Free Fast Friends by Jill Mansell Page A

curls;
with that heavenly Scottish accent, those clinging ultra-faded
button-fly Levis and thrillingly taut brown forearms; with the sheer height of
him .. .
    and oh, when he smiled he revealed the most bewitching
dimple she had ever seen . . .
    ‘Speak to me,’ he commanded humorously, passing a strong, beautifully shaped hand in front of her eyes. ‘I
said, have you ever done . .
    ‘Oh sure, tons,’ lied Loulou absently, struggling to
regain her senses in the face of such
heavenly perfection. Her stomach was
down by her knees somewhere and she wasn’t at all sure that she wasn’t about to keel off the bar stool,
her sense of balance appearing to
have left her completely in this moment of revelation. It absolutely had
to be love.
    ‘ You’re supposed to
tell me about it,’ the bar manager reminded her gently. He had
introduced himself as Mac, she remembered. Such a wonderful, romantic, kissable
name . . .
    ‘Yes. Sorry. Um, well . . .’ With a suitably vague gesture
she almost succeeded in knocking over a soda
syphon and three glasses.
    ‘ God, sorry! Yes, I’ve
worked a lot in clubs and pubs .. . down
south. London, Bristol, Bath. Can I have the job?’ she blurted out
helplessly, her silver-grey eyes wide and appealing. She would die if he turned her down now, just when she had fallen
so desperately in love with him.
    Meanwhile Mac was wrestling equally
as desperately with his
conscience. He made and lived by his own unbreakable rules and the one that was causing him
trouble at this moment was the one which stated firmly that he would never get involved with a fellow member of staff. He’d seen the unhappy
results of other such relationships too often to hope that they might not
happen to him. It was always, but always, a fatal mistake.
    Yet here was this gorgeous girl,
lying her head off – she certainly
wasn’t twenty-three for a start and he seriously doubted whether she had ever
been on the working side of a bar – and gazing
at him with such an angelic, hopeful expression that all he wanted to do was take her to bed. But if he
refused her the job there was a chance
that he might never see her again and that was every bit as unthinkable
as becoming involved with a member of staff.
    Well, he decided suddenly, he’d just have to make damn
sure that he would see her again. But
really, it was asking too much of his hormones to expect him to be able
to work alongside this beautiful blonde angel and to keep his hands to himself.
    ‘I think, perhaps, that giving you the job here might not
be a terribly good idea,’ he began to
explain slowly, but his words were cut off by a shriek of agonized
dismay that could have shattered every glass in the house.
    ‘ No!’ Loulou gasped,
unable to bear the thought of losing him or to tolerate the fact that he
was rejecting her. Couldn’t he feel the chemistry between them, for God’s sake? Was he completely unaware of the way things were? ‘Oh, please don’t
turn me down,’ she begged frantically. ‘I’ve got to have a job – I’ve no
money and nowhere to live and I’ll have to sleep in a doorway and I’d work so
hard you wouldn’t believe it. I love this place,’ declared Loulou with another sweeping gesture to indicate
the smoky, tatty public bar with its nicotine-stained windows and battered
wooden furniture. ‘And I swear to you that I’ll be the best
barmaid you ever had. Please, please give   me
a chance to prove it. Please, Mac? Will you? Please?’
    I don’t have barmaids, thought
Mac with unhappy resig nation. Clearly the hormones would have to wait. In the face of such tumultuous persuasion,
how on earth could he refuse her
this chance when she was so desperately in need of work?
    ‘ OK,’ he said with a reluctant grin that sent Loulou’s heart plummeting once more ‘You win. When do you want to start?’
     
    Chapter 9
    Mac broke his unbreakable rule within
forty-eight hours. He had
probably broken it within forty-eight seconds, since