She's So Over Him (Mills & Boon Modern Tempted) Read online

  And as a company policy we don’t do pro bono work. Ever.

  It would be better just to ignore his e-mail, or send him a brief, polite brush-off. She’d get Lucy to do a reply letter on an official letterhead.

  But, since she wasn’t going to send her reply, she would relieve some tension and rant a little.

  I’m organising a myriad of other events—I haven’t had sex in… well, four years!!! Four years, Cale! And you make me want it, which makes me remember, and that SUCKS! I have PMS, a headache and I am feeling nauseous from eating a slab of dark chocolate for breakfast…

  And, by the way, why couldn’t you have gone bald or grown love handles since I last saw you? It’s not fair that you are still gorgeously sexy… actually, it’s not only not fair, it’s downright rude!

  Maddie leaned back in her chair, stared at the blinking cursor, and pushed her fist into the area below her sternum, willing the burning sensation to ease.

  Maddie sighed as she sent the e-mail to her Drafts folder. Drat, she’d meant to delete it, not save it….

  ‘Problems, princess?’

  Maddie glared at the colleague on her right. She didn’t mind Jake calling her a princess, she just wished he’d treat her like one. While Thandi was sweet and funny, Jake was a shark in a suit who had no compunction about taking a bite out of anyone if it meant climbing an inch higher up the corporate ladder.

  Thandi poked her head around the doorway. ‘Mad? Harriet wants to see you. Now! She’s doing her rabid rat impression—you know… foaming at the mouth.’

  Harriet had found something small to nitpick about, Maddie thought. Nodding her thanks, she stood and picked up her notebook.

  ‘Hey, Luce, can you do me a favour?’ she called to the PA they all shared. Gesturing to her desktop computer, she deliberately ignored Jake. ‘There’s an e-mail from Cale Grant in my in-box, asking for some help with a project. Please send him a quick “sorry can’t help” on a letterhead, but wish him luck with his project. Very brief. Very official.’

  ‘Maddie!—Harriet! Now!’ Thandi shouted. ‘Before she fires you for the third time this week.’

  ‘I’m going, I’m going…’

  Maddie was in the bath and up to her neck in bubbles when her mobile rang. Not bothering to look at the display, she used the tip of a wet finger to press the little green phone. Her stomach lurched when she heard Cale’s greeting.

  ‘I got your e-mail,’ Cale said.

  Maddie leaned back in the bath, pushing water and bubbles over the side of the bath. She mentally thanked Lucy for her efficiency, and was grateful that she’d resisted the urge to remind Lucy of the task. She was working hard on trying not to micro-manage.

  ‘How can anyone possibly eat a slab of chocolate for breakfast?’ Cale asked casually.

  Maddie tucked her mobile between her neck and her jaw and reached for her glass of wine. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Ever heard about oatmeal or muesli? Even yoghurt? Eggs?’

  ‘Did you call me at ten at night to interrogate my eating habits?’ Maddie took a sip of wine, thoroughly confused.

  ‘Good to know that you still find me sexy, though.’

  The glass of wine stopped halfway to her mouth.

  ‘And I’d recommend evening primrose oil for the PMS.’

  ‘How do you know that I have PMS?’ Maddie kept her voice very, very even as she carefully placed her wineglass on the edge of the bath.

  Cale confirmed her worst fears. ‘It’s in this snotty half-finished e-mail I’m looking at.’

  Maddie instantly felt icy cold with embarrassment. Yes, she’d written that stinking e-mail—but she hadn’t sent it.

  ‘Oh. My. God,’ she muttered, her face flaming.

  ‘Yeah. I was expecting a brush-off, but not… that.’

  ‘Look, I—’ In her attempt to explain, Maddie’s words came out in a long gabble. ‘I’m not sure how it happened. I mean, I wrote that e-mail but I was in a strop. I was just venting. I never intended to send it. It wasn’t personal; I mean it was personal—to me. I was just cross and—’

  ‘Pre-menstrual?’

  Maddie scowled, beetroot-red. ‘I never meant for you to see it!’ she shouted.

  ‘It came from your e-mail address,’ Cale pointed out.

