Читать книгу Innocent 'til Proven Otherwise - Amy Andrews - Страница 7

‘TWO shots of tequila and keep them coming.’

Aleisha Gregory groaned at Kat’s choice of Friday-night poison as she reluctantly plonked herself on the bar seat next to the leggy blonde. Saturday night was usually tequila night and she knew from experience that the Mexican liquor had a nasty habit of making her friend’s clothes fall off, usually with wildly inappropriate men.

Which was fine. Kat was a grown woman after all. Until the panicked phone call she always received at the crack of dawn the next day asking to be picked up from a strange address and the ensuing couple of days of vocal self-loathing.

‘Think I’d rather have something with an umbrella.’

After years of drinking sessions with Kat, Aleisha had learned that cocktails went down slower. Besides, it was still Happy Hour and eight-dollar cocktails could not be sneezed at.

Kat glanced at her friend and tisked. ‘Ali, Ali, Ali. You city girls, no stamina.’ She turned back to the boy/man behind the bar. ‘Make it two daiquiris instead. And if you could make them all pretty and pink you will hold a special place in my heart for ever.’

Ali watched as Kat batted her eyes at the bartender. His pronounced Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively once, twice, before he practically fell over himself to fill Kat’s orders. Ali wouldn’t mind betting he could make a daiquiri with polka dots if Kat had requested it.

She rolled her eyes at her friend. ‘He’s a child, Katarina.’

Kat ignored her. ‘Right,’ she said, looking around the dimly lit, half-full bar, her keen eyesight scanning the offerings, probing into corners, assessing tonight’s selection of possibles. ‘Let’s get you hooked up.’

Ali shook her head. ‘Kitty Kat, since when have I ever hooked up?’

‘Precisely!’ Kat poked Ali in the shoulder. ‘Maybe if you’d hooked up a little more often you might not have ended up with Terrible Tom.’

Ali winced. Kat’s insights could be a little brutal from time to time. ‘Well, I didn’t end up with him, did I?’

‘That’s only because Two-Timing Tom is a jerk. Trust me, you had a lucky escape.’

Ali blew a persistent curl out of her eye. Funny, she didn’t feel lucky. Tonight she was surprised to realise she still felt a little raw. Even a year down the track.

Admittedly, it has been a particularly heinous year.

The bartender placed their cocktails before them with a flourish and Ali watched him blush as Kat bestowed him with her you’re-such-a-big-clever-man smile and then totally ignored him.

‘What happened to your hand?’ Ali asked the besotted bartender.

He looked down at the small red laceration gracing the back of his hand. ‘I was trying to break up a dog fight this arvo.’ He smiled at Kat. ‘One of them took exception.’

Ali rolled her eyes at the lame attempt to impress. ‘Did you get a tetanus shot?’

The bartender dragged his gaze to Ali. ‘Er … no. Should I?’

Ali gave a brisk nod. ‘Absolutely.’

He glanced at Kat, who shrugged. ‘Okay, I will … thanks,’ he said, before withdrawing to take another order.

Kat shook her head at her friend. ‘You’re hopeless.’

Ali sighed. ‘Sorry, can’t help it.’

Kat grinned, then lifted her glass and clinked it against Ali’s. ‘Here’s to getting lucky.’

Ali clinked automatically but knew in her heart she’d settle for just getting through. Getting through this night without completely breaking down and ending up curled in a foetal position on her bed. Mostly she’d been able to put the hurt aside and get on with things. But knowing what was going on over on the other side of town brought it all back into sharp focus.

She looked into the creamy pink swirl of alcohol and figured that a few of these might just do the trick. She matched her friend’s giant-sized swig with one of her own and felt the almost immediate slug as the alcohol hit her square between the eyes.

Ali placed the glass back on the bar. ‘I can do this,’ she said.

Kat nodded. ‘Of course you can.’ And she took another swig. Then she nudged Ali’s shoulder. ‘Guy over the other side of the bar, he’s checking you out.’

Ali thought it highly unlikely anyone would be checking her out when she was sitting next to God’s-gift-to-mankind. Seriously, why would a guy settle for Ms Average when he could take a shot at Ms Holy-Cow? But, used to humouring her friend, she followed Kat’s line of vision anyway.

