Miss Impractical Pants (35 page)

“You all right?” he broke the silence.

“Fine,” she replied, trying to hide her face behind her hand under the pretense of feeling Bartholomew.

A worried crease wriggled across his forehead. “Katie, I…I wish that you could know I’m not a one-night-stand type of bloke. I hope in time you won’t be nervous around me. Please, will you give me a chance to make it up to you?”

In his earnest request for forgiveness, he moved closer to her. Her heart squeezed at the pain in his voice. She wanted to reassure him; however, his close proximity alerted her to her morning breath. Pulling away a few inches, she pulled the collar of her T-shirt around her nose and spoke through the loose material.

“Lucas, don’t be silly, I have no reason to be nervous around you. You’ve done nothing to apologize for.”

She could tell by his shattered expression that he believed her actions rather than her words.

“It’s okay to be wary. I’m supposed to be your protector, not your predator.”
             

“Lucas, I could never be wary of you.”

             
He shook his head and supplied her with a lame courtesy smile.

Damn.
Why did he have to be so thoughtful? If he could be even a little bit of a jerk, she could feel angry instead of just pathetic. She let the shirt drop from her face. “Do you know what bothers me the most?”

He shook his head, looking uncertain he wanted to know the answer.

“If I’m going to wake up next to someone, I want to be the pretty one. It sucks that I’m the ugly one in this relationship!” Her cheeks went so hot she felt her face was melting. “Not that I think we’re in a
relationship
or anything…I mean, I know we’re practically cousins…I’m talking about more of a
familial
type of relationship….”

His roaring laugh interrupted her sputtering. “Crikey, that bump on your head has made you mental!” Grabbing her shoulders, he forced her to look him in the eyes. “You are abso-bloody-lutely beautiful. How could you think you’re not?”

“Have you taken a look at yourself?” she replied. “You’re like perfection—a Michelangelo masterpiece. Next to you, I’m just…I’m a…I’m a…Andy Warhol.”

His cheeks turned scarlet. His humility was even more irresistible than his unfathomable good looks. The incredulous expression he wore had her believing, if only for a second, that maybe he wouldn’t prefer to chew his arm off than wake up beside her.

“If that’s the case, then I’ve just become Andy Warhol’s biggest fan.” His eyes crinkled as he cracked a heart-stopping grin. “If
you don’t get things sorted with that boyfriend of yours, I’m going to be the first one queuing up for you.”

Did he really mean that?
Though he sounded sincere, she couldn’t help but think he was speaking encouragingly—a British cliché, like when the Martin sisters insisted Katie must have to “beat the men off with the stick”—which she’d never had to do, not even once.

Just then, Wham’s ever-untimely song pealed through her phone, ending their conversation.

“You’d better get that,” Lucas suggested, looking chagrined. “I’m sure it’s my mum checking in on you.”

Katie nodded and scuttled to her phone. “Katie, is that you, love? Are you all right?” A very concerned and familiar brogue tickled her ear.

“Mr. Scott!” she cried enthusiastically. Lucas’s head snapped to attention at the mention of his uncle’s name. “How are you? It’s so nice of you to call,” she effused, her eyes glossing over with happy tears.

“Nice of me to call?!
Poppycock! I’m callin’ because I’m told you might be dyin’ and no one’s heard a word from you or Lucas all mornin’! What in the name of Maggie Thatcher are you doin’ in Croatia, and where the bloody hell is my nephew who’s supposed to be keepin’ you out of trouble?”

Stifling a giggle, Katie handed the phone to Lucas, who no doubt could hear every word his uncle had bellowed.

“Hello Uncle.” Lucas had the tone of a naughty child about to be scolded. “Everything is just fine, I assure you. Katie is perfectly well. She just needed to sleep off a nasty bump on the head, that’s all.”

Just the sound of Mr. Scott’s voice in the room was filling Katie with the guilts. The fact that she couldn’t peel her eyes away from his towel-clad nephew wasn’t helping things any. She had to find something to occupy herself with or she’d rip the phone away from Lucas and confess the whole evening to Mr. Scott.

Lucas’s phone rang again, saving Katie from herself.

“Do you mind grabbing that?” Lucas whispered to Katie, begging his uncle’s pardon. “That’ll be my mum anxious to know that you’re still living.”

Katie trotted off in the direction of the sound. On the veranda, she plucked the beckoning phone from the pocket of his jeans. “Hello, Lucas Hayden’s phone. May I help you?”

The noise from the other end was more of a screech than a reply.

“Hello?”

“You!” the caller hissed, “You whore! You sneaky, rotten, bloody gold-digging bitch! Let me talk to Lucas!”

“Hello Olivia.” The hairs on the back of Katie’s neck bristled, but her tone was sticky sweet. “Lucas is busy at the moment, but I’ll be sure to let him know you called. Thanks and bye now.” Before she could think about what she was doing, she powered the phone down. Just then, Lucas threw his head back in a roar of laughter at something his uncle had said.
At least one of us is having a pleasant conversation,
she thought sourly.

