But if you say you’re fine…’
Ryan simply shrugged and went with, ‘Her loss, isn’t it?’
‘I guess.’ She supposed these days she didn’t deserve more than the ‘nothing touches me’ casual approach from him, but it irked that she recognised the attitude as one she had once mimicked to the max. ‘It must be hard, though,’ she pushed.
Ryan looked around the gym and then brought his gaze back to hers and lowered his voice. ‘You think I’m about to head for the nearest betting shop to numb the pain?’
‘Am I being silly? Do you really have this locked down?’ she pressed.
That slow grin teased as he leaned in and whispered, ‘How about if I admit that I’m going to extra meetings at the moment?’
‘Good.’ She took a subtle step back because it had been a long time since Ryan had whispered into her ear and it felt weird. ‘Is it helping?’
‘Well it’s certainly helping me not to gamble, at any rate.’
‘Great.’ Sephy pointed to the changing rooms. She could see she wasn’t going to get anywhere checking up on him in his place of work. ‘I’ll go grab my bag and we can head out for that coffee.’
Twenty minutes later Sephy peered over the top of her latte at Ryan and realised that agreeing to have coffee with him had upped the level of complication between them. Until now she had only met with him while Michelle, who had seemed nice enough, was there, or, with Daisy.
She decided he was going to have to put up with her butting in and came right out with, ‘Have you told Ethan about what’s happened?’
There was a flash of surprise in his eyes, but she couldn’t afford to let this go. Not if there was a chance he was struggling and had no one else to lean on. If Sephy had to step up and be there for him, well, hadn’t she had already implied she would, by agreeing to Ethan’s plan to help his brother all those months ago?
‘Ethan trusts me,’ Ryan said. He took a sip of his cappuccino, set it down on the hammered aluminium surface of the café table and added sombrely, ‘I understand why you might not.’
‘I’ll admit that this isn’t entirely comfortable territory for me.’
‘Trust me, it’s no picnic for me either. You think I want my ex stopping by to check I’m getting over a breakup simply because she doesn’t know me well enough to know whether or not I’ll relapse?’
‘Do you know yourself well enough to know whether or not you’ll relapse?’ she shot back.
Ryan laughed and the laughter seemed to relax something in him. ‘You know, I really never imagined you acting as my conscience. Although I admit you’re much prettier than the one I have.’
Again with the flirting and again she hoped it was simply a defence mechanism.
‘How about instead of seeing me as your conscience,’ she asked carefully, ‘you see me as a friend who has a vested interest in making sure you’re okay?’
‘How about you let me take you to dinner tonight and we discuss further how okay I am?’ Ryan replied, without missing a beat.
Sephy’s latte went down the wrong way. She hadn’t got this wrong. He was totally flirting with her. As she grabbed the napkin he held out to her, she blinked back her watering eyes, took in his giant grin and dragged in a steadying breath.
‘Ryan, I didn’t come here for a date. I came to check you were okay. For Daisy.’
At the mention of their daughter his face turned serious. ‘I’m not going to mess that up.’
‘Okay. Well, that’s good, then.’
‘So it’s a “no” to dinner?’
‘You’ve only just stopped seeing Michelle.’
‘Usually a woman thinks it’s a bonus when the man she accepts a dinner invitation from is single.’
‘I am not going to go out to dinner with you.’
She tried not to worry that she was making things harder for him, not easier. Luke had told her Ryan wasn’t her responsibility, but if she wanted him to have a good relationship with Daisy, he kind of was.
Sephy glanced to his hands holding his cup and making it look small. They were nice hands. They were hands that had travelled over every inch of her body, she remembered, taking a quick sip of coffee.
But they weren’t Luke’s hands, is that what it came down to?
Surreptitiously she swept her gaze over Ryan. The man managed a gym. He worked out. What was the matter with her that when she looked objectively at his body she didn’t see it in those banners sexing up her lingerie line?
‘You know, I thought it would be hard to see you like this,’ Ryan said, breaking into her inventory of his model looks.
‘This?’ she asked, hoping he wasn’t about to call her on her looking him over and use it to up the flirting.
‘You’re so different from how you were when we were –’
Oh. She couldn’t help the smile. ‘You mean when we were the ultimate cliché?’
He laughed. ‘I guess we were. The poor little rich kids running around town partying.’
‘It would be easier to look back on and not cringe if we had been much younger than we were.’ Sephy cleared her throat and raised her gaze to his. ‘We stayed with each other longer than we should have, Ryan. We fell into a lifestyle and had no one to pull us out of it.’
