A Price Worth Paying(20)

‘You will be very happy with that gown,’ Alondra said.

‘Your boyfriend thinks you look very sexy,’ said the other.

He still wasn’t her boyfriend and she very much doubted he thought about how she looked other than to gauge whether she would pass muster and be accepted in his company. ‘Well, he sure didn’t say much.’

‘Didn’t you see his eyes?’ The women looked at each other with a smile. ‘His eyes, they said plenty. He thought you were hot.’

Shop girl talk, she figured as she slipped out of the dress, the same the world over and designed to make you feel good about whatever you were trying on. If they saw anything in his eyes, it was most likely the greedy prospect of getting his hands on the rest of Felipe’s vines.

Besides, he didn’t think her hot. She wasn’t his type and that was fine. That was good. It made it so much easier to deal with him, knowing he wasn’t in the least bit interested in her.

She only wished she could be as impartial to him. Maybe then she wouldn’t spend so much time thinking how good he’d looked dressed only in a towel. And God, how he had. And then there was his evocative scent and the curl of his long tapered fingers around the steering wheel and the way her skin had sizzled when they touched …

No, thank God he wasn’t interested in her because it made the whole no-sex deal workable. Knowing the terms of their contract would stipulate that condition was comforting. But knowing she could rely on him not to try anything was the clincher.

At least one of them would be thinking straight.

His meeting had been interminable as plans were made for the upcoming harvest, and he wondered at the sense of leaving her for so long with a blank credit card. But she wasn’t still shopping. Instead, he found the three women sitting at a table outside the nearby restaurant, eating pintxos and sipping on Mojitos. ‘I do hope,’ he said, joining them and only half joking, ‘this doesn’t mean Simone has bought everything in the shop.’

She coloured and gave a guilty smile, as if she’d been caught in the act, and he smiled too, not just because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman blush, but because somehow she looked different. She’d changed her top—out of whatever nondescript rag she’d been wearing before, for a flirty silk blouse patterned in orange and teal that he liked—but he was sure there was something else.

‘It’s our fault,’ one of the shop assistants said. ‘We have kept Simone so busy, we felt she deserved a treat.’

‘So busy,’ the other said, ‘but so efficient that we even managed to get her into the salon across the street. Do you like Simone’s new look?’

So that was what was different about her? Now he could see not only that her hair had been professionally styled, but that highlights had been added, whisper-thin streaks of chilli and cinnamon that gleamed in the light and blended in with the natural honey-gold of her hair. Somehow it seemed to give her hair depth. He nodded. ‘I approve.’

‘I won’t hold you up,’ she said, her cheeks flaring now under his scrutiny as she awkwardly stood, reaching for her shopping.

‘Is that all there is?’ he asked, surveying the small collection of carrier bags nearby.

‘The gown needs to be taken up,’ said one of the women, ‘It will be delivered tomorrow.’

‘But that’s the rest of it?’

One of the women laughed. ‘Your girlfriend is a very reluctant shopper, señor. We tried to convince her but she would not buy a fraction of what we picked out for her.’ She nodded. ‘You are a very lucky man.’

The women excused themselves to return to their shop while she gathered up her bags.

He leaned past her to collect up the last of them and he breathed in her scent, like warm peaches on a sunny day. Liking her perfume, even though it was probably just the shampoo the salon had used. Still, he liked the changes he was noticing about her. She was still not his type, but it would make it so much easier to pretend. ‘They think we are a couple.’

‘I know. I couldn’t see the point of correcting them.’

‘No, it is good,’ he said, leading her back to where he’d parked the car. ‘That is what everyone is meant to think. If they assume simply because we are seen shopping together that we are a couple, imagine what people will believe when they see us kiss.’

See us kiss? ‘You were actually fitting me out with a wardrobe,’ she said, trying to find a shred of logic in a mind that wanted to hone in and focus on the prospect of him kissing her instead. When? How? How soon? ‘We weren’t “simply shopping” at all.’