Cracking the Dating Code (14 page)

And then a man entered the room and he was big, bald and beautiful and people smiled when they saw him.

‘Someone told me our fearless leader had brought a woman with him to work,’ he said to the room at large. ‘I’m here to collect.’

Someone sniggered, nameless others smiled. Every eye seemed to be upon her.

‘You can try,’ said a voice. ‘Twenty says you’ve got no chance.’

‘I’ll take that bet,’ said another voice.

‘Don’t you worry about them,’ said a woman as she rinsed her coffee cup in the nearby sink and set it on the drying rack. ‘They just like to play.’ And with a wink, ‘I’ve got ten over here that says Roarke won’t get more than two words out of her.’

‘What are the two words?’

And then the big man who’d started it all caught her gaze and smiled and headed her way.

‘Name’s Roarke,’ he said when he reached her.

Of course it was. ‘Ophelia.’

‘Ophelia,’ he rumbled. ‘Pretty. Do you like your men rich? I’m rich.’

‘I have money,’ she murmured. ‘It’s not a prerequisite.’

‘Damn. That one usually works. Do you like them unencumbered? I’m currently unencumbered.’ And quite possibly stark raving mad. ‘I learned that phrase from Seb,’ he added smoothly. ‘He was currently unencumbered when he stole my date.’

‘Always the gentleman,’ murmured Poppy.

‘I’m bigger than Seb,’ offered Roarke next. ‘In every way.’

‘Wrong,’ said a voice.

Poppy really didn’t want to dwell on how that laughing voice knew such intimate details.

‘I’m not Seb’s date,’ she said, hoping it might make the devilish Roarke go away.

‘You have his car keys.’

‘Yes, and I’m about to use them.’

‘Eye gouge,’ said a different voice.

‘Bet,’ said another.

‘As in get in the car and drive away,’ said Poppy.

‘Any message you’d like me to give Seb?’ asked Roarke. ‘You took one look at me and knew it would never work out between the two of you? I’d be happy to tell him that.’

‘Just—’

Poppy glanced round at the sea of faces and it wasn’t malice she saw in them, it was just—with this lot it was either sink or swim.

‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled and handed him Seb’s coffee cup. ‘Just tell him I had to go.’

Poppy sat in the dimly lit coffee shop and stared unseeingly at the magazine lying open on the table top. Her trip to Seb’s workplace had been a complete failure, on so many
levels. She’d antagonised his software engineer, failed to impress his office manager—or anyone else. And then there’d been the debacle in the staff room. The charming Roarke who hadn’t really been trying to pick her up at all—she’d had all the warning in the world that he was just playing, they were
all
just playing, and
surely
she could have played along too until Seb got back.

Surely she could have found some wit and panache from somewhere.

But she hadn’t.

Instead, the mouse had won the day and Poppy had gone into hiding. Nursing her social inadequacies here in the light of the tropical afternoon sun.

What time was Seb likely to finish work? Poppy’s wristwatch said four-thirty. Soon?

She’d have to face him soon.

And then she would see in his eyes that she didn’t fit in his world and that he was reconsidering his options when it came to continuing their relationship.

Who’d blame him?

An even deeper shadow fell across the table and Poppy looked up to see Wendy from Seb’s office, and her eyes were shrewdly assessing.

‘Mind if I join you?’ asked Wendy.

Politeness warred with honesty. Wendy’s eyes narrowed and politeness won. ‘Feel free.’

Wendy took a seat. ‘You’re a hard woman to find.’

‘You found me,’ countered Poppy. ‘How did you find me?’

‘Saw the car on my way to the post office.’

‘Oh.’

‘Seb’s been trying to phone you all afternoon.’

‘I don’t have a phone on me at the moment. It’s probably at his place.’

‘Yeah, he left messages there too.’

‘Oh.’

‘Care for a rundown on what happened after you left?’ asked Wendy. ‘Let’s see, Seb pulled all the engineers and half the admin staff off their jobs and set them to breaking down the Carter rig data and putting it back together again, with Joel arguing black and blue that he’d already done it, only they did it alongside a review of the maintenance log this time, which pointed them towards a faulty valve, which was buggering up the pressure readings, at which point everybody said Hallelujah because they now know what caused the blowout and it wasn’t human error on their part. That took most of the day, by the way. Sebastian seemed to think you’d
have figured it out in two minutes flat had he given you another run at the data, but fortunately the only person he said that to was me. Trust me, it was better that they got to the bottom of this one by themselves. This one was personal.’

