Cracking the Dating Code (3 page)

It took a while, but eventually Poppy stopped thinking about her host and let herself sink into the work. No looking over her shoulder required. For the first time in weeks she could truly concentrate on the task at hand. It was time to find out where her older brother was—as in what the hell he was doing and for whom.

‘Okay, Jared,’ she murmured coaxingly. ‘I’m here, I’m fearless and failure is not an option. Where are you?’

The afternoon stretched into evening before Poppy managed to break free of the code in her head and go to the kitchen in search of that coffee. The unpredictable Sebastian still hadn’t returned from wherever it was he’d been going and for that Poppy was surprisingly grateful.

She needed the caffeine and she needed some time alone to think about what she was going to do about her interest in him, and, more to the point, what to do should he continue to display a decided interest in her.

The man was grieving, and probably bored. Looking for a distraction, any distraction would do. A bottle. A woman. Something
to take his mind off an explosion that had cost him one friend and injured another. Poppy didn’t know what to do with the information Mal had given her. Didn’t know what kind of guilt Seb was dealing with or what it was doing to him.

Didn’t know whether to act on her instant attraction or leave the poor man alone.

Guilt had been Jared’s constant companion too, as they’d sat in plastic chairs in the hospital, waiting for their sister to come out of surgery. Jared’s anguish over Lena’s injuries had been wordless and all powerful. He’d waited for word that Lena would survive. He’d seen her and spoken to her and told her everything would be all right. He’d sworn vengeance on those who’d betrayed them and then he’d left.

Seven months and twenty-eight days ago.

That was the sum of Poppy’s experience of a man consumed by guilt, and if she hadn’t been able to help her brother deal with his pain how the hell was she supposed to help Sebastian Reyne shoulder his?

Unless he
wanted
to use her as a distraction?

Flirt with her, get naked with her.

Humour her.

No real emotional connection beyond blind
desire for sexual satisfaction. Would that really be so bad?

Because she had the blind desire part of the equation well and truly covered.

Time to raid the kitchen cupboards and nab a couple of biscuits from the biscuit tin. Not making herself at home in Sebastian’s home, just ensuring she didn’t crash from a mixture of hunger and nerves.

And then came the rumble of the quad bike outside, followed by unhurried footsteps, and Sebastian strode through the door, dominating the space and making it his own.

Which it was.

‘I made more coffee,’ she said, barely resisting the urge to tuck her hands behind her back, guilty-villain style. ‘Stole some biscuits.’

She tried not to get lost in those eyes and that face. Tried very hard to ignore that hard, muscled body so carelessly showcased in castaway clothes.

Tried very hard to play it cool, never mind that her core temperature had just soared.

‘You finished for the day?’ he asked.

‘I can be.’

He came closer, bringing the scent of the sea with him. ‘The guest house is ready for you.’

‘Thank you. But you’re going to have to give me directions.’

‘Why don’t I just show you where it is? Where’s your bag?’

‘By the door.’ She gulped down her coffee, refilled the cup with water and set it in the sink. ‘Can you give me five minutes with the computers?’

‘Are we talking a regular five minutes or the five minutes that magically turns into five hours the minute a computer tragic gets in that room?’

‘I’m talking five regular, round-the-clock minutes,’ she said. ‘Ten at the most.’

‘We’ll see.’ Sebastian headed for the coffee pot and the assessing glance he shot her did absolutely nothing to cool her down.

Resisting the urge to run, Poppy headed for the cave.

She found him ten minutes later, in the garage beneath the house, and followed him back to the quad.

‘How far away is the guest house?’ Colour her ignorant, but she’d assumed that guest house and main house would be within shouting distance of each other as opposed to, say, opposite ends of the island.

‘It’s a twenty-minute walk back down the
hill. Half that by quad. The guest house sits halfway between here and the boatshed if it’s orientation you’re after. There’s another quad there that you can use to get around the island. It’s fuelled up and the same as this one. Get on.’

Poppy got on. Left room for him up front, and the ghost of a smile crossed his lips.

‘You’re driving. Move up.’

She moved up, tentatively tucking her coat between her legs. Ladylike
not.

But he didn’t seem to notice.

‘Key,’ he said, his forearm brushing her shoulder as he showed her where it was and she turned it as instructed. ‘Foot on the brake.’ She did that too, no brushing against him required. ‘Kill switch on.’ He showed her where it was. ‘Now press the start button.’

