THE FLAT IN NOTTING HILL

Love and lust in the city that never sleeps!

Izzy, Tori and Poppy are living the London dream—sharing a big flat in Notting Hill, they have good jobs, wild nights out … and each other.

They couldn’t be more different, but one thing is for sure: when they start falling in love they’re going to be very glad they’ve got such good friends around to help them survive the rollercoaster …!

THE MORNING AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE by Nikki Logan

SLEEPING WITH THE SOLDIER by Charlotte Phillips

YOUR BED OR MINE? by Joss Wood

ENEMIES WITH BENEFITS by Louisa George

Don’t miss this fabulous new continuity from Modern Tempted™!

Dear Reader

Well, here we are again—but this time I’m part of a team! This is the first book I’ve ever written in collaboration with other authors, and I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did planning and writing it.

Writing is usually very solitary—just me and my laptop—but with this book I’ve had three other fab authors to brainstorm and chat with. We shared photos and decor plans for the flat in Notting Hill, and bounced around ideas for the café where all the flatmates meet up.

The best bit has been seeing glimpses of Lara and Alex in the other books in The Flat in Notting Hill series. For once the road to happy-ever-after for my couple isn’t the limit of their story, and I can see a bigger picture of their friendships and their lives together. Add to that the wonderful vibrancy of the Notting Hill setting and this story really leapt off the page for me. I hope it does for you too!

Love

Charlotte x

CHARLOTTE PHILLIPS has been reading romantic fiction since her teens, and she adores upbeat stories with happy endings. Writing them for Mills & Boon® is her dream job. She combines writing with looking after her fabulous husband, two teenagers, a four-year-old and a dachshund. When something has to give, it’s usually housework. She lives in Wiltshire.

Sleeping with the Soldier
Charlotte Phillips

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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DEDICATION

For Sam, who keeps me smiling when I think I’m rubbish. I am so proud of you.

Table of Contents

Cover

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

DEDICATION

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

LARA CONNOR WAS aiming to corner the rich Notting Hill market in boutique lingerie and she wasn’t about to achieve that heady dream with French knickers that looked as if a club-fingered chimp had sewn them together.

She stared in disbelief at the mass of pale pink silk and delicate lace now rucked up in a tangle of mad stitches beneath the foot of her sewing machine and gritted her teeth hard enough to make her jaw ache. Above her head the banging started again with a new urgency that really brought out the hostility in her.

She liked to think she was a glass-half-full kind of person, laid-back, live and let live, default mood: happy. But the noise pollution emanating from the flat above all night, every night, had meant her sleep had been broken for weeks now. Tiredness had pushed her normally sunny attitude to the brink of her patience and, frankly, if it didn’t stop now, murder might be on the cards.

She lifted the foot of the machine, disentangled the ball of expensive fabric from the needle and examined it. Beyond saving. She lobbed it across the room into the ‘remnants’ bin. The knickers weren’t even salvageable enough to go into the ‘seconds’ bin. And having sunk every penny into this venture, she couldn’t afford to keep slipping up like this. The ‘remnants’ bin was looking far too full for her liking, and it was all the fault of the Lothario upstairs, who apparently couldn’t let a day pass by without getting laid.

The clanking and banging in the pipes had begun a few weeks ago, not long after Lara had moved in. The sudden increase in noise coincided with the return of the soldier brother of Poppy, who owned the flat upstairs. Lara had got to know Poppy quite well over the last four or five weeks, and her flatmate, Izzy. A brief hello on the stairs had quickly progressed to coffee and chat in the downstairs café. Both girls were excited to hear about Lara’s lingerie designs. Izzy had even bought a couple of samples. On her own in a new place, Lara was especially pleased to have made friends. If only Poppy’s brother could have a smidge of her consideration.

Sitting in Ignite, the ground-floor café, while Lara updated her blog courtesy of the free Wi-Fi, she’d picked up plenty of gossip from the other old-fire-station residents about Alex. He was rumoured to be some military hero, honourably discharged from the army after frontline action abroad. The building was also awash with gossip about his endless stream of women; the word was that he bedded a different one every night! And two or three times she’d actually seen said women, sporting that giveaway combination of evening clothes, bed hair and smug smile, making the walk of shame when she’d nipped down to the café for a takeaway coffee first thing in the morning. Lara had watched pityingly; she couldn’t think of anything more pointless. With all this evidence taken as a whole, there was no real question as to the source of the noise pollution that was tiring her out, disrupting her work and thus costing her money, of which she had absolutely no more.

The first couple of times it might even have been funny. His bed must be shoved right up against the radiator, because the water pipes for the top flat were clearly shared by her own little studio flat below. At first she’d rolled her eyes in exasperation and—possibly—a hint of wistful envy. Not that it had anything to do with the military hero himself, of course; in her opinion he sounded far too attractive for his own good. But still, it had been a long time since she’d last seen any action in that department. That was what big aspirations did to your life. There had to be sacrifices; something had to give. Lara Connor had plans and ambitions, and she intended to keep her eye on the prize.