‘I get that,’ said Poppy.

‘So what else happened?’ said Wendy. ‘Oh, yeah. The
other
incident in the staff room. The one that happened after you’d left. Seb came back and found you gone and Roarke grinning. A mistake Roarke compounded by telling Seb you’d told the staff room at large that you weren’t Seb’s girl.’

‘I said that?’

‘Apparently. Never seen a man go so still and calm with quite that degree of murder in his eyes. All bets were off. Not sure anyone was even breathing.’

‘And?’ said Poppy.

‘And what?’ asked Wendy blandly.

‘What happened next?’

‘My guess is that Roarke figured out between one heartbeat and the next just how gone Seb was on you, because he apologised at once and told Seb that he’d find you and bring you back. To which Seb replied leave it. Not that anyone did. A dozen people have been tag-teaming trips to Seb’s apartment all
afternoon in the hope of finding you there. Amateurs.’

‘If you say so.’

‘What you may not realise yet about Seb, given that you’ve known him for all of a week, is that he doesn’t place much value on himself as a partner. Takes a special type of woman to deal with the level of risk Seb’s comfortable with. Seb knows that. Which means that if a woman wants to walk away he lets them.’

‘And you’re telling me this why?’

‘Because I have this sinking suspicion that he’s going to let you walk away too. From what he perceives as his flaws. And I’m not sure that’s why you ran. I think
we
scared you off. The people you met today rather than the nature of the work itself. You walked into a world of frustration, what with Seb having been away and the cause of the blowout still uncertain. You got drawn into undercurrents you couldn’t have known about. People trying to let off a bit of steam. It wasn’t our finest moment. And I just want you to know that we can do better by you if you’ll give us another chance.’

‘What makes you think I won’t blow that chance too?’ asked Poppy, anxiety riding her hard. ‘I’m not good with people. I miss my
cues. I do my pastel best to turn into wallpaper. I
begged
Seb to teach me how to have a conversation with a man. We practised in an imaginary bar.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously. Chances are, Seb’s going to be glad to see the
end
of me. Who wants to be saddled with a woman who can’t even manage to stand her ground for five minutes in a staff room?’

‘I’ve explained the why of that,’ said Wendy sternly. ‘And I’m telling you, he laid us all to waste over our treatment of you, and he did it without uttering a word. He couldn’t go after you then, because he
did
have to pick up the reins and run the bloody company. And he’s not coming after you now because he’s not sure if it’s us you’re running from or him, so we’re doing something about it. Roarke’s working on Seb. I drew you. Are you really going to sit here obsessing over your own insecurities and not allow Sebastian any of his own? At least give him the benefit of the doubt and go find him and see if he still wants you. Ask him straight.’

‘That easy, huh?’

‘I didn’t say anything about easy,’ snapped Wendy. ‘It’s about risk, and taking it. And it’s
about reward, and earning it. And it’s about giving people another chance.’

How often had Poppy wanted other people to give
her
a chance? Too many times to count.

‘I guess I should probably follow you back to Sebco now.’

‘That was my first thought.’ Wendy smiled archly. ‘But I’ve since reconsidered. It’s almost knock-off time. I think we can do a little better than that.’

Seb paced his office and tried not to scowl as Roarke stuck his head around the door, and then, seeing that the room was empty but for Seb, came all the way in.

‘That was Wendy,’ he said. ‘She wants you to drop by her house on your way home.’

‘What for?’

‘Wants you to pick something up. Still no word from Ophelia?’

‘She called. Asked if I was right for a ride home and if I was then she’d meet me back at my place.’

‘See? She came back. Probably spent the day shopping.’

Or thinking up reasons not to be with him, thought Seb bleakly. She wouldn’t have to think hard. ‘I wish.’

‘What do you wish?’

‘She’s not resilient enough for this kind of life, Roarke. She doesn’t do risk. She’s used to it from the people around her, mind, but unless she’s motivated by love she’s far more inclined to step away from it. She’s not going to risk herself for me.’

‘Have you asked her to?’

‘I asked her here. For Poppy, that was risky.’

‘But she did it.’

‘And she fled.’

‘Not entirely her fault,’ Roarke muttered.

‘Yeah, I got the memo.’ Seb smiled humourlessly. ‘I’m in love with her, Roarke. All the way gone. But I can’t walk away from the life I’ve built here or the people in it. I can’t be someone I’m not. She can’t be someone she’s not. Where’s the middle ground?’

