Willa’s eyes shot open and she bolted upright in bed. Fudge, was that the doorbell? That couldn’t be the doorbell, there was no way that it was eleven already …
Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
Dammit, it was the doorbell, and the doorbell meant guests. Arrrggghhhhh. She was in such trouble …
Rob groaned and opened one eye. Willa glared down at him. ‘This is your fault!’ she hissed.
‘Huh? Why?’
Willa shot out of bed and ran to her walk-in closet, reaching for clean underwear and a pair of shorts. Grabbing a denim pair that were more holes than fabric, she yanked them on.
‘“I want to take you here, on this lounger, in the morning sun …’” Willa growled, imitating his deep voice. ‘“Just come back to bed for a little while,” you said. “we have time,” you said!’
‘We must have dozed off.’ Rob rolled over, taking the sheets with him, and squinted at his watch. ‘Huh—ten-forty. Someone is early. Either way, it seems we’re out of time.’
‘You think, Einstein?’ Willa barked, yanking on a tank top and pulling her hair up into a haphazard tail. ‘I need a shower, to brush my teeth …’
‘Slow down, gorgeous …’ Rob suggested, standing up and stretching.
Willa glared at him as the doorbell chimed again. ‘Keep your pants on,’ she muttered, and then pointed to Rob. ‘You too, hotshot.’
Rob grinned at her. ‘I’m going to have a shower first …’
‘I hate you!’ Willa barked, before rushing out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
Through the stained glass windows of the door she could see two people on the other side. Yanking it open, she was relieved to see Amy and Jessica on her front steps.
‘Thank God it’s you!’ she stated, holding her hand to her head, hoping to keep it from exploding. God, she had the headache from hell. What had been in those cocktails? Liquid mercury?
‘Are you okay, Wills? You look … frazzled,’ Amy said.
‘I am frazzled,’ Willa admitted. ‘God, can I cancel this?’
Amy stepped into the double volume hall and whistled her appreciation as she turned in a circle. ‘Hell, no, you’re not cancelling a damn thing—and … wow, Wills, this house is a hell of a divorce settlement.’
‘Kate’s a hell of a divorce lawyer.’
And she wasn’t letting Willa settle for just a house. She was, as she frequently told Willa, better and meaner than that.
Willa took a seat on the bottom step of the floating staircase. ‘She’s the sharpest tool in the shed; you’d like her, Amy.’
‘If she’s helping you bury Wayne-the-Pain then I like her already,’ Amy agreed.
The Pain. Such an apt moniker.
‘Anyway … can we concentrate, here? I have a cracking headache from those cocktails, I have God knows how many people arriving at any minute, and I have nothing—repeat, nothing!—in this house to feed or lubricate them.’
Amy frowned. ‘Did you forget you invited us?’
‘Sorta … kinda…. yeah.’ She couldn’t tell her friend that she’d been having too much fun playing with Rob to think about her guests. ‘What am I going to doooooo?’
‘You are going to go and have a shower. Jessica will greet anyone who arrives and Amy will shoot to the shops and grab food and drink.’
The deep, masculine, made-for-sin voice floated down the stairs.
Willa watched as Jessica and Amy’s heads shot up and quickly turned to see Rob, his hair wet from his ultra-quick shower, dressed in his clothes from the night before, walking down the stairs, bare feet sticking out from the ragged hem of his jeans. Their surprise turned to feminine approval and she groaned as two sets of perfectly arched eyebrows lifted in a silent question.
‘Way to go, Wills.’
Willa threw her hands up in defeat at Amy’s mischievous murmur. ‘Ah … Rob. Rob stayed over …’
‘I can see that,’ Amy stated with a grin.
Willa caught Amy’s eye and saw the glint of sisterly pride in her eye. So, didja have fun? she could imagine her asking, if Jessica and Rob hadn’t been there.
So much fun.
Thought you would. He looks the type who knows what he’s doing.
You have no idea, old friend.
‘You two done with your telepathic conversation?’ Jessica demanded as she put out her hand and hauled Willa to her feet. ‘Go shower, Willa. Amy, let’s take a look and see what Willa has so that you know what to buy.’
‘Nothing,’ Willa said mournfully. ‘I have nothing.’
‘Why do I have to get the food?’ Amy wailed.
‘Because it was your idea to do this,’ Willa retorted, hand still on her head. ‘There’s a deli down the road. They have everything … Just buy them out and I’ll pay you back.’
Willa looked at Jessica and pointed to her left.
‘Kitchen that way. Through the French doors of the kitchen—and off all the rooms on that side of the house—is a covered patio and the pool. Chairs, tables—all outside. Outside kitchen … grill. Go wild.’
Amy whistled her appreciation. ‘As I said, Wills, it’s a helluva settlement.’
Yeah, Willa thought as she climbed the stairs to the second floor and her bedroom. All I had to do was put up with crap and be an aimless, thick trophy wife for eight years.
ROB TOOK A call on his mobile and thought that if he didn’t get coffee into his system in the next few minutes he’d find himself face-down on Willa’s expensive floor, whimpering like a little girl.
He’d thought he had stamina—he regularly took part in triathlons, ran eight miles five days out of seven, and hit the gym several times a week. Yet rolling around in the sheets with Willa had sucked every last atom of energy from him …
Rob grinned. Best fun he’d had—in or out of bed—for ages.
But now coffee … stat. He’d grab a cup, kiss Willa goodbye and move on out. It was what he did and he did it well … He should—he’d had a hell of lot of practice at it.
Shoving his mobile into the back pocket of his jeans, he walked across the hall towards the feminine voices drifting down the passage from what he presumed was the kitchen.
‘So, did you ever meet Willa’s husband?’
Rob slammed to a stop and cursed … She was married?
Crap, crap, crap. He didn’t do married women—it was one of his hell, no! rules. She didn’t wear a ring but … crap!
‘About to be ex-husband,’ Amy corrected, and he resumed breathing again. ‘They’ve been separated for about eight months.’
Good—that was good. Not perfect, but a helluva lot better than married.
‘What’s he like?’
Rob leaned his shoulder into the wall a couple of metres away from the kitchen door, knowing that if he went in Willa’s friends would stop talking. Girls tended not to dish the dirt on about-to-be-exes when the guy one