Blame It on the Bikini (2 page)

‘A thank-you kiss!’ one of the guys called. ‘Kiss! Kiss!’

They all chanted.

Mya just held up the lighter and flicked it so the flame shot up. She waved it slowly back and forth in front of her face. ‘I wouldn’t want you to get hurt,’ she said with a teasing tilt of her head.

They howled and hissed like water hitting a burning element. Laughing—mostly in relief now—she watched
them mobilise and work their way to the door. And that was when she saw him.

Brad
High-School-Crush
Davenport.

For a second, shock slackened every muscle and she dropped the lighter. Grasping at the last moment to stop it slipping, she accidentally caught the hot end.
Damn
. She tossed it onto the shelf below the bar and rubbed the palm of her hand on the half-apron tied round her waist. The sharp sting of that small patch of skin didn’t stop her from staring spellbound schoolgirl-fashion at her former
HSC
. But that was because he was staring right at her as if she were the one and only reason he’d walked into the bar.

Good grief. She tried to stop the burn spreading to her belly because it wasn’t right that one look could ignite such a reaction in her.

Back in the days when she’d believed in fairy tales, she’d also believed Brad would have been her perfect prince. Now she knew so much better: a) there were no princes, b) even if there were, she had no need for a prince and c) Brad Davenport was nowhere near perfect.

Although to be fair, he certainly looked it. Now—impossible though it might be—he looked more perfect than ever. All six feet three and a half inches of him. She knew about the half because it was written in pencil on the door-jamb in the kitchen leading to the butler’s sink, along with Lauren’s height and those of their mum and dad—one of the displays of Happy Familydom his mother had cultivated.

Topping the modelicious height, his dark brown hair was neatly trimmed, giving him a clean-cut, good-boy look. He was anything but good. Then there were the eyes—light brown maple-syrup eyes, with that irresistible golden tinge to them. With a single look that he’d
perfected at an eyebrow-raising young age, he could get any woman to beg him to pour it all over her.

And Brad obliged. The guy had had more girlfriends than Mya had worked overtime hours. And Mya had done nothing but work since she’d badgered the local shop owner into letting her do deliveries when she was nine years old.

She tried to move but some trickster had concreted her feet to the floor. She kept staring as he walked through the bar, and with every step he came closer, her temperature lifted another degree. This despite the air-conditioning unit blasting just above the bar.

He was one of those people for whom the crowds parted, as if an invisible bulldozer were clearing the space just ahead of him. It wasn’t just his height, not just his conventionally handsome face with its perfect symmetry and toothpaste-advertisement teeth, but his demeanour. He had the
presence
thing down pat. No wonder he won every case he took on. People paid attention to him whether they wanted to or not. Right now Mya wasn’t the only person staring. Peripheral vision told her every woman in the bar was; so were most of the men.

She needed to pull it together. She wasn’t going to be yet another woman who rolled over and begged for Brad Davenport—even if he was giving her that
look
. But why was he giving
her
that look? He’d never looked at her like that before; in fact he’d never really looked at her at all.

Her heart raced the way it did before an exam when she was in mid
‘OMG I’ve forgotten everything’
panic. Had she entered a parallel universe and somehow turned sixteen all over again?

‘Hi, Brad.’ She forced a normal greeting as he stepped up to the space the stag boys had left at the bar.

‘Hi, Mya.’ He mirrored her casual tone—only his was genuine whereas hers was breathless fakery.

It was so unfair that the guy had been blessed with such gorgeousness. In the attractiveness exam of life, Brad scored in the top point five per cent. But it—and other blessings from birth—had utterly spoilt him. Despite her knowing this, the maple-syrup glow in those eyes continued to cook her brain to mush. She ran both hands down the front of her apron, trying to get her muscles to snap out of the spellbound lethargy. But her body had gone treacly soft inside while on the outside her skin was sizzling hot. What was she waiting for? ‘What can I get you?’

He smiled, the full-bore Brad Davenport charming smile. ‘A beer, please.’

‘Just the one?’ She flicked her hair out of her eyes with a businesslike flip of her fingers. That was better—the sooner she got moving, the more control she’d regain. And she could put herself half in the fridge while she got his beer; that would be a very good thing.

