The Last Guy She Should Call
Joss Wood
She’d got his number…For savvy antiques dealer Rowan Dunn life is good – until a passport error gets her deported back to South Africa! Stranded at the airport, Rowan can only remember two phone numbers: her parents’ (definitely not an option!) and her best friend’s brother’s. As much as she hates it, Rowan knows she has no choice.It’s time to call Seb Hollis and ask for help…Seb is even sexier than Rowan remembers – and just as infuriating! He’s always pushed her buttons, but at least now she knows how to push them back. Maybe it’s time to start sleeping with the enemy – even though Rowan’s sure there won’t be a whole lot of sleeping going on…!
‘Isn’t it about time you used your powers for good instead of evil?’
Knowing that she couldn’t keep her eyes shut for ever, she took a deep breath and slowly turned around. He was leaning against the stone pillar directly behind her, those dark eyes cool. His lower jaw was covered in golden stubble and his mouth was knifeblade-thin.
That hadn’t changed.
A lot else had. She squinted… Tall, blond, built. Broad shoulders, slim hips and long, long legs. He was a big slab of muscled male flesh. When his mouth pulled up ever so slightly at the corners she felt a slow, seductive throb deep in her womb… Oh, dear. Was that lust?
Seb stopped in front of her and jammed his hands into the pockets of very nicely fitting jeans.
‘Brat.’
His voice rumbled over her, prickling her skin.
Yep, there was the snotty devil she remembered, under that luscious masculine body that looked, and—oh, my—smelled so good. It was in those deep eyes, in the vibration of his voice. The shallow dimple in his right cheek. The grown-up version of the studious, serious boy who had either tolerated, tormented or loathed her at different stages of her life. Always irritating.
‘I have a name, Seb.’
He had the audacity to grin at her. ‘Yeah, but you know I prefer mine.’
Dear Reader
I write romances about finding love in the twenty-first century, and I love creating quirky heroines—women a little left of centre. Rowan, I think, is one of my quirkiest to date, and she came about when I was watching a travel programme and the female presenter captured my attention. Rowan ran into some minor trouble as a teenager, and as soon as she could left home to travel the world. She’s spent years of bouncing from country to country, and I needed to work out what, and who, would make Rowan settle down—especially in her home town, which holds so many bad memories for her.
Seb is Rowan’s best friend’s brother, her childhood nemesis, and the person whose attention she has always wanted to capture and hang onto. When she finds herself broke and deported, dreading the idea of returning to Cape Town as the family screw-up, it’s Seb she reluctantly turns to to help her out of trouble.
As they start discovering the adult versions of the children they used to be they both have to learn to trust, to believe in themselves, in each other and in love itself.
Writing romance is the best job in the world, and I hope you enjoy Seb and Rowan’s journey to their happy-ever-after.
With my very best wishes
Joss
xxx
PS Come and say hi via Facebook: Joss Wood, Twitter: @josswoodbooks and Josswoodbooks.wordpress.com
The Last Guy
She Should Call
Joss Wood
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JOSS WOOD wrote her first book at the age of eight and has never really stopped. Her passion for putting letters on a blank screen is matched only by her love of books and travelling—especially to the wild places of Southern Africa—and possibly by her hatred of ironing and making school lunches.
Fuelled by coffee, when she’s not writing or being a hands-on mum Joss, with her background in business and marketing, works for a non-profit organisation to promote the local economic development and collective business interests of the area where she resides. Happily and chaotically surrounded by books, family and friends, she lives in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, with her husband, children and their many pets.
Other Modern Tempted
titles by Joss Wood:
TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING
IF YOU CAN’T STAND THE HEAT…
These and other titles by Joss Wood are available in eBook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk
I love the idea of my characters living happily ever after, but it happens in real life too. My parents and in-laws have been married for 110 years between them. It’s a huge achievement and a shining example of the commitment marriage and relationships (in whatever form they might take) require. So this book is dedicated to Frank and Rose and Mel and Elsie for showing us, and our children, how it’s done.
Contents
Chapter One (#ufaf7126b-8c41-5037-bf50-4a589a72c68e)
Chapter Two (#ud4b91caa-aa10-520e-9936-3736bceef123)
Chapter Three (#ued1ca7c6-d25c-5686-b5a2-1157be49c057)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
ONE
Rowan Dunn sat in the hard chair on one side of the white table in an interrogation room at Sydney International Airport and reminded herself to be polite. There was no point in tangling with this little troll of an Immigration Officer; she looked as if she wanted a fight.
‘Why have you come to Australia, Miss Dunn?’
As if she hadn’t explained her reasons to the Immigration Officer before her—and the one before him. Patience, Rowan. ‘I bought these netsukes in Bali...’
‘These what?’
‘A netsuke is a type of miniature carving that originated in the seventeenth century.’ She tapped one of the fifteen ivory, wood and bone mini-sculptures that had been stripped of their protective layers of bubble wrap and now stood on the desk between them. Lord, they were beautiful: animals, figures, mythical creatures. All tiny, all perfectly carved and full of movement and character. ‘These are uncommon and the owner knew they had value.’
‘You bought these little carvings and yet you have no money and no means of income while you are in Australia?’
‘That’s because I drained my bank account and maxed out my credit cards to buy them. Some of them, I think, are rare. Seventeenth, eighteenth-century. I suspect one may be by Tamakada, circa 1775. I need to get into Sydney to get Grayson Darling, an expert on netsuke, to authenticate them and hopefully buy them from me. Then I’ll have plenty of money to stay in your precious, I mean, lovely country.’
‘What are they worth?’
Rowan tipped her head. ‘Fifteen at an average of two thousand pounds each. So, between twenty and thirty thousand, maybe more.’
The troll’s jaw dropped open. ‘You’ve got to be...joking!’ She leaned across the table and her face radiated doubt. ‘I think you’re spinning me a story; you look like every other free-spirited backpacker I’ve seen.’
Rowan, not for the first time, cursed her long, curly, wild hair and her pretty face, her battered jeans, cropped shirt and well-used backpack. ‘I’m a traveller but I am also a trader. It’s how I—mostly—make my living. I can show you the deed of sale for the netsuke...’
Officer troll flipped through her passport. ‘What else do you sell, Miss Dunn?’
‘You’ve gone through my rucksack with a fine-tooth comb and I’ve had a body search. You know that I’m clean,’ Rowan said wearily. She’d been here for more than six hours—could they move on, please? Pretty please?
‘What else do you sell, Miss Dunn?’
God! Just answer the question, Rowan, and get this over with. ‘Anything I can make a profit on that’s legal. Art, furniture, antiques. I’ve flipped statues in Buenos Aires, art in Belize, jewellery in Vancouver. I’ve worked in construction when times have been lean. Worked as a bar tender when times were leaner. But mostly I buy low and sell high.’
‘Then why don’t you have a slush fund? A back-up plan? Where is the profit on those deals?’
Fair question.
‘A large amount is tied up in a rickety house I’ve just co-bought with a friend in London. We’re in the process of having it renovated so that we can sell it,’ Rowan admitted.
And the rest was sitting in those little statues. She knew that at least one, maybe two, were very valuable. Her gut was screaming that the laughing Buddha statue was a quality item, that it was by a famed Japanese artist. She hadn’t planned to wipe out her accounts but the shopkeeper had had a figure fixed in his head and wouldn’t be budged. Since she knew that she could flip the netsukes for two or three times the amount she’d paid for them, it had seemed like a short, acceptable risk. Especially since she knew Grayson—knew that he wouldn’t quibble over the price. He was the best type of collector: one with deep and heavy pockets. Pockets she couldn’t help lighten unless she got into the blinking country!
‘The reality is that you do not have enough money on your person to last you two days in Australia.’
‘I explained that I have friends...’
The troll held up her hand. ‘Your not having enough funds has made us dig a little deeper and we’ve found out that you overstayed the visa—by six months—on your South African passport.’
Crrr-aa-aa-p!
Rowan felt her stomach sink like concrete shoes. That had happened over eight years ago, which was why she always used her UK passport to get into Oz. She’d been into the country four times since then, but they had finally picked up on her youthful transgression.
