Lingerie Wars (Invertary 1)

“Your designs are wonderful,” Helena said. “I’m going to send the pictures to some of my contacts. You deserve a lot more exposure than a show in your hometown. I don’t know why you haven’t used your own contacts. People would have loved to have heard from you.”

“In Scotland,” Kirsty told her Norwegian friend, “we don’t blow our own trumpets.”

Helena started to laugh. With a smile, Kirsty hugged her tight as she blinked back happy tears.

“Kirsty,” Magenta called to her. “Lake’s at the door. I think he wants to surrender.”

That made the women fan themselves. Kirsty told them off with a look while she went to see what he wanted. But their words make her blush. They had no idea how good that man was at the game of surrender.

“Well done,” he said when she opened the door. “Great show. Sneaky. But great.”

Kirsty jumped from the top step of the caravan to throw her arms around his neck. He kissed her automatically.

“Don’t get too smug,” he told her when her feet were back on the ground. “I’m still going to win. Better start practising your strip show and don’t forget to include those boots of yours.”

She licked her bottom lip. His eyes darkened appreciatively.

“Bring it on,” Kirsty said at last.

“I intend to.”

With a cheeky grin, he headed back to his caravan.

As soon as Betty set foot on the runway, Kirsty knew she’d lost the bet. Lake grinned over at her from his position beside the runway.

“Unlike our competitor,” he said into the microphone, “we believe that every woman is beautiful and deserves great underwear.”

The noise in the tent was ear-splitting as Betty strutted down the catwalk. Behind her photos of Lake’s shop, before and after the makeover, appeared on the wall. The sound system blasted out the old Right Said Fred song I’m Too Sexy and Betty did her best to appear sexy. She pouted, she posed, she blew kisses to the audience and waggled her backside like a duck. Kirsty laughed in spite of herself. It was a stroke of genius to put her up there. She wore a red silk nightgown and robe set, complete with fluffy pink slippers. And, for once, she had her teeth in.

From Kirsty’s position, beside her mother at the entrance to the marquee, she got a great view of the crowd. She had to admit that Lake’s choices for his show were smarter than hers. She’d tried to put on a sophisticated runway show, whereas Lake had anticipated his audience. All they wanted was to be entertained, and that’s exactly what he was doing.

Before the last model made an appearance, Lake handed the microphone to Dougal and disappeared behind the curtain. Then, as the last model turned to go up the runway and people started to clap, Dougal cleared his throat.

“There’s one more model,” he said.

There was silence as people leaned forward in their seats to see what would happen next. The photos projected on the wall suddenly changed. Instead of the shop, the screen was full of the pictures Kirsty had encouraged Magenta to spread on Facebook. The doctored photos of Lake with balding hair and a beer belly had the crowd in hysterics. Kirsty hung her head. She knew what was coming next. The man was a born exhibitionist. He had no shame at all.

“Lake Benson would like to remind everyone that his shop—For Your Eyes Only—also sells men’s underwear. He would also like to set the record straight about some images that have been circulating. Some false images. Please put your hands together and give Lake a big thank you for tonight’s show.”

And out he came, dressed only in a pair of red Calvin Klein underpants.

Kirsty’s jaw dropped. His eyes sought her out over the crowd and gave her that sexy little half-smile that rocked her world. The women in the marquee went nuts. They were jumping up and down in the aisles. Some of them were throwing things onto the runway. To her disgust, Kirsty saw a pair of knickers. Lake kept smiling confidently. He walked to the end of the runway, folded his arms and grinned at the crowd. Then he looked at Kirsty and raised one eyebrow. Surrender? She shook her head. Never. He laughed.

As Lake strode back up the runway, someone outside of the tent tugged at Kirsty’s arm. With a grin on her face, she turned to see who it was and froze.

“It’s good to see you again too, Kirsty,” her ex-fiancé said.

For a minute she couldn’t speak. The music blared loudly around her. The women were screaming. It’d turned into a raucous night at a male strip club instead of a sophisticated runway show. But Kirsty couldn’t think about any of that. The man she’d once trusted, the man she’d once loved, was standing in front of her.

“What are you doing here?” She stumbled over her words.

Her head was reeling. It didn’t seem possible. Brandon? In Invertary?

“I came to see you.”

He looked down at his shoes—the image of a penitent man. Kirsty didn’t buy it for a minute. He peered up at her through those long lashes that she’d once thought were lovely.

“I couldn’t get the photos of you out of my mind. I know I screwed up, that I don’t deserve a chance to explain, but I had to see you. I had to see if there was some way we could fix things.”