The Bad Boy's Redemption. Joss Wood
maybe the fact that he kissed you on your mouth, whirled you around and wouldn’t stop touching you! Freaking big clues!
‘My mistake,’ Will said aloud, but he wasn’t convinced. And that wasn’t jealousy he felt. It couldn’t be. He didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t jealousy.
‘He used to live next door to us and we remained friends when he moved. Mak is just...intense. Protective of me. He adores me, but we’re only friends,’ Lu explained as the gate slid open.
Yeah, and rugby isn’t a contact sport, Will thought as he drove up the circular driveway to her front door. She might think they were only friends, but he was a man and he knew how men acted and thought. How could Mak not want to sleep with her? She was gorgeous! A natural beauty with those incredible eyes...
‘I saw the look on your face...you think that Mak was irresponsible because he lost track of me.’
He couldn’t deny it.
Lu sighed. ‘He isn’t—not really. He just has a lot on his plate, and when he gets time to step away, to socialise, he goes at it full tilt. And I’m not the type of girl that needs to be looked after...Mak knew that I wanted to go home and I knew that he wanted to stay. I’ve left him behind at many functions, so he wouldn’t have thought it unusual. I have taxi companies on speed dial.’
Will just lifted his eyebrows and looked unconvinced.
His mobile rang. He pressed a button on the steering wheel to activate the hands free and greeted his caller. Lu felt that she should give him some privacy to take his call and tried to get out of the car, but his hand on her arm kept her firmly in place.
Through the car speakers somebody whose name she didn’t catch was talking about that afternoon’s press conference and Lu listened as Will was briefed on the questions he could expect.
‘And obviously there will be the usual questions about your ex-wife.’
‘Yeah, OK, I’m so happy to answer those!’ Will barked, obviously frustrated.
She didn’t need a degree in sarcasm to realise that he really didn’t want to answer any questions on his old life, ex-wife and their marriage.
‘Jo’s blonde, gorgeous and successful. You’re handsome, talented and successful. She’s still single. So are you. You were once married and everyone still wants to know what happened to your marriage,’ the voice replied calmly. ‘The press know there’s a story there and they want it.’
‘They can all get...’ Will shot Lu a look and swallowed the word he wanted to use. ‘Stuffed. As per normal, Jo and anything to do with her is off the table, not open for discussion. It was all so long ago you’d think they’d get over it.’
With Will’s hand still holding her arm, Lu stayed where she was and thought that they couldn’t be more different if they tried. Like Mak, like her parents, even her brothers, Will was a breed apart. One of those successful, innately confident, very-sure-of-their-niche-in-the-world people.
She wanted to be like that.
She didn’t have a niche. Her place—her space—had been ripped away when her parents died, and two weeks ago when her brothers had left it had shifted again.
After a decade of the twins being the centre of her world she was alone, and she had to live in this empty house without the daily responsibility of being their guardian. No more suppers to cook, errands to run, parties to keep an eye on. For the first time in her life she wasn’t defined by her relationship to her popular parents and her orphaned twin brothers.
Isolation and loneliness kept creeping closer, and she frequently felt ill-equipped to cope with a life that didn’t have the twins in it. If she wasn’t careful she could slide over the edge into self-pity, and from there it was a slippery slope to depression. She couldn’t—refused—to let that happen.
She had to do something about her life, and quickly. After everything that life had thrown at her so far she refused to buckle under because she was alone and feeling at sea. That was why she’d agreed to go clubbing with Mak. She’d realised that she had to get out of the house, out of her own head. The boys were right. She had to start living her life.
Of course getting her drink spiked was an embarrassing start.
It had been a tough decade, she admitted as Will lifted his hand from her arm and carried on with his conversation. She had just started exploring her options for a career when she’d been catapulted without warning into caring for the twins. With the inheritance covering her basic costs she’d run around her brothers, caught up in making their world as secure as she possibility could, determined that they wouldn’t feel as lost, as alone and as scared as she did. She’d kept herself and them active and busy in order to keep the grief at bay, and while she’d tried to keep up with her photography she hadn’t been able to give it the dedication it required for her to succeed. Somewhere along the way she’d stopped thinking about herself, her place in the world and what excited her.
Who was she? Lu was terrified to realise that she hadn’t the slightest clue. It was OK, she told herself. She had time to figure it all out. She just needed a plan.
‘Sorry about that.’ Will’s voice pulled her back to the present. ‘Lu? Are you OK?’
Lu blinked and focused on his face. Will, so very up close and personal, was even more mouth-wateringly, panty-crumpling, breath-hitchingly gorgeous than any photo anywhere. He wasn’t perfect—that would be far too intimidating—and she liked his flaws as much as she liked the rest of the package. Creases at the corner of those warm eyes, and his deep brown hair was, sadly, six inches too short. He had stubby eyelashes and untamed brows and a slash of a nose.
‘Do you want me to come in with you? Are you going to be OK?’ Will asked.
‘I’ve taken far too much of your time already,’ Lu replied, glad to hear that her voice was reasonably steady. ‘Thank you for all your help. As I said, I am in your debt.’
Will’s eyes tracked over her face. ‘If you start remembering anything and you have questions you’re welcome to give me a call at the rugby union. They’ll make sure that I get the message and I’ll get back to you.’
It was a nice offer, Lu thought, noticing that he didn’t give her his mobile number. She wasn’t that out of practice that she didn’t recognise the gentle brush-off. He wouldn’t call again and she could live with that.
After all, she had her own life to get back on track. She didn’t need the distraction of a super-sexy rugby player.
But, damn, how she wished they had had sex. Just one little time and preferably of the blow-your-head-off variety. Just to...you know...clean those cobwebs out...
* * *
Two days later Lu sat on the floor between her leather couch and her coffee table, her laptop in front of her. She was updating her website in an effort to attract more photography work and thought she’d made pretty good progress. The site was hipper and brighter than before, and she liked the photos she’d put on the front page. There was the Johnsons’ newborn baby, stark naked with a bright blue bow tied around his tummy and a tag that read ‘Special Delivery’. Below that was her favourite photograph of a bridal couple, caught in a loving look so profound it made her throat catch every time she looked at it.
She was good at it, she mused. Capable of capturing the essence of the moment. And now that she had the time to devote to it she realised how much she missed being behind a camera. She’d tried to establish herself as a photographer a couple of times over the past decade, but every opportunity had fizzled out. She’d been offered an apprenticeship under one of the better photographers in the city about a year after her parents had died, but when she’d realised that after-hours work and out-of-town shoots were a standard condition of her employment she’d resigned because she had to be at home for the twins.
She’d done small weddings, worked part-time in a photographic studio before it had