The Last Guy She Should Call

‘Maybe I was crying because my parents, my sibling and everyone close to me left me to spend the weekend in jail when they could’ve bailed me out any time during the day on Friday. The party was on a Thursday night.’

‘Your parents wanted to teach you a lesson,’ Seb replied, his voice steady.

Rowan stared at the electronic boards above his head. ‘Yeah, well, I learnt it. I learnt that I can only rely on myself, trust myself.’

When she dared to look at him again she saw that his eyes were now glinting with suppressed sympathy. Then amusement crept across his face. ‘Yet here you are relying on me.’

‘Well, all good things have to come to an end,’ Rowan snapped back.

She was so done with being interrogated, and it had been a long time since she’d taken this amount of crap from anyone.

‘So...’ She smiled sweetly. ‘Hooked up with any gold-diggers lately?’

Annoyance replaced sympathy in the blink of an eye. ‘Sending me those sunglasses when you heard that we’d split was a very unnecessary gesture,’ he said through gritted teeth.

‘I know, but I thought you might need them since you finally saw the light. It took you long enough.’

‘Very droll.’ Seb’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.

‘Still annoyed that flighty, fey Rowan pegged your ex’s true characteristics and you didn’t?’ Rowan mocked, happy to shift the focus of their conversation to him.

‘Remind me again as to why I didn’t leave you to beg in Jo’burg?’

‘You wanted to torture me. So, are we done biting each other?’

‘For now.’

* * *

As the traffic began to move Rowan watched Seb weave his way through the slower-moving vehicles to speed down the fast lane.

‘Has the traffic got worse?’ she asked when Seb slammed on his brakes and ducked around a truck. Her hand shot out and slammed against the dashboard. The last vestiges of colour drained from her face. ‘Sebastian! Dammit, you lunatic!’

Seb flipped her a glance and then returned his attention to the road, his right hand loosely draped over the steering wheel. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘The problem is that you missed the bumper of that car by inches!’ Rowan retorted, dropping her hand. ‘The traffic hasn’t got worse—your driving has!’

Seb grinned. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit early in our relationship to start nagging?’

‘Bite me.’

Seb flipped the indicator up and made a production of checking his side and rearview mirrors. He gestured to a sedan in front of him. ‘Okay, brace yourself. I’m going to overtake now. Here we go.’

Rowan sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘You are such a moron.’

Seb ducked around another sedan, and flew across two lanes of traffic to take the exit. Rowan leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes and thought it was ironic that she’d crossed seven lanes of motorbikes in Beijing, a solid stream of tuk-tuks in Bangalore and horrific traffic in Mexico to die in a luxury car in her home country at the hands of a crazy person.

Rowan sat up and looked around as they drove into a more upscale neighbourhood and she recognised where she was. ‘Nearly ho... there.’

‘Yep, nearly home. And, despite your inability to say the word, this is still your home, Ro.’

‘It hasn’t been my home for a third of my life,’ Rowan corrected, thinking that she had a twitchy heart, a spirit that was restless, a need to keep moving. Coming back to Cape Town broke made her feel panicky, scared, not in charge of her own destiny. She felt panic well up in her throat and her vocal cords tighten.

Seb’s broad hand squeezing her knee had her sucking in air. When she felt she had enough to breathe she looked at his hand and raised her eyebrows. Then she pulled her eyebrows closer together when she clocked the gleam in his eyes, the obvious glint of masculine appreciation.

‘You’ve grown up well, Brat.’

Bemused by the sexual heat simmering between them, she tried to take refuge in being prosaic. ‘I haven’t grown at all. I’m the same size I was at eighteen—and don’t call me Brat. And take your hand off my knee.’

The corners of his eyes crinkled. ‘It worked to take your mind off whatever you were panicking about. You always did prefer being angry to being scared.’

Seb snorted a laugh when she picked up his hand and dropped it back onto the gearstick.

‘Have you developed any other serious delusions while I’ve been away?’

‘At eighteen...’ Seb carried on talking in that lazy voice that lifted the hair on her arms ‘...you wore ugly make-up, awful clothes and you were off the scale off-limits.’

Rowan, because she didn’t even want to attempt to work out what he meant by that comment, bared her teeth at him. ‘I’m still off-limits.’

Seb ignored that comment. ‘Is that why you are still single at twenty-eight...nine... What? How old are you?’

‘Old enough to say that my relationship status has nothing to do with you.’

‘Relationship status? What are you? A promo person for Facebook?’ Seb grimaced. ‘You’re either married, involved, gay or single. Pick one.’

Rowan snorted her indignation. ‘Gay? For your information, I like what men have. I just frequently don’t like what it is attached to!’

‘So—single, then?’

‘I’d forgotten what an enormous pain in the ass you could be, but it’s all coming back.’ Rowan turned and tucked herself into the corner between the door and seat. At least sparring with Seb was keeping her awake. ‘And you? Any more close calls with Satan’s Skanks?’

She hoped the subject of his ex-fiancée would be enough of a mood-killer to get him off the subject of her non-existent love-life.

‘You really didn’t like her.’ Seb twisted his lips. ‘Was it a general dislike or something more specific?’

There wouldn’t be any harm in telling him now, Rowan thought. ‘She was seriously mean to Callie. I mean, off the scale malicious.’

Seb’s eyes narrowed. ‘I thought they got along well.’

‘That’s what she wanted you to think. She was a nasty piece of work,’ Rowan said, staring at the bank of dials on the dashboard. ‘I really didn’t like her.’

‘I would never have guessed,’ Seb said dryly.

‘My “money-grabbing” comment didn’t clue you in?’

‘It was a bit restrained.’ Seb’s tone was equally sarcastic. ‘Your efforts to sabotage our engagement party were a bit subtle too.’

‘What did I do?’ she demanded, thinking that attack was the best form of defence. ‘And why would I do it since I was looking forward to you being miserable for the rest of your life?’