Playing it Cool (Sydney Smoke Rugby) Read Online Free PDF Page A

peachy.”
    “You stay involved with them?”
    Harper nodded. “My stepmother works full time as an interior designer, and with my job being flexible, I do the school pick up and run them around to their different activities in the afternoon until Anthea gets home. They often come and stay with me on the weekends.”
    He painted for a beat or two, his gaze fixed on the canvas. “I’m sorry about your father.”
    “Thanks.” Harper gave him a sad smile.
    He glanced at her and returned the expression with one of his own, as if he knew a little about grief, too. The chime of an incoming text broke the fledgling intimacy.
    “Sorry,” Harper grimaced, putting her wineglass down to pick up her phone.
    Normally she wouldn’t look at her phone on a date—even a fake one, but Harper was waiting on a reply from Tabby who hadn’t been feeling well.
    Alas, it was from Anthea…
    Harper! Chuck just told me about this ridiculous pity date. It’s probably just some kind of dare. I hope you’re not embarrassing Chuck by throwing yourself at Dexter Blake. Set your sights lower and have more self-respect!
    Harper was well used to Anthea being Chuck’s mouthpiece by now. But considering how much she did for her stepmother, and how much she put up with from her, this level of vitriol really hurt.
    Okay, yes, the date was fake, but was it really that ridiculous that a man of Dexter’s calibre might want to go out with her?
    Harper clutched the phone hard as she stared at the screen, her heart banging against her ribs as the words burrowed like a parasite under her skin. She was beginning to feel like a character in a fairy tale. The bad pantomime version.
    Wicked stepmother, shitty stepbrother, poor, downtrodden orphan girl.
    And it really wasn’t that bad, for crying out loud. Anthea just didn’t understand the value of a good heart over a good body. She’d been raised by an ex-beauty-queen mother and a mostly absent father who’d run a modelling agency. If she’d been someone else’s stepmother, Harper might even have felt sorry for her.
    But she wasn’t.
    A sudden yearning for her father swelled in her chest, and an unexpected rush of hot tears pricked the backs of her eyes.
    “Is everything okay?”
    Harper blinked furiously to quash the rise of tears. “Ah…sure,” she said, putting the phone on the table with fingers that trembled slightly. She plastered a smile on her face as she grappled to bring her emotions under control.
    The last thing she wanted to do was burst into tears in front of Dex. She wasn’t sure how well rugby front-rowers coped with hysterical dates.
    “Harper!” The call from across the room came at just the right moment. “Over here.” Kevin gestured for her to join him. “You’ve just got to see this painting.”
    Harper leaped at the opportunity for escape. A chance to pull herself together. To remove herself from the heavy weight of Dex’s concerned gaze.
    She scraped her chair back, grateful beyond belief. “Won’t be a moment,” she said and fled to the other side of the room.

Chapter Three
    Dex blinked at the retreating back of Harper Nugent. What the hell was that? Everything had been fine, and then her olive complexion had turned to alabaster as she read a text. Then she’d looked at him with moisture turning her eyes into deep Marsala pools.
    He had absolutely no qualms reaching for her discarded phone and reading the text that was still on the screen. It was so awful he had to read it twice.
    What the fuck?
    Her stepmother had sent her this? No wonder Chuck was such a prick—it was obviously genetic.
    Set her sights lower? Embarrassing Chuck ? Probably some kind of dare?
    Dare? What the fuck did she mean by that?
    Dex dropped the phone, shuddering at the vileness, the rage he’d felt on the field the other night at hearing the way Chuck had talked to his sister returning. Harper was funny and witty and kind—being there to commiserate with her bestie, looking out for her