‘Mac?’
The slightly bemused look on Peterson’s face alerted him to the fact that, once again, he’d got carried away.
‘If you want to tell me something specific,’ she continued, speaking slowly and carefully so he’d be sure to understand, ‘then say it now. You can give me your views on marriage and ribbons on church pews some other time.’
Her tone suggested ‘some other time’ was only the remotest of possibilities.
He stared at her, at this new Peterson, and shook his head, knowing there was no easy way.
‘The thing is, Peterson…’
‘You already said that!’ She smiled again, which didn’t help his concentration one bit.
‘I know I did,’ he said, ‘but that’s how I practised starting so I need it to get launched. The thing is, Peterson, I wondered if you’d mind if we kind of made out we were…um…er…dating, I suppose. You know, as if we liked each other—were kind of a couple.’
‘What kind of a couple, Mac?’
He glared at her, knowing full well she understood exactly what he was asking.
‘Any kind!’ he snapped. ‘Just a together-for-a-while kind of a couple—not on a first date.’
Another smile, this one tweaking up lips glossed in such a way they looked wet and very lickable.
Lickable? Kissable?
‘But it’s not a date,’ she said gently, bringing him back to earth with a thud. Then she laughed, stood up and crossed to stand in front of him.
‘OK, I know what you mean,’ she relented. ‘Do you want me to be madly in love or just a little? Hopelessly besotted, or simply deeply attracted? Should I moon? Fix my eyes on your every movement? Agree with everything you say?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I couldn’t go that far, but I can do a good “devoted dog” kind of look. See.’
She gazed down at him, her dark brown eyes velvety with an emotion he knew damn well she wasn’t feeling, but as a ‘devoted dog’ look, he had to admit it was excellent.
‘I don’t think we need go that far,’ he said, telling himself the eyes couldn’t possibly have looked velvety. ‘Helene knows I’d throw up if someone kept looking at me like that.’
Peterson grinned at him.
‘That’s good, because I don’t think I could have kept it up. I’d keep remembering the times you’ve made me furious in A and E and end up with the dog-about-to-bite look instead. But the occasional agreement, a pat here or there, a slight brush of fingers—that’s really all we need to get the meaning across.’
Mac nodded his agreement, although the idea of Peterson’s slim, pink-nailed fingers brushing across any portion of his skin was activating his body once again.
He looked up at her, astonished for the zillionth time this evening. This time because it had been so easy, not the telling her, but her agreement—her understanding.
‘Thanks, Peterson,’ he said, and he meant it, though she obviously didn’t realise just how heartfelt the word was from the way she was laughing.
‘That’s OK, McDougal,’ she responded when she’d recovered enough to speak. She took a sip of her drink, her eyes holding his over the rim of the glass. ‘But perhaps you should practise calling me by my first name—no amount of touching and mooning looks will work if you keep saying “Peterson” at me in your usual brusque manner.’
‘Brusque?’ She was right about the Peterson thing, but before he could agree he felt compelled to argue over the adjective. ‘Me, brusque?’
She laughed again, moving away from him and slumping into an armchair, the better to enjoy her own mirth.
‘Would you prefer rude?’ she teased, eyes sparkling with a delight he’d seen before but had never realised was quite so attractive. ‘Admit it, Mac, you’re hardly the world’s most diplomatic man.’
‘I’m usually busy,’ he said, although he knew it was no excuse. ‘And I find it easier to keep people at arm’s length—not get too involved. You know how it is, Peterson, because you’re just the same.’
She looked at him and shook her head, but more in disbelief than in denial, then those glossy lips parted in another teasing smile and she said, ‘My name’s Amelia. Do you want to practise it?’
CHAPTER THREE
AMELIA walked beside Mac down the familiar street, the short journey made something akin to a voyage of adventure by the situation in which she found herself.
Inside, the giggles that had been present since he’d stumbled and mumbled his request that she put on a lover-like act still threatened to erupt, but though she smiled, she felt enough empathy with his plight to keep them to herself.
He’d taken her arm as they’d left the building but, apart from occasionally muttering ‘Amelia’ under his breath—probably willing himself to remember it—he hadn’t spoken and she was sufficiently bemused by the situation to let the silence lie between them.
But as they walked into Lakelands’ classiest restaurant, and a noisy group at the bar started calling out—‘Hey, it’s the Bug! What’s happening, Bug? Who’s the fella?’—Mac’s hand tightened protectively and he moved so his body was between her and the dinner-suited young men.
‘It’s all right,’ she told him. ‘They’re harmless. Just my youngest brother and some of his friends. I’ll have to say hello.’
She moved towards the group, aware Mac was following, mainly because she could hear him repeating ‘Bug?’ under his breath. The giggle rose again. Poor man, he was having any number of shocks tonight.
She reached the bar, accepted kisses and over-the-top compliments from Rowley’s mates, then introduced them all to Mac.
‘And what are you lot celebrating—all dressed up to the nines?’ she asked.
Rowley gave her a look of mock reproof.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?’ he said. ‘It’s the anniversary of Elvis’s death. We’re having a wake.’
