‘What—you think they weren’t there to hear me talk?’
‘Oh, I’m quite sure they were hanging on your every word.’
Lucy leaned against a table nearby and watched as Daniel played the shots. The final shots—he sank the black in style.
Corey groaned. ‘Aw, man, I thought you said you didn’t play much.’
Daniel grinned, putting the pool cue aside. ‘Just lucky, I guess.’
Yeah, right. ‘Are you good at everything you do?’ Man, it irritated her. That he could turn his hand to anything and master it—excel, in fact, just like that. Why wasn’t talent shared around normal people?
He smiled at her snap. ‘You tell me. Am I good?’
She glared. ‘You know you are.’
‘You game to take me on, then?’ He nodded towards the table.
She had already taken him on that table in a far more serious game than she was willing to admit and he was winning at that hands down. She shook her head. ‘I have to work.’
‘You’re working too hard.’ He followed her over to the bar.
‘Rich coming from you.’
‘I’m serious. The hours you’re working are too long.’
She cupped her hands around her mouth like a pretend megaphone. ‘Pot calling kettle, come in, kettle.’
‘I’m used to it.’
Meaning she wasn’t? Thanks very much. Despite knowing he was right it annoyed her. He thought she was a flake. Not up to the job, unable to sustain and maintain a decent work ethic. ‘Yeah. Well. Life’ll pass you by.’
He cocked his head and studied her, abandoning Corey’s suggestion of a best-of-three competition. ‘What’s up?’
‘Your friend was in here earlier.’
‘Friend?’
‘Yeah, the woman you work with. What’s her name—’ she showed her deep-in-thought face ‘—um…?’
‘Sarah?’
‘Yes, that’s it. Sarah.’
His eyes were dancing and she knew her pretence at forgetting the witch’s name was as bad an acting job as you could get.
‘What did Sarah have to say?’
‘Oh, she was full of your future.’
His brows shot up. ‘My future?’
Lucy nodded. ‘Apparently you’re the man, Daniel. Partner, professor, even a judge if the rumours are to be believed.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I’m next up for a full partnership and the dean of the law faculty called me in this afternoon. There’s a position coming up.’ He grinned. ‘I think the judge thing is a little premature.’
Yeah, but he wasn’t denying it was a possibility.
She filled her trusty red bottle with water from the postmix and tried not to remember his torso in the sodden shirt from that night. That was the trouble with the postmix these days—every time she went to use it, she thought of him. She frowned at it.
‘Why was Sarah talking about that with you?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. It just came up in passing.’ She decided not to totally backstab the woman. He had to work with her. And if he had one of his two-date flings with her, what did Lucy care? She’d have left town and forgotten all about him.
Her frown deepened.
‘You don’t find talking about my career fascinating?’ he teased.
She glanced up. ‘Oh, no. It’s interesting. You’ve worked really hard to get to where you are. It’s pretty amazing.’
He shrugged. ‘Life isn’t all about good grades.’
‘It is for you.’
‘You’re not as much of a slacker as you like to make out.’ He pulled her up. ‘You didn’t scrape by, Lucy—you went to university, you got a degree. You’re not a drop-out.’
‘That was only because of Sienna—my best friend. We got into music together. It was a hobby, an excuse to go into her garage—supposedly to practise but more to hang and chat. A way of getting away from my parents.’
‘I guess I was lucky finding what I wanted to do early on. It was always law for me.’ He drummed his fingers on the bar. ‘Have you never had something you’re passionate about? That you eat, breathe and sleep?’
She had something now. Something she really wanted to excel at—could excel at. Two things, in fact. How was it she’d finally found what she was meant to do, and the man she was meant to do it all with, and it be so, so wrong? She could never, ever share it with him. It wasn’t something he was capable of. He was too busy serving a higher purpose.
He took her silence as
a negative.
‘What about your violin?’
‘What about it? It was a hobby taken too far. My heart was never in it—you can hear it in my playing.’
‘You love country music, though.’
‘Yeah.’ She chuckled. ‘But that’s just for fun. Ever heard Bach played country-style?’
‘Can’t say I have.’
‘I’ll do it for you later.’
‘There’s only one way you’ll get me listening to you playing country.’
‘How?’
‘Naked. Naked country-music playing.’
‘Naked?’ Her shriek caused customers three tables away to turn to them.
He relented. ‘Oh, OK. You can wear your cowgirl boots.’
She swatted him with the bar towel and played out the mock outrage a little more. She was secretly turned on by the whole idea but annoyed because she knew he read her mind. He lazily took his seat at the end of the bar and toyed with his drink, chatting idly to Corey about who was top of the table in the rugby.
Lucy kept staring at him out of the corner of her eye. She’d never seen him so relaxed. Daniel doing down time was even more attractive than Daniel doing single-minded obsessive.
It was only halfway through the evening when he called to her, devilish temptation in his face. ‘Come home. Leave Corey to finish up tonight.’
‘Just because you’re having a night off doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t have to work.’
He was more dangerous tonight than she’d known him to be these entire two weeks. And her heart was doing dangerous pittery-pattery, skittery moves.
‘Don’t worry about it. Corey can handle it.’
‘No, really, Daniel. I have to work. You go on ahead of me.’ She jerked her head to the door.
He looked put out. Because he expected her to put out every time he fancied it? She decided the fact she fancied it too was irrelevant because for her it was way more than lust—more than just a physical relief to bring dreamless nights. She was starting to dream—impossible dreams. He was in the premier division; she was on the reserve bench of the Z-grade. Sarah’s words had left a little welt that was now festering, and the infection was spreading. She could never keep him. She could never keep up with him—she’d only hold him back.