The Morning After The Wedding Before Read Free Page B

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