Treat with Caution (Treats to Tempt You Book 1) Page 7

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  Half an hour later, smooth and perfumed, she came out of the bathroom wrapped in her black toweling robe and went into the kitchen to make herself a coffee before she tackled her clothes. She found the kettle already on the boil, and Maisey spooning coffee into the plunger and preparing two cups. Tasha hadn’t seen her since her date with Kole. Maisey had been in bed when she arrived home, and she’d gone out early that morning before Tasha had woken up.

  “Hey.” Maisey gave her a smile. “Missed you last night. What time did you get in?”

  “About eleven thirty. I’m guessing you were in bed by nine.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.” Maisey always went to bed early. “Keeps me young and beautiful.”

  Tasha smiled and leaned against the workbench. Her best friend certainly fitted that description today. Maisey wore a pretty pink and green flowery short dress that showed off her shapely legs, and she’d clipped up her dark hair with a mass of girlishly pretty matching clips.

  “So where have you been all day?” Tasha asked.

  Maisey poured the hot water into the plunger and stirred it. “I went to Whangarei to the chocolate factory there. Spent ages looking at their products. And I visited a few of the confectionery shops and coffee houses to look at the layout and décor. Had a great time. Came away with lots of ideas.”

  “Excellent.”

  Maisey was like a butterfly going from flower to flower—beautiful, light of heart, young in spirit, and gentle, but also flighty and unable to stick to one thing. She had never been short of ideas for their shop—she just lacked the ability to put them into practice. But that was where Tasha came in. Between the two of them, they would make Treats a huge success, she was sure.

  Maisey poured the coffee and pushed a cup to Tasha, then surveyed her as she sipped her own. “So… How did the ‘date’ go last night?” She put air quotes around the word with one hand.

  “Good.” Tasha sipped the coffee, burned her mouth, and cursed.

  “Didn’t take you back to his place then?” Maisey grinned mischievously.

  Tasha gave her a wry look. “No. He was quite…” She smiled. “A gentleman.”

  “We are talking about my brother here, aren’t we?”

  “I know. I was surprised as you.” Tasha frowned. “He said something interesting last night that made me think. I told him one reason I made this bet is because I want to see the Kole he presents to other women, because I’m sure he must be different to the brother of yours I see almost every day. I felt the Kole he shows them is some kind of fake person, because obviously I see the ‘real’ Kole, the one who’s not trying to get laid.”

  “I get your point.”

  “But he said that we’re all like dice, that we all have six faces. And we present a different face to our parents, for example, than we would present to our friends, our lovers, our bosses. That it’s a natural thing we all do, change ourselves to fit who we’re with. What do you think?”

  Maisey considered it for a moment. “I suppose he’s right. To be honest, I did think it was unfair to criticize him for ‘turning on the charm’. I don’t think he does anything the rest of us don’t do when we’re with people we want to impress. We all do it with guys we like—flutter our eyelashes, lean forward, prop up the boobs, that sort of thing.”

  “I don’t,” Tasha said.

  Maisey gave her an appraising look. “No, I suppose you don’t. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you flirt with a guy, not in the way I do, anyway. Maybe that’s why you terrify them.”

  Tasha stared at her. “I don’t terrify men.”

  “Yes, you do. You have that glare that probably kills an erection at twenty paces.”

  “I do not!”

  “Oh, come on, you do and you know you do. You play on it, if anything. I know why—it’s all to do with your mother, and you needn’t scowl at me because I know it’s the truth, even if you don’t want to hear it. You don’t like the way Laura plays on her looks to get what she wants. You think that’s somehow false and shallow.”

  “It is false and shallow.”

  “No, not really. Laura’s not as clever as you, not as witty or sharp. We all use the talents we have. I’m the same. I’m not super-smart, and I can hardly impress with my encyclopedic knowledge. But men react to me when I give them that look, and so I play on it when I find someone I like.”

  Tasha sipped her coffee and looked out of the window at the jacaranda trees in their garden with their distinctive lilac-colored flowers, but her mind mulled over Maisey’s words.

