Главная страница | Современные любовные романы | The Shock Engagement

The Shock Engagement
Ally Blake


Emma's colleagues had been shocked and delighted she was marrying the oh-so-successful-and-gorgeous dot com millionaire Harry Buchanan. Only, the engagement was purely for convenience…It would help Harry get out of the excruciating "hunkiest male" competition–and in return he would help save her job. But Emma had dreamed of marrying Harry for years–and so acting engaged was practically torture. Kissing him. Dancing with him. Especially as the truth was, she was falling head over heels in love with him…







Keely, Emma and Tahlia work together at a small, trendy design company in Melbourne. They’ve become the best of friends, meeting for breakfast, chatting over a midmorning coffee and a donut—or going for a cocktail after work. They’ve loved being single in the city…but now three gorgeous new men are about to enter their work lives, transform their love lives—and give them loads more to gossip about!






From sexy bosses to surprise babies—these ladies have everyone talking!

Impossibly Pregnant by Nicola Marsh

A positive pregnancy test is a surprise for Keely!

The Shock Engagement by Ally Blake

Emma has always dreamed of marrying Harry. Now they’re engaged—but it’s all a sham. Will he ever be hers for real…?

Taking on the Boss by Darcy Maguire

Tahlia’s furious that the promotion she’s been working so hard for has been given to someone else! He’s now her new boss, and he’s gorgeous!


Having once been a professional cheerleader, Ally Blake says her motto is “Smile and the world smiles with you.” One way to make Ally smile is by sending her on holidays, especially to locations which inspire her writing. New York and Italy are by far her favorite destinations. Other things that make her smile are the gracious city of Melbourne, the gritty Collingwood football team and her gorgeous husband, Mark.

Reading romance novels was a smileworthy pursuit from long back, so with such valuable preparation already behind her, she wrote and sold her first book. Her career as a writer also gives her a perfectly reasonable excuse to indulge in her stationery addiction. That alone is enough to keep her grinning every day!

Ally would love you to visit her at her Web site, www.allyblake.com


Books by Ally Blake

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3782—THE WEDDING WISH

3802—MARRIAGE MATERIAL

3830—MARRIAGE MAKE-OVER




The Shock Engagement

Ally Blake












www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To all the fabulous women I have ever worked alongside—especially the Sussie Chadrock superstars for their endless enthusiasm.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE (#u6cc27028-27b2-57cf-bb9f-eb77802677d9)

CHAPTER TWO (#ub1a467fa-061f-54e2-8525-de2d0efb1980)

CHAPTER THREE (#u9e62501d-caf3-54c8-98a2-1a47274597f3)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE


GIRLS’ NIGHT IN WITH WHEN HARRY MET SALLY

‘Ha! Try telling my Harry that men and women can’t be friends!’ Emma said, throwing popcorn at the TV.

THEIR eyes met across the crowded room.

Emma’s gaze drank in dark brown sun-kissed hair, an outback tan, a strong straight nose, a three-day stubble and clear hazel eyes dancing with mischief. When the man across the room smiled at her, her knees, ankles and elbows all turned to jelly.

Thunk! That was the sound of Emma’s elbow slipping off her office desk. When her chin nearly followed in its wake she was jolted from her daydream. Her fuzzy gaze cleared to find a field of stars swimming across her computer monitor. With a great sniff she sat up straight and shuffled her mouse to bring her work back upon the screen.

Prior to disappearing into her terribly nice daydream, Emma had been working on the animation portion of Flirt magazine’s Australia’s Hunkiest Bloke competition project. After creating a whiz-bang website for Flirt magazine, WWW Designs had been called upon to produce a dynamic presentation for the big awards night that Saturday. The problem was the page Emma was working on was half photograph and half bio of one of the nominees and, you guessed it—he had hazel eyes, an outback tan and a smile that turned her to jelly!

The bachelor in question was Harry Buchanan, the creator of Harold’s House—a hugely successful Internet browser created expressly for kids—and he was also her very best friend in the whole world. Adding to the distraction factor, she had been secretly in love with the guy her whole adult life and that afternoon he was due to arrive in Melbourne for his yearly visit. It was enough to have a girl indulging in daydreams all day.

Emma’s focus shifted and she caught her reflection in the monitor. With her newly chopped blonde bob with its blunt fringe and shimmering highlights, she seemed so pale compared with Harry’s healthy complexion, and where unrestrained sexual energy sizzled in Harry’s eyes she was so obviously a wide-eyed innocent.

She looked closer. Ick! That day she was more red-eyed than wide-eyed. Unable to sleep from excitement the night before, she had searched her astounding collection of DVDs for an antidote. Staying up until one in the morning watching Love Story had probably not been the best choice as no amount of white eyeliner had been able to hide the evidence.

Determined to snap back into the real world and forget about Harry until he actually arrived, she closed the offending page and opened up her Blondie file. Blondie was the skinny little cartoon girl with a cute blonde ponytail and big blue eyes she had created to host the competition on the Flirt website and who would make an appearance on the awards night. Blondie simpered and giggled and pointed and fainted like a master in the bottom corner of the screen every time a new hunky bachelor was revealed.

Happy that Blondie was as endearing as she would ever be, Emma ran off a print copy of the animated girl’s various stunts and expressions, stuffed it into a pink folder and hot-footed towards the stationery room to make copies for the demonstration they would give Flirt’s people the next day. Of course a quick stop in the kitchenette for a fortifying coffee and cookie could not be avoided.

Pouring herself an oversized double Espresso, she hummed the theme to Love Story under her breath as she waited. Damn it! Now she would be humming it all day!

Suddenly her boss, a prickly, sharp-minded woman known affectionately as Rabid Raquel, stormed into the room.

‘You can’t pull that crap with me!’ Raquel screeched at some hapless guy down the mobile phone clamped to her ear. She opened the fridge and stared into it as though looking for the answers to her problems within. Emma tucked herself back into the corner of the room, quietly sipping on her coffee, doing her dandiest not to get caught in the indiscriminate spray of her boss’s wrath.

‘Fix it. Now! Or it’ll be your head!’ Raquel snapped the phone shut, slammed the fridge door and only then seemed to notice Emma was there.

‘Ms Radfield. I assume your little cartoon is ready for the final Flirt magazine meeting tomorrow.’

Emma flapped the pink folder at her boss. ‘All ready. No worries.’

‘Because this has to be perfect,’ Raquel insisted. ‘Nothing can go wrong. Nothing.’

Emma noticed a light sheen of sweat had taken up residence on Raquel’s brow. Raquel did mean for a living, but this was different. She was worried.

‘Raquel, it’s perfect,’ Emma promised, her voice soft, calming, sure. ‘Everyone has done a great job on this campaign. Flirt will love it to bits.’

Raquel’s steely glare meant she didn’t believe a word of it, but Emma knew better than to push her luck. She would have the presentation ready in time as she promised and that would have to be enough.

‘Would you like to see a copy?’ Emma asked.

Raquel fluffed a hand in front of her face as though swatting away a persistent fly. ‘No! Too, too busy. Just consider it a priority. You never know, you might need Flirt magazine for a reference. Some day…’ Raquel disappeared out the door, marched down the hallway and was lost within the crowd before Emma could even blink.

What was that all about? A reference? Some day?

Before she had time to absorb Raquel’s odd threat, Emma’s mobile beeped and she flinched.

