SEAN’S CAR WAS GORGEOUS. Her brothers would hate it.
Too pretty. Too European. If they found out she was hanging out with a guy with a Maserati—aka not a Ford—they’d never let her live it down.
Aubrey, who considered herself more open-minded, took a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree tour of the late-model sedan. Metallic black paint. No custom flash. Big shock.
She leant over to peer through the tinted windows to the red leather interior, racing car seats, the big soft rug on the back seat covered in grey dog hair, before standing upright to find Sean watching her over the top of the roof, his keys swinging on the end of a finger.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“Nope. It’s clean-cut. Sophisticated. With just a hint of grunt. It’s you.”
His eyes narrowed. She wondered which part he had a problem with.
Before she figured out that part was her, she pulled open the door and slid inside. Sean opened the back door for Elwood, who bounded in and licked Aubrey right up the front of her face the moment he saw his chance.
By the time Sean slid into the driver’s seat she was spluttering and coughing.
“You—?” He stopped himself right in time.
“Am I what?”
“Can’t say. You told me not to.”
Aubrey grabbed the edge of her shirt and lifted it to wipe the spit from her tongue. “Seriously? Don’t you think that was an occasion that warranted it?”
“You tell me.”
Aubrey peeked over the top of her shirt hem to find Sean looking…strangled.
“Can you put your shirt down, please?” he gritted out.
“Why?”
“Because… I can see you.”
Aubrey had a gander. Her shorts were high-waisted so there was a smidge of skin showing above her belly button and below her bra. Far less flesh than the world would see if she was wearing a bikini.
She glanced up at Sean and scoffed. Only to find him now gripping the steering wheel and looking out of the front window as if his life depended on it.
Meaning he was trying even harder to keep the sizzle between them locked down than she was.
She cared less about the why than she did about the oh, my.
Sean Malone was keen on her. Super-keen. Friend? Fling? Maybe it was best to not put a label on it and just enjoy.
She slowly let her shirt fall back over her belly, and turned a little on the seat. Her voice dropping a smidge. They were in a small confined space, after all. “I know you’re this super-straight, upstanding guy who goes around rescuing women he believes might be damsels in distress, even though they are fierce and strong and perfectly fine thank you very much, but I didn’t pin you for a prude.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. His lovely hard jaw. It matched the pulse now beating rather strongly in his throat. When he turned to her, the heat in his eyes was anything but prudish. In fact he looked as if he wanted to ravish her then and there. As if the barest scruple was all that was holding him back.
As if a switch had been flipped and the curtain she’d been standing behind dropped away, all the feels she’d been denying shot to the surface. She wanted it. Wanted him to lean over, slide a hand behind her neck and kiss her. Just the thought of it made her head swim, her palms go clammy and her heart shudder.
It was her heart that stopped things, as it always did. A flicker of panic deep within its damaged depths. Like a big old wall keeping her safe from harm.
Aubrey gave her shirt an extra tug south. “Just in case.”
Sean laughed. Except it was really more of a groan. He ran a hand over his mouth before letting it drop to his lap. “If I’d known you would be this much trouble I’d never have piped up at the galleria.”
“Yeah,” she said, leaning back against the cool leather head rest and batting her lashes at him. “You totally would have.”
Muttering, mumbling, in Italian no less, the accent doing things to Aubrey’s insides that she couldn’t hope to contain, Sean faced front, switched on the car, gunned the engine, not once, but twice, before taking off fast enough to press her back into the seat.
Air conditioning flooded the car in glorious cool air in moments but she barely felt it, too surprised by the realisation Sean Malone was using his car to prove a point. He wasn’t quite as upstanding, cool-headed, or nearly as strait-laced as she’d led herself to believe.
* * *
They were out of the city surprisingly soon, Sean’s gorgeous car sweeping them up into the hills. The houses got bigger the further they went, the land plots larger and the landscaping more lush.
Sean eventually turned into a long, curving driveway, passing terraces covered in shrubs and scattered in statues, one boasting a crystal-clear infinity pool, ancient stone walls holding them all in place.
At the top stood a large stuccoed villa. It was at least three stories, with wings and pitched rooves, wrought-iron window frames and Venetian glass lamps. It was like something out of a Cary Grant movie.
The car rumbled to a halt right out front.
“We’re here?” Aubrey asked, rather redundantly when first Sean then Elwood leapt from the car. “This is where you work?”
“This is where I live.”
Aubrey moved slowly, taking in the details anew, with wide open eyes. “Melbourne Schmelbourne,” she muttered. “This is bloody fabulous.”
