of early morning orders. If this job went kaput, she wondered how long she could couch surf in order to get enough money together to get a place of her own. At least she had the house-sitting job in Notting Hill starting this evening. The money was good, but it was only for the next four weeks. Come the first of February, she would be homeless, unless she could find another dirt-cheap bedsit. Preferably without fleas. Or bedbugs.
Any wildlife.
Kat sucked in a steadying breath, aligned her shoulders and walked to table nine with her best be-polite-to-the-annoying-customer smile stitched in place. ‘How may I help you?’
Flynn’s molasses-black gaze surveyed her tightly set features and lowered to the name badge pinned above her right breast. ‘Kathy is it, now?’ His smile was slow. Slow and deliberate. Amusement laced with mockery and a garnish of ‘got you.’
Kat tried to ignore the faint prickle in her breast where his gaze had rested. ‘Would you like the usual, sir?’
His eyes gleamed. ‘In a cup, preferably. It doesn’t taste quite the same when it’s poured in my lap.’
He was baiting her. Goading her. She. Would. Not. Bite. ‘Would you like anything with your coffee?’ she asked. ‘Croissant? Muffin? Sour dough toast? Eggs? Bacon? No, perhaps not bacon. We can’t have you being a cannibal, can we?’
Damn it.
She’d bitten.
The corner of his mouth tilted in a smug smile, making him look like he thought he’d won that round. ‘What time do you finish work?’
Kat gave him a brace-yourself-for-round-two look. ‘I’m here to serve you coffee or a meal or a snack. I’m not here to give you details about my private life.’
Flynn glanced towards the coffee machine. ‘Does your boss know your true identity?’
‘No, and I’d like to keep it that way.’ Kat gripped her pen to stop herself from holding it to his throat to make him promise not to tell. ‘Now, if you’ll just give me your order...’
‘Richard’s agent has organised a Sixty Years in Showbiz celebration for him later this month,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be a This Is Your Life format. I want you there.’
His tone suggested he was used to getting what he wanted. Every. Single. Time.
But Kat hadn’t been cast in her kindergarten nativity play as a donkey for nothing. The most intractable mule had nothing on her. ‘Why would I want to go to some ghastly, alcohol-soaked bragging fest about his theatre career when he paid my mother to get rid of me before I was born?’
Just like he’d tried to pay Kat to keep away once the news had first broken of her existence. Where had her father been when she’d needed a father? How many times during her childhood had she prayed for a dad? Someone to provide for her. Someone to protect her. Someone to love her.
Someone.
Richard hadn’t even had the decency to come to see her face-to-face, but had sent his arrogant, up-himself lawyer Flynn Carlyon.
‘You’re being unnecessarily stubborn,’ Flynn said.
Unnecessarily? Of course it was necessary. Her pride was necessary. It was all she had now her mother was dead. Kat leaned down so the customers at the nearby tables couldn’t hear. ‘Read my lips. N. O. No.’
His hooded gaze went to her mouth, his face so close to hers she could smell his aftershave, a citrus blend with an undertone of something else, something that reminded her of a cool, dark pine forest where secrets lurked in the shifting shadows. He had recently shaved but she could see every tiny dot of stubble along his lean jaw and around his nose and mouth, the signal of potent male hormones surging through his blood.
His eyes dipped to the open V of her shirt. Only the top two buttons were undone, revealing little more than the base of her neck, but the heat in his gaze made her feel as if she was standing there bare breasted. She straightened as if someone had fisted the back of her shirt and pulled her upright.
Do. Not. Look. At. His. Mouth. Kat chanted it mentally while her eyes continued their traitorous feasting on the contours of his lips. He was smiling again as if he knew exactly the effect he had on her. How could a man she hated so much have such a gorgeous mouth? He had the sort of mouth you could only describe as sinful. Smoking-hot, sex-up-against-the-kitchen-bench sinful. Sex-with-the-curtains-wide-open sinful. The upper lip was straight across the top, but the lower lip more than made up for it. It was full, sensual. The midpoint in perfect alignment with the sexy shallow cleft in his chin.
The only reason she was obsessing about his mouth was because she was doing ‘Winter Deep Freeze’ with her best friend, Maddie Evans. Their celibacy pact had started in November and, with only a month to go, Kat was determined to win. She had to prove a point, not just to her best friend, but also to herself. No way was she going to play out the script of her mother’s life. Bad date after bad date. Sex that scratched an itch but left filthy finger marks on the fabric of her soul.
Who said Kat couldn’t go three months without sex?
She could. And she damn well would.
One of the customers tried to move past, bumping against Kat so she had to suck in her stomach and press herself against Flynn’s table. The brush of his trouser leg on her knee sent a lightning zap of heat through her body. Hot. Searing. Scorching. So scorching she expected to look down and see a singed and smoking hole in her thick black tights.
She stepped back once the customer had gone, pen poised pointedly. ‘Espresso? Water no ice?’
‘He’s your only living parent,’ Flynn said.
Kat sent him a look that would have frozen mercury. ‘So? With relatives like him, lead me to the nearest orphanage. I’m checking in.’
Something moved in his gaze as quickly as a camera-shutter click. But then his lazily slanted smile came back. ‘Are you going to get my coffee?’
‘Are you going to take no for an answer?’
His eyes beneath those dark, winged brows roved her lips. Did he feel the same flicker of animal attraction deep and low in his belly? Kat could feel it now. The pulse of lust thrumming in her blood every time his dark eyes trapped hers, as if he too were thinking of what it would feel like to have her stripped naked and pinned beneath his body.
Or against the kitchen bench.
Be still her heart, her pulse, her giddy-with-excitement girly bits.
Another customer came past, but this time Kat turned so her back was to Flynn. Big mistake. She could sense his gaze on her bottom, burning through the layer of her boring black uniform to the satin and lace secrets beneath. She turned and carefully masked her features, but even so she could feel the warmth glowing in her cheeks.
‘What are you doing for dinner this evening?’
Kat put her hands on her hips, anchoring her resolve in case it took it upon itself to quit its shift. ‘I suppose this is a rarity for you? A woman actually having the willpower to say no to you?’
The glint in his eye made something in her stomach swoop. ‘Nothing I like more than a challenge. The harder, the better.’
Joe came up carrying a tray of coffees. ‘Kathy, are you working the floor or flirting with the customers?’
‘Sorry, Mr Peruzzi,’ Kat said. ‘This customer has a...a complicated order.’
‘Tables seven and ten are waiting for their bills,’ Joe said. ‘And tables two and eight need clearing and resetting. I’m running a café, not a freaking dating agency.’
Kat smiled sweetly even though her back teeth were glued together. ‘There isn’t a man inside this café I would be even remotely tempted to date.’
Joe hustled past and Flynn said, ‘Would you be remotely tempted to serve them some coffee?’
She