Irrepressible You (37 page)
Ignoring the ring completely, she sniffed. ‘I can’t answer that until I get an answer to
my
proposal.’
He pretended to look thoughtful, angling the ring so the diamond caught the sunlight and sparkled. ‘Which one was that?’
His answer was a massive splash of water fair in the face, then another that hit his chest. Before long he was dripping wet, feet sliding on the slippery clay bank as he struggled unsuccessfully to get to his feet.
‘Yes,
yes
. Bloody well stop–stop that!
Yes
!’ he managed, spluttering in between the laughter, hands coming up to shield his face.
The water abruptly stopped.
‘Good.’ With a satisfied nod, Amy walked over, plopped herself in his lap and took the ring, sliding it on her finger while Ben watched on in a blissfully silent moment of pure happiness.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank four amazing ladies, whose friendship means so much to me; Theresa Mathison, Anja Dreyer, Jennifer Hogan and Jo Henrickson. Thank you so much for the feedback, encouragement and the smiles.
Also, if it wasn’t for the Hoffies, I never would have “finished the damn book.” I owe you all a world of gratitude.
Finally, I’d like to thank Carol George and Sarah Fairhall at Destiny for their wonderful enthusiasm and Alex Adsett for helping me navigate the scary waters of my first big publishing contract.
In short, you all rock.
About the Author
Georgina Penney first discovered romance novels when she was eleven and has been a fan of the genre ever since. It took her another eighteen years to finally sit in front of a keyboard and get something down on the page but that's alright, she was busy doing other things until then.
Some of those things included living in a ridiculous number of towns and cities in Australia before relocating overseas to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and presently, Brunei Darussalam.
In between all these travels, Georgina managed to learn to paint, get herself a Communication and Cultural Studies degree, study Psychotherapy and learn all about Hypnotherapy. In the early days she even managed to get on the IT roller coaster during the early noughties boom, inexplicably ending the ride by becoming the registrar of a massage and naturopathy college. There was also PhD in the mix there somewhere but moving to Saudi Arabia and rediscovering the bodice ripper fixed all that.
Today she lives with her wonderful husband, Tony in a wooden stilt house on the edge of the Bornean jungle along with a contrary stray cat named Milli Vanilli.
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First published by Penguin Books Australia 2014
Copyright Georgina Penney, 2014
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ISBN: 978-0-85797-769-4
Chapter One
It was half-past-eight on the corner of W53rd and Broadway, Midtown Manhattan, and nigh on the dating hour. My phone was ringing.
There are two things every girl wants: the first is for promises made to her to be kept and the other is to keep the promises she makes herself. Wavering good intentions and the chances of life all but guarantee some disappointment in the first, but as for the second – the promises you make yourself are the ones only you can keep and the ones that really matter. Or so I was telling myself.
‘Elan,’ said a familiar voice, when I answered the phone. My stomach sank – the soon-to-be-broken promise tickled my ear. ‘I’m sorry . . .’
I’ve always hated the phrase ‘I’m sorry’. Social convention dictates that once the phrase has been uttered I am required to forgive the speaker regardless of how hurt, let down or plain hacked off I am feeling. Unless of course I am the one saying it. Then it is dead useful. What? A little well-practised hypocrisy makes for a nicely rounded psyche.
I bit down firmly on the tip of my tongue as I listened to the explanation that followed.
The dark of night, when the old year turns into a new one, is the traditional time for self-made promises. I’d made a few of my own. This was to be my year of keeping the promises I made: of being kinder, not saying what I thought at the worst minute, saying what I meant when it mattered – for giving the unknown a chance and perhaps changing the weight of contentment into the fuller joy of happiness.
Right at this moment, keeping those promises was proving challenging. Especially when someone else kept breaking his. Still, being an understanding girlfriend probably fell into the being-a-better-person category, so I squashed my frustration and found a laugh.
‘Well, you’ll have to make it up to me with a variety of favours, foot massages, multiple viewings of
The
Notebook
and the like,’ I said to Hunter, who chuckled. ‘But I understand. Work is a priority.’
‘You’re sure you don’t mind,’ said Hunter, not really asking a question, his low, serious voice sounding relieved.
Second place is beginning to feel like last, I felt like saying, but I kept the words down. ‘No, it’s fine. Lily and Marcus could do with my help anyway. Who else is going to put things on the high shelves?’
‘You go put those long legs to good use, Miss Moore,’ said Hunter. ‘I’ve got to go, but I promise I’ll make it up to you.’
Then, dial tone. I sighed and went back into the bathroom to take off the beginnings of my makeup. I ignored the reproachful look of the blue eyes in the mirror. After all, most of the time Hunter was a boyfriend par excellence.
