the ocean was where Moonbeam belonged.
* * *
Leo stared into the darkness, thinking about the simple pleasure of touch.
It didn’t take a psychologist to work out what his issue was—the fact that his parents had never touched him the way other parents touched their children. Because there had been more important things to do than give their son the affection he craved. Like shoot up. Suck in the crack. Snort up the meth.
It had been different for Caleb, because Leo had made it so. Leo had looked after Caleb, put his needs first, fought his battles, protected him. And so Caleb wasn’t reserved, wary, driven, and damaged—like Leo. Caleb attracted affection and gentleness and love. Leo attracted people like Natalie, for whom his remoteness was a challenge and his celebrity something to use.
‘You’re choosing wrong,’ Sunshine had said—but what if he was choosing right and he was getting exactly what he deserved?
It wasn’t as if he could choose Sunshine Smart as an alternative. She didn’t want to be chosen by anyone.
So why he was offering to give up his motorbike for her was a mystery.
So what if he never had sex with her again?
So what if she went on grieving for her sister for the rest of the life?
Leo punched his pillow. Forced his eyes closed.
And there she was, warning him about her scars. So beautiful. And damaged, like him. But wanting to stay damaged—unlike him.
His eyes popped open and he punched the pillow again.
God, but she irked him.
Her perkiness irked him. Partly because he wanted to think that it made her shallow...and yet she’d learned the Heimlich manoeuvre and wasn’t afraid to use it.
The way she chucked crazy facts into her arguments—about the sexual habits of praying mantises, the questionable immortality of lobsters, regenerating livers, and so on and on and on—irked him. Because most of the time that stuff was fascinating. And even if it wasn’t, it was fascinating to watch those unique eyes glow with the wonder of it.
Her boring living room irked him, because it shouldn’t be like that. Not that her décor was any of his business. And the fact that he could be bothered to think of her apartment irking him irked him too.
Her pink bedroom irked him. All right, it didn’t—because it was kind of amazing. But it should irk him, and the fact that it didn’t irk him irked him.
Her propensity to kiss and touch and pet him irked him. And it had irked him even more when she hadn’t kissed him hello at the restaurant.
Her four-times maximum irked him. And the fact that he’d refused to accept that they were stopping at two irked him.
Two times. Two. Not three, not four—two! Her terms. Everything on her terms, right from the moment she’d ambushed him on the couch.
Well, he’d picked her as a wily little dictator from Day One. But she was not going to dictate to Leo Quartermaine. He would have her as many damned times as he wanted to have her.
He punched his pillow again. Hard.
TO: Leo Quartermaine
FROM: Sunshine Smart
SUBJECT: Wedding update
Hi Leo
I’m attaching a photo of my dress. If you can send me one of your suit and tie—I’m assuming a tie?—I’ll know if this is okay or if I have to go back to the drawing board. And I can get your shoe design finished too.
So, the shoes. You’ll need three fittings—twenty mins each time—and you can schedule these to suit yourself as I won’t be needed. I’m attaching Seb’s business card—Seb is the shoemaker—and once you’ve approved my design all you need to do is call him.
And, trust me, once you’ve had custom-made shoes you’ll never go back. Which might not be good, now I think of it, because they’re hellishly expensive (not these particular shoes, of course, because it’s a special deal for me, as well as being a present).
The other attachment is of some floral arrangements for the restaurant. I think the all-white ones, so as not to distract from the view. What do you think?
I’m going to scoot down the coast on Sunday to check out some hotel options for guests who want to stay overnight. I know you’re super-busy so I can handle this and email all the info to you.
And then we need to confirm the music—Kate is amazing—when you have a minute.
Hope all is well.
Sunshine
Oh, no, Sunshine Smart-Ass, you are not going down the coast without me.
That was the first thought to leap to Leo’s mind after he read the email.
The second was that she had a bloody nerve adding the ‘Hope all is well’, because she had to know all was not well. Not by a country mile was all ‘well’. ‘All’ wouldn’t be ‘well’ until he had her exactly where he wanted her.
A sudden image of her naked, in his arms, had him erect and almost groaning. Even though that was not what he’d meant. What he’d meant was on her knees and—
Argh. Another image.
Figuratively speaking on her knees, not physically.
But—nope, the image wouldn’t budge.
He took a steadying breath and forced himself to open Sunshine’s attachment, hoping it wouldn’t be her in the damned dress—which, of course, it was. Looking very hot. And, of course, she had her foot stuck out so he could see her amazingly sexy shoes.
And, since he knew he had to see her in the flesh in that dress, he would up the ante on his suit so that he matched the formality—and send her the damned photo so he could get his shoe design.
And he would tell her that he would most definitely meet her at South on Sunday, when they would discuss flowers and confirm music and go and see the hotels together.
Ha!
Hope all is well.
Bloody, bloody nerve.
* * *
Sunshine, who had laboured long and hard over the wording of her email to Leo to give it just the right sense of moving-on friendliness, opened Leo’s reply with some trepidation.
She wasn’t sure what to expect—but the three terse lines certainly hadn’t been laboured over.
Meet you at South at two p.m. Sunday. Will confirm everything