Bye-bye to any chance of getting into Oz any time in the next three years. Hello to a very sick bank account for the foreseeable future, to doing the deal with Grayson over the phone—a situation neither of them liked—or to finding another netsuke-mad collector who would pay her well for her gems. There weren’t, as she knew, many of them around.
‘You are not allowed to visit Australia for the next three years and you will be on the first flight we can find back to South Africa. In a nutshell, you are being deported.’
Rowan looked up at the ceiling and blew a long stream of air towards the ceiling. It was the only place in the world where she, actively, passionately, didn’t want to go. ‘Crap.’
The troll almost smiled. ‘Indeed.’
* * *
Sixteen hours later Rowan cleared Immigration at OR Tambo International in Johannesburg and, after picking up her rucksack, headed for the nearest row of hard benches. Dropping her pack to the floor, she slumped down and stared at her feet.
What now?
Unlike many other cities in the world, she didn’t know Johannesburg, didn’t have any friends in the city. She had one hundred pounds in cash in her wallet and thirty US dollars. Practically nothing in both her savings and current accounts and her credit cards were maxed out. All thanks to that little out-of-the-way antique shop in Denpasar...
Stupid, stupid, stupid, she berated herself. What had she been thinking? She’d been thinking that she’d triple her money when she flipped them.
‘Hey.’
Rowan looked up and saw a young girl, barely in her twenties, take the seat next to her.
‘Do you mind if I sit here for a bit? I’m being hassled by a jerk in that group over there.’
Rowan cut a glance to a group of young men who were just drunk enough to be obnoxious. One of the pitfalls of travelling alone, she thought. How many times had she sat down next to a family or another single traveller to avoid the groping hands, the come ons and pick-up lines. ‘Sure. Take a seat. Coming or going?’
‘Just arrived from Sydney. I saw you on the plane; you were a couple of rows ahead of me.’
‘Ah.’
‘I’m catching the next flight to Durban. You?’
‘Haven’t the foggiest.’ Rowan tried to sound cheerful but knew that she didn’t quite hit the mark. ‘I was deported from Oz and I’m broke.’
Bright blue eyes sharpened in interest. ‘Seriously? How broke?’
‘Seriously broke.’ Rowan lifted her heels up onto the seat of the bench and rested her elbows on her knees. ‘C’est la vie.’ She looked at her new friend, all fresh-faced and enthusiastic. ‘How long have you been travelling for?’ she asked.
‘Six months. I’m home for a family wedding, then I’m heading off again. You?’
‘Nine years. Can I give you some advice...? What’s your name?’
‘Cat.’
‘Cat. No matter what, always have enough money stashed away so that you have options. Always have enough cash to pay for an air ticket out of Dodge, for a couple of nights in a hostel or hotel. Trust me, being broke sucks.’
She’d always lived by that rule, but she’d been seduced by the idea of a quick return. She’d imagined that she’d be broke for a maximum of three days in Sydney and then her bank balance would be nicely inflated.
It sure hadn’t worked out that way... Deported, for crying out loud! Deported and penniless! Rowan closed her eyes and wondered if she could possibly be a bigger moron.
‘Can I give you a hundred pounds?’ Cat asked timidly.
Rowan eyes snapped open. Her wide smile split her face and put a small sparkle back into her onyx-black eyes. ‘That’s really sweet of you, but no thanks, honey. I do have people I can call. I would just prefer not to.’
Look at her, Rowan thought, all fresh and idealistic. Naïve. If she didn’t get street-wise quickly the big bad world out there would gobble her up and spit her out. Travelling in Australia was easy: same language, same culture, good transport systems and First World. Most of the world wasn’t like that.
‘Your folks happy with you backpacking?’
Cat raised a shoulder. ‘Yeah, mostly. They have a mild moan when I call home and ask for cash, but they always come through.’
Rowan lifted dark winged eyebrows. Lucky girl. Could her circumstances be any more different from hers, when she’d left home to go on the road? Those six months between being caught in a drug raid at a club with a tiny bag of coke and catching a plane to Thailand had been sheer hell.
Two months after being tossed into jail—and she still hoped the fleas of a thousand camels were making their home in Joe’s underpants for slipping the coke into the back pocket of her jeans, the rat-bastard jerk!—she’d been sentenced to four months’ community service but, thanks to the fact that at the time she hadn’t yet turned eighteen, her juvenile criminal record was still sealed.
Sealed from the general public, but not from her family, who hadn’t reacted well. There had been shouting and desperate anger from her father, cold distance from her mother, and her elder brother had been tight-lipped with disapproval. For the rest of that year there had been weekly lectures to keep her on the straight and narrow. From proper jail she’d been placed under house arrest by her parents, and their over-the-top protectiveness had gone into hyperdrive. Her movements had been constantly monitored, and the more they’d lectured and smothered, the stronger her urge to rebel and her resolve to run had become.
She’d tried to explain the circumstances, but only her BFF Callie had realised how much it had hurt to have her story about being framed dismissed as a lie, how much it had stung to see the constant disappointment on everyone’s faces. So she’d decided that she might as well be the ultimate party girl rebel—sneaking out, parties, cigarettes, crazy acting out. Anything to live up to the low expectations of her parents—especially her mother—and constantly, constantly planning her escape.
It had come the day after she’d written her final exam to finish her school career. Using cash she’d received from selling the unit trusts her grandmother had bought her every birthday since the day she was born, she’d bought a ticket to Thailand.
Everyone except Callie had been furious, and they’d all expected her to hit the other side, turn tail and run back home. That first year had been tough, lonely, and sometimes downright scary, but she’d survived and then she’d flourished.
And she really didn’t want to go home with her tail tucked between her legs now, broke and recently deported.
She didn’t want to lose her freedom, to step back into her family’s lives, back into her parents’ house, returning as the family screw-up. It didn’t matter that she was asset-rich and cash-poor. She would still, in their eyes, be irresponsible and silly: no better than the confused, mixed-up child who’d left nine years before.
‘So, who are you going to call?’ Cat asked, breaking in on her thoughts.
‘Well, I’ve only got two choices. My mobile’s battery is dead and all my contact numbers are in my phone. I have two numbers in my head: my parents’ home number and my best friend Callie’s home number.’
‘I vote for the best friend.’
‘So would I—except that she doesn’t live there any more. Her older brother does, and he doesn’t like me very much.’
Cat leaned forward, curious. ‘Why not?’
‘Ah, well. Seb and I have always rubbed each other up the wrong way. He’s conservative and studious; I’m wild and rebellious. He’s mega-rich and I’m currently financially challenged—’
‘What does he do?’ Cat asked.
Rowan fiddled with her gold hoop earrings. ‘His family have a shed-load of property in Cape Town and he oversees that. He also does something complicated with computers. He has a company that does...um...internet security? He’s a nice hat... No, that doesn’t sound right.’
Cat sat up suddenly. ‘Do you mean a white hat? A hacker?’
Rowan cocked her finger at her. ‘That’s it. Apparently he’s one of the best in the world.’
‘Holy mackerel...that is so cool! I’m a bit of a comp geek myself.’
‘So is he. He’s a complete nerd and we’ve always clashed. He’s book-smart and I’m street-smart. His and Callie’s house is within spitting distance of my parents’ house and I spent more time there than I did at home. I gave him such a hard time.’
Cat looked intrigued. ‘Why?’
‘Probably because I could never get a reaction out of him. He’d just look at me, shake his head, tell me I was a brat and flip me off. The more I misbehaved, the more he ignored me.’ Rowan wound a black curl around her index finger.
‘Sounds to me like you were craving his attention.’
‘Honey, I craved everyone’s attention,’ Rowan replied.
This was one of the things she loved most about travelling, she thought. Random conversations with strangers who didn’t know her from Adam.
‘Anyway, I could bore you to death, recounting all the arguments I had with Seb.’ Rowan smiled. ‘So let this be a lesson to you, Cat. Remember, always have a stash of cash. Do as I say and not as I do.’
‘Good luck,’ Cat called as she walked towards the bank of public phones against the far wall.
Rowan lifted her hand in acknowledgement. She sure as hell was going to need it.