Okay-looking man. Nice suit. Nice eyes. Nice smile.

Nice. Nice. Nice.

Tom had been nice. In the beginning.

Ali sucked in a breath. Tom’s betrayal with a sultry twenty-year-old redhead had shaken her perennial self-confidence and left her feeling old—at the advanced age of almost thirty—and ugly.

Before that particularly awful experience she’d known, the way a woman did, that she was attractive. Sure, not in Kat’s league, but she hadn’t been blind to the fact that men checked her out. She had good hair, nice skin, a size-twelve figure and a set of D cups.

But this last year, for the first time ever—thanks to Tom—she’d felt downright unattractive. His infidelity had hit her right in the libido.

The guy pushed off the bar and headed towards them. ‘Oh, no,’ Ali groaned, having another swig of cocktail. ‘He’s coming over.’

Kat laughed. ‘Okay now,’ she said hurriedly, reinforcing the ground rules. ‘Tonight is about hooking up. About moving on. It’s not about falling in love or happily-ever-afters. It’s about you getting back up on the horse. About getting out there again.’

Ali sighed. ‘I hated being out there.’ And she had. She’d never been more content than when she’d been part of a couple. ‘I loved being off the horse.’

‘And how’d that work out for you?’

Kat saw her friend’s face fall and was instantly contrite. She squeezed Ali’s hand and dropped her voice lower.

‘I’m sorry, babe, but you have to get past this. Terrible Tom is—’ Kat checked her watch ‘—right at this moment, saying I do to the woman slash child he cheated with while he was engaged to you and you were pregnant with his baby. The very same Tom who broke up with you the day you miscarried, when you were lying in a hospital bed bleeding and sobbing, telling you he never wanted it anyway.’

Ali played with the frosty stem of her glass, barricading her heart from the emotional tumult threatening to consume it. She had to admit, as the guy moved closer, Kat made a very good argument.

‘So I’d say you’re well past due for a little moving-on sex. It’s time, Ali. Tom cut you off at the knees. But it’s been a year—stop letting him win.’

Stop letting him win.

Kat’s advice, brutal as ever, ricocheted around her head. Did she really want to spend the night bumping bits with a stranger? No. But she really didn’t want to spend the night thinking about Tom doing it with his brand-new wife either.

‘Okay,’ she sighed. ‘Okay.’

Kat grinned and nudged her with her shoulder. ‘Just try, Ali, okay? That’s all I ask. And do not, I repeat, do not, diagnose some obscure medical problem the second he sits down.’

‘Okay, okay. I’ll try. I promise.’

Just try. Just try. It chanted in Ali’s brain as Mr Nice plonked down on the bar stool beside her.

‘Hello, ladies, how are we doing tonight?’

Kat squeezed Ali’s hand and plastered a bright smile on her face. ‘Fabulous,’ she beamed. ‘Even better now you’re here.’

‘And what are two gorgeous women such as yourselves doing sitting all alone at a bar?’

Ali shuddered at the easy patter. The guy was obviously well versed in pick-up lines. She braced herself for the inevitable where-have-you-been-all-my-life and studiously ignored his deviated septum and associated nasally inflection.

Just try.

And she did. For five minutes it was all going well. He’d even bought them another daiquiri each. And then he asked the fateful question.

‘So, Ali, what do you do?’

Ali spoke before even thinking the answer through. ‘I’m a brain surgeon.’ She felt Kat tense beside her as Mr Nice threw back his head and laughed. ‘No, really, I am a brain surgeon.’

Or at least she had been until recently.

‘You know, a neurosurgeon?’ she clarified for the grinning man, irritated by his obvious disbelief.

Mr Nice’s smile wavered and then fell and she sensed rather than saw Kat’s shoulders droop.

‘Oh, right, really?’ he said, checking his watch and downing his drink in one swallow. ‘Well, um … nice meeting you ladies but I gotta … uh, rush.’

Ali watched Mr Nice retreat as if she’d just confessed to having Ebola. Kat gave her an exasperated look. ‘What?’ She spread her hands. ‘I never mentioned his obvious sinus problems, not once.’

Kat raised an eyebrow. ‘Neurosurgeon?’

‘I am a neurosurgeon. Why does no one believe me when I say that?’

Kat sighed. ‘Because it’s a cliché, babe.’

