‘Can I help you?’ Lily attempted to greet him as she would any other newcomer to the centre, by walking across to him and trying to put them at ease—not that this man appeared remotely uncomfortable. Quite literally he oozed confidence. It was Lily who was having trouble remembering how her legs worked, Lily feeling like a child in her mother’s high heels as she teetered across the room and offered her hand to this stunning stranger. ‘I’m Lily Harper.’
‘Then I’m in the right place,’ he drawled in a very well-schooled voice, ‘I’m here to join the New Beginnings Group.’
‘Oh!’ Lily blinked, and then corrected herself, trying to remember to treat him like a mortal, trying and failing not to judge, to attempt to fathom what could possibly have bought him there. ‘Well, welcome!’ She was still holding his hand, pumping it up and down as if she expected to find water! ‘I just need you to fill in a form.’
‘Sure.’
Sure, Lily repeated to herself, peeling her fingers from his hot grasp, trying not to appear flustered as she made her way to the table and handed him a clipboard with the necessary form attached. Only she was flustered—very!
He smelt divine, like walking past the aftershave counter at an exclusive department store, Lily thought as she absorbed the heavy scent he emanated, trying not to notice the piercing blue of his eyes or the chiselled planes of his impossibly handsome face. ‘Do you need a pen?’
‘Please.’ He stared at the rather grubby, very well-chewed pen that was being offered and then without a word declined, heading over to his jacket and producing one he, no doubt, deemed more suitable, before coming back to the table where Lily was now thankfully seated. The chatter in the room resumed again, but rather more subdued now, everyone’s ears on elastic, trying to hear his answers as Lily walked him through the form.
‘There’s no need to put your surname,’ Lily commented, ‘or your address, though we do ask for your postcode.’
‘Fine.’ He was sitting loosely cross-legged beside her, resting the clipboard on one long slender thigh, leaving it for Lily to guess where he was up to on the form. ‘I like your sandals, by the way.’ Somehow he managed to address the form and run an experienced eye along the length of her calves right down to her toes, which Lily felt curl on cue.
‘Thank you.’ Lily coughed, every exposed inch of flesh blushing as she tried to concentrate on the blessed form. ‘We ask for your salary range—if it falls in one of top three categories—’
‘It does,’ he interrupted.
‘Then in that case…’ Lily gave another small cough—more than anything she hated discussing money. ‘We ask if you’d consider paying towards the cost of the session—depending what category you’re in…’
‘The top one.’ He squinted at the piece of paper. ‘Easily.’
‘Then we ask you to contribute fifty dollars, but you can always pay next time if you don’t have it with you tonight, and if for some reason finding the money is a problem, please, don’t let it stop you from coming to the sessions—it really is a voluntary contribution.’
‘It’s no problem.’ He pulled out a very sleek wallet and peeled off a note.
‘I’ll write you a receipt.’
‘There’s really no need.’ He resumed filling in the form as Lily ignored him and started to fill in a receipt. ‘Tell me something.’ Thick beautiful eyebrows almost met as he frowned over at her. ‘Why, if someone is earning in the top category, would you offer for them not to pay? It doesn’t make good business sense.’
‘This isn’t a business.’ Lily smiled. ‘New Beginnings is a community-funded programme—it’s available to everyone, rich or poor. Anyway, for all I know…’ She stopped talking then, but still he stared.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, you might have just come from the casino and lost everything, your business might have collapsed. There are many reasons people find themselves at this sort of group—it certainly isn’t for me to judge your circumstances solely on the box you tick.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ He frowned down at the last bit of the form. ‘What exactly do you want to know here?’
‘Well, as the question suggests, we’re trying to find out what brought you to New Beginnings.’
‘It was suggested to me.’ He shrugged.
‘What do you hope to get out of it, then?’ Lily smiled patiently. ‘Most people are here for a reason, they’re hoping to change a part of their life or want some guidance with goal setting, to help them move onto a better one—it just helps me if I know what you’re hoping to achieve…’ Her voice trailed off as he started writing again, and she couldn’t be sure but there was a slight smirk on his mouth as, tongue clearly in cheek, he finished off the form and handed it back.
‘Thank you,’ Lily said, deliberately not peeking at what he had written, though she was aching to! ‘Here’s your receipt. Now, we’ll be moving through to the meeting room in five minutes or so. If you’d like to grab a coffee before we start, you’re very welcome.’ She pointed over to the urn, but he shook his head.
‘Just an iced water, thanks.’
He was joking, surely! But from the expression on his face he was clearly expecting her to stand up and fetch it for him, clearly very used to having people run around after him.
Well, not here!
It was Lily shaking her head now, managing not to smirk as she answered his rather derisive request.
‘There’s a water fountain at the entrance.’ She gave a very sweet smile. ‘Please, help yourself to a polystyrene cup!’
Hunter.
She stared at his extravagant handwriting, trying to glean a little more from his rather sparse summing-up on the form. He was 32 years old, he came from an exclusive city suburb and earned in excess of the top box. None of that came as a surprise—everything about him screamed of excess, from the exquisite tailoring of his suit that skimmed his sculpted body to the flash of a heavy gold watch on his wrist and the bunch of notes he’d peeled the fifty-dollar one from. Even those icy blue eyes hinted at excess, slightly bloodshot with purple smudges beneath them, and the tiny squint as he had filled in the form had Lily wondering if he was recovering from one too many nights on the town.
Hunter Myles—even though he hadn’t put his surname down, suddenly it came to her—that rather dangerous face placed now. He was a brilliant financier—not that Lily read the business pages much, she only skimmed through them if they’d moved her horoscope—but Hunter Myles had become somewhat the darling of housewives everywhere, writing the odd quirky little piece in magazines and offering share tips that over and over had proven golden. And now he appeared occasionally on breakfast television and regularly in all the social pages—a loose cannon in the staid world of finance, his party lifestyle legendary in the last year or so since…Lily frowned in concentration. There had been some tragedy, some accident, something that had sent him skidding off the rails in such spectacular style…Oh, what was it, now? And what, Lily wondered, was he hoping to achieve from New Beginnings? Staring at the form, Lily raised a neatly plucked eyebrow.
Inner peace!
Oh, his tongue had been firmly in cheek as he’d written it. Lily had seen the smirk on his face, known that he was being glib—but there was one tiny chink in his impressive armor that she’d noticed, manicured but undoubtedly bitten nails had drummed on the table as he’d spoken and there had been a restless energy that had belied his confident stance. He might have been joking when he’d written it but, like everyone else, maybe inner peace was what Hunter was seeking.
‘Welcome, everyone.’ Lily beamed around the meeting