  Did she really scare guys off? Was it wrong to want a guy to like her for her, to fall in love with her personality? Although the idea of romance irritated her in many ways, Tasha liked sex, liked men, and did want to get married and settle down, maybe even have kids eventually. Was it so terrible she didn’t want the relationship to be superficial, that she wanted it to have meaning? Perhaps because her mother’s relationships had always seemed to lack meaning. But the thought she reacted so strongly against any initial attraction that she frightened guys off shocked her.

  “Aw,” Maisey said, startling her. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Tasha blinked. “You haven’t upset me.”

  “I did, I know I did.”

  “I…” Tasha bit her lip. “I just want someone to like me for me. That’s all.”

  “I know. I’ve listened to Laura scolding you to lose weight and tart yourself up, so I completely understand why you act like you do. But, Tash, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to make yourself look pretty for someone. It doesn’t mean you’re shallow, or there’s something wrong with flirting. It’s fun. I mean, I don’t agree with leading guys on, I’d never do that, but if you’re dating someone and you know where it’s going, and you like them, it’s fun to push it a little, to tease them.”

  Tasha studied her wordlessly. Dating had never been like that for her. When she saw a guy she liked and who seemed interested in her regardless of her austere appearance, she was always forthright and up front, making it clear what she was interested in without tiptoeing around the issue. Did that frighten guys off? Sure, she had been told she was direct, but guys seemed to like that.

  You didn’t seem to frighten Kole off, her brain whispered, and she turned away as a small smile curved her lips. Kole liked her for her, and he’d certainly seemed attracted to her, judging by what she’d felt was going on in his jeans when he’d pressed against her.

  As she went back into her bedroom and opened her wardrobe doors, Maisey’s and her mother’s words played on her mind.

  It’s fun to push it a little, to tease them.

  Anyone with eyes can see the way he looks at you.

  She ran a hand across the coat hangers, fingers trailing across the mainly black and neutral colors before they came to rest on an outfit her mother had once bought for her, but she’d hardly worn.

  Perhaps she should try something different for a change.

  Chapter Ten

  Kole pulled up outside Tasha and Maisey’s house and turned off the ignition.

  He sat there for a moment, looking across the street from their house at the park opposite. It was seven p.m. and the swings in the children’s playground were empty, moving slightly in the evening breeze, all the kids indoors for their evening baths and bed. The swings looked forlorn without their young companions, somehow echoing his odd, uneasy mood.

  It was Fox’s fault, he mused glumly, watching an old crisp packet tumbling through the grass. This thing with Tasha was supposed to be a bit of fun, but her brother had cast a shadow over it with his threats of breaking limbs in response to broken hearts. Kole couldn’t help but feel annoyed at her for playing a part in his current state of mind, for suggesting the bet in the first place.

  Even as the resentment filtered through him, though, it morphed quickly into guilt. It wasn’t Tasha’s fault. His low mood hadn’t only been caused by Fox’s unusually brotherly display of pro
tectiveness.

  After he’d visited Aqua Blue, Kole had gone to the church to take photographs of the christening. He knew the family—the baby’s father was an older brother of Stuart, a guy Kole had gone to school with. He’d met both the baby’s parents on several social occasions, including Stuart’s own wedding, and again, sadly, at the funeral of Stuart’s childhood sweetheart just eighteen months before. Ria had been diagnosed with Lupus, an autoimmune disease, at sixteen, and she’d regularly suffered from painful flares that affected her joints so much she was occasionally confined to a wheelchair. Stuart had known this, but he’d married her anyway, too in love to let the illness come between them, even though most times Kole had seen them together she’d been unwell. They’d talked often of kids and growing old together, but unbeknown to them both the Lupus had weakened her heart, and her sudden death at the age of twenty-four had shocked everyone.

  Kole took photographs of the smiling parents with their baby and all their happy friends and family, but he’d been conscious all the while of Stuart standing to one side, quiet and alone. The guy had smiled and talked every time someone had come over to see him, but Kole, with a photographer’s eye, had watched him when Stuart thought nobody was looking, and the man’s pain and loss had been as evident as if it were paint splashed across his face. And afterward, when everyone went back to the couple’s house for lunch, Stuart had made his excuses and departed alone.

