He tried his best disarming grin and she deliberately glanced away. Living with him for the week might be logical for business, but having to deal with his natural charm around the clock was not good.
‘Anything I can do to sweeten the deal?’
Great—he was laying the charm on thick. Her gaze snapped to his in time to catch his damnably sexy mouth curving at the corners. Her lips tingled in remembrance of how he’d smile against her mouth when he had her weak and whimpering from his kisses.
Furious at her imploding resistance, she eyeballed him with the glare that had intimidated the manager at her mum’s special accommodation into giving her another extension on payment.
‘Yeah, there is something you can do to sweeten the deal.’ She stabbed at an envelope with a fingertip and slid it across the desk towards him. ‘Sign off on my new rates. Your PA hasn’t responded to my last two e-mails and I need to get paid.’
His smile faded as he took the envelope. ‘You’re having financial problems?’
If he only knew.
‘No. I just like to have my accounts done monthly, and you’ve always been prompt in the past...’
Blessedly prompt. The Torquay Tan account had single-handedly launched her business into the stratosphere and kept it afloat. If she ever lost it...
In that moment the seriousness of the situation hit her. She shouldn’t be antagonising Archer. She should be jumping through whatever hoop he presented her with—adding a somersault and a ta-da flourish for good measure.
She had to secure this new campaign. CJU Designs would skyrocket in popularity, and her mum would continue to be cared for.
She had no other option but to agree.
‘Just so we’re clear. If I accompany you to Torquay, the surf school campaign is mine?’
His mocking half salute did little to calm the nerves twisting her belly into pretzels.
‘All yours, Cal.’
She didn’t know what unnerved her more. The intimate way the nickname he’d given her dripped off his tongue or the way his eyes sparked with something akin to desire.
She should be ecstatic that she’d secured the biggest campaign of her career.
Instead, as her pulse ramped up to keep pace with her flipping heart, all she could think was at what price?
* * *
Archer didn’t like gloating. He’d seen enough of it on the surf circuit—arrogant guys who couldn’t wait to glory over their latest win.
But the second Callie’s agreement to accompany him to Torquay fell from her lush lips he wanted to strut around the office with his fists pumping in a victory salute.
An over-the-top reaction? Maybe. But having Callie by his side throughout the Christmas Eve wedding festivities—even if she didn’t know it yet—would make the event and its guaranteed emotional ra-ra bearable.
He’d suffered through enough Torquay weddings to know the drill by now. Massive marquees, countless kisses from extended rellies he didn’t know, back-slapping and one-upmanship from old mates, and the inevitable matchmaking between him and every single female under thirty in the whole district.
His mum hated the dates he brought home each year, and tried to circumvent him with less-than-subtle fix-ups: notoriously predictable, sweet, shy local girls she hoped would tempt him to settle down in Torquay and produce a brood of rowdy rug-rats.
It was the same every wedding. The same every year, for that matter, when he returned home for his annual visit. A visit primarily made out of obligation rather than any burning desire to be constantly held up as the odd one out in the Flett family.
It wasn’t intentional, for his folks and his brothers tried to carry on as if nothing had happened, but while he’d forgiven them for shutting him out in the past the resultant awkwardness still lingered.
He’d steadily withdrawn, stayed away because of it, preferring to be free. Free to go where he wanted, when he wanted. Free from emotional attachments that invariably let him down. Free to date fun-loving, no strings attached women who didn’t expect much beyond dinner and drinks rather than an engagement and a bassinet.
His gaze zeroed in on Callie as she fielded an enquiry on the phone, her pen scrawling at a frenetic pace as she jotted notes, the tip of her tongue protruding between her lips.
Callie had been that girl once. The kind of girl who wanted the picket fence dream, the equivalent of his ultimate nightmare. Did she still want that?
The finger on her left hand remained ringless, he saw as he belatedly realised he should have checked if she was seeing anyone before coercing her into heading down to Torquay on the pretext of business when in fact she’d be his date for the wedding.
Then again, she’d agreed, so his assumption that she was currently single was probably safe.
Not that she’d fallen in with his plan quickly. She’d made him work for it, made him sweat. And he had a feeling her capitulation had more to do with personal reasons than any great desire to make this campaign the best ever.
That flicker of fear when she’d thought he might walk and take his business with him... Not that he would have done it. Regardless of whether she’d wanted to come or not CJU would have had the surf school campaign in the bag. She’d proved her marketing worth many times over the last few years, and while he might be laid back on the circuit he was tough in his business.
Success meant security. Ultimately success meant he was totally self-sufficient and didn’t have to depend on anyone, for he’d learned the hard way that depending on people, even those closest to you, could end in disappointment and sadness and pain.
It was what drove him every day, that quest for independence, not depending on anyone, even family, for anything.
After his folks’ betrayal it was what had driven him away from Callie.
He chose to ignore his insidious voice of reason. The last thing he needed was to get sentimental over memories.
She hung up the phone, her eyes narrowing as she caught sight of him lounging in the doorway. ‘You still here?’
‘We’re not finished.’
He only just caught her muttered, ‘Could’ve fooled me.’
As much as it pained him to revisit the past, he knew he’d have to bring it up in order to get past her obvious snit.
He did not want a date glaring daggers at him all night; his mum would take it as a sure-fire sign to set one of her gals onto him.
‘Do we need to clear the air?’
She arched an eyebrow in an imperious taunt. ‘I don’t know. Do we?’
Disappointed, he shook his head. ‘You didn’t play games. One of the many things I admired about you.’
Her withering glare wavered and dipped, before pinning him with renewed accusation. ‘We had a fling in the past. Yonks ago. I’m over it. You’re over it. There’s no air to clear. Ancient history. The next week is business, nothing more.’
‘Then why are you so antagonistic?’
She opened her mouth to respond, then snapped it shut, her icy façade faltering as she ran a hand through her hair in another uncertain tell he remembered well.
She’d done it when they’d first met at a beachside vendor’s, when they’d both reached for the last chilled lemonade at the same time. She’d done it during their first dinner at a tiny trattoria tucked into an alley. And she’d done it when he’d taken her back to his hotel for the first time.
In every instance he’d banished her uncertainty with practised charm, but after the way