Putting the photo down, Sam slowly pulled his clothes on, tucking Delaney’s bra into his back pocket to return to her later. He felt sick and scared. Because he knew he was dangerously close to making Delaney hate him.
Feeling suddenly claustrophobic, he scooped up his car keys and strode toward the door. Pausing only to set the alarm and lock up after himself, he jumped into his SUV and pulled out into the quiet streets of early morning Fitzroy. He needed to clear his head, and this time half measures wouldn’t cut it.
Turning his car toward the freeway, he put his foot down and drove. By the time dawn was lightening the rim of the world, he was pulling into the gravel driveway of his mate’s beach house on Philip Island, south of Melbourne. Sam had an open invitation to treat the place as his own, and he knew Charlie was in the U.S. at present on a business trip. It was the perfect place to make peace with himself and work out how to make it up to Delaney.
Fortunately, he always traveled with a surfboard in the back of the car, and there was bound to be an array of cast-off clothes lurking there, also. Enough to see him through, anyway.
It took only moments to locate the spare key in its hiding spot in the garden, and he let himself into the house and flicked on some lights. Ensuring that he’d switched on the electric hot water service, he trailed his way through to the spare bedroom. It was furnished with two saggy single beds, remnants from Charlie’s childhood. Uncaring, Sam threw himself onto one and closed his eyes. For now, he wanted some sleep. In a few hours, he would wake up and go find some waves. Only after he’d immersed himself in sea and spray for several hours would he let himself think about Delaney again.
And then he’d find a way to make things right.
DELANEY HAD the whole weekend to examine her folly from every angle. She’d called Sam an idiot, but she was just as stupid. Why had she listened to her slathering hormones and not her common sense? When were hormones ever right? And now she’d compounded the disaster of Tuesday morning by adding a big cherry on top of it in the form of Friday night’s little debacle. Or, if she were being technically correct, big debacle, given the quality of the orgasm she’d experienced.
Pacing the balcony of her apartment on Sunday evening, Delaney took a big mouthful of wine from the glass she was holding and admitted to herself that she was well and truly screwed up. In love with her best friend, about to throw away a great career and rapidly on the way to becoming sexually obsessed.
Why, by all that was good in the world, did Sam have to be so great in bed? Or on a desk, or a living room floor, for that matter. The man was a sensual master. A sexual genius. A Mozart of the bedroom. He had plucked and stroked and sucked and teased her into the most heightened state of arousal she’d ever experienced in her life.
And then pulled the afterglow right out from under her by immediately proclaiming himself sorry for all of the above. It was too, too humiliating.
Delaney took another sip from her wineglass and leaned on the balcony railing. Around her, thousands of lights twinkled in the night, the sprawl of inner-city Melbourne stretching off into the distance.
Briefly her mind wandered to the apartment above. She hadn’t heard Sam moving around all weekend. It didn’t surprise her. He’d probably done a runner for a few days. He’d never been big on dealing with difficult situations. How pleasant to find herself filed under that heading in his life.
Turning back toward her apartment, she caught sight of her reflection in the darkened glass door. It wasn’t a very attractive sight. She’d been moping around all weekend sulking about what could have been or what should have been, and she hadn’t washed her hair for two days in a row. Now it was scrunched up on the back of her neck in a rubber band, a very unsleek, unsophisticated mess. Then there was her clothing. Baggy sports pants, baggy T-shirt, no bra, floppy socks. The inside of her didn’t feel any better, either. Her teeth were fuzzy from eating too much chocolate, and she had a cramp in her eyebrows from scowling all weekend.
“Get over yourself, Delaney,” she told herself.
So she was in love with a man who didn’t return her feelings. It wasn’t going to kill her, was it? There were worse things in life. Right?
For a second her mind was a complete blank as she tried to come up with a worse scenario.
“Pathetic,” she muttered to herself, tossing off the last of the wine. Then she marched back inside her apartment and went straight to the bathroom.