The next step on that journey to success was the small shop she’d managed to secure in Notting Hill for the next two months. Her own pop-up shop to showcase her own line of vintage-inspired lingerie. The rent on this little flat was extortionate and had eaten away at her savings, but it was worth it so she could live near the premises and she’d been working all the hours she could muster. Sewing was only a part of it—there was marketing to think of, the shop to fit and decorate. Night and day her mind was filled with nothing else. She was already exhausted, just with the workload she had to shoulder, but she cared about none of it because this was the next step in her game plan, from which she would not be distracted.

Certainly not by some inconsiderate love god living upstairs. The endless noise was beginning to jeopardise her carefully laid plans, and she quite simply was not going to stand for it any longer. Especially since it now seemed that all night was no longer adequate for his needs. This morning she’d heard the familiar slam of the door as his most recent conquest left the building. But this time it hadn’t been followed by the welcome peace that she needed to produce the intricate lingerie she designed herself to the exacting standards she demanded. She worked with delicate, fine fabrics. Silks, lace, ribbons, velvet. The kind of garments she made took skill and close attention to detail. Absolute concentration was required.

Instead, what she’d had was half an hour of mad hammering. For the first few minutes she’d tried to ignore it, waiting to see if one of the other residents would intervene. Surely she couldn’t be the only one driven mad by this? But as the minutes ticked by and the noise didn’t abate she came to realise that clearly no one else was around to intervene. They’d all gone out to work, of course, while work for Lara took place right here. She needed to concentrate on her sewing. Everything was riding on this stock being perfect. Seconds were not an option.

As she pushed her chair back grimly and grabbed her door key from the table the bashing overhead began again in earnest, bringing a fresh wave of anger to bubble up inside her.

All night, every night was one thing. Was she now expected to put up with this racket all day too?

Enough was enough.

Shoulders squared, teeth gritted, she took the stairs up to the top floor grimly, ready to give Poppy’s inconsiderate brother a piece of her sleep-deprived mind, and the planned outburst screeched to a halt on the tip of her tongue as she rounded the corner at the top of the stairs. The hinge on her jaw seemed to be suddenly loose.

Poppy’s inconsiderate brother?

Correction: Poppy’s all but naked, roped with muscle, fit and breathtakingly gorgeous soldier hero brother. His modesty was saved only by a very small white towel, which was held up on his muscular hips by a single fold. Hard muscle twined the tanned biceps and broad shoulders. His stomach was drum-tight and his short dark hair was damply tousled. Smoothly tanned skin gave away the fact he’d spent months abroad in action before coming here. By sheer will she fixed her eyes above his neck when all they wanted to do was dip lower and check out those perfect abs.

And OK, for a moment she might have been stunned into silence by the revelation that, actually, the rumours were true, Poppy’s brother really was drop-dead gorgeous, and by the fact that his modesty was hidden by the tiniest of white towels, but then he’d gone on to ruin the effect by raising his clenched fist and hammering on the closed door of the flat, reproducing the sound that had driven her to the edge of her sanity for the past half an hour. Up close it was monstrously loud and her already aching head throbbed in protest.

‘I think,’ she snapped, in the coldest voice she could muster, ‘we can safely assume that everyone who lives on the other side of that door is either out or deaf.’

Alex Spencer stopped, knuckles poised mid-hammer, and turned sideways to look at her. Her thick blond hair was piled up messily on her head with a pencil stuck through the middle of it, she had a full rosebud mouth, and wide china-blue eyes that would have been captivating if they hadn’t got an expression in them that implied she’d quite like to see him decomposing in a ditch. She wore a pale pink cardigan with the top two buttons undone, revealing a silky smooth expanse of flawless porcelain décolletage, cropped jeans and bare feet. And even though he was so tired he could hardly see straight, and not only because he’d just spent a very active night in bed that involved anything but sleep, his pulse managed a jolt of interest.

‘And you are …?’ he said, raising sarcastic eyebrows as if she were the one who looked out of place and it were perfectly normal to be walking the corridors wearing a bath towel.

‘The poor sap who lives downstairs,’ she snapped. ‘Directly downstairs, to be specific. Right below you.’

He stared at her, his tired brain struggling to process what she was saying. It felt as if he were thinking through a very large wad of cotton wool. Technically, thanks to the way his sickening insomnia had progressed, night time for him had pretty much now turned into day and vice versa. Thus it was currently an hour or so past his bedtime and his patience was balanced on a knife edge.

‘What are you talking about?’

The question opened the floodgates and he took a defensive step backwards.

‘Your night-time action is ruining my life,’ she wailed. ‘All night, every night, crashing and clanking pipes while you get your rocks off with whatever girl you happen to have brought back. Your bed must be right up against the radiator or something. The noise travels down the pipes and echoes round my bedroom as if I’m in the bloody room with you. It’s utter selfishness! I can hear every move you make and I can’t take it anymore!’ She raised her hands up and pressed them to the sides of her head as if she thought it might explode. ‘I can’t have this kind of distraction. I’ve only got a week or so left before the shop launches and I’m going to go crazy if I don’t get some uninterrupted sleep.’

The blue eyes took on a hint of madness, and an unexpected twinge of sympathy twisted his stomach because restful sleep was currently an elusive thing for him too. It had been since he’d returned from his recent overseas tour via the hospital. He’d worked his way through convalescence at breakneck speed after the chest injuries he’d sustained in a roadside bomb, only to learn that he wouldn’t be going back. Physical injury was one thing, an early end to his career was quite another. Discharge from the army had not been what he wanted, no matter that it was honourable. He had a lot on his mind, he kept telling himself—it was no wonder that he didn’t sleep like a baby at night.

