Sets Appeal. Virginia Taylor

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      After rinsing off, she stepped out of the bath and wrapped herself in a thin blue towel. Looking for a hair dryer, she searched his bathroom cabinet, but she didn’t find one. However, she did find a box of condoms big enough to give the impression he could service the whole of the state’s sexually active females without having to buy extra supplies.

      She sucked in her bottom lip, even more ashamed of herself. The woman in the kitchen this morning must have been his girlfriend. For some reason, she hadn’t attended the production party with him last night and today she had cancelled a date. He hadn’t taken this amiss. Clearly, he and she trusted each other, and with good reason. Last night, he had faked the condom mishap with Vix because he didn’t know how else to get himself off the hook with a prospective workmate who had practically ordered him to service her, as if she had the right.

      Her face flared red and hot. Champagne was clearly far more insidious than she thought. She tried to remember if he had been drinking, but although he had filled her glass, he hadn’t been holding one of his own.

      However, despite not being even slightly intoxicated, he had wanted her. Even someone inexperienced with men could see that. At the party, his gaze had lingered on her face and his eyes had gleamed with interest. Without a hint from her, he suggested the ride home, and when he said coffee, his voice had purred with innuendo. In bed, his physical reaction was blatant and quite exciting. Although she didn’t know too much about men, she knew an aroused male when she saw one. Given the opportunity to be unfaithful…he couldn’t, unlike her ex-husband.

      She toweled her hair as dry as she could and dressed quickly. Preparing to be as casual about the awkward morning-after as he was, she re-entered the bedroom, gathered up her handbag, retraced her steps to the bathroom, and applied her makeup. Without a hair dryer, her hair behaved unfashionably. Sighing, she swirled a knot on the top of her head and, holding the bun in place, she padded into the kitchen, knowing her blond hair looked fake and her skirt was too short and tight.

      He stood over an ancient electric stove, which over the years had been chipped of white enamel on the corners, watching a pan full of sizzling calories. He smiled at her.

      Her hormones overreacted with a perceptible thud. “Do you have a pencil I can borrow?” she asked in a voice that came out husky. She evaded his gaze.

      He reached into an overhead cupboard and pulled one out. “Will this do?”

      She wriggled the HB through her hair. “I hope you’re not cooking break—”

      “You look nice.”

      She angled her head on the side. “You don’t need to fake interest.”

      “Okay. I’ll file that. How many eggs do you want?”

      “One.”

      “Should I flip over your egg?”

      “No. Oh, glory. I haven’t had a fried egg in a year.” She sat at the gray-painted table that matched the gray-painted chairs that screamed to be stripped along with the lovely, uncovered Baltic pine floor.

      “I hope you’re not allergic.”

      “Only to calories.” She cleared her throat. If she tried for a normal conversation, she could get through this awkwardness. “They’re gorgeous old chairs, those clunky ones. I suspect you would find satinwood beneath that gray paint. They’re art deco, I think.”

      “Like this table and the chairs. They all starred in Noel and Gertie and they’ve been heavily repaired by me, which is how I got them as a job lot for forty dollars after the production.”

      “Noel and Gertie? I saw that.”

      “What did you think?”

      “The set was shades of gray, although only four, and Noel and Gertie wore black and white throughout the show. The old film look was effective, and I would have been impressed if I hadn’t known it was a copy of the Broadway set.”

      “Did you see the Broadway show?”

      She nodded. “Before I was married, when I wanted to see every set I could.”

      “I didn’t know it was a copy.” He rubbed his chin. “I built that set from…er, the designer’s drawings.”

      “You don’t have to name names. He always copies his sets. It’s a shame there’s no copyright. I don’t understand people who don’t want to experiment with ideas of their own.”

      “Nor do I. Speaking of which, you heard me stood up this morning. I don’t need a date, but you might be interested in coming, anyway.”

      She lifted her eyebrows. “Because?”

      “We’ll be in the warehouse we use for set-building. It’s where you’ll be painting, too. You might want to look the place over while we’re playing indoor volleyball.”

      “Who is we?”

      “The construction team. We like to keep fit.”

      “So do I. How did you plan to get there?”

      “My date would have driven me.” With wide-eyed mock innocence, he pressed his lips together and leaned back, watching her face, having finished at least half his full plate of bacon and eggs.

      Trying not to smile, she gave him a cool, so-that’s-why-you-want-me glance, which she wished she had given to Tim. “Do you only ask women who own cars to be your dates?”

      “It’s cheaper than getting taxis.” He lowered his chin and gazed at her. And he gave her that creased, almost dimpled, smile again.

      She laughed. If she checked the paints and brushes today, she would know what she needed tomorrow when she planned to buy her supplies.

      Since nothing had happened last night, she could put aside the episode. Today she and JD could be the workmates they should be. Probably.

      Chapter 3

      Rustic and picturesque, the massive old corrugated iron shed was sited in one of the small streets on the perimeter of the city of Adelaide. Because of Vix’s insistence on stopping at her own house to change her clothes, and consequently being late, Jay gave a regal wave through the car’s window to the construction team, who sat propped against a wall rusty with copper streaks.

      For twenty minutes, he had sprawled in her car, which she had driven to Walkerville, a small, exclusive suburb between his not-so-classy suburb, Port Adelaide, and the city. After she had parked on a street with wide green verges and big shady street trees, she had disappeared behind the brushwood fence that hid her house. His wait was not unrewarded. She looked as delicious in her tight designer jeans and yellow loafers as she did in her red suit last night, though perhaps a little less self-conscious.

      She pulled up her luxurious Mercedes sedan in the designated car park, surfaced with cracked concrete and plastered with dried mud from the rain last week.

      “Was your girlfriend going to play volleyball?” she asked after a quick glance at the four-man, three-woman team, who needed Jay’s key to get inside the building.

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