Katie tromped back into the room carrying a wad of clothes. She had never hung up on anyone before, but she wasn’t going to let it upset her equanimity. Olivia had no effect on her. She gave Lucas a tight smile, threw her pile of clothes in a heap at the foot of the bed,
and began hurling them one by one with all her might into her bag. Okay, maybe Olivia affected her a little.

“…So, I see Mum hasn’t left out any details. I know it doesn’t look like I’ve been doing my job, but then I didn’t realize what you’d sent me. Katie’s a magnet for trouble.” Lucas shot her a playful wink,
then
leveled a questioning gaze at her.

“Olivia called,” she whispered casually—perhaps not as casually as she’d intended—and tossed—okay, chucked—his BlackBerry onto the bed next to him.

“Uh, listen
Uncle,
I’ll have to call you back. Olivia has been trying to ring me.”

The last thing Katie heard before she stalked off to the shower was Mr. Scott’s hooting laughter. “I’d give me last shilling to be a fly on the wall for that conversation!”

A few minutes into her shower, Lucas tapped at the door.

“Come in.”

He cleared his throat to declare his presence. “I’m sorry you had to speak to Olivia. Was she terribly nasty with you?” He closed the toilet lid and took a seat.
             

Katie stopped mid-soap to contemplate. “No more than could be expected when a woman you hate answers your fiancé’s phone.”

“Ex-fiancé,” he corrected.

“The thing is,” Katie continued, poking her head around the shower curtain, her hair still sudsy, “I can’t be upset with her. I deserved everything she said to me…I nearly had sex with her fiancé!” She pulled her face back in, but not in time to hide the color that burned her cheeks.

“Ex-fiancé,” he corrected again.

“I don’t think Olivia would agree.”

A groan of frustration escaped his lips. “Katie, the blame is mine. I instigated everything—”

“Not everything,” she interrupted, glad he couldn’t see how her face was growing still hotter. “And I didn’t try to stop you.”

“You stopped before we had intercourse.”

“
Intercourse
?” she giggled. “Please tell me you didn’t just say that. I feel like I’m back in my eighth-grade health class. Only you’re slightly less masculine and much better looking than Ms. Brooks, the girls’ gym coach.”

“You stopped when it was important.”

Katie was just about to comment on how if the tables were turned and if Jared were kissing Natalie—which she was pretty sure he wasn’t—how infuriated she would be, when Lucas retracted his words.

“That’s not true. It was all-important. Katie, what happened last night was brilliant—not accidental. I knew exactly what I was doing when I kissed you. God knows I’ve thought about it a thousand times since meeting you, but it just didn’t make sense. Then, after holding you on the beach, I didn’t care what the repercussions would be. I didn’t need it to make sense. I was going to make my intentions clear.”

Despite the warm water pouring over her, she shuddered as the thrill of his speech raced up her spine. Words evaded her, though it didn’t matter. He left her no time to respond.

“It wasn’t until you stopped us that I realized how unclear my intentions may seem to you. I was a selfish sod not to think about your situation.”

Turning off the faucet and wiping the water from her face, she held her hand out beyond the curtain.

Lucas obediently handed her a towel. She enjoyed the ease that they felt with one another, despite the weightiness of the conversation.

“So here’s the issue,” he continued as she dried off behind her screen. “Nothing would make me happier than to announce to Mum, Uncle Avery, Olivia—everyone—that we’re together.”

Before he could finish his thought, she whipped her head out from behind the curtain and stared at him. Her emotions flickered between shock and terror.

A hearty laugh ricocheted through the bathroom. “But, as you have a boyfriend and have previously implied—which your face now confirms—you are commitment-phobic, I don’t think that would be a wise idea.”

He was still chortling when she stepped wobbly-legged, towel hitched around her figure, from the shower. “Where does confidence like yours come from?” she wondered aloud, finding it alarmingly sexy. But not sexy enough to make her become a relationship whore, dashing straight from one man to another. She wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision committing to Jared. How could she be sure Lucas wouldn’t be a mistake as well? She couldn’t.

A cocky grin scribbled across his face.
“Comes from following my instincts.”

“Did you follow your instincts with Olivia?” she quizzed tartly, hoping to daunt his surety.

“No, I didn’t. I deliberated every decision I ever made with her,” he answered without hesitation. He claimed the vacated shower,
throwing his towel over the rod. “Every wise decision I’ve ever made has been impulsive. It’s when I have to really think about something that I make a bloody bad decision.”

Katie silently acknowledged the truth of his statement in her own life as she cherry-picked Donny and some toothpaste from her toiletry bag.

“So, as I was saying,” he said, waiting for the water temperature to adjust, “are you ready to be with me and make it known to the world?”

She didn’t appreciate the comedic lilt in his voice. Her legs turned to melted marshmallows and she grabbed the porcelain sink for support, letting the toothbrush fall slack in her mouth. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lucas peering above the shower rod, finding too much amusement in her numb reaction.

Be cool, Katie.
She finished brushing and returned blithely, “Sadly, no. And you can blame Ms. Brooks and my American education for my commitment phobia.”