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he was doing this to prevent her from getting in trouble. ‘No,’ she conceded.
    ‘You have to help me,’ he said softly.
    That was one step too far. ‘We wouldn’t be in this position if you hadn’t kissed me.’ She tried to argue back but felt herself slipping. ‘You created this problem. You don’t need me.’
    ‘Do I have the names and numbers of half her friends? No. I don’t know all her university mates the way you do. Of course I need your help.’
    Silent, she looked at him.
    ‘I’m thinking of Lauren. Are you ?’ he jeered.
    She sighed. ‘For Lauren’s sake, I’ll help. But you’re not paying me.’
    ‘What a good friend you are,’ he teased.
    ‘I am, actually,’ she declared.
    ‘We all do what is best for ourselves ,’ he murmured with a shake of his head. ‘Wasn’t insisting I be activelyinvolved in the planning really because you wanted to spend more time with me ?’
    She gaped—how did he turn that one around? ‘No. I’m only thinking of Lauren.’ She vehemently denied that tendril of excitement curling through her innards at the thought of spending time with him. He had an outsize ego that needed stripping. ‘You think you’re irresistible, don’t you?’
    ‘Experience has led me to believe that’s often the case.’
    His eyes were glinting. He might be laughing, but she suspected part of him meant it. Outrageous wasn’t the word. The guy needed taking down a peg or forty. ‘Not in this case.’
    ‘No?’ He chuckled, radiating good humour. ‘So that blush is pure annoyance? Then you’ve nothing to worry about, right? We can organise Lauren’s party together because you can resist me no problem.’
    Could she resist him? For a second Mya wondered and then her fighting spirit came to the fore. Of course she could. ‘No problem at all.’
    He leaned closer. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t seen much of you in recent years.’
    ‘Maybe you should have turned up to a couple of Lauren’s birthday parties.’
    He winced, hand to his chest. ‘I was overseas.’
    She knew he’d studied further overseas before coming back and setting up his own practice. ‘So convenient. For work, was it? You learned well from your father.’
    ‘Meaning?’
    ‘Doesn’t he use work for emotional avoidance too? Earns millions to buy the things to make up for it.’ Lauren had been given so many things and none of them what she’d truly yearned for.
    The laughing glint vanished from Brad’s eyes. ‘Formed a few judgments over the years, haven’t you?’
    Mya realised she might have gone more than a little far. ‘I’m sorry, that was out of line. I’ll always be grateful for the kindness your parents showed me,’ she said stiltedly, embarrassed at her rudeness.
    But he laughed again, the devil dancing back in his eyes. ‘Their kindness ?’
    Okay, maybe he did remember the ultra-frosty welcome she’d got for the first year or three that she and Lauren hung out. ‘They didn’t ban me from their home.’ Even though she knew they’d wanted to. Now they realised they owed Mya something.
    ‘Don’t worry about it. I know even better than you what a mess it was.’
    He’d certainly left home the second he could. Mya had been the one who’d spent every afternoon after school with Lauren in that house. She and Lauren hid up in Lauren’s suite, laughing and ignoring the frozen misery downstairs. The false image of the perfect family. ‘But Lauren’s the one who’s made the conscious effort to be different from how she was raised.’
    ‘You’re saying I’ve not?’
    Mya shrugged. ‘You’re the mini-me lawyer.’
    ‘You do know my father and I practise vastly different types of law. I’m not in his firm.’
    Blandly she picked up a glass and polished it. That didn’t mean anything.
    ‘What, all lawyers are the same?’ He snorted. ‘I don’t do anything he does. I work with kids.’
    She knew this, and at this precise moment she point-blank refused to be impressed by it.