“Is that so?” Grice crunched the last of his cookie and pointed out to the yard. “Then what’s she doing hacking back your bushes?”
Helen recognized Sebastian Clarke straightaway, staring open-mouthed at her from the doorway like she was some kind of apparition of doom, come to haunt him.
What crazy, shitty luck was this?
She’d had no idea from the letter Nazir had given her that “helping with the renovation of the old Whiteladies Road community center”had anything to do with Get Living, and now Sebastian was striding across the patchy lawn toward her.
Mouth dry, Helen lowered her shears and stepped back. But other than jumping into the thick brambles she’d been trying to tame all day, there was nowhere else to go. Thorns pricked the back of her legs, and before she knew it, Sebastian—jaw clenched, nostrils flaring—loomed before her, cutting out the afternoon sun.
His Adam’s apple jerked hard as he pinned her down with an ice-blue gaze. “I’ve spent the past twenty-four hours wondering if I’d ever see you again, and now … fire in the frickin’ hole, I have no choice but to kiss you.”
Kiss her?Sebastian looked more like he wanted to strangle her! But one glance toward the building brought realization crashing through her. Helen gasped. There were at least twenty people staring at them, including that grimy journalist and the scary lady from the hotel.
“Don’t tell me that press call you mentioned is happening here,” Helen said.
And she was here too … with Sebastian … and that meant …
“Uh-huh,” he nodded, his expression turning even gloomier. “Thanks to that little stunt you pulled yesterday, they all think you’re my girlfriend.”
But, but, but …Her gaze flicked again to the group of curious people. Everyone was watching. Even her supervisor, Brian, had stopped working to gawp from the other side of the garden.
Shitty, shitty luck!
But wait … not even her luck could bethisbad, could it?
This couldn’t be a coincidence.
DC Nazir—was she behind this? Was that why she’d personally delivered the new placement details? And DI Sheldon … there’d been something so familiar about him—Helenhadseen him somewhere before. Somewhere outside … sitting at a table …drinking coffee in the courtyard.The police had followed her to the hotel. She’d been set up—Nazir’s way of saying,We’re watching you.
But poor Sebastian!
It was wrong of the police to use him like this, and seeing him now, so anxious and stressed—his career no doubt in jeopardy because of her—gripped Helen’s conscience. She had to help him, and if that meant giving those onlookers something to actually look at, she had to oblige. It was the least she could do.
She pulled off her gloves, slapped her hands on either side of Sebastian Clarke’s face, and yanked his mouth down onto hers.
Chapter 8
Sebinhaledthescentof Fake-Cassie’s skin, and pulled her long, lean body toward him to deepen the kiss.
What the hell was he doing? But he had to kiss her, didn’t he?
He had to make it look believable. Grice was sniffing a trail through the lies, and everyone in that room assumed she was his girlfriend.
Seb eased his lips away and peered down into her dirt-smeared face. “What’s your name?”
She blinked at him, eyes wide and glazy. “Helen.”
“You still desperate for money, Helen?”
She nodded. “I’ll be your fake girlfriend, if that’s what you want.”
Now that he’d kissed her in front of everyone, it was too late to want anything else. “You remember the deal, right? And the rules?” When she nodded again, his stomach plummeted to his toes. He knew next to nothing about her, other than she worked as a gardener. And what had she said yesterday? Something about being in danger of losing her home?
“All right, Helen, here’s what we’re gonna do.” He released her. “We’re gonna go over and say hi, then we’ll … I don’t know. I’ll figure that out later, but you are free tonight, aren’t you? For that dinner party?”
“Yes.”
Seb nodded to the old guy staring at them. “Is that your boss over there?”
