Pretty Hot (The Pretty Trilogy Book 1) (2 page)

‘Mourning what could’ve been? Grand, we’ll make it a wake—cremate the fucker in flaming Sambuca shots!’

My palm meets my head with a groan. I’d somehow forgotten what a pain in the arse she can be. Like sciatica, a persistent, nagging pain that you can’t do much about. Though this trait sometimes has its uses. In fact, as I’d muttered down the phone that I’d booked a ticket to visit, she’d pretty much taken over. Told me I could stay with her as long as I liked. She’d even lined me up with some interviews once I’d said I was thinking about staying, totally facilitating my getaway.

Niamh. She’s my shining example of how to live life as you want to and not how others think you should. I’d gotten to know her a few years before when we’d worked at the same school in Brisbane, she on her teaching-tour-of-the-world, me on my path to the ‘burbs, teaching at the school I’d worked at since leaving university. The very same one I’d attended as a kid my whole school life.

She’s a pain, for sure, but the very best kind. So now I have a new job, which comes with an apartment, in a school where all my fellow teachers are female. Short of joining a convent, I can’t imagine a better place to start again.

I’ll be teaching grade three at the Al Mishael School for Girls.
An exclusive English curriculum school for families preferring a more culturally acceptable environment for their daughters
. Which is just a long winded way of saying it’s an all-girls school. I’m familiar, having attended and taught in one myself. Catholic in my case. It can’t be that different, surely. A school is a school, whether in Brisbane, Delhi or Dubai.

Not that I can quite believe I’m here—in Dubai, I mean. It kind of blows my mind. Billion dollar buildings and roads where every other car seems to be a Lamborghini. Streets filled with exotic sights and sounds.

Far out. I’m living in Dubai.

With a slow smile, I place my glass down. Now I just need to work out how to convince Niamh I need a new man like I need a genital piercing.

Chapter Two

The classroom door creaks in protest as I close it, but I’ve done it. I’ve officially survived my first week at a new school, in a new country, not to mention on a new continent. Pushing away from the wood, I resist the urge to dance around the room. Just as well as the door screeches open, Sadia, my classroom assistant, staggering into the room barely visible behind a tower of books.

‘
Asif
 . . . sorry, the door,’ she apologises as I grab a few teetering copies.

‘We’ll get the caretaker to look at it. It must’ve swelled in the heat.’

Placing the pile of books on a nearby desk, she slides an errant wisp of hair under her headscarf. ‘I go now to him?’

‘What? Nah, next week’s fine.’

‘Then I will take the wowel verk for marking?’

‘The what?’

She frowns, casting her gaze around the room almost as though expecting to find the answer to my confusion daubed on the walls. ‘The wow-el,’ she says slowly, patiently. Like she’s talking to an idiot, while I stare back, probably looking like one. ‘Wowels; the a, the e, the i—’

‘Oh,
vowels!
You want to take the vowel worksheets home?’

‘Yes, verk-shit,’ she says, her frown deepening.

‘It is,’ I reply, struggling to keep my composure. ‘But it pays the bills. Sorry, of course that’s what you meant. And its fine, we’ll catch up next week. No reason you should work on your weekend. You can . . . leave now, if you want?’

She flushes pink, discomfited, murmuring something about a taxi, her head moving as though independent of her neck. I find myself mirroring her actions before stopping. Rather than exotic, I probably look like a bit of a tit.

‘Yeah, go. Whenever.’ Feeling ungracious, I add, ‘Thanks for your awesome help this week.’

And awesome she has been. The week has passed by so fast, I can’t imagine ever going back to oversized classes, the daily grind and being overworked. I love my job, but a class of just twenty
and
a full-time assistant is enough to seduce any teacher. Even if said assistant’s English is a little funky.

Sadia’s cheeks flush once more, this time with pleasure. Ducking her head, she straightens the scarf covering her hair as she murmurs a quiet
most welcome.

She leaves the grating door open, the courtyard beyond almost quivering in the heat. The campus is pretty big, but I’m slowly finding my way around. There’s apparently a boys’ school nearby identical to this. I wonder if it’s just the building or if the set-up’s the same.
Are all the staff male?
I smother the thought in a heartbeat. So not going there, in either sense. I hardly need a paperback shrink to tell me that.

