Marriage Material

Melinda was unmoved. ‘You hardly use them at all. If not a job then a hobby other than babysitting or playing touch footy and marrying badly. You need a project. I can’t stand watching you atrophy before my eyes.’

He chose to ignore Melinda’s barb. Though it had been playing on him all night. A project? Was that what he needed? He felt he was on the verge of something. As if he just needed a nudge and a truth would be revealed. He had no idea what it was but he felt invigorated, more than he had in years.

Sebastian lifted his shirt to reveal a very healthy torso. ‘What do you reckon, kids? Still enough to keep me going for a few winters yet?’ He poked his tummy out as far as it would go and scored a giggle from his nephews.

Melinda was about to hit him when Tom, senior, shouted out from the den. ‘That’s her!’

‘I’ve asked him a thousand times not to shout if he wants me, but to come and get me,’ Melinda said to Sebastian, her voice rising until it was more than a match for her husband’s. ‘He sets the kids such a bad example!’

‘It’s the lawyer!’ Tom shouted once more. ‘The one who took Sebastian to the cleaners yesterday.’

That caught Sebastian’s attention. He pulled down his shirt and hotfooted it into the den, where he sat on the arm of Tom’s couch. It was a Press conference from the day before. Romy’s sea-blue suit jacket was buttoned up to the neck no less, but nothing bar a big woollen hat could hide that shock of magnificent hair.

Tom whistled long and slow. ‘And boy, is she a babe!’

And then some, Sebastian thought, feeling his breathing slow perceptibly at the sight of her. But now he saw the danger signs as they appeared. What he was feeling was precisely the pattern Romy had reiterated he had followed all his adult life. That for whatever reason, he fell into one set of female arms after another. So according to her theories his attraction to her would simply be because she was in the line of fire.

‘Who’s a babe?’ Melinda asked from the doorway.

‘You are, my love.’

Tom grinned and patted his lap. Melinda rolled her eyes but followed his instructions and snuggled onto his lap anyway. Sebastian saw this interplay only from the corner of his eye as his gaze was focused on the tabloid TV show in front of him.

‘ That was your opposition lawyer,’ Melinda said. Then she too laughed. ‘I would have put money on the outcome to go her way. I’ll give it to Janet—despite her foibles, she is a clever, clever girl.’

Sebastian had had a feeling from the moment he’d walked in that room that Janet was a lucky, lucky girl. The clever one had been sitting beside her, pulling all the strings. More importantly, that clever one was someone who knew what she wanted and let nothing stand in her way. That certainty was what he had been missing. He’d had it once before time and life had whittled it away.

‘You were right, bro. She doesn’t like you much,’ Tom said. ‘You can see it in her eyes as clear as if she had said the words. She is as happy to have beaten you as she is that her client won.’

Melinda leant forward to get a closer look then turned to her brother with her mouth turned upside-down. ‘Poor Sebastian. The one woman who won’t be signing up to your fan club and she just happens to be on the opposing side of your divorce suit.’

Sebastian nodded but his mind was a long way further down the track. The room the Press conference was being held in looked familiar. Where had he seen it before? The cooking class! He had accidentally stumbled in there when searching for the conference room.

‘They have quite some set-up down there, you know.’

‘Do they, now?’ He felt rather than saw Melinda give Tom a look.

‘They have a crèche, a café, cooking classes for the newly single.’

The feeling that had been building up in him all morning hit some sort of crescendo then spilled over into understanding. He suddenly knew what he was going to do that day.

‘I was thinking of going back there to check it out further.’

‘You want to take a cooking class?’

Sebastian peeled himself from the chair; he felt as if he was waking up after a long sleep. ‘Maybe. Why not?’

‘Why not, indeed?’ Melinda agreed. ‘Maybe you should go back and check it out.’

‘Maybe I will.’

But he knew that there was no maybe about it.

Romy walked back from her early-morning Pilates class to her office in her gym outfit of a snug tank top, ankle-length gym tights and white sneakers, whistling a tune she had heard in the cab radio on the way to work. The towel wrapped around her neck kept lank hair off her hot skin.

Once in her office she slid the towel from beneath her hair, performed a pretty spectacular butt-wiggle in time with the conclusion of the jazzy song, and threw her towel over her shoulder towards her sofa. She stopped short, as she did not hear the usual soft slap of towel hitting seat.

‘Mornin’, Romy,’ a deep, sexy voice called to her.

She spun around, her hand smothering the scream that escaped her throat, and found Sebastian Fox leaning back in her sofa, the old towel clutched in his hand. She had to resist the substantial urge to whack him for giving her such a shock.

‘According to your day planner you should have been back,’ he looked at his watch, ‘three minutes and twenty seconds ago. I was getting worried.’

‘You read my diary?’ she blurted.

‘I couldn’t miss it. It is open on your desk and takes up almost as much space. I’ve never met anyone who diarised what they are going to wear for the next week!’

‘Dry cleaning efficiently is a finicky business. And so what if I am organized? What’s wrong with that?’

Romy had to shake her head to remember how this conversation had even begun.

‘I think the pertinent information is what on earth you are doing here, Mr Fox. I can assure you the contract you signed was legal and binding, therefore you have no recourse to insist on any changes.’

Sebastian stilled. He had caught sight of the Barbie insignia emblazoned across the length of Romy’s towel. The smile he shot her was enquiring and…impressed?

‘It’s the smallest clean towel I could find at home this morning,’ she waffled.

Sebastian nodded as though her explanation made it seem less ridiculous, then she was forced to wait as he neatly folded her towel and placed it on the seat beside him. As such she was also forced to notice how unfairly scrumptious he looked in his black sweater. His hair was mussed from the wind outside and light stubble covered his swarthy cheeks and chin. His stormy eyes gleamed in the low morning light and he looked far too alert for so early in the day.

He caught her watching him and smiled again, this time it was slow and languorous and she felt it in her gut. Of course, that was probably hunger from not having had breakfast before her class.

‘I thought maybe we could talk shop.’ His smile lit up with mischief. ‘Though perhaps I have caught you at a bad time.’

‘Because I am dressed as such?’ she asked, waving a frustrated hand down the length of her insufficiently clad body. ‘Goodness no. It’s Wednesday. We all go ultra-casual on a Wednesday.’

But it was not her skimpy outfit that bothered her as such. It was that the day before at least she had been prepared for the sensory onslaught that was he. She had been Ms Bridgeport the lawyer, and her attire, her props, had all been a part of the magic act and she had felt right at home on the stage she had set. Right now she was still numb with surprise and not ready for the likes of him. She was Romy the sleepy, Romy the sweaty, Romy of the Barbie towel.

It was time to regain her home-court advantage. She walked around her desk and sat in her office chair, happier to have a huge obstacle between herself and his keen gaze. She casually picked up her heavy blue crystal and rolled it around in her palm.

‘Since your ex-wife is a client of mine I’m not sure how much shop we can talk without ethics getting in the way. Though I’m not sure that would have occurred to you.’

There, Romy thought, take that!

‘Actually that did occur to me. So I rang Janet this morning and she assured me her contract with you was finalised as soon as I signed on the dotted line.’

How chummy. Even his ex-wife was on phone-chatting terms. Well, she was not falling for the all-too-cool façade. She knew better than anyone that an angelic face did not an angel make.

‘Fine. You want to talk shop, Mr Fox, then talk shop.’