‘I’m not yet sure I’m even going to go that way,’ she said.
‘Why on earth not?’
She closed her eyes for a second and reminded herself never to let Kensey anywhere near him, no matter how long they stayed together. She’d never be allowed to make a decision on her own.
She opened her eyes to be blinded by the kaleidoscope of colour shining from the mirrored wall behind the bar. The drum-heavy music now pulsated inside her head. And she thought, Well, if you can’t beat‘ em …
‘Do you want to dance?’ she asked.
Damien looked at her as if she’d grown an extra head, but when the dance song eased into a slow and ultra-romantic beat, he put his untouched drink down, gave the barman a wink, then took her hand and eased her through the crowd out onto the dance floor.
Half a dozen women gave him the eye before giving her a once-over. In her tight jeans and black off-the-shoulder top she felt as if she ought to have at least looked like she belonged. Still she grabbed his hand tighter.
He spun her out and then into his arms until he held her in the classic ballroom hold. She had to look up to see into his eyes, which were smiling down at her. Pristine pools of blue.
The lights turned low, with only sporadic shafts of disco-ball light flickering over his face, proving his eyes never left hers.
The words of the song permeated. Talking of fear and tears and not knowing whether to hang on tight or go back to being lonely and confused. She leant her head on his shoulder and blocked them out.
As they slowly moved around the hardwood floor she felt their bodies meld closer together of their own accord. She managed to slide inside the soft lining of his suit jacket until her stomach rested flush against his with only two swathes of thin cotton separating her building warmth from his.
There, she thought, her whole body sighing in relief. In his arms everything felt okay. Better. As if she weren’t a fool agreeing to his terms even though she knew she was a thousand miles further down the road towards wanting this to last for ever than he was.
Whether he leaned down or she stood on tiptoe first, she had no idea. Their lips met, gentle yet insistent. Her eyes closed and she drank him in.
His kiss was like magic, pouring warmth and unstoppered emotion through her body until she reached up and ran her hands around his neck, clinging to him, impressing herself upon him in every way possible.
His tongue lapped the roof of her mouth, sending her into some kind of free fall. She tipped her head to the side and opened her mouth to him, and with it her whole heart.
He let go of her hand and reached down to cup her buttocks, pushing her against the evidence of just how turned on he was.
‘Not here,’ she said against his mouth.
His eyes flickered open, dark and heavy with desire. She would have put money on the fact he hadn’t even remembered where they were. She was momentarily tormented by the fact at times he was so sure, so clear-headed, and other times keeping his hands off her seemed more than he could bear.
‘Where?’ he said.
‘Let’s get out of here.’ She dragged him from the dance floor, through the heaving, glittery crowd.
‘But we haven’t had dinner.’
‘I don’t need a feed to put me in the right mood.’
‘So it would seem.’ Damien had found his head after all. He moved in tight behind her as he hastily collected their things from the cloakroom, nodded a quick goodbye to the bouncer and herded her out into the chill evening air. She shivered; he gathered her close.
They scooted around the corner into the car park, and Damien was off driving down the street towards Chelsea’s apartment before she’d strapped herself in.
She leaned back against the leather headrest in the passenger seat of Damien’s gorgeous primrose-yellow Austin-Healey Sprite. The top was down, her hair was flying, she felt just fabulous, as if every drudging daily concern had been whipped out of her ears to be lost on the wind.
This was the life. The kind of life she could be living hanging with the likes of Damien Halliburton of the Halliburton Halliburtons. This was the fire, electricity, excitement, danger, no care for the consequences she’d known he had to offer before she’d even known his name.
‘Where can I get me one of these?’ she yelled.
‘One of what?’
‘This car. Tell me they go for a song. Please.’
‘More like an opera than a song.’
Damien glanced sideways and offered her a sexy smile. Their eyes locked and held. She couldn’t wait to get back to her place and knew he couldn’t either.
‘Hang on,’ he said. Dragging the car down into such a low gear it groaned, he turned off the main road and headed towards the Docklands precinct with its wide open spaces cleared for future high-rise developments and phenomenal view of the Melbourne city skyline.
The second the car pulled to a stop atop a patch of grass hidden behind a billboard they were in one another’s arms.
They came together with such force, such unbridled passion, it was as though they’d been away from one another’s touch for years, not mere minutes.
Fast and furious, she thought. Then right on top of that … It can’t last for ever. For Damien the relationship would burn out, or she would from the sheer force of keeping her true feelings from him.
Blocking out her contrary thoughts, Chelsea was in Damien’s lap and he’d flipped the seat back as far as it would go. In that moment she regretted wearing jeans. She wanted him so desperately. Needed to lose herself in the sensations he created in her to stop the torrent of rebellious emotion sweeping over her.
He groaned. ‘I haven’t done this since I was a teenager. I only hope I’m still as flexible.’
‘If you’re not, I am,’ she said, and his next groan was lost in her kiss.
He was right, she thought five minutes later when both of their shirts had been tossed into the back seat. They sure could make some beautiful love together.
So how could he be so wrong about the rest?
