‘Adam?’ Noah’s transatlantic drawl in his ear pulled his mind out of the gutter.
‘Yeah. Listen up...’
Half an hour later Adam went in search of his partner in crime to report. A glance into the spare room yielded nothing; the room looked completely unused. Not so much as a strawberry blonde strand of hair on the pillow.
He pulled the door closed and headed for his bedroom—and stopped on the threshold with a gargled snort. Olivia lay on his king-size mattress. Correction: Olivia was rolling around on his king-size mattress. If he’d wanted his libido to get any more excited he’d have said she was writhing.
‘Olivia?’
Her body stilled, and then with careful, deliberate movements she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up.
‘I was just...’ She leant over, probably in an attempt to hide the pink-tinted angles of her cheekbones, but inadvertently giving him a glorious flash of cleavage. She tugged the duvet up to leave a glimpse of the sinfully rumpled black sheets. ‘The bed needs to look like we both...used it.’
Her breath hitched audibly as she straightened, and hazel eyes flickered away from his as she swept her arm around the room.
‘What do you think?’
Wrenching his gaze away from her, and his mind out of fantasy land, he followed the arc of her hand. Olivia’s bag was on the floor by the corner of the bed. Her dress was slung over the back of a chair and...and oh, hell. Moisture sheened his temple as he spotted the wisp of lace peeping out from under the bed.
‘Hopefully this looks as though I spent the night in here.’ Chewing her bottom lip, she gave a small nod. ‘I’ll hang my clothes up in your wardrobe, too. As an added touch. After all, if we’re saying we are serious then it may be best to at least imply I’ve stayed here before and I’m staking a claim.’
Doubt assailed him again, battering his mind.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Are you?’ he asked. ‘Staking a claim? Seems to me you’re pretty practised in the art of fabrication, of making a mirage of the truth.’
Her head whipped round at neck-cracking speed. ‘Say what? I’m doing my very best to help you out here, bolster your reputation, and you’re doing what? Still accusing me of scamming you?’
‘I’m simply observing that you are a self-confessed expert liar and you’ve certainly got a whole lot further than any other woman has thus far.’ Hell, he was about to announce at a press conference that she was his serious girlfriend. No one had ever got this far. Except Charlotte.
Adam blocked off the thought. His ex-wife was not a topic he wanted or needed to consider right now.
Hands slammed on those curvy hips as she shook her head in patent disbelief. ‘Believe what you like, Adam. I thought I was doing a good thing here. Candice is the one whose lies are threatening to derail your charitable event, and...’ She hesitated. ‘She is also sullying your reputation. That’s wrong. Our lie... Well, it’s not harming anyone and it’s repairing the damage she’s done. I don’t have an issue with that. Do you?’
‘Not a one,’ he said. ‘I’m questioning your expertise. That’s all.’
Back went the teeth over the plumpness of her lower lip. Adam’s gut contracted in a sudden desire to take over the action. To stop talking and start feeling.
Then she shrugged. ‘I’ve had some experience in the art of dissembling. That’s all. There were times when I was growing up when life was a bit hand-to-mouth and Mum and I needed to fabricate a believable story.’
‘Who for?’
‘Landlords, debt collectors, teachers... Things were a bit complicated sometimes and it was important to put on a bit of a show. No harm done, and when we were flush I always paid off any debts.’
Adam felt that insidious pull at his chest again. That sense of connection, of the shared experience of a childhood made less than stable by the antics of parents. Different experiences with different outcomes—clearly Olivia and Jodie had a bond that went a whole load deeper than any link he and Zeb had. Olivia and Jodie’s had been forged in love.
Her level gaze didn’t falter. ‘But I’m not after anything from you, Adam. Except access to Zeb.’
‘OK.’ He stepped forward until they were mere centimetres apart, close enough for him to clock that her chest rose and fell in definite response to his nearness. ‘Got it.’
‘Good,’ she said, and then the silence tautened as tension wove a web around them.
It would be so easy to tumble her backwards onto the bed and turn one aspect of their shared lie to truth.