by Ally Blake
She squinted at her picture-perfect reflection in the mirror. ‘It’s a really long story.’
Hannah shut the door behind her and locked it. ‘The champagne’s a-flowing. They won’t even notice we’re gone. I’ve got time.’
Wynnie turned and leant her backside against the sink. And she filled Hannah in on the briefest update possible. Leaving out certain things. Leaving out Felix and his postcard, and Dylan and his succubus. She found she couldn’t find the words to talk to Hannah about her family, even though she’d lived through the worst of it with her. Yet last night, with Dylan, the words had spilled out so easily she’d wondered how she’d ever found it hard before.
‘Sheesh,’ Hannah said.
‘I know, right? And right now, I’ve just been given what I wanted all along—the biggest client the CFC could have landed. And it was all my doing. I should have been doing cartwheels and demanding high fives of everyone in the office.’
‘But not so much?’
‘Not so much.’
Wynnie looked down at the pointy toes of her shoes. Actually she felt a lot like crying. Again. ‘I didn’t earn it. He’s given it to me as a consolation prize.’
It was Dylan’s way of saying thanks but no thanks, only this time not to her proposal but to her.
‘I’m such an idiot.’
‘You’re a trouper.’
‘And you know what? I’m angry! For him to do it this way, and through Eric…If there weren’t so many other people involved with the deal, and if the outcome wasn’t so bloody fantastic, I’d rip the contract up and eat it piece by piece while standing in front of his bloody building.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’d recycle the paper it was printed on.’ Hannah moved over and leant on the sink next to hers. ‘I did try to warn you, hon. He’s a hard man from a hard family. And you are so very, very soft.’
That was just it. His family was lovely. And he was kind, and gentle and caring. Or maybe it was exactly as Hannah said and she was just too soft to assume the worst. Always had been. Always would.
Wynnie leant her heavy head on her friend’s shoulder. ‘I think I deserve a long weekend.’
‘I think so, too.’ Hannah gave her a nudge with her hip. ‘Go. Right out the front door now. And don’t come back till like Wednesday. I’ll cover for you.’
Wynnie gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, grabbed her purse and fled before she changed her mind.
As she hit the pavement outside the building, warm spring sunshine beating down on her face, she wondered if Dylan had any idea the good he’d done by approving the deal. Not for her, but for the city. She doubted it. So much she wanted to ring him and blast him and tell him off and applaud him and kiss him all at the same time.
Argh, he was so frustrating! Even now, even after it was all said and done. He was one great hulking clueless walking contradiction. And that was why she loved him.
He was beautiful; he was challenging. But most of all she loved him for his principles. She loved him because of the strength of his loyalty to those he loved. He was everything she hoped she could be.
He just refused to see it.
But she couldn’t tell him. The deal was now in the hands of the CFC ground crews, and Eric. And she knew that this time he wouldn’t take her call.
Wynnie was so mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted she slept all Friday afternoon, and most of the day Saturday, feeling as if jet lag had finally hit.
Then bright and early Sunday morning, she got a phone call that woke her up better than a bucket of iced water over the head.
On Sunday morning Dylan sat slumped in his office chair staring out of his large window, looking past the view of South Bank and out into nothingness.
He still wore the same clothes from the day before. His head felt as if a jackhammer had taken up residence inside it, and with Eric not about he had to make his own coffee, the one life skill he readily admitted he sucked at.
His office phone rang.
As he had every time the phone had rung the past couple of days, for a moment he imagined it would be her—wanting him, needing him, gently urging him to be a better man.
The very thought of her made him feel tight and loose and wasted. But that was too bad. She was a smart woman, he had no doubt that she knew that postcard was his last hurrah. She wouldn’t be calling him again.
By putting Eric in charge of the CFC deal, he’d made damn sure he’d left no avenue for her to even try.
The phone rang again. Loudly. He spun on his chair, flipped it from the cradle and yelled, ‘What?’
‘Kelly, it’s Garry Sloane. Of the Allied Press Corps.’
Dylan gripped the phone tighter. As if he didn’t know the exact tones of the scum-sucking cretin who’d been the first to spill his worst day all over the Sunday papers years before.
It was the one downside of his job, that he had to play nice with the sod. Strangling a journalist with his own computer keyboard cord would make it a tad difficult to remain the head of Media Relations.
‘Sloane,’ he growled, relishing the fact there was someone in the world he disliked more than he currently disliked himself. ‘I must have missed the roses and chocolates you sent in apology for assaulting me last weekend.’
‘Yeah,’ he shot back. ‘They’re in the mail.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I’m running a story tomorrow I thought you might like to comment on.’
‘Go on.’
‘It’s not a new story as such, more like a “where are they now” piece. It’s about a woman called Guinevere Lambert who got herself into a bit of trouble with the law several years back, and has now suddenly become one of our fair city’s favourite daughters. You might know her better as Wynnie Devereaux.’
Dylan shot his chair upright and slammed his fist on his desk so hard his coffee mug jumped and slid off the edge, landing on the carpeted floor with a pathetic thud.
‘Shall I continue?’ Sloane asked.