Her eyes flew open, and she was momentarily shocked by the sight of the Melbourne skyline looming huge and glittering before her. The sky was black and clear, the moon large and luminous lighting the glossy dew on the grass around the car. She shivered.
‘You can’t be cold,’ Damien said, wrapping his arms about her and pulling her to him. Her breasts scraped against the hair on his chest as he only added to her physical pleasure by biting into that magical spot where her neck met her shoulder.
But even that wasn’t enough to cover up the certainty that none of it was enough. And never would be. She was in love with him. She wanted a future with him. What she didn’t want was to see him day in and day out knowing it was only one step closer to the time she’d have to say goodbye.
‘Stop,’ she whispered, but her throat caught the word before it made it to the outside world. So with greater force she said, ‘Damien, no more.’ And she pushed him away.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, his voice barely more than a rumble. ‘Did I hurt you?’
She sat up, her eyes frantically searching the back seat for her bra, her top, anything to make her feel less painfully naked. She slid her top over herself, inside out though it was. And had to swipe a tear that she felt sliding from her left eye.
She pulled herself off his lap and he helped her, running his hands down her arms as though checking for broken bones. He glanced up into her eyes and must have seen the anguish therein as he swallowed, and his own eyes were suddenly filled with such care it made her choke.
‘Chelsea, what did I do?’
‘Nothing,’ she blabbed. ‘Truly. It’s me. All me. I just …’ God, how could she say this without sounding ridiculous, and giving herself away completely? ‘This affair, or whatever it is we have going on, I don’t think I can do it.’
Damien leaned slowly back into his seat and ran a hand through his hair. ‘But last night … I thought we’d agreed it was what we both wanted.’
‘So in the past twenty-four hours what’s changed?
I’ve fallen in love with you, you idiot!
‘I’ve changed my mind. It’s a woman’s prerogative.’
He swore loud enough it seemed to echo across the large empty block of land. He reached into the back seat of the car and grabbed his shirt and jacket, tugging them over his arms as her words sank in. And when he spoke again his voice was deathly quiet. ‘I never promised you anything.’
‘I know.’ Hers was barely above a whisper.
‘So this is it. You’re breaking up with me?’
God, was she really?
‘What difference does it make?’ she asked, prolonging the final step. ‘You said it yourself, there will be an end point. I just think it would be better to end it now.’
‘I don’t agree.’
Did he have to make it so hard? Couldn’t he see her heart was breaking for him? In that moment she so wanted to reach out and beat her hands on his chest until he could see the truth. Instead her anger turned to words.
Her voice was chilly when she said, ‘The last thing I need in my life is another man who is going to let me down.’
His chest swelled as he took the barbs full on. ‘And the last thing I need in my life is another woman making demands of me I simply can’t fulfil.’
Chelsea crossed her arms over her chest as she realised she had begun to shiver for real. ‘Well, then, you should be thanking me for letting you off the hook.’
He ran his hand over his face and with it seemed to wipe away every ounce of feeling. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I should have listened to Caleb.’
‘About what? About me?’ Her accompanying laughter was shrill. ‘Not bright and shiny enough for his tastes? Well, you can tell him I don’t think much of him either.’
Finally, he looked at her. His eyes were so dark, so hooded in the moonlight she had no idea what he was thinking. ‘You don’t even know him.’
‘I know enough to guess he wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea of you slumming it with someone who clips dogs’ toenails for a crust.’
Damien’s laughter was tinged with a bitterness she hadn’t imagined he might possess. ‘God, Chelsea, I have never met a woman with as big a chip on her shoulder as you have.’
His tone only made her more sure. And more angry. With him, and with herself for ever thinking he might be different. He might be worth putting her defenceless heart on the line for.
‘Well, don’t panic,’ she spat out, ‘you won’t have to worry about your friend’s anxiety for your well-being any more. You and he can go off to some other swanky club with your bright and shiny friends and talk money and markets and boating and tennis, because I have a glorious weekend mapped out for me where I belong. In a dilapidated cabin in the Yarra Valley with my sister, her balding husband, their nutty three kids, and goofy dog, eating cheese on toast, crowded around the twelve-inch television, playing Pass the Parcel at a six-year-old’s birthday party. Your scene’s not my scene and vice versa. And I say thank goodness for that.’
She stopped to take a breath. Her lungs felt tight, her cheeks hot, even in the cold evening air.
‘Are you done?’ he asked, his voice cool.
She gathered every ounce of self-preservation she had inside her, turned to him and said, ‘Even better. We’re done, Damien. So are you going to take me home now or do I have to hitchhike?’
He looked at her for several long seconds. She was close enough she could see every single hair on his head as the breeze lifted it off his face, see the twitching of a muscle in his left cheek, the rise and fall of his breaths beneath his quickly buttoned shirt.
And with every passing second she felt him moving further and further away, taking with him any warmth and hope she’d ever felt in her heart.
He licked his lips, shucked his jacket into a more comfortable position, then turned over the engine with a steady hand.
This time as he drove her through the dark city streets he kept just below the speed limit. Already there was nothing between them bar space and time, and the wind whipping about her face only served to take away her tears.
