by Trish Morey
Ever since she’d become aware Grace had arrived home from the clinic, Jade had been itching to talk to her about Loukas and his planned contribution. After their friction today she’d wanted to share the good news—although now she wasn’t so sure it was good news.
At least, not for her.
‘You can’t be having second thoughts,’ said Grace practically. ‘You’ve already told him you’d go.’
Jade looked down at her hands, steadily working indentations into the soft leather. ‘I could always tell him I made a mistake—that I’ve changed my mind. Maybe he’ll give the money anyway.’
‘Change your mind and risk losing me one million dollars? No, you will not! You’ll go to dinner like you agreed.’
Jade looked up suddenly. ‘It’s not for you, Grace, it’s for the foundation.’
‘Ah, but,’ she said, replacing her drained bone china cup onto its saucer with barely a click, ‘who is it who supports the foundation if there are insufficient funds? The clinic.’ She pointed one tapered red fingernail at her chest. ‘Meaning me.’
‘But the foundation has plenty of capital. The Gala alone must have set us up for two years of operation. I can’t see you having to bail it out any time soon.’
Grace held up one hand. ‘All the same, Jade, if something does happen, it’s me who will have to foot the bill. That million dollars will be a welcome buffer, given the clinic has had a few unforeseen expenses lately.’
Jade’s ears pricked up. ‘You haven’t mentioned this before. What kind of expenses?’
‘Oh, I wasn’t going to bother you with any of this. They’re just annoying little things, really—one or two little cases. Someone who wants to sue me in some ridiculous claim to do with their surgery, somebody else claiming negligence—and the lawyers want me to go for settlements.’
‘More cases?’ Jade side-stepped the sofa and sat down alongside Grace. ‘Oh, how awful for you. They must think you’re an easy target. Maybe just for once you should go to court—fight them this time. It can’t be good if you always settle—people will learn to expect a pay-out for everything.’
Grace patted her hand. ‘Thank you. I insisted we fight too! But the lawyers think it’s best to keep everything as quiet as possible. They don’t want the clinic brought up in court—they think it would be bad publicity all round.’ She shrugged. ‘And, seeing they’re the experts, I can’t really argue with them.’
‘But if it means always shelling out money to make these people go away, how long can you continue doing business that way? And what will it mean for the expansion plans for the clinic? Will they still go ahead?’
‘Oh, yes. But only with the Mayor’s help. He’s agreed to take over the building contract and give us a good deal. I’m just so lucky he’s standing by me through all of this. I really don’t know what I’d do without him.’
Every muscle and organ inside Jade seemed to clench and roll at the mention of that word. Why couldn’t he just leave Grace alone? She was going to end up hurt, and badly, when she found out what the Mayor was really like. And now she was tying herself to him for a year or more while the contract works were carried out.
Grace would have to discover the truth for herself at some stage. Or was Jade going to have to tell her?
‘Maybe you should put it off for a while?’ Jade suggested tentatively. ‘Maybe wait until these cases are cleared up and out the way before you commit to any more expenditure.’ And to the Mayor.
‘Oh, there’s no need for that. It’s all organised—the Mayor’s taken care of all that. Now, before I head off to bath and bed, I want to know—you are going to that dinner tomorrow night?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know, Grace. I’m not even sure I believe him. If he’d wanted to give the foundation a cheque for so much money, why didn’t he tell us at the Gala? We could have announced it then and there. Why wait until afterwards?’
Grace shrugged as she stood up. ‘If he’s willing to donate that much money, let him set the conditions. It’s only dinner after all.’ She looked down, her eyes shrewd, to where the younger woman was still sitting. ‘Or do you think he expects more for his money than just dinner? Are you worried he wants to sleep with you?’
Jade felt herself colour. Not so much because of the question but more at Loukas’s words, playing over and over in her mind in stark and brutal relief. Do you really think I would pay one million dollars for what I could have had for free?
She swallowed, dropping her eyes. ‘He assured me it was just dinner.’
‘Then you have nothing at all to worry about. And, let’s face it, it’s only if he expects you to take your clothes off and he sees your scars that you have a problem. We don’t want him asking for his money back, do we?’
‘Do you miss your home?’
Jade sipped on her margarita and stared out through the windows of the restaurant at the end of the pier, down past the fair rides and stalls to the row of lights marking out the Santa Monica Bay shoreline.
When she’d agreed to dinner she’d never expected Loukas to bring her to a place like this—so relaxed and unpretentious. She was glad he had—the casual surroundings and the margarita had woven a mellow spell over her, making it easier to talk. At least until he’d asked her about her home.
Her eyes followed the line of lights down the coast to where they disappeared into the sea mist and the smog. It was so different here compared to the small rural town of Yarrabee where she’d grown up—five hours and a world away from Sydney and the sea, where everything and everyone, the crops, the livestock, even life itself, seemed ruled by the seasons and the weather.
Unless you didn’t fit in.
Then your life revolved around avoiding people, staring at the ground and, just like everyone else around you, wishing you’d never been born.