‘And whatever you’re having. Are you due a break soon?’ He stood straight up at the bar, not leaning on it as most of the other customers did. In his dark jacket and white open-neck shirt, he looked the epitome of the ‘hotshot lawyer who’d worked late’.

Mya blinked rapidly. She
was
due for her break, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to have it with him around. She felt as if she was missing something about this. It was almost as if he thought she’d been expecting him. ‘It’s pretty busy.’

‘But that stag party has left so now’s a good time, right? Let me get you a drink.’

‘I don’t dri—’

‘Water, soda, juice,’ he listed effortlessly. ‘There are other options.’ He countered her no-drinking-on-the-job argument before she’d even got it out.

Good grief. Surely he wasn’t hitting on her? No way—the guy had never noticed her before.

These days Mya was used to being hit on—she worked in a bar after all. The guys there were usually drinking alcohol, so inevitably their minds turned to sex after a time. Any woman would do; it wasn’t that she was anything that special. Naturally they tried it on, and naturally she knew how to put them off. She deliberately dressed in a way that wouldn’t invite attention; her plain vee-neck black tee minimised her boobs and the apron tucked round her hips covered most of her thighs in her black jeans. She did wear the platforms, but the extra couple of inches helped her ability to look customers in the eye.

She still had to look up to Brad. And right now he was looking into her eyes as if there were nothing and no one else in the room to bother with. Yeah, he was good at making a woman feel as if she were everything in his world. Very good.

‘I’ll have some water,’ she muttered. There was zero alcohol in her system but she really needed to sober up. Not to mention cool down. She swallowed, determined to employ some easy bartender-to-customer-type conversation. ‘Been a while since I’ve seen you. What have you been up to?’

‘I’ve been busy with work.’

Of course, he was reputedly amazing in the courtroom, but she bet his work wasn’t all he’d been busy with. The guy was legendary even at school. She and Lauren had been there a full five years after him and
there’d been talk of his slayer skills. Lauren had been mega popular with all the older girls because they wanted to get to him through her.

‘You need to get away from the bar to have a break,’ he said once she’d set his drink in front of him.

Actually she quite liked that giant block of wood between them. She’d thought herself well over that teen crush, but all it had taken was that one look from him and she was all saucy inside. But there was a compelling glint in his eyes, and somehow she didn’t manage to refuse.

As he shepherded her through the crowd, she steeled herself against the light brush of his hand on her back. She was
not
feeling remotely feminine next to his tall, muscled frame. She was
not
enjoying the bulldozer effect and seeing everyone clear out of his path and him guiding her through as if she were some princess to be protected. Surely she couldn’t be that pathetic?

The balcony was darker and quieter. Of course he’d know where to find the most intimate place in an overcrowded venue. She pressed her back against the cold wall. She preferred to be able to keep an eye on the punters, and it gave her unreliable muscles some support. But in a second she realised it was a bad idea because Brad now towered in front of her. Yeah, he was all she could see and there was no way of getting around him easily.

The loud rhythm of the music was nothing on the frantic beat of her pulse in her ears. But he must be used to it—women blushing and going breathless in his company. She hoped he didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary.

‘Will you excuse me a sec?’ she said briskly. ‘I just need to check a couple of messages.’

‘Sure.’

She slipped her hand into her pocket, needing to fill in a few of her fifteen minutes and catch her breath. Besides, the imp in her wanted to know Lauren’s reaction to the photo she’d sent. But there were no messages at all—which was odd given Lauren’s tech-addiction. She frowned at the phone.

‘Did you need to make a call?’ he asked quietly.

‘Do you mind? It won’t take a second.’ And it would fill in a few more of the fifteen minutes.

‘Go for it.’ Brad lifted his glass and sipped.

Mya turned slightly towards the wall and made the call.

‘What did you think?’ she quietly asked as soon as Lauren answered.

‘Think of what?’

‘The pic,’ Mya mumbled into the phone, turning further away so Lauren’s big, bad brother couldn’t hear. ‘I sent it a couple of hours ago.’

‘What picture?’

