Free Pippa's Fantasy by Donna Gallagher

feelings straight back to the surface—it took all of Pippa’s resolve not to break down and confess. He thought of her as a responsible person. He didn’t know that she had already let him down. The thought of disappointing Brodie was like a knife piercing Pippa’s already broken soul.
     
    * * * *
     
    As promised, Riley was waiting out front when Pippa and Cassie arrived at Jetstream. As their cab pulled up to the kerb, he opened the car door and helped them both out. Pippa once again had to admire his good looks—Riley Walters was a hunk. Eighteen or not, he was sexy as sin. Pippa could tell that Cassie was really enjoying his attention.
    Bypassing the queue, Riley led Cassie and Pippa straight to the club’s entrance. The very large and burly doorman smiled as he opened the door for them. Pippa could hear the groans of complaint from the people in the queue as they headed inside.
    “Rook introduced me to me to Jerome, earlier. He didn’t want us having to wait in the queue. Apparently Rook’s place is the ‘in place’ at the moment,” Riley shouted above the music, two fingers in each hand making imaginary speech marks in the air as they headed towards the back of the club.
    Rook had reserved a large seating area for the group. Six Jets players were already seated, drinks in their hands. The men smiled and nodded a welcome to Pippa and Cassie.
    Pippa glanced at the ice-bucket sitting on the table. A bottle of champagne—the same brand that Rook had supplied the other night—sat chilling inside, and two empty champagne flutes sat ready to be filled. Raising an eyebrow in query, she looked at Riley.
    “Rook thought you girls might like some bubbly,” Riley said, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Would you rather have something else?”
    “No, Riley, champagne is great. Want to pour me a glass, handsome?” Cassie said as she held up a glass to him and smiled.
     
    * * * *
     
    Pippa shouldn’t have come—she was miserable. Everyone else was having a great time, enjoying the music and dancing. A couple of the guys had asked her to dance, but being on the dance-floor just reminded her of her night with Rook. Cassie, on the other hand, was having a wonderful time, or so it seemed to Pippa.
    Pippa spent most of her time talking to country boy Gareth. The Jets player seemed ill at ease with the amount of attention he was receiving from the women in the club, which was lucky for Pippa, because Cassie’s night had been monopolised by Riley—they had danced and talked exclusively. Some of the other guys had moaned about this fact to Pippa, but when Riley had overheard the grumbling sports stars, he’d just given them a big smile and dragged Cassie away for another dance. It didn’t seem as if the age gap between her two friends made any difference to their attraction for each other. But it was making Pippa feel lonely not to have her best friend beside her when she needed the support.
    She had only spotted Rook a few times—not that she was looking,she told herself. Once he had come over and spent a few minutes talking to Gareth and the guys, flirting with the gaggle of women who had closed in on the group of footy players. He had filled her champagne glass without a word, then left again. The other times she had spotted Rook, he had been at the bar, talking to the barman or customers. But for most of the night he was nowhere to be found. Pippa assumed Rook was upstairs in his apartment, and she was trying as hard as she could not to let the image that Rook might not be up there alone enter her head.
    Just remembering his apartment was enough to bring a whole new world of hurt crashing down on Pippa. Luckily, before she went down that road again, Gareth continued their ongoing conversation.
    “It’s been really great chatting with you, Pippa. I’ve found it hard to have a reasonable conversation with a woman since I moved to Sydney,” Gareth confessed to Pippa. “I’m not looking for a relationship, or