Absence was supposed to make the heart grow fonder but even after her self-imposed exile it was impossible to conjure up any feelings of sentiment for the place. Yarrabee had made her feel like an outcast from the beginning. And now just thinking about Yarrabee left her cold. Because how could a place that had never wanted you ever be considered your home?
Even Sydney, to where she’d escaped at last for medical school, didn’t feel like home to her now. Maybe because there was no one waiting for her back there. No one she’d left behind.
She looked around, saw Loukas staring, waiting for her reply.
‘Miss home? Not really,’ she admitted, brightening her smile with more warmth than she felt. ‘I’ve swapped Aussie sunshine for the Californian variety. I’ve made my home here now, and I’m happy with that decision.’
As easily as that! Did she realise how her smoothly delivered words condemned her, reminding him in no uncertain terms just what kind of woman she was? She’d transplanted herself smack-bang into a lucrative industry in the most body-conscious city in North America. Didn’t she have any feelings for those she must have left behind? What kind of woman was she?
‘What about your family?’ he insisted, thinking of his father and how even now that Olympia was married he still wanted to control her life and keep her safe. ‘How do they feel about you being so far away?’
She shook her head. ‘I guess I’m lucky in that respect. I don’t have any family to worry about.’
For the first time he felt there was more to her easy dismissal of her homeland than she’d let on. Not having a family seemed a strange thing to consider yourself lucky about.
‘What happened to them?’
She screwed up her face and sat back in her chair. ‘Look, you don’t want to hear all this. It’s history.’
‘Humour me.’
She blinked and looked at him, her blue eyes clearly weighing up whether or not to talk. In the end she took a deep gulp of air and shrugged, almost as if telling him that he’d asked for it. ‘There’s not a lot to it. My mother died when I was born. All I know of her I’ve learned from photographs.’
‘She must have been very bea
utiful.’
A bright smile lit up her face, so brilliant and yet so brief. But he could tell from her eyes that the smile wasn’t directed at him. She was looking inwards, remembering. ‘Would you believe,’ she said, ‘she was actually Miss Yarrabee Showgirl the year she turned seventeen?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, acknowledging that, whatever cosmetic surgery Jade had been treated to while at the Della-Bosca Clinic, she must have started out with some pretty decent genes in the first place. ‘I’d believe it. And I’d believe it more if you told me you’d followed suit.’
Her smile faded and she blinked as her focus briefly settled back on him before she let her gaze fall to the table. And when her voice came it was as if her words were hidden by shadows, heavy with ghosts.
‘No, I never entered.’
He watched her study her margarita as she swirled the contents around the glass, tickling the salt-encrusted rim, slowly dissolving it. Before the past had intervened in her thoughts her face had shone with an unparalleled brilliance. What would it take for her to direct that dazzling smile onto him and mean it? Could you seduce someone into smiling like that? He was aching to try. But she was in the mood to talk, and anything she told him was going to help his cause.
‘So how old were you when your father died?’
‘Heaps older, thankfully. Fifteen.’
‘How did it happen?’
She nodded matter-of-factly, obviously having anticipated his question. ‘We had a small spread outside Yarrabee. One night he didn’t come home for dinner and I went looking for him. I thought maybe the old tractor had broken down again—he was always complaining that he’d have to get a decent one some time, but we could never quite afford it.’
She paused, her gaze fixed on a point somewhere out on the horizon.
‘You found him?’
She nodded, bringing her blank gaze back down to her drink.
‘The tractor had rolled down an embankment. Dad was pinned underneath. He was still alive when I found him. He could talk—told me it didn’t hurt too badly and to go get help. I told him it would be all right. I told him to hang on while I ran to get help and I’d be back as soon as I could. He told me he’d hang on…’
Silence stretched out between them, long and strained.
Finally she breathed in deeply, her face tilting apologetically, though signs of strain still clung to her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. Way too much information.’
‘No,’ he insisted, realising his feelings of compassion were surprisingly genuine. He reached out a hand, loosening hers from the side of her glass, squeezing her fingers within his. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘It’s okay. Really,’ she said, making no effort to remove her hand. He let his thumb stroke her fingers, a gentle massage that reminded him of how good she felt in his arms and made him realise how much he was looking forward to holding her again.
‘So now you have no family?’
She dipped her head—a silent assent. ‘But I’ve been lucky too,’ she said. ‘Grace has been very good to me—taking me on board, inviting me to share her house. She’s the closest thing I have to family now.’
Everything inside him shut down. His thumb ceased its stroking as resentment simmered to the surface at the mention of that name. Any compassion he had felt for a young girl who had suffered the loss of both her mother and her father in tragic circumstances dissolved in the acid burn of his hatred for all things Della-Bosca.
This woman sitting opposite him was no innocent. She was part of Della-Bosca’s evil web. She was part of the problem and he had better not forget it.
‘Loukas?’
Her blue eyes held concern—concern for him. It was ironic. She wouldn’t look that way if she knew what he had planned for her precious Dr Della-Bosca. But first he needed her help. First he needed hard evidence. And, above all, he needed to ensure the safety of his half-sister.
