Page 75 of The Romance Library

‘What do you think? Next stop, Britain’s Got Talent?’ I smiled.

‘Definitely. After that, world domination!’ He laughed and my belly did that annoying flip-flopping thing again.

‘Whoa. We’re getting ahead of ourselves. We can talk about world domination after our European tour.’ I grinned. ‘Baby steps.’

‘Good plan. Out of interest, what happened to the freestyle dance thing at the end that you did the first time?’

‘Ah.’ I waved my hand. ‘I don’t know. It’s a bit silly. Don’t want to make a fool of myself. It’s already nerve-wracking enough singing in front of the whole community.’

‘You’ve got a fantastic voice, seriously, Jessica.’ Theo stood up and stepped in front of me, our bodies now just inches apart. ‘They’re lucky they’re going to get a chance to hear it.’

Our eyes locked again.

‘Thanks,’ I said, maintaining eye contact.

Theo reached up and brushed away a curl that had fallen onto my cheek. I swallowed hard, trying not to let the heat radiating from his hand affect me.

No surprise that it didn’t work. My blood was on fire and my skin felt like it was hot enough to fry a full English breakfast.

My face inched forward. So did Theo’s.

I should pull back. I really should. But it was like there was a magnetic force pulling me towards him. My mouth was on a mission. Its only objective was to connect with Theo’s lips and it wasn’t going to stop until it’d succeeded.

Just as my head inched forward again, Theo’s snapped back.

‘We should get ready.’ He turned on his heel. ‘Show’s going to start in forty-five minutes. We don’t want to be late.’

‘Yeah.’ My stomach crashed through the floor. ‘Shall I meet you down here in half an hour?’

‘Actually, maybe it’s best if I meet you at the pub. I need to take the keyboard over and…’

‘Okay,’ I said, trying to suppress my disappointment. ‘See you there.’

I didn’t know what had happened between the talent show we’d watched a week ago and the one tonight, but the Sunshine Bay community had upped their game. Massively.

If you’d asked me a few days ago how I rated our chances of winning this competition, I would’ve said pretty good. But now, it was clear that it wasn’t going to be a slam dunk.

A young woman I hadn’t seen around town before had recited a beautiful poem which had everyone cheering. Elena, the local florist, had done some pretty impressive hula-hooping, and Lydia, who we’d met on the trip to Dreamland, had done some tricks with her cute little poodle on stage.

‘The competition is fierce tonight,’ Theo whispered in my ear, his warm breath causing goosebumps to erupt across my skin. ‘We’re going to have to up our game if we want to win this. I’ll be back in ten minutes.’

‘Where are you go—?’ Before I’d finished my sentence, Theo was already out the door.

We were due on in less than twenty minutes. I was already nervous without having to worry whether or not he’d be back on time.

But then I remembered. Theo was always early. And he’d said he wanted to win, so it was fine. He’d be here.

Ten minutes later, just like he’d promised, Theo breezed back in and when I saw what he was wearing, my jaw dropped.

He was dressed in the same tux he’d had that night Edwin had invited us to Candace’s fish and chips restaurant.

Theo had looked great then, but tonight he was so hot he could melt iron.

Seconds later, Barbara the landlady ushered us to the corner of the stage so we were ready to go on.

My heart thundered against my ribcage as the realisation hit me that we were about to perform in front of a packed pub.

There were more people here than last week too, which didn’t help my nerves.

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