The Morning After The Wedding Before (2 page)

Jake, on the other hand, didn’t do serious. He didn’t do commitment. He enjoyed women—on his terms. Women who knew the score. And when it was over it was over, no misunderstandings. No looking back. But,
hoo-yeah …
He couldn’t deny this lovely, more mature, more womanly Emma turned him on. Big time.

The door closed and he listened to her footsteps fade, stretching his arms over his head, imagining her walking downstairs. In that neck-to-ankle armour—which only added to the sexual intrigue. Did she even realise that? He should have escorted her down, he thought again. But the lady, and everything about her body language, had said a very definite no.

Shaking off the lusty thoughts, he rolled down his shirtsleeves. Damn Earl, the SOB who’d fathered him, for dying
and leaving him this mess to sort out. No one knew of Jake’s connection to this club, with the exception of Ry and his parents and more recently his PA.

And now Emma Byrne.

‘Hell.’ He checked the time, then shoved his phone in his pocket. He didn’t have time for that particular complication right now—he had an important business meeting to attend. Grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair, he headed downstairs.

A
ND
she’d told him not to turn up late.

‘She’d better have a good excuse,’ Jake muttered the following evening as he swung a left in his BMW and headed for Sydney’s seaside suburb of Coogee Beach, where Emma lived with her mother and Stella. As Ryan’s best man he’d had no choice but to elect himself to conduct the search party.

Or maybe she’d decided she didn’t want to run into Jake Carmody again so soon.

She’d always been big on responsibility, he recalled, and tonight was her sister’s night, so he figured she wouldn’t opt out without a valid reason. But she hadn’t answered her mobile and concern gnawed at his impatience. He tapped the steering wheel while he waited at a red light. A trio of teenagers skimpily dressed for a night on the town crossed in front of him, their feminine voices shrill and excited.

Maybe Emma wasn’t the same girl these days. Maybe she had decided to swap those self-imposed obligations for some fun at last. After all, apart from those few minutes yesterday, when neither of them had actually been themselves, how long had it been since he’d seen her?

His gut tensed an instant at the memory. He knew exactly when he’d last seen her. Seven months ago at Stella and Ryan’s engagement party. He knew exactly what she’d
been wearing too—a long, slinky strapless thing the colour of moon-drenched sea at midnight.

Or some such garment. He forced his hands to loosen on the wheel. Unclenched his jaw. So what if he’d noticed every detail, down to the last shimmering toenail? A guy could look.

He’d arrived in time to see her leave hand in hand with some muscled blond surfie type. Wayne something or other, Stella had told him. Apparently Emma and Wayne were a hot item.

Maybe Surfer Boy was the reason she’d lost track of time …

Frowning at the thought, he pulled into the Byrnes’ driveway overlooking the darkening ocean. The gates were open and he came to a stop beside an old red hatchback parked at the top of a flight of stone steps.

Perched halfway down the sloping family property was the old music studio, where he remembered spending afternoons in the latter days of high school. Early-evening shadows shrouded the brick walls but muted amber light shone through the window. Emma lived there now, he’d been informed, and she was obviously still at home. In the absence of any other car on the grounds, it seemed she was also alone.

Swinging his car door open, he pulled out his phone. ‘Ry? Looks like she hasn’t even left yet.’ He strode to the steps, flicking impatient fingers against his thigh. ‘We’ll be there soon.’

Pocketing the phone, he continued down the stairs. If
he
could make it on time to this wedding dinner after the hellish day he’d had, trying to stay on top of two businesses, so could Emma. She was the bridesmaid, after all.

Some sort of relaxation music drifted from the window, accompanying the muted
shoosh-boom
of the breakers on
the beach. He slowed his steps, breathing in the calming fragrant salt air and honeysuckle, and ordered himself to simmer down.

The peal of the door chime accompanied by a sharp rapping on her front door jerked Emma from her work. She refocused, feeling as if she was coming out of a deep-sleep cave. She checked her watch. Blinked.
Oh, no
. She’d assured Stella she’d be right along when the family had left nearly half an hour ago.

Which officially made her the World’s Worst Bridesmaid.

She stretched muscles cramped from being in one position too long and assured herself her lapse
wasn’t
because her subconscious mind was telling her she didn’t want to see Jake. She would
not
let him and that crazy moment yesterday when their eyes had met and the whole world seemed to fade into nothing affect her life. In any way.

Rap, rap, rap
.

‘Okay, okay,’ she murmured. She slipped the order of tiny stacked soap flowers she’d been wrapping back into its container and called, ‘Coming!’

