excuse for you to ditch them.’
‘Wasn’t it?’
‘Only if you’re happy with them thinking so.’
Two little frown lines appeared above her nose, and she nibbled at her full lower lip. He found himself staring. Imagining. Planning.
Finally she shook her head. ‘But I really can’t sing.’
‘Can they?’ He motioned to the wannabe boy band who could barely slur out a sentence yet still had a rapt and voluble audience. ‘Now, pick a song. Something you can recite in your sleep.’
‘Oh, God. This is really happening, isn’t it? Umm. In my dreams when I audition for random TV talent shows I’m always singing something from Grease.’
He felt a grin coming at the thought of such innocent dreams, and struggled to bite it back.
Apparently not well enough. Her face fell. ‘You don’t know Grease, do you? Well, I am not going up there on my own.’
‘You’re safe. I had the biggest crush on Olivia Newton-John when I was a kid.’
The manic tugging relaxed instantly as she gawped at him. He used her moment of distraction to drag her to the edge of the stage.
‘I love it!’ she said, grinning from ear to ear. ‘You used to sing her songs into your mum’s hairbrush, didn’t you? You can tell me. I promise I won’t tell a soul. Well, bar Sonja, of course—and you know how discreet she is.’
She shook her head, her thick dark hair curling over her shoulders—sexy, unbridled, exposing a curve of soft golden skin just below her right ear that was crying out for a set of teeth to sink into it.
He stared at the spot, finding himself wholly distracted by the imagined taste of her spilling into his mouth. Better that than to brood over the fact that somehow he’d promised to leap onto a spotlit stage and in the act of performing beg a crowd of strangers for their superficial devotion.
He took solace in Hannah’s luscious creamy shoulder as he pulled her closer—close enough to lose himself in the last subtle trails of her scent as he whispered in her ear, ‘What the lady wants, the lady gets. Grease it is.’
Then he turned her in his arms and pointed to the stage, looming dark and high in front of them.
Her smile disappeared and she swallowed hard. ‘So we’re really doing this?’
‘One song. Show them that even though you have no flair for pageantry you have pluck to spare.’
‘You think I have pluck?’
He turned away from the stage at the softness in her voice, only to find himself drowning in the heat of her eyes. ‘To spare.’
She blinked at him. Long dark lashes stroked her cheek, creating flutters as he imagined their light graze caressing his skin as she kissed her way up his—
She breathed deep and shook out her hands. ‘Let’s do it. Now. Quick. Before I change my mind.’
He went to move away and she grabbed his hand again. Hers was warm, soft, small—and shaking. Trusting.
Holding on tight, he had a quick word in the ear of the guy in charge of the karaoke lineup, and slipped him a twenty so that they could get this over and done with as soon as humanly possible.
‘Okay,’ she said, bouncing from foot to foot, tipping her head from side to side to ease her neck. Warming up as if she was about to do a triple-jump, not a little show tune. ‘We’ve established that I’m doing this because I’m a cowardly pleaser. But why are you?’
‘When in Rome …’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve worked right by your side for nearly a year now, Bradley. I know you. Putting yourself up there like some piece of meat to be picked over must be akin to torture.’
She was so close to the truth—a truth he had no intention of sharing with her or anyone—he shut his mouth and avoided those big, clear, candid eyes.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me. I’ll figure it out eventually.’
And then she smiled. The smile of a woman who knew him. Who cared enough to try to know him. A woman who didn’t care if he knew it too.
Dammit. He was in the middle of a bar without a drink, and if he’d ever needed Dutch courage the time was now.
Lucky for her the thing propelling him forward was his inability to stand by and allow her to be so summarily dismissed. He’d rewritten his story. He wasn’t merely a little orphan boy any more. He was a man who conquered mountains and showed others how to do the same.
What Hannah had yet to realise was that in going up on that stage it wouldn’t matter if she proved her mother right by not holding a tune. What would matter was that her story would no longer be about being her mother’s great disappointment. Her story would be the time she summoned the kind of guts she never knew she had in order to belt out a song at her sister’s fabulous pre-wedding party.
And, in the spirit of watching her back, if he had to endure a little excruciating drama to give that to her, then so be it.
The current song had stopped. The guys were ushered off-stage to a round of bawdy cheers.
Bradley took Hannah’s hand and dragged her limp body on-stage. Once there, he gave her a little push till she was beneath the glare of the spotlight. And, just as he’d hoped, the second they saw who was on stage the crowd cheered like nobody’s business.
She laughed softly. And blushed. Then curtsied. The crowd went wild.
Her face glistened with perspiration. Her eyes were wild and glittering. But her chin jutted forward, as if she was daring anyone to tell her this was something she couldn’t do. The strength of her inner steel surprised him. It even seemed to steady him until he stared, undaunted, out through the bright lights to the braying faceless crowd beyond.
The strains of ‘You’re the One That I Want’ blared from the speakers, and the entire club got to its feet and cheered as one.
Hannah came to, as if from a trance, lowered her microphone, and looked up into his eyes. ‘Can you sing?’
He put the mike back to her lips and said, ‘We’re certainly about to find out.’
Hannah’s high heels dangled from one hand as she padded across the marble floor towards the bank of lifts leading to the Gatehouse’s extensive rooms.
Her ears rang from the after-effects of hours of overly loud music, while her limbs felt loose and languid. The rest of her buzzed from a mix of cocktails and exhaustion and coming down from the high of her karaoke duet with Bradley which had brought the house down.
She turned to walk backwards, smiling at her partner in crime who strolled along behind her. ‘Of all the crazy moments of this bizarre night, the biggest shock has to be the fact that you can really sing!’
‘So you’ve mentioned once or twice,’