* * *
Seb Hollis shot up in bed and punched the comforter and the sheets away, unable to bare the constricting fabric against his heated skin. He was conscious of the remnants of a bad dream floating around the periphery of his memory, and as much as he tried to pretend otherwise it wasn’t the cool air colliding with the sweat on his chest and spine that made him shiver. The blame for that could be laid squarely at the door of this now familiar nocturnal visitor. He’d been dreaming the same dream for six days... He was being choked, restrained, hog-tied...yanked up to the altar and forced into marriage.
Balls, was his first thought, closely followed by, Thank God it was only a dream.
Draping one forearm across his bended knees, Seb ran a hand behind his neck. He was sweating like a geyser and his mouth was as dry as the Kalahari Desert. Cursing, he fumbled for the glass of water on the bedside table, grimacing at the handprint his sweat made on the deep black comforter.
Habit had him turning his head, expecting to see his lover’s head on the other pillow. Relief pumped through him when he remembered that Jenna had left for a year-long contract in Dubai and that he was officially single again. He didn’t have to explain the nightmare, see her hurt face when he wouldn’t talk about the soaked sheets or his pumping breath. Like most women, and despite her corporate career, Jenna had a need to nurture.
He’d never been nurtured and he had no need to be fussed over. It wasn’t who he was, what he needed.
Besides, discussing his dreams—emotions, thoughts, desires—would be amusing in the same way an electric shock to his gonads would be nice. Not going to happen. Ever.
Intimacy hadn’t been part of the deal with Jenna.
Intimacy would never be part of the deal with anyone.
Seb swung his legs off the side of the large bed, reached for the pair of running shorts on the chair next to the bed and yanked them on. He walked over to the French doors that opened onto the balcony. Pushing them open, he sucked in the briny air of the late summer, early autumn air. Tinges of the new morning peeked through the trees that bordered the side and back edges of his property: Awelfor.
He could live anywhere in the world, but he loved living a stone’s throw from Cape Town, loved living at the tip of the continent in a place nestled between the mountains and the sea. In the distance, behind those great rolling waves that characterised this part of the west coast, the massive green-grey icy Atlantic lay: sulky, turbulent, volatile. Or maybe he was just projecting his crappy mood on the still sleepy sea.
Jenna. Was she what his crazy dreams were about? Was he dreaming about commitment because he’d been so relieved to wave her goodbye? To get out of a relationship that he’d known was going nowhere but she had hoped was? He’d told her, as often and as nicely as he could, that he wouldn’t commit, but he knew that she’d hoped he’d change his mind, really hoped that he’d ask her to stay in the country.
It hadn’t seemed to matter that they’d agreed to a no-strings affair, that she’d said she understood when he’d explained that he didn’t do love and commitment.
Women. Sheez. Sometimes they just heard what they wanted to hear.
Seb cocked his head when the early-morning silence was shattered by the distinctive deep-throated roar of a Jag turning into the driveway to Awelfor. Here we go again, he thought. The engine was cut, a car door slammed and within minutes he saw his father walking the path to the cottage that stood to the left of the main house.
It was small consolation that he wasn’t the only Hollis man with woman troubles. At least his were only in his head. Single again, he reminded himself. Bonus.
‘Another one bites the dust?’ he called, and his father snapped his head up.
Patch Hollis dropped his leather bag to the path and slapped his hands on his hips.
‘When am I going to learn?’
‘Beats me.’ Seb rested his forearms on the balcony rail. ‘What’s the problem with this one?’
‘She wants a baby,’ Patch said, miserable. ‘I’m sixty years old; why would I want a child now?’
‘She’s twenty-eight, dude. Of course she’s going to want a kid. Have you told her you’ve had a vasectomy?’
Patch gestured to the bag. ‘Hence the reason I’m back in the cottage. She went bat-crap ballistic.’
‘Uh...why do you always leave? It’s your house and you’re not married.’ Seb narrowed his eyes as a horrible thought occurred to him. ‘You didn’t slink off and marry her, did you?’
Patch didn’t meet his eyes. ‘No, but it was close.’
Seb rubbed his hand over his hair, which he kept short to keep the curls under control, and muttered an expletive.
‘Don’t swear at me. You had your own little gold-digger you nearly married,’ Patch shot back, and Seb acknowledged the hit.
He’d been blindsided when he’d raised the issue of marriage contracts and his fiancée Bronwyn wouldn’t consider signing a pre-nup. Like most things he did, he’d approached the problem of the marriage contracts intellectually, rationally. He had the company and the house and the cash, and pretty much everything of monetary value, so he’d be the one to hand over half of everything if they divorced.
Bronwyn had not seen his point of view. If he loved her, she’d screamed, he’d share everything with her. He had loved Bronwyn—sorta...kinda—but not enough to risk sharing his company with her or paying her out for half the value of the house that had been in his family for four generations in the event of a divorce.
They’d both dug their heels in and the break-up had been bruising.
It had taken him a couple of years, many hours with a whisky bottle and a shattered heart until he’d—mostly—worked it all out. He believed in thinking through problems—including personal failures—in order to come to a better understanding of the cause and effect.
It was highly probable that he’d fallen for Bronwyn because she was, on the surface, similar in behaviour and personality to his mother. A hippy child who flitted from job to job, town to town. A supposed free spirit whom he’d wanted—no, needed to tame. Since his mother had left some time around his twelfth birthday to go backpacking round the world, and had yet to come home, he’d given up hope that he’d ever get her love or approval, that she’d return and stay put. He’d thought that if he could get Bronwyn to settle down, to commit to him, then maybe it would fill the hole his mother had left.
Yeah, right.
But he’d learnt a couple of lessons from his FUBAR engagement. Unlike his jobs—internet security expert and overseeing the Hollis Property Group—he couldn’t analyse, measure or categorise relationships and emotions, and he sure didn’t understand women. As a result he now preferred to conduct his relationships at an emotional distance. An at-a-distance relationship—sex and little conversation—held no risk of confusion and pain and didn’t demand much from him. He’d forged his emotional armour when his mum had left so very long ago and strengthened it after his experience with Bronwyn. He liked it that way. There was no chance of his heart being tossed into a liquidiser.
His father, Peter Pan that he was, just kept it simple: blonde, long-legged and big boobs. Mattress skills were a prerequisite; intelligence wasn’t.
‘So, can I move back in until she moves out?’ Patch asked.
‘Dad, Awelfor is a Hollis house; legally it’s still yours. But I should warn you that Yasmeen is on holiday; she’s been gone for nearly a week and I’ve already eaten the good stuff she left.’
Patch looked wounded. ‘So no blueberry muffins for breakfast?’
‘Best you’re going to get is coffee. No laundry or bed-making service either,’ Seb replied.
Patch looked bereft and Seb knew that it had nothing to do with his level of comfort and everything to do with the absence of their elderly family confidant, their moral compass and their staunchest supporter. Yasmeen was more than their housekeeper, she was Awelfor.
‘Yas being gone sucks.’ Patch yawned. ‘I’m going back to bed, Miranda has a voice like a foghorn and I was up all night being blasted by it.’
Seb turned his head at the sound of his ringing landline. ‘Crazy morning. Father rocking up at the crack of dawn, phone ringing before six...and all I want is a cup of coffee.’
Patch grinned up at him. ‘I just want my house back.’
Seb returned his smile. ‘Then kick her whiny ass out of yours.’
Patch shuddered. ‘I’ll just move in here until she calms down.’
His father, Seb thought as he turned away to walk back into the house, was totally allergic to confrontation.
* * *
‘Seb, it’s Rowan...Rowan Dunn.’
He’d recognised her voice the moment he’d heard her speak his name, but because his synapses had stopped firing he’d lost the ability to formulate any words. Rowan? What the...?
‘Seb? Sorry, did I wake you?’
‘Rowan, this is a surprise.’ And by surprise I mean...wow.
‘I’m in Johannesburg—at the airport.’
Since this was Rowan, he passed curious and went straight to resigned. ‘What’s happened?’
He would have had to be intellectually challenged to miss the bite in the words that followed.
‘Why do you automatically assume the worst?’
‘Because something major must have happened to bring you back to the country you hate, where the family you’ve hardly interacted with in years lives and for you to call me, who you once described as a boil on the ass of humanity.’
He waited through the tense silence.