A long hot shower later, she combed out her newly washed and conditioned hair and sat down with the real estate section of the newspaper.
The only thing to do was to keep moving forward with her plan. Soon she would be out of the business, and the next step would be removing herself from the temptation of living beneath Sam.
She shot a wistful look around her apartment. She’d put a lot of herself into this place. But hanging on to it would just be an excuse to hang on to Sam. And he’d made it abundantly, brutally clear that there was nothing to hang on to.
Her shoulders sagged as she at last acknowledged the most galling aspect of her recent encounter with Sam. As he’d reached for her, his eyes hungry, his body needing hers, she’d been on fire with hope. Because he wouldn’t have grabbed her like that if he didn’t feel something, right?
And then he’d said those fateful words. I don’t know why that happened.
But what had she been expecting him to say? Delaney, I love you? Please don’t leave me, I can’t imagine my life without you?
Really? Did her folly really extend that far?
Delaney stared sightlessly down at the newspaper spread across her lap.
Yes. She was that foolish. She had hoped, even after all these years. Even after the way he’d behaved after the last time they’d slept with each other. Which was why Sam’s words had hurt so much. Would she never learn her lesson where he was concerned?
You know what to do, she berated herself. Just do it.
Picking up a pen, Delaney refocused on the real estate ads.
Coming up, one new Sam-free life. Stat.
SAM SLAMMED the back of his car shut and reached for his surfboard. Tucking it under one arm, he strode out onto the sand, angling up toward the peak of the dunes that stood between him and the beach. There was an easier way to the water, cutting through the dunes rather than over them, but the view from the top was spectacular. And he needed every bit of inspiration that Mother Nature had on offer at the moment.
After four days of surfing, eating and sleeping, he was finally beginning to see a way forward through the mess he’d made of his relationship with Delaney.
For starters, the sex had to stop. It was amazing, mind-blowing, addictive. But it was also the fastest route to losing her. For perhaps the first time in his life, he would have to exercise some self-restraint and keep his hands out of the cookie jar.
It was about more than just keeping his mitts off her, however. Straddling his bobbing board out past the break early one morning, Sam had had an epiphany. Delaney was his friend—his dearest, most loyal, most beloved friend. And she had told him that she wanted to have a family. She wanted to meet someone special, fall in love, make babies. Build a life, in short.
If he were a true friend, her goal would be his goal. It was so clear to him out there on the ocean, the salt spray fresh in his face. He had to help Delaney find a man worthy of her. He had to help her find new challenges.
He’d grown more and more certain about his decision over the ensuing days. Now, he crested the top of the dune and paused to take in the view, his board propped beside him in the sand. Below him, golden sand stretched down to a private, untouched cove. Waves licked the beach, their peaks foaming as they curled into the sand. The blue-grey ocean seemed to stretch on forever.
The wind stirred his hair and he squinted his eyes against the glare of the mid-afternoon sun. Inside his chest, there was a hollow place that had been there ever since he’d made his big decision. The ugly truth was that he wanted Delaney all to himself. He didn’t want to watch her fall in love with Mr. Two-Point-Five-Kids. He didn’t even want to play favorite uncle to her children, to teach them how to surf and skate and get in trouble. He was that much of a selfish bastard. The thought of her building a life for herself that didn’t include him in a major role was almost unthinkable.
But it was what she wanted. And he was determined that Delaney would get it.
Slinging his board under his arm again, Sam made his way down to the water. Splashing into the shallows, he stopped to secure his leg rope around his ankle, then waded in deep enough to launch himself onto his board. Paddling surely and strongly, he made his way out past the break.
For the next hour, he surfed hard, his mind a complete blank. Delaney, the magazine, everything receded into the distance. It was all still ticking over somewhere down deep, but he’d won himself some valuable breathing room. By the time he stepped back onto the beach, he felt crystal clear and very calm.
