Faking It to Making It

Nate could feel Gabe reacting to being told what to do. They were equal partners, after all. Had been since day dot. But after Gabe had disappeared all those years before, leaving Nate to pick up the slack, Nate had never used the “You Owe Me” card. Not once.

Even while he couldn’t believe it himself, Nate felt it shimmer on the air between them now. Over Bamford Smythe.

For reasons of his own Gabe took it on the chin, striding off towards his own office to make it so.

Nate thumbed his temple and stalked behind his desk. When he realised what he was doing he pulled his thumb away. If even Saskia, whom he’d met twice, had noticed his stress, he needed to take a break. And soon.

Or he was seriously going to crack.

FOUR

Saskia stood leaning against

Nate’s car—a glam silver sporty number that would have gone down well in a Bond movie—on the street outside a massive Stonnington Drive home. Its three clear

storeys of gabled roofs and picture windows gave its imposing façade familial warmth, even while the shade of a hundred-year-old oak in the front yard added to the late winter chill.

No wonder Nate had looked so relieved when he’d picked her up at her door a half-hour before. The poor love had probably expected her to turn up in hemp and a hat. Instead she’d gone for a little lipgloss, a little more mascara, fitted jeans, layered tops, a tailored jacket and ballet flats. He didn’t need to know the frilly scarf that hung to her knees was a million years old, second-hand and homemade.

“What a beautiful home,” said Saskia, having a Molly-Ringwald-in-a-John-Hughes-movie moment.

“Mmm.”

His tight response was so chilly she literally shivered. She gave herself a good mental shake. Then a physical one—stomping her feet and shaking the blood back into her hands.

“What are you doing?” Nate asked, his voice tight, his whole body stiff as a board.

“Trying to relax.”

“Try harder.”

He was serious. Which only made her laugh. Hard. Giving the butterflies in her belly a good workout.

“Enough already! How do you expect me to act? Faking it in front of a guy’s family is hardly a common occurrence in my life. How about yours?”

His sensuous mouth grew flat, his stare much the same.

“Didn’t think so. Because you’re not doing such a bang-up job of looking like a guy who likes a girl enough to bring her home.”

His jaw clenched so hard he was in danger of breaking a tooth.

“Here.” She reached for the top button of his shirt, and stopped when he flinched.

Jeez, the guy was so wound up that if she flicked lint off his jacket he’d probably self-combust. She spared a glance at the door of the beautiful-looking home perched at the end of the perfect white gravel drive and wondered for a second what she’d let herself in for.

But it was too late for all that now.

She’d promised to help, so she’d help. She’d be such a great amount of help he’d never forget it. Maybe he’d be so touched he’d open up a little, give her fodder for her study.

“May I?” she asked, hand hovering an inch from his chest.

“May you what?”

“Ruffle you up a little.”

“For what purpose?”

“For the purpose of making you look like a man on a date, not like an undertaker.”

He breathed deep, his chest lifting till the weave of his luxurious woollen jacket brushed the hairs of her arms, creating skitters of...something all the way to her elbows.

His gaze finally left the house to connect with hers. The tangle of blue was enough to take her breath clean away.

“Ruffle away.”

She purposely lowered her gaze from his eyes, not quite sure what to do with the warmth that seemed to have seeped in there from one second to the next.

Instead she focused on the top button of his shirt and slid the button through the hole. When she saw he wore a crisp white T-shirt underneath—heck, even that had been ironed—she undid another button, and another. Her fingers slid beneath the collar as she softened out the starch. The backs of her knuckles brushed against the warm cotton of his T, and the beat of his heart didn’t feel so steady.

Because of what he was about to try to pull on his family, she told herself. For the less than steady beat of hers her excuse was less clear.

“You have a good reason for doing this, right?” she asked, flicking her gaze to his to find him watching her fingers. Intently. She pulled them away, tucked them into the back pockets of her jeans. “For lying to them. For their own good? For yours? For world peace?”