My heels echo in the quiet of the room. Classrooms can be pretty sad places at the start of a new school year, unadorned and absent of the children’s creations usually displayed with pride. Delaying my own taxi for a later pick-up, I’d planned to hang around for a while and fossick through the resource cupboard, curious to see what’s inside. It’s good to know what you have to work with, plus I’ve big plans for the room, beginning with designating a reading area that’ll be the envy of the grade. All I need to do now is hang my pink-sequined mosquito net from the ceiling, thus defining a space for the sanctuary of the written word.

In other words, diversionary tactics: look, pretty pink sparkles—now sit quietly and read!

Dragging in a ladder from the store cupboard, I leave the door open. It’s still blisteringly hot and humid outside despite the late afternoon hour, but a whole day in the frigid air conditioning has my bones aching for a little natural warmth. A sudden scent of frangipani on the scant, warm breeze reminds me of home, and as I stand in the doorway, memories I’ve tried hard to suppress play out in my mind, frame by reluctant frame.

Shane stands in the doorway, murmuring endearments into his phone.

Clearly it’s not me on the other end of the line.

The thoughts, dark and bitter, cause my stomach to coil. I’ve been through the stages: sadness, anger, denial. And I’ve bought the bloody books, before finally reaching a place of acceptance. I accept that my ex-fiancé is a whore.

‘She’s a stripper for fuck’s sakes. It’s a bucks’ night thing!’

An absolute whore.

Shuddering at the memory, I wrap my arms around my elbows and force myself back to now. Music. That’s what I need, that and a bucket-sized glass of red, but first things first. Flipping open my laptop, I select a random playlist, and angry-girl music fills the room. I begin to sway realising that this song could actually be my personal anthem as, in the words currently being belted out, I’m determined to move in the right direction.

My spirits lift as I dance like there’s no one watching because, well, there isn’t. Always a little self-conscious on the dance floor, I relish any opportunity to get my groove on alone. Sad but true. It’s one of my guilty pleasures; friendlier on the bum than chocolate cake and a lot less daggy than the air guitar. I let the lyrics of strength and defiance fill me as I lift a foot onto the first rung of the ladder, mozzie net and hammer tucked firmly under my arms, picture hooks dangling like broken teeth between my lips.

Humming still, I climb as high as my nerves and heels allow, reaching toward the ceiling. Footwear notwithstanding, I manage to bash a hook into submission, achieving my goal as the bright pink fabric falls to the ground in luxurious folds.

In retrospect, I probably should have ditched my heels at the foot of the ladder, but clearly too busy dancing like a loon, I find myself balanced almost at the very top. Still, a person of my stature needs all the help she can get, and as someone short and smart once said, the higher the heel, the closer to heaven I am. I snort at the thought . . . just as the toe of my shoe glides past the aimed for rung.

Maybe wearing heels on a ladder will get me to the pearly gates quicker than I’d like.

The ladder rocks, parodying a dance, as my foot barely catches a lower tread. My heart leaps into my mouth, and in a panic to avoid broken limbs during my first week, I struggle and overcorrect . . . and the ladder dances perilously again.

‘
Fuck meeee!
’

The expletive, yelled through gritted teeth, sounds detached and strangled. Not surprising, considering I’m about to meet the ground fast and on an involuntary basis, when unexpectedly, my flailing is halted, the ladder planting itself on the floor with a resounding
thump.
I’m no longer falling but lying against a chest, a very solid, male chest, as my heart continues to do a pretty good impression of a dryer full of wet running shoes.

‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it customary to offer dinner first?’ The chest pressed against my back rumbles in a voice refined and deeply masculine.

My heart moves into my throat. I swallow hard, my resulting reply somewhere between a ‘what’ and a grunt. Attempting to unhook my foot from the offending rung, his hands, long-fingered and elegant, I can’t help but notice, steady my arms.

‘And even then I don’t always put out.’
Is that an English accent?