Running her hands down the sides of her oversized lab coat, she hurried to the door, swung it open. ‘I …’

The man’s super-sized silhouette filled the doorway, blocking what was left of the twilight and obscuring his features, but she knew instantly who he was by the way her heart bounded up into her throat.

‘Jake.’ She felt breathless, as if she’d just scaled the Harbour Bridge. Ridiculous. Scowling, she flicked on the foyer light. She tried not to admire the view, she really did, but her eyes ate up his dark good-looks like a woman too long on a blond boy diet.

Tonight he wore tailored dark trousers and a chocolate-coloured
shirt open at the neck. Hair the colour of aged whisky lifted ever so slightly in the salty breeze.

‘So here you are.’ His tone was brusque, those black-coffee eyes focused sharply on hers.

‘Yes, here I am,’ she said, trying to ignore the hot flush seeing him had brought on and reminding herself where she’d seen him last. The flashback to the strip club made her feel like a gauche schoolgirl and it should not. But she was the one at fault tonight—and the reason he was standing in her doorway.

She gave him a careless smile, determined not to let yesterday spoil this evening. For Stella’s sake. ‘And running late,’ she rushed on. ‘I assume that’s why you’re here?’
Why else?

One eyebrow rose and she knew he wasn’t impressed. ‘You had some people concerned.’ He said it as if he didn’t count himself amongst those people—where had yesterday’s twinkle gone?—while he stepped inside and scanned the dining room table covered in the hand-made goat’s milk soaps she’d been working on.

‘You weren’t answering your phone.’ His gaze swung back to hers again. ‘Not handy when people are trying to contact you.’

Her smile dropped to her feet. Was that
censure
in his voice? ‘This from the guy who was too busy at his
other business
to answer his own mobile yesterday?’ she shot back. ‘You do realise I had to pry the info as to your whereabouts from your PA?’

He nodded, his eyes not flinching from hers. ‘So she told me. I apologise for the inconvenience, and for any embarrassment I caused you.’

Emma drew in a deep breath. ‘Okay.’ She forced her mature self to put yesterday’s incident to the back of her mind for now. ‘As for me, I have no legitimate excuse for
forgetting the time, so it’s my turn to apologise that you had to be the one to come and get me.’ She tried a smile.

He nodded, his dark eyes warmed, and his whole demeanour mellowed like a languid Sunday afternoon. ‘Apology accepted.’ He leaned down and brushed her cheek with firm lips, and she caught a whiff of subtle yet sexy aftershave before he straightened up again.

Whoa
. Yesterday’s tingle was back with a vengeance, running through her entire system at double the voltage. ‘So … um … I’ll just go …’ Feeling off-centre, she backed away, ostensibly towards the tiny area sectioned off by a curtain which she used as a bedroom, but he didn’t take the hint and leave. ‘Look, you go on ahead. I’ll be ready in a jiff and it’s only a ten-minute drive to the restaurant.’

He shrugged, stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘I’m here now.’

Slipping off her flats, she glanced about for her heels. But her eyes seemed drawn to him as if they were on strings. He dressed like a million bucks these days. Still, those threadbare jeans he’d worn way back when had fuelled more teenage fantasies than she cared to remember. She watched him wander towards her table of supplies. With his hands in his pockets, drawing his trousers tight across that firm, cute butt …

No
. Sleazy club-owner. Dragging her eyes away, she scoured the floor for her shoes. ‘There’s really no need to wait …’

‘I’m waiting. End of story.’ She heard the crinkle of cellophane as he examined her orders. ‘Your hobby’s still making you some pocket money, then?’

Irritation stiffened her shoulders. She glared at him. ‘It’s
not
just a hobby, and it’s never been about the money.’
Unlike others who shall remain Nameless
. Exhaling sharply through her nose, she swiped up a black stiletto
and slipped it on. ‘I have to wonder why it is that helping people with skin allergies seems to you to be a waste of time.’

‘I never sa—’

‘Why don’t you go while I …?’
Calm down
. ‘Find my other shoe.’

‘So uptight.’ He tsked. ‘You really need to get out more, Em. Always was too much work and not enough play with you.’ He scooped her shoe from beneath a chair and tossed it to her. ‘Maybe the wedding’ll help things along.’

She caught it one-handed, dropped it in front of her with a clatter and stepped into it, then bent to do up the straps. She’d had it with people telling her how to live her life. Get out more? She let out a huff. She had familial obligations. Had she told him what she thought of the way he was living
his
life nowadays? No.