She clicked the right buttons to bring up the message. It was from Tahlia, her best mate and WWW’s sales guru.

em, is australia’s hunkiest bloke there yet?

Emma’s mouth kicked up at one corner. A right twenty-first century girl, she managed to type a message with one hand, sip her coffee with the other and walk the crowded office hallway towards the stationery room without making one typo or spilling a drop.

not yet T & don’t mention it to him or he’ll get an even bigger head

Within seconds her phone buzzed and beeped.

didn’t know you liked guys with big heads…

Emma shot back a final text message.

watch yourself or i’ll come down there and bop you on the head with that industrial sized stapler you are so in love with

Now, having given in and progressed to whistling the theme to Love Story loud and proud, Emma skipped into the stationery room to find Raquel’s assistant, Penelope, head down, hunched over a photocopier in the far corner.

‘Morning, Penny!’ Emma called out.

Penelope spun around, her hand to her heart, her eyes large and bright. She then grabbed her bunch of papers and ran from the room like a startled rabbit. Emma shook her head. Poor duffer. Working so closely with Raquel would be enough to turn any sane woman into one big raw nerve.

Emma headed for the photocopier Penelope had been using, figuring it would save her time trying to find one that was working and stocked with A4 paper. She lifted the lid to find a sheet face down in place already. She turned back to the door, but Penelope was long gone.

Checking to see if it was anything important or whether she should just toss it away, Emma read the first few lines of the letter in her hand. That was all it took for her to realise just how important the document was.

‘Oh, my.’ Emma’s hand covered her mouth as she devoured the gist of the letter. It was from Raquel’s lawyers. WWW Designs was being sued. For a lot of money. Gossip about trouble had been whispered up and down the corridors for weeks, and now Emma knew why.

Raquel was dedicated and driven but excessively so. She had a thing for ‘special assignments’. She encouraged her worker bees to go out of their way to know all there was to know about prospective clients in order to land said clients. She called it PR, her worker bees called it slave-driving. But it worked. For the most part, it worked. Keely, the other musketeer in Emma’s trio of workmates and the web design genius of the crew, had in fact met her darling fiancé Lachlan, on such a ‘special assignment’.

But since then there had been one infamous time it hadn’t worked. Raquel had lobbied hard for the privilege to design and manage the personal website of a media magnate. She had sent one of her lapdogs to follow the guy around and in the process the lapdog had delved deep enough to discover that the magnate had a mistress. His wife had found out, had filed for divorce and now the magnate was suing, for big bucks, and Raquel was caught in the thick of it.

‘Oh, my, oh, my, oh, my,’ Emma whispered aloud.

The rumours, Raquel’s throwaway line about needing a reference, the niggling bad feeling Tahlia’d had for some time, were all true. No wonder poor Penelope had looked fit to explode on the spot. She knew how bad it all was.

Needing to sit and think, Emma gave up on the idea of photocopying anything. She slipped the offending letter into her pink folder and rushed back towards her office. She threw her half-empty coffee cup into a nearby rubbish bin, tucked her phone back on to her belt, popped a mint into her mouth and rounded the corner towards her office.

‘Emma, wait!’ Chrystal, WWW Designs’ busty receptionist, skipped alongside Emma, her red curls bouncing and red lips shining. ‘You have a visitor. I showed him into your office. Hope you don’t mind. Though you could have done a girl a favour and taken your time in coming back.’ Chrystal kissed her fingers. ‘Magnifico!’

Emma stared back at Chrystal, searching the minefield of scattered thoughts of lawsuits and threats and panic for a way to decipher Chrystal’s words. And then a voice from the past, a voice rich with experience and humour, the voice that had been echoing in her head and keeping her from real work all day, said from deep within her office, ‘That can’t possibly be little Emma Radfield, can it?’

Emma looked up to find six feet of heaven in a battered leather jacket and low-slung jeans leaning against her desk. ‘Harry!’

‘Come here, you luscious length of woman, you.’

She didn’t need to be told twice. She threw her pink folder on to a nearby chair and leapt into Harry’s waiting arms, grabbing fists full of the back of his ancient caramel-coloured jacket, her cheek rubbing against the supple collar, giddily breathing in the familiar scent—fresh air and sunshine mixed with something decidedly male, decidedly Harry.

‘You’re early!’ she noted, but she was so happy to see him she could barely stop grinning.

He held her at arm’s length, his hands keeping a gentle grip on her shoulders. ‘And you’re different,’ he said.

Understatement of the year, Emma thought, but she bit her lip and let him play his game.

He twirled her back and forth, held her wrist to his ear to check her pulse and shook her a little as though trying to place the change. ‘What could it be?’ he asked. ‘I just can’t put my finger on it.’

Hair that has been waist-length for ever now chopped into a slick bob? The last remains of my puppy-fat gone by way of power Pilates? Usual tomboy uniform of jeans and T-shirt replaced with a black suit that looks as though it has been sewn on? All somewhat proving that I am anybody but little Emma Radfield.

‘Nope,’ he finally said. ‘Must have been a trick of the light.’

Oh, he’d noticed, all right. Emma could see it in the barely there furrow of his brow. Though she could tell he didn’t quite know what to make of it yet, he had noticed.

‘So how are you?’ she asked with a bright smile. ‘Mr big time CEO. I didn’t know if you would come this year now that you are such a busy big shot.’

‘Aw, shucks,’ he said. ‘You know me. Gracious. Benevolent. Giving of my precious time.’

‘Not so giving of your precious time that you could make it to my surprise birthday party.’

Harry winced. Bullseye!

‘I tried, babes. Really I did. But…circumstances kept me away. Yet here I am now, as always, choosing to spend all the free time I can wangle with you.’

‘As opposed to…?’

‘Basking on the beaches of Acapulco, getting to know the local girls—’

‘Oh, diddums. Life’s tough.’

‘You have no idea,’ he said, smiling, but Emma knew there was a kernel of truth to the words. He wasn’t yet thirty and yet with Harold’s House he had created a modern day marvel, a masterpiece, a powerhouse. Now the question on everyone’s lips in the Internet biz was: what was Wonder Boy Buchanan going to do next? It was a hard act to follow, especially for the man himself.

‘And you also have no idea how much I missed you, kiddo,’ he said, smiling into her eyes.

‘Me too, Harry,’ Emma said, her throat closing up.

With a thick growl, Harry once again took her in a great bear hug, lifting her off the ground as if she was a doll, not five-foot-six of digital animator who enjoyed a daily white chocolate macadamia cookie as much as the next girl.

Emma revelled in the feeling of swinging through the air as he twirled her about. That was until her flailing legs caught a hold of the edge of her office chair, sending it crashing to the ground in a mess of screeching metal and spinning wheels.

Her office door crashed open and a familiar face peered in. ‘What on earth is going on in here?’ Keely asked, her eyes twinkling.

Emma fought back a laugh. Keely was six months pregnant, which was a happy little miracle, but it was also making her more forgetful as the months progressed. Always one to tuck a pen behind her ear, her hairdo now had several pens tucked into and about it. She was a walking stationery case. Keely folded her slim arms atop her slightly rounded tummy.

Emma scrambled out of Harry’s arms and straightened her twisted black trouser suit. Harry hid behind her as much as a guy double her size could. Emma shot daggers at Keely with her eyes, waiting until the sound of the spinning wheels of the office chair slowed and stopped.

‘Um, Harry, this is Keely Rhodes. Keely, this is Harry Buchanan.’