  The whole event had left Kole with an odd mixture of feelings. Sorrow for Stuart, and a strange anger at the unjustness of it all, the fact there seemed no logic regarding who God chose to let live and who He chose to take. If in fact He existed at all. Kole wasn’t so sure after seeing Stuart’s sad face.

  He felt confused as to why anyone would let themselves fall in love so much they opened themselves to that kind of pain. That was why he kept his heart out of relationships, he told himself; that’s what Harry’s death had taught him.

  But he’d also felt an unusual pang of envy at the sight of the couple with their baby, an emotion he was completely unaccustomed to, especially where babies were concerned. Probably not to do with the baby itself, he thought, although the little girl had looked quite charming in a beautiful white lacy gown handed down from her great grandmother. But it was probably more related to the way Stuart’s brother had put his arm around his wife and gazed with such devotion at his family. It had engendered a surge of jealousy in Kole he’d never experienced before, and that had unnerved him more than anything. He didn’t want to feel jealous, or envious, or anything in fact for something he’d chosen not to have.

  And now he felt all out of sorts, and not at all in the mood for a play-date. The kiss the night before had been lovely, but he couldn’t imagine Tasha agreeing to go to bed with him when it came to the crunch. Either she would back out or he would, depending on who won the game of chicken, but until that point they were both going to have to play along and pretend it felt perfectly normal for a couple who had been friends, and often enemies, for nigh on eleven years to suddenly strip off and get physical with each other.

  He sighed, got out of the car, and walked up the path to the house. Hopefully Tasha wasn’t in a particularly confrontational or aggressive mood. He loved her bright mind and sharp wit, but he didn’t feel capable of a full-blown battle that evening, and unusually for him, he didn’t particularly feel in a sexy mood either. Half of him wished he’d rung to cancel.

  He’d just reached the door when it opened before he’d had a chance to knock, so Tasha must have been waiting for him. She came out, closing it behind her, and stood before him, clutching her bag as she nibbled her bottom lip and waited.

  “Hey,” she said.

  Kole stared at her. He’d thought she looked softer the night before, in her slacks and T-shirt and high heels. But nothing could have prepared him for the way she looked tonight.

  She wore a knee-length summer dress made from some kind of floaty material in a dark pink that fell in soft folds, emphasizing her generous breasts and the curve of her hips. A pair of strappy high-heeled sandals in the same color complimented the outfit perfectly. Her hair was down for once, tumbling around her shoulders in dark waves. For maybe the first time ever except when she went swimming, she wasn’t wearing her glasses, and she’d outlined her eyes in black and her lips bore a pinky gloss.

  “Fucking hell,” he said.

  Relief flashed across her face, there and gone like the rosella parrots that swooped through the garden past them in a blur of color, but he caught it. She’d been nervous about his reaction. The thought warmed him through.

  A wry smile quickly replaced her look of relief, though. “I’m guessing I should take that as a compliment?” She glanced down at herself and then raised an eyebrow, looking more like the Tasha he was used to.

  He gathered his wits. She’d done something he’d once heard her swear she would never do—dress to impress a man. Of course, she’d probably done so because of the bet. She wanted the shop, and this proved how desperate she was to get it.

  But even so… The brief look of relief she probably hadn’t been aware of told him there was more to it than that. She’d wanted to please him. How utterly delightful.

  “It is very much a compliment,” he said. “You look amazing.”

  “Thank you.” She touched a hand to her hair in a womanly gesture that made him smile. “You look nice too.”

  “Thanks.” He wore a long-sleeved black shirt and a pair of cream chinos. “I think we make a dashing couple.” He held out his hand.

  She slid hers into his, and walked with him down the path to the car. “Dashing? Next you’ll be saying we’re ‘walking out’ or ‘promenading’.”

  “I would love to promenade with you. You deserve to be shown off, looking like you do.”

