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“What the fucking hell?” I hissed, shooting a look at the glass windows that displayed a view of the workshop below. Everyone was doing as they were told and getting on with their work. “What was that?”

“How are you going to convince your mother you’re dating me if your own workmates know nothing about it?” he asked, that little smug smile of his driving me mad.

“She’s not likely to come by here!” I snapped. I tried to imagine Mum picking her way up the driveway, across the wet and muddy gravel, and failed. I’m fairly sure Dad handled all the car services.

“I didn’t do that so your mum could gossip with Clinton and get the details on our relationship,” he replied all too calmly. “I did it because if we can convince the guys we work with that there’s something going on, then we’ve got a chance of tricking your mother.”

“Oh.” Seconds ago I was feeling flushed with anger, but that all washed away abruptly, leaving me a little cold. “I didn’t think of that. I thought…”

What had I thought? There wasn’t a lot of conscious thought in my head when he was holding me, and as I looked up, there wasn’t much more as I stared at him. Brock was a good looking guy. With a tousled head of brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard, his flannel shirt had him looking a little lumbersexual. Like he could pick you up and toss you over his shoulder with little effort, then drag you off to his lair. Maybe he did that with the girls he dated, though I’d never met one. Maybe he carried them kicking and screaming over to his bed and then when he threw them down… I stopped that train of thought abruptly with a shake of my head.

“I’m sorry. I know you’re just doing this…” I held up the coffee. “As a favour to Millie. I didn’t plan for her to ask you, to put you in this position. That…” I jerked my head towards the front door. “Makes sense now. You’re just trying to help me make a lie look like the truth. I guess we should’ve talked about that before now.” I stopped, pursing my lips and then forced myself to smile. “So…” I turned to face him. “How did you want our fake relationship to go? Can we avoid a big, messy breakup that will make everything awkward?”

“If you want.”

Sometimes it was like you had to drag every word from Brock, and I felt that right now. One of us needed to grab the bull by the horns and apparently that was me.

“So the date tonight…” I blinked. “We go on that, make sure everyone knows?—”

“They will when we up and leave the pub,” he reasoned, stepping closer in the slow way one might use with a frightened animal. “That’s why I figured I’d broach the issue now. If everything’s out in the open?—”

“They won’t spend the night gossiping their heads off, coming up with crazier and crazier stories about where we’ve gone.” I nodded. “OK, so we’ve hard launched… whatever this is.” I flicked my finger between him and me. “So I guess we need to establish the ground rules, get our stories straight. You’re gonna call me… babe.” I snorted. The awkwardness of this threatened to overwhelm me, but I had to remember I was the one doing this to myself. “Should I?—?”

“Call me whatever you want,” he said, still closing the gap between us.

“Honey pie?” His look of horror inspired me. “My sweet pumpkin munchkin? Love nuggets?”

I grinned when he winced.

“Maybe something that won’t get me harassed by the fellas?”

“Love?” Nope, no way, that was too big a word to use. “Darling?” That sounded like something a grand lady would say. “Honey? Sweetie?”

I let out a hopeless groan because every word felt like an ill-fitting pair of overalls. The straps were sagging, but the seam was creeping up my butt, until he grabbed my hands.

Was it just that it’d been over a month since a man had touched me? That had to be the explanation for why a thrill went through me the minute our hands joined. I felt the calluses, the coarse skin as his fingers rubbed against mine, somehow better than the softest of caresses, silencing the frantic shriek of my thoughts until I could finally take a full breath. He watched me let it out again, all the tension washing away with a nod.

“You don’t have to overthink it. I didn’t walk in here this morning and wait for you to arrive thinking I was going to call you babe in front of the guys.” He bent down slightly to ensure he met my eyes. “I didn’t anticipate they had a betting pool going.” I winced. “I’ll have a word with them about that.”

“No, it’s fine.” I squeezed his hands and then pulled away. “Everything will be fine. In a little over a week, all this will be over with and Clinton will be focussed on something else.” I smiled. “I’ve just got to pretend that you’re not my boss, not the guy who saw me strip nuts and nearly use the wrong oil when changing it over. Not the guy that used to frown at me when I was a little girl, hanging around your house way too much.”

I poked a finger in the air.

“If I put all that history aside and replace it with something else.” My mouth moved faster, the words spilling out as I realised a way through this. “Saw you as some guy I met at the pub one night…”

As a man, that went unsaid, my mind bucking and twisting like a wild horse in response to that idea, the labels of Millie’s grumpy older brother, my boss, too big and expansive to allow that. It was OK, I only needed to pretend for a bit over a week.

“I’ll just wing it,” I said finally, “though we need to talk about how we’re going to break up.”

“Not yet,” he said with a deadly finality, forcing me to look up at the clock. Minutes were ticking by, minutes he paid me to work.

“I need to get back to the cars,” I said with a nod. “Got it.

It was a relief to turn on my heel and walk back downstairs. Clinton looked up and shot me a mischievous grin, but a dark look from me had him turning back to whatever job he was working.

“What needs doing?” I asked Gary.

“The Ford Falcon has an engine whine,” he said, pointing to a newer model car parked in the garage.