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  Christos tilted his head again, his gaze travelling thoughtfully up and down my body. At least I thought it was in regards to my body. Maybe he was busy thinking about what he wanted for lunch.

  “What happened?” he asked with a quasi-smile, only there for a moment.

  “It was just Lynda being a pain in my arse. I spent hours on my displays already but then this lot fell over in front of her. Apparently I’m no good at decorating and I have to start again. Without too many baubles.” I sighed, gesturing vaguely with my right hand to the threatening baubles overhead.

  “Right.” He nodded, then leaned in, over the counter, whispering right near my ear. “She’s a pain in my arse too. Wants me to count and catalogue all the mannequin hands in the back storage room. She’s convinced someone is stealing them. I tried to tell her it’s not my job but...” He shook his head and then rolled his eyes skyward.

  I pressed my lips together to stifle a laugh and glanced over his shoulder in the direction of women’s fashion. Lynda was now patrolling like a police officer, skirting the perimeter and narrowing her eyes at a pedestal featuring two mannequins in red sequined party dresses. They appeared to have their hands in place.

  When I returned my gaze to Christos’s handsome face, he quickly met my eyes. “I like red lipstick on you. Much better than the vampire purple from last week.” He hesitated, his mouth opening as if to say something else. “Have a good day.”

  He stepped back from my counter and strode away towards the security station near the store’s entrance doors. I was left gaping after him.

  Christos had noticed my lipstick. My lips. Maybe I should have been insulted that he’d commented, but I wasn’t. I was warm and tingly.

  Maybe it would be a good day after all. My hand was still warm from where I’d grasped his hand, then his arm. He was strong. Not just normal-man strong, but muscular. I knew he was, because I’d felt his forearm flex under my fingertips. It was like steel.

  Then I clocked Petula giving me raised eyebrows from across the floor. Her gaze followed the path Christos had taken.

  Petula winked, and her golden-tinted eyelids twinkled. I’d have to ask her about the eyeshadow she was wearing. It was super glam. Petula mimed a coffee drinking action and pointed to her chest, then to me.

  I nodded, glancing towards the front doors of the store. Sure, morning coffee break together at 10.30 am. It was a date.

  Petula would want all the Christos-related gossip. There wasn’t much to tell, so I’d have to get my embellishments ready. There was no need to ruin a perfectly good flirtation story with too much pesky reality, after all.

  I SPOTTED PETULA RIGHT away at Georgina’s, the best Italian café in the still half-empty mall. She sat neatly with her legs crossed to one side, unaware she was showing off her sheer black stockings and towering high heels in her little black uniform dress, which was quite chic. Va-va-voom!

  She was also apparently unaware of the avid male attention she was currently receiving from the barista, the delivery boy, who nearly dropped a box full of coffee beans on his foot, and one or two of the customers near the counter who had their mouths hanging open.

  Petula’s table was beside the wall of windows overlooking the ocean of cars in the car park of the southern hemisphere’s largest indoor shopping centre. Not exactly a delightful view, but there were a few potted plants out the front.

  My new friend waved me over to her table, grinning like a gossip-crazed maniac. Which she undoubtedly was, but in an endearing way, like a puppy eager for treats. Petula wasted no time in picking my brain for tantalising titbits of gossip. At the last minute I decided against confiding in her about how much I liked Christos. It seemed too soon.

  Petula leaned forward, her eyes wide. “Did he ask you out, or did he tell you he thinks you’re beautiful while creasing his forehead and running his fingers across his stubble? Because I had a dream like that.”

  I shook my head. “Um, no.”

  Petula’s face fell for a moment, but then she sat to attention and her eyes widened further. “Or did he slowly unbutton his shirt and let you smell his neck? Because I have to say, he stood close behind me last Wednesday in the lunch queue at Romani’s and he smells divine.”

  “Look, I hate to disappoint you, but we really only talked about baubles.”

  “Baubles?”

  “The Christmas decorations. I can’t believe I have to do my displays again. He didn’t laugh, which would have been fair enough. Christos empathised with me about Lynda. She’s giving him a hard time too.”