‘
The
pic.’ Mya’s heart drummed faster. She glanced at Brad. Standing straight in front of her—a little too close. His eyes flicked up from her body to her face. She didn’t want him listening, but now she’d looked at him, she couldn’t look away. Not when she’d seen that look in his eyes. It wasn’t just maple syrup now. It was alight with something else.

‘I haven’t received any pic. What was it of?’ Lauren laughed.

‘But I sent it,’ Mya said in confusion. She’d heard that whooshing sound when the message had gone. ‘You must have got it.’

‘Nup, nada.’

Mya’s blood pounded round her body. Sweltering,
she tried to think. Because if that message hadn’t gone to Lauren, then to whom had it gone?

She stared up at the guy standing closer than he ought and gradually became aware of a change in him. His eyes weren’t just alive with the maple-syrup effect; no, now they were lit with unholy amusement. Why—?

Impossible
.

The heat of anticipation within Mya transformed to horror in less than a heartbeat. And to make it worse, Brad suddenly smiled, hell, his shoulders actually shook—was the guy
laughing at her
?

‘I definitely haven’t got it,’ Lauren warbled on. ‘But I’m glad you rang because I haven’t seen you in …’

Mya zoned out from Lauren, remembering the rush in the change room, the way she’d been giggling and not concentrating, the way her fingers had slipped over the screen …

No. Please no
.

Lauren’s voice and the noise from the bar all but disappeared, as if she’d dived into a swimming pool and could hear only muted, warped sound. Her stunned brain slowly cranked through the facts while the rest of her remained locked in the heat of his gaze.

Her contacts list automatically defaulted to alphabetical order. She’d never deleted all the contacts already on it either—and it was an old phone of Lauren’s. No doubt her brother’s number had been programmed in a long, long time ago. And
B
came before
L
. So first in the phone list?

Davenport. Brad Davenport
.

CHAPTER TWO

M
YA
ignored the fact that Lauren was still babbling in her ear and jabbed the phone, shutting it down. She shoved it back in her pocket and tossed her head to get her fringe out of her eyes. ‘It seems my phone’s died,’ she said with exaggerated effervescence. ‘Can I borrow yours?’

Brad’s silent chuckle became a quick, audible burst before he summoned the control to answer. ‘Really?’

She nodded vehemently, pretending she couldn’t feel the rhythmic vibrating against her thigh.

‘But your phone is ringing.’

Yeah, there was no pretending she couldn’t hear the shrill squawks over the beat of the bar music.

‘What is that?’

‘It’s a recording of dolphins talking to each other,’ she answered brightly before hitting him with a bald-faced lie. ‘But while my ringer is working, the person on the other end can’t hear me.’

‘Maybe you hit mute.’

‘Look, can I use it?’ She dropped all pretence at perky and spoke flatly. Oh, she wanted to curl into a ball and roll behind a rock. Now. This was why he was here tonight. What had he thought? Surely he hadn’t thought
the picture was meant for him and he’d come to her? As if she’d called him?

Mya bit back hysterical laughter. Teen Mya would have loved Brad Davenport to hunt her down for a hookup. Adult Mya had learned to avoid sharks. And of all the people she had to mistakenly send a picture to, it had to be her best friend’s brother? Her best friend’s completely
gorgeous
, speed-through-a-million-sexual-partners brother?

Brad held her gaze captive with his warm, amused one. ‘But my phone cost a lot of money and I don’t like the way you’re holding that glass of water. I don’t think my phone can survive the depths.’

Was the guy a mind-reader? Of course she wanted to drown the thing—she’d drown Brad himself if she could. Or better still, herself.

How could she have made such a mistake? This ranked as the most mortifying moment of her life. Why had she gone with the scarlet bikini with the see-through sides?

‘How come you have my number anyway?’ he asked lazily, confirming the worst.

‘This was an old phone of Lauren’s.’ Mya groaned. ‘She passed it on to me.’

‘One of the ones she lost and made Dad replace?’

Hell, that would be right. For a while there Lauren had made her father pay—literally. ‘She told me he’d given her a new one and she didn’t need this one any more.’ She didn’t like the frown in Brad’s eyes.