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if he admitted he was dating one of his staff, and I felt an almost insane urge to protect him from what I suspected was her whiplash tongue. Fortunately, the hooded top covered my T-shirt, which would have given my true status away at once.
    The lie popped into my head from nowhere. ‘Oh, I came in here one night with some friends to play pool and shoot the breeze. Eddie’s eyes met mine over the bar counter and – well, we’ve been together ever since.’ It all sounded so convincing, I almost believed it myself.
    ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Eddie agreed, adding a flourishing signature to his cheque, before tearing it out of the book and handing it to Heather. ‘Summer’s in advertising, works on the Reporter . A real hot prospect.’
    Seemed two could bend the truth just as easily as one. Heather just sniffed, still clearly unimpressed. ‘So, I’ll see you at the Mallory. Seven for seven-thirty on Saturday.’ She stashed the cheque in one of the inner pockets of her purse.
    ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world, would we, honey?’ Eddie pulled me close again, pressing a kiss to my lips. For a moment, I was almost too stunned to react, then I relaxed against him, revelling in the solid bulk of his body and his musky male smell, even as my mind fought to process the bizarre situation. I opened my mouth, feeling his tongue slip between my lips as the kiss deepened more than it might have had a right to. Then I broke away, flustered, hoping neither Eddie nor Heather could see the flush that had risen to my cheeks.
    ‘Well, I’ll see you Saturday, then.’ The words “don’t let me down” seemed to hang, unspoken, in the air between the three of us as Heather turned on her spike heel and strode out to her husband in the waiting car.
    When she’d gone, Eddie smiled at me. ‘Thanks for covering my ass, Summer.’
    ‘No problem, but what exactly happened there? I kind of get the impression I’ve been invited to some swanky charity do, but …’ I didn’t mention the kiss. I thought it safer not to.
    ‘I’m sorry, I wish there was some kind of way I could have warned you, but I just didn’t expect Heather to turn up out of the blue like that. I mean, you could probably tell we’re not exactly close.’
    ‘Close enough that if she tells you to jump, you jump.’ I regretted the meanness of the words the second they’d left my mouth. Eddie simply acknowledged the barb.
    ‘My dad died when I was 11, and my mom remarried about 18 months later. That’s a difficult age to suddenly be landed with an older sister who you have absolutely nothing in common with. Someone who you know even then is way more driven and ambitious than you’re ever going to be.’
    ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.’
    ‘But you do have a point. I try to keep Heather sweet because it’s simplest all round. And I had promised ages ago that I’d go to this Masquerade Ball of hers; it just slipped my mind, what with having a barmaid up and quit on me and having to find a replacement, among other things.’
    ‘So why did you tell her I was your girlfriend?’
    ‘Ah, that.’ He leant back against the bar, spreading his hands in an apologetic gesture. ‘Well, Heather thinks I’m a loser for any number of reasons, chief of which is that I’ve never been able to hang on to a woman for any length of time. And the ones I do get involved with, she and my mom have never liked. They’re always asking me when I’m going to meet a decent girl, not someone “fast and trashy”, as my mom puts it. So – well, I kind of lied and told them I had. Luckily, I didn’t go quite so far as to invent a name, or anything crazy like that. Truth is I’ve been single for the best part of a year now. So, rather than admit that when Heather confronted me just now, I – improvised. I hope you don’t mind.’
    Mind? If that kiss had been improvisation, he could do it again any time he liked. ‘Not at all. But won’t Heather be mad when