The engine roared to life and Sebastian slid onto the quad behind her, no carryall in between them this time, for it was slung over his shoulder and, from the looks of it, that was where it would stay. Poppy glanced at him, glanced down at the seat and Seb’s strong, long thighs, and swallowed hard. She scooted forward to give him more space. He wasn’t a small man, he needed more space.

She
needed more space.

She took it slowly down that first rocky,
steep bit of track, and she tried to pretend, when his thighs brushed her buttocks, that she’d felt such thighs before and that her heart wasn’t about to burst through her ribcage every time a bump in the track slid her into him just that little bit more.

Five minutes down the track he leaned forward, put his lips to her ear and told her to take the fork to the right.

The guest house they came upon a couple of minutes later was a far friendlier version of the big steel-and-glass house. There was still steel, and there was plenty of glass, but the dimensions were smaller and more inviting, and the steepled roof and the generous front deck filled with an assortment of mesh chairs and a hammock had a simple island charm to it that the sophisticated, sparsely furnished main house lacked.

If Poppy’s legs wobbled ever so slightly as she got off the quad it was his fault not hers, and if she took one look at his back and stumbled and bit her lip as she followed him up the steps, that was undoubtedly his fault too.

The interior of the guest house was dust free and fully furnished. A king-sized bed dressed in delicate white linens. A white gauze mosquito net hanging from a ring screwed into the ceiling. The netting tucked
in behind the pillows for now, ready for sorting out later.

It could be whatever you wanted it to be, a bed like that. A pirate ship or a kingdom ruled by a benevolent princess. A kid would have a ball in that bed, and as for an adult, well…

‘What happened to your lip?’ asked Seb abruptly and Poppy stopped staring at the bed and touched her fingers to her bottom lip and then stared at them instead.

‘Nothing,’ she said, for her fingers had come away clean, but his narrowed green gaze seemed fixated on something so she gave her upper lip a once over with her fingers too. ‘Biscuit crumbs?’

‘You’ve bitten it,’ he said gruffly. ‘On the way down.’

‘Oh.’ Well, yes. ‘Only a little.’

Time to cut the tension that whipped through her, and turn away and study the rest of her surroundings rather than him. Poppy didn’t know how to play this game of hyper-awareness between man and woman. She had absolutely no idea what to do next.

There were no curtains on the floor-to-ceiling windows and every window was currently open. Fortunately, the windows were
screened. A sucker-footed gecko watched her from his place on the whitewashed wall.

‘They’re harmless,’ said Seb, noting the direction of her gaze. ‘Bathroom and kitchenette are to the rear, your quad’s in the shed out the back and the key’s in it.’ He set her bag down beside the bed. ‘There’s fish curry in the fridge and a microwave to heat it up in. Other food too. Hopefully you’ll find something you like.’

‘Thank you.’ Thank-yous she knew how to do. Polite smiles too. Nervousness—she had that one well and truly covered.

‘There’s no phone in here,’ he said next. ‘But there is a two-way that’ll get you through to the boatshed or the house. If you need to call home, you’ll have to come up to the house and use the sat phone. It works most of the time, but not all of the time.’

‘You really are quite isolated here, aren’t you?’

‘Tom didn’t tell you?’

‘Tom did tell me,’ she murmured wryly. ‘The reality of isolation just didn’t quite sink in.’

‘You get used to it,’ he said. ‘Come up to the house whenever you’re ready in the morning. Just go in. Make yourself at home. I probably won’t be there.’

‘Where will you be?’

‘Fishing. Swimming. Rock climbing. Something.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Man with an almighty need to conquer something. She knew the type. ‘Ah, Mr Reyne?’

‘Seb.’ He waited until he was out of the door before turning back.

Right. Seb. She wasn’t sure she trusted herself to say his name right now without layering it full of lust. ‘There, ah, don’t seem to be any keys to this place.’

‘Yeah, we lost them.’

‘So how do you lock up?’

‘You don’t.’

‘I
what
?’

‘Let me guess,’ he murmured. ‘You live in an inner-city apartment block surrounded by a million people and you know none of them.’

‘You’re very perceptive,’ she countered lightly. ‘I divide my time between Oxford and Sydney. My father’s based in Hong Kong. I’m very fond of Hong Kong. Plenty of people. Locks too. Keys.’ Not that she wanted to labour the point.

‘Relax, city girl. The doors still lock from the inside. Just make sure they’re not set to lock when you shut them in the morning.

Your stuff will be perfectly safe here, I guarantee it. There’s no one else here.’

No one he
knew
of.