‘The shop?’ he said.

‘I’m in the middle of launching a pop-up shop in Portobello Road. It’s my first try at moving into proper retail instead of market stalls. I need it to be a success and nothing’s going to stop me, including your libido!’

Her angry explanation of her business commitments brought a lurching reminder that currently his own life was cruising along rudderless. It wasn’t as if he had a direction right now, or plans to consider. Lack of sleep had no consequence in his life, aside from the fact that his routine was getting a bit out of kilter, and who really cared about that? Since his social circle currently consisted of a group of girly flatmates, an old friend who was hardly ever there, and his kid sister, concern about his sleep pattern wasn’t exactly a buzzing topic of conversation. And since his sleep problems were rooted in an unrelenting spate of cold-sweat nightmares that made staying awake through the dark hours extremely attractive, he’d quite like to keep it that way.

After operations to remove shrapnel and four months of medical care, his physical recovery was as complete as it was going to get. He’d worked hard to regain his fitness, thinking that would be an end to it, believing he’d got off lightly. He hadn’t counted on the nightmares continuing. He hadn’t told anyone about them, not even Poppy, vaguely thinking that verbalising their existence might somehow give them even more of a grip on him. Easier to just evade sleep and hope they would subside. To help things along, he filled his waking hours with distracting activity, taking full advantage of the sudden lack of discipline and routine in his life after years of moulding to the requirements first of boarding school and then the armed forces.

The sense of purpose and the camaraderie that he’d come to take for granted in the army left a gaping hole in his life now it was unexpectedly gone. Hence the appeal of filling his time with far less challenging distractions. For the first time in his life he’d thrown himself into having fun, losing all sense of his current pointless existence by bedding as many women as possible. It wasn’t difficult. Women seemed to fall at his feet with minimal effort on his part, just the way they always had done.

Except, possibly, for this one.

‘If this carries on I’ll report you to the local council for noise pollution,’ she was snarling. ‘Can’t you phone Poppy?’

He cast exasperated hands down at himself in the small towel.

‘With what, exactly? Do I look like I’ve got a phone stashed on my person? If my sister would just haul herself out of her pit and answer the bloody door, I wouldn’t need to be making any noise,’ he yelled at the closed door, pressing his point by adding in another quick bash on it, which made the crazy neighbour from downstairs stiffen like a meerkat.

‘Will you stop with the knocking?’ she hollered. ‘Is Poppy deaf?’

‘Not as far as I’m aware.’

‘Then she’s not bloody in there, is she? You’ve been hammering on that door for half an hour and it’s loud enough to wake the dead.’ She threw her hands up in a gesture of exasperation. ‘For Pete’s sake, she must be at work. I saw her the other day and she mentioned she was on call this week.’

The implications of that information burst through his mind in a flurry of exasperation. Poppy could be gone for hours and he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt her work as a medic for something as ludicrously embarrassing as locking himself out. Her flatmate, Izzy, had just moved out and the only other person with a key was his friend Isaac, who was supposedly crashing in the extra room but who actually spent more time away than he did at home. He was currently globetrotting between swanky new potential continental venues for his chain of cocktail bars.

He had to face facts. He could hang out in the hallway in a towel for a chunk of the day until Poppy got back. Or he could sweet-talk the interfering neighbour, who looked as if she’d be glad to see his head on a spike.

He stepped away from the door, anticipating that an apology might not have quite the clout it needed if he was still within hammering distance of it.

He spread his hands.

‘Look, I’m sorry. What’s your name?’

She narrowed suspicious eyes at his newly amenable tone.

‘Lara Connor.’

‘Lara. I’m Alex.’

She nodded at him, not a hint of a smile, so he tried a bit harder, attempting to mould his face into an apologetic expression.

‘I’m sorry for the noise. The disruption. I had no idea I was bothering anyone. It’s not as if anyone else has complained.’

Quite the opposite. The biggest problem he had was wriggling out of any follow-up dates. He had absolutely no desire to ruin what was a very nice distraction plan by bringing anything so emotionally demanding as a proper relationship into the situation.

As apologies went it was all a bit pants in Lara’s opinion.

‘Why would anyone else complain? No one else has a bed directly below yours,’ she said. ‘And I don’t need an apology or a load of rubbish excuses. What I really want is some kind of assurance that you’ll make an effort and stop the racket.’

‘I’ll move my bed away from the wall,’ he conceded. His voice was clipped and very British. She noticed he didn’t offer to interrupt the endless flow of women through his bedroom.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘And what about now? You can’t keep hammering on that door—my sanity is hanging by a thread. What are you going to do until Poppy gets back?’

She folded her arms and frowned at him.

He shrugged resignedly.

‘I’ll just have to wait it out. Unless you’d like to take pity on me.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, smoothing her hair back from her face.

‘It could be hours.’ His expression took on a pitiful look. ‘I don’t even have a jacket.’

‘Tough,’ she said. ‘It’ll do you good to put up with a bit of discomfort for a change.’ She made a move towards the stairs, wondering how far he might go with the grovelling, enjoying the upper hand. She’d let him suffer a bit longer and then offer to let him wait in her flat.

