Her Enemy With Benefits. Nicola Marsh

full of it,’ Sapphie said, glancing at Opal for support.

      She shrugged and picked up her coffee to hide a burgeoning grin.

      ‘Okay, then, let’s look at this rationally.’ Ruby elbowed her. ‘You’ve been recuperating for months, and for half a year before that you were steadily driving yourself into the ground— which is why you almost ended up with severe chronic fatigue syndrome.’

      Sapphie opened her mouth to respond but Ruby held up her hand.

      ‘During that time you didn’t date. You didn’t eat either. But that’s another lecture you’ve already had.’ Ruby tapped her bottom lip, pretending to ponder. ‘And, as I recall, one of the things you said when I picked you up from Tenang two weeks ago was, “I really need a date—bad.”’

      ‘You said it. Date being the operative word. Date—not business colleague.’

      ‘That’s beside the point and you know it.’ Ruby dunked a Tim Tam in her espresso. Pushy and sacrilegious. ‘It’s not like you guys are strangers. You hung out all through senior year—’

      ‘Once again, that was for work. We were Biology lab partners, that’s all.’

      Ruby waved the Tim Tam around; it would serve her right if it softened, and the dunked bit fell off and landed on the floor.

      ‘I’m not that much younger than you, Saph, and I remember the way you’d be after studying with him.’

      Sapphie clamped her lips shut. Of course she’d looked different after studying with Patrick. The guy had driven her insane with his lack of concentration and constant distractions.

      ‘You’d look the same way you did yesterday. Glowing.’

      Sapphie waited until Ruby had stuffed the Tim Tam into her mouth so she couldn’t respond.

      ‘I was a serious student and Patrick’s mission in life was to make our study sessions as hard as humanly possible. He was a pain in the ass. Who may have made cramming for exams bearable with his bickering. So that glow was probably relief that for a few hours a week I could forget about everything else and just be a kid, maybe even laugh a little.’

      Ruby’s hand paused halfway to her mouth as Opal darted confused glances between them.

      ‘As for yesterday? Already told you. I probably caught too much sun while doing yoga out the back.’

      Opal smirked at that one, while Ruby shook her head. ‘You know how I feel about you shouldering the load and the unrealistic expectations Mum put on you. Not fair. Not by a long shot. So the fact Patrick made you laugh…don’t you want to recapture that feeling again?’

      Ruby didn’t have to say it but the rest of her sentence hung in the air, unsaid…After all you’ve been through?

      She knew Ruby wouldn’t let this go until she gave her a snippet of truth. ‘’Course I want to feel carefree, but that’s just it, Rubes. All the meditation and yoga and Pilates in the world aren’t going to change facts. Sure, I’ve learned to chill, but I am who I am, and the best way for me to start feeling good again is to do what I do best. Work. Run Sea-borns. Contribute.’

      Ensure she could cope physically with the demands of a job she loved.

      That was what had scared her most during recovery—hoping her body could keep up with her mind.

      She had so many plans she wanted to instigate, so many ways to ensure Seaborns stayed on top in the jewellery business, but she wouldn’t be able to do a darn thing if her body let her down.

      Hopefully, with a little TLC, her battered body would be back to its invincible best soon.

      ‘Crazy workaholic,’ Opal muttered, pretending she didn’t see the death glare Sapphie shot her.

      ‘You can still do all those things and have fun,’ Ruby said, slinging an arm across her shoulders. ‘The thing is, if you’re so busy working and getting this showing together, how will you have time to find a date? Bonking Patrick kills two birds with one stone—’

      ‘How about killing two family members with one stone?’ Sapphie jabbed a finger at the octagonal lapis lazuli pendant hanging around her sister’s neck. ‘That’s big enough to do the trick.’

      Opal laughed and pointed at Ruby. ‘She started it.’

      Ruby chuckled and squeezed her shoulders. ‘Think about it, okay? You’re busy but you need to have a little fun. Patrick seems like the perfect solution.’

      Unfortunately Sapphie happened to agree.

      She could protest all she liked but Ruby made sense. She’d be working on this showing with him twenty-four-seven. She wouldn’t have time to socialise let alone date.

      Would it be so bad to give in to a little harmless flirtation?

      Only one problem. Considering how her body came to life around him, how harmless would the flirtation be?

      Several hours later Patrick questioned the wisdom of meeting Sapphire at her place to work.

      Keeping his hands off her in the sterility of his office had been difficult enough without this…this…cosiness.

      Meeting at the Seaborns showroom should have been entirely business-focussed. Instead they’d reported their day’s progress in an hour and made an agenda for tomorrow in the following thirty minutes. Leaving him pacing the tiny apartment over the showroom while she ‘slipped into something more comfortable.’

      Yeah, she’d actually said those words, completely ingenu-ous—until he’d snorted. Only then had recognition dawned.

      She’d rolled her eyes at him, accused him of having a filthy mind and strolled into the bedroom, slipping off her towering ebony patent leather pumps along the way.

      The black seam of her stockings, starting at her heel and running all the way up her legs and underneath her knee-length crimson skirt had not helped the filthy mind situation.

      If any other woman had uttered those words he would have been prepped for a bout of wild sex. Coming from Sapphire, after ninety minutes of work focus, he acknowledged it for what it was. The simple statement of a tired workaholic who wanted to change out of her business suit.

      He knew the feeling. Following her example, he unknotted his tie and stuffed it into his jacket, hanging on the back of a chair. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled them up to his elbows but stopped short of slipping off his pants. Time enough for her to see his boxers.

      Chuckling under his breath at what she’d think of that cocky declaration, he wandered around the apartment. The place wasn’t like Sapphire at all, with its ethnic cushions in bright colours, mismatched multi-coloured bottles serving as vases and a stack of chick-flicks in towering disarray next to an ancient DVD player.

      She’d told him Ruby used to live here, before she’d moved out recently to be with her husband, and that Sapphire found it convenient while she eased back into the business.

      When he’d asked why she had to ease back she’d clammed up and made a big deal of going over their itineraries for the next week.

      Discomfort had made her babble so he’d let her off the hook. For now. Day two of the frantic month’s work ahead wasn’t the best time to be interrogating his colleague. He’d bide his time. Maybe a fine bottle of Grange wouldn’t go astray?

      Great, not only was he assuming he’d get her naked, he wanted to get her drunk too.

      Way to go with his reformation.

      Those days of carousing were long behind him. He’d grown tired of the paparazzi’s constant scandalmongering in Paris, had found their scrutiny of his social life tiresome. Sure, his lifestyle had served its purpose, getting them to focus on his wild ways rather than that botched first showing, but it had reached a stage where he