‘What about pirates? Shipwrecked fishermen? Critters? Blackbeard?’

This earned her a grin, free and clear, and her body responded accordingly. ‘If Blackbeard happens by you give me a yell.’

‘You are too kind.’

‘I know. You got any messages for my brother?’

‘You’re calling Tomas tonight?’

Sebastian’s gaze skittered over her face once more and lingered on her lips. ‘Yes.’

‘Any particular reason why?’

‘Courtesy call.’

‘Oh.’ Poppy eyed him uncertainly. ‘Well, tell him I said thank you for the lend of the island.’

‘Anything else?’

Nothing she could think of.

‘Miss you… Wish you were here…’ he prompted silkily.

‘Oh.
That
kind of message.’ A message from one lovelorn suitor to another. She had no idea what one would say. ‘Yes.’ She paused, struck by Sebastian’s sudden coiled stillness. ‘Tell him I said hello.’

S
EB
ate his seafood curry hot and took his bedtime shower lukewarm and stinging. Give it a few days, a week at the most, two weeks at the outside and mousy, brainy little Poppy West would be off his island and so would he.

Head for the mainland. Take care of some business.
He found the shampoo—squirted it straight from the bottle onto his hair. Maybe he’d touch base with his crew and then go and lose himself in a woman for a while.

A savvy, experienced, blue-eyed blonde who knew how the game was played and wouldn’t expect a damn thing of him other than satisfaction at the time.

Not Poppy West, she of the golden-toffee tresses, cornflower-blue eyes and decidedly enigmatic ways.

Not her.

Seb closed his eyes and scrubbed at his
hair, willing his body not to stir, but the more he willed it, the more contrary his body got.

He soaped his chest, took a scratchy sea sponge to his arms.

She’d be pliant in bed; maybe even a little inexperienced.

Deeply, openly responsive.

Seb cursed, a word that had been on his mind all day.

Even if she
didn’t
have a thing for Tomas, even if Tom had no interest in her, it would be very poor form to mess around with his brother’s business partner.

Tomas, who’d excelled at everything,
including
being a big brother. Pulled Seb out of the pit when his first girlfriend had dumped him for a blue-blooded golden boy. Talked Seb off an oil platform and into an engineering degree. Encouraged Seb’s idiot idea of putting together some sort of crack rigging crew. Troubleshoot anything that gushed or burned and cap it, bring it back under control—those were the jobs Seb and his crew took on. Proving his worth, over and over, until finally he’d believed in himself and the things he could deliver. Not as clever as Tomas. Not as polished or urbane, but worth something nonetheless.

Until one crucial split-second decision had cost one man his life and another his hearing.

Seb’s crew. Seb’s responsibility.

He wanted a drink.

He wanted his friend back.

And in true self-destructive, must-compete style, he wanted his brother’s girl.

Seb rinsed off, cut the water and walked naked through to his bedroom. He found a towel, then a pair of loose cotton pyjama bottoms.

He headed for the office and did his best to ignore the faint floral scent that hung in the air there. And then he picked up the phone and called Tom.

‘I got your parcel,’ he said when Tom answered. ‘What the
hell
is she doing here?’ Besides torturing him with her nearness.

‘Working,’ said Tom. ‘At least, that’s the assumption. Why? What
is
she doing there?’

‘Working,’ said Seb grudgingly. ‘That is not the issue. What
I
want to know is why you sent her here in the first place. You into her? You setting something up? Like a lightning visit?’

‘What?’ said Tomas.

‘God, you even sound like her,’ muttered Seb. ‘Are. You. Into. Her? It’s not a difficult question. A simple yes or no will do.’

‘What if I am?’ asked Tom warily.

‘Then you’d better come and get her before I forget you exist.
Now
do you understand?’

His brother swore, loud and long. Smart man, only, ‘I’m not involved with Poppy,’ he said at some point during the tirade. ‘I have no intention of ever
getting
involved with Poppy,’ he said a short time later, and the stranglehold on Seb’s chest relaxed. ‘But if you think I sent her there for
you
to get into, you couldn’t be more wrong,’ his brother continued. ‘You want to party, get off the island.’

‘And leave Her Citified Slenderness here by herself? How do you think
that’s
going to work out? She’s already nervous about staying in the guest house by herself.’

Silence from Tom.

‘Can’t she go and work somewhere else?’ It wasn’t quite a plea for mercy but it was the closest Seb had ever come to one. ‘Because if you want me to stay away from her, she’s going to have to go.’

