A Groom For The Taking: The Wedding Date

At least it hadn’t yet.

Time was what she needed. Time and space, so that the boundaries of her life weren’t defined by the monstrous number of hours she spent deep inside Bradley’s overwhelming creative vision. Thanks heavens for the long weekend!

Actually, time, space and meeting a guy would do it for sure. A guy who might actually stand a chance in hell of feeling that way about her.

He was out there. Somewhere. She was sure of it. He had to be. Because she absolutely wasn’t going to settle for anything less than everything. She’d seen first-hand what ‘settling’ looked like in the first of the three marriages her mother had leapt into after her father passed away. It wasn’t pretty. In fact it was downright sordid. That wasn’t going to be her life.

She blinked as her boss’s beautifully chiselled face came into such sharp focus her breath caught in her throat. He was something. But any woman who hoped in Bradley Knight’s direction was asking for heartache. Many had tried. Many more yet would. But nobody on earth would topple that mountain.

She grabbed the wayward swathe of hair flickering across her face and tucked it behind her ear, plastered a smile across her face, and bounded back to the table. Bradley didn’t look up. Didn’t even flicker a lash. He probably hadn’t even realised she’d left.

‘Wasn’t she a lovely lady?’ Hannah sing-songed. ‘We’re sending her daughter a signed copy of last season’s Voyagers.‘

‘Why me?’ Bradley asked, still looking into the distance.

She knew he wasn’t talking about posting a DVD. ‘You were just born lucky,’ she said wryly.

‘You think I’m lucky?’ he asked.

‘Ooh, yeah. Fairies sprinkled fortune dust on your cradle as you slept. Why else do you think you’ve been so ridiculously successful at everything you’ve ever set your heart on?’

His head swung her way. Even with the dark sunglasses between them, the force of his undivided attention was like a thunderclap. Her heart-rate quadrupled in response.

His voice was a touch deeper when he said, ‘So, in your eyes, my life has nothing to do with hard work, persistence, and knowing just enough about man’s primal need to prove himself as a man?’

Hannah tapped a finger on her chin and took a few seconds to damp down her own latent needs as she looked up at the cloudy blue sky. Then she said, ‘Nah.’

The appreciative rumble of his laughter danced across her nerves, creating a whole new wave of warmth cascading through her. Enjoying him from the other side of the mile-high walls he wore like a second skin was imprudent enough. Enduring the bombardment of his personal attention was a whole other battle.

‘If you really want to know why you are so lucky, give that lady’s daughter a call. Take her to dinner. Ask her yourself.’ She waved the piece of paper with the woman’s address and phone number on it. ‘Talk about a PR windfall. “Bradley Knight dates fan. Falls in love. Moves to suburbs. Coaches little league team. Learns to cook lamb roast.”’

She could sense his eyes narrowing behind his sunglasses. He then took his sweet time sitting upright. He managed to make the move appear leisurely—inconsequential, even—but the constrained power pulsing through every limb, every digit, every hair was patently clear to anyone with half an instinct. She could feel the blood pumping through her veins.

‘At this moment,’ he said, his voice a deep, dark warning, ‘I am so very, very glad you are my assistant and not in charge of PR.’

Hannah slid the paper into her overstuffed leather diary and said, ‘Yeah, me too. I’m not sure there’s enough money in the world that could tempt me to take on a job whereby I’d have to spend my days trying to convince the world how wonderful you are. I mean, I work hard now—but come on …’

Frown lines appeared above his glasses as he leaned across the table till his forearms covered half the thing. He was so big he blocked out the sun—a massive shadow of a man, with a golden halo outlining his bulk.

Hannah’s fingertips were within touching distance of his. She could feel every single hair on her arms stand to attention one by delicious one. Her feet were tucked so far under her chair—so as to not accidentally scrape against his—she was getting a cramp.

‘Aren’t we in a strange mood today?’ he asked.

