Her Not-So-Secret Diary

by Anne Oliver

  ‘And anchors away.’ She had to smile because who could resist that roguish grin? Those scorching eyes? She laid her palm on his.

  A cool breeze drifted across the river. They stood on the tiny deck upstairs and drank pink champagne from tall crystal flutes. She discovered a wild hibiscus flower in syrup at the bottom and enjoyed its delicious raspberry and rhubarb flavour on her tongue almost as much as she enjoyed the kiss Jared gave her the moment they were alone.

  The aroma of roasting garlic and other herbs whetted their appetites as they watched a gold-rimmed orange fireball sink below the bruised horizon. Within seconds the jagged slices of black and gold glinting on the water faded to a muted charcoal.

  Moments later they returned to their table below, where a basket of steaming rolls awaited them.

  ‘That was beautiful,’ Sophie murmured. ‘There’s nothing quite like a tropical sun sliding into the water.’

  ‘And you want to leave it all behind for cold, grey London smog.’

  ‘It’s not all smog.’ She allowed the waiter to lay a napkin across her lap and admitted, ‘But I am going to miss the tropics.’

  ‘So what’s at the top of your London to-do list?’

  ‘All the traditional must-see places. But especially the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace. I had a painting of it when I was a little girl. It was so whimsical and caught my imagination. You’ve been to London, I suppose.’

  ‘No. Not yet. Don’t even have a passport.’

  ‘Oh?’ Then she remembered he’d been guardian to his sisters his entire adult life, had focused on responsibility rather than his own pleasures, and nodded. ‘You’ll have to visit sometime.’

  His eyes lingered on hers. ‘Maybe I will.’

  Confusion stole through her and she turned away and said, ‘I can’t wait to see that statue with its gold and marble and magical winged beings. And Queen Victoria in the midst of it all. I’ll stand there and know that I’ve finally achieved my goal.’

  She reached for her topped-up glass and took a liberal gulp while she studied the thin strip of land between water and fading aquamarine sky. The conical and distinctive volcanic shape of the distant Glasshouse Mountains on the horizon.

  For the first time since she’d met Jared, she questioned her motivation for leaving. Did she have to leave everyone she knew and travel to the other side of the world for a change in scenery?

  No. But she focused on what her head was telling her, not what her heart and emotions were saying. She wanted this trip. She’d wanted it for as long as she could remember. If she didn’t go, she’d regret it.

  And she wasn’t going to change anything for a man. Not even a man she was falling for. Especially not for a man she was falling for. Going to the UK was the best thing she could do. For herself. And for Jared.

  The main course arrived. Sophie chose salmon fillets on a bed of mashed potato with coriander, ginger and lime dressing, served with asparagus spears. Jared enjoyed a rare fillet steak with mushroom sauce and a selection of vegetables. It was a magnificent feast after the simple budget meals she’d been living on.

  They ate for several minutes without talking. Just listening to the boat’s motor, the swish of water against the hull.

  ‘What about the people?’ Jared said, scraping his fork over the bottom of his plate.

  ‘People?’

  ‘You said you’d miss the tropical climate.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I’ll miss the people too. I’ve got friends here.’ She slid the last mouthful of salmon between her lips while she watched Jared and found she couldn’t read his eyes now, at all. No matter how gorgeous he was or how much he was coming to mean to her… For the first time, she wavered. Then she pushed it away and said, ‘But I’m not changing my mind.’

  He watched her a moment, then set his cutlery on his empty plate, pushed it aside and leaned close so that his eyes reflected hers in the flickering candlelight. ‘In that case we’ll have to make the most of the time we have left.’ His tone was low, rough and full of promise. And hypnotic. Like his gaze.

  Everything around them seemed to fade out until all she was aware of was his intensity. From his eyes with their dark-rimmed irises that seemed to draw her into their depths, to the electric, almost mesmerising touch of his hand as it stroked her knuckles.

  Drowning. ‘Yes. Yes, we will.’