  The corner of her mouth curved up in a Tasha-type wry smile, but as she glanced up at him, unable to hide the pleasure his comment had obviously given her, a tingle descended his spine. Without makeup she had a distinctive natural beauty; with makeup she looked stunning, exotic.

  His fingers tightened on hers, and when they reached the car, he turned her to face him, moving close so their bodies touched. He slid his free hand into her hair to cup her head; the dark strands felt like silk ribbons sliding through his fingers.

  “Are you going to smudge my lip gloss?” she murmured.

  “Yes.” When she didn’t complain, he bent his head and touched his lips to hers. They were deliciously sticky, and when he moved back, their lips peeled apart.

  He lifted his head and looked into her eyes, seeing the glint of lenses over her irises. Her pupils were dilated, and his body hardened in response, preparing itself for her. Sure, this might all be fake, a carefully constructed attempt to turn him on. But it was working, and to be honest he didn’t really care.

  “You’ve cheered me up,” he said, sliding his hand reluctantly from her hair.

  She smiled. “I’m looking forward to dinner.”

  “Me too. Come on, I’m starving.”

  She laughed and opened the car door, and he walked around to the driver’s side and got in. They buckled their seatbelts, and he started the engine.

  “Why did you need cheering up?” she asked as he drove away.

  “Oh, I saw Stuart today at his niece’s christening.”

  “Stuart Casey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  Kole shrugged. “As you’d expect.”

  “Ria’s been gone about eighteen months now, hasn’t she?”

  “Yeah.” He took the main road toward Cooper’s Beach.

  “So no signs of him dating again then?”

  “Nope.”

  “I thought he might have met someone through the school, another teacher, or a single parent,” Tasha said. Stuart taught English at the school where Kole had taken the team photos.

  “Not yet. Ria’s the only girlfriend he’s ever had, far as I know.”

  Ko
le fell quiet as he thought about that, and Tasha looked out of the window and didn’t say anything either. He couldn’t imagine only having been with one woman. What must it feel like, to have one person who made you feel so complete you never wanted to date anyone else?

  He glanced at Tasha, who was still looking out of the window. Was she thinking the same?

  Wanting to lighten the mood, he changed the conversation to talk about the restaurant, telling her he hadn’t been there before but he’d heard good reports about it, and even Fox had told him the chef there had real talent, which was an accolade in itself.

  They chatted about food for a while and other restaurants they’d been to, then Tasha told him about a travel book she’d been reading. They started talking about places they wanted to visit, and in what seemed hardly any time they’d arrived at Cooper’s Beach. Kole parked the car and they got out, and he took her hand again and led her along the seafront to Antonio’s, a classy Italian restaurant overlooking the beautiful Doubtless Bay.

  As the weather was warming up and the day had been dry and clear, he’d asked for a table on the large area of decking just above the sand. The sun hung low in the sky, spilling red and gold onto the waves, and citronella lanterns suspended from the roof filled the deck with puddles of orange light, as well as keeping away annoying insects.

  The waiter showed them to a table right at the front, and they sat and took the menus.

  “Nice,” Tasha said, looking out across the sand where a few couples were walking along the shoreline, shoes in their hands and feet in the cool water. She glanced back at Kole, a twinkle in her eye. “Very romantic.”

  “One does one’s best.” He smiled. And then something, he wasn’t sure what, made him add, “You look lovely tonight. Part of me wishes we were here for genuine reasons.”

  Her mahogany eyes surveyed him. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know.” He fiddled with the pepper pot, half-wishing he hadn’t said anything. But thinking of Stuart again, standing there quiet and sad, prompted him to carry on. “I want the shop. I’m not afraid of admitting that, and I still don’t have any intentions of giving it up. But—and it’s a big but—after seeing Stuart today, I feel uncomfortable about treating this…whatever it is we have, lightly. I took the bet partly because it amused me, but also because I do like you. We’ve always been attracted to each other, I think, although we’ve hidden it behind a kind of semi-filial irritation. But there is something there. And I genuinely want to explore it.”