Cracking the Dating Code

CHAPTER THREE

SEB ate his seafood curry hot and took his bedtime shower lukewarm and stinging. Give it a few days, a week at the most, two weeks at the outside and mousy, brainy little Poppy West would be off his island and so would he.

Head for the mainland. Take care of some business. He found the shampoo—squirted it straight from the bottle onto his hair. Maybe he’d touch base with his crew and then go and lose himself in a woman for a while.

A savvy, experienced, blue-eyed blonde who knew how the game was played and wouldn’t expect a damn thing of him other than satisfaction at the time.

Not Poppy West, she of the golden-toffee tresses, cornflower-blue eyes and decidedly enigmatic ways.

Not her.

Seb closed his eyes and scrubbed at his hair, willing his body not to stir, but the more he willed it, the more contrary his body got.

He soaped his chest, took a scratchy sea sponge to his arms.

She’d be pliant in bed; maybe even a little inexperienced.

Deeply, openly responsive.

Seb cursed, a word that had been on his mind all day.

Even if she didn’t have a thing for Tomas, even if Tom had no interest in her, it would be very poor form to mess around with his brother’s business partner.

Tomas, who’d excelled at everything, including being a big brother. Pulled Seb out of the pit when his first girlfriend had dumped him for a blue-blooded golden boy. Talked Seb off an oil platform and into an engineering degree. Encouraged Seb’s idiot idea of putting together some sort of crack rigging crew. Troubleshoot anything that gushed or burned and cap it, bring it back under control—those were the jobs Seb and his crew took on. Proving his worth, over and over, until finally he’d believed in himself and the things he could deliver. Not as clever as Tomas. Not as polished or urbane, but worth something nonetheless.

Until one crucial split-second decision had cost one man his life and another his hearing.

Seb’s crew. Seb’s responsibility.

He wanted a drink.

He wanted his friend back.

And in true self-destructive, must-compete style, he wanted his brother’s girl.

Seb rinsed off, cut the water and walked naked through to his bedroom. He found a towel, then a pair of loose cotton pyjama bottoms.

He headed for the office and did his best to ignore the faint floral scent that hung in the air there. And then he picked up the phone and called Tom.

‘I got your parcel,’ he said when Tom answered. ‘What the hell is she doing here?’ Besides torturing him with her nearness.

‘Working,’ said Tom. ‘At least, that’s the assumption. Why? What is she doing there?’

‘Working,’ said Seb grudgingly. ‘That is not the issue. What I want to know is why you sent her here in the first place. You into her? You setting something up? Like a lightning visit?’

‘What?’ said Tomas.

‘God, you even sound like her,’ muttered Seb. ‘Are. You. Into. Her? It’s not a difficult question. A simple yes or no will do.’

‘What if I am?’ asked Tom warily.

‘Then you’d better come and get her before I forget you exist. Now do you understand?’

His brother swore, loud and long. Smart man, only, ‘I’m not involved with Poppy,’ he said at some point during the tirade. ‘I have no intention of ever getting involved with Poppy,’ he said a short time later, and the stranglehold on Seb’s chest relaxed. ‘But if you think I sent her there for you to get into, you couldn’t be more wrong,’ his brother continued. ‘You want to party, get off the island.’

‘And leave Her Citified Slenderness here by herself? How do you think that’s going to work out? She’s already nervous about staying in the guest house by herself.’

Silence from Tom.

‘Can’t she go and work somewhere else?’ It wasn’t quite a plea for mercy but it was the closest Seb had ever come to one. ‘Because if you want me to stay away from her, she’s going to have to go.’

‘She can’t go,’ said Tom. ‘Trust me on this one. She needs the privacy, the bat cave, and she needs a bit of time. Give her two weeks, Seb. Please. Hell, give her two days. Surely you can manage two days without trying to get her on her back?’

‘Crème caramel,’ murmured Seb. ‘I haven’t had a crème caramel in ages.’