‘I’m temporarily broke and homeless. And I’ve just been deported from Oz,’ she finally—very reluctantly—admitted.
And there it was.
‘Are you in trouble?’ He kept his voice neutral and hoped that she was now adult enough to realise that it was a fair question. For a long time before she’d left trouble had been Rowan’s middle name. Heck, her first name.
‘No, I’m good. They just picked up that I overstayed on my visa years and years ago and they kicked me out.’
Compared to some of the things she’d done, this was a minor infringement. Seb walked to his walk-in closet, took a pair of jeans from a hanger and yanked them on. He placed his fist on his forehead and stared down at the old wood flooring.
‘Seb, are you there?’
‘Yep.’
‘Do you know where my parents are? I did try them but they aren’t answering their phone.’
‘They went to London and rented out the house while they were gone to some visiting researchers from Beijing. They are due back in...’ Seb tried to remember. ‘Two—three—weeks’ time.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding me! My parents went overseas and the world didn’t stop turning? How is that possible?’
‘That surprised me, too,’ Seb admitted.
‘And is Callie still on that buying trip?’
‘Yep.’
Another long silence. ‘In that case...tag—you’re it. I need a favour.’
From him? He looked at his watch and was surprised to find that it was still ticking. Why hadn’t time stood still? He’d presumed it would—along with nuns being found ice skating in hell—since Rowan was asking for his help.
‘I thought you’d rather drip hot wax in your eye than ever ask me for anything again.’
‘Can you blame me? You could’ve just bailed me out of jail, jerk-face.’
And...hello, there it was: the tone of voice that had irritated him throughout his youth and into his twenties. Cool, mocking...nails-on-a-chalkboard irritating.
‘Your parents didn’t want me to—they were trying to teach you a lesson. And might I point out that calling me names is not a good way to induce me to do anything for you, Rowan?’
Seb heard her mutter a swear word and he grinned. Oh, he did like having her at his mercy.
‘What do you want, Brat?’
Brat—his childhood name for her. Callie, so blonde, had called her Black Beauty, or BB for short, on account of her jet-black hair and eyes teamed with creamy white skin. She’d been a knockout, looks-wise, since the day she’d been born. Pity she had the personality of a rabid honey badger.
Brat suited her a lot better, and had the added bonus of annoying the hell out of her.
‘When is Callie due back?’
He knew why she was asking: she’d rather eat nails than accept help from him. Since his sister travelled extensively as a buyer for a fashion store, her being in the country was not always guaranteed. ‘End of the month.’
Another curse.
‘And Peter—your brother—is still in Bahrain,’ Seb added, his tone super pointed as he reached for a shirt and pulled it off its hanger.
‘I know that. I’m not completely estranged from my family!’ Rowan rose to take the bait. ‘But I didn’t know that my folks were planning a trip. They never go anywhere.’
‘They made the decision to go quite quickly.’ Seb walked back into his bedroom and stared at the black and white sketches of desert scenes above his rumpled bed. ‘So, now that you definitely know that I’m all you’ve got, do you want to tell me what the problem is?’
She sucked in a deep breath. ‘I need to get back to London and I was wondering whether you’d loan...’
When pigs flew!
‘No. I’m not lending you money.’
‘Then buy me a ticket...’
‘Ah, let me think about that for a sec? Mmm...no, I won’t buy you a ticket to London either.’
‘You are such a sadistic jerk.’
‘But I will pay for a ticket for you to get your bony butt back home to Cape Town.’
Frustration cracked over the line as he listened to the background noise of the airport. ‘Seb, I can’t.’
Hello? Rowan sounding contrite and beaten...? He’d thought he’d never live to see the day. He didn’t attempt to snap the top button of his jeans; it required too much processing power. Rowan was home and calling him. And sounding reasonable. Good God.
He knew it wouldn’t last—knew that within ten minutes of being in each other’s company they’d want to kill each other. They were oil and water, sun and snow, fire and ice.
Seb instinctively looked towards the window and saw his calm, ordered, structured life mischievously flipping him off before waving goodbye and belting out of the window.
Free spirits...why was he plagued with them?
‘Make a decision, B.’
She ignored his shortening of the name he’d called her growing up. A sure sign that she was running out of energy to argue.
‘My mobile is dead, I have about a hundred pounds to my name and I don’t know anyone in Johannesburg. Guess I’m going to get my butt on a plane ho... to Cape Town.’
‘Good. Hang on a sec.’ Seb walked over to the laptop that stood on a desk in the corner of his room and tapped the keyboard, pulling up flights. He scanned the screen.
‘First flight I can get you on comes in at six tonight. Your ticket will be at the SAA counter. I’ll meet you in the airport bar,’ Seb told her.
‘Seb?’
‘Yeah?’
‘That last fight we had about Bronwyn...’
It took him a moment to work out what she was talking about, to remember her stupid, childish gesture from nearly a decade ago.
‘The one where you presumed to tell me how and what to do with my life?’
‘Well, I was going to apologise—’
‘That would be a first.’
‘But you can shove it! And you, as you well know, have told me what to do my entire life! I might have voiced some comments about your girlfriend, but I didn’t leave a mate to rot in jail,’ Rowan countered, her voice heating again.
‘We were never mates, and it was a weekend—not a lifetime! And you bloody well deserved it.’
‘It was still mean and...’
Seb rolled his eyes and made a noise that he hoped sounded like a bad connection. ‘Sorry, you’re breaking up...’
‘We’re on a landline, you dipstick!’ Rowan shouted above the noise he was making.
Smart girl, he thought as he slammed the handset back into its cradle. She’d always been smart, he remembered. And feisty.
It seemed that calling her Brat was still appropriate. Some things simply never changed.
TWO
Six hours later and it was another airport, another set of officials, another city and she was beyond exhausted. Sweaty, grumpy and... Damn it. Rowan pushed her fist into her sternum. She was nervous.
Scared spitless.
It could be worse, she told herself as she slid onto a stool in the busy bar, her luggage at her feet. She could be standing at Arrivals flicking over faces and looking for her parents. She could easily admit that Seb was the lesser of two evils—that she’d been relieved when her parents hadn’t answered her call, that she wasn’t remotely sure of their reaction to her coming home.
Apart from the occasional grumble about her lack of education they’d never expressed any wish for her to return to the family fold. They might—and she stressed might—be vaguely excited to see her again, but within a day they’d look at her with exasperation, deeply puzzled by the choices she’d made and the lifestyle she’d chosen.
‘So different from her sibling,’ her mother would mutter. ‘Always flying too close to the sun. Our changeling child, our rebel, always trying to break out and away.’
Maybe if they hadn’t wrapped her in cotton wool and smothered her in a blanket of protectiveness she’d be more...normal, Rowan thought. A little more open to putting down roots, to having relationships that lasted longer than a season, furniture that she owned rather than temporarily used.
She’d caused them a lot of grief, she admitted. She’d been a colicky baby, a hell-on-wheels toddler, and then she’d contracted meningitis at four and been in ICU for two weeks, fighting for her life. After the meningitis her family had been so scared for her, so terrified that something bad would happen to her—again—that they hadn’t let her experience life at all. All three of them—parents and her much older brother—had hovered over her: her own phalanx of attack helicopters, constantly scanning the environment for trouble.
The weird thing was that while she’d always felt protected she hadn’t always felt cherished. Would her life have taken a different turn if she had felt treasured, loved, not on the outside looking in?
It hadn’t helped that she’d been a fiery personality born into a family of quiet, brilliant, introverts. Two professors—one in music, the other in theoretical science—and her brother had a PhD in electrical engineering. She’d skipped university in order to go travelling—an unforgivable sin in the Dunn household.
The over-protectiveness had been tedious at ten, irritating at fourteen, frustrating at sixteen. At seventeen it had become intolerable, and by the time she was nearly eighteen she’d been kicking and screaming against the silken threads of parental paranoia that had kept her prisoner.
After spending that weekend in jail she’d realised that to save herself and her relationship with her family she had to run far away as fast as she could. She couldn’t be the tame, studious, quiet daughter they needed her to be, and they couldn’t accept her strong-willed adventurous spirit.