Showing a little speed now he was on a mission, Sean hustled her inside.
Forgoing the ostentatious front steps, they made their way through what had probably at one point been a servant’s entrance. It led to a rabbit warren of rooms and halls and stairs, with bits added on over the years, till they burst into a huge open-plan room with shiny wood floors, a big modern kitchen and mis matched wooden chairs around a huge round table.
Aubrey gasped. And not just at the sight of the unbelievable coffee machine. Five times the size of the one at her family’s garage. Her brothers would salivate if they saw it.
But the view…
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows tossed open to the elements was a vista of lush rolling green hills covered in classic Italian conifers spearing towards a hazy blue sky. And in the distance, a brown smudge with a couple of recognisable buildings peeking out of the top, Florence proper.
“Aubrey,” Sean’s voice cut into her reverie, “will you be all right if I leave you here a moment?”
“Yes,” she breathed. You can leave me here for the rest of time. “Absolutely. Give me the chance to get acquainted with your delightful coffee machine.”
“I wouldn’t touch her; she’s temperamental,” said a voice with a strong Italian accent that was not Sean’s.
Aubrey spun to find a foursome of impressively strong, healthy-looking humans heading up the stairs; two young men and two fabulous young women who looked like Wonder Woman’s cousins, all of them in work boots and covered in wood dust with face masks dangling around their necks.
“Hey there,” said Aubrey, going for friendly only for her voice to come out as a squeak.
The woman in front, the one who’d spoken—hair pulled back in a severe ponytail, dark eyes wary—gave her a knowing smile. Pitying.
“Aubrey, this is my staff,” said Sean. “Taking a break, I see.”
“We saw you driving up,” Wonder Woman’s cousin said, a curious gaze flickering between her boss and his unexpected guest.
Sean said nothing. Didn’t even budge. How interesting. Aubrey had felt a distance between him and the lovely Enzo back in town. She’d figured it came down to the fact not everyone had her incessant determination to connect. But now, even here, with staff who clearly knew one another well by the way they lounged about his living-space room, she could feel the divide.
Aubrey stepped forward. “I’m Aubrey. Nice to meet you all.”
“Flora,” the leader said grudgingly, taking Aubrey’s hand and squeezing for all she was worth. “The big redhead is Hans, the skinny one is Ben. The one who looks like me is Angelina.”
“We’re twins,” said the other twin, a winning smile creasing her striking face.
“Yes,” said Flora, rolling her eyes. “I believe that was implied. What we really want to know is where you came from.”
“Flora,” Sean chastised.
“Che cosa? What?” Flora said, her face all innocence.
Aubrey turned to find Sean leaning against the bench, arms crossed, gaze flat, lit with warning. Telling Flora to back down.
But Aubrey didn’t need defending. She might be a half-head smaller than each of them, and they all looked as if they could bench-press her, but she could take care of herself.
She lifted a hand to the mask dangling around Flora’s neck, added, “Your face mask. Looks like it’s good for gas, paint, vapours dust, mould. Is it an FreshAir 2000?”
Flora’s mouth opened before she looked over Aubrey’s shoulder to Sean. “I… I have no idea. Boss?”
Aubrey felt Sean shift. Felt him amble towards her. Felt him stop less than a metre to her left. Felt him as if he were millimetres away, not feet. All tension and bridled heat.
“It’s an FreshAir 3500,” he said. And, for the first time since she’d made his acquaintance, Aubrey saw a spark of unchecked curiosity light his eyes. “How on earth do you even know that?”
“We use really similar ones in my family shop. The full face, though. Not the half.”
“What kind of shop?” That was Ben. Skinny. British accent. Pale skin blotched with pink.
Focussing on him was easier than on Sean, who remained a warm, dark presence at her side. “My family owns an auto body shop called Prestige Panel and Paint back in Sydney. We pimp vintage cars.”
“Serious? That’s wicked.”
“Totally wicked. My dad’s a panel beater. Highly respected, countrywide. Race cars were his thing in his youth. My brothers are the spray painters. I’m the details girl. I do the finicky work. We all have to wear these super-sexy suits, like Hazmat suits. Full air masks. Paint, metal dust. Safety first!”
Sean’s four workers nodded along. Even Flora seemed less full-on, now that Aubrey was one of the Face Mask Gang.
While Sean… Sean was looking at her differently. And she soaked it up like a sponge. Even while he was still steadfastly resisting her charm, she was a moth to his flame. Metal shavings to his magnet. Her woman-who-hadn’t-been-in-a-relationship-for-over-two-years to his hot man.
