Her Festive Flirtation. Therese Beharrie

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       CHAPTER FOUR

      WHEN HE’D STUDIED photography after school it had been because he’d had a passion for it. He’d enjoyed the challenge of seeing things in new ways. In ways others didn’t. He’d created a website to show off his work, and when he’d received that first enquiry to use one of his pictures he’d realised he could use his passion to make money.

      Soon his photos had garnered more attention. And then a photo editor for a popular nature magazine had reached out to him about a job in Namibia. And suddenly he’d realised he could use his passion to give in to his wanderlust.

      He supposed his surname had given him a push that most twenty-year-olds didn’t get. The Giles name was still synonymous with the media empire his great-great-uncle had created. The empire that had been passed down to his grandfather, when his great-great-uncle had died childless, and then down to his father.

      Having an empire and money behind him had meant he could take only the jobs that interested him. That he’d been able to use his skill and passion for jobs that meant something to the world. That he’d been able to use the money he didn’t need to invest in properties back home in South Africa and wherever else his heart desired.

      All while avoiding the pitfalls of settling down. The trap he’d seen his father fall into over and over again since his mother had died. But he couldn’t deny that it felt good to have a place of his own. Not somewhere he just stayed, but somewhere he lived.

      He’d only been back in Cape Town for a fortnight, but it was a source of pride for him. And never more than at this moment, as he showed Ava to his spare bedroom.

      When she’d disappeared into the bathroom he went to his own room and put some of the spare clothing he had there in hers. And then he went back to the kitchen, to start on the meal he’d promised her. Which, he thought even before he reached the kitchen, was a stupid idea. On his best days he could manage to fry an egg. And it would usually end up deformed. Edible, but deformed.

      It would definitely not be the kind of warm meal he’d promised Ava, so he called the twenty-four-hour deli up the road. He was almost out through the door to go and fetch the food, too, before he realised he looked like crap. He’d changed out of his firefighter’s uniform before going to the hospital, but he was still sweaty and grimy. And fairly certain he would not have wanted to meet himself, let alone hand over food to someone looking like he did at that moment.

      He went to his room, threw off his clothes and headed to the shower. He heaved a sigh when the water hit his body. It kneaded muscles he hadn’t realised were tight and painful. It also reminded him that he’d stuffed a cat into his jacket and the cat had not appreciated it.

      He washed his hair, his body and then, feeling faintly human again, put on clean clothes. But before he put on his top he realised he should probably put something on the scratches on his stomach. They were deeper than he’d first realised. So he grabbed his top, heading to the kitchen where he kept the first-aid kit.

      ‘I thought they fixed everything at the hospital.’

      He was halfway through putting salve on the scratches when she spoke. He glanced back, and his throat dried when he saw her in his clothes.

      They were too big for her, but they looked better on her than they ever had on him.

      ‘Uh...they did. But they also took me at my word when I told them I had no external injuries. I forgot about these.’

      She walked around the counter and he got a whiff of the fruity scent of the shower gel he’d put in his spare bathroom. It smelled a hell of a lot sexier on her than it did in the bottle.

       Oh, boy.

      ‘Which external injuries?’ she said, and then, though he tried to angle his body away from her, she sucked in her breath. ‘Oh, crap,’ she said on an exhale. ‘Did Zorro do this to you?’

      ‘No,’ he said dryly, struggling for normality. ‘It was some other cat I put next to my stomach.’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and then she took the salve from him and began to smear it gently on his scratches. He felt his torso tremble—saw it, too, though he tried to ignore it—and СКАЧАТЬ