Lingerie Wars (Invertary 1)

“Can I eat your breakfast?” he called after her.

She didn’t bother answering him. He was going to do it anyway—to save it from getting cold.

“I don’t see why I have to leave,” Lake told her as she herded him down the stairs and into the shop.

“For one thing, you don’t live here, you live over there. For another, Magenta will be here soon and I don’t want her to find you here.”

He was not persuaded.

“Put a notice on the window, write ‘gone fishing’ or something and we’ll go back to bed.” He turned towards her at the bottom of the stairs, making her stop short against him. “You know you want to,” he teased.

His hand cupped her breast as he kissed her neck. She swayed. Heck yes, she wanted to. But she wasn’t going to.

“See,” she said as she pushed him through the door and into the shop. “This is self-control. Pay attention. You might develop some one day.”

He grumbled all the way through the shop to the office and the back door. As he entered her office, he

stilled, every muscle in his body tense.

“What is it?” Kirsty said.

He pushed the door open cautiously.

“Someone has been here,” he said.

“What?” Kirsty pushed past him and into the room.

The back door was slightly ajar. Lake scanned the room. Everything about him signalled “high alert”.

“Look around,” he told her. “What’s missing?”

He strode to the door and examined the lock.

“The lingerie for the show is gone.”

She pointed at the table. Kirsty wanted to wail.

“Check the computer,” Lake said evenly. “Make sure no one got into your bank account. Check the till. Make sure the money is still in it.”

Kirsty did as she was told while Lake searched the yard outside the back door.

“Everything is still here,” she said once she’d been through it all. “It’s only the lingerie that’s missing.”

“There are wheel tracks outside the back door. Looks like someone put the stuff in a shopping trolley.”

Kirsty folded her arms over her chest and glared at him.

“I didn’t do this,” he told her. “I was busy. I was with you. Remember?”

“You could have organised it.”

“Think about it for a minute. If I was behind this, would I have made such a piss-poor job of it?”

“It seems to me that whoever did this was quite successful.” She waved at the empty table. “My lingerie is gone. How can I do the show without it?”

“Get some more delivered.”

“Three weeks before Christmas?” she screeched. “I’ll be lucky to get it by February.”