Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel) (91 page)

And now, out of the blue, she’d been offered the interview for the publicity department at Te Mana, a glamour position beyond her wildest dreams. Maybe she’d impressed somebody from the company at the shoot, as unlikely as that seemed. Or maybe Vincent wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe he had recommended her.

She’d been told that she forgave too easily, and she supposed it was true. But surely that was better than going through the world angry, holding a grudge.

The elevator stopped on the fifty-first floor, and her heart slammed against her chest. Because
he
was getting in, his glance flicking over her just as it had that day the week before, a little smile on his beautiful lips.

“You’re here,” he said. “Looking forward to your interview?”

She was staring. At his shirt, open at the neck to reveal a triangle of smooth brown skin, glimpsed for a single glorious instant before he turned to stand beside her. At the perfectly tailored black suit jacket that clung to his broad shoulders, narrowed to his trim waist.

It took her a moment to realize what he had said, because of the accent. She’d heard it in interviews, the clipped tones, the New Zealand vowels falling strangely on her ear. All uttered in a low voice as creamy as chocolate, as deep and rich as his skin.

“How did you know?” she asked, struggling to focus on what he was saying.

“Oh,” he said, “I make it my business to know everything. Because it
is
my business.”

The elevator came to a stop, the doors glided open,
and he put a hand out to hold them. “Here you are,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said. “Wish me luck.” Then she could have kicked herself. Why was she talking to him like that? Like he was…anybody?

A faint smile warmed his brown eyes for just a moment, lightened his expression so he wasn’t the cold, forbidding figure he had seemed at the shoot, and then the mask had slipped back into place, and her heart was fluttering, beating out a fierce tattoo.

“I don’t think you’ll need luck,” he told her. “I have a feeling you’re going to knock them dead.”

***

Shoot,
Faith thought.
Shoot, shoot, shoot.
This wasn’t paying her own bills. And she was fresh out of inspiration for the Roundup. She just couldn’t get excited about simulated sex on the mechanical bull, not when she had simulated sex of her own to write about.

Because hers had a
story,
that was why, and it was a story that was itching to be told. Who was Hemi, underneath? And who knew that Hope had a sister? Faith did, that was who.

An hour later, she’d given up on the Roundup, but at least she was working on something practical again. And she was sweating.

“Don’t you have somebody to do that?” she heard from behind her. That same dark-chocolate voice, and too bad she wasn’t in an elevator, and that he wasn’t about to make all her financial worries go away.

“I do.” She continued to saw, because she needed to finish this, now that she had started. She still had one more tree to go. “Me.”

“You do the gardening? That’s pretty heavy work.”

The thin-bladed, long-handled wooden saw bit through the final bit of tough, spiky stem, and she leaned back. “Watch it,” she warned. “Sharp edges.”

The heavy frond fell to the ground to join its fellows, the wicked teeth along its edges missing him as he jumped back.

“I don’t do all the gardening,” she said, turning on her stepladder to look at him. He was in a T-shirt, shorts, and running shoes, a damp vee of sweat darkening the light-gray fabric down his broad chest, but she wasn’t looking at that. Well, hardly at all. “I have a service to do the grass and the basic stuff. But this is too expensive. And, hey. It’s a whole lot worse when it’s 110 out.”

“So…” He kicked at the pile of fronds at the base of the tree, looked around at the two others she had already pruned. “Need a hand?”

“No, thanks. Besides, you already worked out today.”

“Do me a favor.” He sounded pained. “I think I could manage that without straining myself.”

“I don’t have gloves that would fit you,” she said, eyeing his hands. Which, as Calvin had already noted, were big.
The better to hold you with.
“And my insurance won’t cover it if you get hurt. No.”

He sighed in obvious exasperation. “What d’you do with all these? The fronds?”

“Put them in my truck,” she said reluctantly. “Take them to the dump. There you go. My afternoon plan, at least part of it, before I get back to my real job.”

“We aren’t shooting until tomorrow.”

“Marketing for a casino, remember? My other job, I guess I should say.”

“Then let me help you,” he said. “Let me just run up and change, and then I’ll bung these things into the truck, how’s that? And I’ll go with you, too.”