  Her answer seemed to shake off the dreamy well they found themselves in and the look he gave her could only be interpreted as sinful determination. ‘We’ll return to the marina,’ he said, gesturing the waiter hovering nearby over. ‘Is that okay with you?’

  ‘Very okay.’

  There was still time to eat the dessert—fresh mango vanilla ice cream on an individual pavlova base—and enjoy a coffee before the boat pulled up alongside its berth.

  Jared had plans for the rest of the evening. On the outside he maintained the cool, calm business façade he’d worn since this morning, but inside he was a bundle of firelighters ready for that first strike of the match. The way he’d been all day. The way he’d been every day since Sophie Buchanan had walked into his office.

  He couldn’t wait to feel her soft, summer-scented flesh against his again. Soon, very soon, he’d be burying himself inside her hot slippery centre. Easing the ache. Satisfying his need. Again and again, over and over, until he’d sated this all-consuming lust…

  Because that was all it was. Wasn’t it?

  He tightened his grip on the wheel as they drove back to the house. That was all he’d allow it to be. She was leaving for London. But he hoped she’d remember this evening fondly and think of him.

  The garage door rolled up, he slid into the parking spot, killed the engine and they both climbed out. He rounded the car, took her hand. ‘There’s something I want to show you before we go inside.’ He led her to an enclosed garden at the side of the house, where a patch of velvety lawn bordered a garden of tea roses and the air was heavy with the scent of rich earth and the river.

  And watched her jaw drop, her eyes widen in the soft light. It warmed him all the way through.

  Sophie stared, unable to believe her eyes. A quilted throw lay on the lawn. A bottle of champagne chilled in a silver ice bucket alongside a cute terracotta pot crammed with cream roses. The scene was lit by a couple of Moroccan lamps, their intricate filigree silhouetted against the candle’s warm glow. ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘Jared Sanderson, at your service.’ She turned her gaze on him and he smiled at her. ‘You wanted to make love under the stars? Well, here we are.’ He glanced up, waved a hand. ‘Complete privacy under the Southern Cross at moonrise. Couldn’t have asked for a better night.’

  Oh. It looked like something out of a movie and her heart rolled over in her chest. ‘But how?’ she whispered. ‘When…?’

  ‘Magic. Aided by a little modern technology called a phone.’ Jared stepped to her, turned her in his arms. The lamp glow sheened her skin. Her feminine fragrance drifted to his nostrils. He wanted slow and dreamy, but the sight of her, almost ethereal in the glow, nearly undid him. He tugged her down with him onto the quilt.

  And while he popped the cork and poured the fizzy liquid into two crystal glasses, she gathered the roses to her nose. ‘And chocolates…’ She set the blooms down to grab the box, rip off the cellophane and pluck one out. ‘This is like a dream.’

  ‘So it is.’ He felt the smile touch his lips, then his heart, as he offered her a glass, raised his own and clinked it to hers. ‘To dreams.’

  ‘To dreams.’ She raised the crystal flute, took a sip, then lifted a chocolate to his lips. ‘Share.’

  He bit off half and his mouth flooded with caramel while she popped the remainder into her mouth and their gazes meshed and held. Even as she slid slowly down onto the quilt.

  ‘Tonight I want to watch you come.’ He saw her eyes widen, darken and for a few erratic heartbeats he gazed down at the vision sprawled beneath him. Her skin was flushed, as if she had a fev
er, a fever that put blooming roses in her cheeks and an extra spark in her eyes.

  Then she was reaching for him and he followed her down and she had her hands in his hair, her fingertips scoring his scalp. And that spark in her eyes was a luminous topaz as she wrapped her hands behind his head and yanked him closer and murmured, ‘So what are we waiting for?’ against his lips.

  His mouth dropped onto hers and his tongue plunged inside to savour her soft, full lips, her rich, dark drugging taste, so potent he felt light-headed with it.

  Deliberately, he slowed his movements, cruising a hand over her knee, her outer thigh, then the tender inside of her leg and up…to find the barrier over her feminine hot spot already damp. For him. The knowledge vibrated through his body.