His grovelling had apparently reached its limit. Silence as she descended the top step and then a sudden flurry of bangs on the door started up again. She turned back to him incredulously.

He shrugged, his upraised knuckles poised at chest level.

‘You know, I’m really not convinced Poppy isn’t in there,’ he said. ‘Maybe if I knock long enough, she might show.’

He put enormous emphasis on the words ‘long enough’, making it crystal clear he was prepared to knock all day if necessary.

Anger bubbled hotly through her as she stared at him, seeing the challenge in his eyes and knowing that if she wanted to get any work done today at all she would have to give on this. It was all she could do to force herself to act rationally, when what she wanted to do was snarl at him like a fishwife. She would give on this because it was in her best interest, thereby retaining the upper hand rather than dragging herself down to his level, but he needn’t think this was over. Not for one moment.

‘Come on, then,’ she said, turning back towards the wrought-iron staircase.

She glanced around to see him looking after her. The few paces extra distance would have given her an eye-wateringly fantastic full body view of him if she hadn’t bitten her lip in her determination to keep her eyes fixed from the neck up.

‘What?’

‘I give in. You win. I’ve got more important things to do than stand here arguing with you. You can use my phone if you want to try and get hold of Poppy.’ The words stuck in her craw because she really didn’t need a half-naked ex-soldier blagging his way into her flat when she had a mountain of silk knickers with velvet ribbons and frills to sew on the back. ‘I haven’t got her work number, but you must know it, right? Or I think I’ve got Izzy’s number somewhere. Maybe we can get her to drop by if she still has a key. You can wait in my flat if you like,’ she added grudgingly.

She led the way down the wrought-iron stairs before he could say anything triumphant. If he did that she might be tempted to call the police.

CHAPTER TWO

ALEX FOLLOWED HER down the narrow stairwell and into her flat, and, if he’d thought a few bras hanging over the bathtub in Poppy’s flat was a girly step too far, this was a whole new ballgame.

There was an enormous clothes rail directly opposite, stuffed to breaking point with clothes. And not just any clothes. Everything seemed to be made of silk, satin, lace and velvet. Subtle pinks and creams hung alongside vampy deep reds, peacock blues and purples. There were spools of silk and velvet ribbon in every colour imaginable. In one corner of the room was a headless mannequin wearing a black silky bra with tassels along the cups and matching knickers. He stared at it for an incredulous moment. Rolls of fabric were stacked against the wall and hung over the back of the sofa in the corner and the room was dominated by an enormous trestle table with two different kinds of sewing machine on it.

‘Is it just you living here?’ he asked as she crossed the cramped room to the kitchen area at the other end. He was used to Poppy’s roomy flat. This was a shoebox in comparison.

She nodded.

‘It’s a one-bed studio. There isn’t much space but it’s in such a perfect location for my shop. The time I’m saving by living so close kind of makes the lack of space worth it.’ She nodded towards the sofa. ‘Have a seat. I’ll make some tea.’

‘And what exactly is it that you do?’ he said, picking his way through the clutter to the overstuffed sofa. It was covered in a brightly coloured patchwork throw and he had to move a huge pile of silk and lace remnants before there was room to sit down.

She was clattering about in the tiny kitchen area in the corner. There was a doorway at the side of the room with a length of some filmy cream fabric hanging across it as a curtain. He narrowed his eyes, trying to get his bearings. Her bedroom must be down there on the right if it really was situated underneath his, as she claimed. He shook his head lightly because he had absolutely zero interest in how she spent her nights.

This was a means to an end, nothing more, a marginal step up from waiting it out in the hallway upstairs. He had no desire whatsoever to find out more about the infuriating woman from downstairs. He sank onto the sofa, shifted to one side uncomfortably and tugged out a pale pink feather boa from underneath him. For Pete’s sake.

‘I design and make my own line of boutique lingerie,’ she said.

It was impossible to miss the faint trace of pride in her voice.

‘Knickers, camisoles, nightgowns, slips, bustiers, basques. You name it.’ She counted them off on her fingers. ‘Vintage inspired, Hollywood glamour, that kind of thing. I like to make the most of the female figure.’

His mind reeled a little. She might as well have been speaking in some foreign language and he’d felt enough of a fish out of water already in the past couple of weeks, thank you very much. After living at close quarters with soldiers for the best part of the last few years, much of that time in the roughest of conditions, moving in with a group of girls was like living with a gaggle of aliens. Everything was scented. Everything. There was girly underwear hanging over the radiators. The fridge was full of hummus, low-fat yogurt and other hideous foodstuffs that filled him with distaste, the topics of conversation mystified him and the bathroom was full of perfumed toiletries. He’d grabbed the opportunity when Poppy’s friend Izzy had moved rooms a few weeks ago to draft in male back-up in the form of his old schoolfriend Isaac, but in reality it had made little difference because Isaac was hardly ever there. Alex was out of his depth as it was, and now he was catapulted into a room full of lingerie.

‘I’ve been selling from market stalls for ages now, building up a customer base,’ Lara was saying. ‘And I have a blog—“Boudoir Fashionista”.’ She made a frame in the air with her hands as if imagining the title on a shop sign.

‘A blog?’ he repeated. The conversation was becoming more surreal by the minute. He leaned his head back against the sofa. His headache seemed to be intensifying.