  ‘I saved it. I meant to delete it but I got called out! I didn’t send it! At least… Fm sure I didn’t.’ Maddie placed her fist on her forehead, knowing how lame she sounded. She was so going to kill Lucy. Maddie stared at her toes. ‘Look, I was in a foul mood when I wrote that.’

  ‘You really haven’t had sex in four years?’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Cale laughed—a sound that made every nerve ending in her body quiver.

  ‘Relax, Mad, it’s not worth popping a vein over. So, it sounds like you’re in the bath. Bubbles? Maybe some candles? I’ve got a great picture in my head.’

  Maddie had had more than enough from him. ‘Goodnight, Cale.’

  Maddie rested her mobile against her forehead. She felt an absolute twit… could she be more embarrassed? But how had that e-mail got to Cale? She knew she’d saved it—since she’d lost a six-page e-mail three years ago, she saved everything—but why would Lucy have gone into her Drafts folder and sent it to Cale?

  Anger built as she searched for Lucy’s number, and Maddie let the phone ring as she drained the wine in her glass.

  Lucy eventually answered, and Maddie brushed off her greeting, preferring to jump straight in. ‘Do you remember I asked you to send a reply to Cale Grant, politely refusing to help him with an adventure race?’

  ‘Wait—I’m still waking up,’ Lucy protested.

  Maddie heard sleep-tinged annoyance in her voice and forced herself to ignore it.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lucy.

  ‘What exactly did you say?’ Maddie demanded.

  Lucy yawned. ‘Nothing. I mean, I didn’t send it. Jake wanted some urgent number from me, and he said he’d send your e-mail while I got the number.’

  ‘The malicious, miserable, spiteful son of a low-down, stinking…!’ Maddie roared. As she sat up she sent water over the edge of the bath, which sent her wineglass crashing to the slate floor.

  Then she did what any strong, self-respecting woman did in a crisis. She burst into tears.

  Cale didn’t mind waking up at five for an ocean paddle or a five-mile run along the beach, but he wasn’t thrilled that in order to have five minutes with Maddie he had to travel across town to catch her before she went to work. Which was early—very early, her coworker had told him. Before six. He smiled at the memory of the shudder in Thandi’s voice. In his world six was a late start.

  Cale grabbed the brown paper packet of pastries off the passenger seat of the car and stepped into the foggy autumn morning. Maddie would immediately see that he was using her passion for pastries to bribe her into helping with the race… She wasn’t a fool, and she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t give up. Cale bit his lip, remembering that Maddie had seemed to understand him better, and quicker, than most. That was where the danger lay, he reminded himself. When someone really knew you—knew your strengths and weaknesses, faults and foibles—then they knew how to play you, to manipulate you, to use you. Ultimately to leave you…

  Cale shook his head, disgusted with his brief flash of self-pity. Cue the violins…

  Cale frowned as he caught a movement from the beach and wondered what the jogger was doing. He’d run for thirty seconds, stop, then walk for a while before breaking into a stumbling jog. As the runner approached him out of the mist ‘he’ became a ‘she’. Cale grinned and walked towards the path that led to the beach. Standing behind a sign board, he watched Maddie huff and puff her way up the steep path towards the road, her face beetroot-red from exertion.

  Unlike him, exercise was not one of her strong points.

  ‘Trying to give yourself a heart attack?’ Cale asked cheerfully as Maddie rested her hands on her knees, trying to g
et her breath back.

  Maddie just turned her head and glared up at him. ‘Unngh.’

  Cale rested a hand on her back and waved the still-hot packet of Danishes in front of her nose. ‘I brought you something.’

  She groaned, finally finding her breath. ‘Those are the reasons I am on the beach instead of in my warm bed! I’ve been living on them lately and my clothes feel tighter. Hence the exercise.’

  Cale laughed. ‘But why running? You hate running.’

  ‘I hate all exercise. Except surfing.’ Maddie stood up, ran a hand over her sweaty forehead, looked at her fingers and grimaced. ‘Yuck!’

  Cale felt the knobs in her spine and looked at her slim back. ‘I can honestly say that you’re no fatter than you were at eighteen.’

  ‘Since I’m ten pounds heavier then than I was three months ago, that doesn’t help.’ Maddie started walking towards her building and Cale fell into step beside her. ‘What are you doing here at the crack of dawn?’