‘I guess having Daisy finally pulled you out of it,’ he said, nodding as he stared down at his coffee.
‘Having her made me grow up, yes.’
‘I wish I could tell you that if I’d stuck around I’d have grown up too.’
‘Forget it; it’s all in the past.’
This time Ryan’s smile was wry. ‘You always were quick to forgive people their sins.’
She’d had to be. How else would she have survived being the one King who showed no aptitude for the family company KPC? She’d had to understand her father and how his emotional connection to the business translated to those who didn’t share that, in order to forgive him enough to have any kind of relationship with him at all.
‘If it makes you feel better, I didn’t forgive you overnight,’ she told Ryan, her voice gentle.
‘It does. And who knows, maybe you’re starting to see how much I’ve changed.’
‘You don’t have to show me. You have to show Daisy.’
‘I will. But maybe I want to show you too.’
‘Ryan –’
‘What?’ His eyes searched hers. ‘That ship has sailed?’
‘I don’t want there to be any confusion.’ Getting mixed up with Ryan would massively complicate the relationship she wanted him to have with Daisy.
‘Is there someone in your life at the moment?’
She closed her eyes and saw Luke and felt the shock of that right down to her toes.
That was so completely messed up she didn’t even know what to do with it.
When she opened her eyes it was to see Ryan staring at her with a tenacity that she remembered.
Without thinking it through, other than to realise that Ryan believing she was already involved with someone would help make things less messy, she answered, ‘Yes.’
‘Is he good with Daisy?’ he asked.
Sephy grasped her glass of coffee and let the residual warmth steady her. ‘You haven’t yet earned the right to ask that question.’
‘That’s fair. Is he good for you?’
‘He’s – yes.’
‘You don’t sound too sure.’
‘I am sure.’ The last thing she needed was for Ryan to see her as a project to take on, to help keep his addiction at bay, or otherwise.
‘Is it Luke Jackson?’
Sephy’s latte glass clattered back down to the table. ‘I –’ She tried again, ‘what makes you think that?’
‘He came into the gym soon after it opened. Got the feeling he wasn’t checking out the premises so much as checking on the manager.’
She would kill Luke. ‘Did he say something to you?’
‘We exchanged a few pleasantries.’
‘A few…What the hell does that mean?’
‘It means he was being a good friend to you and Daisy.’
Sephy didn’t know what to say.
Ryan folded his arms and leaned forward. ‘Don’t tell me you’re still not used to people paying attention and looking out for you?’
‘Something like that,’ she cleared her throat. ‘It must be a novelty for you too.’
He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment and Sephy wondered if he was thinking about his parents and how ill equipped they were to deal with his gambling addiction – to deal with their sons in any way. Ryan was lucky he had his brother, Ethan, on his side.
‘I guess we’ll both have to try and get used to it,’ Ryan murmured.
‘I guess we will,’ Sephy answered.
‘So is it Luke?’
Maybe she should have listened to Nora all those months ago when her sister had told her to, for once, take having Ryan back living near her and Daisy to its worst-case scenario and properly decide if that was something she could handle before she said yes to Ethan helping him relocate.
Because what she couldn’t handle was Ryan deciding he wanted back into her life in any other capacity than being Daisy’s dad. He’d left her when she was at her most vulnerable, and even though she had truly forgiven him, she wasn’t about to forget all the small-town whisperings she had endured, or how he had made her feel like she sucked at relationships and wasn’t a safe bet as a partner in life.
Ryan was going to get swept up in learning to be a dad, and if he was going to be around her while he did that, she didn’t want him confusing matters and blurring the lines in his head.
It was better if he thought she and Luke were together, so she looked him straight in the eye and told her own little white lie. ‘It is Luke, yes.’
Sephy sat surrounded by signature antique gold-coloured tissue paper, rolls of sticky labels with the Seraphic emblem on, and different-sized samples from her lingerie collection. As she wrapped each sample in the beautiful paper, ready to place in goodie-bags for the buyers at her launch party, she was already starting to feel guilty about lying to Ryan.
It was for the good of their future relationship as Daisy’s parents, she told herself as her phone rang. Now all she had to do was tell Luke she was agreeing to his conditions and they could get the photo shoot under way and that would be one more thing checked off her endless list.
