Know Your Heart: A New Zealand Enemies to Lovers Romance (Far North Series Book 2) (16 page)

“No, I don’t like having her in my house, and she’s already left a message for a local contractor—but they’re likely flat tack on other call outs.”

“All the more reason to go to town with Sav and sort something out personally. The guys’ll take one look at her and rip her off.”

Glen blew out a breath. “Fine. Flip the damn coin.”

Nate ignored Glen and continued talking. “I always wondered if you had a thing for Sav when we were at uni.”

“There wasn’t a thing.” Tension rippled through Glen. Even though these last three weeks had been the most time they’d spent together in years, he still counted Nate as one of his best mates—and he hated lying to him. But he met Nate’s gaze with a steady stare, because whether or not Glen’d had a thing for Sav made no difference at all. “She was just a kid.”

“She’s not a kid now.”

“No—and there’s still no thing—if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Shame. I could see you guys together. The two of you are a better fit than you and the Iced-Tee.”

Glen made a disgruntled rumble in the back of his throat. Nate never liked Tina, the woman Glen had almost married four years ago. “Don’t start.”

“Savannah wouldn’t care if you grew a beard and wore your tie-dyed hippy shirt while you wrote about your orcs and shit instead of being a lawyer.”

Nate, of course, referencing the tee shirt Glen had loved right through university. Until Tina threw it in the trash, because, okay, the print on the front did look a little like dog barf. She’d presented him with a shopping bag from Crane Brothers with a three hundred dollar Italian cotton business shirt inside. Thoughtful, since she’d convinced him to accept a position at his father’s firm in the summer. And scary, since she’d hinted how the white shirt could be worn in the office or for a more important occasion.

“Not happening. And screw you; I don’t write about frickin’ orcs—”

“Just saying. Sav understands the creative mind, and she’s always had a soft spot for you.” Nate finally tossed the coin into the air, caught it, and slapped it on top of his other hand, keeping it covered.

“You’re way off base. Savannah never knew I was alive.”

“Oh, she knew.” Nate aimed a thoughtful look in Glen’s direction. “Photographer, remember? I see things other people miss. I caught the odd glance she’d send your way—at least when Liam wasn’t around. Something about you interested her.”

“Not enough for her to pick me out of a line-up ten years later.”

“Mate, I’d be hard pressed to recognize someone I’d met briefly a decade ago now.” Nate shook his head. “Doesn’t mean you were the Invisible Man.”

A description that cut too close to the truth.

With an eye-roll that just about detached his retinas, Glen huffed out a sigh. Argue anymore and Nate would dig into the crazy idea of him and Savannah like a bulldog with a bone. “Just get on with it and show me the coin.”

Nate peeled one hand off the other and squinted down. “Well, well, well…”

Pretending his heart wasn’t bunny-hopping around his chest, Glen angled his head with a practiced expression of lawyerly disinterest.

Damn
. Bloody tails.

“You fixed that.”

“Nope.” Nate gave him a blinding smile that reeked of smugness. “It’s fate. And you’ve just stepped right in it.” He slapped Glen’s shoulder so hard, he stumbled him forward a few steps. “I’ll tell Sav her chauffeur awaits.”

***

Stuck in ill-fitting clothes or Glen escorting her to Bounty Bay as if she were a special snowflake gave Savannah two more undesirable choices. But driving alone on a wet and treacherous road was yet another choice that didn’t appeal.

Nate, dammit, was right.

She was too shaky and unsettled to get behind the wheel, and the naturally slender Lauren didn’t have much to offer Sav in the way of spare clothes. Most of all, she was desperate,
desperate
for a new bra.

Climbing into Glen’s vehicle, Savannah sealed her lips to stop them twisting into a smirk. As bizarre as her morning had been, the idea of Glen in a women’s clothing store, fetching different sizes and styles, staring like a zombie at the fitting room mirrors and telling her, “No, your butt doesn’t look big in that,” cheered her up. If she concentrated on that image, she could forget she was homeless for a little bit. Put off making a decision about returning to Auckland.

Nate leaned on the car’s sill, holding his credit card. “Lauren says go to her friend’s place,
Vee’s Closet
. Vee will give you what you want on credit until we can get your stuff out of the caravan. Use this for the contractor and the department store.” He tucked the card into the pocket of her psycho-orange fleece. “Try to restrain yourself, double-oh-seven, licensed to shop.”

Glen gave an amused grunt from the driver’s seat.

“Yes,
M
.” Sav patted Nate’s cheek a little harder than necessary and buzzed up the window, knocking his arm away.

Nate grinned and waved them off, returning to his Ranger Rover.

Tom had elected to stay behind and continue studying. Sensible boy, considering his uncle looked as if he was headed to his execution. That needled a teeny bit. Was spending time alone with her so distasteful? Oh yeah, she’d watched from the office window as Glen and Nate tossed a coin to see who got saddled with shopping duty.

Sav folded her arms, uber-aware of her braless-ness, and stared out the window as Glen started the vehicle. Silvery mist closed around the car as they drove in silence, and visibility was enough of a challenge that she could pretend Glen needed to focus on the road. Cracks of sunlight split through the clouds and sparkled on the ocean as they arrived in Bounty Bay. Sav huddled into herself, staring out the window at the storm damage and the clusters of work crews out and about, dealing with trees downed in the wind.

Glen accompanied her into the private contractor’s tiny office. She was grateful for Glen’s no-nonsense negotiating on her behalf when the contractor had become flustered after recognizing her. The best they could offer was a two-man crew sometime in the next two days.

Back in the car, Glen caught her eye. “He was dying to reach for his phone. You dazzled him.”