  ‘You seem to be avoiding my calls. Again.’

  Maddie ducked her head and Cale watched her face flush: red on red. ‘I’m really sorry about that e-mail.’

  Cale grinned at the top of her head. He’d thought it was funny, but he could see that Maddie was mortified. He resisted the urge to tease her. ‘Forget about it. I have.’

  It was the image of her in the bath, soapy and rosy, that remained.

  Cale watched as she keyed in the code to open the front door and then held it open for her to walk through. She smelt of sea air and flowers and his breath caught in his throat.

  He kept his voice even, reluctant to fight so early in the morning. ‘I bought the pastries. I’m hoping you’ll supply the coffee. What time do you have to be at work?’

  ‘I had a late function last night, so not until later this morning.’ Maddie started climbing the stairs to her third floor flat. ‘Are you going to harass me about organising that race?’

  ‘Not until after we’ve had breakfast.’

  Maddie stopped, turned to look at him, her big eyes serious although a smile flirted at the corners of her mouth. ‘I just tortured myself for twenty minutes to work off yesterday’s pastries. I don’t have an eighteen-year-old’s metabolism any more.’

  Cale opened the door to her flat and ushered her inside. ‘Then you can have a rice cake and I’ll eat the pastries.’

  ‘In your dreams,’ Maddie told him as she opened her door.

  You already are, Mad.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MADDIE sent a quick glance around her lounge, relieved that she generally kept her place reasonably neat. Her bookcase could do with an overhaul, she thought, glancing towards the floor-to-ceiling shelves that covered the far wall of her open plan kitchen, dining and living room. In between the books were photo frames and wire sculptures, wooden bowls and a black velvet top hat.

  Cale probably hated her cherry walls, cream couches and red-and-white checked armchairs. She remembered that his linen had been white, the duvet cover beige, and he’d always changed the subject when she’d suggested that he do some basic decorating to his fabulously situated house. Nothing drastic, but a lick of paint on the solidly white walls and a chair or two would have been nice. She remembered thinking that a twenty-five-year-old man should have more stuff than a ratty couch, a microwave and a very uncomfortable double bed.

  Maddie moved across to the kitchen area and switched on her coffee machine. Taking two mugs from the cupboard above the machine, she watched Cale out of the corner of her eye as he investigated the contents of her bookcase.

  ‘Who is the blonde in these frames?’ he asked, idly examining her collection of photographs.

  ‘My best friend, Kate. She’s a lawyer.’ Maddie sniffed at a carton of milk, pulled a face and chucked the contents down the sink. She really had to go grocery shopping some time in the next century. ‘Milk’s off. It’ll have to be black.’

  Cale picked up a weighty book and looked at its cover. ‘I enjoyed this book.’

  Maddie swallowed, remembering how much time they’d used to spend discussing books. ‘Haven’t read it yet. That shelf is all the books I still want to read and haven’t got to.’

  Cale replaced the book and moved towards her, dropping the brown bag of pastries onto the large wooden butcher’s block in the centre of the kitchen area. ‘Reading was your absolute passion. What happened?’

  Maddie shrugged as she placed a cup under the spout and pushed the button on her automatic coffeemaker. ‘Life. Work. Busy.’

  ‘Mmm. Not healthy.’ Cale opened the bag and withdrew a pastry. ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘For more than five years.’ Maddie handed him the cup of coffee and gestured to the sugar bowl that lived on the butcher’s block. From a shelf under her, she pulled out two black and white side-plates and pushed one across the table.

  Cale took a sip of his black coffee and a healthy bite out of his Danish as Maddie doctored her own cup of coffee. ‘Did you get your door fixed?’

  Maddie sent him a guilty look. ‘I’m getting to it.’

  ‘And the window?’

  ‘That too.’

  Maddie took a pastry from the bag and took a delicate bite—which immediately made her feel guilty. Her clothes were feeling tight, and Cale was such a fitness freak that he made her feel like a lumbering hippo.

  A sweaty, makeup-free hippo. Pride kept her from bolting to the bathroom to clean up, add some lip gloss and a swipe of mascara.