  Petula grinned. “Oh, good. You’ve got something in common!”

  I let out a laugh under my breath. Petula was determined to set me up with someone. That she’d happened to pick on the very man I’d been crushing on since I’d fallen into his arms at staff training either meant she could read my mind and we were bound to be best friends forever, or she fancied him as much as I did. But I happened to know she had her eye on someone else.

  I tipped my head to one side and asked her, casual as you please, “So when are you seeing Kurt again?” The shy Kurt was her study partner from her accounting class.

  Petula blushed, a dead-set, deep vermillion, even under her caramel skin tone. It would make a fabulous shade of lipstick. “There must be a story to go along with your blush.”

  With a shrug, Petula brushed her long, silky ponytail over one shoulder. “He’s taking me out Friday night. Bowling! Can you believe it? I don’t know how I’ll manage with these nails.” She glanced at her perfectly manicured hands, now featuring the latest season’s nail colour, turquoise metallic, with decals of little golden stars and moons.

  I reached out and stroked one of her nails. “Amazing. But not for bowling.”

  “Right? Anyhoo, I checked out bowling shoes online and they totally have purple glittery ones I could buy.”

  A grin stretched out my cheeks until they could have burst like mini balloons. “Sounds like a serious relationship, if it requires special shoes.”

  She bit her lip, hesitating, but she was smiling. “Maybe.”

  I was happy for her. Petula’s skin actually radiated happiness, and I didn’t think it was the result of the primer she’d tried from the organic skincare counter. No, she was radiant because she’d found a man who wanted to hang out and take her bowling. It wasn’t even a euphemism for anything dirty.

  We chatted for a few minutes as we drank coffee. Petula told me all about the oddball professor teaching her accounting classes. I told her all about my stoush with my new next-door neighbour. We were arguing about when to bring in the rubbish bins on a Friday.

  Then Petula’s expression turned all serious. Her lips formed a thin line. “Can I ask you something? When you worked at the perfumery in Sydney, did you like being able to come and go as you pleased? I mean, you were the boss of the shop.”

  I paused to say thanks to the new young waiter for bringing over another coffee. He was only about seventeen, doing his final exams in high school. About the same age as my little sister.

  He looked down at me under long blonde lashes, then murmured something like, “My pleasure, babe.” I shot him a frown of disapproval but he was already headed back to the serving area behind the cake display.

  Petula watched me stir a teaspoon of raw sugar into my latte, dissolving the fine golden crystals into the leaf pattern the barista, Yusef, had made in the top of the milk foam. He really was an artist. I shot him a genuine smile across the cafe, and he grinned before ducking his head behind the coffee machine again.

  Now he seemed like a sweetheart who I would seriously consider dating, if he wasn’t already going out with the pretty but perpetually harassed Belinda, the pastry chef.

  I sighed as I swallowed a mouthful of the excellent coffee, letting it warm me through to my bones and send wake-up messages to all my nerve endings. Then I met my friend’s eyes and answered her question, as honestly as possible.

  “I loved my job. I never would
have left if I didn’t have to.”

  I’d had a hard time in the few months since I was forced to leave my previous job at a stand-alone, boutique perfumery in inner-city Sydney. I couldn’t find another job with the same level of responsibility or salary there, so I ended up moving to Melbourne where rent was cheaper, although not by much. My little place in fashionable Malvern would cost a significant chunk of change.

  The department store job wasn’t my first choice, but at least I was still in the perfume trade. I had experience from working in a similar store a few years ago. And I could walk to and from work, saving both travel costs and gym fees. This should be a good move. But I still sighed when I thought of the old perfumery, which had felt like home.

  I gazed into space over Petula’s shoulder, picturing the shop as it had been. “I loved the perfumery. The old-fashioned stained-glass windows, the hand-crafted cabinets, the French blown-glass bottles, all of it. Just walking in the door and inhaling the profusion of perfumes made me happy.”