‘Mmm …’ She continued to clatter about in the kitchen, not turning round. ‘I showcase my lingerie, blog about fashion and beauty. I’ve been wanting to expand the business for a while, try my hand at retail, but it’s such a gamble in terms of cost, you have no idea. And then I started looking into pop-up shops.’

He didn’t answer. Her voice was sweet, melodic even, pleasant to listen to. He closed his heavy eyes to ease the thumping headache, a side effect of his crazy off-kilter sleep pattern that seemed to be becoming a regular thing.

‘It’s just a short-term thing, so less risk. There are places that advertise opportunities. You take on empty premises, sometimes even just for a day. I couldn’t believe it when I found the place on Portobello Road—it was like a dream. I’ve got it for the next couple of months. Perfect timing for me to take advantage of the run up to Christmas and long enough to see if I can make it work.’

Lara gave the tea a final stir. Busying herself in the kitchen was an autopilot way of taking her mind off how much tinier the already minuscule flat suddenly felt with him in it. Small it might be but it had still been at the absolute limit of what she could afford. Desperate to give everything to the pop-up shop opportunity, she’d quickly realised that living nearby would be a huge advantage. Failure was absolutely not an option.

She’d give him the tea and then try to track down Izzy. The thought of having him here under her feet all day made her stomach feel squiggly. She had tons of work to do and she’d lost nearly an hour this morning already to first his noise and now the follow-up chaos. She didn’t have time to step in as rescue party for neighbours. She turned back to cross the room to him. Three paces in and she came to a stop, smile fading from her face, mug of tea in each hand.

He was fast asleep.

He looked completely out of place among the frills, ribbons and lace that festooned the sofa. He had the most tightly honed muscular physique she’d ever seen outside a glossy fashion magazine, his shoulders were huge, his abs perfectly defined. One huge hand rested against his chiselled jaw as if he’d been propping his chin up when he nodded off.

She watched him for a moment. In sleep the defensive expression on his face when he’d given her his half-arsed apology for the noise was nowhere to be seen. The dark hair was dry now, the short cut totally in keeping with his military background; she could easily imagine him in uniform. The face below was classically handsome. His cheekbones were sharply defined, followed up with a firm jawline and strong mouth. Her eyes roamed lower and she caught her breath in surprise.

The upstairs landing was pretty shadowy and he’d been turned away from her for much of the time. Add in the fact that she’d been making a heroic effort to keep her eyes from wandering below his neckline and as a result she only now got a proper view of his body. A twist of sympathy surged through her.

The left-hand side of the tautly muscled chest was heavily puckered and ruched with a web of scar tissue. She pressed her lips together hard. Of course she’d heard from Poppy that Alex had been injured in action but, having heard and seen the evidence of his sexual prowess, she’d assumed whatever had happened to him must have been pretty minor.

Whatever had happened to cause that scarring could most certainly not be pretty minor.

She put the two mugs down on the edge of the sewing table and moved closer to him, hand outstretched towards his shoulder to shake him gently awake, and then her eyes stuttered over the shadows beneath the dark eyelashes. He looked exhausted, and no wonder. From what she knew of him, he barely ever slept. His breathing now was rested and even. She withdrew her hand. Why not let him sleep? Yes, she could try and contact Izzy or Poppy, but really she’d wasted enough time today already on this situation.

She tugged the multi-coloured patchwork throw from the side of the sofa. Her foster mother had made it for her and it was deliciously huge and comforting to snuggle into. She tucked it gently over him. He didn’t even stir.

Five minutes later and she had her own mug of tea at her elbow as she got back to her sewing. She had the finishing touches to do on fifty-odd pairs of silk knickers. And that was just for starters.

It felt as if hours had passed when a moan of distress made her foot slip from the pedal of the sewing machine. She’d been so engrossed in her work that she’d almost forgotten she had a house guest. The room had grown dark now in the late afternoon; the small light from the sewing machine and the angled lamp above her workspace were the only sources of light. She stood up and looked curiously at Poppy’s brother, sprawled in the shadows on the sofa. Deciding she must have imagined it, she moved to sit back down.

He twisted in his sleep.

She frowned. Abandoning her chair, she took a step towards him. His hands were twisting in the throw she’d draped over him and he let out another cry. Almost a shout this time, enough to make her jump. She watched his face as it contorted. Sympathy twisted in her stomach as she caught sight again of his scarred chest in the dim light. Where was he right now in his mind? In the middle of some hideous battle?

His body twisted sharply again and she couldn’t stand it any longer. She reached out to shake him awake, to take him away from whatever horror he was reliving.

First there was the vague impression of something stroking his upper arm. Tentative, not rough. And then there was the scent, something clean and flowery, like roses. It reminded Alex vaguely of his mother’s dressing room back at their country home, with its antique dressing table and ornate perfume bottles and he flinched at the thought. It had been years since he’d visited the family home and he had absolutely no plans to do so in the foreseeable future. Why would he? For a place filled on and off with so many people, so many offshoots of the family, it had been bloody lonely for a kid.

He opened his eyes, disorientation making his mind reel.

He struggled to place himself in a panic. Not his army quarters. And not his room in his sister’s flat, with its calming military organisation. Instead he was in a room that could only really be described as a boudoir. And it was getting dark.