“Details,” he repeated, after doing the blinking thing, taking his customary “Sean moment” to absorb. Though with that new glint in his eye she felt as if he’d absorbed enough of her to become saturated. “You mean…flames down the sides? Leopards on the hood?”
She rolled her eyes. “And you a supposed ‘visionary’,” she said, trying Enzo’s accent on for size, waving Italian-esque hands for good measure.
Flora snorted. Then hid it, by clearing her throat.
Aubrey brought out her phone, opened the auto shop’s webpage displaying her work, and held it out to Sean.
He took it, his thumb sliding over hers in the handover. A little more slowly than seemed entirely necessary. Was it accidental? Was it deliberate? Not that she was complaining.
He took his time, scrolling. Looking at her work the same way she’d looked at the statue in the square—with time, and respect.
“This is you?” he eventually asked, brow furrowed, all delicious concentration. “You did all this?”
“Mm hmm.”
He turned the phone over. To the stained glass heart on her phone case. “You did this too.”
“Sure did. My friend, Daisy, is a musician. She used that pic on a single cover, then had the phone case custom made for me for Christmas a year ago, just before I finally went back to work.”
“Back?”
Oops.
“Long story.” Not one she had any intention of sharing. She was having far too good a time being Aubrey the Unavoidable, rather than Aubrey the Sick.
She moved in closer. Her shoulder happened to rest against his arm as she slid a finger over the screen till it stopped on her favourites. A photo of her putting the final touches on the petrol tank of a Harley Davison made to look as if it were covered in lace. A Camaro decked out to look as if it were covered in snake skin.
“Let me see,” said Flora, finding a way to shuffle between them, forcing Aubrey to take the phone and Sean to let go as he moved away.
After a few long moments Flora turned to Aubrey, her eyes accusing as she said, “You are very talented.”
It was so unexpected Aubrey laughed. “Damn right I am. But thank you.”
Flora gave her a nod, mouth downturned. Respect. Before reverting to Italian, turning her back and moving in on Sean to say, “Il capo. Il telefono.”
And Sean’s face came over all broody and dark. Like an island in a storm.
Making Aubrey realise how much he’d lightened up over the past few hours. She allowed herself the little glow that came with being pretty sure she had something to do with it.
While Sean and Flora talked in fast, furious yet muted tones, the rest of the crew hovered. Shuffling from foot to foot. Waiting for instruction. Deferential.
Which was when Aubrey realised Flora’s vibe wasn’t possessive. It was protective. Making her wonder why big, strong Sean Malone would need protection. Especially from the likes of her.
“Hey, guys,” Aubrey stage-whispered, “I’m going to make myself a coffee. And I’m happy to make more if anyone’s keen? Don’t mind a little temperamental.” She edged towards the fancy coffee machine, wriggling her fingers to encourage the shufflers away from the talkers.
Angelina, Ben and Hans all nodded, following the promise of caffeine. While Sean shot her a grateful smile. Not huge. More a tilting of the lips. A warmth around the eyes.
Still she might have stumbled just a little at the sight of it. Actually stumbled. As if she’d tripped over non-existent shoelaces.
He knew it too. The smile deepened. A sudden flash of teeth, a crinkle around the eyes before he turned back to Flora, who was looking at him as if he’d grown an extra head.
Aubrey bit her lip to stop from grinning like a loon. Then set to searching through what turned out to be some well-stocked cupboards to make the team a bunch of very fine cups of coffee.
All the while realising that Sean Malone was perfectly aware of how he affected her. And he let her stick around anyway.
* * *
“Aubrey,” said Sean as he ambled up to her spot leaning against the kitchen bench where she had plonked herself a good hour earlier, taking the time to send pictures to family and friends when the others had all moseyed downstairs.
Fine, so she might have explored first, away from all the loud banging and whirring coming from the workshop, nosing around the place to find a lot of locked doors. And even more traces of elegantly shabby unfurnished space. As if Sean lived out of only two or three rooms like some kind of mythical prince, trapped in his castle.
Though from what she could discern it was self-inflicted. His refusal to settle in, to open up, a choice.
Did people really just accept that? Or was she that much more bullish when it came to making herself seen—the product of being the youngest with three loud big brothers? If so, she was glad of it. He was worth the effort.
“Hey,” she said.
He moved to lean against the bench beside her. Not too close. But not too far either. “Sorry that took so long.”
“Hey, you came here to deal with whatever that was. I’m just a stowaway.”