‘Resist.’ Panic in Tom’s voice now, but it was too late. Tom didn’t want her. Seb most certainly did. ‘I mean it, Seb. You treat her like a sister.’

‘We don’t have a sister.’

‘Point taken,’ said Tom. ‘Then, for God’s sake, treat her like my boss.’

Dawn came too early for Poppy, but once the sky began to brighten on the horizon there was nothing else to do but pull the mosquito net aside, turn on her side in the glorious, king-sized bed, find a few pillows to prop beneath her head and give the dawn show the attention it deserved.

Sleep had taken its time coming to her last night. Sunrise took its time too as it stole across the rippling water and then crept across the edge of her bed.

Poppy stretched her hand out to caress it; no bite in the sun’s rays yet, but the dust motes in the air glowed silver and they kept her entertained as vivid dreams of making love with Sebastian had kept her entertained throughout last night.

In her dreams, Poppy hadn’t been standoffish or in need of personal space. She hadn’t been wary of him or of the things he might do.

It hadn’t been awkward. She hadn’t been clueless or desperately out of her depth, the way she had been with others.

She hadn’t been seventeen going on fourteen and Sebastian hadn’t been twenty-two and impatient. Sebastian hadn’t been baffled by her awkwardness or horrified by her age and inexperience when finally she’d confessed it.

He hadn’t muttered stumbling apologies interspersed with curses, while scooping up her clothes and directing her to put them on, put them on, before hurriedly showing her the door, saying, ‘Sorry, sorry, dear God, I’m sorry. I had no idea.’

Sebastian hadn’t said sorry at all.

Fine things, dreams.

Poppy threw her covers back and stretched out and waited until the sun bathed every inch of her in its glow.

Dreams were what wishes were made of.

Sebastian wasn’t at the house when Poppy arrived there just on 8:00 a.m. Easy, then, to make herself at home in the cave and find Tom’s cache of music and crank up the juice and get down to business.

She almost didn’t hear the outer office phone, but the repetitive ring seeped through to her brain eventually and with it came a new dilemma. Answer it or not? Surely the man had an answering machine?

But a quick look confirmed the phone for some sort of satellite affair and whether it had an answering service function was open to speculation. She reached for the phone and picked it up gingerly.

‘Finally,’ said an exasperated female voice. ‘I didn’t think you were ever going to pick up. You done brooding yet? Because there’s a few things here in need of your attention. Like a potential blowout in the Timor Sea. Do we want after it or not?’

‘Hello?’ said Poppy. ‘You’ll be after Seb.’

‘Who’s this?’ asked the voice suspiciously.

‘Are you after Seb?’ countered Poppy politely. ‘Because I’m quite happy to take a message. I’m quite happy to go and find him and deliver a message if it’s important.’

‘Who are you, exactly?’

‘A friend of Tom’s.’

‘Seb’s brother.’ The voice grew friendlier by the second.

‘Yes. Seb’s not in the house right now. I’m not sure where he is, to be honest.’

‘In that case, I’d love you to give him a message. Tell him there’s a jackup leaking oil and gas in the Montara field. It’s been evacuated and I’m pulling in more details from the parent company now. It’s a mess. Tell him to call Wendy asap.’

‘Tell him or ask him?

‘Ask him,’ said Wendy. ‘But if you can make it sound like it’s non-negotiable, all the better.’

‘All righty,’ said Poppy. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

She hung up and, with a wistful glance towards the computer room, headed for the quad and set it chugging sedately down the track towards the boatshed in search of her host.

But he wasn’t in the boatshed, so she tried to remember where he’d said he might be as she took the track that ran around behind it and worked the quad slowly around the edge of the island. Fishing, climbing, swimming or something. That was where he’d be.

Poppy kept motoring, with the smell of the bush closing in on one side of her and the smell of the sea on the other, and the colours spread out before her were forest green and azure blue, sometimes butting up against each other and sometimes separated by a strip of sand. Wind in her hair, the sun on her face and the throb of the quad beneath her. Poppy’s senses were sharper here. Her enjoyment of sensual things more pronounced.