I twist my head over my shoulder, the retort sat at the end of my tongue dissolving immediately.
Wow
. His eyes, they’re startling. Almost
amber in colour with long inky lashes by way of a frame. He has the kind of eyes you read about in books; eyes that weaken knees and knicker elastic all with the mere quirk of a brow.
Was that pinging I just heard?

As I try to fire my dazed synapses—with about the same effectiveness as a caveman with two wet sticks—I get the impression he’d like very much to laugh. Probably at me rather than with, as he attempts to master the smile building on his generous mouth.

Generous, pouty and bite-able.

Bite-able, really? I’ve got to stop reading those kinds of books.

Stock-still and half turned, one hand grasping the metal frame of the ladder—probably a sensible precaution due to a high probability of an oncoming swoon—I become aware the stranger has spoken, his lips moving as my brain scrambles to catch up.

‘There’s nothing I like more than a pretty mouth full of dirty words, so really, thanks are unnecessary.’

My mouth works soundlessly as I remember Niamh describing a guy she’d once dated as having “eyes put in with a sooty thumb”. The description suddenly makes sense.
But did he just say
 . . .

‘You want me to thank you for telling me I’ve got a dirty mouth?’

‘I think you’ll find I said you had a pretty,’—his eyes flick almost imperceptibly to the orifice in question— ‘mouth.’

Oh, well that’s a bit different. Jesus, you could hang your coat off those cheekbones.

‘Would you like me to call maintenance? The caretaker?’ An eyebrow rises in enquiry, his gaze sliding the length of my body and to the hammer on the floor.

‘How about you just let go of my arms and let me down.’

Rich laughter fills the room as he does so, leaving one hand outstretched between us. ‘Ms Saunders, I presume?’

With a terse nod, I place my hand in his, unable to stop studying him from his head down. Mediterranean skin, the kind that reminds me of warm caramel, and an incongruous dusting of freckles across an aquiline nose. Dark hair falls a little too long across his collar in a style that screams
touch me, I’m artfully messy
. I resist the invitation, but only just.

‘I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,’ I reply curtly and with an inward cringe. Please tell me I did not just come over all Regency Period in front of a seriously hot guy. Quick, someone pass me the smelling salts. Or possibly a gun. ‘And just
how
do you know my name?’

‘The door,’ he replies, amused.

Ah, yep. There it is, painted within a picture of a sunflower the size of my head. As I don’t have an answer that doesn’t include some kind of serious blush, I opt instead to straighten my clothes. Viewed from under my lashes, I can tell he’s tall but it’s his face that takes my entire focus. It’s a face that could easily belong to another time; ancient Greece or Rome, but that feels too generic somehow. Less warrior and more lover, his dark, strong features are softened by his too full lips. Still, I can almost see him in a breastplate and a helmet.
Or maybe just a helmet.

Willing away the images, I bend down to pick up the hammer at the moment he does the same.

‘
Ow!
Watch what—’

‘Have you got rocks in your head?’

His hand flies to his nose. My own, meanwhile, covers my thumping skull.

‘If you’d just minded your own business, this wouldn’t have happened.’ Placing the hammer on a rung of the ladder, I rub my head, the sharpness having developed into a dull thud.

‘What, I should’ve left you to fall?’ His tone is highly incredulous, even spoken through the hand covering his mouth as he pinches the bridge of his obviously sore nose.

‘Better than dazzling girls off ladders and trying to lay them out.’

‘Dazzling?’

His sensual mouth quirks in the corner. It’s hardly surprising he’s laughing at me; I wouldn’t win any prizes for scintillating wit or grace right now. I pull away, casting my gaze around for something to say, something that doesn’t make me sound any more of a loon.

‘So, new girl, what do you do when you aren’t causing bodily harm to strangers?’ He stops my denials with a raised hand. ‘First you fall on me, then you attempt to break my nose.’

‘Third time’s a charm,’ I mutter in an undertone.

He smiles again, this time sort of devilishly, like there’s more to be heard in my mumblings as he holds out his hand. ‘I’m Kai, by the way.’

‘Kate,’ I reply, giving his hand a solid business-like shake. ‘Sorry about your nose, and, um, thanks for your help, but I’m all good.’ I extract my heated hand, aiming for calm and aloof.