He struggled to his feet, his mind whirling. Of course, he’d been locked out of Poppy’s flat and the downstairs neighbour had offered to make him tea. That was the last thing he remembered. He looked down at himself as the quilt covering him fell away and saw that the towel around his hips was hanging askew. He snatched it closed again. Horrified, he realised he’d been sleeping here in a stranger’s flat with his scars on show for her to view at her leisure.

The blonde neighbour was standing a few feet away, an expression of concern on her pretty face. The sewing machine was lit up on the desk by a bright angled lamp. A neatly folded pile of pink silk lay further down the table. A tentative smile touched the corners of her rosebud mouth.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked. ‘You were …’ a light frown touched her eyebrows ‘… calling out in your sleep.’

The heat of humiliation began at his neck and climbed burningly upwards as he regained a grip on reality. He’d had a nightmare. In full view of her. Had he shouted? What had he said? How could he have been so stupid as to let himself fall asleep here?

‘What time is it?’ he managed, rubbing a hand through his hair as if it might somehow help to clear his foggy head.

‘Nearly six,’ she said. ‘I was just about to wake you. Poppy’s home, I think—I heard her go up the stairs to the flat. So you should be able to get back in now.’

Six?

He’d slept the entire day. He avoided her eyes. What must she think of him, just falling asleep like that? And then having a bad dream, like some kid. He couldn’t quite believe that he could relax enough to fall asleep in a strange place with a strange person. His tiredness must be a lot more ingrained than he’d thought it was.

‘I can’t believe I fell asleep,’ he blustered. ‘You should have woken me.’

‘I couldn’t really believe it either,’ she said. ‘Of course I think my business plan is the most interesting topic of discussion on the planet.’ She smiled. ‘But it made you nod off in the space of about ten minutes.’

He shook his head. What the hell must she be thinking?

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s a joke,’ she said, making a where’s-your-sense-of-humour? face. ‘I’m joking?’

‘Right,’ he said. Awkwardness filled the room, making it feel heavy and tense. He had to get out of here.

‘I was going to wake you,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t have the heart.’

‘Oh, really?’ He zeroed in on that comment. Was this some kind of sympathy vote because she’d seen his awful scars? Or worse, because he’d cried out in his sleep? He didn’t do sympathy. And he didn’t do bursts of emotion either. Nearly thirty years in the stiff-upper-lip environment of his military-obsessed family did that for a person. Stoicism was essential. His father had made that pretty damn clear when Alex was just a kid, an attitude later reinforced at boarding school and then in the army. Emotion was something you stamped on, definitely not something to be expressed among strangers.

‘You looked so peaceful,’ she went on. ‘And you’ve clearly been getting hardly any sleep if your noise pollution is anything to go by.’

There was an edge to her voice that told him she was still narked about that. He didn’t let it penetrate, there was no need to, since he had absolutely no intention of running into her again after today.

‘Cup of tea?’ she asked him. ‘Your last one got cold. Are you sure you’re OK?’

He shook his head, automatically folding the enormous throw and placing it neatly at the side of the sofa. He had no idea how she could live in such a cluttered room without going mad. It jarred his military sense of order.

‘I am perfectly fine,’ he snapped. ‘And I’ve taken up enough of your time. Now I know Poppy’s back I’ll get out of your way.’

He headed for the door as she watched him, a bemused expression on the pretty face.

‘Bye, then,’ he heard her call after him as he pulled the door shut.

A thank-you might have been nice.

Then again, she didn’t have time for niceties. Neither did she give a stuff as long as Alex curbed the disruptive noise from upstairs.

Forty-eight hours had now passed with a definite reduction in noise levels although she’d seen no corresponding drop in the stream of disposable girls visiting. That was the thing about working from home for all waking hours—the comings and goings of other residents in the building amounted to distractions, and she couldn’t fail to notice them. He must have moved his bed away from the radiator because the endless clanking had ceased. Not, of course, that she was dwelling on Alex Spencer’s bedroom activities.

What mattered was that normal sleep quality had been resumed and thank goodness, because the launch of the shop was only a week away now. Just time to fit in a quick shower this morning and then she would head over there to add a few more finishing touches to the décor before she began to move stock in. She’d managed to track down a beautiful French-style dressing screen, the kind you might find in a lady’s bedroom, gorgeously romantic. No run-of-the-mill changing cubicles for her little shop. Still, she wanted to try it out in different positions until she found the perfect location for it.

She rubbed shampoo into her hair, closing her eyes against the soap bubbles and running through a mental list of the hundred-plus things she needed to get done today. A full-length gilt-framed mirror had been delivered the previous day; it would provide the perfect vintage centrepiece for the small shop floor, and she needed to decide where best to put that too. Then there were garlands of silk flowers to hang and some tiny white pin lights to add to the girly atmosphere she wanted to achieve.

The torrent of water rinsing through her hair seemed to be losing its force. She opened one eye and squinted through the bubbles up at the shower head. Yep. The usual nice flow was definitely diminishing. And without the sound of the running water she was suddenly able to hear a monstrous clanking noise coming from behind the wall and above her head.

‘What the hell …?’ she said aloud as the water reduced to little more than a trickle. The clanking built to a crescendo.