Maybe that might explain her fascination with one Sebastian Reyne.

He wasn’t on the first stretch of beach that she came to but she did find his quad parked in the shade of some trees on the second. Poppy scanned the beach and the bushland behind her but there was no sign of the man on either.

Sighing, she turned her attention to the sea. Picture perfect, this little blue bay. A semicircle full of shallows and coral clusters and then an abrupt drop off into water of an infinitely deeper blue.

A slight commotion in the water. Darting fins, black tipped and plenty of them. A snorkelling Sebastian, rising from the shallows with a spear gun in hand and a pearly orange fish on the end of it. Spear fishing in the company of half a dozen or so curious sharks.

Man with a death wish, as far as she was concerned, but then, given the day job, what else could she expect?

Poppy cupped her hands and called to him. Waited until he turned around and then stood up and waved him in. Die he would, if that was truly his desire, but please, Lord, not on her watch and not in the water.

He waded back towards the shore and a cohort of black-tipped fins wove in and out around him, but he still had his catch when he reached the sand and stripped off his snorkelling gear, and a grin on his face that spoke of enjoyment, not terror.

‘Morning,’ he said mildly when he reached her, but Poppy was somewhat beyond a mild-mannered reply.

‘You irresponsible, self-absorbed d—’ Poppy stopped herself just in time. Settled for glaring at him instead. He wasn’t one of her brothers. None of her business if he’d decided that death-by-misadventure was his preferred way to go. Besides, she was only here to deliver a message. And get him off the island. An action that, given the nature of the message, could prove remarkably easy. ‘Hi.’

‘What was that?’ he enquired smoothly. ‘I didn’t quite catch the last D word and now I’m all curious as to what you didn’t say. D for daredevil? D for drunk? Although I’m not, you’ll be pleased to know.’

He stood before her and dared her to pass comment. Man, his mouth, his fish and a lazy, teasing glint in his eye.

‘D for dog? Dirty dog? Because I’d argue that I’m probably quite clean right now. Briny fresh. Or is it the spear fishing you object to?’

‘I don’t object to you catching lunch. Watching you become lunch, on the other hand, is a little too out there for me.’

‘You mean the reef sharks?’ He glanced behind him and there they were. ‘Honestly, Poppy, they’re harmless. Puppies of the sea.’ He’d called her Poppy. Somewhere along the way that bit registered. Puppies and Poppies. Too many P’s.

‘They like sea urchins best,’ he said next and offered up a crooked smile. ‘You want to feed them?’

‘Feed them?’ She knew she was looking at him as if he was mental. That was because he was. ‘Feed them?’ He was dragging her attention away from her point. Points in the plural, actually, for she had several of them to make.

Poppy pointed to where the coral beds met deeper water and waited for the shadow and the fin to reappear and sure enough it did. No darting about for this dorsal fin, or the tail fin that followed some distance behind it—just the slow, smooth glide of a very accomplished predator. ‘You planning on feeding that one too?’

Seb’s eyes narrowed. The black-tipped reef sharks decided it was time to depart.

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘Not that one. That one’s just passing through. Thanks for the call out though. Appreciated.’ He pondered the mysteries of the unknown shark for a little bit longer. ‘D for dead in the water?’

‘Maybe,’ she murmured as the just-passing-through shark ventured into the shallows. Close enough to make out the shape of him, and the dark stripes across his back. A four-metre-long tiger shark, give or take a little refraction error on account of the water. She could be calm now that Seb was out of the sea. Calmer, at any rate. ‘Big, isn’t he?’

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘Ever thought about stretching a nice little shark net across the mouth of the cove?’

‘Not ‘til now.’

The shark was moving slowly away, cruising the far shallows and finding nothing of interest. Sharks were very distracting. Time to get back to the point. The other point. ‘Wendy rang. She wants you to ring her back. She said, and I quote: “There’s a jackup leaking oil and gas in the Montara field.” It’s been evacuated and she’s getting more details from the parent company. Is it just me or is that shark looking for something?’

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