The Morning After the Night Before: Love & Lust in the city that never sleeps! (9 page)

Yeah. Right.

‘Otter fanciers
are a dedicated bunch,' Harry murmured, casting a sideways look in the direction of the welly-boot brigade, criticism patent in his gaze.

Umbrage burbled up right below Izzy's skin. Sure, their volunteers were a motley bunch, and a little disorganised—and possibly only semi-effectual—but they were giving their time for free.

Her parents would have fitted right in if she'd found the courage to invite them. But calling because she needed something wasn't how she'd imagined getting back in touch with them after all this time. And this wasn't the first time she'd quietly put the phone down again.

Baby steps.

‘Your staff are the only people here today
who are getting paid to re-vegetate this waterway,' she reminded him with astonishing self-control considering what a jerk he continued to be whenever she was around.

Another two weeks apart had clearly done little to improve things between them.

‘You don't think my people would be here if we weren't paying them to be?' Harry asked.

‘Would you?'

He considered her silently before changing tack. ‘You realise it was really only a few weeks ago that you would have been one of us, sloshing about with no idea what we're doing and fixating on knock-off time.'

Oh, she was very aware of that. And how much of a fraud she felt for pretending to be anything else, now. This was only her second re-vegetation trip. But it was amazing how fast her misspent childhood romping around the fields was coming back to her.

‘It's a win-win. The Lutra Trust gets a helping hand on this stretch of wetlands and Broadmore Natále gets a good team-building activity.'

At least that was how she'd sold it to them last week when she'd first conceived the idea.

‘A couple of pints at the pub is also good team-building,' he pointed out.

‘But this is outdoors. In nature. On a beautiful day. And they're doing something worthwhile.'

‘Everything they do at their desks is worthwhile.'

Maybe for their shareholders.

‘Nothing they do at their desks will get Broadmore Natále's name in the paper, though.'

On the other side of the sodden bog they were clearing of weeds, a cadet journalist from the
Butterforth Crier
interviewed one of The Lutra Trust staff and one of Harry's team while a photographer grabbed pictures of the muckiest weed-clearing activity. Sure, it wasn't exactly a Sunday paper but it was a start. And he'd wanted grass-roots exposure.

‘I thought you'd have put yourself forward for the interview,' Izzy commented.

His eyes instantly grew cagey. ‘Not me. Better things to do than talk to the media.'

Was a village newspaper not worthy of his esteemed attention? ‘Saving yourself for your
Time Magazine
Man of the Year cover story?'

His eyes narrowed and shifted, and not just because of all the natural light pouring down on them. ‘Media is not my preferred thing.'

‘Tsk tsk, Harry,' she purred. ‘That's no way to get to the big leagues.'

His jaw tightened visibly. ‘I feel certain that there are plenty of paths to the top that don't automatically involve public exposure.'

‘You've surprised me, Harry. I would have pegged you for a man who loves to get his face in front of the cameras.'

In fact, she'd always thought him much more suited to a more public role than he had.

One brow lifted higher. ‘Have you ever seen me do that?'

It didn't take much to get her
Izzometer
twitching. Something was off here. A man as arrogant and charming and…flashy…as Harry—even in that carelessly dishevelled Australian way he had—shouldn't have been shy of media. He should have been right out there in front, loving the exposure.

Hunting it. Playing up to it.

‘No, I haven't. Why is that?' Unless he had something to hide?

‘Media can be a circus.'

‘Personal experience?' Because avoiding the media sure wasn't in any How To Get Ahead In Business manual she'd ever read.

‘Direct observation,' he hedged.

‘So any media leveraging you do off Broadmore Natále's sponsorship will be done by someone else?'

‘Ideally.'

‘Okay. Got it.' She pushed back a damp lock of hair and resettled her spade in the muck. ‘Any other unwritten rules I need to keep in mind?'

‘I'll let you know when I think of them.'

Before she could do more than open her mouth to quiz him further, the suck and squidge of gumboots sounded in the wetland behind them and Izzy turned towards a tense, interrupting voice.

‘Izzy.' Alex rested one hand on his hoe and the other on her nape. ‘What's next on the list?'

Which was, of course, man code for ‘want me to hurt him for you?'.

Alex's perceptive eyes locked hard onto Harry. And stayed there. Izzy hurried to mitigate any growing tension with introductions. ‘Harry Mitchell, Finance Manager at Broadmore Natále, our sponsor.' She leaned extra heavy on that last word. ‘Alex Spencer, my…flatmate.'

He hadn't replaced Tori long enough for that to feel normal on the lips yet. In her head, Alex was still Poppy's hot brother.

‘Another one?' Harry grunted. ‘Just how big is that place of yours?'

‘Small enough to hear clean through the walls,' Alex said evenly.

Oh, God…

She adored Alex, most days, even if he was far from perfect as flatmates—and even friends—went. But since an ex-soldier brought a heap more security to two women living alone on the fringes of Notting Hill, she'd made it her business not to complain when he moved in. Not about the toilet seat with obsessive orientation disorder, not about the stubble hairs that—like the sands of Afghanistan—seemed to get into everything in the bathroom she now shared with two people, and not about no longer being able to flit between the shower and her bedroom in her lacy smalls.

But, every now and again, having a protective best friend with an ex-military rottweiler at her disposal twenty-four-seven became just a bit too much to bear. Like right now.

‘Alex had some free time today,' she rushed on for Harry's benefit, then turned back to him. ‘Thanks again for coming to help.'

‘I'm here on orders from HQ,' he said. ‘I'd rather be sleeping.'

