Nice Girls Finish Last

She tried to ignore the sweet feeling streaming from her chest to her limbs because she wasn’t sure he’d ever needed anything from anyone. ‘Maybe the lack of support is what drove you to succeed to the extent you have.’

She felt him draw breath but he answered lightly enough. ‘Who knows?’

‘Is that why you help these boys?’ she asked. ‘You give them the support you didn’t have?’

He considered it. ‘Not so much support as the skills to take charge of their own destiny. To fight a fight that’s actually worth it. Some of those boys have had it a lot worse than I ever did. But I found sport gave me self-discipline, confidence and strength. It’s okay to get angry, not okay to let that anger screw up your life. It works that way for lots of kids on the brink of losing it.’

He’d been on the brink? ‘But you chose boxing?’

He chuckled. ‘You don’t like that? Don’t tell me it’s too violent for you, the rugby PR princess?’ His shoulders shook. ‘I knew we could find something to put you off if we talked for long enough.’

‘I’m sure I can think of some other things not to like about you, as well,’ she said tartly. But she was so curious about it. ‘I thought you were too busy to make it to sports practice?’

‘I was. But you can beat a boxing bag any time of day and then I found an old guy in a boxing hall who’d coach me at crazy hours.’

‘Why did he agree to do that?’

‘Because I was angry and he knew that would help me succeed. He was right.’

‘Why were you angry?’

‘Why is anyone angry?’ he countered cryptically, leaning closer. They were sitting in the country’s largest stadium, but the situation was unbearably intimate. ‘But what about you—what is there not to like about you?’

There was only one answer to that. ‘I want too much.’

‘You reckon you’re greedy?’ His voice rose. ‘Never.’

‘I am.’ Emotionally she couldn’t get greedier. She wanted all the attention she’d missed out on.

‘If you were greedy, we’d be having sex this second,’ he muttered. ‘Instead you’re holding me at arm’s length even though we both still want it. So why?’ He speared her with that total intensity. ‘You got an evil ex in your wardrobe, too?’

She blinked. Here it was, her chance to put him off. It would be so easy, because she didn’t have the evil ex, she was the evil ex.

I had an affair with a married man. I was the other woman. I tried to wreck someone else’s happy home.

Her excuses—the missing facts—screamed to be heard, too, but she blocked them. It was a sordid tale of utter stupidity. She’d been second best. She’d always been second best. Or worse.

And hadn’t her own actions simply proved that was all she deserved to be? Because she wasn’t smart. She wasn’t a success anywhere near the league of her siblings. She wasn’t worthy of the same amount of attention. She’d never got those moments of triumph; the celebratory dinners had never been in her honour.

Her evil-ex story would send him running for the hills. Turn the warmth in his gaze to disapproval because the double standard definitely still existed. Maybe she should just have another quick good time with him. Maybe that was all she was good for. But rebellion against that stereotype burned. Why couldn’t she have a damn good time and the happy ever after? She wanted it all. But the guy to have that with wasn’t lifelong-single-man Seth.

‘You’re not going to tell me, are you?’ He finally filled the silence.

She didn’t want to. Not here, not sitting in the late-summer sun under a sky as vividly blue as his eyes. It was another moment of fantasy and she didn’t want to burst the bubble. Even though she knew she should sever the attraction between them, she just couldn’t. ‘I was young and naïve. Let’s leave it at that.’

His hand cupped her jaw. ‘I’ll only leave it for another time.’

At that slight contact she melted closer. Excruciatingly aware of his body, she could almost feel his blood beating against her own. She drew a deep breath, trying to cool the inferno inside, but all it did was burn hotter. As if he could hear her thoughts, her secret wishes, his gaze travelled from her eyes to her mouth. She put her palm on his chest. Pleasure pierced from that lightest of touches. The heat and hard slam of his vitality were addictive. The scent of dawning summer intoxicated her.

He was irresistible. She leaned forward. She lifted her chin. She pressed her parted lips to his. She flicked his mouth with her tongue.

She did it. She wanted it. Oh, how she wanted it.

His response came instantly—but not the one she wanted. His head lifted—away—and in the next second he’d stood and moved to the railing. Well out of reach.

‘You’re punishing me for saying no before?’ she asked, confused, then hurt, then annoyed.

‘No, I’m proving restraint.’

‘I didn’t ask you to.’

‘Maybe it’s for me. Maybe I don’t like the way this feels slightly out of control.’

Her heart thundered.

‘That’s some of what bothers you, too, isn’t it?’ he said softly, looking over his shoulder at her. ‘That it’s strong.’

She was his then, if only he knew it. But he was too far away to feel her head-to-toe tremble. And if he saw it, he gave no sign.

‘I’m giving you one last chance to be certain that you want this,’ he said. ‘Because when we end up in bed again, it’s going to be for a while. You need to be prepared for that.’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I won’t agree.’

‘You will.’

‘I told you I don’t want a fling.’ She wanted it to be over. She wanted this wild flood to leave her so she was free to find someone ordinary. Someone who could care for her—just her—the way she ached to be cared for. Not this gorgeous over-achiever who could have every woman he wanted and would. Millions of them.

He lifted his chin, standing staunch.

‘We can have one more night but that’s it.’ She would give herself that much. One more night to see it out.

‘Not enough.’

Her heart stalled. ‘I’m not going to change my mind.’

He walked up the steps towards the nearest stand exit and she wasn’t sure if he meant her to hear him or not.

‘You already have.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

HE was right, of course. Lena stood in the small conference room, ridiculously self-conscious in front of the youths. Tension sawed through her nerves and the unseasonably muggy weather shredded her concentration. She tried not to look at the man leaning against the back wall. Just the thought of him had kept her awake all night. And in the few minutes when she had snatched some sleep, he’d haunted her dreams. Oh, how he’d haunted them.

As soon as she was done she fled back upstairs and put some music on, thumped her keyboard as she worked to get her inbox emptier. Even so, she heard the playful shouts and calls from the kids now out on the field. Then both the music playing and the boys’ noise were drowned by a drumming from overhead.

She ran to the viewing window. Hail. In late summer. Marble-sized balls of ice pitting the ground. Christchurch was famed for going through four seasons in one day, but this was just ridiculous.

The boys and Andrew were running off the pitch. But not Seth. He walked behind them, unfazed by the malevolence of the sudden storm, his tee shirt sodden in one second. It clung. He didn’t hide his face from the ferocity of the hailstones; instead—as if he had some sixth sense—he looked up, searching.

She knew he saw her at the window because he stopped still. Despite the distance it was as if he could see into her soul. And it was burning hot for him. She put both her hands on the glass as if it could cool her. But there was only one thing that could douse her inferno.

Seth ran up the stairs and sprinted along the stadium’s corridors. He knew he could have convinced her last night but he wanted absolute surrender. Now he knew he had it, but strangely h

is imminent victory didn’t please him. Instead he felt unsettled. She’d opened up a little last night but not a lot. It only made him more curious. He wanted to know everything. And, damn it, his head was so messed he couldn’t find her in this rabbit warren now.