“I have everything I need to live independently,” he said, showing her the tiny kitchenette. “But there’s a larger kitchen downstairs. I might take that over now and then if the other guys don’t care.”

“They will once they taste your cooking,” she said, already missing the way he’d make her breakfast when he stayed over and how he’d lure her to talk with cookies. “They’ll be pushing you in there at every opportunity.”

His laugh came from off-camera, the phone still pointed outward as he showed her the small balcony from which he could look down at the beautifully maintained garden. “Takuro said our landlord is the gardener. And also a huge rugby fan, so I’m sure I’ll be meeting him soon.” A yawn cracked his voice. “Shit. Must stay awake. Must stay awake.”

Heading back into the room, his face back on camera, he sat down on something. “Your job is to keep me awake as I get dressed for my run.”

“Oooh, do I get a sex show?”

“Perv.” A wicked grin. “I don’t give out on the first date.”

Laughing, she chatted with him as he put down the phone and began to get changed.

“So,” she said, “Dad won this hundred-thousand-dollar jackpot in Brisbane and he’s currently king of the world. He bought me a diamond bracelet as a gift.” She looked down at the sparkle and glitter of it. “I tried to tell him he should’ve saved the money, but I knew I was wasting my breath.”

“Did his newest fling give you dagger eyes like the redhead that time?”

She gasped. “Oh man, I forgot about that!” Danny had been with her for some reason back when she’d been eighteen and packing to move into her first flat during her university days. “That’s right! You were helping me move my stuff.”

“I got voluntold to do it,” Danny grumbled. “You’ve always been my mother’s favorite.”

Catie grinned at the mock complaint. “That redhead was something, wasn’t she?” The woman had been a simperer when Clive was around and a total bitch when he wasn’t. And she hadn’t liked it at all when Catie’s father slipped Catie a few hundred dollars to “help her out.”

Catie had taken the money, knowing that sooner or later it’d be going back to Clive. Her father’s flush days never lasted long. “Gloria’s lovely,” she said. “She thinks she knows what she’s getting into, and maybe she does. I like her, but I’ve decided it’s still none of my business.”

“Probably a wise move. People get weird when they’re into someone.” A pause before he returned to face her. “Just so you know, I’m into you, Catie M. River.”