‘She can’t go,’ said Tom. ‘Trust me on this one. She needs the privacy, the bat cave, and she needs a bit of time. Give her two weeks, Seb. Please. Hell, give her two days. Surely you can manage two days without trying to get her on her back?’

‘Crème caramel,’ murmured Seb. ‘I haven’t had a crème caramel in ages.’

‘Resist.’ Panic in Tom’s voice now, but it was too late. Tom didn’t want her. Seb most certainly did. ‘I mean it, Seb. You treat her like a sister.’

‘We don’t have a sister.’

‘Point taken,’ said Tom. ‘Then, for God’s sake, treat her like my boss.’

Dawn came too early for Poppy, but once the sky began to brighten on the horizon there was nothing else to do but pull the mosquito net aside, turn on her side in the glorious, king-sized bed, find a few pillows to prop beneath her head and give the dawn show the attention it deserved.

Sleep had taken its time coming to her last night. Sunrise took its time too as it stole across the rippling water and then crept across the edge of her bed.

Poppy stretched her hand out to caress it; no bite in the sun’s rays yet, but the dust motes in the air glowed silver and they kept her entertained as vivid dreams of making love with Sebastian had kept her entertained throughout last night.

In her dreams, Poppy hadn’t been standoffish or in need of personal space. She
hadn’t been wary of him or of the things he might do.

It hadn’t been awkward. She hadn’t been clueless or desperately out of her depth, the way she had been with others.

She hadn’t been seventeen going on fourteen and Sebastian hadn’t been twenty-two and impatient. Sebastian hadn’t been baffled by her awkwardness or horrified by her age and inexperience when finally she’d confessed it.

He hadn’t muttered stumbling apologies interspersed with curses, while scooping up her clothes and directing her to put them on, put them on, before hurriedly showing her the door, saying, ‘Sorry, sorry, dear God, I’m sorry. I had no idea.’

Sebastian hadn’t said sorry at all.

Fine things, dreams.

Poppy threw her covers back and stretched out and waited until the sun bathed every inch of her in its glow.

Dreams were what wishes were made of.

Sebastian wasn’t at the house when Poppy arrived there just on 8:00 a.m. Easy, then, to make herself at home in the cave and find Tom’s cache of music and crank up the juice and get down to business.

She almost didn’t hear the outer office phone, but the repetitive ring seeped through to her brain eventually and with it came a new dilemma. Answer it or not? Surely the man had an answering machine?

But a quick look confirmed the phone for some sort of satellite affair and whether it had an answering service function was open to speculation. She reached for the phone and picked it up gingerly.

‘Finally,’
said an exasperated female voice. ‘I didn’t think you were ever going to pick up. You done brooding yet? Because there’s a few things here in need of your attention. Like a potential blowout in the Timor Sea. Do we want after it or not?’

‘Hello?’ said Poppy. ‘You’ll be after Seb.’

‘Who’s this?’ asked the voice suspiciously.

‘
Are
you after Seb?’ countered Poppy politely. ‘Because I’m quite happy to take a message. I’m quite happy to go and
find
him and deliver a message if it’s important.’

‘Who are you, exactly?’

‘A friend of Tom’s.’

‘Seb’s brother.’ The voice grew friendlier by the second.

‘Yes. Seb’s not in the house right now. I’m not sure where he is, to be honest.’

‘In that case, I’d love you to give him a
message. Tell him there’s a jackup leaking oil and gas in the Montara field. It’s been evacuated and I’m pulling in more details from the parent company now. It’s a mess. Tell him to call Wendy asap.’

‘Tell him or ask him?

‘Ask him,’ said Wendy. ‘But if you can make it sound like it’s non-negotiable, all the better.’

‘All righty,’ said Poppy. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

She hung up and, with a wistful glance towards the computer room, headed for the quad and set it chugging sedately down the track towards the boatshed in search of her host.

But he wasn’t in the boatshed, so she tried to remember where he’d said he might be as she took the track that ran around behind it and worked the quad slowly around the edge of the island. Fishing, climbing, swimming or something. That was where he’d be.

Poppy kept motoring, with the smell of the bush closing in on one side of her and the smell of the sea on the other, and the colours spread out before her were forest green and azure blue, sometimes butting up against each other and sometimes separated by a strip of sand. Wind in her hair, the sun on her
face and the throb of the quad beneath her. Poppy’s senses were sharper here. Her enjoyment of sensual things more pronounced.

Maybe that might explain her fascination with one Sebastian Reyne.

