The Complete Red-Hot Collection. Kelly Hunter
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Jessica looked up at Brodie conspiratorially. ‘We’ve been talking about our favourite romantic moments, Brodie. What do you think is better? Impressing a CFO with your business acumen—and no prizes for guessing who that one belongs to—strewn rose petals on a bed, a knight on a charger or From Here to Eternity?’
Brodie laughed. ‘Are they the only options?’
Amy slapped her hand over Jessica’s mouth—no doubt staving off any mention of dancing cheek to cheek in the Whitsundays.
‘Can’t take her anywhere,’ Amy said, and quickly redirected the conversation.
Kate was relieved. Not only did she not want to hear the Chantal story again—not with Brodie at the table and Scott on approach—but she didn’t want to let any red-blooded male into her guilty From Here to Eternity secret. And especially not Scott, who would laugh himself into apoplexy over it.
Scott had one of his false smiles in place as he handed a chair to Brodie. ‘I had to promise to go back and have a drink with a group on a hen-night bender to get that chair, Brode!’
Brodie laughed as he took the chair. ‘Don’t pretend that’s a hardship,’ he said, and then grimaced an infinitesimal apology as his eyes flickered in Kate’s direction.
Great. Brodie had seen her with Scott for all of ten minutes and yet he knew. Or maybe Scott had shared all the salacious details—perhaps with an offhand And soon she’ll be all yours, Brodie.
Scott carefully didn’t look at her—just positioned himself between Amy and Willa.
Brodie slotted his chair in beside Kate. ‘Ready for tomorrow?’ he asked, raising his voice a little over the rising sound of music that was being cranked up to encourage dancers to take to the floor.
‘I’m still game if you are,’ she said, leaning in close so she could be more easily heard.
‘Oh, I’m game,’ he said with an easy smile.
Such an easy smile. A natural smile. A smile that reached his eyes. Green eyes, like Scott’s—but deep and warm, not cool and cautious.
Amy nudged her shoulder against Scott’s. ‘I told Kate she should have asked you for lessons.’
Scott cast Kate another brooding look and she felt her self blush almost by reflex. Everyone at the table would be working it out any minute if he kept that up.
‘I sold my boat,’ he said.
‘Well, you could hire one, couldn’t you?’ Amy asked. ‘What would it cost? To hire you and a boat and learn how to sail?’
‘Well…’ Scott said, and rubbed a jaw darkened by raspy shadow.
It was the first time Kate had ever seen him anything but clean-shaven. His eyes looked strained too. Tired. And she was an idiot, with no instinct for self-preservation, because she wanted to hug him, and kiss him, and tell him to take better care of himself—
‘I’d say…’ Scott began again, with another look at Kate ‘… five thousand dollars? Or the barter system is okay. Trade a service for a service.’
—and kill him. She wanted to kill him.
Amy looked shocked. ‘Man, that’s expensive.’
‘But worth it,’ Scott said. One more look at Kate, and then he turned to Willa to say something.
The conversation ebbed and flowed around Kate as, silent, she pondered the way her evening had started—four friends sharing their secret longings for romance. But Willa’s was real. Whereas Kate’s…? Pure Hollywood. Never going to happen.
And it was probably time she admitted that she wanted it to be real. Wanted what Willa had. Wanted someone to trust her with his life.
Because she could be trusted.
People trusted her with their lives every day. They trusted her to extricate them from bad marriages with a whole skin and the means to live. They trusted her to do the best thing for their children. They trusted her to find a way for them to achieve closure, and keep their dignity, and get a fair deal.
They trusted her…before moving on with their lives without her.
And that wasn’t enough any more.
She wanted someone who trusted her but didn’t want to move on with his life without her. She wanted someone complicated and creative, and strong and principled, and smart and funny, and sexy and…and…hers.
She wanted love. She wanted, specifically, Scott Knight to love her. Not just the scent, the taste, the feel of her…but the whole of her. Wanted to trust him with her life and wanted him to trust her with his.
She wanted him to tell her about growing up never feeling quite good enough, and she wanted to make sure he knew that he was. Good enough for anything—for everything.
She wanted Scott to tell her about Weeping Reef. About Chantal and Brodie. How he’d felt, what it had meant, what it had done to him to feel so betrayed, if it still ate at him.
She wanted to tell him she would never, ever hurt him like that. That she would never betray him. Couldn’t betray him. That she—
‘Kate?’
Brodie—pulling her back.
‘Refill?’ he asked, nodding at her glass, which was empty again.
‘No,’ she said, and tried to smile. ‘And that’s my last—so don’t worry. There’ll be no heave-hoing over the gunwales tomorrow.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve held a girl’s hair out of the way, so don’t sweat it for my sake, Katie.’
Scott clunked his beer glass on the table. Loud enough to make Amy, sitting beside him, jump.
‘Kate—not Katie,’ he said. And then he turned back to Willa as though he hadn’t just bowled that out loud and livid enough for everyone to marvel at, and asked, ‘When’s Luke coming home?’
After a stunned moment, Willa gathered herself enough to speak. ‘No immediate plans, as far as I’m aware. He’s in the middle of a deal in Singapore he won’t tell me anything about. Confidential, apparently.’
‘Confidential,’ Amy repeated, but the tone of her voice—all dark, when Amy was basically the brightest, shiniest girl in the world—made Kate wonder if perhaps she wasn’t the only one hitting the cocktails a little too hard.
‘Yeah,’ Willa said, a little uneasily. ‘He’s like a clam about stuff like that.’
Amy looked straight at Scott. ‘But you know.’
‘About Singapore?’ Scott asked. ‘Nope.’
‘Not Singapore. I mean what happened at Weeping Reef.’
Kate wondered what she was missing and looked around at the others. Willa was looking startled—everyone else confused.
Scott half sighed, half laughed, winced. ‘I think we all know what happened at Weeping Reef.’
‘I knew he’d told you. You know—at Willa’s party—when you said that…that thing about a gentleman never telling a lady’s secrets.’
Nobody spoke.
‘Amy,’ Scott said into the awkward pause, ‘if you think I have a lady’s secret to tell—one that doesn’t involve me getting up to no good with a hooker called Lorelei…’ He waited while everyone at the table except a cringing Kate and a startled-looking Amy laughed. ‘Then please fill me in. Otherwise I’m going to go and fulfil my obligation to that clutch of hens—or flock, or brood, or whatever the hell a group of chickens is called. The ones who donated a chair to our cause when I first arrived.’
He