Sean gave her a look. Considering, measuring; little sign of the wall he usually held in place. Because he was home? Or because of the series of infinitesimal shifts in their dynamic that had happened since?
“Tomorrow,” Sean said, leaning in a little; his voice deep, soft, intimate.
“Tomorrow?” she parroted back, her voice more than a little rough.
“I’ll make up for it.”
“Oh. Okay.” Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth… “How? I need details.”
“I’ll take you places. Touristy places. Places Machiavelli once stood. Michelangelo. Galileo. Places you can stop, and sit, and sketch. Or try to touch works of art when the guards aren’t looking. Places so rich with history and touristy splendour you’ll forget the David’s name.”
Aubrey gasped. “Never! He’s it for me. My one and only. Once I figure out how to help him down off his perch, the two of us are outta here.”
“Nevertheless.”
Aubrey nudged her chin towards the stairs. “Are you sure? Your crew looked plenty filthy. And I heard noises. Clearly there’s some actual hard work going on…somewhere within the walls of this crumbling palace of yours.”
The edge of Sean’s mouth tilted. “It’s no palace, believe me.”
“A little big for one guy, perhaps?” she said, not exactly pressing for personal info about his relationship situation, yet totally pressing.
“Mmm. It was the huge wine cellar that sold it,” he said, rubbing a hand over the dark grit that now shadowed his chin. “Since the place is built into the side of the hill, the basement has exterior access—two big old wooden doors lead right onto the driveway, which is perfect for pickups and deliveries so I had the cellar converted into a workshop.”
“Sacrilege,” she whispered.
“I think you mean ingenious.”
And once again, she saw a flash of teeth as he smiled. She’d wished it, but now she wasn’t sure she could handle it.
She looked away so that she could control the air in and out of her lungs. “You don’t have to. Tomorrow. This afternoon has actually been exactly what I needed. A rest day. Just focus on whatever it was that brought you zooming back here in your fancy car, okay?”
He ran a hand through his hair. Giving it a hard tug at the end. It was telling. A sign things were not totally cool in Sean World. “It was nothing.”
“Nothing. Okay. If you say so.”
He gave her that look. The one that warned her not to push.
But the thing was, she was a Leo, the youngest of four, and the only girl; pushing was the only way she knew to get things done. “If you’re determined to keep spending time with me, you will tell me eventually. You know that, right? I’ll niggle till you spill. It’s a big part of my charm.”
Sean’s hand dropped to the bench, his little finger curling over the edge a hair’s breadth from her own. The look he gave her was hooded. Sexy lines furrowing his brow. Lips tilted at the edges.
Nobody should look the way he looked when he was trying not to look like anything. It really wasn’t fair to the rest of the human race.
Then a shadow passed over Sean’s eyes before he dragged his gaze away to look out of the big picture windows, to the sky beyond. She thought that might be it. Conversation closed.
Till he said, “We—in this space—work on commissions. Creating, from concept to completion, everything from a single nursery chair for a royal baby, to a boardroom table that had to be sent by ship, then hauled to the thirtieth floor of a skyscraper in Qatar by way of a crane. The Malone Mark on a piece carries weight.”
Not an ounce of apology for his success. She loved it.
She leant her chin on steepled fingers and begged, “Tell me more.”
A cough of laughter. His shoulders relaxing a smidge lower. The furrows in his brow easing. It was quite lovely to watch him unwind. To know he felt comfortable enough to be that way with her.
Then he said, “If you keep your trap shut longer than half a second I will.”
Aubrey mimed buttoning her lips, even while her heart thudded at the sudden flash of authority coming her way.
Sean’s gaze dropped to her mouth. Where it stayed. Lingered. His chest rising and falling. His jaw tightening.
And any comfort she might have felt disappeared as fast as a drop of rain on a hot car roof.
She might have made a sound. A squeak. A moan. Enough that Sean breathed out hard and lifted his eyes to hers. If he didn’t see spades of lust therein he wasn’t looking hard enough. And from where she stood he was looking. Hard.
“The Malone Mark?” she said, her voice scratchy against the tight confines of her throat.
“Right,” he said. She wondered if he knew he’d had to physically shake himself back into the conversation. “I received an email yesterday morning. A commission request. I’d yet to respond as I’d yet to decide if it was something I could do. The…person making the enquiry followed up. Phoning here. From a private number. Flora took the call as the only person who ever calls the landline is her dad.”
“If it’s a private number how did this…commissioner get it?” she asked, but only after unbuttoning her lips. And once more it caught Sean’s gaze.
