Finally, after such a long time she wondered if he’d heard a word of what she’d said, he nodded. ‘Fair enough.’
Then, after an even more interminable silence, he said, ‘But I know how even the most … thorny of families can have the kind of pull over you nothing else can. And that doesn’t mean you have to take their crap. Not alone, anyway. If that’s a concern in your case, my offer stands.’
She let out a great fat sigh. And, whether it was from the shock of his little insight, or a masochistic streak she was becoming all too familiar with, she threw her hands in the air and said, ‘Fine. Okay.’
‘Okay?’ He perked up. As if he was finding himself quite enjoying playing the hero.
It was irresistible. He was irresistible. And he was going to be her plus one at her sister’s wedding.
She was in mounds and mounds of trouble.
He took her hand, slipped it into the crook of his elbow and helped her off the stool.
‘Come on, kiddo, let’s go see what’s so amazing about the suites in this place.’
‘Prepare to have your socks literally knocked off.’
Glancing up at him as they walked through Reception, arm in arm, her blood fizzing more and more every time her hip bumped against his, she saw an ever so slight curve to his mouth.
Mounds and mounds and mounds of trouble.
THE lift doors opened to reveal a line of people outside the Gatehouse’s basement nightclub. The doof-doof-doof of the beat echoing from behind the bouncer-manned double doors thundered in Hannah’s chest.
It didn’t help that she was overly aware of the big warm man standing so close behind her she could feel the brush of his jeans against her backside every time the line moved.
‘Stop fidgeting,’ Bradley said, his breath brushing her chandelier earring against her bare neck. ‘You look fine.’
‘Thanks,’ she said dryly. But she could hardly tell him the fidgets were all his doing.
The doors opened. Lights flashed over their faces. The line moved forward. Hannah took her chance and arched away from him. The doors closed. Doof-doof-doof.
‘I was serious when I said you should get a guide to take you out for a night tour of Cradle Mountain rather than coming along to this pre-wedding party thing.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Look,’ she said, leaning back so she could drop her voice in case any of the bouncy young things in line were from Elyse’s wedding party, ‘it’s just going to be a bunch of locals, all of whom will pinch me on the cheek and remind me they were there the time I took off down Main Street naked. You’ll be bored out of your mind.’
When he didn’t answer straight away she looked up at him, surprised to find his jaw was clenched. He asked, ‘You took off down Main Street naked?’
The husky timbre of his voice gave her pause before she cleared her throat and explained, ‘I was two, and not overly keen on having a bath that evening.’
The slightly haunted look in his eyes disappeared. ‘You were a tearaway?’
‘Hardly. I was the perfect first child. Studious, polite, a pleaser. I took singing and dancing lessons for four years because Mum wanted me to—even though I’m tone deaf with two left feet. In compensation, when I did have my moments, I made the most of them—usually in front of the entire town.’
‘Coming in?’ the bouncer asked.
Hannah looked up to find they were at the front of the line. And she was still leaning back against her boss as though they were in the middle of a crushing crowd.
She pulled herself upright, rolled her shoulders and said, ‘You betcha.’
The bouncer smiled. ‘Knock ‘em dead.’
Hannah gave him a bright smile, feeling for the first time that night as if maybe she could. As if she was no longer the naked two-year-old, or the gawky, soccer-playing tomboy kid of the local beauty queen. ‘You know what? I’m going to do just that.’
The guy cleared his throat and blushed.
Only when she nodded did he open the door.
Bradley placed his hand against the small of her back and gave her a not too subtle shove. In fact she practically had to trot to stop from falling over.
‘Somebody has a fan,’ Bradley murmured against her ear once they were inside and the doof-doof-doof had become music so loud she could barely hear herself.
‘I do not.’
‘That big, burly bouncer back there thinks you look more than fine tonight. He thinks you look downright gorgeous. And you know what?’
Hannah was feeling so dizzy from the effects of that voice skimming her ear she was amazed she had the ability to speak. ‘What?’
‘He has a point.’
Then the door swung shut behind them, and it was too loud to do anything but shout to be heard.
The club was rocking. Tasmania-style.
There were men with burnt-orange copper mine dust stained into their jeans and the grooves of their hands, mixed with women and men in business suits, twenty-somethings in classic black club attire, and tourists in sensible layers.
And then there was Hannah.
Bradley might not have been to a wedding in his life, but he had seen his fair share of bachelor parties. Leaving studious, polite and pleasing Hannah to her own devices at such a do, looking the way she did, was never going to happen.
Smoky make-up and glossy pink lips. Tousled hair that seemed to shimmer every time she moved. And an outfit that seemed demure at first glance only to cling in all the right places the second she breathed.
Not that his imagination needed help. All that talk of her running naked down Main Street had brought her dash from the bathroom back to the front and centre of his mind. In full 3D. Technicolor. As for her perfume … It had his nostrils flaring like a horse in heat every time she moved.
If she’d come to the wilds of Tasmania looking for a wild fling then she was going the right way about it. Hell, without even turning his head he could see a dozen men checking her out, and the look in their eyes was creating a red mist behind his.
Because he had her back. He’d promised he would, and he was a man of his word.
He moved in closer, putting his hands on her shoulders as she began to snake a path through the club, so he wouldn’t lose her in the crowd. Her hair spilled over his fingers, silky soft. His thumbs rested against the back of her warm neck.
The fact that those men with room keys burning holes in their pockets might consider his touch some kind of brand was their problem.
And possibly, he admitted, his.
It would only take one of those goons to show her the time of her life this long weekend and she’d have reason to wonder if sixty-hour weeks working for a stubborn perfectionist was actually a form of sado-masochism.
Resolve turned to steel inside him. Hannah must have felt it in his grip. She glanced back at him, eyebrows raised in question. He tilted his head towards the bar, and lifted a hand off her shoulder to motion that he needed a drink.
She gave him a thumbs-up and a wide, bright smile. Even in the smoky half-darkness the luminosity in those eyes of hers cut through. Showing the lightness of spirit that made her