  The shop had been there for over a hundred years. I’d worked my way up to be weekday manager, but I wasn’t the boss. “Judith was the boss, and like family. Her stamp was all over the place, from the inventory we purchased from France, to the design of the brochures we sent out to customers. Until she was gone. I miss her.”

  Judith, the octogenarian owner, had been my perfumier mentor. She’d died about four months ago, leaving the shop to her middle-aged son. He promptly fired the staff and sold the shop, liquidating the assets. The heartless fiend spent it all on a luxury boat to sail around Sydney Harbour, or so I’d heard.

  Petula’s mouth twisted to one side. “I’m sorry about Judith and the shop. But you’re on the right track with this job. Being counter manager at a big department store is a great thing to have on your CV.”

  I nodded, then glanced out the window. A pigeon chose to leave his business on the pane of glass. I sighed. “I know, so everyone keeps telling me. It’s hard when I’m still studying part-time. At least the term is over for summer. Then I’ll do online classes. But I didn’t want to leave my sister.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but I was broke and I’d had no choice but to take this job.

  Petula’s voice went soft and wistful, and she waved her hands around in mid-air. “One day, it will all be worth it. You’ll have your marketing degree and your own shop. You’ll be the bossest perfume boss ever. You’ll have beautiful perfumes shipped from France and design your own bottles. And you can hire me to be your make-up artist on staff. Life will be perfect.”

  The vision was tantalising, a golden-haloed, richly scented image in my imagination. Unfortunately it was still out of reach by several years and many thousands of dollars. Still, Petula was proving to be a good friend, trying to make me think positive.

  “Thanks, honey.”

  “You’re welcome. Now, tell me about how you’re going to implement some extreme flirting strategies with Christos while you’re working here.”

  A gurgly laugh escaped my throat, as I’d been sipping my glass of water. Petula was studying a business degree and loved talking about implementing strategies and being ‘agile’. She also loved spreadsheets, but I wouldn’t hold it against her as an otherwise normal person.

  Suddenly, the peace of the café was shattered by a violent, ear-splitting alarm, then the rush of people. Two, no three, guys in black hoodies and jeans ran past the café doors and out through the main mall entrance. They made it out to the car park, still running, ducking and weaving around a bus and a line of taxis.

  Then I saw him. A vision of athletic perfection, an Olympian in a business shirt and trousers. Christos was sprinting after them. I hardly had a second to admire him as he shot out of sight. The police pulled up outside the main entrance in a divvy van. They’d arrived quickly. They wouldn’t send a van unless a crime was unfolding.

  Petula and I glanced at each other and shrugged, then stared out the window, trying to make out any activity. What was going on?

  Perhaps today wasn’t simply a day like any other. How exciting! I couldn’t wait to find out the full story. I’d have to corner Christos later.

  Hmmm, cornering Christos. The idea had possibilities.

  Chapter Two

  I arrived at work early the next day, clocking in at eight o’clock, only to find myself barred from entering the cosmetics floor. The main way in from the staff area was cordoned off with yellow and black tape. Christos and a couple of his team were there, sexily directing everyone to stay out of the way.

  Christos was sexy anyway, with his bossy face on, wearing a black suit and grey shirt underneath. He stood with his arms crossed, legs shoulder width apart, talking on his walkie-talkie.

  Had there been an accident or some other incident related to whatever happened yesterday? I couldn’t work out the cause of the situation. Of course I had to ask.

  I sidled up to him. “Christos, what’s going on? It’s okay, you can tell me.” I fluttered my eyelashes at him, shamelessly.

  He didn’t quite crack a smile, but his eyes wrinkled up at the corners in the most adorable way. “It’s the new visual merchandising display for the central aisle. They need a scissor lift to get it up on the pedestal.”

  I cocked my head to the right and looked past Christos to the gigantic glass object currently being hoisted up above head height on a mechanical doohickey I could only assume was a ‘scissor lift’. It had foldy metal parts under a platform, unfurling now, concertina style. The platform rose higher. I spotted one of the maintenance crew sitting in a small cabin below, operating it like a forklift driver.