Running away had, strangely enough, saved her relationship with her parents. Through e-mail, social media and rare, quick phone calls they’d managed to find a balance that worked for them. They could pretend that she wasn’t gallivanting around the world, and she could pretend that they supported her quest to do more, see more, experience more.
They all lied to themselves, but it was easier that way.
Now she was back, and they couldn’t lie and she couldn’t pretend. They had to see each other as they now were—not the way they wished they could be. It was going to suck like rotten lemons.
Rowan hauled in a deep breath... She had two, maybe three weeks to wrap her head around seeing her parents, to gird herself against their inevitable disappointment. Two weeks to find a place to stay and a job that would keep her in cereal and coffee and earn her enough money to tide her over until she sold her netsukes.
She just had to get past Seb—whom she’d never been able to talk her away around, through or over. He’d never responded to her charm, had seen through her lies, and had never trusted her for a second.
He’d always been far too smart for his own good.
The image of Seb as she’d last seen him popped into her head. Navy eyes the colour of deep denim, really tall, curly blond hair that he grew long and pulled back into a bushy tail with a leather thong, and that ultra-stupid soul patch.
Yet he’d still turned female heads. Something about him had always caught their attention. It was not only his good looks—and, while she wished otherwise, she had to admit that even at his most geeky he was a good-looking SOB—he had that I-prefer-my-own-company vibe that had woman salivating.
Live next door to him and see how you like him then, Rowan had always wanted to yell. He’s bossy and rude, patronising and supercilious, and frequently makes me want to poke him with a stick.
Rowan draped her leg over her knee and turned her head at deep-throated male laughter. Behind her a group of guys stood in a rough circle and she caught the eye of the best-looking of the bunch, who radiated confidence.
Mmm. Cute.
‘Hey,’ Good-looking said, in full flirt mode. ‘New in town?’
I’m tired, sweaty, grumpy and I suspect that I may be way too old for you.
‘Sort of.’
Good-looking looked from her to the waiter standing next to him. ‘Can I buy you a drink? What would you like?’
A hundred pounds would be useful, Rowan thought. Two hundred would be better...
‘Thanks. A glass of white wine? Anything dry,’ she responded. Why not? If he wanted to buy her a drink, she could live with it. Besides, she badly needed the restorative powers of fermented grape juice.
He turned, placed the order with the waiter, and when Rowan looked again she saw that he wasn’t quite so young, not quite so cocky. Tall, dark and handsome. And, since she was bored waiting for Seb, she might as well have a quick flirt. Nothing picked a girl up and out of the doldrums quicker than a little conversation with a man with appreciation in his eyes.
She thought flirting was a fine way to pass the time...
Rowan pushed a hand through her hair and looked at the luggage at their feet. ‘Sports tour? Hmm, let me guess...rugby?’ Rowan pointed to the bags on the floor with their identical logos. ‘Under twenty-one rugby sevens tournament?’
‘Ah... They are under twenty-one...I’m not.’
Rowan smiled slowly. ‘Me neither. I’m Rowan.’
She was about to put her hand out for him to shake when a voice spoke from behind her.
‘Isn’t it about time you used your powers for good instead of evil?’
Rowan closed her eyes as the words, words not fit to speak aloud, jumped into her head. Knowing that she couldn’t keep her eyes shut for ever, she took a deep breath and slowly turned around.
He was leaning against the stone pillar directly behind her, those dark blue eyes cool. His lower jaw was covered in golden stubble and his mouth was knife-blade-thin.
That hadn’t changed.
A lot else had. She squinted... Tall, blond, built. Broad shoulders, slim hips and long, long legs. He was a big slab of muscled male flesh. When his mouth pulled up ever so slightly at the corners she felt a slow, seductive throb deep in her womb... Oh, dear. Was that lust? It couldn’t be lust. That was crazy. It had just been a long trip, and she hadn’t eaten much, and she was feeling a little light-headed... It was life catching up with her.
Mr Good-looking was quickly forgotten as she looked at Seb. She’d known a lot of good-looking men, and some devastatingly handsome men, but pure lust had never affected her before... Was that why her blood was chasing her heart around her body? Where had the saliva in her mouth disappeared to? And—oh, dear—why was her heart now between her legs and pulsing madly?
Rowan pushed a long curl out of her eyes and, unable to meet his eyes just yet, stared at his broad chest. Her gaze travelled down his faded jeans to his expensive trainers. Pathetic creature to get hot and flustered over someone she’d never even liked.
Hoo, boy. Was that a hint of ink she saw on the bicep of his right arm under his T-shirt? No way! Conservative Seb? Geeky Seb?
Except that geeky Seb had been replaced by hunky Seb, who made her think of cool sheets and hot male skin under her hands... This Seb made her think of passion-filled nights and naughty afternoon sex. Of lust, heat and attraction.
Thoughts at the speed of light dashed through her head as she looked for an explanation for her extreme reaction. She was obviously orgasm-deprived, she decided. She hadn’t had sex for....oh, way too long. Right! If that was the problem—and she was sure it was—there was, she remembered, a very discreet little shop close to home that could take care of it.
Except that she was broke... Rowan scowled at her shoes. Broke and horny...what a miserable combination. Yet it was the only explanation that made a smidgeon of sense.
Seb stopped in front of her and jammed his hands into the pockets of very nicely fitting jeans.
‘Brat.’
His voice rumbled over her, prickling her skin.
Yep, there was the snotty devil she remembered. Under that luscious masculine body that looked and—oh, my—smelled so good. It was in those deep eyes, in the vibration of his voice. The shallow dimple in his right cheek. The grown-up version of the studious, serious boy who had either tolerated, tormented or loathed her at different stages of her life. Always irritating.
‘I have a name, Seb.’
He had the audacity to grin at her. ‘Yeah, but you know I prefer mine.’ He looked over at Mr Good-looking and his smile was shark-sharp. ‘Lucky escape for you, bro’. She’s trouble written in six-foot neon.’
* * *
As rugby-boy turned away with a disappointed sigh, inside his head Seb placed his hands on his thighs and pulled in deep, cleansing, calming breaths of pure oxygen. He felt as if his heart wanted to bungee-jump from his chest without a cord. His stomach and spleen were going along for the ride.
Well, wasn’t this a kick in the head?
This was Rowan? What had happened to the skinny kid with a silver ring through her brow and a stud in her nose? The clothes that she had called ‘boho chic’ but which had looked as if she’d been shopping in Tramp’s Alley? Skirts that had been little more than strips of cloth around her hips, knee-high combat boots, Goth make-up...
Now leather boots peeked out from under the hem of nicely fitting blue jeans. She wore a plain white button-down shirt with the bottom buttons open to show a broad leather belt, and a funky leather and blue bead necklace lay between the wilted collar of the shirt. Her hair was still the blue-black of a starling’s wing, tumbling in natural curls down her back, and her eyes, black as the deepest African night, were faintly shadowed in blue. Her face was free of make-up and those incredible eyes—framed by dark lashes and brows—brimmed with an emotion he couldn’t immediately identify.
Resignation? Trepidation and fear? Then she tossed her head and he saw pride flash in her eyes.
And there was the Rowan he remembered. He dismissed the feeling that his life was about to be impacted by this tiny dark-haired sprite with amazing eyes and a wide, mobile mouth that begged to be kissed.
He’d said goodbye to a kid, but this Rowan was all woman. A woman, if she were anyone but Rowan, he would be thinking about getting into bed. Immediately. As in grabbing her hand, finding the closest room and throwing her onto the bed, chair, floor...whatever was closer.
His inner cave man was thumping his chest. Look here, honey! I’m a sex god! He felt embarrassed on his own behalf. Get a grip, dude!
He hoped his face was devoid of all expression, but in his mind Seb tipped his head back and directed a stream of silent curses at the universe. When I asked what else could go wrong, I meant it as a figure of speech—not as a challenge to hit me with your best shot.
Rowan broke the uncomfortable silence. ‘So...it’s been a long time. You look...good.’
‘You too.’
Good? Try sensational!
‘Where did you fly in from?’ he asked. Politeness? Good grief, they’d never been civil and he wondered how long it would last.
‘Sydney. Nightmare flight, I had a screaming baby behind me and an ADD toddler in front of me. And the man in the seat next to me sniffed the entire time.’
