Fiona Harper - The Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams

She swallowed again. The tiniest glimmer of interest in his eyes suggested he was asking about more than a professional opportunity. He didn’t want to just score a point; he wanted total defeat. Revenge for skipping out on him all those months ago.

So she would say no. To the offer to shadow him—because that wasn’t her real job anyway, and it would be a total waste of time—and to the offer to spend more time with him, because…because…

Although he’d moved back, she could still smell his scent, and it prompted one of those New Year flashbacks, a particularly potent one of his lips on the soft skin of her neck, his hands round her waist. Suddenly she was very tempted to say yes. To everything.

She knew she should walk away a second time, but something was sticking her feet to the floor like Velcro. Something was telling her to go with that wild feeling his photographs had stirred inside her, to tell the voice of caution inside her head to go to hell.

He was watching her, taking in the emotions, the thoughts, flitting across her features. The knowing expression told her he knew exactly what she was thinking, knew exactly what decision she was teetering on the edge of.

Nicole was about to open her mouth, suggest they go for a coffee after the exhibition to discuss his offer, when her phone buzzed in her pocket again.

It brought her back to reality with a bump.

Oh, heck. Saffron.

She glanced up at him as she pulled her phone out of her coat pocket. ‘I’m sorry…I really need to check this.’

He shrugged one shoulder carelessly as she swiped her phone screen to pull up the message.

‘Maybe we can discuss this shadowing thing after—’

The rest of the sentence never left her mouth. Because the message was indeed from Saffron. An hour later than they’d planned, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the picture message that accompanied the text.

She was staring down at a photo of a windswept photographer with a bewitching little dimple.

She seemed to have frozen looking at her phone. She was clutching it so hard her finger joints were going white. Alex coughed softly. ‘Nicole?’ Still she stared at the screen, not moving, not speaking. He started to regret teasing her quite so hard. What if it was horrific news, if someone had died or her house had burnt down? ‘Are you okay?’

She snapped upright then, shoving her phone back in her pocket, and bestowed a bright smile on him. ‘Fine.’ She blinked. ‘Absolutely fine. Nothing wrong at all.’

Okay, then…

He frowned a little. In his experience women often said ‘fine’ when they meant ‘my life is going down the toilet’. He had a feeling this might be one of those times, but he really didn’t know her well enough to push. He also didn’t know her well enough to read her correctly. She could be as fine as that fluorescent smile said she was.

Or she could be faking it just as hard as he was.

As much as he liked to think he’d been in control of the conversation up until now. He’d been doing what he always liked to do in a hairy situation—winging it and hoping it would turn out his way in the end—but he couldn’t ignore the chemistry popping between them any more than she could. Trying to get under her skin had backfired on him spectacularly.

He should have come up with a better plan. Or maybe any kind of plan at all.

He exhaled and swigged his beer.

Their timing stank. Why couldn’t he have met her nine months ago, when he’d still been free and single?

He hadn’t been lying. He’d looked for her for ages. Way longer than was sensible. Maybe that was why he’d listened to that little voice in his ear telling him to mess with her a little, because his ego had taken a knock when she hadn’t got back to him. He’d decided maybe he’d been wrong about New Year’s Eve, that she hadn’t felt the same way. However, she’d demonstrated very nicely with her stammering and blushing this evening that just wasn’t the case.

So why hadn’t she called? It was going to drive him crazy if he never found out. Even if he did, he couldn’t ask her out again. As much as he liked women, he liked them better one at a time. Not only was he not that much of a sleazeball, but it cut down on the inevitable drama. He didn’t like drama. A life that was free and easy and cool suited him much better.

She was fiddling with the stem of her wine glass. Somehow he knew what she was thinking about saying. It was as if he could see the subtitles, like watching a foreign film. And if these ones were printed out in stark white letters, hovering in the air below her face, they would say, ‘Find an excuse to get away. Now.’

He made up his mind to let her.

‘Well, it’s been lovely bumping into you again,’ she said, smiling her ‘fine’ smile again, ‘but I’ve really got to…’

He nodded. So did he.

This time he didn’t reach out and grab her hand, but watched her walk on to the next photograph, pretend to peruse it. He fully intended to head off in the opposite direction, but just as he was turning to go she let a little bit of that iron composure slip, closed her eyes and heaved out a weary sigh.

It was as if she’d slammed down a matching card in a game of ‘Snap’. An identical tug of war was going on inside him. There were reasons he should walk away. Good reasons. Not only Saffron, but the fact that he’d promised himself he was going to stick to women who knew what they wanted, who were as easy to read as a picture book.

But…

Something was telling him he’d been a fool to let her slip away a second time.

He found himself striding back to her. ‘When do you have to have this article thing done by?’

She looked mournfully at him, as if she was begging him for something. Finally she sighed and said, ‘The weekend before Christmas.’

‘I’ve got five weddings lined up between now and Christmas. Different types too—some small and quirky, a couple that have pulled out all the stops. It could be just what you need.’

This was insane. He knew it was insane. But he was still doing it.

He needed a chance to see her again, to find out if this was really something or whether he was just smarting because he wanted what he couldn’t have. He also wanted to see if the warm, funny, sexy girl he’d met on New Year’s Eve was hiding away somewhere inside this starchy suit. And this was a totally innocent way of being around her so he could find out. Nothing had to happen. And if he was wrong about her…Well, he’d be free and clear to walk away. No harm done.

She started shaking her head. ‘I don’t think…Maybe we should just…’

‘Have you got any better offers?’

She sighed. ‘No.’

‘I could do with the extra pair of hands,’ he said, sending her a begging look of his own. ‘At this time of year the weather always conspires to make things more complicated.’

She opened her mouth to brush him off, he could tell, but before she could get the words out she jumped and pulled her phone out of her pocket again. It must have been on vibrate.

Her eyes widened as she read the message then dropped her hand to hang by her side. ‘I’m sorry, Alex. I really have to go.’

She moved to push past him without making eye contact, but he stepped in front of her. ‘At least let me take your number this time. You might regret it if you don’t.’ He waited until she looked at him, tried to tease a smile out of her, but there was sadness in her expression that hadn’t been there before.

She shook her head. ‘I can’t…’

‘Not even prepared to suffer my company for your art?’

Her forehead crumpled into little lines. ‘Huh?’

‘Well, if not your art…your article,’ he said. ‘If you don’t find someone else to shadow—a cake maker or a florist or a dove trainer—you might regret not being my assistant for the next few weeks. Here…’ He picked up her hand, phone still in it, and deftly entered his number in her address book. ‘No excuses this time,’ he said, watching her flush a little bit pinker. ‘Use it.’