The Boy Toy - Nicola Marsh Page 0,16

the Yarra River and Melbourne’s Central Business District beyond. The glamorous foyer, boasting black marble floors and a chrome reception desk, looked more like a hotel than a health facility. A list of practitioners in bold gold letters took center stage behind the desk, but the spaces next to the titles of Occupational Therapist, Podiatrist, Psychologist, Exercise Physiologist, and Physical Therapist were blank.

The latter brought an instant image of Samira to his mind, naked and sated, spread-eagled on her bed. Damn, she’d been hot, but now wasn’t the time to rehash that one sensational night in his rather bleak week. He needed to find the dude who would coach him for the next four weeks in the art of delivering lines so he could nail the audition and take steps toward providing Amelia the funds to help those kids who needed them.

With no one manning the desk, he slipped his cell from his pocket to check the details. Yeah, four o’clock today, at this address.

“Can I help you?”

Rory glanced up to see a gorgeous Indian woman wearing a white coat walking toward him.

“Yes, thanks. Rory Radcliffe. I have an appointment at four with the dialect coach?”

An eyebrow rose slightly as she stared at him with blatant speculation, before nodding and pointing to the corridor on his right. “Head down there. Last door on your left.”

“Thanks.”

Confused by the strange gleam in her eyes, he strode down the corridor, determinedly ignoring the nerves making him sweat.

He could do this.

He had to do this.

When he reached the end of the corridor, the last door on the left opened into a luxurious office filled with exercise equipment of all shapes and sizes: a Pilates machine, free weights, resistance bands in bright colors, and several plinths.

He knocked and entered, hoping this dialect coach could give him the guidance to secure the role, and the paycheck, he desperately needed.

He stepped into the office and caught sight of a woman behind a stack of exercise balls. “Hi, I’m looking for Sam Broderick, the d-dialect coach.”

Damn his bloody nerves for making him stutter at a time like this.

But that wasn’t the worst of it, because as the woman stepped out from behind the balls and said, “I’m Sam,” he locked gazes with an equally startled Samira, the woman who had rocked his world.

Eight

Samira gaped at Rory for a good five seconds before pulling herself together. She pasted a smile on her face and moved toward him, her hand outstretched, like she was greeting any other client and not the guy who’d awakened her to exactly how great sex could be.

“Hey, Rory,” she said, sounding coolly professional and nothing like a stunned woman that couldn’t help but notice again how blue his eyes were and how his lips were made for other things besides smiling.

Though he wasn’t smiling now. He looked . . . horrified.

“You can’t be a dialect coach. You’re a physical therapist,” he said, staring at her in absolute dismay.

So much for connecting that memorable night. She lowered her hand and summoned her inner professional, the one who’d dealt with recalcitrant clients many times.

“It’s a specialty field. Only a few physical therapists around the world are interested in dialect coaching. Good articulation involves breathing techniques, core strength, that kind of thing, and being able to combine exercises to focus on those muscle groups is where we come in. So where speech therapists work on actual enunciation, I focus on getting the muscles that help produce speech to work right.” She gestured to a nearby plinth and exhaled in relief when he sat. She pulled up a chair opposite. “I think I already mentioned my cousin’s setting up this place as a new, innovative center for allied health treatments and wanted me on board, which is why I’m working here for the next six months. My duties are predominantly physical therapy, dealing with orthopedic patients, mostly, but with Pia being a speech therapist, I’m hoping she’ll refer some clients my way for dialect coaching.”

“I’ve never heard of any physical therapists in Australia doing dialect coaching,” he muttered, glaring at her like she’d fooled him deliberately. “Seems odd when you usually treat sporting injuries and back pain and rehab hip replacements.”

“Already told you, this is a specialized field for my profession,” she said, keeping the annoyance out of her voice. Why was he judging her? “The way you use your diaphragm to breathe? How your abdominals and back muscles interact to brace your core? All important components in good