His voice was quiet, dropping so very low, and so very much only for her ears she felt it hum in the backs of her knees.

He tilted his chin in her direction. ‘What gives?’

And then he slid his sunglasses from his eyes. Smoky grey they were—or quicksilver—entirely depending on his mood. In that moment they were so dark the colour was impenetrable.

The man was such a workaholic he never looked to her without a dozen instructions ready to be barked. But in that moment he just looked at her. And waited. Hannah’s throat turned to ash.

‘What gives,’ another voice shot back, ‘is that our Hannah’s mind is already turned to a weekend of debauchery and certain nookie.’

Hannah flinched so hard at the sudden intrusion she bit her lip.

Yet through the stinging pain, for a split second, she was almost sure she saw a flicker of something that looked a heck of a lot like disappointment flash across Bradley’s face. Then his eyes lowered to her swollen lip, which she was lapping at with her tongue.

Then, as though she had been imagining the whole thing, he glanced away, leaned back, and turned to the owner of that last gem of a comment.

‘Sonja,’ he drawled. ‘Nice of you to show up.’

‘Pleasure,’ Sonja said.

‘Perfect timing,’ Hannah added, her voice breathier than she would have hoped. ‘Bradley was just about to offer me your job.’

Sonja didn’t even flinch, but the flicker of amusement in Bradley’s cheek made her feel warm all over. She shut down her smile before it took hold. Not only was Sonja Bradley’s PR guru, she was also Hannah’s flatmate. And the only reason she knew how to use a blowdryer and had access to the kind of non-jeans-and-T-shirt-type clothes that filled her closet.

Sonja perched her curvaceous self upon a chair and crossed her legs, her eyes never once leaving her iPhone as one black-taloned finger skipped ridiculously fast over the screen.

In fact her stillness gave Hannah a sudden chill. She clapped a hand over her friend’s phone, and Sonja blinked as though coming round from a trance.

Hannah said, ‘If you are even thinking of Tweeting anything about my upcoming weekend off and debauchery and nookie, or anything along those lines—even if I am named “anonymous Knight Productions staffer”—I will order a beetroot burger and drop it straight on this dress.’

Sonja’s dark gaze narrowed and focussed on the cream wool of the dress Hannah had borrowed from her wardrobe. Slowly she slid her phone into a tiny crocodile skin purse.

‘Why do I feel even more like I’m on the other side of the looking glass from you two than usual?’

Hannah and Sonja both turned to Bradley.

He looked ever so slightly pained as he said, ‘I’m feeling like it’s going to give me indigestion to even bring this up, but I can’t not ask. Debauchery? Nookie?’

At the word ‘debauchery’ his eyes slid to Hannah—dark, smoke-grey, inscrutable—before sliding back to Sonja. It was only a fraction of a second. But a fraction was plenty long enough to take her breath clean away.

Boy, did she need a holiday. And now!

Sonja motioned for an espresso as she said, ‘For an ostensibly smart man, if it doesn’t involve you or your mountains, you have the memory of a sieve. This is the weekend our Hannah is heading back home to the delightful southern island of Tasmania, to play bridesmaid at her sister Elyse’s wedding—which she organised.’

His eyes slid back to Hannah, and this time they stayed. ‘That’s this weekend?’

Hannah blinked at him. Slowly. She’d told him as much at least a dozen times in the past fortnight, yet it had clearly not sunk in. It was just what she needed in order to finally become completely unscrambled.

Sonja had been spot-on. Bradley had a one-track mind. And if something didn’t serve him it didn’t exist.

‘I have the New Zealand trip this weekend,’ he said.

‘Yes, you do.’ Hannah glanced at her watch. ‘And I’m off the clock in ten minutes. Sonja? What are your plans?’

Sonja grinned from ear to ear at the sarcasm dripping from Hannah’s words. ‘I’ll be sitting all alone in our little apartment, feeling supremely jealous. For this weekend you will have your absolute pick.’