‘Being a neurosurgeon is a cliché?’

Good to know that a decade of study and killer shifts had been reduced to a cliché. Well, wasn’t that par for the course for the way her life had been running lately?

Not that it mattered because she was never going back. Ever.

‘No, babe. The line’s a cliché.’ Kat looked at her friend and sighed again. ‘Ali, you gotta know that intimidates men.’

Ali rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t have time in my life for cavemen, Kitty Kat.’

‘Tonight you do, babe. Tonight you do.’

Ali shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t know Kat … I’ve never been very good at this.’

Kat grinned. ‘Well, lucky for you, I am. Now trust me on this, let’s just stick with your current occupation, okay? Remember, the coffee shop?’

Ali hesitated pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. How could she forget?

‘You promised you’d try,’ Kat implored.

‘Okay, fine.’

Max Sherrington reluctantly followed his best friend, Pete, into the bar. God knew he’d rather not be drowning his sorrows in a public place. He had a nice bottle of aged Scotch at home a client had given him that he’d been saving specifically for this day.

The day of the yellow legal envelope.

There was nothing like twenty-year-old whisky to soothe the tension in a man’s shoulders and dull the ache in his chest.

But Pete had insisted. And Max knew that when Pete insisted he rarely took no for an answer. He also knew his friend only had his best interests at heart. Pete had been worried about Max and his antisocial behaviour for the last eighteen months.

Max figured, on this day especially, he could give Pete a little of his time.

He had no doubt his friend, a chick magnet if ever there was one, would pick up within the hour and then he would be free to go home to an empty house and a full bottle.

‘Right, I’ll get the first round,’ Pete said, his eyes swivelling the length and breadth of the bar, his gaze coming to rest on a blonde in a red dress whose legs went all the way up to her armpits.

And look at that—she had a friend.

He smiled and tapped Max on the chest. ‘I think I see the answer to all your problems.’

Max followed Pete’s gaze and almost groaned out loud. ‘Why on earth would I want a Tori clone? I thought I was here to exorcise my wife.’

‘Ex-wife, bud. Ex,’ Pete pointed out.

Ex. That was right. The papers today made it official. He really was going to have to start thinking of her in the past tense.

‘Ex,’ he said grimly.

Pete slapped him on the back. ‘Relax, the blonde’s mine. The cute friend is yours.’

Max looked at the other woman. She had a nice face, large eyes, a little snub nose and a bow mouth. Compared to the artfully made-up blonde, she was quite understated. No make-up save some glossy stuff on her lips, no jewellery, no fuss.

But then there was the hair. A riot of short corkscrew curls, the kind that you couldn’t get at the hairdresser, sprung from her head. They spiralled like spun sugar and reminded him of butterscotch. An errant one flopped down to brush her eyelashes, which she absently blew away as she swished a straw in her glass.

It was difficult not to notice she also had a great rack.

And looked about as impressed to be here as he did.

‘Cute? What the hell am I going to do with cute?’ he demanded as an image of peeling her bra aside slid unbidden into his brain. It annoyed him further. ‘I don’t need cute,’ he grouched.

‘If you ask me—’ Pete grinned ‘—cute is exactly what you need.’

‘I’m doing fine,’ he insisted.

Pete gave his friend an exasperated look. ‘No. You’re not. You’ve been like a bear with a sore head for the last year and a half. You work twelve- and fifteen-hour days, you’ve been through five PAs and the only thing you have to break your killer work schedule is a punishing training regime for your next bloody marathon. Oh, and you haven’t had sex since Tori left.’

Max grimaced. ‘I should never have told you that.’

Pete looked into his best friend’s shut-off gaze. He shook his head. ‘You really need to get laid.’

Max felt his neck muscles tighten further. If he never got involved with another woman, it would be too soon. Celibacy had been working just fine for him.

He shot his friend a grim look. ‘You do know that going without doesn’t actually kill you, right?’

Pete looked at the shell of a man before him. He’d never met a zombie but Max was doing a fairly good impression. ‘I would dispute that.’

Pete glanced back at the blonde, pleased to see she’d spotted him. He smiled at her and she flashed him a dazzler of her own. He turned back to Max. ‘Go and find us somewhere to sit, and remember—when I bring these women over do not tell them you’re a lawyer. People don’t like lawyers.’

