Summer Beach Reads. Natalie Anderson

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      She pressed her lips together and glared pointlessly at him as the silence continued. Had he gone back to sleep?

      ‘I can do this all day,’ he murmured, eyes still closed. ‘I have nowhere to be.’

      She spread her weight more evenly on her knee-high boots and appreciated every extra inch they gave her. ‘Me, too.’

      He lifted his head again and opened his eyes a crack.

      ‘If you’re not here to give me a lap dance, what do you want?’

      Charming. ‘To ask you some questions.’

      He went dangerously still. Even the grass seemed to stop its swaying. ‘Are you a journalist?’

      ‘Not really.’

      ‘It’s a yes/no question.’

      ‘I write for an online blog.’ Understatement. ‘But I’m not here in that capacity.’

      He pulled himself up and braced against one strong arm in the turf. Did that mean she had his attention?

      ‘How did you find me?’

      ‘Molon Labe.’

      He frowned and lifted his sunglasses to get a better look at her. His eyes were exactly as blue and exactly as intense as she remembered. She sneaked in a quick extra breath.

      ‘My office wouldn’t have given you this address.’

      No. Not even face to face.

      ‘I researched it.’ Code for I stalked your offices.

      It had taken a few visits to the coffee shop over the road to spot what messenger company they used most regularly. A man at the head of a corporation he didn’t visit had to get documents delivered to wherever he was, right? For signatures at least. Sadly for them, if Hayden ever found out, the courier company had been only too obliging when a woman purporting to be from Molon Labe had called to verify the most recent details of one of their most common delivery addresses.

      His eyes narrowed. ‘But you’re not here in a journalistic capacity?’

      ‘I’m not a journalist.’

      ‘Or a stripper, apparently.’ He glanced over her from foot to head. ‘Though that seems wasted.’

      She forced herself not to react. She’d chosen this particular outfit carefully—knee-high boots, black scoop-neck dress cinched at the waist and falling to her knees—but she’d been going more for I am woman and less for I am pole dancer.

      ‘You used to say sarcasm was the lowest form of wit,’ she murmured.

      One eye narrowed, but he gave no other sign of being surprised that she already knew him. ‘Actually, someone else did. I just borrowed it. I’ve come to be quite fond of sarcasm in the years since …?’ He left it open for her to finish the sentence.

       He didn’t recognise her.

      Not entirely surprising, given how different she must have looked when he last saw her. Fourteen, stick-insect-thin, mousy, uninspired hair. A kid. She hadn’t discovered fashion—and her particular brand of fashion—until she was sixteen and her curves had busted out.

      ‘You knew my mother,’ she offered carefully.

      The eyes narrowed again and he pushed himself to his feet. Now it was his turn to tower over her. It gave him a great view down her scoop neck and he took full advantage. His eyes eventually came back to hers.

      ‘I may have been an early starter but I think it’s a stretch to suggest I could be your father, don’t you?’

       Hilarious.

      ‘Carol-Anne Marr,’ she persisted, the name itself an accusation.

      Was it wrong that she took pleasure from the flash of pain he wasn’t quite fast enough to disguise? That she grasped so gratefully at any hint of a sign that he hadn’t forgotten her mother the moment she was in the ground. That he wasn’t quite as faithless as she feared.

      ‘Shirley?’ he whispered.

      And it had to be wrong how deeply satisfied she felt that he even knew her name. Hayden Tennant wasn’t a god; if he ever had been he was well and truly fallen now. But still her skin tingled.

      She lifted her chin. ‘Shiloh.’

      His eyes narrowed. ‘Shiloh?’

      ‘It’s what I go by now.’

      The blue in his eyes greyed over with disdain. ‘I’m not calling you Shiloh. What’s wrong with Shirley—not hip enough for you?’

      It killed her that he was still astute enough to immediately put himself in the vicinity of the secret truth. And that she was still foolish enough to admire that. ‘I preferred something that was more … me.’

      ‘Shirley means “bright meadow”.’

      Exactly. And she, with her raven hair and kohl-smudged eyes, was neither bright nor meadowlike. ‘Shiloh means “gift”. Why can’t it be a gift to myself?’

      ‘Because your mother already gifted you a name. Changing it dishonours her.’

      Tendrils of unexpected hurt twisted in her gut and rolled into a tight, cold ball and pushed up through her ribcage. But she swallowed it back and chose her words super-carefully. ‘You’re criticising me for not honouring her?’

      Surprise and something else flooded his expression. Was that regret? Guilt? Confusion? None of those things looked right on a face normally filled with arrogant confidence. But it didn’t stay long; he replaced it with a careless disinterest. ‘Something you want to say, Shirley?’

      Suddenly presented with the perfect opportunity to close that chapter on her life, she found herself speechless. She glared at him instead.

      He shook his head. ‘For someone who doesn’t know me, you don’t like me very much.’

      ‘I know you. Very well.’

      He narrowed one eye. ‘We’ve never met.’

      Actually they had, but clearly it wasn’t memorable. Plus, she’d participated secretly in every gathering her mother had hosted in their home. Saturday extra credit for enthusiastic students. Hayden Tennant had been at every one.

      ‘I know you through my mother.’

      His lush lips tightened. She’d always wondered if her own fixation with Lord Byron had something to do with the fact that in her mind he shared Hayden’s features. Full lips, broad forehead, intense eyes under a serious brow … Byron may have preceded him in history but Hayden came first in her history.

      ‘If you’re suggesting your mother didn’t like me I’m going to have to respectfully disagree.’

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