“You do not want to go to the dump. Plus, I have another errand afterwards.”

He shrugged. “Why don’t I want to go to the dump? I don’t have anything else to do.”

Which was why he was sitting next to her in the truck at the Waste Management site on West Sahara an hour later, having just grabbed the gloves from her despite her protests, wrestled them as far onto his hands as he’d been able to manage, and tossed the wickedly sharp palm fronds onto the trash pile in the concrete bay.

“All I can say is,” she said when he’d hopped in to join her again, “star athletes must live differently in New Zealand.”

“Not too differently from anybody else.” He pulled off the leather gloves and setting them on the dash. “Because we don’t make nearly as much money as they do here, probably. Maybe a tenth, if we’re lucky. Makes it harder to set yourself up as some rich boofhead.”

“What’s a boofhead?”
That
was a new one. And a
tenth?
Wow.

He grinned. “Dickhead, more or less. I was being polite.”

The startled a laugh out of her, but she quickly sobered as the thought struck her. “You didn’t—”

“Didn’t what? What have you dreamed up now?”

She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. “You took the modeling job because you needed to,” she realized. “And living in Mrs. Ferguson’s place— You’re not—”

“Oh, bloody hell,” he sighed. “What am I not? Go on and finish a sentence. Are we back to the felon idea?”

She wasn’t sure how to ask. “That you came to Las Vegas. Do you have a…a problem? You’re not…broke?” Good thing she’d got the rent up front.

She cast a hasty glance across at him, saw him looking chagrined, and her heart sank. He was in trouble. She’d known it.

Silence reigned for a few pregnant moments before he spoke. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want you to know. I do have a problem. I need to get it sorted, I know it. I kept thinking I could keep it under control, that I could stop. But when I bet my house…” He looked away, staring at nothing, at blank concrete. “Afterwards, it was like a…like it had been some kind of bad dream. I ducked out of the hotel that day without paying, too. I didn’t want you to know, but it’s on my conscience.” He swung around to her again, his dark gaze earnest. “I’m planning to pay it back, though,” he assured her, “soon as I get the next payment from Calvin. That’s why I agreed to it, the modeling, even though it’s…” He swallowed. “Degrading. But it’s what your mum said. You do what you have to do.”

“You—” she began. The sweetness she’d seen in him, the rare flashes of vulnerability. This was why? She’d forgotten she was still sitting in the trash bay, backed up to a mountain of junk, because he was staring sightlessly out into the yard now, watching a garbage truck roll slowly by. As she watched, he swallowed, the Adam’s apple moving in his strong brown throat.

And then she saw the telltale twitch at the corner of his mouth. “You’re messing with me,” she realized. “You are totally—” He lost the battle, started to laugh, and she slugged him hard in the upper arm. “You
jerk.”

He grabbed her hand in a flash, tugged her towards him. “I’m a jerk?” he asked, smiling into her eyes. “Me? I’m not the one slagging off somebody’s character.”

His hand was hard and warm around hers, and she couldn’t have said if she was leaning into him, or if he was doing the leaning, but her eyes were fluttering closed, and his lips were brushing over hers, his other hand coming up to cup her cheek.

It was all warm, and sweet, and soft. Then he was kissing her again, his lips a little firmer now, and every single nerve in her body was springing to life. She heard herself making a little whimpering sound that didn’t even sound like her, and his hand was behind her head, his other arm going around her, pulling her close.

“Oh,
hell,
no.” The voice was rough. Pained. “That’s just sad.”

Her eyes sprang open, and she was jerking back from Will, because a burly man in stained coveralls and a goatee was bent over, peering into the truck’s window beside her.

“I’d say get a room, but damn, man,” he told Will, “that’s desperate. At the fu— the friggin’
dump?
We got people waiting, dude. Get out of here.”

Dress Rehearsal

He’d just kissed a woman in a rubbish tip. Worse, he’d kissed
Faith
there. What was next? He was going to make his big move at the cemetery?

She cleared her throat, shoved the truck into gear, and started off with a jolt. A little rough on the clutch, but he couldn’t blame her. He was still shaken. Her soft, responsive mouth, her sweet, warm body…at the
dump.