Max gave his friend a belligerent stare. That was easy to say when you had them on tap. ‘They do if they ever get in trouble with the law.’

Pete sighed. ‘Not so much then either, buddy.’

Half an hour had passed since Ali had sent Mr Nice packing and things hadn’t got any better. No matter how hard she tried to be cool about picking up men in a bar or going home with a stranger—it just wasn’t her.

‘Oh my God, hottie approaching ten o’clock,’ Kat murmured. ‘He has a friend too.’

Ali glanced in the indicated direction. Yep. He was a hottie. If you were into overt good looks. Having learned the hard way that there was often not a lot of substance behind a pretty face, she wasn’t as thrilled as Kat.

She couldn’t see his friend. Not that it mattered. She downed the dregs of her third daiquiri. ‘Sorry, Kitty Kat, but I’m done. This just isn’t working for me.’

‘No, wait,’ Kat said, grabbing Ali’s hand as it reached for her bag. ‘Okay, fine, don’t have moving-on sex, go home to the apartment and wallow if you want. Just give me another half an hour.’

Kat glanced up at the rapidly approaching man and Ali followed suit. ‘I want that guy,’ she said. ‘So help a girl out. Just stay for a while, occupy his friend for a bit. I don’t want him to feel like a third wheel. This guy could be the one. I don’t want to put his friends offside from the get-go.’

Ali rolled her eyes. For as long as she’d known Katarina she’d been searching for the one. God knew she’d been through enough men in this crazy pursuit. She looked at the pleading in her friend’s ridiculously blue eyes. She guessed it wouldn’t kill her to stay a little longer …

Especially if Kat’s focus was on seducing herself a man rather than finding one for Ali to seduce. She knew how this game went—she’d certainly played it often enough. She knew her role and she knew when to get lost.

‘Okay. Thirty minutes.’

Kat winked. ‘That’s all I need.’

Pete ushered Ali and Kat over to the low table Max had scored. Four padded seats that looked remarkably like footstools were placed evenly around the table.

‘This is Kat and Ali,’ Pete announced to Max, holding Kat’s hand as she lowered herself onto a stool.

Ali rolled her eyes as she sat herself down unaided.

‘And this is Max.’

‘Hi, Max,’ Kat said brightly.

Ali gave an uninterested nod as she stared into her glass and rode the buzz from her fourth daiquiri. It was probably time to stop now.

Max inclined his head politely. ‘Ladies.’

The smooth deep baritone of his voice washed over her like a slow sexy saxophone note and pulled Ali out of the buzz even as it added more bubbles to her blood. She looked up despite herself.

Into two very compelling grey eyes heavily fringed by dark brown lashes. She blinked, surprised by their intensity. By the sadness that lurked in them. By the time she’d widened her gaze to take in all of him a few seconds later, those eyes had totally sucked her in.

She knew all about eyes like that. Had seen them in the mirror every morning for the last year.

‘So,’ Pete said, indicating the daiquiri glasses. ‘Are you ladies celebrating something tonight?’

‘More like commiserating.’ Kat grinned and put her arm around Ali’s shoulder. ‘Ali’s ratfink ex married his trollop an hour ago and I brought her here to get resoundingly drunk.’

‘Ah, well done.’ Pete smiled, holding up his beer bottle and clinking it with Ali’s glass. ‘It’s the Australian way, after all. Our forefathers would be very proud.’

‘Well,’ Kat said, crossing her legs and circling her ankle, ‘she ruled out my first option.’

‘Oh?’ Pete asked, mesmerised by the slow rotation of a fire-engine-red stiletto. ‘What was that?’

‘Voodoo doll.’

Max almost choked on his beer as Pete threw back his head and laughed. Max raised an eyebrow at the woman who had been thrust upon him. Pete had been right—she was cute with her little snub nose and that persistently floppy curl.

It was a shame her olive gaze was so damn serious—it counteracted the cute very effectively. Max would have to be blind not to see the keep out signs.

‘Voodoo doll?’ Max queried.

Ali temporarily lost her train of thought with the combination of his sad eyes and jazz-band voice. Add to that his classic bone structure—pronounced cheekbones, wide jaw—and full mouth bracketed by interesting indents that she guessed were probably dimples were he ever to exercise them, it was hard to find again.