‘Not over the phone,’ Dylan said, his mind whirring a million miles a minute. He shot a look at his watch. ‘Meet me at my place in say…three hours. Until then don’t call another living soul about this piece.’
‘You’d better have something good.’
‘You’d better hope I don’t slap you with a lawsuit the size of my bank account for the pain and suffering of my split lip.’
‘Three hours,’ Sloane said.
Then Dylan slammed the phone down so hard it snapped in two.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ON MONDAY morning, when she ought to have been getting ready for work, Wynnie instead sat on her back deck, sipping from a cooling cup of green tea and staring out through the palm fronds filling her small leafy backyard.
The sun was shining, the sky was cerulean blue, a light breeze picked up the scents of the myriad spring flowers dotting the undulating hills around her Spring Hill abode.
This was Brisbane at its best. Something she’d only experienced for about nine months in her late teens before Felix had fallen and her whole life had been whipped out from under her.
The ‘beautiful one day, perfect the next’ nature of the place hadn’t been enough to salve her heart then, and so far it wasn’t doing all that much to salve it now.
Knowing she couldn’t put off the inevitable for much longer, she moved her glass of orange juice off the top of the folded newspaper, not caring that condensation had left a wet dark ring over the sports section.
She slowly opened it up, her fingers shaking as she turned to the front page, ready to slowly flick through until she found her photograph, her true story, her ticket to unemployment and ridicule and humiliation.
Her hands shook and she kept the paper closed a minute longer. She squeezed her eyes shut, took several deep breaths and tried to meditate her way to a happy place.
When the happiest place she could think of was being wrapped naked in Dylan’s strong arms, it didn’t help her heart rate settle in the least. Her mu
scles tensed, her nerves twitched, her skin began to overheat.
Her eyes flew open and she pinched herself on the back of the hand. Enough. If she was that worked up before she read the article she might as well knock herself out now.
She gripped the newspaper in both hands.
When Sloane had called, looking for information about her past, she’d told him to go bite himself. Then after pacing the house for twenty minutes she’d called her bosses at the CFC and told them everything, offering her resignation. She’d then called a female reporter who she’d built a relationship with since the handcuff stunt and given her the exclusive.
For the time had come to stop running—from her past, and from her desires. She wasn’t Felix. She would never hurt others in the pursuit of getting what she wanted. She was a helper. She was a guardian angel for the planet. But she was also a woman with needs that deserved to be fulfilled without constant concern that an incident in her distant past could ruin it all.
She took a deep breath, opened the paper…
And didn’t get past the front page.
She leapt off her chair and stood staring at the headline. Above a photograph of Quinn Kelly it read: The King is Dying, Long Live the KInG.
She sped-read the article so fast she got whiplash.
Quinn, Dylan’s gorgeous father, had major heart problems, had suffered two heart attacks in recent months, he no longer ran the family business as everyone thought he did, all of which the family had kept under close wraps. Until now…
The timing rang a bell inside her head. But she had to keep reading. She had to know everything.
A full-page story on the front led to several more inside, all about Quinn’s failing health. She held a hand to her heart as she read that he was doing as well as could be expected, but had already taken a large step back in the business and would be retiring as of that day. Brendan had been secretly running the empire for months. There was a special interest piece from Mary Kelly’s point of view with a photo of her whole beautiful family that must have been taken recently as Cameron’s new wife was in the shot.
But what caught at her most was quote after quote from Dylan. His name was mentioned so many times she wondered if he’d written the article himself. She checked the byline.
Her backside slumped onto the chair so hard she bruised.
‘Garry Sloane?’ she read aloud in case she was imagining it.
And then everything came together as if a hurricane had passed and she were left surveying the damage in its wake.
She hadn’t been the only one with a secret. Hers had been about to be revealed. Sloane was such a sleaze he must have called Dylan after she’d told him where to go. And Dylan had somehow, for some reason, chosen to sacrifice his own intensely held privacy in order to keep hers safe.
To keep her safe.
She leapt off the chair and ran inside, grabbed her house keys, realised she was wearing sheer pyjamas and a see-through robe and ran back into her bedroom.
She stripped off her pants, threw a navy velvet jacket over her lacy pyjama top, tugged on jeans hanging over the back of a cane chair, and slid her feet into her handiest shoes which happened to be red high heels.
Whipping her hair from its scrunchy and slapping some sunscreen onto her cheeks, she scooted out to the deck, grabbed the paper, checked she hadn’t been imagining the whole thing and then took off out of the front door.
It wasn’t yet seven in the morning.
Monday? Yep, Monday.
She knew exactly where the great hulking fool would be.
Dylan stood in line to buy his own double-strength white chocolate mocha with extra cinnamon. It was almost enough for him to rescind Eric’s promotion and get the kid back to do his grunt work.
The café door swung open, and something made Dylan turn. Whether it was the shift of chocolate-brown hair on the edge of his vision, the stirring of sexual tension in the air, or just plain instinct, he found himself looking into Wynnie’s big beautiful brown eyes.
