Lingerie Wars (Invertary 1)

He flicked open his phone.

“I need you to do something for me,” he said by way of hello.

“Great to hear from you too, Lake,” said his army mate.

Lake grinned.

“No time to chat. I need you to hack a website and make the same pop-up message appear every time someone clicks on something.”

“That sounds simple enough. Why don’t you do it yourself?” John said. “I’m busy doing proper work. As in work that will make us a lot of money when the business is up and running.”

“You can spare ten minutes.”

“So can you.”

“Are you going to do this or not?”

“Are you going to stop screwing around in Scotland and sell that business so we can get on with our lives?”

“Trust me,” said Lake. “There is nothing I would like more. But until the place shows a profit, I’m stuck with it. Now, if you want to speed things up, how about you help me sabotage the competition?”

He picked up some beads in a dish beside the monitor. Ugly pink paper things.

“Fine,” John grumbled.

Lake let the beads slide through his fingers as he listened to the grumbling in his ear.

“What’s the address?” John said at last.

Lake rattled off the website address as he held the beads in the palm of his hand. They were heavier than they looked.

“What do you want the pop-up to say?”

Lake grinned as he put the beads back in the dish.

“I want it to say, ‘Buy your lingerie from Lake Benson’s shop’, and put the phone number.” He told him what it was.

“Yeah, I can see you’re being really productive,” his friend said drolly. “When you’re done messing with your girlfriend’s website, how about you spend some time thinking about what you could be doing? I leave for Singapore on Monday to babysit some prince. All expenses, plus hefty fee and I get to wear a gun. Wouldn’t you rather be doing that?”

Hell yes, Lake thought, but before he could answer John had hung up.

Another few minutes poking around the place and it was clear that Kirsty planned her sabotage elsewhere. He glanced upwards in the direction of her flat and then headed for the stairs. The lock on the door to the flat hadn’t been turned—obviously Kirsty thought it was enough to lock the shop downstairs. The more he wandered around her home, the more he worried about her. This might be Invertary, but it didn’t mean she could give up on safety. As soon as this war was over, he was going to take her in hand and sort out her security. Until then, it would drive him crazy knowing that she was wide open for any nutter to walk right in.

Her home was exactly as he’d expected—stylish, soft and understated. Just like Kirsty. The place was neat, as a home should be. As his home would be, if he had one. Even the pictures on the wall were tasteful. He made his way through the small rooms, noticing that there were no photos anywhere. Strange, but not unusual. Not everyone put their family pictures on the wall; some people preferred albums. Out of curiosity he checked the shelves in the living room—no photo albums. There was also no evidence of her latest plot against him.

It occurred to him that the plotting might be taking place somewhere else entirely. Then it slowly dawned on him. The day he was fixing the plumbing, she’d said she knew who did it. Not that she did it. He hung his head. Her mother. He should have checked the mother. Still, it wasn’t a wasted trip. The website should keep her out of mischief for a while at least.

As he turned to leave the flat, he heard a little moan coming from the bedroom. He stilled. There was no reason to go in there. None at all. His feet didn’t pay any attention; they walked towards the noise. The door was ajar. Soft light filtered through the thin curtains. Lake felt his heart pound at his ribcage as he looked for Kirsty. She was lying on her belly in the middle of her bed. The duvet had slipped to her hips. One foot dangled over the edge of the bed. Even covered in long-sleeved pyjamas, she was beautiful. The fabric had pulled tight around her as she’d moved in her sleep. He could make out the slender curve of her back and the gleam of creamy skin at her neck. Her full lips parted as she moaned again. The soft, intimate noise of sleep. His chest tightened and his fingers actually hurt from wanting to touch her.

Instead, he used all of his self-control to turn away. He felt lightheaded as he made his way down the stairs and out of her home. Every instinct he had told him he shouldn’t have left. It told him he should have crawled into bed and let her curl up against him. And wasn’t that beyond twisted? She’d have screamed the place down. He was losing his mind. Invertary, Kirsty; all of it was robbing him of his senses.

As he locked the doors behind him, he frowned grimly. He’d learned a lot more than he’d bargained for during his little break and entry. Kirsty not only covered herself from neck to toe during the day, but at night too. He let out a long, controlled breath. Kirsty wasn’t hiding her scars from the world.

She was hiding them from herself.

“I’m going to kill him!”

Kirsty shot up from her desk on Friday morning, grabbed her laptop then stormed through the shop and out into the street, leaving a grinning Magenta in her wake.