  He lifted his mouth to trace a path over her jaw, to nibble his way down her neck, over her breast. To push her bra out of the way and roll her nipple between his lips. To taste its salty sweetness on his tongue and hear her suck in a sharp breath between her teeth while her restless fingers plucked at his hair and shoulders.

  He could feel her heart galloping against his fingers and he wondered if she could hear his own. Because he’d never known it to beat this way before. This strange achy, urgent way that made him feel as if he were being pulled in opposite directions.

  Shaking the confusing feeling away, he slid his fingers around her torso and unsnapped her bra. ‘Let’s lose the clothes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He tugged her up onto her feet so that they stood toe to toe. He stripped off his shirt, tossed it behind him while he watched her slip out of her blouse. Pull off her bra. Shimmy skirt and panties over her hips and down those amazingly long legs.

  His blood pulsed through his body, throbbed in his erection, pounded low and insistent in his ears. She left him spellbound. He forgot to draw breath. Forgot to move until she reached out, undid his trousers with quick fingers and shoved them to his ankles. His boxers next. He stepped out of them, kicked them away. Then he realised the rest of her had followed her hands to the floor and was crouched in front of him.

  She looked up and met his eyes and the message he read there… If he hadn’t been transfixed to the spot, he swore he’d have stumbled. Then she reached out, her fingertips tracing his calves ever so gently, drawing circles on the backs of his knees, over his thighs…

  Then, by God… Her face, her lips, a murmur away from his aching erection. He could feel her breath, a sweet torture on his burning flesh. His legs quivered. He fisted his hands in her hair as much for support as to stop her. Because if she touched him there, now, he’d explode… And as tempting as that was, it just wouldn’t be fair.

  ‘Sophie…’ His hands still in her hair, he dragged her up against him until they were eye to eye. ‘Later,’ was all he said as he tumbled her back onto the quilt.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘I NEVER want to move again.’ Sophie was tucked against Jared’s shoulder in the main bedroom now, watching the play of light from the pool’s reflection on the ceiling.

  ‘Not even for ice cream?’

  ‘Nope. I’m perfectly satisfied just as I am. You bought ice cream?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Hmm.’ They’d made love outside under the Southern Cross, then inside on top of the white silk quilt cover. They’d taken a shower and he’d seduced her again under the warm fragrant spray. She was well and truly satisfied. She didn’t want to think about tomorrow, or next week. Or next month.

  ‘But, oh, ye of great stamina,’ she murmured, making an effort to lift one finger, slide its nail over a hard pectoral muscle and feel him shiver. ‘If you’re so inclined, I wouldn’t object to you feeding me ice cream.’

  ‘Not in the bedroom. You have to eat it in the kitchen—’

  ‘Pfft. You sound just like—’ A father. ‘A big brother. A big, bossy brother.’ Then because an image of him playing the daddy role threw her thoughts into disarray, she said, ‘Do you treat all your girlfriends like they’re kids?’

  ‘I was going to say you have to eat it in the kitchen naked. Blackberry ripple? Your dream fantasy? Okay,’ he continued when she pressed her lips together and didn’t respond. He rolled onto his side and studied her curiously. ‘All my girlfriends?’

  Sophie felt her skin heat and wished the words unsaid. ‘Pam said you attend staff functions with a different girl every time, so I just assumed…’

  Still watching her, he raised his brows as if it had never occurred to him that his trusted PA liked to gossip. ‘Pam’s got it wrong.’

  Who did Sophie believe? Could she ever trust a man’s word again? ‘So you don’t attend functions with a different girl each time?’

  ‘Yes. No. Probably. Hell, I don’t remember. It’s not important enough.’ He blew out an impatient breath and rolled onto his back once more. ‘I’m no Casanova, Sophie, if that’s what you think. I haven’t got the time for it.’

  She regretted her words. Even as a lover, she had no rights where he was concerned. Their relationship was temporary. She’d be gone soon and he’d be a memory.

  ‘You’ve never had someone special? Someone you might have dated more than once?’

  His answer was a while coming. ‘Bianca. But she was a long time ago.’

  ‘Tell me about her.’

  ‘Why? She’s in the past.’

