know I am,’ said Lizzy with a show of confidence that effectively disguised her inner qualms. She wasn’t going to back down now. She needed that job. ‘What do I have to do to convince you?’
Tye didn’t answer immediately. He considered the matter, looking around the woolshed before his gaze came back to settle speculatively on Lizzy’s face.
‘I’ll do anything,’ she said rashly.
‘OK,’ said Tye. ‘Kiss me.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘KISS you?’ Lizzy flushed in embarrassment as she heard her voice rise to a squeak, and she cleared her throat quickly.
‘Why should I do that?’ That was better. Deeper, steadier, just a touch of amusement to show that she recognised that he was joking. Much more like the sophisticated PR consultant she was supposed to be.
‘You said that you would do anything,’ Tye pointed out.
Without quite knowing why, Lizzy’s assurance began to trickle away, and she eyed him uneasily. ‘Well, I know I did, but…’
‘Are you trying to tell me that you’re not prepared to do anything?’
‘You’re not serious!’
‘Don’t I look serious?’
He did. Absolutely serious.
Lizzy swallowed. ‘Do you interview all your prospective employees like this?’
‘Only those with the potential to fulfil a very special role.’ Tye’s face was still perfectly straight, but Lizzy seized on the glimmer of amusement she could see in the grey eyes.
‘You are joking!’
‘No, I’m not,’ he said. ‘You asked what you could do to convince me that it was worth giving you a chance, and I’ve told you. You can kiss me.’
‘But how can you possibly tell anything about my PR skills from a kiss?’ Lizzy objected, trying to ignore the way her heart was racketing around her chest at the mere thought of kissing him.
‘I’m not interested in your skills,’ said Tye. ‘I want to know whether you’re the kind of person who’s prepared to stand out from the crowd—and I don’t just mean by wearing ridiculous shoes. Look around you, Lizzy,’ he went on, nodding his head in the direction of the other guests. ‘See how many people are watching us while trying not to make it obvious. They don’t like the fact that you’re talking to me.’
It was true. Lizzy, following his glance, noticed how friends that she had known for years averted their eyes while others were eyeing her covertly. It was an uncomfortable feeling, and she turned back to Tye, an uncharacteristic frown in her blue eyes.
OK, so he wasn’t the most charming man in the world, and his reputation certainly didn’t bear close scrutiny, but he wasn’t that bad. Lizzy wouldn’t go so far as to say that she liked him. He was cold and callous, and he had made little attempt to conceal his contempt for her family and friends, but there was something intriguing about him, something that stimulated and provoked and disconcerted her all at the same time.
‘I’m not welcome here,’ Tye was saying, not sounding at all bothered by the fact. ‘No one has been prepared to come right out and say it, but it’s obvious. I don’t belong here, and if I’d given them the slightest excuse there would have been plenty of people more than happy to throw me out. It’s been bad enough for them to see you standing here with me all this time. How do you think they’d react if you kissed me?’
Lizzy tried to picture the scene, but although she could imagine kissing Tye with startling clarity, somehow she couldn’t get past that to visualise the reactions of anyone watching.
‘You’d be breaking ranks big time,’ Tye answered for her. ‘You’d be saying you didn’t care what anyone thought, that you’d do whatever it took to get what you want.’ He looked into Lizzy’s face, a faint smile on his lips as doubt wrestled with determination to prove herself in the blue eyes. ‘And that’s the kind of person I’m looking for,’ he said.
‘And if I don’t want to break ranks?’
Tye shrugged carelessly. ‘You walk away. I leave. I find someone else.’
He might at least sound as if he cared one way or another, thought Lizzy with something suspiciously close to petulance. She looked away from him, edgily running a finger around the base of her glass.
She had always prided herself on her refusal to fit the mould. As a young girl she had grumbled endlessly about the old-fashioned attitudes of her parents and their friends. The district might cover vast distances but it had a distinctly small town mentality.
Lizzy hadn’t been able to wait to leave home for the city. She thought of herself as cosmopolitan, and whenever she came home she made a point of looking as stylish as possible. Her transformation into city girl was treated as something of a standing joke in the community, and Lizzy played up to it. She knew that the teasing was affectionate, and she liked the fact that they thought of her as unconventional.
You’d be saying you didn’t care what anyone thought. Tye had issued a challenge, and she longed to take it up, but deep down Lizzy knew that she did care. These people were her family and friends. She might not choose to live in the outback, but that didn’t mean she wanted to shock or offend them unnecessarily. When it came down to it, Lizzy just wanted everyone to like her.
There would be uproar if she kissed Tye Gibson, and in spite of her assertion of confidence Lizzy quailed inwardly at the thought.
‘I can hardly fling myself into your arms in the middle of my sister’s wedding,’ she prevaricated, unaware that her thoughts were written clearly in her expressive face. ‘It would cause a scene. While it might prove your point, I’m not prepared to do anything to spoil her day. It wouldn’t be fair.’
Tye looked faintly bored by her dithering. ‘I wasn’t thinking of a passionate clinch,’ he said with a sardonic look. ‘I know you’re much too nice a girl to go in for anything like that!’
‘Oh.’
Lizzy wasn’t sure she liked the way he’d said that word ‘nice’. It wasn’t that she wanted to kiss him—God forbid!—but she didn’t want to be the kind of girl who didn’t dare either. She stood feeling foolish, unable to decide whether she was relieved or offended at Tye’s lack of interest in being kissed by her.
‘What were you thinking of?’ she asked him uncertainly.
‘More along the lines of a peck on the cheek,’ said Tye, lifting his brows in a way that made Lizzy feel ridiculous for having thought that he could possibly mean anything else. ‘A quick kiss to say goodbye, that’s all.’
‘Oh,’ said Lizzy again.
She bit her lip. Between the crowds, she caught a glimpse of her parents, greeting friends on the other side of the woolshed. They wouldn’t like her kissing Tye at all, and nor would anyone else.
Perhaps no one would notice. It would be dark by then and the party would be well
