lip realisation slammed into him as if he was pitching over the falls.
She probably had boyfriend troubles.
‘Is it another guy? Because I can kick his ass—’
‘Not a guy.’
Her smile morphed into a grin and it was like surfacing for air after being submerged underwater for too long.
She held a hand over her heart. ‘I promise to lighten up. I’m just...overworked and tired and grumpy in general.’
‘That seventh dwarf had nothing on you,’ he mumbled, eliciting the expected chuckle—the first time he’d heard her sound remotely light-hearted since yesterday. ‘Maybe you should thank me for kissing you. Because you’ve had an epiphany and—’
‘Don’t push your luck,’ she said, tempering her growl with a wink, catapulting him back to Capri, where she’d winked at him in a tiny dinghy the moment before they’d entered the Blue Grotto, warning him to be careful because the cave was renowned for proposals and he might succumb.
She’d been teasing, but it had been the beginning of the end for them: no matter how carefree their fling, he’d wondered if Callie secretly harboured hopes for more.
And Archer had already learnt that the price paid for loving wasn’t one he was willing to pay.
‘Okay, so if kissing’s off the agenda, work it is,’ he said, holding her gaze for several long, loaded moments, daring her to disagree, hoping she would.
‘Just work,’ she echoed, before elbowing him and pointing at the road. ‘If we ever get to Torquay, that is.’
As he reversed out of the sidestreet he knew he should be glad he’d cracked Callie’s brittle, reserved outer shell.
But now he’d seen the woman beneath—the same warm, lush woman who’d almost snared his heart eight years ago—he wondered if he should be glad or scared.
OKAY, so Callie hadn’t been thinking straight since Archer had strolled into her office yesterday.
She’d been caught off guard by the gorgeous familiarity of him, by his outlandish suggestion to live with him for a week while they work, by his demand to agree or lose the account.
She’d also been worried about leaving Nora for the seven days before Christmas once she’d given in to secure the campaign—a worry that hadn’t eased despite seeing her mum yesterday.
Her head had been filled with stuff. That was the only explanation for why she hadn’t seen that kiss coming.
He’d done it out of frustration. She could see that now. He’d wanted to snap her out of her funk, to prove a point.
So what was the rationale behind her responding?
She’d assumed she could handle their cosy living arrangements for business’s sake.
She hadn’t counted on this. This slightly manic, out-of-control feeling because despite her vow to remain platonic he could undermine her with one itty-bitty kiss.
Damn.
She’d been silent for most of the trip, jotting fake notes for the campaign, needing to concentrate on something other than her tingling lips. Thankfully he’d respected her need for silence until about twenty miles out of Torquay.
They’d arrived, and she hadn’t been able to believe her eyes.
As he’d steered up the winding, secluded street and pulled up outside Archer had called it his beach shack.
Massive understatement. Huge. Considering she now stood in a glass-enclosed lounge room as big as her entire apartment, with floor-to-ceiling glass and three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views of the Tasman Sea.
This place was no shack.
The pale blue rugs on gleaming ash floorboards, the sand-coloured suede sofas, the modern glass coffee tables—all screamed class, and were nothing like the mismatched furniture in the log cabin shack she’d imagined.
Archer had never been into material things when they’d first met. It looked as if being a world pro five years running changed a guy.
‘I put your bags in the first guest room on the right,’ he said, his bare feet barely making a sound as he padded up behind her.
Another thing she remembered: his dislike for footwear. It hadn’t mattered much in Capri, when they’d spent many hours on the beach, and she’d hidden a smile as he’d unlocked the door here, dumped their bags inside and slipped off his loafers.
She liked him barefoot. He had sexy feet. They matched the rest of him.
‘Thanks.’
He wiggled his eyebrows. ‘Right next to my room, in case you were wondering.’
‘I wasn’t.’ Her heart gave a betraying kick.
‘Liar,’ he said, snagging a strand of hair and winding it around his finger, tugging gently.
She knew what he was doing—flirting to keep her smiling. But she sooo wasn’t going to play this game. Not after that dangerous kiss in the car.
‘You still feel the buzz.’ His gaze strayed to her lips and she could have sworn they tingled in remembrance.
The smart thing to do would be to lie, but she’d never been any good at it. That was how they’d hooked up in the first place—because of her complete inability to deny how incredibly hot she’d found the laid-back surfer.
He’d romanced her and she’d let him, fully aware that their week in Capri was nothing more than a holiday fling. Pity her impressionable heart hadn’t caught up with logic and she’d fallen for him anyway. Her feelings had made it so much harder to get over him—especially after the way he’d ended it.
She’d do well to remember their break-up, not how his kiss had zapped her synapses in the car and reawakened a host of dormant memories she’d be better off forgetting.
‘As I recall, didn’t we have a conversation in the car about focussing on work?’
His finger brushed her scalp as he wound the strand all the way and she suppressed a tidal wave of yearning.
‘You didn’t answer my question.’ His finger trailed along her hairline, skirting her temple, around her ear, lingering on the soft skin beneath it and she held her breath.
He’d kissed her there many times, until she’d been mindless with wanting him.
‘That kiss you sprung on me in the car? Out of line. Business as usual this week. That’s it.’
‘Protesting much?’
‘Archer, don’t—’
‘Go