Keely’s face said duh as her lips said, ‘Nice to meet you, Harry.’

Emma only hoped that Harry was not so understanding as to what Keely’s expression gave away—that Emma had been a basket case all day—well, all week really, awaiting his arrival. Emma pulled away from Harry and moved to push her nosey friend back out the door.

‘You promised to let us know as soon as he arrived,’ Keely whispered through clenched teeth as she jabbed a finger at her silent mobile phone. ‘A quick text message would have been fine. You didn’t need to break any furniture in a fit of passion.’

Emma glanced over to Harry but he was blithely oblivious to their conversation as he picked up the heavy chair with one hand and tucked it under her desk.

‘Though I have to say; now I totally get your years of pining. He’s swoon-worthy, Em.’

‘And you’re engaged,’ Emma reminded her.

‘Engaged, yes. But blind to the allure of a hot guy? Never!’

‘Get out now,’ Emma quietly demanded.

Good deed done, Harry followed them to the door and reached around Emma to shake Keely’s hand. ‘It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Keely.’

Emma groaned inwardly as Keely gave Harry a detailed once-over, taking in his too-long hair, weather-beaten jacket, jeans with the knees almost worn away and scuffed boots, all which did little to cover the fact that this was one superb specimen of Australian manhood.

‘I assure you, Harry,’ Keely purred, ‘the pleasure is all mine.’

Having borne the brunt of such obvious female attention ever since Emma had known him, Harry just grinned, generating his lady-killer smile, guaranteed to melt a pair of female knees at fifty paces. He then tucked himself in behind Emma once more, resting a casual hand across her hip, and Emma had to stop herself from leaping away from his feather-light touch. She had long since learned to control her instincts when it came to Harry’s effortless, yet entirely innocent, caresses.

He rested his chin on her shoulder. She could feel his warm breath tickling at her ear. ‘So are you two partners in crime?’ he asked. ‘Sharing secrets and lipstick? Shopping together for sexy underwear—’

Emma gave Harry an abrupt elbow in the ribs and was rewarded with a hearty ‘Oomph’ from his direction.

‘You’ll find it’s best to ignore him, Keely.’

‘It’s called charm,’ Harry murmured against her ear.

‘It’s called pathological. I know it’s not yet five, Keely, but can you cover for me if I take off a tad early?’

Keely grinned and winked. ‘I’ll tell the Rabid Rottweiler you are out buying a new paintbrush or something. So go, take this man of yours home.’

‘You heard the lady, Em,’ Harry said. ‘Let’s blow this joint.’

‘See ya,’ Keely said and Emma looked up in time to see Harry throwing her a wink as she slipped out the door.

‘She’s engaged, lover boy.’

‘Meaning she’s not married,’ he said, his eyes bright and laughing.

‘Yet quite obviously with child.’ Emma reached around to pinch him on the arm, using the brief respite to slip out of his embrace. She backed Harry towards her desk so she could tidy up her gear for the day.

Pens were in their holders. Papers were neat. Emails had all been answered. She still had to photocopy the Blondie files for the Flirt presentation but that could wait.

‘Em, I can come back later if you have to finish up here,’ Harry offered.

She shook her head. For once she could put others on the back burner for a day. Especially since seeing Harry in the flesh was almost enough to fry her brain of all other information. Almost. Her seriously disturbing discoveries of that morning were still playing at the back of her mind. Her finger rolled over her mouse as she considered sending off a quick heads-up to Tahlia and Keely.

But it was no use worrying her friends. Not until she had more information and not until she had done what she could to fix the situation first. She had long since proven to herself she could shoulder worry enough for everyone.

‘Earth to Emma!’

She blinked and shook her head. ‘Sorry, Harry. I’m coming.’ She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked up to find Harry leaning in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest, watching her with a funny little smile.

With his scruffy sun-kissed brown hair and his crinkly hazel eyes that made a person smile just by looking at them, he was just so categorically gorgeous she had to fight back a sigh.

She shut down her computer, grabbed her briefcase, slipping the pink folder inside, and wandered back to Harry’s side like a homing pigeon returning to its master. He wrapped an arm about her neck, all but strangling her as he dragged her from the office and through the hallway towards the lift.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘All these walls are making me antsy.’

‘You’ve been inside ten minutes at most.’

His grip loosened enough so that he could look down into her face. ‘Mmm,’ he said, his voice a distant rumble. ‘Too long.’

Something in his tone made her wonder if he was talking about his drought of sunshine or his year away from her side. Either way, it was good to see him too.

Emma hustled Harry to the lift. She knew by the disturbance of sighs following in her wake that Harry was bestowing grins all around.

Gracious? Benevolent? Giving of his precious time? Yeah, right! She knew that he would be lapping up the fact that he was likely receiving those smiles back in kind from her many young female co-workers.

Once at the lift, she pressed the down button and was surprised when the double doors gave way instantly. But when she saw Tahlia inside the lift hastily fixing her hair and smoothing out her clothes, she knew that her other best buddy had been summoned by Keely.

Emma crossed her arms. ‘What a surprise to see you down here.’

Tahlia looked up, her cheeks glowing pink. ‘Oh. Well, I borrowed Keely’s industrial sized stapler,’ she said, waving it in Emma’s face as proof, ‘and she emailed to say she needed it. Urgently.’

Tahlia’s gaze skittered back and forth between Emma and the man behind her. Emma wondered whether she should punish Tahlia and simply not introduce Harry, but it would only cause more questions than it was worth.

‘Tahlia Moran, I would like you to meet my old friend, Harry Buchanan.’

Tahlia practically curtsied. ‘Harry. Of course. Congratulations on the enormous success of Harold’s House. It is a supreme example that innovation can still be achieved with the medium. An Internet search engine aimed entirely at under-eighteens. Brilliant!’

Emma couldn’t help but grin. Tahlia was such a sweetheart. Such a hard worker. So entrenched in the fabric of WWW Designs. In her capacity as Director of Sales, she was the public face of the company. Emma worried about what would happen if WWW Designs really did come under serious threat. Though she had been one person never to become embroiled in Raquel’s ‘special assignments’, her friend’s fall would be so public.

Harry gave Tahlia a brief nod but said no more. Funny. For a guy who usually lapped up female attention as if it was drinking water, the bestowal of praise for his outstanding success seemed to be something he could not simply charm his way through. It was actually kind of adorable.

‘Later, T,’ Emma said, waving her friend away and stepping into the lift.

‘Have fun, Emma,’ Chrystal called out, leaning so far over the reception desk Emma could make out the colour of her bra. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’

Emma took Harry by the hand and dragged him into the lift with her. She did all she could to hide her blush. If she followed Chrystal’s advice she and her Harry would be in for a wild time.




CHAPTER TWO


GIRLS’ NIGHT IN WITH THE PRINCESS BRIDE

‘As she wishes? That princess has no idea how lucky she is,’ Keely said. ‘The most romantic thing my first boyfriend said to me was, “What would you like to watch on telly?”’

ONCE Emma was finally able to extricate herself from the WWW Designs building she walked Harry quickly away from the riverside boardwalk, past the long run of funky restaurants and hip cafés, and around the corner into the maze of car parks and parklands behind the office building.

The letter in her briefcase burned in her mind and she wondered if she should show Harry. But it was a private letter, one even she should not have seen, so she decided to let it simmer in her mind for a while longer before involving anyone else.

‘So where are we going in such a hurry?’ Harry asked. ‘Are you luring me into the bushes for a reason?’

