What a Girl Wants by Lindsey Kelk Read Free Book Online Page B

have any money, I don’t even have a camera. And yes, the pictures from Hawaii worked out but this is a much bigger deal. It’s not a fun thing, it’s a proper job that a real photographer would kill for. I honestly don’t know if I’m up to it.’
    ‘You, Tess Brookes, are up to anything you put your mind to,’ Charlie said, his dark brown eyes clear and resolute. ‘You know that. Or at least
I
know that. How many times do I have to tell you?’
    I looked up at him with a half-smile hidden behind my mug. Of course, he had to go and remind me that he wasn’t just a great shag and my lifelong crush, but my best friend as well.
    ‘A camera is easy enough to get, isn’t it? And you haven’t bloody shown me the pictures from Hawaii yet but I don’t believe you would do anything less than a perfect job. You always do.’
    ‘You mean because I’m OCD?’ I asked.
    ‘I mean because you work hard and you’re good at whatever you do,’ he said, splashing his tea around his bare feet. ‘As for the not-having-anywhere-to-live thing – you could always stay here.’
    ‘I’m not a very good roommate, as I’m sure Amy would tell you,’ I said, tearing off some kitchen towel and wiping up his mess, vaguely impressed in the back of my mind that he actually had kitchen towel. ‘And really, your spare room isn’t big enough to swing a cat. Plus you’ve got a surfboard in it. When was the last time you surfed?’
    ‘I didn’t mean move in as a roommate,’ Charlie said. ‘I don’t want you in the spare room.’
    I stood up slowly, clutching the grubby kitchen towel. His floors needed cleaning. ‘What?’
    ‘How’s your tea?’ he asked.
    Leaning against his kitchen cabinets, resplendent in a creased-to-buggery boy’s T-shirt, with bird’s nest hair and a handful of dirty paper towel, I searched for the right words. Charlie crossed his legs, leaning against the fridge in an impressively casual display.
    ‘Did you just ask me to move in with you, in a non-roommate capacity?’ I asked, scrunching the paper towel into a tiny ball in my fist. ‘Seriously?’
    ‘I’d say “I know it seems a bit quick” but it doesn’t.’ He put his tea down and took the paper towel out of my hand before throwing it at the bin. And missing. ‘I’ve had two weeks to think about this and it was two weeks too many. I know how I feel about you. You’re my best mate and I reckon last night proved the amazing sex wasn’t just a one off, so why mess about?’
    ‘I can think of a few reasons,’ I replied. Actually, I couldn’t. I could only think of one but this really didn’t seem like the time to tell him I’d been shagging someone else the whole time I was in Hawaii, especially since he’d apparently been sitting on his arse in London, doing some pretty epic soul-searching. ‘It … it is a bit quick, Charlie. I feel a bit bleurgh about everything.’
    ‘Bleurgh?’ He looked understandably deflated.
    ‘Overwhelmed,’ I clarified. ‘Confused.’
    ‘So this wouldn’t be the right time to tell you I’ve accepted a pitch for our agency, then?’ he asked, wincing.
    ‘But we haven’t got an agency?’ I said. ‘What have you done?’
    ‘Don’t be mad at me.’ He held his hands out to defend himself against whatever puny attack he thought I might launch and grabbed a sneakily hidden copy of
Marketing Week
from the top of the microwave. ‘But I saw Perito’s were looking for a new agency and one of the blokes in their marketing department is on my football team and I knew you’d come up with an amazing campaign, so I asked him if we could pitch. And he said yes, because he totally loves your work.’
    ‘He loves my work?’ my ego asked on my behalf.
    ‘He was totally obsessed with you,’ Charlie nodded. ‘Knew loads of your campaigns.’
    ‘So just like that? We’ve got a pitch?’ I wondered if there was any wine left. Tea clearly was not strong enough for this conversation.
    ‘Yes,’ he said.