She finished fastening her shoes and straightened, pushed at the hair that had fallen over her eyes. Forget his uninformed opinion. Forget him, period. She had her
un-
fabulous job at the insurance call centre—but it paid the bills—and she had just finished her Diploma in Natural Health. And if she chose to fill her leisure hours working on ways to help people use natural products rather than the dangerous chemicals contained in other products these days, it was nobody’s business but hers.

‘So how’s … what was her name …? Sherry?’ she asked with enough sweetness to decay several teeth as she slipped open the top button of her lab coat. ‘Will she be missing you this evening?’

His brows rose. ‘Who?’

‘The one …’
draped all over you
‘… at Stella’s engagement party. Stella mentioned her name,’ she hurried on, in case he thought she’d actually asked. Which she had. But he didn’t need to know that.

‘Ah … You mean Brandy.’

She shrugged. ‘Brandy. Sherry. She looked like more of a
Candy
to me.’ With her suck-my-face-off lips and over-generous cleavage. And everything else Emma was lacking. ‘You didn’t say hello and introduce us. Was that because she was one of your
exotic dancers?
’

‘You and your date left as we arrived. Was that just a curious coincidence?’

Jake watched her cheeks flush guiltily and felt an instant stab of arousal. Hell. He kept his expression neutral, but something was happening here. And the hot little fantasy he’d had last night about what she’d been wearing beneath that red coat yesterday wasn’t helping.

And now she was undoing the second button of that lab coat, revealing a pair of sexy collarbones and putting inappropriate ideas into his head.

He ground his teeth together as images of black lace and feminine flesh flashed through his mind. ‘Are you going to get ready or what?’ The demand came out lower and rougher than he’d have liked. Then he held his breath as she shrugged out of the coat, tossed it over the couch.

‘I’m ready already.’ She flashed him a cool look. ‘I use the coat to protect my clothes when I’m working.’

His gaze snagged on her outfit—a short black dress shot through with bronze, hugging her slender curves to perfection. He swallowed. The legs. How come he’d never noticed how long her legs were? How toned and tanned? He did
not
imagine how they’d feel locked around his waist.

Cool it
. He deliberately relaxed tense muscles. He’d wait outside, get some air.

But before he could move she picked up an embroidered purse from the couch and walked to the front door. ‘Shall we go?’

He walked ahead, opened the door. ‘We’ll take my car.’

‘I’m taking my own car, thanks.’ She locked the door behind them, then headed towards the hatchback, her heels tapping a fast rhythm on the concrete.

He pressed his remote and the locks clicked open. ‘Hard to get a parking space anywhere this time of night,’ he advised. ‘And we—make that
you
—are running late already. Stella and Ryan are waiting.’

Swinging her door open, she glanced back at him. ‘Better get a move on, then.’

He started to go after her, then changed his mind. She was in a dangerous mood, and he was just riled enough to take her on. And it might end … He didn’t want to think about how it might end. Because he had a feeling that anything with Emma would need to be very slow and very,
very
thorough. If you could find your way through those thorns, that was. ‘I’ll see you there.’

She clicked her seat belt on, turned the ignition and revved the engine. ‘Ten minutes.’

Emma’s stomach jittered. Her pulse raced. Trouble. She’d seen more than enough of it in Jake’s hot brown eyes. As if she was performing some sort of striptease. She’d not given it a thought when she’d peeled off her lab coat. But he had.
Sheesh
. She scoffed to herself. As if he’d give her less than average body a second look when he was surrounded by all those Brandies and Candies and brazen beauties at the Pink Mango.

Flicking a glance at her rearview mirror she caught the glare of his headlights. She deliberately slowed her speed, hoping he’d overtake, but he seemed content—or irritated enough—to cruise along behind her. She could feel his eyes boring into the back of her head.

She let out a shaky sigh and drew a deep, slow breath to steady herself. Easier to blame him than to admit to
that old attraction—because no way was Jake the Rake the kind of man she wanted to get involved with on an intimate level.

She accelerated recklessly through a yellow light, Jake hot on her heels. She wasn’t herself tonight. Wrong. She hadn’t been herself since she’d come face to face with Jake in his dingy office yesterday.

Even as a teenager he’d always made her feel … different. Self-conscious. Tingly. Uncomfortably aware of her feminine bits.

Her fingers clenched tighter on the steering wheel. She needed to get herself under control. She didn’t figure in his life at all, nor he in hers. And tonight wasn’t about her or him or even
them
; it was about Stella and Ryan.

She tensed as the well-lit upscale restaurant came into view, and glanced in the mirror again just in time to see Jake’s car glide into a parking space she’d been too distracted to notice right outside the restaurant.