It’s just that Saturday night in New York City conjures endless possibilities. Should I strap on my red-soled dancing shoes and hit the Meatpacking District? Get dinner in SoHo and stumble into one of the pop-up clubs? Or maybe I’d wear my favourite black velvet cocktail dress and down a couple of drinks on Park Avenue? Alternatively, my overachieving, corporate shark of a boyfriend would be putting in yet another ninety-hour working week and my best friend and soon-to-be ex-flatmate would have press-ganged me into helping her move in with the man across the hall.
It’s not that I mind helping Lily; she’s been my best friend since we were five, and Marcus, aka the man across the hall, is a complete sweetheart. But I’d been seeing a lot of the inside of my apartment recently and Hunter had promised that tonight we would go out on a date that didn’t centre around my (admittedly comfortable) couch. There was no use complaining about it though, so I slipped into my yoga pants and my ‘I heart Australia’ tee shirt, changed my painstakingly upswept hair into a messy bun, and resigned myself to an evening of manual labour.
‘Anything else?’ I asked as I set down the last box of shoes just inside Marcus’s guest bedroom – shortly to become Lily’s walk-in wardrobe unless I missed my guess.
‘No, Marcus is getting the last couple of boxes,’ Lily’s voice drifted from the kitchen. ‘Wait, Elan, where’s the green tea?’
‘If I have to run over here to get you every time Aunty Sun rings on the landline,’ I replied, lying down on Marcus’s couch, ‘I will count the green tea as my payment for maintaining this tangled web of lies.’
‘I can just go into the apartment and get it,’ Lily pointed out.
I smirked. There were some benefits to being almost a foot taller than Lily. ‘Good luck with that.’
There was a moment of silence.
‘You’ve hidden it on one of the top shelves, haven’t you?’
‘You and the step ladder will have fun together,’ I said.
I could hear the glare in Lily’s voice. ‘Your passive aggressive expression of disapproval is noted.’
‘There’s nothing particularly passive about it,’ I retorted as Marcus walked into the apartment, carrying two boxes of Lily’s books.
‘That’s the last of it,’ Marcus said, and kicked the front door shut behind him. Lily, delicate and somehow glossily finished despite the old tank top and short shorts she was wearing, came out of the kitchen to reward him with a kiss. Marcus put down the boxes so he could wrap one impressively muscled arm around Lily’s waist and deepen the kiss. It went on and on and on.
‘I’m still in the room,’ I said grumpily to the ceiling. ‘And you two are about to cross the line from PDA to visuals I just don’t need.’
Marcus and Lily reluctantly pulled apart.
‘Elan’s just cranky Hunter had to break their date tonight,’ Lily murmured to Marcus.
I huffed on the couch but didn’t argue. ‘He might stop by for a late dinner.’
Given it was 11.26 p.m. I wasn’t holding out much hope.
Marcus pulled his blackberry from the back pocket of his jeans. ‘Hmm, I doubt it. Ben only went home about fifteen minutes ago and his last report said Hunter was still at his desk.’
It took me a moment to process that sentence.
‘Wait – what!’ I sat up on the couch to stare incredulously at Marcus. ‘You have the intern with the crush on you spying on my boyfriend?’
‘In a nutshell,’ said Marcus, pocketing his phone, teeth flashing blindingly white against his dark-chocolate skin.
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Just, wow. Can I ask why?’
‘Hunter’s been working a lot of Saturday nights recently,’ Marcus replied, ‘and Ben was going to be there anyway.’
‘It would’ve been a waste of resources,’ Lily agreed, running a lingering hand down Marcus’s white-cotton clad chest before heading back to the kitchen. ‘Pizza?’
I contemplated explaining the nature of boundaries and how my love-life was none of their business, but my stomach grumbled and I opted to save my breath. This is what happens when you encourage a corporate lawyer and a public relations executive to date each other. I really had no one to blame but myself. ‘Sure, pizza sounds good.’
Marcus hefted the boxes back into his arms and headed to the lone overflowing bookcase.
‘You need more bookshelves,’ I said, reluctantly getting up to help him.
‘No,’ Marcus replied, unloading the books into every spare nook and cranny he could find. ‘Lily needs to get better at throwing out books and you, Elan, need to stop enabling her.’
‘Sacrilege,’ I said, rearranging the shelves to fit in Lily’s dog-eared copy of the
Left Hand of Darkness
in between Marcus’s well-worn copy of
The Consolations of Philosophy
and his Tolkien omnibus. And reclaimed my own beautifully embellished edition of
Les Misérables
.