Oh, just bloody perfect. Naked, covered in bubbles and with her hair a bird’s nest of shampoo, she climbed out of the shower unit and wrapped a towel around her. A quick twist of the sink tap gave a loud clanking spurt of water followed by nothing. She grabbed her kimono from the hook on the back of the bathroom door and shrugged it on as she took the few paces to the kitchen to check the water pressure there.

She didn’t make it as far as the sink. Horrified shock stopped her in her tracks as she took in the torrent of water pouring down the wall of the living room, pooling into a flood and soaking merrily into a pile of silk camisoles she’d left in a stack on the floor.

‘No-o-o!’ she squawked, dashing across the floor, picking up armfuls of her lovingly made garments and moving them to safety on the other side of the room. She kicked the metal clothes rail out of the way as she passed it, the few garments hanging at one end already splashed by the ensuing torrent of water.

She rushed to the cabinet under the sink, found the stopcock and turned off the water supply as she tried madly to rationalise what could have happened, then she stood, hand plastered to her forehead as her mind worked through the implications of all this. Some of her garments had been soaked through—there went hours of work down the drain. The water continued to spread across the floor in a slow-moving pool. She knew instinctively from the clanking in the pipes that this wasn’t going to be some five-minute do-it-yourself quick-fix job. The building was ancient. Behind the glossy makeover of the flat conversion was interlinked original pipework. That much was obvious from the racket they made when the love god upstairs was entertaining.

She had absolutely no money to spare for a plumber. She wondered if any of the rest of the building was affected. Surely it wasn’t just her? In a panic she opened the flat door with the intention of knocking on the door opposite and instead ran smack into Poppy, who was on her way up to her own flat with a chocolate croissant in one hand and a takeaway coffee in the other. Poppy’s mouth fell open at her insane appearance.

‘What the hell happened to you?’

‘My flat’s flooded,’ Lara gabbled. ‘It’s like the deck of the sodding Titanic in there. I’ve got a shedload of stock in the room, my shop launches next week and I’ve got no hot water.’

Poppy didn’t so much as flinch. She exuded utter calm. Maybe it was a side-effect of medical training that you simply became good in any crisis. Lara shifted from one foot to the other while she leaned around her to see into the living room.

‘Have you turned off the water?’

Lara nodded.

‘It seems to have stopped it getting any worse. But just look at the mess.’

Poppy walked into the room and put her coffee down on the trestle table.

‘I see what you mean,’ she said, peering at the enormous spreading puddle on the floor and the piles of silk and velvet clothing now strewn haphazardly on the other side of the room.

‘I need this room to work in and now I’ll be behind with my stock levels,’ Lara wailed.

The full implications of the situation began to sink in. She’d been running at her absolute limit to get the pop-up shop off the ground in so many ways, working all hours, hocked to the eyeballs financially, using her living accommodation as workspace. She had absolutely no back-up plan. Despair made her stomach churn sickly and she clutched at her hair in frustration. It felt matted and sticky from the puddle of shampoo she’d been unable to rinse out.

‘Not to mention the lack of running water,’ she added. ‘I’ll have to stick my head under the tap in the café toilets downstairs.’

‘You rent, don’t you?’ Poppy said, unruffled, crossing the room to look at the huge dark patch on the wallpaper. ‘Have you called the landlord?’

Lara sat down on the sofa and put her head in her hands. She’d been far too busy having a meltdown of major proportions to do anything as practical as that.

‘Not yet.’

‘It will be down to the landlord to get it sorted, not you. You don’t need to stress about cost.’

That was lucky, because cost was one thing she really couldn’t do any more of right now.

‘It isn’t just that,’ Lara said, pressing a hand to her forehead and trying to think rationally. Already there was a musty smell drifting from the soaked wood floor and bubbling wallpaper. ‘It stinks in here—it’ll permeate my stock. I’m hardly going to dominate the market with seductive lingerie that smells like a damp garden shed, am I? Not exactly alluring and sensuous, is it? And even if I could leave it here, there’ll be workmen traipsing through. I can’t risk any further damage. My back’s against the wall with the shop opening next week. And I can’t stay here anyway if there’s no running water.’

She could hear the upset nasal tone in her own voice and bit down hard on her lip to suppress it. She didn’t do emotional outbursts. That kind of thing elicited sympathy and she was far too self-reliant to want or need any of that. But she’d given her everything to this shop project and now it felt as if all her hard work had hit standstill in the space of ten minutes.

Poppy, who clearly didn’t know or care about the not-liking-sympathy thing, joined her on the sofa, put an arm around her shoulders and gave her an encouraging smile and a squeeze.

‘Come and stay with us for a few days, then, until it’s sorted out,’ she said. ‘The boxroom’s free—you’d be welcome to it. It’s pretty titchy, but at least it’s dry. And even better …’ she waited until Lara looked at her and threw her hands up triumphantly ‘… I have running water! Cheer up, it’ll all seem better when your hair doesn’t look like a ferret’s nest.’

Lara felt her lip twitch.

Poppy’s grin was warm and friendly. But still the shake of the head came automatically to her, like a tic or an ingrained stock reaction. Lara Connor didn’t take help or charity. She’d got where she was relying only on herself.

‘I couldn’t possibly impose on you like that,’ she said. ‘I’ll be perfectly fine. I’ll figure something out myself.’