Harry's perceptive glance swung between the two of them, pausing for the barest moment on the gentle rest of Alex's hand on her shoulder. ‘HQ?'

‘My sister, Poppy.'

‘Ah, yeah. Sisters.'

‘You've got one?'

‘I've got several.'

Izzy's head came up. That was the first vaguely personal titbit she'd ever had about Harry. If you didn't count knowing the size of his—

‘Several?' Alex said. ‘Jeez, I thought one was a handful.'

‘Tell me about it.'

And just like that Alex's allegiance shifted slightly—just slightly—in the direction of the only other Y-chromosome in the conversation.

Harry held out his hand to Alex, who had to drop his off her neck to shake it.

That fact pleased Harry just a little too much.

‘Looks like your sector is clear, Alex,' Izzy cut in before the two of them could launch into the full brothers-in-arms thing. And, astonishingly, given Alex had probably been up all night doing whatever—or whoever—it was that Alex did while the rest of the world slept, that was true.
Clearly, his years in the military had made him super-efficient at manual tasks. Or he had a heap of manly angst to work out of his system.

Or maybe both.

‘Give me another job,' Alex urged. ‘Before I fall asleep.'

She consulted her list. ‘We need an observation hide built.'

‘A what?'

‘Like a cubby house. But at ground level. For wildlife watching. Think you could manage a fast 'n' dirty little hide?'

‘I excel at fast and dirty.' He looked directly at Harry. ‘Sounds like a job for two.'

No!
No, no, no
…

No together time. No ‘tell me about her childhood' moments. Not that Alex's knowledge went particularly far back. But he was more than capable of blurting out all her
nowhood
secrets, which was just as problematic.

How infrequent her male visitors were. How broke she was. How she'd floated around the flat all the next day after their one night together.

And the one after it.

‘I'm sure Harry needs to stay with his team. This is a development day for them.'

Blue eyes twinkled. ‘They're doing fine without me hawking over them. I'd be happy to get on the tools for a bit.'

Alex pushed upright. ‘That sounds like a man who's built a thing or two.'

‘Back home.'

‘Australia,' Alex announced, wandering off with Harry in tow. ‘Always wanted to go there…'

Let the bromance begin…

The only satisfaction Izzy got was from imagining the showdown between Poppy and Alex when she found out how abysmally he'd discharged this particular duty. Unless, of course, his real mission was to find out a heap more about their overnight guest. If that was the case he'd just positioned himself perfectly. That was the thing about interrogation. It often worked two ways.

Harry loped behind Alex along the edge of the wetland—resplendent in a pair of beat-up old Levi's, boots scuffing the sodden turf like some kind of outback cowboy—but he turned back long enough to toss her a troublemaker's grin.

The player is about to get played, methinks.

Lord knew what Harry would do with concentrated access to her life.

Ugh.

Mud splattered up and out as she slammed her pitchfork into a thick clump of watery weeds and she took particular delight in stabbing it deep into its core. The perfect tool for venting her suspicions about Harry's motives.

And though she had a lot to vent, there were, conveniently, tonnes of the stuff choking the little wetland. She twisted the fork to loosen the root mass, lifted it free of the water and plunged it down again, and again, deep into the weed clump's heart.

It wasn't Harry, but it would vicariously do.

* * *

Half an hour in Alex Spencer's company, and Harry already had a good idea of what Izzy's childhood must have been like and how it must have shaped her. Not that Alex was talking out of school; Harry practically heard the point at which the guy made the choice to spill. The clunk of decision. So, as casually as it was being delivered in between their measuring and sawing and hammering, something told Harry it was one hundred per cent deliberate. There was agenda in there somewhere.

‘You really like Izzy,' Harry quizzed.

‘Yeah,' Alex snorted. ‘Because one sister clearly isn't enough.'

Sister.
The message seemed clear but it was probably healthy to double-check. That hand on her nape had seemed über-casual but you could never tell with housemates. A living room was a very short and convenient space to cross.

‘So, I don't need to apologise for anything?'

‘About Izzy? No.'

Okay, treble-check, then. He pulled another batten across the joists and sent a couple of nails driving deep.

‘For me, access to the friends was the upside of having older sisters,' he eventually said.

‘Not that friend,' Alex swore, as solemn as an oath. ‘Izzy's…different.'

Yeah, she was. Which made the casualness of what they'd done stand out in neon in the emerging observation hut. And which was probably the whole point of the conversation. But he wasn't about to apologise for what they'd shared, spontaneous or not.

He didn't do regrets.

‘She's also an adult,' he said, carefully.

‘Those girls have known each other since they weren't.' Alex glanced up, considered him. ‘But, yeah. She is.'

And that was that. Protection implied. Threat tacitly received.

All obligations fulfilled.

‘So, you knew her when she was younger?' he asked.

‘She came home with my sister for a few holidays. I wasn't always around much but I met her a few times. Poppy's little shadow.'

Again, hard to imagine. When he'd imagined Izzy, he'd always pictured her in the centre of everything. Surrounded by people. Although, lately, there was mostly sweat in his imaginings. A lot of sweat.

And only one other ‘people.'

‘She's grown up, then.'

‘With a vengeance.'

‘Why didn't she go home to her own place on holidays?'

‘That's something you'd have to ask her.'

And there it was. The big black line in the sand defining Alex's loyalty. He was happy to speak up
for
her, but not
about
her. That, more than anything he could have said, confirmed their relationship.

Sister/brother.

Something deep inside Harry cranked down half a notch.