‘You wish,’ she said, but she slowed only once she knew they were out of sight of the many beady eyes watching them through the tenth-storey windows. Spying a park bench, Emma led Harry to it and sat, dumping her briefcase on the ground at her feet.

‘Now let me have a look at you,’ Harry said, taking her by the hands as he gave her a steady once-over. ‘Let’s see how my little princess has aged.’

Emma faced her very best friend, the person who knew her better than any other, and the man who had held her heart in his hand for over a decade. Harry stared right back, his usual unsuspecting smile glinting in his beautiful hazel eyes. She had to look away lest her terrible poker-face disclose how overwhelmed she felt on seeing him again. Instead she focused on the play of light and shadow on the leafy ground as she waited for a mixture of comments about wrinkles, crow’s feet and other signs of old age.

But all he said was, ‘You are looking spectacular, princess.’

There was an intensity to his voice that had Emma’s gaze swinging back to his. But she must have imagined it. He was grinning from ear to ear, his face full of pride, just like the big brother he considered himself to be.

Letting one hand go, he reached out and took a handful of her straight blonde bob. ‘Very sophisticated.’

He gave it a little tug before letting the hair slip between his fingers. Emma suppressed a delicious shiver but she could not stop herself from tucking the now swinging hair safely back behind her ear.

‘And you haven’t changed a bit,’ she said. ‘I swear you were wearing exactly the same clothes when you drove off a year ago.’

Harry looked down and grinned. Grabbing the flaps of his jacket he opened them up, revealing a fitted white T-shirt clinging to the despicably well-formed chest beneath. ‘I think you’re probably right.’

‘How you get by looking like that I’ll never know.’

‘I’ve never had complaints from the ladies before.’ He smiled so wide she caught sight of a sexy pair of sharp canines.

‘I am a lady, so consider this your first. Please let me take you shopping while you’re here,’ Emma begged.

‘Sure,’ he said, thankfully covering himself back up. ‘Now you are such a sophisticate, maybe you finally can teach me a thing or two.’

‘Are you insinuating I never could before?’

He shrugged. ‘Well, you are younger than I, and less worldly-wise. What good is it having an older friend unless they can teach you the ways of the world?’

‘Please,’ she scoffed. ‘What did you ever teach me but how to get into trouble?’

‘Moi?’ he asked, his expression mortified.

‘So you want a list? Okay. I can count cards with the best of them thanks to your tutelage the summer I turned fifteen. You taught me how to hotwire a motorbike when I was nineteen. The first time we met you gave me a red apple you had stolen from the next door neighbour’s tree.’

‘It had fallen into your yard,’ he argued.

‘The tree was ten feet from our fence! Ruling out a freak hurricane, that was a physical impossibility.’

‘Okay then. I am a bad influence. Should I leave now, head hung in shame, never to disgrace your door again?’

Even said in jest the suggestion made Emma’s mind mist over red. She reached out and grabbed his hand, tucking it tight between her own. ‘Don’t even joke about that, Buchanan.’

His smile shifted, lost some of its fashioned charm, and Emma felt the sounds of the park slip away. When he looked at her like that, with such honesty, it gave her ideas. Hope. It made her think that maybe one day he would see her as something other than a little sister type.

He patted her hand. ‘You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.’ Then he winked and the charmer was back.

The sounds of the park rushed back in. Leaves rustled, birds squawked and cars whooshed past on the road nearby.

‘Did you drive over from…wherever you were?’ Emma asked, pulling her hands from his as she shifted her weight to the other bottom cheek.

‘Yep. I brought the bike. I went by your folks’ place on the way here but no one was home.’

‘They’ve gone away.’ She could have fitted a golf ball into Harry’s rounded mouth.

‘Away?’ he repeated. ‘But they’ll be back by Saturday…Surely.’

Saturday. The real reason why Harry came home the same time each year.

Emma shook her head. ‘No, they won’t. They have taken a much needed break in the Great Barrier Reef for a couple of months.’ She watched Harry closely, embroiled in his reaction, which was a great deal fiercer than she would have expected. His brow crinkled, his skin came over blotchy as though he was trying to hold in his acute angst.

‘Whose…whose idea was this?’

‘Mine. Theirs. I don’t remember. We were talking one night about how long it had been since they’d taken a holiday together so I bought them the airfares for their wedding anniversary. They chose this time of year and I didn’t once think of asking them to postpone.’

It made sense, it had symmetry and it showed great strength, Emma thought. In choosing not to be in town on that particular Saturday, her parents had made a point that despite past events they were living their lives. She was so proud of them and she wasn’t going to let Harry convince her otherwise.

Ready to move on conversationally and physically, Emma gathered her bits and pieces. ‘Well, now, dear boy, your forfeited side trip means that you get the surprise early.’

‘Surprise?’ he asked, taking her briefcase from her.

‘A good surprise,’ she said, leading the way back to the street where Harry’s custom-built motorbike awaited them.

She grabbed the spare helmet and secured the cord under her chin. Harry tied down her briefcase then hopped on and unhooked the kickstand with the ease of an expert. Emma swung her leg over the bike to sit behind him. She wrapped her arms about his waist and she was in her favourite place in the whole world.

Harry covered her arm with one of his own as he turned his head. ‘So where to, princess?’

‘St Kilda.’

‘And what’s in St Kilda?’

‘My big surprise. I’ve moved out of home. I have my own apartment and this time around you’re staying with me.’

Harry drove five kilometres under the speed limit the whole way. He needed every extra second possible to pull himself together.

Though Emma had ridden behind him on his various motorbikes over the years, this time it felt different. Through her thin suit fabric and his thinning old jacket he could feel her breasts pressed up against him, and having the words ‘Emma’ and ‘breasts’ in his head at the one time was not a situation he had been counting on.

It seemed that little Emma was not so little any more. The girl he had always thought of as his kid sister looked like she had grown up overnight. Gone was the cuddly girl with the hair down to her waist and wide blue eyes that looked up to him for guidance about everything from job prospects to her love of drawing to boys, and in her place was this urbane woman with something in her eyes he had never seen before. Was it wisdom? Or maturity? Or experience? He wiped that thought from his mind as quickly as he could.

Considering he hadn’t seen her since the same time the year before, he should have seen it coming. She had always been a cute girl, cute enough to whisper at the edge of his awareness repeatedly over the years, but he had long since shouted down those whispers with the memory of why he had no right to be thinking that way about her. So he probably had seen the changes coming and had ignored them outright. But now he could feel Emma’s warm body wrapped about him and, as if that was not distraction enough, he was driving her to an apartment. Where she lived alone. Where according to her, he would be sleeping for the next week.

He was surprised at how that news had startled him. She was, what, twenty-four? Of course she had her own place. It was about time. The sweetheart had kept her parents company, looking after their every concern, sorting out problems before they even knew they existed, playing the good girl for longer than anyone could have asked.

Helping those in need was Em’s defining quality. She was always looking out for everyone else’s interests before her own. He knew, despite her brave face, that having her parents so far away at this time of year had to have been distressing, but so long as they were happy she would never think to disapprove.

She tapped his shoulder as they came up to a red four-storey building a couple of streets away from the beach. He pulled into the driveway and felt a welcome rush of fresh air at his back as she uncurled her soft body from behind him. He grabbed her briefcase and his old leather backpack from the back of his bike and followed her up the steps, his eyes raking over the building and the grounds—anywhere but on her casually swaying hips, which were wrapped in some unbelievable stretch fabric which he was pretty certain was designed less to clothe and more to stun unsuspecting men.