As he pulled up at the end of Flinders Lane, Chelsea turned to him to … what? Apologise? Wish him well? Change her mind? Beg him to love her back?
But he kept his gaze dead ahead, his fingers clenched hard to the steering wheel, his jaw set like stone.
She slid from the car, grabbed her jacket and bag from the back seat, and had barely closed the door when his engine gunned and he was gone down the glistening city street until she had nothing but the sound of his revving engine to prove he’d ever even been there.
For a moment she felt a bond with the faceless Bonnie. She felt the pain that woman must have felt at having to watch this man slip through her fingers. Chelsea tried to console herself with the fact that she hadn’t lost two and a half years of her life before coming to the realisation that the man couldn’t be tamed.
But she wouldn’t worry any more about his past. For her future felt as bright and rosy and full of possibilities as the gutter beneath her feet.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MID Saturday afternoon Damien was sitting on a large brown leather ottoman at the rear of Caleb’s favourite haunt, a dapper mirror-and-wood-infested bar tucked away secretly beneath Russell Street.
He’d been staring blindly at the half-melted ice cubes clinking around the bottom of his untouched Scotch for goodness knew how long when a familiar scent tickled at his nose. Something warm, and soft and homey.
He glanced up, enough of him expecting to find a beautiful caramel-blonde walking towards him that his skin warmed a degree and the hairs on the back of his neck rose.
But instead all he saw was a slick redhead passing for at least the third time that hour. She caught his eye, and he smiled. She was gorgeous, she deserved recognition and that was what he was here to do. To mingle with the plethora of gorgeous young things on offer. To move on from Chelsea London, who herself had been meant to mean no more to him than a scratch for his itch.
The redhead pulled up to supposedly fix her shoe and held eye contact, brazen as you like. He knew all it would take was a tilt of his head, a broadening of his smile, to bring her over, to begin the dance, but at the last second he looked away.
‘Since when did you become such a grumpy old man?’ Caleb asked as he threw himself onto the ottoman until he was lazing across it like some modern day Caligula.
Damien sniffed in deep, letting the scents of all the mixed perfumes, wash away all memory of Chelsea’s scent for good. ‘Since the day you came into my life and I realised I was to become an unpaid babysitter until my dying day.’
‘Funny. You know that redhead’s been giving you eye all afternoon.’
‘So she has.’ Damien brought his drink to his lips.
‘But she’s no hottie dog groomer, is she?’
Damien’s hand stilled, the smell of Scotch in his nose, the taste of it still missing from his lips. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said. ‘She may well be.’
‘You really like this girl, don’t you?’
‘I liked her well enough.’ Damien didn’t even pretend to not know to whom Caleb was referring. He licked his bottom lip and nodded, squinting out into the hazy room rather than looking Caleb in the eye, rather than giving away just how much he’d liked her.
‘Then what the hell are you doing sitting here moping with me when you could be elbow-deep in all that lovely warm, willing female flesh?’
‘That particular female flesh is not so willing any more.’
‘That was quick. What happened?’
‘I was honest with her.’
Caleb sucked a hiss of air through his teeth. ‘Bad move. What did you say?’
‘I told her I couldn’t give her any more than what we had.’ ‘And what was that exactly?’
Damien opened his m
outh to say fun and games, but he knew that was rubbish. He searched for the words to describe what he and Chelsea had found together. To pinpoint what it was about her that made it so easy for him to reject it out of hand. And he couldn’t. His mind felt bruised, making him unable to think straight about a lot of things.
‘I made it clear we ought to keep things casual. Knowing neither of us was in a place to promise more. It’s been a month since Bonnie, and Chelsea’s, well, she’s bloody neurotic.’
‘And what did she have to say about that?’
‘I thought … She thought … She told me where I could stick my offer.’ With that he brought his Scotch to his mouth and let its watered down bitterness sear his throat.
Then behind the resultant hum in his ears he heard Caleb laugh. So loud and so hard the ottoman began to shake. He turned to his friend and glared.
But Caleb just grinned back. ‘You poor devil.’
‘Excuse me?’
Caleb sat up, rested a hand upon his shoulder, looked him in the eye and said, ‘I’m thinking the hot get-back-on-the-horse cat lady has turned out to be the one.’
He waited for the punchline. For the jibe. But it never came. Caleb instead looked, if anything, envious.
‘The one what?’ Damien asked.
Caleb took a deep breath and seemed to search for patience. ‘When you left Bonnie, you never sought to drown your sorrows in a glass of Scotch. But since you met this girl, you’ve been distracted, you’ve been moody, you’ve been a right dullard socially. And it’s all because you’ve gone and accidentally found yourself the one woman in the world who was finally able to capture your imagination enough to pull you from the world of boring bliss in which we found ourselves born.’
It took about thirty seconds for Caleb’s words to stop echoing inside Damien’s head. ‘You’re dead wrong, mate. One woman, marriage, house and home … I can’t. If being a Halliburton taught me anything—’
‘Don’t go holding up your crazy parents as some kind of example, my friend. They’re madly in love and both half sloshed before dinner. And if it wasn’t for the number their divorce did on the two of you I would have run off with your sister years ago.’
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