He wasn’t on the first stretch of beach that she came to but she did find his quad parked in the shade of some trees on the second. Poppy scanned the beach and the bushland behind her but there was no sign of the man on either.

Sighing, she turned her attention to the sea. Picture perfect, this little blue bay. A semicircle full of shallows and coral clusters and then an abrupt drop off into water of an infinitely deeper blue.

A slight commotion in the water. Darting fins, black tipped and plenty of them. A snorkelling Sebastian, rising from the shallows with a spear gun in hand and a pearly orange fish on the end of it. Spear fishing in the company of half a dozen or so curious sharks.

Man with a death wish, as far as she was concerned, but then, given the day job, what else could she expect?

Poppy cupped her hands and called to him. Waited until he turned around and then stood up and waved him in. Die he would, if that
was truly his desire, but please, Lord, not on her watch and not in the water.

He waded back towards the shore and a cohort of black-tipped fins wove in and out around him, but he still had his catch when he reached the sand and stripped off his snorkelling gear, and a grin on his face that spoke of enjoyment, not terror.

‘Morning,’ he said mildly when he reached her, but Poppy was somewhat beyond a mild-mannered reply.

‘You
irresponsible,
self-absorbed d—’ Poppy stopped herself just in time. Settled for glaring at him instead. He wasn’t one of her brothers. None of her business if he’d decided that death-by-misadventure was his preferred way to go. Besides, she was only here to deliver a message. And get him off the island. An action that, given the nature of the message, could prove remarkably easy. ‘Hi.’

‘What was that?’ he enquired smoothly. ‘I didn’t quite catch the last
D
word and now I’m all curious as to what you didn’t say.
D
for
daredevil
?
D
for
drunk
? Although I’m not, you’ll be pleased to know.’

He stood before her and dared her to pass comment. Man, his mouth, his fish and a lazy, teasing glint in his eye.

‘
D
for
dog
? Dirty dog? Because I’d argue
that I’m probably quite clean right now. Briny fresh. Or is it the spear fishing you object to?’

‘I don’t
object
to you catching lunch. Watching you
become
lunch, on the other hand, is a little too out there for me.’

‘You mean the reef sharks?’ He glanced behind him and there they were. ‘Honestly, Poppy, they’re harmless. Puppies of the sea.’ He’d called her Poppy. Somewhere along the way that bit registered. Puppies and Poppies. Too many
P’s
.

‘They like sea urchins best,’ he said next and offered up a crooked smile. ‘You want to feed them?’

‘Feed them?’ She knew she was looking at him as if he was mental. That was because he was. ‘
Feed
them?’ He was dragging her attention away from her point. Points in the plural, actually, for she had several of them to make.

Poppy pointed to where the coral beds met deeper water and waited for the shadow and the fin to reappear and sure enough it did. No darting about for this dorsal fin, or the tail fin that followed some distance behind it—just the slow, smooth glide of a very accomplished predator. ‘You planning on feeding that one too?’

Seb’s eyes narrowed. The black-tipped reef sharks decided it was time to depart.

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘Not that one. That one’s just passing through. Thanks for the call out though. Appreciated.’ He pondered the mysteries of the unknown shark for a little bit longer. ‘
D
for
dead in the water
?’

‘Maybe,’ she murmured as the just-passing-through shark ventured into the shallows. Close enough to make out the shape of him, and the dark stripes across his back. A four-metre-long tiger shark, give or take a little refraction error on account of the water. She could be calm now that Seb was out of the sea. Calmer, at any rate. ‘Big, isn’t he?’

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘Ever thought about stretching a nice little shark net across the mouth of the cove?’

‘Not ‘til now.’

The shark was moving slowly away, cruising the far shallows and finding nothing of interest. Sharks were very distracting. Time to get back to the point. The other point. ‘Wendy rang. She wants you to ring her back. She said, and I quote: “There’s a jackup leaking oil and gas in the Montara field.” It’s been evacuated and she’s getting more details from the parent company. Is it just me or is that shark looking for something?’

‘It’s just you.’

‘Excellent. Did I mention the bit about Wendy wanting you to call her back?’

‘Yes. Did she say who the parent company was?’

‘No.’

‘Figures. Now she knows I’ll ring her back.’

Seb stood watching the shark through narrowed eyes, more sombre now than he had been before. Thoughtful man, working his way through a world of offshore trouble and a little reality check that paradise did indeed have its serpents.

Or maybe he’d known that all along.