“Blame Tom’s fleece.” She clipped on her safety belt. “I need sunglasses just to look down at myself.”

“Trust me, it wasn’t the fleece he was dazzled by.” He chuckled and started the engine.

“Do you think he would’ve gotten the hint about staring at my chest if I’d kept my eyes glued to the fly of his jeans the whole time in his office?”

“He wouldn’t have noticed.” Glen drove out of the yard, heading along the main road into Bounty Bay’s little township.

“Would you?”

He slowed the car, coming to a halt just ahead of an empty parallel parking spot.

“Would I notice you checking out my junk?” He twisted in his seat and reversed smoothly into the space, resting his forearm along the back of her seat in a very masculine gesture. “Probably not.”

Turning back, he must’ve spotted her raised eyebrows because he shrugged. “When the guys drag me out to a bar once or twice a month after work, I’m usually the last to know when a woman’s sending interested signals.
Intense lack of game
, is the general consensus where I’m concerned.”

“I find it hard to believe you have problems hooking up.” Not looking as good as he did today in his blue jeans and button-down shirt. Let alone in a suit—a tailored Glen would have women falling off their barstools. A thought that shouldn’t, but did, send a stab of jealousy through her.

“Never said I have problems.” A cocky response, but the hint of a self-disparaging smile softened it. “But I play the ignorant card when a certain type of woman tries to get my attention.”

Savannah unclipped her safety belt. “What type of woman?”

“Ones who, five seconds after introducing themselves, assume a predatory look and ask what I do for a living. Sometimes I lie and tell them I’ve borrowed my brother’s suit to go for a job interview because I’ve been unemployed for over a year—suddenly, they need a quick trip to the ladies’. Other times, I’ll tell them what I do just to observe their calculated interest play out. That can be amusing.”

“Brutal.”

He shrugged. “If they’re only hitting on me because of my earning potential and not because of my innate charm and sexual prowess, then
pfffft
.”

“Ah. Who’d have thought lawyers were in such high demand in the sack.”

“Sugar, you have no idea how fast a motivated lawyer will argue you out of your panties and convince you it was your idea the whole time.”

His grin triggered lusty bullets to shoot down to her toes where they bounced and zoomed back to her stomach, exploding like mini grenades.

“So the women you take home discover.”

“Pleasing someone in bed has nothing to do with a person’s occupation.” He cocked his head.

“Many guys think it does.” She’d lost count of the times she’d politely, then not so politely turned down offers of free drinks while out with her friends.

His lips pulled down in a
what can you do
grimace. “Then they’ll never talk you out of your panties, will they?”

She laughed, grabbing the door handle. “You’re bad.”

Why would any woman miss an opportunity to spend an evening bantering with Glen’s
innate charm
, lawyer or otherwise? Here was a man who was decent, family-orientated, and kinda sweet. And that was without his ripped body, geek-chic looks, and understated confidence that wasn’t showy but certainly put a wide gap between him and other men.

Prize catch material.

But the flicker of bitterness in his tone when he joked about women who were only interested in him for his career needled her curiosity.

“You said you were single.”

The teasing gleam in his eye faded to a hint of wariness. “Uh huh.”

“Always been that way?”

“Weird time to ask me that.” Glen patted down his jeans pockets, pretending to check for his wallet. “Right when you’re about to go shopping.”

Stalling…
“Should I have asked last night while we were spooning?”

He made a rumbly sound in the back of his throat that sounded like ‘mmmpht’, which, from experience, she knew translated to:
Do we really have to discuss this now
? But when she applied the trick of remaining silent, he caved.

“I was engaged once, but it didn’t work out.”

“She broke it off?”

He clenched his jaw, the way a person bearing down on a leather strap to endure pain would’ve. Sav’s heart thudded into her ribs hard enough to bruise. She wanted to get in this unknown woman’s face and demand to know what the hell she was thinking.

“No, I did.”

Sav sealed her lips to stop a barrage of questions. It was his story to tell…if he trusted her enough to share. God knew, the trust between them was so fragile, she wouldn’t blame him for not wanting to drop the weight of a past vulnerability onto it.

Glen grasped the steering wheel with both hands, the ropy muscles in his forearms straining under his shirt sleeves. “Tina was two years behind me in law—her second year, but driven—God, she was as ambitious and ruthless as my dad. But I had no idea at first.” He flicked his fingers off the steering wheel, as if the memory wasn’t important. A lie, as the tell of white skin straining across his knuckles indicated. “Long story short, I discovered she wanted to marry me because my dad offered her a guaranteed spot in his law firm when she graduated—conditional on her convincing me to accept a position there too, even though I’d had interest from firms specializing in family law working in low income areas.”

“You didn’t want to work with your family?”

“Dad and I don’t always see eye to eye.”

Glen cut her a
subject closed
glance, his mouth a harsh line.

“He almost disowned me when I broke it off with Tina. It didn’t matter to him that she’d used me to further her career. It didn’t matter that she’d lied about things that were fundamentally important to me.” He laughed bitterly. “Let’s just say her life plans didn’t include being saddled with a man who would consider throwing away law for the childish fantasy of being a novelist.”

“Many authors make a full-time living from their work now,” she said quietly. “It’s not an unrealistic dream.”

“A few years ago, it was. And writing will never come with the same job security as being a lawyer.” He released his grip from the steering wheel, finger by finger. “Two years ago I got an invitation to her wedding. She’d found herself another attorney—one from a firm three times as big as my dad’s.”

“Did you go?”

“No.” Cool blue eyes speared her from across the car. “I sent her a wedding present, wished her and her future husband much happiness together, and left it at that.”

“More than what she deserved.”

“Tina deserved whatever happiness she could find. I just wasn’t the right man to give it to her.”