Brash Read Free

slinking through the Simpson Desert, he strode toward her.
    “Jess, I’m really sorry—”
    “Screw you.” He admired her feistiness as she stared him down and flipped him the bird. “Newsflash. If you can’t take a little heat, get out of the kitchen.”
    The corners of his mouth twitched. “You’re using cooking puns to get rid of me?”
    “I’ll use anything I goddamn like to get rid of you,” she said, a flash of fire darkening her eyes to ebony before she blinked and the telltale cool he remembered returned. “We can’t work together.”
    He held up his hands in surrender. “You’ll get no argument from me.”
    “Okay then.” She nodded. “You leave, I’ll invent an excuse, something along the lines of your rotten green peppercorn rib-eye gave the entire eastern seaboard of Australia food poisoning.”
    “Picking on my signature dish is harsh, don’t you think?”
    “No harsher than deliberately pushing away someone who cares about you.”
    Wow. She’d never been this outspoken back then. He liked the new sassiness. Very sexy.
    Not helping the hard-on situation, dickhead .
    “Why don’t you leave? We’re in Vegas. There’s a wannabe wedding planner on every corner.”
    “I can’t. Zazz trusts Chantal implicitly, and my cousin’s from my hometown.” She plucked at her sleeve cuff, a vulnerable tell he irrationally remembered. “Mom’s the best wedding planner around but she’s sick so I’m it.”
    “How’s Pam doing?”
    “Driving the physical therapists nuts at rehab. Bossing around the nurses. Making life hell for the doctors.”
    He laughed. “Reid said the same.”
    Her eyebrow rose slightly. “You guys still close?”
    “We hang out when our schedules tee up.”
    “Because he never mentions you.”
    Duh. That’s because Jack had made certain of it all those years ago, telling Reid about Jess’s crush on him and how he didn’t want it to affect their friendship.
    Reid had respected him for it. While Jack had felt like a heel, lying to the guy who’d soon become his best mate.
    For Jess’s crush hadn’t been one-sided. They’d had some serious chemistry. Their one explosive kiss had been testament to it.
    Exactly why there could never be a repeat. Jack had spent his childhood and teen years making mistake after mistake, being shunted from one foster family to the next, being a screw up.
    No way in hell would he stuff up the lifeline Reid Harper had offered him. Even if it included pushing away the one woman he’d ever let get close enough to seeing the real him.
    “Guys aren’t real big on chit chat,” he said, gesturing for her to take a seat.
    Standing this close, he could smell lilacs, the memories of the way it had clung to his skin making him want to touch her so badly he ached.
    “Yeah, so I’ve learned.”
    Her slumped shoulders made him want to shake the defeatist out of her and bring back the sass.
    “I presume you’re talking about your ex?”
    “I’d rather not talk about him at all,” she said, the slightest quiver in her neutral tone belying her control.
    “Reid said the guy was an uptight prick.”
    “Reid says a lot of things he shouldn’t.” She shook her head. “I won’t discuss this with you.”
    “Might help to get it off your chest.”
    Poor choice of cliché as his gaze strayed there and bam! The nipple pasties were front and foremost in his mind again.
    “Reid was right.” She sighed, a wistful sound that reached deep into his chest and tweaked at his hardened heart. “Uptight prick sums up Max nicely. Along with mid-life-crisis, philandering bastard.”
    Jack’s hands curled into fists. “He cheated on you?”
    She nodded, the wobble of her bottom lip reaching out to him like nothing else could. If she cried again, he was toast.
    “We’re done and I’m glad.” She sucked in a deep breath. “So, where were we? That’s right, you heading back to Sydney.”
    Grateful for the change of topic so he could regain control of