Page 19 of Tempting as Sin
Maybe she’d have that glass of champagne after all.
Rafe threaded his way between the tiny, too-crowded tables that looked out on Venice Beach, patio and sand both crowded to suffocation point at eleven-fifteen on Thursday morning. Early June was beach time in Southern California, weekday or no, and the muscle-bound boys and bikini-clad girls were out in force.
In the airy bungalow in Byron Bay, it would be just after five in the morning right now, with what passed for winter raising a breeze and stripping the shops and streets of their summer visitors. The sun would still be an hour from rising, giving you time to do your workout and go for a swim afterwards in the salt-water lap pool in the back garden. Palm fronds rattling and blue gum leaves rustling against the gray of the pre-dawn sky, the underwater lighting showing your shadow as you powered along, weightless as a dolphin, shedding more of your cares with each joyful flip turn.
After that? You’d run the track to the beach in the cool morning air just to watch the sky turn pink and the birds begin to stir and call in their dawn chorus. Raucous cockatoos and crimson rosellas, the bright, excitable flocks of lorikeets, the mellow-voiced warblers, and a catbird with its startling mew answered by another across the track. The distinctive laugh of a kookaburra, and then, beside the stream that flowed to the sea, the stately form of a heron stepping its way through the shallows. That breath-holding moment when it rose on its stiltlike legs and took off, its huge white wings beating, beating, and finally feathery-still as it soared across the pink-tinged sky, so beautiful and graceful that it hurt your heart.
Heaps of company, and none at all.
That was for holiday time, though. He wasn’t on holiday, and he’d had almost a week in Aussie just a couple months ago, getting in some pretty sweet snorkeling and trying not to be cynical about watching his only brother get himself engaged again, not to mention Lily hating him. He was a lucky man with a life most people would kill for, and if he was buggered after the wrap ofUrban Decay 3: Underworld Rising—well, work was supposed to make you tired. That was why they called it “work and not “hobby.” His job was to make it look easy.
He dropped into a chair on the thought, and Alan Miller snapped his head up from where he’d been studying his phone and said, “This seat’s taken.”
“That’s a bit cold,” Rafe complained, shedding the long, dust-colored canvas coat that was too warm for the day.
“Oh,” his agent said. “I wish you wouldn’t do that. You could say hello, at least, and give me a fighting chance. You look homeless. What the hell is that coat? And how short is your hair?”
Rafe lifted the ball cap for a brief moment, then settled it back into place. He didn’t take off the sunglasses, though.
“Ouch,” Alan said. “What did you do, go someplace with a barber pole and ask for a Number Five?”
“Close enough. Working a treat so far. It’s also brown instead of black, did you notice?”
The waitress materialized. Young, blonde, fit, wearing a miniskirt, and clearly longing to pursue a different career. She asked, “Are you ready to order now?” in a tone that suggested the answer had better be “yes.” New in town, or she’d have known Alan’s face. Somehow, they always did, like they’d studied flashcards.
“Coffee, please,” Rafe said, automatically adjusting the accent.
She paused with her pencil still hovering over the order pad. “What kind?”
“Just coffee.”
“Uh…We don’t have plain. Americano?”
“Fine.”
“Do you want steamed milk?”
Rafe didn’t point out that if he’d wanted steamed milk, he’d have ordered a different drink. He just said, “No, thanks. And a matcha chicken avocado bowl, please. No dressing.”
“They’re not doing the lunch menu yet,” she said. “Not until eleven-thirty. It’s only eleven-fifteen.”
Rafe could see Alan’s mouth starting to open. Before it could, he said, “Fine. Three eggs scrambled with vegetables.”
“Like…Denver omelet? Greek omelet?”
“Just the vegetables, thanks.”
She sighed. If she’d had gum, she’d have snapped it. At least twenty-one, or she couldn’t serve alcohol, and disillusioned already, her dream of being a star dimming with every day stuck here, at the fringe of glamour and still nowhere close. “Denver omelet,” she said. “Ham, cheddar cheese, peppers, onion. Greek omelet. Feta cheese, spinach, mushrooms, kalamata olives.”
“Denver omelet,” he said. “Hold the ham. Hold the cheese. Add the spinach and mushrooms.”
“I don’t think we can do that.”
He smiled at her. “Could you ask?”
Her pencil, which had finally been put to use, stilled. “Uh…” She looked between the two of them, then back at Rafe. “Uh, sure. I’ll try. Toast and potatoes?”
“You can hold those, too, thanks.”
