Heat burned into my jeans where we touched and I tried—oh, how I tried—to ignore his presence and listen to his friends talk about work and the odd things people said in galleries.

“You have the best hair I’ve ever seen,” Karen suddenly said to me.

Everyone laughed at the random comment.

“She does, though,” Karen insisted. “I’d love to photograph you.”

“Me?” I was bemused by the notion.

“Yes, you.” Karen smiled. “You’d make a great subject.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, I fucking knew it.” Rae groaned.

I looked at her in question and she frowned in response.

“You’re one of those.”

“One of what?”

“A pretty girl who doesn’t know she’s pretty. Pisses me off.”

If I were prone to blushing, I’d be a tomato.

“I think it’s great,” Cole said.

Without thinking about it, I turned my head to look up at him.

He smiled that soft, boyish smile of his and reached out to touch my hair. “Nothing sexier than a woman who doesn’t know she’s gorgeous.”

I hated the way my stomach fluttered at his attention, at his compliments. I’d been paid those kinds of compliments before, and my reaction to them had brought me nothing but trouble. Turning away, I was thankful for Rae breaking the sudden tension with “Bollocks! Nothing sexier than a man or woman who knows that they are sexy as fuck.” She looked down at me, seeming to brim with years of experience despite the fact that she was only twenty-eight and thus only a few years older than me. “Your lack of height makes you cute mixed with stunning. Own it. Rock that fucking hair and those fucking eyes. Then you’ll be sexy.” She grinned and preened. “Like me.”

Patrick nodded, smiling at Rae in appreciation. “I have to admit that was sexy.”

She threw him a flirtatious grin. “Down, boy. I’m already spoken for.”

Surprised, I was about to ask Rae who she was dating when I felt the lightest touch on my lower back. I tensed.

Cole was touching me.

I glanced up at him.

With his thigh pressed to mine, his fingertips on my back, and his gaze boring into mine, words deserted me. The noise in the pub seemed muffled all of a sudden, like an invisible wall had encircled Cole and me.

His fingers pressed deeper and my body began to tingle.

The sound of a glass shattering loudly broke the spell between us and I jerked back, bumping into Rae. Something like annoyance flickered in Cole’s eyes, but I adamantly turned away, shifting closer to Rae, who was too busy mocking Patrick about getting his eyebrows waxed to notice I was trying to crawl my way into her lap to escape the sexual tension between me and our boss.

*   *   *

I’d never been so thankful to get away from someone in my life. Sure, there were times I’d been stuck in conversation with people that bored me or offended me, and that was never fun. However, being stuck in close proximity with the ultimate daydream-worthy bad boy whose clothes you wanted to rip off despite the fact that you knew he wasn’t right for you was worse. A lot worse.

In fact, it was downright upsetting.

I berated myself the whole way back to the flat, wondering what the hell was wrong with me that after everything I’d been through I could still be attracted to the likes of Cole Walker.

Inside the flat, I kicked off my shoes in a tantrum with myself.

Rae snorted as she shrugged off her jacket. “You’ve certainly caught Walker’s eye.”

I flinched. So it was that obvious? Channeling the depths of my dislike of the bad-boy species into my expression, I lifted my gaze to Rae’s and stated firmly, “I’m not interested.”

Rae jerked back at my tone and quickly her surprise melted away. She looked . . . impressed? “I actually believe that. A woman that hasn’t fallen at Cole’s feet. Will wonders never cease?” She grinned. “I knew I liked you.”

I laughed softly, tiredly, and bade Rae good night. I was almost at my bedroom door when she called out my name. “Yeah?”

She strolled toward the door next to mine with a swagger in her slender hips. “My boyfriend, Mike, works back shift tonight—he’s a nurse. He usually comes over late and we like to fuck loudly. There are a pack of earplugs in the sideboard drawer in the hall.”

*   *   *

A few hours later I was awakened by squealing. It didn’t take me long to work out that the squealing, followed by male grunts, was Rae and her man having sex. Loudly. Just as promised.

Slightly mortified I hadn’t taken Rae at her word (and now knew way more about her than I’d ever wanted to), I quietly hurried out into the hall, snatched up the earplugs, and hurried back to bed. To my everlasting relief, the earplugs muffled the noise enough I could drift back to sleep. But I did so on the thought that I had never met anyone like Rae. I didn’t quite know yet whether that was a good or a bad thing.

*   *   *

The dog—I think it was a Welsh terrier—was tied to the lamppost on the opposite side of the street. He’d been there for the last three hours since his master had tied him there and wandered into the pub. My chest ached with how miserable he looked as the spring temperature dipped when the clouds obscured the sun.

He shivered and I cursed his master to hell for leaving him there for that length of time.

My anger had begun simmering two hours ago and showed no sign of losing heat.

“You all right?”