consider giving up your rooms because I’ve been traumatised for life. I’m considering bleaching my eyes and brain with acid.’
Poppy stood up, patted her shoulder and took her wine glass. ‘Yeah, you’d think that. Here’s an idea—while you’re suffering in the boxroom, think about choosing a man a couple of steps up the evolutionary scale from pond scum next time, okay?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ Tori grumbled.
‘Seriously, she was riding him so fast that I thought that her wings were going to launch her off him…’
Matt Cross held the front door to his new digs open and considered reversing back through it. He instantly recognised the tone and notes of girl talk and it wasn’t something he wanted to interrupt by walking into the lounge. He supposed that this was something that he’d have to put up with, together with scented rooms, lingerie and a slew of empty wine glasses scattered throughout the house.
It had been a long time since he’d shared a flat with anyone. Sharing a house with Poppy and Alex would take some adjusting to, but at least his clients didn’t know where he was and couldn’t rock up on his doorstop at all hours of the day looking for reassurance or company.
His eyebrows lifted at the drawling, low-pitched voice that sounded as if it belonged on the other side of a phone-sex conversation. Matt, not wanting to give his presence away, left the door open and peeked through the doorway to the lounge and saw the perfect profile of a streaky-haired woman with mile-long legs.
Whoah! Sexy.
Matt dragged his eyes away to look from Poppy, his landlord, to Izzy, whom he’d met before. The knockout must be—geez, what was her name? Laurie? Laura?—the third of the three original flatmates he had yet to meet. Izzy was bent double, wheezing with laughter, and Poppy was wiping her eyes.
Her smile was negated by the fact that she was clutching the stem of her wine glass so hard that he thought it might break at any minute. Mmm, she didn’t think her story was quite as funny as they did.
Now that was interesting.
Then she lifted her face and stared at the ceiling and he caught the sheen of tears in her eyes, her rapid blinking. Hello…she was seriously distressed. Matt’s instinct was to head straight for her, to gather her up and to tell her it was okay to let those tears fall.
Weird, slightly scary, since he didn’t even know the woman. He watched, fascinated as she rearranged her features so that she looked like any other carefree woman in her mid-to-late twenties with wide eyes and a wider smile.
Oh, she was an excellent faker.
‘He didn’t even bat an eye, just turned and said, “Get naked, join in and What’s-Her-Skanky will show you what to do.”’ She carried on with her story.
Now he had the urge to rearrange some clown’s face.
Matt turned and lifted his eyebrows when Alex, Poppy’s brother and another inhabitant of the flat, stepped into the spacious hallway behind him.
‘Women just don’t do it for me.’
‘You did kiss Melissa Butler.’
‘I was thirteen, Poppy!’ she howled. ‘And you dared me to!’
Alex lifted his eyebrow at Matt before looking through the crack of the door and wincing.
‘What’s Tori’s story this time?’ he asked in a low voice, also seemingly reluctant to walk into the lounge.
Tori…Matt tested the name on his tongue and found that he liked it. He rubbed his hand over his forehead.
‘I just got here but, as far as I can tell, she got home and her partner had arranged a surprise for her,’ Matt quietly replied as he dropped his laptop case to the floor next to the battered hall table.
‘Tori loves surprises so what’s the big deal?’
‘The surprise was a threesome which I gather she didn’t expect and certainly didn’t agree to.’
Alex tossed out a curse. ‘And, let me guess, Tori’s pretending it’s a joke. Classic Tori.’ Alex shrugged out of his coat and Matt saw his fist clench, release and fist again as he struggled to control his reaction. ‘I’d happily rearrange his face, the bastard.’
Interesting, Matt thought. He knew that Alex was with Lara and could see that the guy was crazy mad over her. So why the instinctive reaction to protect Tori? And why didn’t he like it? ‘So that’s the third friend they are always talking about.’
‘Mmm. She, Poppy and Izzy have shared this flat for years and years but Tori moved out a couple of months back. I’m in her old room and you’re using the turret room—Izzy’s old room.
‘I warned her about Mark. God, why didn’t the bloody woman listen?’ Alex muttered. Matt was beginning to think that none of her friends liked Tori’s threesome-loving boyfriend. Alex peeked through the door and raised his eyebrows when he heard Tori laugh. ‘She’s taking it very well…knowing how melodramatic Tori can be, I expected her to be throwing glasses and, possibly, furniture.’
Matt shuddered at the thought. He was grateful that she wasn’t; he had to deal with enough drama from his clients without coming home to a hysterical, furniture-throwing woman.
And he put up with a fair amount of drama from his sports-star clients. As their agent, looking after the business side of their sporting careers was easy, he could negotiate deals blindfolded, but playing the role of psychologist, older brother, agony aunt and best friend was emotionally draining. That was why he was renting this room in an eclectic flat on the fringes of Notting Hill for the duration of his stay in London. He loved his job but he had so much to do while he was over here that he didn’t want, or need, his UK clients dropping in on him at odd hours of the night or day.
Having them calling him all the time was enough of a pain. He was pretty sure that he was getting a repetitive strain in his elbow from constantly holding his phone to his ear. He planned to have a mini-holiday from being their agony aunt, their solver of all problems. As for women…he was sort of avoiding them too since his last hook-up back in Cape Town turned out to be a mini-stalker, utterly determined to be the first Mrs Cross.
There had only ever been one Mrs Cross—his mum—and he had no intention of changing that.
Ever.
Alex reached for his coat and shrugged it back on. Grabbing Matt’s coat off the hook, he slapped it against his chest and tipped his head.
‘Tori is the type that when she walks into a room and she’s happy, birds sing, mountains move and the lights grow brighter. When she’s miserable, tsunamis form, lava churns and demons howl. She sounds reasonably together now but she can turn on a dime. Besides, do we really want to hear about their thoughts on our junk?’
‘Really don’t.’ Matt nodded his agreement.
He was happy to leave, if only to give the distress-concealing, lava-churning beauty some space. The friends wouldn’t be able to talk, or chew the heads off bats, or do whatever females did when their worlds got turned on their heads if a stranger was in the room.
‘Let’s