An interesting three-day growth peppered his jaw. It would have looked designer on Pete but the way Max rubbed at it, a little absently, a little harried, added to his jaded appeal.

‘Kat enjoys being dramatic.’ She shrugged, picking up the thread.

‘What a coincidence,’ Max said dryly as he glanced at Pete. He looked back at Ali and rolled his eyes. Her mouth twitched into a small smile and he found himself intrigued despite himself.

Pete ignored his friend. ‘I like it. Maybe we could have done the same for you, Max?’ Pete leaned in close to Kat. ‘Max’s divorce was final today.’

Ali watched as Max’s gaze, which had glinted with humour just seconds ago, grew suddenly bleak again and it stopped the breath in her lungs. He looked as if he’d had his soul sucked out.

And didn’t she know how that felt?

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured.

Max looked directly at her. For a moment he felt a bizarre connection with her, a recognition of a fellow human being in misery. Ali had obviously had it rough too.

He shrugged. ‘C’est la vie.’

Silence fell between the four of them for a moment or two before Pete dived back in. ‘So, Ali, what do you do?’

Ali dragged her gaze from Max to Pete. Not that Pete was even looking at her. She fought the urge to smile. She had to give the man his due—Pete was doing his damnedest to play the charming host. But she didn’t for one moment think Pete gave a rat’s arse what she did.

She slid a sidelong glance at Kat who had tensed. ‘I’m a b—

‘Barista,’ Kat finished.

Ali blinked, not comfortable with her promotion from humble coffee-shop girl to barista. And certainly still not comfortable with the chain of events that had led to her current state of employment.

Even though she loved the simplicity, the freedom of it. Even though it appealed immensely as an alternate career path.

‘Oh, whereabouts? Max and I are often looking for good coffee.’

Ali cleared the emotion from her throat. ‘The River Breeze, at Southbank. It’s Kat’s place.’

A five-minute conversation followed on the merits of different coffees. It required very little input from Ali and Max.

‘That’s excellent,’ Pete murmured. ‘We’ll have to drop by, won’t we, Max?’

Max slid his friend a patient look. ‘Why yes, Pete, we will.’

Ali suppressed a smile. It was obvious Max wanted to be a party to this as much as she did. He looked as if he’d come straight from work, his teal and grey striped tie loosened, his top button undone.

Well, why didn’t they just speed it up? Pete and Kat could barely keep their eyes off each other—why drag it out? Get the regulation chit chat out of the way so she and Max could both leave and tomorrow their friends could justify jumping into bed together at such short acquaintance.

‘And what do you do, Max?’ she asked politely.

Pete, Who was smiling at Kat, jumped in quickly. Too quickly. ‘He’s an accountant.’

Ali looked from Max to Pete and back to Max again. ‘You’re not an accountant, are you?’

Max felt himself smile. It wasn’t something he’d done a lot of lately. It felt foreign so he stopped. ‘No,’ he said dryly, ignoring Pete’s eye roll.

Ali felt the full impact of that brief smile. His dimples became defined and deepened. His grey eyes seemed less bleak. She had to wonder how he’d look in full blown belly laughter. ‘So, what do you really do?’

‘I’m a lawyer.’

Ali’s first instinct was to flee. After all, Tom was a lawyer. Not to mention she was going to spend the next who knew how long—months probably—with a lawyer. A very, very good one apparently.

The best.

Still …

The desire to flee was overwhelming and she pushed up off her chair reflexively. Kat caught her wrist and held tight before Ali even had the chance to lift her backside.

Max ran the back of his knuckles along his jaw, taking time to process Ali’s surprising reaction. ‘You either don’t like lawyers or you’re a fugitive.’

Kat laughed. ‘And they say I’m dramatic. Ratfink ex is a lawyer,’ she explained.

It was an explanation that seemed to satisfy Pete, Max noted. But then Pete had ceased thinking with his head the second he’d laid eyes on Kat.

Max, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure.

‘I’ll get us some more drinks,’ Pete said.

Kat jumped up. ‘I’ll come with you.’

Before either Max or Ali could say no to another the lovebirds were halfway to the bar, Pete’s arm firmly wrapped around Kat’s waist.

And then they were two.