‘Two words. Business class.’
Rowan grimaced. ‘One word. Broke.’
She shoved a hand into her hair, lifted and pushed a couple of loose curls off her face.
‘Would you consider changing your mind about loaning me the money to get back to London?’
Rowan threw her demand into the silence between them.
Thirty seconds from polite to miffed. It had to be a record.
‘Well? Will you?’
Sure—after I’ve sorted out climate change and negotiated world peace. ‘Not a chance.’
Rowan tapped an irritated finger on the table and tried to stare him down. Seb folded his arms and kept his face blank.
Eventually her shoulders dropped in defeat. ‘My mobile battery is dead, I have less than two hundred pounds to my name, my best friend is out of the country, my parents are away and their house is occupied. I’m in your hands.’
In his hands? He wished... Their eyes met and sexual attraction arced between them. Hot, hard... Man! Where was this coming from?
Pink stained Rowan’s cheekbones. ‘I mean, I’m at your mercy...’
That sounded even better.
‘What is the matter with me?’
Or at least that was what he thought he heard her say, but since she was muttering to the floor he couldn’t be sure.
What was cranking their sexual buzzers to a howl? Dial it down, dude; time to start acting as an adult. He dashed the rest of what was left in the tiny bottle of wine into her glass and tossed it back.
Think with your big head. It didn’t matter that she looked hot, or that he wanted to taste that very sexy mouth, this was Rowan. AKA trouble.
Seb put his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. ‘You ready to go?’
‘Where to? Where am I sleeping tonight?’
‘Awelfor.’
Awelfor... It meant sea breeze in Welsh, and was one of the few small holdings situated between the seaside villages of Scarborough and Misty Cliffs, practically on the doorstep of Table Mountain National Park. Her second home, Rowan thought.
The house had originally been an old school building, added to over the generations. The oldest part was made from timber and redbrick, and she could still feel the cool warmth of the Oregon pine floors beneath her bare feet. Nearly every room had a fireplace and a view of the Atlantic, with its huge rolling waves and its white beaches peppered by black-backed gulls.
She’d been raised next door, in the house that had been built by a Hollis forefather for—rumour had it—a favourite mistress. It had been sold off in the forties to her grandfather and separated from the Hollis house by a huge oak and a high, thick Eugenia hedge.
She knew Awelfor as well as she knew her own home: which floorboard creaked if you stood on it the middle of the night, that the drainpipe that ran past Callie’s window was strong enough to hold their combined weight, that Yasmeen the housekeeper hid her cigarettes in the flour canister at the back of the pantry. For most of her life she’d had two homes and then she’d had none; now she bounced from bed to bed in different accommodation establishments, depending on her cash flow. Once or twice she’d slept on beaches and on benches in railway stations, she remembered, even standing up.
Dots appeared behind her eyes.
Tired...so tired.
Rowan blinked furiously as the dots grew bigger and brighter and her vision started to blur. She reached out in Seb’s direction and cool and firm fingers clasped her clammy hand.
‘What’s the matter?’ Seb demanded as she abruptly sat down again.
‘Dizzy,’ Rowan muttered as she shoved her head between her knees. ‘Stood up too fast.’
Rowan opened her eyes and the floor rose and fell, so she closed them again.
‘Easy, Ro.’
Seb bent down in front of her and held up three fingers. ‘How many?’
‘Six thousand and fifty-two.’
Seb narrowed his eyes and Rowan gnawed the inside of her lip, ignored the squirming sensation down below and tried to act like a mature adult.
‘Sorry, I’m fine. Tired. I haven’t really eaten properly. Shouldn’t have had that wine.’ Rowan rubbed her eyes. ‘It’s just been a horrible couple of days.’
Seb let go of the hand he’d been holding and stood up, looking away from those slim thighs in old jeans, that mad hair and those deep, deep eyes. She had always been gorgeous—hadn’t all his friends told him that?—but for the first time in his life he saw her as something other than his sister’s friend.
That felt uncomfortable and...weird.
His eyes dropped lower. Full breasts under that white cotton shirt, long fingers that were made to stroke a man’s skin, long legs that could wrap around a man’s hips...
This was Rowan, he reminded himself harshly. She was not somebody he should find attractive. He’d known her for far too long and far too well. Seb frowned, irritated that he couldn’t break their eye contact. Her eyes had the impact of a fist slamming into his stomach. Those eyes—the marvellous deep dark of midnight—had amused, irritated and enthralled him. When he’d first met her he’d been a young, typical boy, and babies were deeply uncool but her eyes had captivated him. He remembered thinking they were the only redeeming feature of a demanding, squawking sprat.
Her face was thinner, her bottom rounder and her hair longer—halfway down her back. He imagined winding those curls around his fingers as he slipped inside her... Seb shook his head. They shared far too many memories, he reminded himself, a whole handful of which were bad, and they didn’t like each other much.
Have you totally lost your mind?
‘Let’s get you home and we can argue later, when you’re back to full strength.’ Seb bent down and easily lifted her rucksack with one hand, picking up her large leather tote with the other. ‘You okay to walk?’
Rowan stood up and pulled her bag over her shoulder. ‘Sure.’
Seb briefly closed his eyes. It was a struggle not to drop her bags and bring her mouth to his.
‘What’s the problem now?’ Rowan demanded, her tone pure acid.
He stared at the ceiling before dropping rueful eyes back to her face. ‘I keep thinking that it would’ve been easier if you’d just stayed away.’
‘Loan me the cash and I’m out of here,’ she pleaded.
‘I could...’
Rowan held her breath, but then Seb’s eyes turned determined and the muscle in his jaw tightened. ‘No. Not this time, Ro. You don’t get to run.’
THREE
Rowan sat in the passenger seat of Seb’s Audi Quattro SUV as he sped down the motorway towards Cape Town. Although it was a little before eight in the evening, the sun was only just starting to drop in the sky and the motorway was buzzing with taxi drivers weaving between cars with inches to spare and shooting out the other side with toothy grins and mobiles slapped against ears.
Cape Town traffic was murder, no matter what the time of day. It came from having a freaking big mountain in the middle of the city, Seb thought. He glanced at his watch; they’d been travelling for fifteen minutes and neither of them had initiated conversation. They had another half-hour until they reached Awelfor and the silence was oppressive.
Seb braked and cursed as the traffic slowed and then came to a dead stop. Just what he needed. A traffic jam and more time in the car not speaking to each other. At the best of times he wasn’t good at small talk, and it seemed stupid, and superfluous to try to discuss the weather or books, movies and music with Rowan.
And on that point, since it was the first time that Rowan had been in the same time zone as her parents for nearly a decade, he felt he owed it to them to keep her in the country until they got a chance to see her, hold her. Like him, they didn’t wear their hearts on their sleeves, but he knew that they had to miss her, had to want her to come back. He could sympathise. He knew what it felt like, waiting for a loved one to come home.
He had never been able to understand why she didn’t value her family more, why she rebelled so much. She had parents who took their jobs seriously; he and Callie had a runaway fickle mother and...Patch. As charming and entertaining as Patch was, he was more friend than father.
Rowan’s parents, Heidi and Stan, had always been a solid adult presence right next door. Conservative, sure, but reliable. Intelligent, serious, responsible. On a totally different wavelength from their crazy daughter. Then again, it sounded as if Rowan operated on a completely different wavelength to most people, and he had enough curiosity to wonder what made her tick.
Since this traffic was going nowhere they had time to kill and nothing else to talk about, so he would take the opportunity to satisfy his nosiness.
He and Ro had never danced around each other, so he jumped straight in.
‘I want to know why you’re broke. I know that you consider yourself a free spirit, too cool to gather material possessions, but surely a woman your age should have more to her name than a hundred pounds?’
She’d known this was coming—had been bracing herself for the lecture. Because Cape Town was synonymous, in her mind, with being preached to.
Rowan pursed her lips as she looked straight ahead. Seb hadn’t lost his ability to cut straight through the waffle to what he thought was important. Lord, she was too tired to tangle with that overly smart brain of his. Too weirded out by the fact that he made her ovaries want to dance the tango. What to say without sounding like a complete idiot?
Keep it simple, stupid.
