It’s In His Kiss

Luke’s square jaw went into granite mode and Sephy decided that what would help is if she quit saying she wanted him like that. It would definitely help her, because maybe deep, deep, deepest-down she could acknowledge wanting Luke, but she was never going to bring that up to a level where Luke gained first-hand knowledge of how rubbish she was at romantic entanglements. She valued the relationship they had too much.

‘All you’d need to do,’ she said, aiming for a no-big-deal tone as she steered determinedly away from a suggestion of ‘them’, ‘is stand behind the model and maybe put your hands on her hips, or something.’

‘You really think me simply standing shirtless with my hands on her body is going to sex up your lingerie shoot?’

Sephy swallowed. ‘Yes.’

Luke looked at her like she had lost it. Was it possible he spent so much time on his computer as creative director of his Zombie Freedom Fighter games that he had forgotten what he looked like?

‘Please don’t be insulted or freaked out,’ she begged. ‘Please, just think about it. I really don’t have time to source a professional model and Nora has a photographer lined up who will do the work ASAP at cost, to add to their portfolio of work.’

Sephy could feel herself coming very close to batting her eyelashes or laying a hand on his and letting it linger, but she would absolutely not use her femininity to get this from him.

‘I can give you the money you need to sort this problem,’ Luke said slowly. ‘I can loan you the money if it makes you feel better, but get my kit off, put my hands on these models and sell a sexier image of your lingerie? No.’

‘Why not?’

‘And the fact that you even have to ask,’ Luke said, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

Wait. Luke was now staring at her mouth. Had she just pouted? Oh God. She had. Pouting and Luke were verboten. Gentle flirting she could cope with, but she was always so careful not to let it become overt with him. His friendship was too important to her.

‘I’m a game designer, not a model,’ he reminded her.

‘If it’s your work you’re worried about, we could crop your head out of the shots.’

‘Sephy. Stop. You’re starting to sound desperate.’

‘I am desperate.’ Sephy mentally gave herself a slow hand-clap because that statement was hardly going to make Luke feel special.

‘You’re not desperate. You only think you are because you’ve got a quick fix in mind and you’re too tired to look at it with your business head on.

‘I am totally looking at this with my business head on. I admit it, okay? I got it wrong with this advertising campaign. Played it too safe. I should never have signed off on it.’ She shook her head slightly, as if to reject how overwhelmed, how under pressure, she felt to get this all right. ‘I can’t afford not to correct this mistake.’

‘Everyone who launches a business makes mistakes.’

‘Absolutely, but the ones who survive do so because they fix their mistakes. Come on, a couple of hours in the company of beautiful women. What’s not to like?’

‘No.’

Sephy stared at him as the simple word dropped from his lips to land between them like a boulder.

‘Wow,’ she whispered. He wasn’t even wavering? ‘I thought that last bit would tempt you, at least.’

‘Don’t make me feel bad about this,’ Luke said, standing up.

‘No. Absolutely not. Sorry.’

Luke stared down at her for a moment before turning to walk towards the ballroom’s double doors.

All of Nora’s ‘just ask hims’ must have sunk in deeper than she suspected. She had really thought, after explaining it all properly to him, he would agree.

His emphatic refusal had her reacting childishly. So childishly that as he reached the doors she heard herself emit a clucking sound.

Luke turned around, his expression a mixture of thunder and incredulity. ‘Oh, you did not just make the sound of a chicken.’

CHAPTER TWO (#ubb881ea2-9388-550c-aac5-b8e62c800f99)

Seraphina King had put sex and nakedness and ‘I Want You’ into spoken-out-loud sentences and quite frankly, even days later and watching Daisy for her in an effort to feel less bad about turning her down, Luke was still a little pissed off.

What the hell had she been thinking? Did she really not have any idea how long it took a guy to scour those kinds of words from his mind so that he got to enjoy a platonic friendship with someone like her?

He didn’t care how stressed she was over the launch of her business.

Okay.

He did.

He knew she had been finding it tough ever since her father died. Jeremy King’s reputation in business had to have her stressing over every decision, wondering what he would have thought. Or wondering what her brother, who ran a large property-acquisition company in New York and what her sister, who ran the family King Property Corporation, did think.

Plus, Luke knew her mother going to New York meant Sephy not only had to keep an eye on the estate, she also lost out on guaranteed childcare help, which meant fewer hours to sew and work on the launch.

Even so…

How did she not see that asking him to sex up her ad campaign was crossing a line?

And when he’d said no, like any sane non-professional-model friend would have, she had clucked at him like a chicken.

As if basically calling him a coward was going to help.

‘I now pronounce you husband and wife.’

Luke looked over the top of his laptop screen to where a half-pint Darth Vader was busy playing marriage celebrant to Princess Belle and a slightly dazed-looking Woody from Toy Story.

His smile reflex kicked in as Darth Vader, aka five-year-old Daisy King, decided the only obvious way to mark the end of the ceremony was to knight her newly married toys with her lightsaber.

Not quite what it had been designed for, but she definitely got points for imagination.

Bringing his gaze back to his laptop screen, Luke settled back against the sofa cushions and stared at his new computer-game project brief he’d helpfully titled: What Happens After All The Zombies Are Slain???

Two seconds into staring at it and his concentration wandered.

Helping out with Daisy was the kind of thing friends did for friends.

Helping out with that other thing? Insanity.

Thanks to Lily and Steve Jackson, Luke might not be the same shadow of a kid he had been under his biological mother’s roof, or all the other foster homes he had been placed in, but that didn’t mean he was happy being put on display.

He really had nothing to feel guilty about.