Page 71 of Slow Burn Summer

Liv stuck a stray pin into the cushion attached to her wrist. “You’d miss your jeans within a week.”

“Probably. Shall we have a little waltz?” She braced her arms in hold position.

Liv flopped onto the nearest chair. “Find someone else to mark your dance card, I’m boiling.”

“I’m no lord, but I’ll give it a go if you’re stuck?”

They both turned at the sound of a male voice from the doorway.

“Charlie!” Kate fanned herself harder without thinking, then snapped the fan shut because she felt ridiculous. “How long have you been here?”

“Charlie?” Liv said, because despite his heavy involvement in Kate’s life over the last few months, this was the first time they’d actually met face-to-face. She raised her eyebrows toward Kate, then offered her a hand down off the alterations stool.

“This is my sister,” Kate said, flustered.

Liv glanced between them and seemed to pick up on the fact you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. Kate speed-read the unspoken questions in her sister’s blue eyes—Do you need me to stay, can I trust this guy with you?She nodded imperceptibly, adding the ghost of an I’ve-got-this smile. She squeezed Liv’s fingers briefly, feeling bolstered by the answering squeeze of solidarity.

“I’ll be out the back if you need me, madam.” Liv dropped a cute curtsy before turning on her heel and disappearing smartly into the storeroom.

Kate’s pulse raced, both because of the tightness of her bodice and Charlie’s sudden proximity.

“I was in the area,” he said, looking at the ceiling rather thanher heaving cleavage. “I should probably have called first…”

“I don’t usually dress like this at home,” she said, remembering his mouth on her skin, the weight of his body over hers.

“I guessed as much,” he said.

The heartbreaker half smile, the whiskey-cola eyes; she took a couple of steps back so she couldn’t smell the familiarity of his skin.

“Have you come to tell me something has happened?” she said, opening and closing the fan for something to do with her hands.

He swallowed hard. “I fly to L.A. tomorrow. I’ll be gone for a week or so.”

“Oh,” she said, floored. Things must have progressed with his manuscript. “I see. Congratulations.” Her hand fluttered to the neckline of the dress. If she’d been wearing pearls, she’d have clutched them.What about me,she wanted to shout,and the shitstorm about to hit the fan when the book comes out in the U.S.? I’m relying on you,she wanted to say,don’t go, I need you here.She kept all of the unreasonable thoughts in her head, choosing silence as her method of communication.

“It isn’t finalized yet. I’ll be back before the book releases in the U.S.,” he said, his voice gentle, his eyes searching hers for something more than surface conversation. “How have you been?”

She wasn’t sure what he expected from her. Permission to not feel awkward? Had he come to ease his conscience?

“I’m fine.” She straightened her shoulders. “Keeping busy, helping Liv, seeing…people.” She almost threw her husky-eyed first love from the train into the mix and then realized she didn’t have the energy to maintain the lie anymore. “Don’t worry about me. I know I can rely on Prue if I need anything.”

For a heart-stopping, statue-still second she thought he wasgoing to dip his head and kiss her, and then he nodded curtly and stepped back. At this rate they were going to be on opposite sides of the shop.

She clenched her jaw, blindsided by the fact that he was actually leaving, and that she was in full Regency dress, and by the unreadable messages in his dark eyes. He looked as if he was going to say something urgent but then just spun on his heel and left the shop, as swiftly and unexpectedly as he’d appeared. Kate stared at the empty space he’d inhabited moments ago, the familiar warm-amber trace of his cologne left behind in the air.

“So that was Charlie,” Liv said, emerging from the storeroom.

“I can’t believe I was wearing this bloody dress,” Kate breathed, her eyes lingering on the empty doorway.

“Proper Mr. Darcy moment.”

“Proper mortifying,” Kate said. She dropped into the chair, fanning herself dejectedly. “My life feels like a TV drama, and someone else is writing the script.”

“Can it be me?” Liv said. “I’d make sure Fiona’s cruise ship hit an iceberg.” She was still simmering about being shut in the store cupboard with Fiona.

“They don’t have icebergs in the Caribbean,” Kate said.

“I’m the scriptwriter. It’s a freak iceberg and it’s happening.”

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