She turned to him at the top of the stairs with the key in the door. ‘Ready?’ she asked.

Her dazzling grin relaxed him no end. It was young and girlish and reminded him that this was Emma. Little Emma. Sweet Emma. Princess Emma. The girl he had berated when he had caught her smoking at age fifteen. The girl who would do anything he asked, and he had something pretty tricky he was about to ask.

He rubbed his hands together. ‘Ready and raring.’

‘Now, it’s only tiny so don’t get too excited. But please feel free to get very excited as, although it’s tiny, I love it.’

He crossed his arms and waited for her gushing to cease.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Just come in.’ She opened the door with a flourish and welcomed him into her home like the ringmaster in a circus.

The mushroom-coloured walls were so clean he could tell the place had been recently painted, and the dark wood furniture and white couch had that just-purchased look about them. But the thing that caught his attention the second he walked in were the ceiling-to-floor shelves lining one whole wall, surrounding and swamping the small television. The shelves held enough DVDs to fill a rental store.

He stepped up and ran a finger over the spines. Funny Girl. How to Steal a Million. The Fifth Element. All romance films. There were comedies, tragedies, action adventures, but they were all romantic. His face warmed with a smile. Trust sweet Em to throw herself into a collection like that.

‘So what do you think?’ she asked, her brow furrowed in such adorable concern.

‘Do you really own all of these movies?’

She glared at him, her hands on her hips. ‘No. I rented each and every one and never took them back. Of course I own them all. Now, what…do…you…think?’

‘It’s a very exciting apartment,’ he promised.

She gave a little nod. ‘That’s better.’ She threw her keys on the hall table and he followed her down the hallway.

She disappeared inside one room off to the right, singing sweetly under her breath, something familiar and pretty that reminded him of a chick flick she had forced him to sit through once. Harry followed at a distance.

Finally she poked her head out into the hall. ‘Come on, slowcoach. The grand tour will only take about thirty seconds, even if you look under every cushion and open every cupboard door.’

He did as he was told and came upon her in what was obviously her bedroom. Gone were the teddy bears and pink lace from her room at her parents’ place; instead, her bedroom was all dark wood and coffee-coloured linen. The word that came to mind was inviting. He remained resolutely in the hallway.

Emma peeled off her suit jacket and flung it on to her queen-sized bed. She wore a white tailored business shirt that hugged some seriously attractive curves. He had had no idea she had such a tiny waist, which was only accentuated by the not so tiny area above. Harry’s gaze lifted so fast it hit the ceiling.

‘What are you looking for all the way up there?’ she asked.

‘Spiders’ webs in the corners,’ was the best he could come up with.

‘Come on, Harry. You know I’m a neat freak.’

But when Harry looked back at her she had her hands on her hips and was glancing about the ceiling, just in case. His mouth lifted in a smile. He could work her so easily. Of course that came from knowing her for over a decade.

He had a sudden flash memory of the first time they had met—he had been coming back to Jamie’s place after footy practice one afternoon and had been bowing to one of Jamie’s regular dares; this time he’d been ordered to jump the neighbour’s fence and return with an apple from their treasured tree.

He had acquiesced instantly, returning with three apples instead. He remembered Jamie’s easy grin and absolute appreciation at being beaten. Their strong friendship had been forged in that moment.

Before they had reached the front door it had opened with a slam and a small girl with thick blonde hair to her waist and a mouth full of braces stood on the step, hands on hips, bright blue eyes flashing.

‘You’re late. Mum is going to kill you!’ she had promised, obviously relishing the thought.

Jamie had pushed past, ruffling the girl’s hair. ‘Squirt, this is Harry. Harry, this is my sister, Emma. She’s eleven going on twenty-one,’ Jamie had thrown over his shoulder as he disappeared into the kitchen to bury his head in the fridge.

Emma had turned her attention to Harry. ‘You don’t go to our school,’ she had said in a tone so accusing that Harry had had to bite back a laugh.

‘No, I don’t. I play footy with your brother.’

She had shot a disgusted look over her shoulder at the mention of the boy who was obviously the bane of her existence. ‘Poor you,’ she had said.

Harry remembered feeling this strange need to impress. She’d been a kid, all metal mouth and attitude, not like the lissom senior girls who were the usual witnesses to his daring and athletic feats, but it didn’t stop him throwing the three apples into the air, juggling them, landing two down his footy jersey and one in his mouth. He’d taken a big bite then tossed it to her.

She’d caught the apple in her small hands, looked at it for a moment, looked back at him, took a great big bite herself then disappeared into the house, leaving the door open for him to follow. That was the moment he had first been invited into her house and into her life. Into Jamie’s house. Into Jamie’s life…

Harry breathed in deep through his nose as he fought his way out of the suddenly stifling memory to find Emma watching him with those same bright blue eyes, only now they were framed by beguiling black lashes highlighted by clever use of mascara.

She looked back at him in silence. The stunning prettiness of her baby blues had never been able to disguise her fierce intelligence, but there was more to her stare now. Standing there before him, all grown up, she now knew exactly what those eyes could do to a guy. He had a sudden flash of something that felt a heck of a lot like attraction.

He spun on his heel and took off. ‘So which one’s my room? I’m hoping it’s decked out with leopard skin walls and shag pile carpet on the ceiling.’

He risked a glance over his shoulder and found Emma watching him with a blank expression. Not quite the indulgent grin he’d been hoping for, but at least it was easier to handle than whatever had been zapping between them moments before.

She pointed across the hall to a room with a single bed, pink bedspread, yellow floral curtains and a white chest of drawers with I love Robbie Williams stickers all over it. So her old room at home had in fact come along for the ride.

‘Well, not so much leopard skin as I had hoped.’ He jumped as he felt Emma sidle up behind him. He caught a whiff of head-turning perfume but had little time to take pleasure in it as she gave him a slap on the shoulder so hard it would no doubt leave a red mark.

‘Haven’t quite got to this room in my decorating mania,’ she said. She pointed out the room’s accoutrements. ‘Cupboard. Chest of drawers.’ Then she reached around him to point out a small empty box on the bedside table. ‘Somewhere to keep your mess of notes.’

It took a moment before he realised what she meant. He reached into his top jacket pocket and pulled out a mishmash of ideas for the evolution of his website that he had jotted down on torn off bits of newspaper and truck stop napkins on the long ride down from Alice Springs.

He put the papers in the tray and his jacket felt a good deal lighter. Huh. Well, what do ya know?

‘You will stay, won’t you?’ she asked.

He heard the hint of concern in her voice and he had no choice. He reached to gather his little Emma to him, sighing deeply as she snuggled into him, resting her head against his chest.

‘Of course I’ll stay, princess. For you, anything.’

Emma released a great breath, the warm air tickling at his skin through his cotton T-shirt. ‘I am very glad to hear that.’

But there was more he had to say, and soon, before everything settled and became too chummy. He pulled Emma away and slowly set her down on the edge of the bed. When she looked back at him with such trust he gave in to temptation and ran his hand over the back of her head, revelling in the feel of her soft hair playing against his fingertips.

‘Em,’ he said, pulling his hand away and distancing himself again, ‘keeping in mind my generosity in allowing you to put me up for the week, I have a favour to ask.’

She tilted her head and raised a pale blonde eyebrow. ‘Shoot.’