‘There’s plenty of middle ground,’ said Roarke. ‘Then there’s her ground, and your ground, and new ground for both of you, and you’ve just got to find it.’

‘You’re almost making sense.’

‘I know. I do that occasionally. So here’s what you’re going to do. First you find her and ask her to give your friends another chance. That’s important.’

‘Yeah, I can really see how that’ll make her love me.’

‘All right, forget that for now but make sure you come back to it later. First you find her. Take her out for dinner. Order in. Whatever. Tell her you know today didn’t go so well but that practice will help. Then you step up. Fight the fear. Get her naked. And mention that you love her. Simple.’

‘Simple,’ said Seb.

‘Fight the fear,’ said Roarke with an unholy grin.

‘What’s with getting her naked first?’

‘Incentive, man.’

‘For her?’

‘For you.’

Poppy was in a bar. Only it wasn’t a bar exactly, it was the closed-in underneath bit of Wendy’s high-set wooden house. The floor was concrete, the walls were widely spaced thin wooden slats, the doors were garage roll-a-doors and the lighting was eclectic. A naked-lady lamp. Dangling, green-hatted light bulbs over the poker table and the pool table. Fluoro strips pinned to the walls. And then there was the bar.

A long, mahogany masterpiece with brass foot rests and mirrored tiles behind it, and on the shelves behind it every alcoholic beverage known to man. There was a fridge—

what self-respecting bar didn’t have a fridge? There were two fridges, for there was another one over by the pool table that was largely full of beer and softs, and there were posters—one of Bo Derek and another of Jimmy Dean wearing a hat.

People had started turning up almost as soon as Poppy and Wendy had arrived, and as they walked in they shoved twenty and fifty dollar notes in a jar that sat on the bar. Some of them, Poppy had met earlier at Seb’s workplace. As far as she could gather, the ones she hadn’t met there were partners and spouses of the ones she had. One was a brother.

‘You do this often?’ Poppy asked Wendy. She and Wendy were behind the bar. Wendy was keeping her busy and introducing Poppy to everyone as Seb’s friend, and making it seem easy.

‘Not that often. Mostly when there’s something to celebrate. When the boys come off a job. When someone has a baby. Good times. Today, we’re celebrating the fact that we now know why that well blew when it did. Because it’s been eating at us. Tomorrow, Seb’ll set a crew to working on ways to make sure it never happens again.’

‘I know.’ The man was damn near perfect. ‘But why your place?’

‘Ah, well. You can blame my late, great husband for that because it was all his idea. He reckoned he needed to let off steam after coming in off a job. I reckoned the last thing I wanted to do was haul his lily arse around Darwin’s bars the minute he got home. This was the compromise. Now it’s tradition.’

‘And Seb’s going to be here soon, you said,’ murmured Poppy.

‘Roarke’s bringing him.’

‘Roarke.’

‘Don’t worry about Roarke playing games with you. That boy can be an absolute angel when he wants to be. Tonight he wants to be, I guarantee it.’

‘Does anyone ever cross you?’ asked Poppy. Because as far as she could tell, Wendy’s iron fist of benevolence was truly, deeply and madly impressive.

‘Occasionally I lose one. Not often. OY, ROGER,’ she said to a weather-beaten older man who’d anteed up to the bar. ‘YOU WANT A DRINK?’

‘Is she yelling at me?’ he said with a wide, wicked smile. ‘IS SHE YELLING AT A DEAF MAN AGAIN? READ MY LIPS, WOMAN. I’ll HAVE A SCOTCH.’

‘Moron,’ said Wendy, but she said it with
affection and the Scotch she poured was from the very top shelf.

‘Seb’s here,’ said a voice from the doorway.

‘What was that?’ asked Roger.

‘Move over, old man,’ said Wendy. ‘Poppy wants to sit at the bar.’

‘I do?’ said Poppy.

‘You said you once asked a man to teach you how to talk to strange men in imaginary bars,’ said Wendy. ‘I think it’s time to show him what you’ve learned.’

Poppy scooted her way around to the other side of the bar, grateful, for once, for the company of others for they kept her hidden from Seb’s view and she needed the time to compose herself. She had no idea how this was going to work but she was here, and Seb was here, and Poppy had a powerful need to prove herself capable of finding her way in Sebastian’s world.