Ignoring the lick of fire igniting in her belly at the thought of telling Luke, she lifted up a pile of tissue paper and found her phone. Glancing at the screen to see who the caller was, she answered with a, ‘Hi, Sis,’ and tucking the phone between ear and shoulder, laid out another sheet of tissue paper and pulled matching camisole and French knickers in champagne-coloured silk off the pile.
‘I’m pulling rank,’ Nora said, without preamble. ‘You are coming into London this week and I’m taking you out for lunch and then we’re going shopping for shoes for the launch and that is all there is to it.’
‘I don’t have time,’ Sephy said automatically. Not being as obsessed with shoes as her sister was, she was pretty sure she could find a pair in her wardrobe that matched the LBD she had elected to wear.
‘Make the time. You know there won’t be any immediately following the launch.’
‘There might be,’ Sephy swallowed as her voice got small, ‘if no one places an order.’
‘That’s the way, keep talking positively like that and the sky’s the limit.’
‘Okay. Okay. I’ll try and free up some time.’
‘Great. So did you do it?’
‘What?’ Sephy had reached out to grab a goodie-bag, but stopped at the question.
‘Did you ask Luke The Question?’
‘I did.’ She snatched up a bag and shook it open.
‘And…?’
‘He has a couple of conditions.’
‘Oh my God, he’s actually going to do it?’
‘If I agree to his terms.’
‘Huh?’
Sephy stopped assembling samples and said into her phone, ‘He wants me to model with him.’
‘Delicious.’
‘Nora,’ Sephy warned.
‘I can’t help it.’
‘Yes, because you’ve never got yourself into a fix at all have you?’ Sephy muttered, thinking about the time Nora had super-glued her shoe to her hand in front of Ethan.
‘But mine worked out so well for me in the end. Maybe yours will as well.’
‘You didn’t have a daughter or your daughter’s dad come back onto the scene.’
‘What?’ Nora gasped. ‘You’re seeing Ryan?’
‘No. Of course not.’
‘Good. Because there’s complicating your life and then there’s complicating your life.’
Sephy agreed. That was why she had lied and told Ryan she was seeing Luke.
‘I’ll get in touch with Frazer today and set up the shoot,’ Nora said.
‘I haven’t exactly said yes, yet.’
‘Why not?’
‘Probably because of the other condition.’
‘Intriguing. Ooh,’ Nora said sounding excited, ‘does he want to do a private set of photos?’
‘Oh, would you please stop. There’s nothing tawdry going on here.’
Nora laughed. ‘Did you just use the word tawdry?’
‘Okay, I really need you to focus.’
‘But did you, though?’
‘You know, I think I’m too busy to come to London after all.’
‘Okay, okay, I’m sorry. So what’s his other condition?’
Sephy dragged in a breath. ‘He wants me to pretend to be his fiancée for a few weeks.’
There was a long pause and then, ‘Sephy that’s not even remotely a good idea.’
‘I know,’ Sephy said, immediately heading her sister off at the pass.
‘I mean, you just got through telling me you understood about not complicating your life.’
‘I know.’
‘It’s only that these things have a way of getting out of control.’
‘I know,’ Sephy repeated for the umpteenth time. What if she had to touch him in front of his parents? Kiss him, even? What if she forgot how playing with fire got your fingers burned?
‘Why does he want you to pose as his fiancée anyway?’
Sephy peeled off a Seraphic label and sealed the ends of the tissue-paper parcel of lingerie together.
‘Seph?’
‘Something to do with his parents visiting.’
‘What? He’s told his parents he’s engaged, when he isn’t?’
‘Apparently, yes.’
More silence, followed by, ‘You can’t worry about losing his friendship if you say no, and, Sephy, you should say no to this.’
‘If I say no, he won’t hold it against me. You know he’s not like that,’ she responded. She popped the lingerie into a bag and reached for another sheet of tissue paper. ‘He’s helped me out so many times.’
‘Don’t make it sound tit for tat. Friends don’t keep score.’
‘If I say no I don’t get my photo shoot.’
Sephy ran her gaze over her little production line of goodie bags. The boutique factory she had signed an agreement with had done an outstanding job of the samples. She didn’t want to even think about the debt she would incur if she didn’t get to place that first large order.
‘Is this about saving money?’ Nora surmised. ‘Damn it, you know I’ll cover it.’
Sephy winced. ‘It really isn’t only about the money.’
‘Then you lied to me when you told me you were over what Dad wrote to you in his last letter,’ Nora accused.