Harry began to pace. How to ask? How to begin? At the beginning seemed as good a place as any.

‘About six months ago,’ he said, ‘a gentleman sued me, for stealing the idea of Harold’s House from him.’

Emma felt her stomach drop away and her fighting instincts rose. ‘But of course you didn’t take the idea from anyone else!’ she cried. ‘I was there the day Harold’s House was born. Don’t you remember?’

‘I remember, sweetheart. But when you have the appearance of power and money you attract the attention of those who seek both. Anyway, it never went to court. He had no case. Nevertheless his stunt brought about enough publicity that I began to receive attention from one woman who believed I was wronged. She began by sending me letters via the Harold’s House email address.’

Emma reached out and grabbed his hand, stopping him pacing before he left a track in the carpet. She felt him straining against her hold, but she also felt the angry heat welling from inside him. She used her own power to tug him over to sit next to her on the bed.

‘The emails became excessive enough they were brought to my attention,’ he continued, ‘but by that time her attention had already expanded to include handwritten love letters lathered in perfume and gifts of odd souvenirs she had found in small towns as she made her way from Sydney to me. She eventually tracked me down in Alice Springs.’

He glanced over at her and she saw a flash of uncertainty. He was wondering how much to tell her. It must have been pretty bad. ‘Tell me, Harry. Please.’

He rolled his shoulders and went somewhere inside himself to draw on experiences obviously buried down deep. ‘My core creative group had come out to Alice Springs for a week to get a feel for the place, and thus for the new additions I wanted for the site. We were eating at a local pub one night and she found me sitting at a table with one of my copywriters, Rikki. This woman came straight over, grabbed Rikki by the hair, tore her from her seat and began beating her. It was so unexpected, it took us a few shocked moments before the rest of us dived in to fend her off. By that stage she had already split Rikki’s lip and broken a rib.’

‘Oh, my God! Harry!’ Emma felt a sense of cold dread gripping her spine that the woman might still be out there somewhere, thinking of Harry, watching Harry, planning to hurt Harry. Her fists clenched in her lap as she thought what she would do to the woman if she ever got her hands on her. ‘Where is this woman now?’

‘The police arrested her in Alice Springs. It turned out she was a serial stalker. She had pulled a similar stunt with some football jock in New South Wales and was wanted for kidnapping the guy’s girlfriend. Now she is behind bars and those around me are safe from her attention.’

He squeezed her hand and she knew he was making sure she realised she was safe. Emma felt a heady sense of relief. ‘And Rikki?’

‘She’s fine. All better. She’s even still working for me, believe it or not.’

There was one more thing she had to know. ‘Was she…are you and Rikki…together?’

He shook his head and her relief doubled. ‘Never. But it didn’t matter. This woman was so obsessed it didn’t matter.’

‘Harry, how can I not know this sort of stuff? You are supposed to be my best friend and yet you haven’t let me help you through any of the tough stuff.’

‘What good can it do burdening you, Em? I would rather that sweet mind of yours was filled with nice thoughts. Ignorance is bliss.’

‘Please!’ Emma scoffed. ‘I would much rather be in the know, to be able to help you and know you than to be in the dark.’

Harry’s smile was full of sadness. ‘But that’s just it, Em. I don’t bring good luck to those who care for me.’

‘That woman didn’t care for you!’

‘No, she didn’t. But others have.’

Emma knew exactly who he meant. Jamie. But that was ridiculous. He couldn’t possibly still be so defined by that experience, could he?

‘That’s half the reason I couldn’t come to your surprise party, Em. Keely had tracked me down and invited me. But when all this happened, I had to pull out. There was nothing that would have brought me back to you with that sort of danger following close behind.’

She believed him. He hadn’t come to her party in order to protect her. How ironic. It was one of the many times he had broken her heart in the name of trying to look out for her best interests.

‘So now for my favour,’ he said. ‘You must know I have been nominated for this competition, this Australia’s Best Bachelor thing.’

Emma grinned. Trust him to not even know the name of the biggest, most highly publicised event in the country.

Harry caught her grin. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘I have been told on the odd occasion that I can be quite hunky when the light is right.’

Emma smiled. Harry didn’t need anything as transitory as light, nor something as subjective as a competition to make him look hunky. He made Emma’s heart race just by looking her in the eye.

‘Oh, it’s not that, Buchanan. I’m sure that under the right circumstances you can come across downright hunky to someone with the sun in their eyes. It’s just that WWW is heavily involved with that comp.’

‘I know, Em, and that’s why I am hoping that you can do something to get me out of it.’

Emma opened her mouth but no words came out. She hadn’t seen that one coming at all. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Dead serious, Em,’ he said. ‘I haven’t done an interview since this whole business played itself out, and I don’t want to start now. Especially in a forum where I am to be held up as an object of…interest to women. Harold’s House will happily thrive without any focus on me, so if there is anything you can do to get me out of this thing, cleanly and quickly, I would appreciate it.’

It seemed that Emma now had not only the future of WWW Designs weighing on her, but she was being called upon to jeopardise WWW’s involvement with Flirt magazine, the account for which nothing could go wrong. But what else could she do?

‘Of course I’ll help, Harry,’ Emma said, repeating his promise of moments before. ‘For you, anything.’




CHAPTER THREE


TAHLIA’S SUNDAY NIGHT RITUAL: MR DARCY AND A DAIQUIRI

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife? I dare Jane Austen to come over here and say that to my face,’ Tahlia said as she slammed Pride and Prejudice shut and hid it under her sofa cushion.. this time for a full ten seconds.

EMMA left Harry to unpack.

Once she heard the shower running, she changed out of her suit and into cut-off jeans. She sat on the edge of her bed, still topless apart from her bra, staring at some point on her wall as the synapses in her brain buzzed and flickered, trying to assimilate the spate of news that had come her way in the past couple of hours, and trying to conceive of some way to fix all situations for the best.

Harry wanted nothing to do with the Australia’s Hunkiest Bloke competition and for good reason. So how could she help get him out of it? The rules of the competition were pretty easygoing. The editors chose the nominees and the readers chose the winner. The guys in question didn’t have to do anything but exist. They didn’t even have to turn up to the big announcement party on Saturday night, though most of them had already RSVPd. To get her Harry out of the running would be tricky. The only prerequisites were that the guys had to be Australian, hunky and single, and Harry fit into every category perfectly.

Her mobile phone chirped in her handbag. The ring tone, Copacabana, in her opinion the most romantic song ever written, beeped merrily away until she answered it. ‘Aloha?’

‘Aloha yourself,’ Keely said from the other end.

‘Are we disturbing you?’ Tahlia asked, hope lacing her voice. It seemed this was a check-up conference call.

‘Please. What do you think?’ Emma said, slumping back on to her big beautiful unchristened bed. ‘He’s taking a shower and—’

‘Well, now’s your big chance,’ Keely insisted, her voice rising with excitement. ‘Go in there. Join him. Naked and wet there will be nowhere for him to run!’

Tahlia joined Emma in her silent stupor.

‘You have to be kidding me,’ Emma finally managed.

‘Well, you are only madly in love with him. Joining him for a soap and scrub will put him in no doubt.’

‘That’s for sure. Just as surely it will scare him back to the other side of the country before the sun sets.’

‘Fine,’ Keely acquiesced. ‘But just know that we are here for you with advice, hugs, chocolate and constant reminders that you ought to go for it. It will be the best thing you ever did for yourself. Take my word for it.’

