Lingerie Wars (Invertary 1)

Kirsty’s head was beginning to hurt. Her office had officially become a three-ring circus.

“I’ll think about it, okay?” she said. “I need to get this finished first.”

Her mum reached out and ran a hand over Kirsty’s hair. The look of love and worry on her face almost undid Kirsty.

“I’ll try—okay, Mum?” she said as her shoulders slumped.

“That’s all I ask.”

Her mother leaned over and kissed her cheek.

“Come on, ladies,” she told the rest of them. “Let’s go see what the devil is up to now. Who’s on Betty watch first?”

Shona put up her hand.

“Good, we’re set.”

They waved goodbye and went out through the shop, like a group of excited schoolgirls instead of middle-aged women playing at being resistance fighters.

Kirsty hung her head in her hands. She really didn’t want to go over the road and see what Lake had come up with. She had a sneaking suspicion that the man had taken her business and was doing better at it than she did.

When it was silent she wandered through the shop and peeked out from behind the mannequins in the window. What she saw made her stomach sink. The crowd was huge. Huge and happy. They filled the shop and spilled out into the street. The servers from Dougal’s pub were weaving through the crowd with platters of canapés. Folk held plastic champagne flutes with bubbly in them. She doubted it was more than cheap sparkling wine, but it looked good. She hadn’t seen so many happy faces in Invertary since Morag McKay spent a month with her sister in Aberdeen. With a resigned sigh, she went to check it out.

Things were going better than Lake had hoped. The place was jumping and the till was singing. Even Rainne had a smile on her face as she rang up people’s purchases. And although he’d had to keep Betty’s ratty old armchair, he’d managed to position it back by the changing room where it was hard to spot. She was currently sitting in it. Holding court and getting tipsy on one glass of cheap plonk.

“I bet you’re really pleased with yourself,” a voice said behind him.

Lake would have known it was Kirsty without the words—the hair on the back of his neck tingled whenever she was around, like some sort of in-built early warning system. He turned slowly towards her and watched as her eyes darkened with an appreciation that made him feel cocky. He wondered if she was even aware that she was licking her lips.

“A tuxedo?” she said at last.

>

“You gave me the idea. Who better to charm women out of their underwear than James Bond?”

She looked towards the ceiling for a moment. Her arms were folded tightly over that black ribbed polo jumper that fit her so snugly it made him weak at the knees. The skinny jeans she had on made her legs seem impossibly long. She should have looked like she was dressed to clean out a garage. Instead she was his walking fantasy.

“Please don’t tell me that I’m the inspiration for your marketing plan. That makes me feel ill.”

“Sorry to hear that.” He grabbed a glass of sparkling wine from a passing waitress. “Here, this might help.”

His eyes widened as she gulped back the drink without taking a breath.

“Right,” she said as she handed the glass back to him. “Are you going to show me around?”

“Absolutely.” He held out an elbow and was surprised when she took it.

With a level of pride that surprised him, he showed off the silver walls with the black text printed across them—Licensed to Thrill, it said. Then he showed her the large cut-out photo of him in a tux beside the door. And last he took her to the corner where he stocked men’s underwear, something he’d noticed Kirsty didn’t do in her shop.

She stilled beside him. Taking it all in. The racks were almost empty and women were posing with the cut-out of him in a tux.

“Don’t forget you get a discount if you put it on Facebook,” he told them.

“You’re killing me here,” Kirsty said beside him.

“Killing you is not my intention,” he said as he pulled her over to a quiet spot in the corner by the window.

“No, wiping my business off the face of the earth is.”