Single Girl Abroad: Untameable Rogue

‘And your brother can just do that? Change his plans on a whim?’

‘The man’s a free agent, Maddy. Would you think more of him if he couldn’t stay and help out for a while?’

‘I’m trying not to think of him at all,’ she muttered.

‘Is it working?’ said a silken voice from behind her. Madeline knew it was Luke, even before she turned to face him. Her body’s response to his nearness was very thorough.

He wore a faded grey T-shirt, loose-fitting jeans, and a look in his eye that told her that if she had any sense she’d turn and run and keep right on running. ‘Where’s Po?’ he said.

‘Kitchen,’ replied Jacob.

With a curt nod in Madeline’s direction, Luke left. Madeline made a concerted effort not to watch him go.

Jacob just looked at her and sighed.

‘What?’ she said defiantly.

‘Nothing,’ said Jacob. ‘Nothing I want to talk about at any rate.’

Amen.

Luke made himself conspicuously absent during lunch. Po showed Madeline the room Jake had given him afterwards—bare walls, bare bulb, a chest of drawers, a bed, white sheets and a thin grey coverlet. Jacob was a minimalist when it came to possessions but Po seemed overwhelmed by the space and the fixtures that had suddenly been deemed his. Madeline asked Po if he felt like staying on as Jacob’s apprentice. If she’d done the right thing in bringing him here.

Po nodded jerkily. Yes.

She’d seen a noodle bar across the street from the dojo that she thought she might try out next Monday lunchtime. She could use some company if Po felt inclined to stop by …

Another nod. System sorted.

Madeline left the dojo with five minutes to spare before the start of her next meeting. It would take her another ten minutes to get to the accounting firm’s offices so she was already running late, even before she spotted Luke Bennett leaning against a shopfront wall not two doors down from the dojo, idly seeming to watch the world go by.

While waiting for her to leave.

She walked towards him slowly, stopped in front of him. Neither of them spoke. But he looked at her and in that fierce heated glance lay a dialogue as old as time.

‘I wanted you to look this way and walk the other,’ he said finally. Had she been listening to his words alone she might have kept on walking, but those eyes and the tension in that hard, lean body of his told a different story.

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘I dreamed of you last night,’ he said next. Not the sweet murmurings of a soon-to-be lover, but cold, hard accusation.

‘Snap.’ She’d dreamed of him too, her sleeping time shattered by a golden-eyed warrior whose righteousness cut at her even as his kisses seduced. ‘Jacob said you and Po trained for half the night.’

‘We did.’ No need to guess why he’d chosen physical exertion over dreaming. He hadn’t wanted to dream of her. He couldn’t have said it any plainer. ‘I still think walking away from you is the smart option,’ he murmured.

‘Then do it.’

He glanced away, looked down the street as if planning where he would walk, but his body stayed right where it was. When he looked back at her the reckless challenge in his eyes burned a path through every defence she had in place. ‘No.’

Oh, boy.

‘Come out with me tonight,’ he said next.

‘Where?’ Was asking about a venue a tacit agreement? She thought it might be.

‘Anywhere,’ he muttered. ‘Do I look like I care?’

A shudder ripped through Madeline, two parts desire and one part dread for the wanton images that played out in her mind every time she looked at this man.

Luke’s eyes darkened. ‘You choose,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’ll care.’ Somewhere with people, if she had any sense at all. Somewhere crowded and casual. There were plenty such places in Singapore. She could easily suggest she meet him at one of them.

She didn’t.

Instead, she gave him her home address. ‘I’ll try and book us a table somewhere. I’ll be home by six. Ready to head out again by seven.’

He nodded, shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned his head back against the wall, everything about him casual except for his eyes. There was nothing casual about them at all. ‘You should go now,’ he said.

Madeline nodded and forced a step back before she did something monumentally stupid like setting her hands to his chest and her lips to his throat and to hell with empires and accountants. ‘Jacob knows my mobile number.’ Luke’s eyes narrowed, as if he either didn’t like that notion or he didn’t know where she was heading with this. ‘Call me if you decide to cancel.’

‘Do you really think I will?’

‘No.’ She offered up a tiny smile of farewell. ‘But I’m fairly certain you should.’

Madeline made it home just on six-thirty but instead of the fatigue that usually accompanied an afternoon spent wading through financial statements, nervous anticipation ruled her now. She didn’t make a habit of handing over her home address to men she’d just met. Even if Luke was Jake’s brother there’d been no call for that. But she had, and she’d wear it. Wear something. What on earth was she going to wear this evening?

A wizened old woman appeared in the foyer, her face leathered and lined but her old eyes clear and smiling. Yun had been William’s housekeeper for at least thirty years, maybe longer. Now she was Madeline’s and more grandmother than housekeeper if truth were told.

‘We’ve company coming at seven,’ said Madeline as she shed her light coat and slid a wall panel aside to reveal a cleverly concealed wardrobe. ‘Can we do some kind of canapés?’

‘What kind of company?’ asked Yun.

‘Male.’

‘How many?’

‘One.’

‘Nationality?’

‘Australian.’

‘Age?’ Yun could put foreign embassy officials to shame when it came to tailoring hospitality to fit circumstance.

‘My age.’

Yun’s immaculately pencilled eyebrows rose. ‘A business associate?’

‘No. Jacob Bennett’s brother. He’s taking me out to dinner.’