  Cale dusted pastry flakes off his fingers and sent her a charming grin. ‘Hey, look at us. We’ve been together for fifteen minutes and we’ve yet to draw blood.’

  Maddie sipped her coffee and sent him an arch look over the rim of her mug. ‘That’s because I’m mostly still asleep.’

  Cale’s responsive chuckle made her smile. She’d always loved making him laugh and she’d been good at it.

  ‘How are your preparations coming along for the race?’

  Cale shoved a hand into his hair and pulled a face. ‘I have no idea what I’m doing half the time.’

  ‘Have you chosen a charity?’

  Tension tightened Cale’s shoulders, his jaw. ‘That we have done. Sunbeam—they support hospices and also fund research.’

  ‘What type of cancer did Oliver have?’

  Cale balled the empty paper bag in his fist. ‘Leukaemia.’

  ‘That sucks.’

  ‘He really liked you, you know.’ Cale lobbed the bag towards a paper bin next to the antique desk across the room. His aim was spot on and the bag tumbled inside.

  Maddie blinked furiously, tears stinging her eyes. ‘He got my jokes.’

  ‘He thought you were hysterical. Especially when you took the mickey out of me. He said that despite the fact that you were so young you could hold your own with me.’

  Good old Oliver, Maddie thought. She’d liked him, but had never felt very comfortable with Cale’s twin. He’d been too much… too loud, too over the top, too wild and an out-and-out rebel. Cale hadn’t been a slouch in the partying and drinking department, but Oliver had tried everything once—legal and not. Sometimes more than once. The Grant twins had been a legend even long after they’d left university, but Oliver’s reputation held cult status.

  Maddie had frequently thought that Oliver was the balloon and Cale the one who kept him connected to the earth.

  ‘He’d had a brush with cancer around puberty. We thought he was cured.’ Cale stared at his coffee cup. ‘Even when we discovered it was back, during a routine medical, he was as fit as ever. He fought it for a couple of years, had chemo, was in and out of hospital. God, I hate hospitals.’

  Maddie placed her hand on his fist. ‘I don’t blame you.’

  Cale’s hand opened and he twisted her fingers in his. ‘He ran out of energy to fight it and he died.’

  Maddie blanched at his stark words. She knew how he felt. Knew about the curious insidious emptiness death left.

  Cale looked out of h
er lounge windows to the grey morning beyond. ‘His death was…’

  Maddie held her breath and watched as he took a deep breath and stepped back from some internal cliff he was teetering on.

  His eyes lightened fractionally and his shoulders dropped. ‘Nothing. Sorry.’ Cale sipped his coffee. ‘The race. Right. Listen, you must understand that if I take something on I want to do it properly. It has be organised, efficient, and if I’m doing it for Oliver then it has to make a splash. I need some professional help and you’re as professional as they come. And you knew him. That means something.’

  Maddie pulled her hand away and stepped back to lean against the counter opposite him. ‘Cale, even if I wanted to do this race I can’t just take it on. My events are assigned to me. I can’t pick and choose. This is why I’m currently organising a fishing competition. Can you imagine anyone less suitable than me to organise a fishing competition? To me, fish comes from Jim’s kitchen, perfectly grilled.’

  That brought a smile to Cale’s face, as she’d intended.

  ‘And you’d need an organiser to do it for free or else the fees would wipe out any money you’d raised for charity. Mayhew Walsh don’t do probono—ever. Furthermore, I have events stacked up for the next three months. I can’t do it, even if I wanted to.’

  ‘Why don’t you want to?’

  Maddie gripped the counter behind her and looked down at her black and white chequered floor. ‘There’s too much history between us.’

  She felt his eyes on her back as she turned away and poured the remnants of her coffee down the sink.

  ‘Saying sorry again is not going to cut it, and I know that I hurt you, but we were good friends and I think we could do something worthwhile with this race. Maybe we could find a way back? To friendship, at least?’

  Maddie turned back to him and lifted her eyebrows. ‘You want us to be friends?’ she asked sceptically.

  ‘Well, I’m hoping to be a friend with benefits, but I’ll take what I can get.’

  Maddie’s pride surged at his amused and cocky expression. ‘Well, don’t hold your breath because that’s not going to happen!’