Wedding Party Collection: Once A Bridesmaid.... Avril Tremayne

She could get him to give up his bike if she slept with him twice more. But if she slept with him twice more she would be getting dangerously close to him. And she couldn’t risk that.

      Or...

      She could get him to give up his bike if she changed her name. And she just wasn’t sure what that would mean. Maybe it would help her accept Moon’s death. But maybe it would be a betrayal—taking a twins’ decision and making it a solo decision. Moving on when Moon couldn’t.

      And did anything matter more than keeping Leo safe?

      Sunshine threw off the covers—what a restless night this was turning out to be!—and yanked on her kimono, leaving it fluttering as she raced from the room and into her office.

      There, on the high-gloss blue bureau, was her sister. Her sister, who had wanted her ashes to be scattered at a beach under a full moon.

      Instead here she was. Beautifully housed in a stunning antique cloisonné urn featuring all the colours of the rainbow.

      But an urn—no matter how beautiful—wasn’t the ocean.

      And the ocean was where Moonbeam belonged.

      * * *

      Leo stared into the darkness, thinking about the simple pleasure of touch.

      It didn’t take a psychologist to work out what his issue was—the fact that his parents had never touched him the way other parents touched their children. Because there had been more important things to do than give their son the affection he craved. Like shoot up. Suck in the crack. Snort up the meth.

      It had been different for Caleb, because Leo had made it so. Leo had looked after Caleb, put his needs first, fought his battles, protected him. And so Caleb wasn’t reserved, wary, driven, and damaged—like Leo. Caleb attracted affection and gentleness and love. Leo attracted people like Natalie, for whom his remoteness was a challenge and his celebrity something to use.

      ‘You’re choosing wrong,’ Sunshine had said—but what if he was choosing right and he was getting exactly what he deserved?

      It wasn’t as if he could choose Sunshine Smart as an alternative. She didn’t want to be chosen by anyone.

      So why he was offering to give up his motorbike for her was a mystery.

      So what if he never had sex with her again?

      So what if she went on grieving for her sister for the rest of the life?

      Leo punched his pillow. Forced his eyes closed.

      And there she was, warning him about her scars. So beautiful. And damaged, like him. But wanting to stay damaged—unlike him.

      His eyes popped open and he punched the pillow again.

      God, but she irked him.

      Her perkiness irked him. Partly because he wanted to think that it made her shallow...and yet she’d learned the Heimlich manoeuvre and wasn’t afraid to use it.

      The way she chucked crazy facts into her arguments—about the sexual habits of praying mantises, the questionable immortality of lobsters, regenerating livers, and so on and on and on—irked him. Because most of the time that stuff was fascinating. And even if it wasn’t, it was fascinating to watch those unique eyes glow with the wonder of it.

      Her boring living room irked him, because it shouldn’t be like that. Not that her décor was any of his business. And the fact that he could be bothered to think of her apartment irking him irked him too.

      Her pink bedroom irked him. All right, it didn’t—because it was kind of amazing. But it should irk him, and the fact that it didn’t irk him irked him.

      Her propensity to kiss and touch and pet him irked him. And it had irked him even more when she hadn’t kissed him hello at the restaurant.

      Her four-times maximum irked him. And the fact that he’d refused to accept that they were stopping at two irked him.

      Two times. Two. Not three, not four—two! Her terms. Everything on her terms, right from the moment she’d ambushed him on the couch.

      Well, he’d picked her as a wily little dictator from Day One. But she was not going to dictate to Leo Quartermaine. He would have her as many damned times as he wanted to have her.

      He punched his pillow again. Hard.