Can't Touch This (Can't Touch This #1)

CHAPTER ONE

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Vesper

“OH GOD, OH GOD, OH God.”

“Wow, you’re feeling extra religious this morning.”

I looked at my best friend and business partner, Polly Dartford. Yes, her name sounded as if she’d stepped from a musical and somehow ended up in a Jane Austen love story, but her head was screwed on so damn tight, I honestly didn’t know how we’d made it through university together.

I thought the key to a ‘dynamic duo’ was one was kooky and fun and not afraid to shag a few bad choices or drink a few stupid decisions, while the other was so strait-laced her life was a proverbial straight jacket.

We couldn’t both be so by-the-book and organised and disciplined—where was the fun in that? And how were we supposed to relax when we wound each other up with work stress and life worries?

She was supposed to be the funny one while I was the serious one.

But no.

There was no opposite in our girl bestie relationship.

“He just walked in. Didn’t he? I think I hear him.” I stood on my tiptoes, improving just marginally on my average height that I refused to jazz up with heels (screw that, they hurt my feet). I did my best to sneak a peek through the small window on the door to reception.

Polly rolled her eyes. “If you’re so freaked out about helping him, take my eleven a.m. appointment and I’ll do yours.”

Oh, really?

As if.

She didn’t do well with anything off track from her colour-coded diary. Hell, who was I kidding? I was the same. My phone regularly beeped with reminders and friendly prods to stay on track with my responsibilities.

That was the reason (but not the only reason—oh no, not by a long way) why I could barely tolerate Ryder Carson.

Dropping my voice, I hissed, “Nice offer, but next time, actually put some enthusiasm and commitment behind it.”

Polly huffed. “Whatevs, it’s called being supportive.”

“Being supportive means actually wanting to do what you just said because it benefits your best friend.”

“Pfffftttt.” She laughed. “Who would honestly want to deal with that man?”

“Exactly my point.”

She squinted at the window, trying to make out if it was him or not.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if he made a damn appointment.” I swiped hair from my blue eyes that earned a lashing of mascara in the mornings and that was it. No eyeliner, no colourful eye shadows—no beautification of any kind, thank you very much.

After all, what was the point?

Most days I hung around humans of the female variety and a menagerie of the animal kind. A four-legged friend didn’t care if I looked like a haggard twenty-four-year-old or a botoxed diva.

As long as I cured them, that was all they needed to know.

“How about you put your foot down this time?” Polly finished wrapping the final dressing on the poor tabby’s leg that’d been hit by a car and cocked her chin for me to grab the bottom corners of the medical sheet the unconscious pussy cat lay on.

Together (thanks to years of practice), we lifted seamlessly and ever so gently placed the kitty back into its cage for it to wake as the anaesthesia faded.

The setting of broken bones was easy these days. The sight of blood and scalpels had been my worst nightmare when we’d done our first practical classroom together at Trithorn University. We’d met at orientation—bumping into each other as we jotted notes into matching moleskin journals.