‘I was doing a deal and I was supposed to get paid for delivering the...the order when I got into Oz.’
‘What were you peddling, Rowan?’
Seb’s eyes turned to dark ice and his face hardened when she didn’t answer. Of course he couldn’t take that statement at face value. He needed more and naturally he assumed the worst. She knew what he was thinking...
Here we go again, Rowan thought, back where I started. As the memories rolled back her palms started to sweat and she felt her breath hitch. Even after so many years Seb still instinctively assumed the worst-case scenario. As her parents would... And they wondered why she hadn’t wanted to come home.
‘It wasn’t anything illegal, Seb!’
‘I never said it was.’
‘I’m not an idiot or a criminal! And, while I might be unconventional, I’m not stupid. I do not traffic, carry or use drugs.’ Rowan raised her voice in an effort to get him to understand.
‘Calm down, Ro. For the record, back then I never believed you should have been arrested,’ Seb stated, and his words finally sank in.
Rowan frowned at him as his words tumbled around her brain. ‘You didn’t? Why not?’
‘Because while you were spoilt and vain and shallow—and you made some very bad decisions—you were never stupid.’
She couldn’t argue with that—and why did it feel so good that Seb believed she was better than the way she was portrayed? Just another thing that didn’t make any sense today.
But she knew that Seb’s opinion was one that her parents wouldn’t share.
‘But, Rowan, this lifestyle of yours is crazy. You’re an adult. You should not be getting kicked out of countries. You should have more than a backpack to your name. Most women your age have established a career, are considering marriage and babies...’
Shoot me now, Rowan thought. Or shove a hot stick in my eye. This was why she hadn’t wanted to come home, why she didn’t want to face the judgment of her family, friends and whatever Seb was. They’d always seen what they wanted to see and, like Seb, wouldn’t question the assumption that she was terminally broke and irreversibly irresponsible.
Rowan’s eyes sparked like lightning through a midnight sky. ‘What a stupid thing to say! You don’t know anything about me!’
‘And whose fault is that? You were the one who ran out of here like your head was on fire!’
‘I didn’t run!’ Okay, that lie sounded hollow even to her.
‘Within days of writing your finals you were on a plane out of the country. You didn’t discuss your plans with anybody. That’s running—fast and hard.’ Seb’s finger tapped the steering wheel as the car rolled forward. ‘What really happened that night?’
Rowan lifted her chin. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ He couldn’t know, could he? Callie might have told him... No, she’d sworn that she wouldn’t, and Callie would never, ever break her word. Seb had to be talking about her life in general and not that night she’d got arrested in particular.
That stupid, crazy, change-her-life evening, when she’d fallen from heaven to hell in a few short hours.
‘Sure you do.’ Seb scanned the road ahead, saw that the traffic wasn’t moving and sighed. ‘Something in you changed that night you were arrested... You were rebellious before, but you were never spiteful or malicious or super-sarcastic.’
Her attitude had been that of a rabid dog. In the space of one night she’d gone from being wildly in love and indescribably happy to being heartbroken, disparaged and disbelieved. That night had changed her life. After all, not everybody could say that they’d lost their virginity, got dumped and framed by their lover, then arrested all in the same night. And her weekend in jail had been a nightmare of epic proportions.
Was it any wonder that she equated love with the bars of a jail?
‘You were never that hard before, Rowan.’ Seb quietly interrupted her thoughts. ‘Those last six months you fought constantly with your parents, with me, with the world.’
Rowan clenched her jaw together. Every night she’d cried herself to sleep, sick, heartsore, humiliated, and every day she’d got up to fight—literally—another day.
‘Maybe I was crying because my parents, my sibling and everyone close to me left me to spend the weekend in jail when they could’ve bailed me out any time during the day on Friday. The party was on a Thursday night.’
‘Your parents wanted to teach you a lesson,’ Seb replied, his voice steady.
Rowan stared at the electronic boards above his head. ‘Yeah, well, I learnt it. I learnt that I can only rely on myself, trust myself.’
When she dared to look at him again she saw that his eyes were now glinting with suppressed sympathy. Then amusement crept across his face. ‘Yet here you are relying on me.’
‘Well, all good things have to come to an end,’ Rowan snapped back.
She was so done with being interrogated, and it had been a long time since she’d taken this amount of crap from anyone.
‘So...’ She smiled sweetly. ‘Hooked up with any gold-diggers lately?’
Annoyance replaced sympathy in the blink of an eye. ‘Sending me those sunglasses when you heard that we’d split was a very unnecessary gesture,’ he said through gritted teeth.
‘I know, but I thought you might need them since you finally saw the light. It took you long enough.’
‘Very droll.’ Seb’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
‘Still annoyed that flighty, fey Rowan pegged your ex’s true characteristics and you didn’t?’ Rowan mocked, happy to shift the focus of their conversation to him.
‘Remind me again as to why I didn’t leave you to beg in Jo’burg?’
‘You wanted to torture me. So, are we done biting each other?’
‘For now.’
* * *
As the traffic began to move Rowan watched Seb weave his way through the slower-moving vehicles to speed down the fast lane.
‘Has the traffic got worse?’ she asked when Seb slammed on his brakes and ducked around a truck. Her hand shot out and slammed against the dashboard. The last vestiges of colour drained from her face. ‘Sebastian! Dammit, you lunatic!’
Seb flipped her a glance and then returned his attention to the road, his right hand loosely draped over the steering wheel. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘The problem is that you missed the bumper of that car by inches!’ Rowan retorted, dropping her hand. ‘The traffic hasn’t got worse—your driving has!’
Seb grinned. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit early in our relationship to start nagging?’
‘Bite me.’
Seb flipped the indicator up and made a production of checking his side and rearview mirrors. He gestured to a sedan in front of him. ‘Okay, brace yourself. I’m going to overtake now. Here we go.’
Rowan sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘You are such a moron.’
Seb ducked around another sedan, and flew across two lanes of traffic to take the exit. Rowan leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes and thought it was ironic that she’d crossed seven lanes of motorbikes in Beijing, a solid stream of tuk-tuks in Bangalore and horrific traffic in Mexico to die in a luxury car in her home country at the hands of a crazy person.
Rowan sat up and looked around as they drove into a more upscale neighbourhood and she recognised where she was. ‘Nearly ho... there.’
‘Yep, nearly home. And, despite your inability to say the word, this is still your home, Ro.’
‘It hasn’t been my home for a third of my life,’ Rowan corrected, thinking that she had a twitchy heart, a spirit that was restless, a need to keep moving. Coming back to Cape Town broke made her feel panicky, scared, not in charge of her own destiny. She felt panic well up in her throat and her vocal cords tighten.
Seb’s broad hand squeezing her knee had her sucking in air. When she felt she had enough to breathe she looked at his hand and raised her eyebrows. Then she pulled her eyebrows closer together when she clocked the gleam in his eyes, the obvious glint of masculine appreciation.
‘You’ve grown up well, Brat.’
Bemused by the sexual heat simmering between them, she tried to take refuge in being prosaic. ‘I haven’t grown at all. I’m the same size I was at eighteen—and don’t call me Brat. And take your hand off my knee.’
The corners of his eyes crinkled. ‘It worked to take your mind off whatever you were panicking about. You always did prefer being angry to being scared.’
Seb snorted a laugh when she picked up his hand and dropped it back onto the gearstick.
‘Have you developed any other serious delusions while I’ve been away?’
‘At eighteen...’ Seb carried on talking in that lazy voice that lifted the hair on her arms ‘...you wore ugly make-up, awful clothes and you were off the scale off-limits.’
Rowan, because she didn’t even want to attempt to work out what he meant by that comment, bared her teeth at him. ‘I’m still off-limits.’
Seb ignored that comment. ‘Is that why you are still single at twenty-eight...nine... What? How old are you?’
‘Old enough to say that my relationship status has nothing to do with you.’
‘Relationship status? What are you? A promo person for Facebook?’ Seb grimaced. ‘You’re either married, involved, gay or single. Pick one.’
Rowan snorted her indignation. ‘Gay? For your information, I like what men have. I just frequently don’t like what it is attached to!’
‘So—single, then?’