He smiled then, as he forced the rancid ball of his hatred deep down inside himself again. ‘But that’s not all, Jade,’ he said, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. ‘Now you have me too.’
Something had changed between them tonight. As they strolled hand in hand down the length of the pier, neither of them talking, Jade knew that whatever relationship they shared had moved to a new level. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with his promise of a one-million-dollar donation.
Her body hummed with awareness, every brush of his shirt sending frissons of sensation into her flesh where they multiplied and fanned out through her body, so that every part of her was acutely aware of his proximity and his every tiny touch, his every passing glance. Every part of her seemed exquisitely poised, balanced on a knife-edge, as if waiting for something to happen.
Wanting it to happen.
She drew in air that seemed charged with life, shimmering inside her as the truth of her physical wanting hit home.
He’d told her it that he wouldn’t press her, that it would be her decision if they made love. Now more than ever she knew that that was what she wanted. Yet it was a different need that drove her now, compared to that she’d felt at the Gala.
There she’d been swept completely away by his sheer impact, by the physical magnetism he exuded. There she’d forgotten about the risk she was taking and the revelation that would have him recoiling in revulsion. Because his power had plugged a direct line into her needs, making her forget about everything else but wanting him and being wanted by him, reeling her in like a fish on a hook.
But tonight was different. He was different. He’d talked about his family’s business and his role as director, and how it gave him the involvement he wanted and the freedom to pursue his own interests. And he’d listened to her and made her feel that there was more to whatever there was between them than sheer lust. The desire was still there between them, tangible and brooding and waiting, only now it was overlaid by a sense of the man.
And the bottom line was that she liked what she saw.
From politics to the differences between countries, they’d discussed a broad range of topics—even arguing amicably over gridiron versus Australian Rules Football, and laughing when they couldn’t agree about which code made the most sense. And then he’d listened when she’d told him about her family. And apart from one fearful moment, when he’d almost gone rigid with white-hot anger—what had she said to cause that?—he’d been so understanding.
Had he meant it when he’d told her that she now had him? His words had been like a balm to her soul. They’d touched her deep down, in a place where loss and pain were much more frequent visitors. She could trust him, this man. Even though she knew so little about him really, even though they’d met but on two occasions, she felt the invisible bonds between them. She could sense it.
It was rare to feel someone getting under her guard. So far only Grace had made it into her inner circle, and Grace was a hard act to follow. But the more she knew of Loukas, the more she knew that he too was special.
She could trust him with her secret. If he liked her, as it seemed that he did, then maybe he could accept her the way she was. Maybe Grace was wrong. Maybe Loukas was special enough that it wouldn’t matter to him.
She leaned her head into his shoulder as they walked and he looked down, smiling, before wrapping his arm around her and tucking her in close.
She breathed in his magic man-scent, feeling it warm her spirits like a drug. And somewhere in her mind it occurred to her that this must be exactly what it felt like to fall in love.
Fall in love?
Her steps should have faltered on the boardwalk, her breath should have caught. And yet amazingly the concept didn’t scare her half as much as she thought it should. It seemed so natural, the way she was feeling, that she couldn’t be scared. And, even more than natural, the idea of falling in love with Loukas seemed so inevitable.
But love didn’t develop so quickly—did it? She wished she knew more. Her experience with boys and men was painfully limited, painfu
lly inadequate. But maybe this was how it started—with an attraction, with a desire to get to know more about him.
She hugged these new sensations and her musings to herself like a precious gift as they walked along the park lining the shore to his car. It might be crazy, it might be irrational, but her heart told her that maybe she was right—that maybe Loukas was right for her.
They stopped at the car and he dropped his arm from her shoulders momentarily while he turned her towards him. He looked down at her, his eyes darker then ever away from the pier lighting.
‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice unusually husky. ‘I enjoyed dinner—very much.’
One side of his mouth turned up. ‘It’s me who should be thanking you. I’m glad you agreed to come out with me.’
‘One million dollars for the foundation was a powerful incentive,’ she admitted with a laugh, acknowledging to herself that even without the money the evening had been more than a success as far as she was concerned.
‘I hope that wasn’t the only attraction,’ he said, and he tilted his head fractionally so that a glimmer of light from the closest streetlamp skated over his dark eyes and disappeared under their lids as his mouth descended over hers.
Her next intake of air was full of him—his scent, his taste, the very feel of him pressed against her. He tasted of the richness of coffee and the wildness of tequila, of strength and barely contained passion, and of a need echoing hers.
His hands maintained the gentle pressure on her shoulders, anchoring her to him, but with his mouth weaving magic against hers she wasn’t going anywhere. Her lips opened under his and he accepted her invitation readily, his tongue seeking entry, fusing them closer and closer together.
Her body responded in the only way it could—openly—welcoming his kiss as drought-stricken land welcomed the rain. His kiss gave her heat and life. His kiss rocked her soul. And his kiss promised so much more. She felt her breasts firm and peak, she felt her bones melt, and she knew she was lost.
‘I should take you home,’ he said, his slight stubble grazing hers, his breathing sounding surprisingly ragged and edgy before his mouth found hers once more.