  Someone stood on the platform. Lynda. She had one hand on top of the object, steadying whatever the glass thing was. A couple of black-clad team members were now on the floor below, directing traffic. They told the driver to inch forward, now right, a little left, aiming for the top of a towering white pedestal in the centre aisle.

  I watched, half mesmerised, half terrified the thing would crash down on someone’s head. Although if it crashed on Lynda, maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

  Christos called out in his gruff, commanding voice. “Stand back.”

  I took a step back as instructed, towards him. A couple of other floor staff had arrived to watch and the security team ushered them well behind the tape.

  Another great piece of machinery came into view. A crane arm was attached to the lift, extending upwards, hooking onto the top of the display piece. It was half covered in bubble wrap.

  Finally, the object was placed on top of the pedestal and Lynda carefully removed the bubble wrap. The overhead lights hit the facades of the largest crystal perfume bottle I’d ever seen. It was an oversized replica of the Heart-mas bottle. Almost as large as a person.

  I gasped. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Yes, it’s beautiful. And expensive. Requires an extra security detail.” Christos spoke in a low voice, rumbling from just behind my right shoulder.

  I glanced over my shoulder to meet his eyes. He had his intense stare going on again. It was almost as if he was interrogating me with his gaze, or stripping me naked. I shivered, and my attention dropped to his mouth. I pressed my own lips together, preparing to say something, anything. Ask him out on a date, maybe?

  But the screech of high heels behind me made me whip around on the spot. It was Petula. She grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the perfume counter, shouting over her shoulder, “Hi, Christos. Nice day for looking so handsome!”

  I laughed. I’d been a bit down earlier, worrying over money and about my sister, who was staying with friends in Sydney. She was fine, or so I’d heard. Mrs Martin, Deidre, treated KC like a second daughter, so I trusted her word. But my stubborn sister wouldn’t return my phone calls.

  But I wouldn’t mope. Today was a day for admiring beauty and enjoying future possibilities. Because I said so. I enjoyed watching Christos during the day while I worked, as he moved across a crowded cosmetics floor, weaving fluidly, like a n
inja, through throngs of shoppers.

  “OH. MY. GOD.” MY REACTION couldn’t be contained, unfortunately.

  Had I forgotten to drink my second cup of coffee? Because I was clearly delusional. The vision before me had to be caffeine-deficiency induced.

  I’d had some time to wind down from the events of the day before, with no explanation as to what was going on from either Christos or the store management. I expected we’d find out eventually if there had been a crime going down. But today’s excitement was of a different variety.

  When I saw the new casual staff walking towards my counter, my mouth popped open. I leaned forward on the perfume counter, mouth agape like a stunned mullet. It was probably unprofessional, but I couldn’t help it.

  I turned to Giselle, standing at my right.

  Giselle was a willowy French import with a hypnotic accent, naturally highlighted brunette hair and friendly personality that put anyone at ease. To her left stood Gillian, the non-exotic but reliable and hard-working country girl, with silky blonde hair, freckles and perfect teeth. Collectively, they were known as G-G or Gigi. According to me.

  “Gigi, what do you make of this?”

  Gillian was near the towering display of perfume tester bottles arranged on a precarious kind of multilevel, mirrored Lazy Susan. She shook her head. “No.”

  Giselle shrugged, her long and lush false lashes fluttered as she blinked several times.

  The new gang of casual spritzer chicks walked in close formation, either in solidarity or trying to hide somehow. Because the costumes they sported were truly horrendous. A crime against fashion, not to mention reindeers. And Christmas.

  Red onesies. Gold reindeer antlers. Oh, no...

  “White boots! What were they thinking?” Giselle had read my mind. She continued to tsk under her breath, clearly appalled.

  The new girls looked like a sleigh full of Rudolph and Mrs Claus costumes had exploded after a run-in with a bad 80s music video. Their hair wasn’t teased on end, but was slicked back to allow the gold sparkly antlers maximum wow-factor. It was the Heart-mas perfume ad come to life in front of me, in scary 3D with added velour and ‘smell-a-vision’. The aroma was truly something. An eye-watering something no perfume lover should ever suffer.