felt disappointed when she waved her words away.
‘It’s a long story which you’d probably find boring.’
Strangely, he thought he wouldn’t. Sure, she wasn’t glamorous or glossy, like the women he normally came into contact with, but he had a feeling that Lu was far more interesting than most of the women he met. There was something settled about her...calm, down to earth...wise.
He admired her coolness under pressure. Her assumption that they’d slept together had been funny because she’d had a good excuse to lose it earlier. Instead she’d reined in her emotions and thought the situation through, keeping calm and in control, her emotions in check. He’d been dreading having to deal with a weepy, scared creature and her undramatic reaction had been a very welcome relief.
Impressive. He valued keeping his control and he admired her ability to do the same.
And those eyes, God...a mermaid’s eyes, reflecting the greens and blues and aquas of a tropical sea.
Will rested his head against the back of the wingback chair and thought that his brief visit to Durban had started off on a very interesting note.
THREE
Will turned into the driveway Lu indicated and parked in front of the huge iron gate as she scrabbled in her bag for her keys. He looked through the bars of the gate to the huge, sprawling house with its deep, wraparound veranda and nodded his approval. With a haphazard garden and pitched roof, it looked as a house should—homely and lived in. Big.
Will looked through the gap between the house and the garage and caught a glimpse of the sea. ‘This is home?’
‘Yep,’ Lu said. ‘Thanks for the lift and for coming to the police station with me. You were a lot calmer than Mak would’ve been.’
‘He probably would’ve shouted at you the whole time,’ Will stated calmly.
‘He did go a bit berserk, didn’t he? Sorry about that.’
Will’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. ‘He’s crazy about you. How long have you been together?’
Lu sent him a puzzled look. ‘We’re not. Why would you think that?’
Oh, maybe the fact that he kissed you on your mouth, whirled you around and wouldn’t stop touching you! Freaking big clues!
‘My mistake,’ Will said aloud, but he wasn’t convinced. And that wasn’t jealousy he felt. It couldn’t be. He didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t jealousy.
‘He used to live next door to us and we remained friends when he moved. Mak is just...intense. Protective of me. He adores me, but we’re only friends,’ Lu explained as the gate slid open.
Yeah, and rugby isn’t a contact sport, Will thought as he drove up the circular driveway to her front door. She might think they were only friends, but he was a man and he knew how men acted and thought. How could Mak not want to sleep with her? She was gorgeous! A natural beauty with those incredible eyes...
‘I saw the look on your face...you think that Mak was irresponsible because he lost track of me.’
He couldn’t deny it.
Lu sighed. ‘He isn’t—not really. He just has a lot on his plate, and when he gets time to step away, to socialise, he goes at it full tilt. And I’m not the type of girl that needs to be looked after...Mak knew that I wanted to go home and I knew that he wanted to stay. I’ve left him behind at many functions, so he wouldn’t have thought it unusual. I have taxi companies on speed dial.’
Will just lifted his eyebrows and looked unconvinced.
His mobile rang. He pressed a button on the steering wheel to activate the hands free and greeted his caller. Lu felt that she should give him some privacy to take his call and tried to get out of the car, but his hand on her arm kept her firmly in place.
Through the car speakers somebody whose name she didn’t catch was talking about that afternoon’s press conference and Lu listened as Will was briefed on the questions he could expect.
‘And obviously there will be the usual questions about your ex-wife.’
‘Yeah, OK, I’m so happy to answer those!’ Will barked, obviously frustrated.
She didn’t need a degree in sarcasm to realise that he really didn’t want to answer any questions on his old life, ex-wife and their marriage.
‘Jo’s blonde, gorgeous and successful. You’re handsome, talented and successful. She’s still single. So are you. You were once married and everyone still wants to know what happened to your marriage,’ the voice replied calmly. ‘The press know there’s a story there and they want it.’
‘They can all get...’ Will shot Lu a look and swallowed the word he wanted to use. ‘Stuffed. As per normal, Jo and anything to do with her is off the table, not open for discussion. It was all so long ago you’d think they’d get over it.’
With Will’s hand still holding her arm, Lu stayed where she was and thought that they couldn’t be more different if they tried. Like Mak, like her parents, even her brothers, Will was a breed apart. One of those successful, innately confident, very-sure-of-their-niche-in-the-world people.
She wanted to be like that.
She didn’t have a niche. Her place—her space—had been ripped away when her parents died, and two weeks ago when her brothers had left it had shifted again.
After a decade of the twins being the centre of her world she was alone, and she had to live in this empty house without the daily responsibility of being their guardian. No more suppers to cook, errands to run, parties to keep an eye on. For the first time in her life she wasn’t defined by her relationship to her popular parents and her orphaned twin brothers.
Isolation and loneliness kept creeping closer, and she frequently felt ill-equipped to cope with a life that didn’t have the twins in it. If she wasn’t careful she could slide over the edge into self-pity, and from there it was a slippery slope to depression. She couldn’t—refused—to let that happen.
She had to do something about her life, and quickly. After everything that life had thrown at her so far she refused to buckle under because she was alone and feeling at sea. That was why she’d agreed to go clubbing with Mak. She’d realised that she had to get out of the house, out of her own head. The boys were right. She had to start living her life.
Of course getting her drink spiked was an embarrassing start.
It had been a tough decade, she admitted as Will lifted his hand from her arm and carried on with his conversation. She had just started exploring her options for a career when she’d been catapulted without warning into caring for the twins. With the inheritance covering her basic costs she’d run around her brothers, caught up in making their world as secure as she possibility could, determined that they wouldn’t feel as lost, as alone and as scared as she did. She’d kept herself and them active and busy in order to keep the grief at bay, and while she’d tried to keep up with her photography she hadn’t been able to give it the dedication it required for her to succeed. Somewhere along the way she’d stopped thinking about herself, her place in the world and what excited her.
Who was she? Lu was terrified to realise that she hadn’t the slightest clue. It was OK, she told herself. She had time to figure it all out. She just needed a plan.
‘Sorry about that.’ Will’s voice pulled her back to the present. ‘Lu? Are you OK?’
Lu blinked and focused on his face. Will, so very up close and personal, was even more mouth-wateringly, panty-crumpling, breath-hitchingly gorgeous than any photo anywhere. He wasn’t perfect—that would be far too intimidating—and she liked his flaws as much as she liked the rest of the package. Creases at the corner of those warm eyes, and his deep brown hair was, sadly, six inches too short. He had stubby eyelashes and untamed