Amusement flickered across his handsome face. ‘You mean the room where you ogle me as I work out.’
‘I do not.’ The lie burst from her with an impressive degree of righteous indignation. She might have convinced him, if her cheeks hadn’t been burning.
‘Of course you don’t,’ he replied smoothly, clearly struggling to keep a straight face. ‘Just as I don’t put on a show, moving closer to the window when I see you at your desk.’ As she tried to take in what he was saying – that he liked her eyes on him – he grasped her hand and led her to the door. ‘Come on, I need to get out of this place for a few hours.’
And that, she realised with a mixture of shame and embarrassment, was why he wanted to take her back to his. Not because he wanted to jump her, but because he’d been working for eight straight hours and wanted to get home.
The first thing she noticed when she set foot inside his flat was how neat it was. She’d assumed the carefree bartender with the casual strut and lazy smile would have an equally laid-back approach to other areas of his life. Instead the work surfaces in his kitchen were clear, the sink lacking any lunch/breakfast dishes that hadn’t yet found their way into the dishwasher, and his sofa was free of the junk that seemed to collect on hers.
‘Bet it looks just like yours, huh?’ he asked as he flipped on some low lighting.
‘Mine without the clutter.’ And that’s when she noticed the second thing. ‘Err, there’s a giant rat with long ears jumping onto your sofa.’
Luke followed the direction of her gaze and sighed. ‘Pickles, how many times do I have to tell you, no jumping on the sofa unless I’m on it.’ With the ease of a man who’d done it thousands of times before, he scooped the furry animal into his big hands and kissed the tip of its nose. ‘Pickles, meet Mia. Mia, meet the woman I share my flat with.’
‘Wow.’ Mia stared, transfixed, into the rabbit’s deep brown eyes. ‘Dare I ask why you have a rabbit?’
She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination but he looked a little uncomfortable. ‘Probably a conversation for another day.’ Nodding towards the hallway, he asked, ‘Do you want to see the weight/message room?’
‘Of course.’ She mentally slotted Pickles into the increasing list of questions she wanted to ask him but hadn’t yet. Along with why he’d gone straight into bartending when his family and friends were clearly academic achievers. And why he seemed to prefer casual relationships based on sex, rather than anything more meaningful, when it was clear he was a lot deeper than he let on.
She smiled when she saw the pile of poster paper and coloured marker pens as he led her into his spare room. Weights and dumb-bells were stacked neatly along the wall, and a giant multi-gym dominated the centre of the room. ‘So this is where you put on your show.’
He grinned, flexing his biceps, and though the gesture was funny, the reaction of her body was far more primitive. She’d never been a woman impressed by male strength, by a ripped body, yet now, when she looked at Luke, she couldn’t not see how fit he looked. Couldn’t not wonder what it would be like to feel those hard muscles over her, under her. Surrounding her.
Desperate to shake off the increasing arousal, she wandered over to the window, staring into her own flat. ‘You know I don’t just stare at you when I’m working.’
‘There are other dudes flexing their muscles at you?’
He said it with such clear disgust, she had to laugh. ‘I was referring to the woman who lives in the flat next to you.’ She turned to face him. ‘Do you know her?’
Now it wasn’t her imagination. He definitely looked uncomfortable, like she’d unearthed some guilty secret he didn’t want to share. ‘Yeah, I know her.’
Clearly another woman he’d slept with. Jealousy burned through her, and Mia hated both the feeling, and what it represented. She could no longer claim she saw Luke as just a friend. ‘I think of her as Immaculate Woman,’ she rambled on, because talking was better than thinking. ‘She’s always so put together. Every morning she’s at her desk, dressed all prim and tidy, before I’ve even managed to fall out of bed.’
It hadn’t escaped her notice that of the women she knew he’d slept with, all were glamorous, carefully put together. And very different to her.
Luke did not want to talk about his neighbour. Just as he didn’t want to talk about why he, a thirty-four-year-old guy, owned a rabbit. They were conversations for a later date, when Mia knew him better and, he hoped, would judge him less harshly.
‘That sounds about right.’ When she frowned over at him, he clarified. ‘I mean about my neighbour. She’s very … uptight, I think you’d call it.’ He cleared his throat. ‘So, the bar.’ It came to something when he’d rather talk about his current screw-up, than a past screw-up. ‘Are you still interested? Because if you are, I’m going to need a drink and a sit down.’
‘Yes, sure.’
‘We could talk about something else if you prefer. Something more fun,’ he added so she wasn’t tempted to go back to the rabbit or the neighbour. ‘Or if you don’t want to talk, we could watch a film.’ He considered her. ‘Maybe dust off my PlayStation? I bet you think you’re a whizz on the games console, being a computer nerd and all that.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that a challenge?’
He grinned. ‘Nah, think of it as more of a subtle enquiry. Whether I lay down the challenge depends on your answer.’
‘I don’t think I’m a whizz.’ She put her hands on her hips and gave him a long, slow, cocky smile. ‘I know I am.’
God, he loved that look on her. ‘Bring it on then, super-geek.’
She wagged a finger at him. ‘Sure, after you’ve told me what Phil was inferring about the bar.’ She frowned. ‘Didn’t you say you bought the place from Bill?’
‘I did.’ He was loath to say too much because Bill was, well, Bill. ‘Come on, let’s get a drink and see if Pickles will let us on the sofa.’
A few minutes later they carried their drinks – two whiskies, he didn’t do cocktails in his flat – back to the living area. Pickles frustratingly jumped up to sit between them, twitching her nose like she didn’t approve of Mia sitting close to him.
Nursing his glass, Luke leant forward, resting his arms on his knees, and started to explain about the rather large gap Phil had found in the accounts.
Mia gasped. ‘Bill was fiddling the books?’
‘No, God no. We think it was his bookkeeper. Bill’s great at running a bar, but like me, he wasn’t so great with numbers. And he was too bloody trusting.’
He could feel Mia’s gaze on him. ‘You haven’t told him about the shortfall, have you?’
‘No.’ He turned to Mia. ‘And please keep this to yourself. The guy’s worked his arse off for the last God knows how many years. He deserves a good, long retirement.’
‘Semi-retirement,’ she corrected. ‘He still works for you.’
‘Yeah, now and again. Says Pamela likes him better when she’s not seen him all day.’