Perfect boating weather.
Dougy and the other two workers had gone home; the photographer had departed, as had the paparazzi. It was just him and Ava signing off on the reno. Dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s.
They were, once again, at the kitchen island bench—him on one side, her on the other. Ava was sipping a glass of white wine while something delicious cooked on the state-of-the-art cooktop behind him. She’d offered him a beer but he’d declined. She’d offered to feed him but he’d declined that also.
No way was he spending a second longer with Ava than he absolutely had to.
Although the aromas of garlic and basil swirling around him were making him very aware of his empty stomach and his even more empty fridge.
He was also very aware of her. She’d pulled on some raggedy-arsed shorts and a thin, short-sleeved, zip-up hoodie thing over her bikini. The zip was low enough to catch a glimpse of cleavage and a hint of red material as she leaned slightly forward when she asked a question. But that wasn’t what was making him aware of her.
God knew she’d swanned around the house in varying states of undress for the last three months.
No. It was the way she was caressing the bench-top that drew his eye. As he walked her through the paperwork the palm of her hand absently stroked back and forth along the glassy maple-wood. He’d learned she was a tactile person and, despite his animosity towards her, he liked that.
She’d handed the décor decisions over to a high-priced consultant who had gone for the typical home-and-garden, money-to-burn classy minimalist. But it was the accessories that Ava had chosen that showed her hedonistic bent. Shaggy rugs, chunky art, the softest mohair throws in vibrant greens and reds and purples for the lounges, beaded wall hangings, a collection of art deco lamps, layers and layers of colourful gauzy fabric falling from the ceiling in her bedroom to form a dazzling canopy over her girly four-poster bed.
Even the fact that she’d chosen a wooden kitchen amidst all the glass and metal told him something about her. He’d have thought for sure she’d have chosen black marble and acres of stainless steel. But clearly, from the smell of dinner, Ava loved to cook and spent a lot of time in the kitchen.
Blake wasn’t much of a cook but he loved wood. The family business, until recent times, had been a saw mill and his earliest memories revolved around the fresh earthy smell of cut timber. His grandfather, who had founded the mill fifty year prior, had taught both him and Charlie how to use a lathe from a very early age and Blake had been hooked. He’d worked in the mill weekends and every school holidays until he’d joined up.
He’d personally designed, built and installed the kitchen where they were sitting and something grabbed at his gut to see her hand caressing his creation as she might caress a lover.
‘So,’ he said as their business concluded, and he got his head back in the game, ‘if you’re happy that everything has been done to your satisfaction, just sign here and here.’
Blake held out a pen and indicated the lines requiring her signature. Then held his breath. Tactile or not, Ava Kelly had also been demanding, difficult and fickle.
He wasn’t counting his chickens until she’d signed on the dotted lines!
* * *
Ava glanced at the enigmatic Blake Walker through her fringe. She’d never met a man who wasn’t at least a little in awe of her. Who didn’t flirt a little or at least try it on.
But not Blake.
He’d been polite and unflappable even when she’d been at her most unreasonable. And she knew she’d been unreasonable on more than one occasion. Just a little. Just to see if he’d react like a human being for once instead of the face of the business—composed, courteous, respectful.
She’d almost got her reaction this afternoon when he’d been on the phone and she’d asked him to shift his car. The tightening of his mouth, that eyebrow raise had spoken volumes. But he’d retreated from the flash of fire she’d seen in his indigo eyes and a part of her had been supremely disappointed.
Something told her that Blake Walker would be quite magnificent all riled up.
Charlie, the more easy-going of the brothers, had said that Blake had been in the army so maybe he was used to following orders, sucking things up?
Ava reluctantly withdrew her hand from the cool smoothness of the bench-top to take the pen. She loved the seductive feel of the beautiful wood and, with Blake’s deep voice washing over her and the pasta sauce bubbling away in the background, a feeling of contentment descended. It would be so nice to drop her guard for once, to surrender to the cosy domesticity.
To the intimacy.
Did he feel it too or was it just her overactive imagination after months of building little fantasies about him? Fantasies that had been getting a lot more complex as he had steadily ignored her.
Like doing him on this magnificent bench-top. A bench-top she’d watched him hone day after day. Sanding, lacquering. Sanding, lacquering. Sanding, lacquering. Layer upon layer until it shone like the finest crystal in the discreet down lights.
Watching him so obviously absorbed by the task. Loving the wood with his touch. Inhaling its earthy essence with each flare of his nostrils. Caressing it with his lingering gaze.
She could have stripped stark naked in front of him as he’d worked the wood and she doubted he would have noticed.
And for a woman used to being adored, being ignored had been challenging.
Ava dragged her mind off the bench-top and what she was doing to an unknowing Blake on top of it. ‘I’m absolutely...positively...one hundred per cent...’ she punctuated each affirmation with firm strokes of the pen across the indicated lines ‘...happy with the job. It’s totally fab. I’m going to tell all my friends to use you guys.’
* * *
Blake blinked. That he hadn’t been expecting. A polite, understated thank-you was the best he’d been hoping for. The very last thing he’d expected was effusive praise and promised recommendations to what he could only imagine would be a fairly extensive A list.
He supposed she expected him to be grateful for that but the thought of dealing with any more Ava Kellys was enough to bring him out in hives.
‘Thank you,’ he said non-comittally.
She smiled at him as she pushed the papers and the pen back across the bench-top. Like her concern earlier it seemed genuine, unlike the haughty can’t-touch-this smile she was known for in the modelling world, and he lost his breath a little.
The down lights shone off her now dry caramel-blonde hair pulled into some kind of a messy knot at her nape, the fringe occasionally brushing eyelashes that cast long shadows on her cheekbones. Her eyes were cat-like in their quality, both in the yellow-green of the irises and in the way they tapered down as if they were concealing a bunch of secrets.
Yeh, Ava Kelly was a very attractive woman.
But he’d spent over a decade in service to his country having his balls busted by the best and he wasn’t about to line up for another stint.
Blake gathered the paperwork and shoved it in his satchel, conscious of her watching him all the time. His leg ached and he couldn’t wait to get off it.
He was almost free. She was almost out of his life for good.
He picked up the satchel and rounded the bench-top, his limp a little more pronounced now as stiffness through his hip hindered his movement. He pulled up in front of her when she was an arm’s length away. He held out his hand and gave her one of his smiles that Joanna called barely there.
‘We’ll