She stood in the entrance, brandishing what looked like a third of a scrunched newspaper as though she might slap him over the back of the head with it the first chance she had.
And he knew why.
With his father’s news out there, he was sure he’d hear from her in the next few days. Or that evening. Or before lunch. Actually if she hadn’t called within the next two hours he was going to turn up on her doorstep with a chai latté and a pair of cream buns.
‘Wynnie,’ he said, his voice as cool as he could hope for it to be considering two steps would put her within touching distance. And that was a mile closer than he’d thought he’d ever get to her again. To that luscious skin, those edible lips, this woman.
‘Don’t you Wynnie me,’ she said, her voice coming to him as though she’d swallowed sandpaper.
He stepped out of line and weaved through the small, and extremely attentive, crowd to manoeuvre her out of the way. ‘Well, now I’m confused,’ he said with as disarming a smile as he could muster. ‘Which name would you prefer I use?’
Her face was livid. Her chest rising and falling. Her hair a shaggy mess. Her eyes wild. He’d never been as turned on in his entire life.
‘Stop changing the subject,’ she hissed. ‘What have you gone and done?’
Their fan club was growing by the second. One young guy even lifted his mobile phone, which gave off the distant click of a photo being taken. Dylan glanced around for an alternative exit, when the girl behind the counter caught his eye, madly waving at him as she was.
She cocked her head to his left, and mouthed, ‘Back door.’
He gave her a nod. She smiled and shrugged. And he reminded himself to tip her everything in his wallet the next time he came in.
When Wynnie opened her mouth to rant anew, he grabbed her by the upper arm and half pushed, half dragged her through the crowd, down a small hall, past the kitchen and out of the back door.
A small, hopelessly untended garden stopped sharply at a cliff’s edge. Dylan took them down a series of old stone steps until he and Wynnie stood on a secluded jetty jutting out into the Morningside stretch of the Brisbane River. Tall reeds and weeping willows created privacy, a thick fall of jacaranda flowers carpeted the wooden jetty at their feet, and sunshine blasting through thick tufts of flowering yellow wattle leant a strange golden glow over everything.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘what was it you were trying to say?’
She threw the newspaper at him and it scattered to the soft purple ground in slowly wafting pieces. ‘Your father is really sick.’
‘I know.’
Her face softened. ‘I’m so sorry. Please tell your mum if there’s anything I can do, I’ll do it.’
‘Thank you.’
She looked from one eye to the other, the strength of her feelings for him seeping from her very skin. And instead of feeling trapped, or suspicious, or terrified, or unworthy, finally it just felt right.
Then she reached out and slapped him hard on the arm.
‘Ow!’
‘Oh, shut up. Don’t you think I know what you did? Don’t you think Garry Bloody Sloane called me first?’
She pushed away from him, paced a step till she hit the water’s edge, then spun back. A shaft of sunlight split the glade, lighting on her alone. She appeared to be naked beneath her jacket bar some tiny pieces of lace that flashed at her stomach when she moved. All it seemed he’d have to do was flick open that one button at her waist and all would be revealed. The bruise forming on his arm told him the time was not yet right for such a move. The thickening of his blood told him the time was coming.
‘You’ve kept your father’s health concerns private for a very good reason,’ she continued, ‘so that he has the space to stay healthy. I’ve kept mum about my past because I feel humiliated that I didn’t spend enough time with my own flesh and blood to see the bad coming and people were hurt.’
‘People would have been hurt if we didn’t tell the trut
h soon, too.’
‘People,’ she repeated, again looking deep into his eyes. ‘What people?’
‘Friends, colleagues, investors, the business itself. It was the right thing to do.’
‘And yesterday. You tell me, and I want to hear it from your lips, why suddenly yesterday?’
‘You were right,’ he said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his black suit trousers so that he could get through this part without touching her, holding her, kissing her. There were things that had to be said first. ‘Sloane called me yesterday morning. He told me what he was planning to write about you and he wanted my input.’
She looked so worried, as if maybe she was putting herself on the line for him again, and he was going to let her down again. As if she believed in him so much it physically hurt her to think she could be wrong about him still. He’d never wanted to hold her so much.
‘All I knew was that I had to do everything in my considerable power to make sure he didn’t do it.’
‘Why?’
Hell, had his stubbornness wounded her that badly?
He took a step towards her. ‘Wynnie, honey, you know why. You’ve known why far longer than I have. I did it because you are braver and stronger and far more honest than I will ever be.’
She swallowed hard.
He reached out and took her arm. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t pull away. He took her other arm, and though it was physically nearly impossible, he left enough space between them for her to breathe.
‘I called a family meeting yesterday afternoon,’ he said. ‘I told them I had accepted your proposal on behalf of KInG as it was smart and necessary and up until that moment I had been acting like a horse’s ass. I also told them that the time had come for all of us to stop hiding behind the walls of Kelly Manor and to come clean. If we were going to move forward, as a business, and as a family, we needed to unburden ourselves of everything holding us back.’
‘You said all that?’
He took a small step closer. She had to tilt her head to look him in the eye. Her exposed neck was almost too much temptation. Almost. He knew there was better yet to come.