Figuring something out herself had featured in a big way on her path in life. Taking offers of help didn’t come easily to Lara. Relying on other people was a sure-fire route to finding yourself let down.

‘You’ve got a headful of shampoo and no running water,’ Poppy pointed out.

Lara touched her hair lightly with one hand. It was beginning to itch now, and seemed to be drying to a hideous crispy cotton-wool kind of texture. She hesitated. Her back really was against the wall over the shop. She groped for some kind of alternative solution that she could handle on her own but none presented itself. Even if she had enough room at the pop-up shop to store all her extra stock, she couldn’t exactly move in and live there, could she? There was one tiny back room with a toilet, no furniture, no space, no chance.

‘Stop being ridiculous,’ Poppy said in a case-closed tone of voice. ‘It really is not such a big deal. It makes perfect sense. I’ve got a spare room and you’re stuck for a day or two. Where’s the problem?’

‘I don’t like to impose,’ Lara evaded.

Poppy made a dismissive chuffing noise.

‘If you were imposing, I wouldn’t ask you,’ she said. ‘Come on, it’ll be a laugh. Things have been a bit quiet since Izzy moved in with Harry—it’ll be nice to have someone else around for a bit.’ She stood up. ‘You can get straight in the shower and rinse that shampoo out, and then you can ring your landlord and sort out a plumber.’ She made for the door as if the subject was closed.

Poppy made it all sound so straightforward. But then of course she had a proper family background, supportive childhood and, let’s not forget, her big brother on the premises. She had no need to let coping with a crisis be complicated by things like pride and self-reliance and managing by yourself.

‘Just a couple of days, though,’ Lara qualified, finally giving in and following her. ‘Just until the water’s sorted out, and I’ll pay rent, of course.’

With what exactly, she wasn’t sure. But she would find a way. She always did. Being indebted to someone really wasn’t her.

‘It’s only small, I know …’ Poppy said apologetically.

‘It’s absolutely perfect,’ Lara said, wondering vaguely how she could possibly fit all her stock in here. The room was tiny, the only furnishings a small dresser and lamp and the narrowest single bed Lara had ever seen. But in terms of living space, it was a gift. She supposed it might seem small to Poppy and her friends. Lara had heard them talk about boarding school and their families; spacious living was clearly the norm. Lara had had many bedrooms over the years. The dispensable bedroom was part of the package when you were working your way through the care system. She’d lived with a succession of foster families over the years and a room of your own still felt like something to be prized. And after the flood debacle, it really was. ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ she said. ‘All I need to do now is source some storage for the rest of my stock. Until the shop gets going I’ve got a bit of a stockpile. I’ll have a look and see if there’s somewhere locally that I can keep it cheaply.’

Poppy flapped a hand at her.

‘There’s no need for that. You don’t want to be putting those gorgeous clothes in some hideous manky lockup. You can keep them in Alex’s room—there’s tons of space in there.’ She led the way along the hall and opened the door on what was possibly the neatest room Lara had ever seen. The bed was made with symmetrical coin-bouncing perfection, the top sheet neatly folded back in a perfect white stripe across the top of the quilt. She narrowed her eyes as she took in the radiator, the ends of which were visible either side of the headboard. Goodness knew what acrobatics he’d been performing in this room to make the hideous racket she’d had to put up with.

After the cosy bohemian colour of the rest of the flat, the room was practically austere. Poppy moved to one side so Lara could see properly. Open shelving ran the length of the opposite wall, filled with perfectly folded rectangles of knitwear and T-shirts. Gleamingly polished shoes were lined up neatly in pairs along the lowest shelf. A shelf was devoted to books, their spines lined up in order of height. Not an item was out of place, not a speck of dust marred the clear floor space. A dark oak wardrobe stood at the side of the window. Lara imagined his shirts and jackets would be hung in colour co-ordinated perfection if she were to look inside.

‘Wow,’ she breathed.

‘I know,’ Poppy said, completely unfazed. ‘He’s a million times more tidy and organised than I am. That’s what comes of being packed off to boarding school at the age of five and then later going into the military. He’s the most organised, methodical person I know.’

A pang of sympathy twisted in Lara’s chest at the thought of Alex as a five-year-old fending for himself when he had a family of his own back at home. She’d been forced into that situation by necessity; there simply hadn’t been an alternative for her mother. She couldn’t comprehend why anyone would want to send their child away when they didn’t have to, and they probably paid a fortune for the privilege too.

‘He does all his own washing and ironing,’ Poppy was saying. ‘He just needs a bit of, well, female influence in his life.’

Lara looked at her with raised eyebrows. Female influence? Poppy grinned at her.

‘Maybe not that kind of female influence. I’m not sure he’s short of that.’

He certainly wasn’t, judging by the frequency of his overnight guests.

‘He needs someone a bit more long-term in my opinion. He’s spent far too long with only blokes for company. Who knows? Perhaps a roomful of lingerie might put him in touch with his feminine side a bit more.’

‘Are you sure he won’t mind having the clothes rails in here?’ Lara said doubtfully. ‘I mean, it’s so tidy. I’ve got quite a lot of loose stuff too.’

Poppy shrugged.

‘I’m doing him a favour here, letting him stay. It’s my flat, after all.’ She tossed her hair back. ‘Do you want a hand moving in?’

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