‘I’d forgotten what an enormous pain in the ass you could be, but it’s all coming back.’ Rowan turned and tucked herself into the corner between the door and seat. At least sparring with Seb was keeping her awake. ‘And you? Any more close calls with Satan’s Skanks?’
She hoped the subject of his ex-fiancée would be enough of a mood-killer to get him off the subject of her non-existent love-life.
‘You really didn’t like her.’ Seb twisted his lips. ‘Was it a general dislike or something more specific?’
There wouldn’t be any harm in telling him now, Rowan thought. ‘She was seriously mean to Callie. I mean, off the scale malicious.’
Seb’s eyes narrowed. ‘I thought they got along well.’
‘That’s what she wanted you to think. She was a nasty piece of work,’ Rowan said, staring at the bank of dials on the dashboard. ‘I really didn’t like her.’
‘I would never have guessed,’ Seb said dryly.
‘My “money-grabbing” comment didn’t clue you in?’
‘It was a bit restrained.’ Seb’s tone was equally sarcastic. ‘Your efforts to sabotage our engagement party were a bit subtle too.’
‘What did I do?’ she demanded, thinking that attack was the best form of defence. ‘And why would I do it since I was looking forward to you being miserable for the rest of your life?’
Seb slid her an ironic glance. ‘Apart from spiking the punch with rum? And turning the pool that violent green that totally clashed with the puke-orange colour scheme? And placing a condom on every side plate? Anything I’ve missed?’
Rowan dropped her head back on the headrest. ‘You knew about that?’
‘I had a good idea it was you.’ Seb’s lips twitched. ‘Okay, hit me. What else did you do?’
‘Nothing,’ Rowan replied, far too quickly.
‘Come on, ’fess up.’
Well, he couldn’t kill her now. She didn’t think...
‘I put itching powder in your bed.’
Rowan felt as if she wanted to dance to the sound of Seb’s laughter. Despite her now overwhelming fatigue, she noticed the scar bisecting his eyebrow, the length of his blond eyelashes. Man, she wanted to link her arms around him, curl up against him and drift off.
‘Ro, I knew about that too.’
He spoke softly and Rowan felt both warm and chilled, her nerve-endings on fire.
‘Luckily we had a fight after the party and I chose to sleep in the spare room...she itched for days.’
‘Good.’ Rowan grinned and fought an enormous yawn. ‘You had really bad taste in women, Seb.’
‘She wasn’t so bad. And if I didn’t know any better I’d say you sound like a jealous shrew.’
‘You really should give up whatever you’re smoking.’
Rowan lifted her nose. As if she’d be jealous of that waste of a womb. Seb might be a thorn in her side but he was her thorn in the side—and Callie’s, obviously. Nobody else was allowed to treat him badly. Especially not some lazy, stupid... Oh, dear God, the old oak tree was still on the corner of their road.
And there¸ through the trees, she could see the redbrick corner of Awelfor.
‘No, don’t panic. Just breathe. It’s only a house, Ro.’
His house. And next door was her old home. And a life she didn’t want to go back to—a life she’d outgrown a long time ago.
Seb turned into his driveway and parked in front of a new rectangular automated gate. While he waited for the gate to slide open he looked at Rowan, his blue eyes serious. ‘Stay the three weeks, spend some time with your parents, and then I’ll loan you the money to fly anywhere in the world.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I think it’s long overdue.’
Rowan shook her head, suspicious. ‘How much time, exactly, must I spend with them?’
Seb looked frustrated. ‘I don’t know! Make an effort to see them—have dinner with them—talk to them and we’ll have a deal.’
It was too good an offer to pass up. It wasn’t ideal but it was a solid plan of action. If she got some money together before that she’d go sooner... No, she couldn’t do that. She was here. She had to see them. To leave without saying hello would be cruel, and she wasn’t by nature cruel. Three weeks. What was twenty-one days in the scheme of things?
Twenty days too long in this city, her sarcastic twin said from her shoulder.
‘I’ll pay you back.’
Seb grinned. ‘Yeah, you will. Yasmeen is on holiday and we’re short of a housekeeper. You can start tomorrow: shopping, cleaning, laundry, cooking. You know what Yas does.’
‘Are you mad? I’m not going to housekeep for you!’ Rowan protested.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t—she’d worked as a maid before—but she wasn’t going to pick up after Seb and his ‘we’.
‘We’re? You said we’re short of a housekeeper? Who else lives here?’ Rowan demanded. If he had a live in lover/partner/girlfriend then she’d just go and sleep on the beach.
Seb steered the car up to his elegant house. ‘Patch has hit a hiccup with his current girlfriend and has moved back into the second floor of the cottage.’
Oh, thank goodness. She didn’t know if she could cope with Seb and any ‘significant other’.
‘So, housekeeping in exchange for your bed and food?’
‘S’pose,’ Rowan reluctantly agreed, thinking that she was jumping from the frying pan into... Well, the third level of the hot place.
* * *
After lugging Rowan’s luggage up to Callie’s old bedroom Seb finally made it to his office—the bottom floor of the two-bedroomed cottage Patch had moved into—temporarily he hoped! His workaholic staff worked flexible hours, so he was accustomed to seeing them at work at odd times, and Carl, his assistant/admin manager, like his hackers, was still around.
Seb listened to Carl’s update and accompanied him into what they called the ‘War Room’. The huge room was windowless, and a massive plasma TV attached to the far wall was tuned to MTV at a volume level that made his ears bleed. He picked up the TV remote that stood in its cradle on the wall and muted the volume. Two male heads and one female head shot up and looked in his direction.
His hackers needed junk food, tons of coffee and music. Deprive them of one of the three and he had their immediate attention. Seb walked into the centre of the room and rapidly scanned the long row of screens where computer code rolled in an unending stream. He read it as easily as he did English, and nodded when he didn’t immediately pick up any problems.
‘Anything I should know about?’ he asked, folding his arms.
He listened while they updated him on their individual projects—testing the security of a government agency, a bank and a massive online bookseller—adding his input when he felt he needed to but mostly just listening while they ran their ideas past him. There was a reason why he’d hired all three and paid them a king’s ransom: they were ethical, super-smart and the best in the field.
Nearly, but not quite, as good as him.
Seb wrapped up the meeting, left the room and headed for his office, which was diametrically opposite to the War Room. There were computers—five of them—with a processing power that could run most Developing World countries—but his office had lots of natural light, a TV tuned to ESPN, an en-suite bathroom and a door directly linked to the gym. Although he nagged and threatened, his staff members rarely used the up-to-date equipment.
Seb tossed his car keys and mobile onto his desk, hooked his chair with his foot and pulled it over to his favourite computer. Having Rowan return with her battered backpack and her world-weary attitude made him think of his mother and had him wondering where she was laying her head these days. He checked on her once or twice a year—with his skills he could find out exactly where she was, how much money she had and pretty much what she was up to. He’d first tracked her down when he was sixteen and he’d found her passport and identity number on a supposedly coded list—ha-ha!—on his father’s computer.
His fingers flew across the screen as he pulled up the program he’d written specifically to let him track her. Within minutes he found out that she’d drifted from Peru to Brazil and then moved around a bit within that country. She was currently in Salvador and running seriously low on funds.
He experienced the usual wave of resentment and anger, wondered if he was a hundred types of a fool—after all, what had she ever done for him?—and then transferred a thousand untraceable dollars into her account. It was less than petty cash to him, and if he didn’t do it he’d lie awake at night, wondering what she’d have to do to dig herself out of that hole. She was, after all, his mother.
Rowan was in pretty much the same position, he thought, and he wondered how she’d come to the same point. He looked at his screen speculatively and thought that with a couple of clicks he could find out exactly what had happened to bring her home. He had everything he needed: her passport number, her bank details. He could, by inputting a line of code into that program, see her travel movements and everything she’d ever purchased with a credit or debit card.
It was that easy.
He’d done it before—not for five years at least, but once or twice a year before that, when her parents hadn’t heard from her for a while and her father had asked him to take a peek. He’d skim over the information, not particularly interested, and report back that she was in London or Perth and reassure them that she seemed to have enough money to cover her costs. There were big deposits and big withdrawals, but there was always a savings account with excess funds. He wondered why she hadn’t had one this time...
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