Summer Beach Reads. Natalie Anderson

       Come on, Hayden. You’ve had a decade.

      Something.

      Anything.

      Swimming with dolphins. Climbing the Harbour Bridge. Running a marathon. Even she’d done that one, back before she’d got boobs. Back when her schedule had been able to tolerate training for eight straight hours. It had taken her eighteen months to train up and get old enough to qualify, but then she’d placed in the middle of the under-sixteens category and held her medal to the heavens as she lurched across the finish line.

      And then she’d never run again.

       If I can tick that one off, surely you can, Tennant.

      Hayden, with his long, fast legs. His intense focus. His rigid determination. He wouldn’t even need to train, he’d just will himself to last the entire forty-two kilometres.

      She’d hoped for a while that he was honouring her mother privately, keeping his own list the way she herself was.

      But the truth had finally dawned.

      All that angst, all that sorrow and despair at her funeral; all of that was simply the emotion of the moment. Like a performance piece. Terribly dramatic and intense. Terribly Hayden. None of it had been genuine. Amazing, really, that he was still forking out the cash annually to maintain the domain name.

      She cocked her head.

       The domain …

      It took her just a few minutes to track down the site registration details and a few more for a contact number for the company it was registered to. Molon Labe Enterprises. That had to be him. He’d had a thing for Spartans the entire time she’d known him.

      Known of him.

      Watched him.

      She chased down the contact details for the company right here in Sydney and its executive structure. He wasn’t on it. Disappointed by that dead end, she called the company direct and asked for him outright.

      ‘Mr Tennant does not take calls,’ the receptionist told her.

      Really? Too busy and important? ‘Could you give me his email address, please?’

      It took the officious woman nearly a minute to outline all the reasons why she couldn’t. Shirley rang off, far from defeated. Chasing down story leads was what she did for a living. It wasn’t stalking if you were a professional. A bit of reconnaissance, finding out where he was and what was so important it had made him forget the promises of a decade ago …

      That was doable. He’d never even know.

      Thank goodness for search engines.

      Two hours went by before she surfaced, frowning deeply at the screen. Hayden Tennant was a time bomb. Her online search was littered with images of him stumbling out of one seedy venue or another on the arm of some blonde—always a blonde—going back six years. In most of them, it was hard to tell who was holding up whom, but the club security was always on hand to facilitate their departure.

      She stared at one image. He looked nothing like the Hayden she remembered. He used to get around in a shabby kind of hip style—the garret look, her mother had used to joke and make Shirley promise never to go out in public like that. So of course she had instantly wanted to. The designer lank hair, holed jumper and frequently bare feet. Bohemian plus. She’d coveted everything about his personal style back then, as only a lovesick fourteen-year-old could.

      But the Internet had him in some pretty fancy threads now, as carefully fitted as the women accessorising the sharp suit and cars.

       Guess everyone grows up.

      She searched up Molon Labe’s website, flicked through to their corporate contacts and scribbled down the address. Maybe his reception staff would find it harder to say no to her face? Not that she had the vaguest idea of what she’d say if she saw him.

      Or why she wanted to.

      Maybe so she could ask him, personally, why he hadn’t bothered to tick a single box. Maybe because she owed it to her mother.

      Or maybe just so she could finally nail a lid on the last remnants of her childhood.

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘PLEASE be a stripper.’

      His voice was thick and groggy, as though she’d just roused him from sleep. Maybe she had. It was a gently warm and breezeless day and Hayden Tennant looked as if he’d been lying in that longish grass at the base of the slope behind his cottage for quite some time.

      Shirley found some air and forced it past a larynx choked with nerves. This suddenly seemed like a spectacularly bad idea.

      ‘Were you expecting one?’ she breathed.

      He scrutinised her from behind expensive sunglasses. ‘No. But I’ve learned never to question the benevolence of the universe.’

      Still so fast with a comeback. The man in front of her might have matured in ways she hadn’t anticipated but he was still Hayden inside.

      Somewhere.

      She straightened and worked hard not to pluck at her black dress. It was the tamest thing in her wardrobe. ‘I’m not a stripper.’

      His head flopped back down onto the earth and his eyes closed again. ‘That’s disappointing.’

       Discharged.

      She stood her ground and channelled her inner Shiloh. She wouldn’t let his obvious dismissal rile her. Silent minutes ticked by. His long body sprawled comfortably where he lay. She took the opportunity to look him over. Still lean, still all legs. A tiny, tidy strip of facial hair above his lip and on his chin. Barely there but properly manicured. It only half-covered the scar she knew marred his upper lip.

      The biggest difference was his hair. Shorter now than when he’d been at uni and a darker blond. It looked as if someone who knew what they were doing had cut it originally, but she guessed they hadn’t had a chance to provide any maintenance recently.

      She pressed her lips together and glared pointlessly at him as the silence continued. Had he gone back to sleep?

      ‘I can do this all day,’ he murmured, eyes still closed. ‘I have nowhere to be.’

      She spread her weight more evenly on her knee-high boots and appreciated every extra inch they gave her. ‘Me, too.’

      He lifted his head again and opened his eyes a crack.

      ‘If you’re not here to give me a lap dance, what do you want?’

      Charming. ‘To ask you some questions.’

      He went dangerously still. Even the grass seemed to stop its swaying. ‘Are you a journalist?’

      ‘Not really.’

      ‘It’s a yes/no question.’

      ‘I write for an online blog.’ Understatement. ‘But I’m not here in that capacity.’

      He pulled himself up and braced against one strong arm in the turf. Did that mean she had his attention?

      ‘How did you find me?’

      ‘Molon Labe.’

      He frowned and lifted his sunglasses to get a better look at her. His eyes were exactly as blue and exactly as intense as she remembered. She sneaked in a quick extra breath.

      ‘My office wouldn’t have given you this address.’

      No. Not even face to face.

      ‘I researched it.’ Code for I stalked your offices.