Emma’s synapses were making progress. Brainstorming with the girls always helped and, just like that, the way to help Harry opened up before her. It wouldn’t be the easiest path, thus she needed moral support. ‘Guys, I have something important to run by you. We have to find a way out of the Flirt competition for Harry.’ Emma went on to explain why.

Keely sucked in a sharp breath. ‘Jeez, Em! I had no idea. That’s why he had the sudden turn-around about coming to your party. The poor guy was keeping you from the clutches of a crazy stalker. How sweet!’

‘Anyway,’ Emma said, ‘I think I have found a way out, but I’m going to need your help.’

‘Why do I have a bad feeling about this?’ Tahlia asked.

‘Because you don’t want to do anything to jeopardise your precious promotion chances,’ Keely blurted. ‘Come on, T. Sometimes it’s good to be bad. I’m in, Em. What do you want us to do?’

Emma took a deep breath and blurted out her idea. ‘I am going to suggest to Harry that we become engaged.’

The silence on the other end of the phone was deafening, from both sources. Emma leapt in to fill the silence. ‘Temporarily,’ she added. ‘Just to make him ineligible. Can I rely on you guys to tell anyone who asks that we have had a long distance relationship for the last few months and are madly in love and you saw this coming from a mile away? Guys?’

‘What do you get out of this?’ Tahlia finally asked.

‘The opportunity to help a friend in need,’ Emma said.

‘A friend for whom you would lay down in traffic if that was what he wanted,’ Keely reminded her. ‘Em, are you sure you aren’t just setting yourself up for heartache here?’

‘Hey, this was my idea, guys. Not his. I’m not even sure if he will go for it, but I don’t see any other way out and he’s been through enough already. So can I count on you to support me?’

‘Of course, sweetheart,’ Tahlia finally acquiesced. ‘So long as you also know that we’ll be there to scrape you off the road and supply you with sickening amounts of conciliating chocolate after this whole charade ends and Harry has gone back into hiding.’

Emma heard a funny crackle down the phone line. ‘What’s that noise?’

Keely piped up. ‘Um, it’s some of that chocolate we were talking about. I felt the sudden need to taste test.’

Emma heard a familiar snap.

‘It’s really good,’ Keely promised with a mouthful.

‘Aren’t you guys meant to be working?’ Emma asked.

‘Aren’t you?’ Keely shot back.

‘Okay. Point taken.’

The shower stopped.

‘I’d better go. See you guys tomorrow morning.’

‘Breakfast at Sammy’s?’ Tahlia asked.

‘Sure. Usual time.’

‘Be strong!’ Keely called out.

‘Thanks, guys. Bye.’ Emma hung up.

There was a light knock at Emma’s door. Emma jumped and pulled a white T-shirt over her head. ‘Yeah?’

Harry opened the door and popped his head in. He was naked bar a towel wrapped around his waist. ‘How about a walk on the beach?’ he suggested. ‘I’ve been too far from the coast for too long. I think half the dust from the Northern Territory has just disappeared down your shower drain.’

Emma had no idea what words had come out of his mouth. Her brain was pretty much filled with an expanse of male chest. Why on earth had she asked him to stay with her? She knew he did stuff like this. Even at her folks’ place. The guy was shameless. Did she really think she could manage to spend one week under the same roof with the guy, alone, and not completely collapse into a nervous wreck?

Yes. She did. She had to. The time had come in her life that she had to do something about this crush of hers once and for all. Keely and Tahlia were on the money. This time she would either tell him how she felt, how she had felt for a number of years, or she would make herself finally get over him. She just wasn’t sure yet which way she would go. But if he agreed to her idea, she would go a fair way to finding out.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Get dressed and we’ll head off.’

Harry closed her door with a soft click and Emma finally collapsed under the weight of her own foolishness and slumped, face down and spread-eagled, on to the bed.

When most families were making their way home from work and school, Emma and Harry walked along the path that snaked around St Kilda beach.

Harry had ditched his jacket and jeans for a long-sleeved T-shirt and knee-length shorts. His flip-flops were spattered with the red dirt of the heart of Australia.

Emma picked up a shell from the pathway and played with it as she walked. ‘So you’ve been in Alice Springs all this time?’

‘Most recently.’

‘And where before that?’

‘Around.’

‘Always around. Anywhere more specific? Some town with a name, perhaps?’

Harry shrugged, kicking at a stray tuft of grass growing between a crack in the concrete. ‘Kakadu.’

‘Seriously? I should have known. The new colour scheme for Harold’s House is straight out of that part of the country.’

The heavy burnt umbers and rich forest greens of Kakadu National Park, located in the far north of Australia, held a mystical quality which Emma thought Harry’s web designers had translated beautifully.

‘You go on to the Harold’s House site much?’ he asked. He stepped sideways and gave her a little bump with his hip.

Emma threw the shell back on to the sand and wiped the sand from her fingers. ‘What do you reckon?’ Emma asked, bumping him right back. ‘Of course I do. It’s my home page.’

Harry poked out his bottom lip and nodded. ‘Cool.’

Emma could see it was more than cool. The guy was thrilled. He really had no idea how much of an impact he had on her. ‘Is there much of a market for computer whiz-kids in the Kakadu?’

‘Unfortunately, it seems there is. I was there a week before a local paper found out and by the next day I was inundated with requests for help, with job offers, with promotional opportunities and…other things.’

Unwelcome new acquaintances, Emma thought.

‘I almost said yes to becoming the spokesman for an exciting new real estate opportunity out there.’

‘Seriously?’

Harry stopped walking. ‘Of course not! And if you ask me if I’m serious one more time I’m going to throw you over my shoulder and see if that water is as cold as it looks.’

Emma stared back, the desire to test his threat tickling at her throat. Harry’s eyes narrowed and he shifted his stance as though ready to attack her at a moment’s notice. It was enough for her to back down. She knew from long experience that he didn’t make idle threats.

‘Okay,’ she said, ambling away once more, ‘I’m sorry. I’m just as interested as the next guy about what Wonder Boy Buchanan will come up with next.’

‘Don’t hold your breath,’ he said, though so quietly she might have been mistaken. ‘Harold’s House is plenty for me to concentrate on. I now have an agent, a business manager and a mishmash of forty-odd staff scattered throughout Victoria. The site is growing exponentially by the day. It’s a monster. It’s bigger than I ever envisioned.’ He shook his head back and forth and Emma knew he had no idea how he had become such a success.

But she knew. All his ventures, all of his crazy stunts, all of his mad, slapdash efforts to forge out a career for himself, had thrived. But this one had gone stratospheric, because it came straight from his heart. The site’s cheeky language, glorious Australian backdrops and ever-evolving layout were all so much a part of the sun-drenched Aussie man that he was.

‘Seriously?’ Emma asked, skewing the mood back towards fun.

Harry’s discomposure was gone in a heartbeat. He turned to her with a toothy grin. ‘That’s it, kiddo. You’ve done it now.’

Emma squealed and leapt on to the sand and took off down the beach at full pelt. Harry caught up with her in no time. He grabbed her around the waist and all her twisting was to no avail. With a quick heave and an overdone grunt, Harry had her over his shoulder. She kicked out, trying her best to get away.

‘Harry, put me down or I will kick you where it’ll hurt you most.’

‘Nup. You had fair warning, princess. You are going for a swim.’