  ‘I told you about Glen. Were you in love with her?’

  ‘In love?’ Flicking her a glance, he said the words as if they were in a foreign language. ‘We were too different,’ he said at last.

  Sophie wanted to know what had made him decide Bianca wasn’t right for him. What was Jared’s ideal woman and what kind of partner would he want on a permanent basis? ‘Why were you attracted to her? How were you different? What made you change your mind?’

  He looked at her again, eyes glittering in the dimness, and she was glad of the shadows. ‘So many questions, Sophie?’

  ‘I’m just curious.’ She shrugged beneath his scrutiny as if it didn’t matter. As if she didn’t care. ‘I like to understand people, that’s all. No big deal.’

  ‘Just curious, eh?’

  She heard that familiar pumped male ego in his lazy tone. He scratched his chest with his free hand and she wanted to hit him.

  She watched his profile as he stuck his arm beneath his head and looked up at the ceiling. ‘We were the same in lots of ways. We both loved the outdoors and enjoyed the same activities. But when it came right down to it, she didn’t want a kid interrupting the life she’d already mapped out for the two of us. And I couldn’t live with that.’

  The way he coupled himself with the faceless woman made Sophie’s stomach clench. But the reason his relationship with Bianca hadn’t worked out was the same reason he’d never want long term with Sophie.

  No kids wasn’t an option for Jared.

  The back of Sophie’s throat, her eyes, burned with the sting of unshed tears. Low in her belly the eternal aching emptiness unfurled, then twisted in on itself. She didn’t have what a man—any man—wanted in a wife. She didn’t have what it took to be the woman Jared would eventually marry. And he would marry down the track a bit, she knew. If what Pam said was true, he might be Playboy of the Gold Coast right now, but he was the marrying kind, a family guy.

  It wouldn’t be her he’d settle down with. Because she could never give him the babies she knew would be a non-negotiable part of any commitment.

  Desperate to change the mood, to put some space between them, she sat up, reached for her plain cotton dressing gown with the pink polka dots on the wicker chair by the bed. ‘Tell you what, I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided I can move after all, and I want ice cream. In the kitchen. Not naked.’

  Right now she couldn’t be naked and be with him at the same time. Pulling on her dressing gown and hugging it around her like a security blanket, she headed down the hallway, her feet silent on the marble tiles. If he made a move on her any time soon she’d probably lose what little composure she h
ad left, and she would not allow him to see that.

  She set a couple of bowls on the counter top, pulled the tub of ice cream from the freezer. She’d just had a timely reminder that her life’s path lay in a different direction from his.

  A path she’d chosen. A path she’d wanted for a long time. She was jetting thousands of kilometres across the world. Independent. Living her dream.

  Strange how it suddenly didn’t sound half as exciting as it had a few days ago.

  ‘Okay, not naked.’

  At the sound of Jared’s voice, Sophie turned to see him not naked too. He wore his boxers and a serious expression that asked too many hard questions. About the way she’d escaped from their bed so quickly.

  Lose the angst fast, Sophie. She dipped her finger in the ice cream and licked its cold creamy-tart taste. ‘It’s good.’

  ‘It’s blackberry.’ His eyes had that familiar wicked glint.

  ‘I noticed.’ She dipped her finger in again, held the blob to Jared’s lips. Keep things bright.

  They watched each other as he sucked it off her fingertip, but he was attuned enough to her mood to say, ‘Let’s sit somewhere comfortable and you can tell me what you think of this place.’

  Changing the topic to something neutral, switching the focus away from her. She was surprised how sensitive he was to her emotions. Maybe because he was surrounded by females. Growing up with two sisters, a female dog and now a niece, he probably knew women better than she did herself.

  They stretched out on the sofa, their legs close, their feet on the coffee table in front of them and their bowls of ice cream on their stomachs.

  ‘You’ve bought yourself a new home in Surfers to renovate, Pam told me.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m in no hurry. That’s why we’re staying here. I like some of the ideas and I wanted a close-up inspection.’

  ‘So what do you like about it?’ Sophie asked, sucking on her spoon.