Read Online Your Room or Mine? by Charlotte Phillips - Free Book Online Page A

face.
    â€˜So network,’ he called after her. ‘Come and work for me.’
    The terrace came back into view as they walked through the greenery at the bottom of the garden. Hurricane lamps flickered on tables and people mingled in the soft light of the fire pit. The smell of woodsmoke clung to the air.
    She turned back to look at him, a light frown touching her eyebrows.
    â€˜Seriously? You mean you actually want me to redesign your garden.’
    â€˜Among other things,’ he said, catching her up in a couple of easy strides.
    He leaned in and spoke softly in her ear.
    â€˜On these terms there doesn’t need to be an end to it. No ties, no strings. Just fun. Don’t you think you deserve some of that?’
    â€˜Everything has to end at some point,’ she countered.
    He inclined his head.
    â€˜Of course it does. So we enjoy it while it lasts, and when one or both of us are done with it we walk away. No comeback, no painful break-up, no strings. Or maybe you think you won’t be able to distance yourself like that now?’
    The arrogance of him! She was mesmerised by the sex, definitely. But that hunger didn’t extend to wanting to get to know him or share time with him, why would it?
    The flash of danger was somehow intoxicating, she felt like she was playing a role, one much more exciting than her own sensible life. But with Joe’s behaviour ever on the fringe of her consciousness, she knew that a role was all it really was.
Feelings
didn’t come into it.
    â€˜I need to rejoin the party now,’ she said, then raised her voice as Arabella approached them. ‘But I’ll arrange a time for us to talk about the specifications of your garden design. ‘Shall we take things from there?’
    She held his gaze and she could see from the slight nod and the flash of a smile that he understood completely.
    She wasn’t saying no.

CHAPTER FIVE
    â€˜He’s offered you a job? So what was an unemotional mutual benefit one night stand is now going to amount to you mixing business with pleasure. Since when was that ever a good idea?’
    Izzy took a sip of her latte, leaned in towards Shauna across the coffee shop table and lowered her voice.
    â€˜I don’t see it that way. It’s a one-off job, four or five weeks at the most. I’m charging him full-whack, not mates-rates. And there’s no tacit agreement that we sleep together. There was just this undertone in the conversation that made it clear: if it happens, it happens. What might go on between the two of us has nothing to do with work.’
    â€˜You’re deluded,’ Shauna said. ‘The job is his way of keeping you exactly where he wants you.’
    â€˜For the hundredth time, this is about what
I
want, not what
he
wants. I get an easy gig one-off job that’s well-paid and a no-strings fling until I get bored with it. What’s not to like?’
    â€˜Watch my lips,’ Shauna pointed to her own peach-glossed pout and spoke slowly and clearly. ‘He no longer qualifies for the no-strings-successful-fling rule.’ She held up her hands and shook her head as if she was disengaging from the whole thing. ‘It will all end in tears. Almost certainly yours.’
    Izzy tried and failed to stop the automatic here-we-go roll of her eyes.
    â€˜What an absolute load of crap!’ she said. ‘The no-strings-brilliant-fling or whatever-you-bloody-call-it rule is just some womens’ magazine nonsense. I am in total control of my own life, my own decisions and my own emotions. If I want to extend the fun a bit, where the hell is the harm? Now that I know he’s single and neither of us wants anything serious, who the hell is going to get hurt in a scenario like that?’
    â€˜But he’s offered you a job, right?’
    â€˜Yes, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.’
    Shauna threw exasperated hands up.
    â€˜You’ve changed the