They had reached the edge of the surf; Emma could see it tickling at Harry’s feet. ‘Come on, Harry. I am giving you food and shelter for the week. Is this how you are going to repay me?’

He hovered and she knew she had him.

‘Put me down, Harry, and I will never question your seriousness again.’

‘Fine,’ he said, groaning loudly as he slid her to the ground. ‘I’m going to hold you to that, little one.’

Emma landed on the soft sand to find herself bodily up against him. One hand rested on his shoulder the other around his neck. His hands remained casually around her waist. An ocean breeze played with his hair.

A wondering smile lit Harry’s eyes as he looked down upon her. ‘Though you really aren’t my little one any more, are you?’

Emma’s heart beat so raggedly in her chest she was certain Harry must have felt it too. He leant away and her hands naturally slipped down on to his chest. If they were any other couple in the world it would have been the most perfect moment for a kiss.

Then he glared at her through slitted eyes. ‘You’re bloody heavy, Emma! At the very least you’re a stone heavier than the last time I had you in a fireman’s lift.’ He moved out of her grasp and bent from the waist with his hands massaging his lower back.

It hit Emma with the force of a thunderclap that they weren’t any other couple. They were Harry and Em, the terrible two, a couple of mates who knew each other so well they could finish off one another’s sentences. It would take more than a haircut, a new apartment and an ocean breeze to make Harry see differently.

She sucked up her disappointment and did her best to look as if she was sharing the same joke. ‘I was fourteen years old the last time you had me over your shoulder.’

‘Hmm,’ he said, straightening up, a flirtatious grin knocking the breath from her lungs. ‘It’s obviously been too long between times. I’ll have to rectify that in the future.’

Emma felt as if she was on the pirate ship ride at the fairground—one minute Harry’s little one, the next on the receiving end of one of his killer smiles. He reached out and gave her a jab in the side. He was a natural flirt, she reminded herself. She was just in the line of fire. She flinched away. ‘Stop it!’

‘Just checking where all that extra weight is distributed.’

‘It’s distributed exactly where it should be,’ she shot back, sticking out her chest to prove it.

If she was any other girl his gaze would have warmed before travelling over all the bits of her that should have grown since puberty. But he merely gave her a brief smile before looking decidedly at the bridge of her nose.

Unable to cope with the rising innuendos, Emma grabbed him by the arm and led him over to a patch of flat rocks at the top of the sand. ‘Come on, boyo, I think you need to sit for a bit. All this exercise is making you say things you don’t mean.’

Though the sun was warm, the ground was chilly, which was fine with Emma. She dug her feet into the fine beige sand and let it cool her from the toes up. They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, watching the sun set over the flat waters of Port Philip Bay.

‘This is new,’ Harry finally said, reaching and giving the second toe on her right foot a wiggle.

Emma glanced at her gold toe ring. ‘Mmm. It was a birthday present. Do you like it?’ she asked, waving it so close to his nose he had to bat it away.

‘You look like a homing pigeon,’ he finally said, grabbing her by the ankle and dragging her foot on top of his thighs where he gave it a casual massage.

The tingles running unabated through Emma were anything but casual. Feigning the need to stretch, she moved her foot away from his warm hands until it rested innocently next to her other.

‘Who was it from?’ he asked.

‘A friend.’

‘What sort of friend?’ The look Harry shot her was hooded, dark, jealous? Emma’s heart thumped against her ribs.

‘It was a pressie from Tahlia.’

‘Which one was she again?’ he asked, his eyes lighting with mischief. ‘The single one?’

‘Yes,’ Emma agreed through clenched teeth. ‘But don’t get any ideas. I share no secrets from Keely and Tahlia. So they know way too much about you for your comfort.’

He gave an exaggerated shiver and silence reigned once more.

‘So have you thought any more—?’ Harry said.

‘Speaking of Keely and Tahlia—’ Emma said at the same time.

They stopped, and laughed.

‘Ladies first,’ Harry insisted.

Emma turned so that one leg was tucked beneath her. ‘Okay. I think I have come up with a solution for your problem, but I’m not sure you’re going to like it as it’s kind of bizarre. Ready?’

‘Ready and raring,’ Harry insisted, his eyes crinkling down at her so beautifully she found it hard to bring herself to say the words.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, becoming engaged to Harry had been her dream. Since she was a little girl, playing with her Ken and Barbie dolls, listening to her Mum’s Barry Manilow records, she had always dreamed that one day this moment would come. But not quite like this. Never quite like this. She wondered if in proposing this charade to Harry she wasn’t once and for all giving up on her dream. But what could she do? Harry was in dire straits and it seemed she was the only one who could help him. She had no choice.

‘So what can we do to get me out of this thing?’ Harry asked.

‘Harry, you have to get yourself a fiancée.’

She waited for him to laugh, or blanch, or run for his life, but he merely watched her, closely, carefully, as he let the idea sink in. Then, after only a few moments, he began to nod.

‘If I am engaged, I am no longer eligible. Ha! You are brilliant!’ He reached out, grabbed her by the shoulders and planted a great smacking kiss on her cheek, but when he pulled away she saw the uncertainty in his eyes.

‘But who could I become engaged to at such short notice? Someone who wouldn’t get any ideas. Someone who could make it believable. At least until the whole shebang is over. At least until Saturday.’

His gaze skittered out into the distance, his hazel eyes lit gold by the sun shining off the ocean. Emma waited patiently for him to make the final leap to the other half of her plan. The scary half.

He still had a hold of her shoulders and finally his gaze swung back to land upon her. She watched as the idea came full circle. His Adam’s apple bounced in his throat and his gaze hungrily devoured her face, as though realising she was really there, sitting so close to him.

‘Em. Princess. I hate to ask, but do you think…?’

She couldn’t bear to see him struggling so. ‘Of course, you great lump, it’s the only thing that makes sense. Keely and Tahlia are prepared to go along with any story we concoct so it should be a breeze.’

‘So, you and me, hey?’

Emma nodded. ‘Until Saturday night, we will be affianced. If you are okay with it.’

Then Harry smiled. One of those radiant, happy ever after, lit from within smiles that turned her bones to butter and returned time and again in her daydreams. He pulled her to him and hugged her tight. ‘Thanks, Em. You have saved me. If there is anything I can ever do to return the favour…’

Enjoying the feel of his warmth wrapping itself about her like a blanket on an autumn night, Emma was loath to pull away. But there was more she had to say, more that she had not shared with her best friends, more that with Harry’s help they would never need to know.

With great effort she extricated herself from his heavenly embrace. ‘Well, now that you mention it…’

Harry’s smile shifted from radiant delight to insightful good spirits. ‘Okay. Here it goes. What’s your fee, princess? Money? Jewels? Foot rubs every day for a year?’

The foot rub idea almost won out! But Emma had to take Harry’s offer while it was on the table.

‘Nothing like that, Buchanan. It is something infinitely more delicate, and more important to me.’

Picking up on her tone, Harry’s business face slipped into place and she had his rapt attention at once.

‘I had a really odd conversation with my boss this morning,’ Emma began, ‘and I think that WWW Designs might be in trouble.’

‘Did she say as much?’

‘Not really, but Raquel is usually rather…abrupt and this morning she was almost giving me a kindly warning. It freaked me out more than her yelling ever would. Then I found some concrete evidence in the form of a legal letter. Raquel has brought some heavy problems down upon the business.’




Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.


Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/elli-bleyk/the-shock-engagement/) на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.