Page 7 of Lipstick Kiss

“You’re married, though. She’d have to let you go atsome stage. It’s not like you’ve moved off the island,” Luke said.

“It is weird for me too. We’ve always lived next door to each other. I used to see Freya every day. I know it’s just a five-minute buggy ride away, but we can go two days in a row without talking, and I miss my best friend.”

Jason looked at me like I had the answer but didn’t know how to solve best friend issues. My brothers and sister were my best friends.

“You’ll work it out. Then, get into a new routine,” Luke offered as a lame suggestion.

Jason laughed at my offering and poured Luke a coffee. They chatted for a while. Jason made him a breakfast burrito, and then Luke went to his cottage to shower. Heidi might have missed her best friend, but Freya was his best friend too, and he could guarantee he’d missed her more with the years he’d been away.

Chapter Three

Freya

Freya wasn’t sure when Luke would come to see her, but she was nervous. She had been besotted with him for so long, but now that he was coming home for good, Freya didn’t know if they had a chance to move things along. She saw the looks his brothers gave them. Even Heidi and Erica gave her knowing looks, but Luke had been adamant that they were friends. Freya had dated while he was away. It wasn’t like they’d promised to marry at thirty if they were still single. The last time they’d spent any real time together was before Luke went on the rigs nine years ago. Minds and bodies had changed a lot in that time. Luke was definitely a late bloomer. He was taller and broader the first time he came home from the rigs. Her best friend was no longer the beanpole he once was. He could easily have fitted in with the elite hotties she’d just salivated over.

She felt anxious, like she was going on a first date. Maybe she could be 21stcentury and ask him out.

Back in her small but cosy terraced house, Freya dashed upstairs to her sock drawer and pulled out the engagement ring box that Heidi had asked her to look after. It had been months ago her best friend had asked her to take care of it.

Every day Freya would bring it out and slip it on her engagement finger to see how it felt to have an extravagant piece of jewellery on her hand. The diamond sparkled under her side lamp. It was a little too small for her engagement finger, but she shoved it on, regardless. Tilting her hand this way and that, she admired the ring and wondered what would eventually come of it. For five minutes, she allowed herself to dream of getting a proposal with an obscene ring, and then she slipped it off and put it away.

Maybe from Luke.

Watching the men get hot and sweaty at six in the morning had turned her hormones riotous, hoping they might have their last night in the pub once their endurance week was over. She could admire them up close and personal. As she thought about tight abs and buns of steel, she went to pull off the ring, but it wouldn’t budge. The more she yanked on her finger, the more swollen it became.

She ran downstairs and smothered her finger in washing up liquid, but it still wouldn’t come off. Fretting and pacing, she wished she’d had ice in her freezer, but she rarely drank at her place. Heidi took care of the ice for their cocktails.

Heidi.

She would help her.

Freya grabbed her buggy keys off the hook by the door. She picked up her handbag from the side table and headed for the door. Unfortunately, when she swung it open, shewasn’t looking up and walked straight into a wall of male muscle.

“Oomph,” she muttered and then looked up. “Luke,” she said, hugging him tight, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Freya,” he said with a cool voice.

That was not the welcome she was used to when Luke came back to the island. Instead, this was a cold, stony voice that was clearly pissed off. She dropped her arms and stepped back onto her side of the threshold.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as she righted her clothing and looked up at his face to see if his voice matched his expression.

It did.

“What in the fuck is that?” he barked, pointing at her hand.

He saw her hand for a split second before she threw her arms around him. How the hell did he see it so quickly? And why was he angry about it?

She went for the obvious. “An engagement ring.”

His eyes widened like I was sassing him, and he had zero patience.

“I can see that. Someone proposed to you?”

Luke said it with so much disdain that she was hurt and immediately angry. How dare he be so shocked someone loved her enough to want to spend the rest of their lives with her? She was lovable, even if Mr Morris hated her existence.

So she lied.

Looping her handbag over her head, she tossed it on her sofa. There was no need to go and see Heidi now. She had a wedding to plan. And a fiancé to make up. She instantly went to the elite men on the lawn.

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