Harlequin E New Adult Romance Box Set Volume 1: Burning Moon\Girls' Guide to Getting It Together\Rookie in Love (41 page)

The only thing I do care about right now is avoiding his nightmare mother.

And where the hell is Bryony?

Juliette’s standing with her back to me, examining a grey DKNY skirt.

“Sorry! Sorry I’m late.” Bryony hurries through the door looking harassed. She places a Costa Coffee cup down on the counter and frowns when she sees Juliette heading our way.

The door swings open again, and Bryony disappears to do her friendly sales assistant routine on the customer who’s just walked in.

I take a deep breath and turn to face Juliette’s angry glare. I’m ready to handle her with a gleaming smile when I hear a voice.

“No. No, thanks. I was just looking…Mum!”

Juliette and I both seek the owner of the voice.

And then I see him standing over by the door with Bryony, wearing his usual black leather jacket.

His eyes lock on mine for a moment. My heart is thumping against my chest, and I forget all about releasing my tied-back hair, or grabbing a moment in the storeroom to apply my lipstick.

“Hi, Megan.” Liam strides towards me wearing a wide grin.

“Liam,” I respond, a lump in my throat stopping me from saying much else.

Bryony follows him, her mouth slightly open. “Do you two know each other?”

“We work together,” Liam explains.

“Well, in that case, Megan, I think I’ll let
you
do this one.” Bryony nods towards Juliette.

Like she hadn’t already abandoned me to deal with her.

“Ready for lunch, Mum?” Liam touches her arm.

Juliette grips the fabric of the skirt she’s holding more tightly. “After I’ve sorted this out,” she replies without looking at her son.

I paint a smile back on my face. “What can I help you with?”

“Does this say size twelve?” She thrusts the cardboard price tag at me. “Because the label says it’s a ten.”

I blink at the two conflicting numbers. “Um…maybe it just fits a bigger size.”

“But I’m a twelve.” She tugs at the skirt’s waistband. “Will it fit?”

My eyes are searching the store for Bryony, who might as well be hiding under one of the clothing rails since she’s completely disappeared.

“Mother,” Liam says with an impatient sigh, “there’s a changing cubicle right there.”

Juliette’s wrinkles her nose in disgust. “I’m not going in
there.
”

“I’ll try it on,” I offer, taking the skirt from her.

“You?” She looks me up and down, and I rub my face as though that will stop the burning sensation in my cheeks.

“If it fits me, it should fit you.” I pull back the yellow curtain and try to ignore the fact that I’ve just revealed my dress size to the whole shop.

* * *

Oh, God. How long have I been in here? Why do I even agree to these things?

Well, not just agree. I volunteered my bloody services.

And now I’m stuck. Literally stuck with a grey pencil skirt halfway up my thighs.

No way is this a size twelve. More like
age
twelve.

“Megan, are you okay?” Bryony’s voice sounds from somewhere outside the curtain. “Juliette told me about the skirt. It was in the wrong section.”

Where was she when I needed this information?

“Has she gone?” I ask hopefully.

“She has. The guy’s still here, though. Liam. He says he wants to talk to you.”

“What?” I hobble closer to the curtain and try to see out of the gap at the edge of the fabric. “He can’t. I’m completely stuck in here.”

“You’re stuck?” Bryony echoes. “What do you mean you’re stuck?”

I tug the curtain back an inch and peer out at her bemused face. “I can’t get this skirt off.”

“Let’s have a look.” She pulls the curtain back farther. “Oh, I see.” She clicks her tongue. “You just need to give it a good tug.”

She says something else but I’m not listening to her. I’m looking at Liam standing near the counter. He’s glancing in my direction and smirking.

Oh, my God. He’s smirking at me, the skirt stuck on my chunky thighs and my polka-dot knickers that I’m now flashing to the whole shop.

Bryony bends down and grips the skirt’s hem, pulling so hard I can feel the fabric cutting into my legs. But it seems to be moving and, with one final tug, it slides down to my ankles.

And now I’m standing semi-naked in front of everyone. In front of Liam.

I practically shove Bryony out of the cubicle and hide behind the curtain again.

Deliberately, I spend a good five minutes faffing around getting dressed. By the time I emerge, I’m hoping Liam will have decided that whatever he wants to say to me isn’t important and will have gone to be with Scarlett or something.