This time when he looked away he ran a hand over his face. “He’s an old friend of the family. Only person who’d have given him the number is my father.”
“Right,” said Aubrey, even though she didn’t understand at all.
Sean’s voice was solemn. Sombre. The word father dropped like a lead balloon.
She got that family could be a code word for chaos. How fraught those connections could be. How fragile and how fierce. Her own family was mad. But she loved them so much. Enough that they were absolutely her Achilles heel.
They were all in, each and every one. From her mum and dad, to her brothers, their wives, their gorgeous growing broods of kids.
The fact that she loved her family so ferociously was half the reason she’d taken Viv’s gift.
While Viv’s only proviso was that she begin in Florence, Aubrey’s only proviso was that before she spent a cent on her trip, she’d pay her parents back every cent they’d lost in taking care of her when she was ill.
It had been a big ask. But Viv had been adamant that her gift was giving her more joy than she could explain—and that she had billions to spare and no one to pass them on to bar Max, her dog.
It had served as a wonderful distraction. Showing her parents their flush bank account, then scooting out of the door and into the cab waiting to take her to the airport.
All that in mind, Aubrey treaded carefully, keeping her voice light as she asked, “Is his being friends with your family a good thing? Or no?”
“It’s…complicated.”
“Of course it is.”
“Are you mocking me?” he asked, shooting her a hot dark look that made her knees give out. Just a bit.
“Constantly!” she shot back.
Sean laughed that time. Really laughed. A rough rolling release of energy that barrelled through him till he had to bend over, hands on knees, to breathe.
“You okay down there?” Aubrey asked, her voice just for him.
He stood and she stood with him, eyes locked. Leaving Aubrey feeling a little light in the head. She could have put it down to those baby-blue stunners, but her low blood pressure was another thing she had to manage nowadays. And it had been a while since she’d eaten.
She leant back against the bench to regain a semblance of balance. Covering the slow return of blood to her head with fast talk. “By the intense back and forth earlier, I’m thinking Flora wants you to take the gig.”
“It’s not her call.”
“Of course, Mr Boss Man Malone decides where the Malone Mark goes. But it’s clear she cares about the business.” And the crew. And him. Even though even now Sean stubbornly refused to give. “What’s her take?”
“It’s good exposure.”
“And you don’t want to take it because…”
“Family. Complicated. I thought I’d made that clear.”
Definite hot button. “Flora is close with her family?”
“Flora and Angelina are Enzo’s daughters.”
“Enzo? From the bistro?” Enzo who Sean acted as if he barely knew? Jeez, talk about complicated.
“His wife died not long after I arrived. I heard him tell the others in the street that the girls were at a loss. Flora especially. She refused to step up, to take her mother’s place in the bistro, which broke his heart anew. While Angelina broke more plates than she served and he didn’t know what to do with her. I’d met them both once or twice. Knew they were capable. So I offered them work.”
It might well have been the first time in Aubrey’s life that she’d been rendered truly speechless.
She stood there, facing him now, and took him in. This man. This walking dichotomy. This fascinating complicated creature she could not resist doing everything in her power to unravel. Because she could sense, at his core, he was something truly special.
“It seems you have quite the collection of damsels in distress.”
“Try telling Flora that.”
“Yeah, no.”
He laughed again, but this time it was contained. Measured. He had himself back under control. Pity.
While Aubrey felt as if the foundations beneath her feet weren’t quite as steady as they had been a few moments before.
She’d thought she had him figured out. Big, serious, knight-in-shining-armour complex. But in looking after the likes of Flora—in seeing in her a need and filling it—he hadn’t done so because he’d thought she was weak. Or broken. Or because he was tight with her father. He’d taken her in because he was there. Because he could. Because it was the right thing to do.
Sean Malone might be deeply sexy, but he was also a very good man.
And Aubrey found herself forced to admit there was more that drew her to him than his ridiculous hotness. Or the urge to mess with his adorable uprightness.
It was the shadows that called to her too. The darkness in those beautiful eyes. It hooked her right through the gut. Whatever was going on with his family had a grip on him. It haunted him. This was a man who’d known loss. And guilt. Two emotions she knew intimately.
“Seems it’s been a tense couple of days,” she managed.
“I had no idea how tense, till laughing gave me an actual stitch.” He lifted a hand to his side. His T-shirt lifted to reveal a quick flash of skin. Muscle. One side of a ridiculously defined V dipping into his jeans.
Aubrey’s mouth went dry. “Can you put your shirt down, please?”
