The Rules of Engagement. Элли Блейк

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СКАЧАТЬ and said, This is a one-time deal.

      Frankly, considering why she’d gone looking for sorbet sex in the first place, it was more than she deserved.

      * * *

      Caitlyn sat back in the big leather chair, eyes closed as it hummed blissfully beneath her. A thump to her right told her Franny had finally arrived at their regular Sunday morning date at the Shangri-Lovely Nail Bar.

      ‘Good morning, sunshine!’ Caitlyn bubbled.

      ‘How could you start without me?’ Franny grumbled.

      Caitlyn opened her eyes to find Franny hunched down in dark sunglasses, her hair pulled back into a scraggy ponytail, grunting as she jabbed in her favourite settings on the massage chair. ‘You weren’t even home when I left; I thought I might have to go solo today.’

      Franny gave a double thumbs-up to her usual pedicurist indicating a double espresso, in a mug, before glancing pointedly at the half-eaten packet of biscuits Caitlyn had resting atop the glossy magazine she hadn’t yet found a chance between daydreams to open.

      ‘Chocolate chip? At this time of the morning? It’s not as though you worked up an appetite after I left.’ Her eyes swung slowly back to Caitlyn. ‘Or did you?’

      Caitlyn licked a smudge of chocolate from her finger, images of the night before skipping and tripping through her mind like an old silent film. A slideshow of muscled arms, and broad shoulders, and acres of beautiful warm skin turning red beneath her grasping fingernails as she—

      A hot flush landed hard and fast upon her cheeks. ‘Don’t change the subject. We’re here to talk about you and the Leather Jacket.’

      But Franny was pointing at the pretty pink polish the pedicurist was sliding onto Caitlyn’s toenails. ‘Look! You did! You got lucky, you dog!’

      ‘What on earth does my toenail polish have to do with anything?’

      ‘All last week you were red. Sex-starved, man-eater red. And today you pick this tiptoeing-through-daisies pink? Something happened between last night and this morning.’

      Caitlyn blinked, stumped that she’d given herself away so easily. ‘Moody-looking dude in leather jacket first.’

      ‘Fine. As it turns out all that bad-ass leather stopped at the door. His name’s Eugene and he lives with his mother. They breed ferrets. Inside the lounge room. None of which I realised until I did the walk of shame this morning. Past his mum. Who had folded my clothes into a neat pile on the chesterfield in the lounge room—’

      Franny waved both hands madly over her face. ‘I just want to forget the whole thing. Now. Your turn. Did Cutey Patootey come back?’

      ‘No-o-o!’

      ‘Who, then? Not Ivan?’

      ‘The bartender?’ For that Franny deserved no more than a blank stare.

      Franny frowned, clearly stumped.

      Caitlyn hoped she’d stay that way. Hoped she could hang onto the mild buzz she was still wearing like a cloud of exotic perfume all those hours later a little longer before Franny dissected it to death.

      Then Franny’s foggy morning-after eyes focused fully for the first time.

      ‘The Suit! You hooked up with the Suit! You sly dog!’ Franny squealed loud enough the traffic outside the salon would have heard every word.

      ‘Shh. I’m sure everyone else here could care less about the intimate details of my nightscapades.’

      Franny glanced around. ‘Are you kidding me? Why else do you think women come to places like this? It’s hardly rocket science to slap on a dash of nail polish at home. Details. Please. Before I give up men for good.’

      Franny leant so far forward on her chair she almost landed in the tub of water at her feet. Her pedicurist arrived in time, shoved her feet in the water and gave her a quelling stare. Franny looked dutifully chastised. ‘So who is he? Did he live up to all that glorious potential? Are you seeing him again?’

      Caitlyn breathed out long and slow. She wasn’t going to get a moment’s peace until she gave Franny something. Then, staring hard at her toes, she said, ‘Fine. His name was Dax. Dax Something Starting With B. Banner? Bale? He looks even better out of the suit than in it. And, no, we didn’t make plans to catch up again. Happy?’

      Franny grinned as she shook her head and slipped her smart phone from her purse and plugged in a few letters. ‘Dax Something Starting With B? Miss March, you sit there with your cute freckles on your little nose looking like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, but you are so full of surprises.’

      Caitlyn knew exactly what she was about to do. She tried to grab the phone but Franny was quicker than she looked.

      ‘Still!’ her pedicurist demanded.

      ‘This is important,’ Franny said, glaring right on back.

      The pedicurist shrugged and set to sloughing away the dead skin on Franny’s soles.

      ‘Please don’t Google the guy, for Pete’s sake!’ Caitlyn begged.

      Franny snorted. ‘Are you kidding me? In this day and age it’s the first thing you should do the second you learn a guy’s name. Heck, if I’d been smart enough to Google Mr Lame from last night I’d have avoided ever knowing what ferret poo smells like. Trust me. I’m doing you a favour.’

      Caitlyn set her teeth and stared blindly at the small golden cat with its bobbing head on the cashier’s counter. She knew trying to stop Franny was a waste of time. And while she knew it was unlikely she’d ever see the guy again, no small part of her did wonder how a guy who looked like that, and kissed like that, and who’d learnt how to do the things he’d done to her the night before, had managed to get so far in life without being hogtied and hitched at gunpoint.

      When Franny had been quiet for all too long Caitlyn glanced at her to find her eyes growing larger and larger until they looked as if they were about to pop out of her head.

      ‘I knew it!’ Franny blurted.

      ‘What?’ Caitlyn asked despite herself. ‘He’s married. Of course he’s married. Oh, God. How could I have been so—?’

      ‘He’s not married.’

      Caitlyn’s rant came to a halt. The relief flowing through her was totally misguided. Especially since it wasn’t relief that he hadn’t cheated on his non-existent wife. It was relief that he was actually on the market.

      She wasn’t. Sure it had been six months since she’d broken up with George. Not just broken up, she reminded herself, called off her engagement. But she was done with all that: relationships, and dating, and blah blah blah.

      Yet she found herself leaning towards Franny and saying, ‘Then what?’

      ‘Your Dax Something Starting With B was Dax Bainbridge, as in CEO of the Bainbridge Foundation. Heard of them?’

      Caitlyn blinked. Several times. ‘Them yes. A representative of the Bainbridge Foundation СКАЧАТЬ