He was going to come clean to Delaney, tell her that he was threatened by what was going on with their friendship. He didn’t relish the conversation, emotional chitchat not being his strong point, but he would make the effort for her. Then he would offer her his services as a matchmaker. It was the least he could do, he figured, to make it up to her after shamelessly taking advantage of her the way he had. After all, who knew her better than him? He knew all her habits, good and bad. He knew she was always grumpy in the morning, and that she adored Turkish delight, and that she was compulsive about sleeping only on one-hundred-percent cotton sheets.
Plus, he knew a lot of guys. Surfing mates, skating mates, drinking mates, partying mates. Some of them even fell into all categories. Somewhere in his rich and varied catalogue of friends there must be a man worthy of Delaney.
Making his way back to the car by the easy route this time, Sam turned the matter over and over in his mind. The first candidate who sprang to mind was Macca. Short for Scott McCarthy, a friend of both his and Delaney’s for years. Which was good, for starters—no weird vibe about Macca not wanting Sam and Delaney to continue their friendship. And Macca earned a sweet living running his own construction company. He was a good mate, talked about his sister’s kids a lot and wasn’t a bastard with women. Three ticks. On the down side, he didn’t have much of a sense of humor. And he was pretty passive, usually backing down in an argument.
Sliding his board into his car, Sam dried himself roughly with a towel as he mentally crossed Macca off his list. Now that he thought about it, the poor guy just wasn’t up to Laney’s speed. She needed someone to push back, keep her honest. She was a passionate woman, and she needed someone to match that passion.
Sam resolutely stopped himself from thinking about exactly how passionate Delaney was as he tooled his car back to Charlie’s beach house. The gravel driveway crackled beneath his tires as he pulled up, and his eyes grew unfocused as another prospect occurred: Charlie himself.
No problem with being a good provider—Charlie was raking it in with his job as an investment banker. And he owned property—witness the holiday house. He dressed well, and could handle himself in almost any situation. He didn’t surf, true, but he did like to snowboard, so he was redeemable. He was funny, generous and very damned charming with the ladies, from what Sam had seen.
Pretty much perfect, really. Sam’s jaw flexed and his fingers tightened on the steering wheel as he imagined setting Charlie and Delaney up on a date. Charlie could probably sweep her off her feet if he put his mind to it. His grip tightened even further on the steering wheel.
The two of them already knew each other, of course. So it wouldn’t be too awkward. Sam frowned as a thought occurred. Maybe they knew each other too well? Maybe there’d be no excitement between them? Because if Charlie had been at all interested in Delaney, he would have made a move before now, wouldn’t he?
Although Charlie hadn’t seen Delaney lately, of course. Not since her makeover. Sam suddenly had an image of Charlie getting an eyeful of Delaney in her new skin-tight jeans and tiny tops. He could just imagine his friend’s reaction.
Lips thinning, he crossed Charlie off the list as well. Any man who needed to see Delaney in skin-tight jeans to appreciate her just was not up to scratch.
Obviously it wasn’t going to be easy finding someone who was Delaney’s perfect match. And why should it be? She was a special, amazing woman. The man who wound up marrying her would be the luckiest sod on the planet, and then some. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she’d make a great mother, either. She doted on her sister’s kids, but he’d also seen her handle their tantrums with confident aplomb. She’d be a natural, no doubt about it.
Sam found himself in the living room, staring at Charlie’s seen-better-days sofa and ratty old black-and-white television. It was time to go back. He’d stalled his return for as long as he could, having left a message on Delaney’s office voice mail on Sunday night explaining he’d be taking a few days off work. There was always a brief lull in between issues, so he’d known he wasn’t placing too much of a burden on her by sloping off for a couple of days.
But it was Wednesday, and his time was more than up. He’d achieved what he’d set out to do. He’d got his head on straight where Delaney was concerned, gained himself some much-needed perspective. He had a game plan, a strategy to move forward with.