But he’s still here.

“You wanted to talk to me?” I say as I approach him.

“Yeah…I…sorry about my mum.” He scratches his neck.

“It’s okay,” I tell him. “Is that all you wanted to say?”

“No. I wanted to ask you if you want to go out again. You know, for a drink.”

I stare at him.

Why is he asking me this? What about Scarlett?

“You want to go for a drink?” I ask. “With me?”

He nods. “It’s okay if you don’t want to.”

“But what about Scarlett?”

“Scarlett?” His brow wrinkles in confusion.

Have I got this all wrong?

My face is flushed but I ignore it. “I know that you’re seeing her.”

“Seeing her?” he repeats. “Where have you got this from?”

I blink a few times. “I…I thought last night…” I trail off.

Liam starts laughing, slapping his hand against the counter.

I can see Bryony in my peripheral vision. She’s pretending to write out some price tags, but her head is angled slightly in my direction.

“What’s funny?” I demand.

“Did you really think that Scarlett and I…that we’re together?” he asks, his shoulders still shaking.

“What else was I supposed to think?” I rub my sweaty palms against my jeans.

“I don’t know.” He tilts his head to one side. “Where did you get this impression from?”

“How you act with her!” I respond, glancing at Bryony, who is now not even bothering to hide the fact that she’s listening to our conversation. I suck in a deep breath. “Why were you going to see her last night?”

“Because we’re friends. And she needed somebody.” He glances around the shop. “She’s upset about what happened with Charlie.”

I stare at him, my eyes widening. “You know about that?”

He shrugs. “I guess she wanted some male insight.”

“So what did you tell her?”

He gives me a teeth-flashing smile. “If you want to talk about that, you’ll have to go out with me.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

There’s a man, tall and leering with fair hair, waiting just inside the shop doorway at the end of the day.

“Who’s that?” I ask Bryony as we tidy up the store. I have a pretty good idea, but she doesn’t know that.

She looks up at him and there’s a smile forming on her face as she says, “That’s Nick.”

Nick brushes his hands down the grey suede coat he’s wearing and looks away.

“Who’s Nick?”

Bryony hesitates, sweeping brush still in hand. “You really know nothing about this?”

“About what?”

“Nick and I.” She looks over at him longingly.

“No,” I say, bringing out my acting skills again. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on, Megan.” She cocks her head to one side. “You know I didn’t break off my engagement for nothing.”

“For him?” I say, and this time I’m not acting. I look over Nick’s slightly receding hairline, my eyes wide.

She drags the brush across the floor again. “He’s what I need.”

I don’t have anything to say to that. Of course, I’m dying to ask her what she was thinking, swapping Jeremy for Nick. But I can’t.

“What about you?” She lifts her eyebrows. “I heard that guy asking you out earlier. The one who always comes in here with scary Juliette.”

“Liam,” I say, resisting the urge to call him Bublé-Face.

“Are you going out with
Liam,
then? Promise I won’t tell Tim.”

“I don’t think—” I start to say. But then I see him.

Liam is standing on the pavement outside the shop, hands shoved into his jacket pockets. I watch him out of the window as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other in the cold.

Bryony follows my gaze and smirks. “You don’t waste much time,” she comments.

“You know what, Bryony?” I drop the pile of books in my arms. “You’re right. I’m not sure how to organise these. Best I let you do it, eh?”

I turn and walk past Nick and out the door without stopping to see her stunned face. And I really am going to call Sue Weaver and let her know that retail isn’t for me after all, so it’s not like it matters, is it?

“Hey,” Liam says when he sees me. “Finished?”

I glance back at the Oxfam store as we make our way across the road. “Definitely finished.”

We go to a different pub this time. It’s still only a casual drinks meeting, I remind myself. It can’t be a date. I’m hardly dressed for a date, am I?

I suddenly remember about my hair and the makeup and tug the bobble free. But it’s been tied back all day and the only effect I get is a giant kink I can feel at the back of my head.

“Are you okay?” Liam studies my face as he adjusts the wobbly bar stool he’s sitting on.

“I think I’ll just go freshen up.” I head for the toilets at the back of the pub.