‘I really didn’t. Not completely or intentionally, anyway.’ This time the silence from Nora screamed at her. Sephy pushed out the breath stuck in her windpipe. ‘Okay. Yes, of course I was never going to be able to start a business and not think about Dad and what he would have thought.’
‘I can tell you what he would have thought,’ Nora interrupted indignantly. ‘I can tell you what he’s thinking right now as he’s looking down at you. He’s thinking, that’s my youngest girl and she’s doing everything I knew she could do in life – and more.’
Sephy’s vision blurred as she silently asked herself if her father might also be thinking, ‘Of course, she’s only doing it because I gave her that final push.’
‘Why can’t this be about two friends helping each other out?’ she whispered into her phone.
‘Sephy –’
‘I know. I know.’ Sephy sniffed and pulled herself upright. ‘I’ll let you know what I decided when I see you on Friday.’
‘Wow. You’re giving yourself a whole two days to think this through.’
‘Progress huh? A whole forty-eight hours longer than I usually give myself to make a decision. See you Friday.’
She ended the call, but kept the phone in her hand as she ran her gaze over the goodie-bags she was assembling.
Her gut said the women receiving those goodie-bags were going to be delighted after seeing Luke Jackson with his hands on the contents!
Her gut said getting to help Luke in return was all the justification she needed.
She looked down at her phone and before the butterflies swirling in her belly managed to break through her stomach lining and invade every part of her, she scrolled through her contacts list and found the entry she wanted.
‘Hey you,’ Luke greeted as he picked up.
‘I accept your conditions,’ said Sephy in a rush.
There was a fraction of a pause and then Luke said, ‘Great. My place. Tomorrow.’
‘What?’ She felt kind of breathy and on the back foot. He was talking like he was taking the lead in this, like it was his situation to control.
‘I thought time was of the essence,’ Luke said, when she ran out of words as quickly as she’d rushed them out.
‘I’m not sure I can get Frazer – that’s the name of the photographer, to make tomorrow.’ Not that she would necessarily be able to make it, either, because surely Nora was going to kill her for not even sleeping on her decision.
‘No problem. We’ll use tomorrow only for practising.’
‘Practising?’ Sephy’s voice went all high.
‘The more comfortable we are with each other, the better and quicker the shoot will go.’
‘I guess,’ Sephy said realising that was probably true. ‘But why your place?’
‘It’s less distracting than yours and afterwards you can tell me what I need to buy to make my place look more lived-in for when the parents visit.’
‘Oh. Okay. You want me to bring anything?’ Sephy rolled her eyes. God, what, like she should turn up with cake or something?
‘Just bring yourself. And your lingerie. Pop over once you’ve dropped Daisy off at school.’
‘Right. Me. Lingerie. Your place. Tomorrow.’ Sephy swallowed.
‘You okay?’
‘Sure,’ she said, thinking, of course she bloody well wasn’t okay. Otherwise her voice wouldn’t be all high and scratchy, while Luke’s voice in her ear sounded all deep and confident and…
‘See you tomorrow,’ she muttered into the phone before ending the call.
She dropped the phone into her lap like it was on fire and stared again at the line of goodie-bags.
Tomorrow was a business thing.
That was all.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘It’s me.’
Luke heard Sephy’s voice over the intercom. He pressed the buzzer to open the gates that led to the sweeping driveway and newly built Georgian-styled house he had moved into on the success of Zombie Freedom Fighters I, II, and III.
Was it his imagination or had Sephy’s voice sounded all breathy?
He shoved his hand through his hair before heading for the imposing double doors in the entrance hall.
About to open them, he hesitated. It would probably look weird if he was standing at the front door waiting for her to drive up, wouldn’t it?
Like he couldn’t wait to see her in her underwear, or something?
You know what, mate? This might not be the brightest idea you’ve ever had.
In fact, Luke thought, as he hovered uncertainly in his own hallway, he could hardly believe he had thought the idea genius in the first place.
In his head, he had glossed over the finer points in order to get to the part where he could help her and help himself at the same time. At heart, he had never really expected her to agree.
But then she had and when she had his first reaction hadn’t been relief he was going to get to allay his foster parents’ fears for him. No, his first reaction had been to feel as if he was falling off the top of a very tall building, and hurtling, eyes wide open, towards the ultimate face-plant.
He heard the crunch of gravel and made himself return his mug to the kitchen before he wandered back out to throw the door open wide.
‘Hey you,’ Sephy greeted, with her usual, full-on, no-artifice smile.