“Hmmm?” He realised after a beat she was throwing his own words back at him. Only this time there was no room for misunderstanding. Or mocking.
He slowly let his shirt drop and when his eyes met hers the heat was real. Matched by her own.
“So,” she said, pausing to lick her lips. “I do believe you’ve been using me these past couple of days, Sean Malone. As a distraction from your real life.”
Lines flickered over his nose a moment before his eyes filled with apology. He was far too easy.
“Relax,” said Aubrey with a flap of her hand. “I’ve totally been using you, too. I thought that much was clear.”
Then she gave him a punch on the arm. Because…three big brothers. And because—for all her bravado, her ability to talk to strangers, and ask questions, and stand up for herself—her heart… Her damn heart was pounding. And she wasn’t ready for it to be tested like this.
She simply didn’t trust the busted muscle beating in her chest would hold up under real pressure. And there was too much she wanted to do, wanted to see, wanted to be at peace with in her life, before she put it to that test.
“Coffee?” she asked, moving away from the man, back to the safety of the big machine with its noise and busyness. “I worked in cafés for a while. Coffee art was my thing. Watch this. I have skills.”
Sean stepped in closer. Only she knew he wasn’t watching the cool, double-layered glass in her hand as she slowly poured the hot frothy milk into a shape. He watched her face. In a way that made her think it was simply a thing he liked to do.
“Before or after the custom-paint-job gig?” he asked. His voice different. More intimate.
“As well as. I’d been saving up the big bucks for a world trip. Got as far as a music festival at the Faelledparken in Copenhagen a couple of years back.”
“The Ascot Music Festival.”
Coffee art forgotten, Aubrey dropped both glass and jug to the bench. “Yes. How do you even know that?”
“It’s how I met Ben. I was heading to the Opera House to see something by Verdi—La Traviata—when I stumbled on Ben and the girl he’d been travelling with, right after they’d been robbed. Bags sliced open on the train. They were frantically emptying their bags in search of their tickets to the music festival. It was sold out. No other way in. I offered to shout them tickets to see the Verdi instead. Took them about half a second to accept. Good sports.”
“Opera over pop?”
“For me, well, yeah. My mother played nothing but when I grew up. It’s…familiar.” The shadows were back. His voice a little faraway as he said, “Only one band I can remember wishing I’d seen there. Not the headline act, another one—”
“Dept 135?”
“Ah, yes, actually. One of the band members owns a couple of my chairs, which is pretty cool. That was the night they first played with Daisy Mulligan, you know?”
It was Aubrey’s turn to laugh. “Daisy is one of my absolute best friends.”
Sean’s disbelief was clear.
“Seriously! She’s the one who searched the internet for you. Who turned me into your stalker. Who used that heart picture on my phone on one of her single covers.”
“You know Daisy Mulligan.”
Aubrey pulled out her phone, scanned till she found the picture taken during that same festival, the day the girls had visited Viv in the hospital.
Sean leaned to look over her shoulder. “That’s Daisy Mulligan.”
“No. Where?”
Sean was too discombobulated to join in the joke. “And that… Is that Vivian Ascot?”
Aubrey turned, just a fraction. But enough to find Sean’s face devastatingly close to her own. Close enough to count his thousand perfect lashes. To see stubble sprouting all over his perfect jaw.
Aubrey tipped her phone away, and moved, just enough so that her breath no longer mingled with his. “Sure is. And that’s it as far as my famous friends go. We all met at the festival and stayed in touch since. It’s no ‘I make furniture for royalty’, but I’ll take it.”
Sean leant back against the bench, ankles crossed, his arms doing the same. “What do you mean you only got as far as Copenhagen? What happened in Copenhagen?”
Dammit. How had she let herself lead the conversation there again? There she was telling herself it was her mission to loosen him when he kept doing the same to her.
Making her forget. For a while.
When she was with him, it was all about the now. Soaking in his calm. Deciphering his micro-expressions. Seeing how far she could push him before he pushed back.
With him, she felt like herself for the first time in a really long time.
“I had to go home,” she said when the silence stretched out too long.
“Because?”
“Reasons. Now stop distracting me with your questions. And your shirt flapping. And your handsome face.” She went back to her coffee. Heated up the froth again and started over. “There.”
She presented him with the glass.
He looked at the “art” as instructed, only to find no palm leaf or heart as they were no doubt wont to do down at his local, but something far more R-rated.
His gaze lifted to hers. Humour, connection, heat.
“Seriously?” he asked, his voice a rumble.
“Told you I have skills.”