CHAPTER FOUR

      OKAY, so Callie hadn’t been thinking straight since Archer had strolled into her office yesterday.

      She’d been caught off guard by the gorgeous familiarity of him, by his outlandish suggestion to live with him for a week while they work, by his demand to agree or lose the account.

      She’d also been worried about leaving Nora for the seven days before Christmas once she’d given in to secure the campaign—a worry that hadn’t eased despite seeing her mum yesterday.

      Her head had been filled with stuff. That was the only explanation for why she hadn’t seen that kiss coming.

      He’d done it out of frustration. She could see that now. He’d wanted to snap her out of her funk, to prove a point.

      So what was the rationale behind her responding?

      She’d assumed she could handle their cosy living arrangements for business’s sake.

      She hadn’t counted on this. This slightly manic, out-of-control feeling because despite her vow to remain platonic he could undermine her with one itty-bitty kiss.

      Damn.

      She’d been silent for most of the trip, jotting fake notes for the campaign, needing to concentrate on something other than her tingling lips. Thankfully he’d respected her need for silence until about twenty miles out of Torquay.

      They’d arrived, and she hadn’t been able to believe her eyes.

      As he’d steered up the winding, secluded street and pulled up outside Archer had called it his beach shack.

      Massive understatement. Huge. Considering she now stood in a glass-enclosed lounge room as big as her entire apartment, with floor-to-ceiling glass and three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views of the Tasman Sea.

      This place was no shack.

      The pale blue rugs on gleaming ash floorboards, the sand-coloured suede sofas, the modern glass coffee tables—all screamed class, and were nothing like the mismatched furniture in the log cabin shack she’d imagined.

      Archer had never been into material things when they’d first met. It looked as if being a world pro five years running changed a guy.

      ‘I put your bags in the first guest room on the right,’ he said, his bare feet barely making a sound as he padded up behind her.

      Another thing she remembered: his dislike for footwear. It hadn’t mattered much in Capri, when they’d spent many hours on the beach, and she’d hidden a smile as he’d unlocked the door here, dumped their bags inside and slipped off his loafers.

      She liked him barefoot. He had sexy feet. They matched the rest of him.

      ‘Thanks.’

      He wiggled his eyebrows. ‘Right next to my room, in case you were wondering.’

      ‘I wasn’t.’ Her heart gave a betraying kick.

      ‘Liar,’ he said, snagging a strand of hair and winding it around his finger, tugging gently.

      She knew what he was doing—flirting to keep her smiling. But she sooo wasn’t going to play this game. Not after that dangerous kiss in the car.

      ‘You still feel the buzz.’ His gaze strayed to her lips and she could have sworn they tingled in remembrance.

      The smart thing to do would be to lie, but she’d never been any good at it. That was how they’d hooked up in the first place—because of her complete inability to deny how incredibly hot she’d found the laid-back surfer.

      He’d romanced her and she’d let him, fully aware that their week in Capri was nothing more than a holiday fling. Pity her impressionable heart hadn’t caught up with logic and she’d fallen for him anyway. Her feelings had made it so much harder to get over him—especially after the way he’d ended it.

      She’d do well to remember their break-up, not how his kiss had zapped her synapses in the car and reawakened a host of dormant memories she’d be better off forgetting.

      ‘As I recall, didn’t we have a conversation in the car about focussing on work?’

      His finger brushed her scalp as he wound the strand all the way and she suppressed a tidal wave of yearning.

      ‘You didn’t answer my question.’ His finger trailed along her hairline, skirting her temple, around her ear, lingering on the soft skin beneath it and she held her breath.

      He’d kissed her there many times, until she’d been mindless with wanting him.

      ‘That kiss you sprung on me in the car? Out of line. Business as usual this week. That’s it.’

      ‘Protesting much?’

      ‘Archer, don’t—’

      ‘Go on, admit it. We still share a spark.’

      His mouth eased into a wicked grin and she held up a hand to ward him off. ‘Doesn’t mean we’ll be doing anything about it.’

      She expected him to ask why. She expected him to undermine her rationale with charm. Instead he stopped touching her, a shadow skating across his eyes before he nodded.

      ‘You’re right; we’ve got a ton of work to do. Best we don’t get distracted.’

      ‘Sounds like a plan,’ she said, struggling to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

      But something must have alerted him to the raging indecisive battle she waged inside—flee or fling—because he added, ‘But once work is out of the way who knows what we’ll get up to?’

      She rolled her eyes, not dignifying him with a response, and his chuckles taunted her as she headed for the sanctity of her room.

      She needed space. She needed time out. She needed to remember why getting involved with a nomad charmer again was a bad idea.

      Because right now she was in danger of forgetting.

      * * *

      After what he’d been through with his family, Archer hated dishonesty.

      Which made what he was doing with Callie highly unpalatable. He needed to tell her about being his date for the wedding pronto.

      They’d arrived at the house three hours ago, and she’d made herself scarce on the pretext of unpacking and doing some last-minute research.

      He knew better.

      That impulsive kiss in the car might have been to prove a point but somewhere along the way it had morphed into something bigger than both of them.

      He’d been so damn angry at her perpetual iciness he’d wanted to shock the truth out of her: the spark was still there.

      Oh, it was there all right, and interestingly his little experiment had gone awry. He’d been shocked too.

      He’d asked her to accompany him here for work—and the wedding. Nothing more, nothing less.

      That kiss? Major reality