“So…” he said as she made a right onto Sahara, then moved on over through the late-afternoon traffic into the left lane. “Not my smoothest moment.”

She laughed in surprise, and he grinned at her, and she laughed some more, and then they were both laughing, because they couldn’t help it.

“I am
so
tempted,” she told him, pulling to a stop at a light and raising a hand to swipe at her eyes, “to tell my mom.”

He leaned his head back and groaned. “The worst. That would be the worst. Could we start again? I do a pretty fair line in dark, dangerous grabbing, I’m told, if you give me a bit of rehearsal and some coaching.”

“No,” she said, that smile trying to peep through. “Probably my fault, though,” she added generously, because that was how Faith was. “I mean, with your gambling addiction and all.”

“And losing all my money,” he reminded her. “Don’t forget that. I don’t gamble, actually. I may have put a quarter or two into one of those pokies machines, can’t promise I haven’t, but a sportsman can’t afford to be a gambler.”

“One of those
what?”

“Pokies. You know.” He made the motion. “Ching-ching-ching?”

“Ah. Slot machines. Boy, you talk funny.”

The light had turned green, and she was headed south on Valley View. “But I kiss all right,” he said, and grinned at her again. “At least that’s what they say.” And then he could have kicked himself. He wasn’t meant to be doing casual. He should have been romantic or something. He’d
felt
romantic, back there. When she’d been melting against him, he’d wanted to lay her down, touch her, kiss her everywhere, and murmur…things. When she’d made that little whimpering noise into his mouth…he’d been
gone.
But he’d said he wouldn’t push it, and he had the feeling that no matter what he said or how he said it, she wasn’t going to be playing.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll bet they do. And no. We’re taking that right off the table.” Which made him sigh again.

“Right. Friends, eh. And not with benefits.”

“You want benefits,” she said, sounding a little more sure of herself again, “go find some other girl. But…this is awkward.”

“What?”

“I’m trying to be all businesslike about this whole thing. The photography, I mean. I thought, people do this all the time, right? The sexy pictures? No big deal. But I wasn’t expecting it to be…you. I thought it’d just be some model, and I’ve worked with a lot of models.”

“But?” he prompted.

“Maybe it’s because you’re not really a model. Who knows?”

“Well, I do. I know. Because I feel the same way. Not sure how anybody does it. Not because it’s so sexy,” he went on hastily. “Because it’s not, is it. It’s just…a bit weird. Especially doing it in front of you.”

“And it’s about to get weirder. Because my next errand? It’s to the Adult Megastore.”

“Which would be…”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “The adult store. Not for me,” she added, as if he couldn’t have guessed that. “For supplies.”

“Don’t tell me,” he said, all the humor gone. “You said nothing too dirty. I’m not posing with some…some kind of toys, or gear. No. Absolutely not.”

“It’s not that bad. You won’t even be in the shots. Well, maybe a few of them,” she admitted, “like we said. So maybe it’s a good thing you’re coming after all. I can show you, and then you won’t pitch a fit, and make Calvin pitch one. But it’s embarrassing, all right? Because I’ve never been in one of those stores,” she confessed, and the color was rising in her cheeks again. “I researched online, of course,” she added hastily, like the conscientious student she’d probably been, “but I don’t know what to expect, and going there with you…maybe I need to ask you to wait in the truck.”

“Oh, no. Not possible.” The laughter was bubbling up again from deep in his chest despite his fairly serious disappointment. “I’m sure I shouldn’t say this, but I’m guessing I can find my way around. Consider me your guide.”

***

Except that they had a guide. An older lady, wearing a tunic over stretch pants, a bright, beaded necklace, glasses, and a smile, guaranteed to take all the sexyfeels straight out of his dream date with Faith.

“Can I help you?” she asked as the two of them walked through the pneumatic doors into the store, which sat in a strip mall next to a swimming-pool supply and a pet-food shop. All in a day’s work for Vegas, Will supposed.

“Ah…” Faith said, looking around her wildly. Ahead of them sat a huge display of condoms, while the racks to the right were filled with DVDs whose covers left nothing to the imagination.