I inspect my appearance in the cracked bathroom mirror. It’s worse than I thought. My hair isn’t just kinky, it’s wild and frizzy and my lips look chapped.

There’s only so much that Dior lipstick can do.

I scrunch my now puffy brown hair back into the bobble.

The way that I look doesn’t matter too much, does it? Because this isn’t a real date.

If it was, I’d be some sort of serial dater, considering my attempt with Tim.

Maybe I deserve to be. I think about Jack’s stunning blonde fiancée. Isn’t it time I got my own happy ending?

Splashing cold water on my face, I inspect my appearance one last time before heading back to Liam.

He smiles at me as I take my place on the stool opposite him.

“Tell me about Scarlett, then,” I say as he hands me my drink.

“You really want to talk about that?”

I take a sip and nod.

He laces and unlaces his fingers. “I saw them together.”

“What?”

“Well, I
heard
them. Scarlett was yelling all this stuff at him about the baby and Charlie was sort of…standing there.”

I frown, raising my glass to my lips. “Where was this?”

“At work. In that supply room no one ever uses on the third floor.”

“Scarlett didn’t tell me any of this.” I think back to what she’d said about Charlie. The extent of it was that Charlie wasn’t interested, but she never told me about an actual confrontation.

He shrugs. “I don’t think she told me by choice. But she saw me after Charlie left. And it was obvious I’d already heard too much.”

“And now you’re what? Offering her your manly shoulder for her to cry on?”

“My manly shoulder, eh?” He flexes his right arm. “Well, you know, I
have
been working out.”

“Really?” I say in a bored tone. “You can’t tell.”

“That’s a little unfair.”

“Is it?” I snipe.

He leans forwards, across the little table separating us. “I know what this is about. You’re jealous.”

“Jealous?” I repeat with an incredulous laugh.

“Yep.” He takes a drink of his beer and wiggles his eyebrows. “That’s why you were so rattled when you thought there was something going on between me and Scarlett.”

“I was not rattled.” I tilt my chin upwards. “I was expressing my concerns. If you were seeing Scarlett, it wouldn’t exactly make me a good person if I went out with you, would it?”

“So you think I’m that sort of guy, do you?”

I shrug. “I don’t know what sort of guy you are.”

“I suppose that’s what you’re here to find out.”

There’s something about the smirk on his face. The close way he’s watching me, waiting for my reaction.

I don’t feel like the same girl whose biggest concerns were jamming the photocopier or initiating an awkward conversation with my boss (or anyone really).

“Actually,” I say, meeting his gaze, “I’m just here for the free drink.”

There’s a pause before he smiles. “You think this is free? I’m sending you to the bar for the next round.”

“Sorry, I was planning on a drink and dash.” I shrug helplessly and stand up, clutching my bag.

I’ve got to go through with the mime of leaving now, haven’t I? I move to the side of the table and reach for my coat.

A hand grabs my arm, pulling me forwards and stopping me.

I stare at Liam. He looks back at me.

And this moment is just like in all those romantic comedies. Where you can practically see Jennifer Aniston or Katherine Heigl’s heart turn to mush.

Oh, God. I’m not confident at all, am I? Because these heart-flipping, weak-kneed moments don’t happen to confident women. They have far too much control over their own lives to let something so tragically clichéd happen to them.

“You’re not really leaving, are you?” He focuses on my lips as he speaks.

I shake my head, unable to speak with his fingers still wrapped around on my arm.

“Good,” he says, releasing me. “I was going to suggest another drink.”

I glance longingly at the bar and the freedom it will give me. “I’ll go!”

His eyebrows lift. “I’m impressed. You really are a modern woman.”

Oh, God. Oh, God. I need to compose myself. Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not engaged yet. In fact, it’s probably a good thing that this isn’t even a proper date.

* * *

It’s Monday morning and I’m in McDonald’s. There’s two cardboard cups of tea on the table in front of me and Helen, and an array of discarded wrappers opposite us, where Scarlett is sitting.

She’s taking advantage of the whole “eating for two” thing. And apparently this is a crisis that warrants dragging us both out of bed early to meet her for breakfast.

Helen fiddles with the plastic lid on her cup. “So, are you going to tell us what we’re doing here?” She eyes the bacon roll that Scarlett is devouring. “Other than watching you clog up your arteries.”