‘They’re all mad,’ Amelia explained to Mac. ‘They’ve been Elvis fans since they were about seven and my misguided mother, also a fan, threw an Elvis party for Rowley’s birthday. Back then, it was dressing up in glitter suits that got them in, but now they swear it’s the music, though I think it’s an excuse to throw a party. They celebrate his birthday, his first public performance, his first single, everything they can think of.’
All five young men now joined in, protesting it had always been the music, and Mac found himself smiling at their youthful exuberance, while wondering if he’d ever been that young—or so exuberant over anything!
‘Well, we’ll leave you to it,’ Peterson—no, he had to call her Amelia—said, extracting them both before the conversation became too involved. The farewells reminded him of the greetings and as the maître d’ showed them to their table, he caught Amelia’s arm, holding her back long enough to ask.
‘Bug?’
She grinned at him.
‘Amelia—’ Melia—mealie bug. I’m not sure which of my brothers started it, but all of them—and all their friends—have always called me Bug.’
‘And you don’t object?’
Mac looked incredulously down at the beautiful woman, but she was obviously unperturbed.
In fact, she smiled again as she answered.
‘With four brothers, you learn to choose the battles you fight. Being called Bug never bothered me enough to make an issue of it. They mean it kindly, you know.’
Mac shook his head, then, realising the maître d’ was now well ahead of them, he took Amelia’s arm and followed.
He could see Helene—tall, blonde, immaculately groomed and as beautiful as ever—sitting at a small, round table in the corner. And with her, an elegant-looking man, with smoothly slicked-back reddish-blond hair.
‘So,’ he said, moving closer to Amelia and resting his hand on her shoulder.
He felt her start at the touch, then she turned and looked enquiringly back at him.
‘I guessed it’d be a man she wanted me to meet, and I was right.’
Amelia saw the fierceness in Mac’s eyes and heard the edge of anger in his voice, and realised he probably still loved the woman they were about to deceive. Her heart tightened at the thought of him being unhappy and she lifted her hand and covered his where it still rested on her shoulder.
The maître d’ was waiting for them again, and as Mac’s touch urged her forward, she glanced back up at him again, and smiled with all her heart.
‘Let the game begin,’ she whispered, and was pleased to see the fierceness fade and Mac’s more usual expression of cynical amusement take its place.
Introductions, brisk on Mac’s part—‘Helene, this is Amelia, Amelia, Helene,’—and cloyingly sweet on Helene’s—‘Mac, I’d like you to meet Troy Helman. Troy’s a lobbyist for the Business Federation,’—didn’t take long, and though Helene acknowledged Amelia’s presence, she seemed far more eager to impress Mac with the wonderful man she’d won than interested in the woman he was seeing.
‘I’ve always wondered what lobbyists do,’ Amelia said, as she settled into the seat beside Troy. ‘Of course, I know they represent special interest groups, and are used to influence government decisions, but if these decisions are important enough, shouldn’t the government be making them anyway?’
The blond man smiled condescendingly at her.
‘It’s really far more complicated than that,’ he said, and Amelia, who, possibly because of her lack of height, had been condescended to by experts, smiled.
‘I’m sure it is,’ she said sweetly, ‘otherwise you wouldn’t be paid such huge sums of money.’
She glanced superstitiously behind her to make sure her mother wasn’t lurking nearby. She’d have been shocked to hear someone’s income being mentioned over the dinner table.
‘And what do you do, Emily?’ Helene asked, leaning forward towards Amelia and taking the opportunity to rest her hand on one of Troy’s.
‘Amelia.’
Mac and Amelia chorused her correct name, then Amelia found herself wanting to giggle again, the situation was so farcical.
‘She’s a professor of electrical engineering at Lakelands U,’ Mac said, lifting Amelia’s hand to his lips and giving it, instead of a kiss, a nip of warning to play along. ‘You wouldn’t think it to look at her, would you?’
He gazed proudly at his companion, who, aware a darting look of horror might be intercepted, simply smiled modestly.
The drinks waiter interrupted the conversation, and by the time they’d all ordered—Mac had insisted on a glass of champagne for Amelia, and requested a whisky for himself while the other two were sticking soberly to mineral water—the menus had arrived and deciding what to eat took precedence over conversation.
Amelia was tossing up between a seafood risotto and a pasta dish for her main course when Mac leaned towards her and slid his arm around her shoulders.
It wasn’t the first time he’d touched her this evening, but for some reason the feel of his fingers on her bare flesh started goose-bumps rising on her skin.
‘Have you decided?’ he asked, bending intimately towards her. ‘And does it matter as far as wine’s concerned? Would you like red or white? Something special?’
She turned and looked into his eyes, so close, and something inside her shifted, as if an anchor had been released.
This is Mac, she reminded herself. And it’s all pretend.
‘Dry white,’ she said, then because her voice sounded husky with the strange tension she was feeling, and Helene might notice it, she looked lovingly into his eyes and added, ‘You know the one I like, darling.’
‘Darling’ seemed taken aback, but only momentarily.
‘Great!’ he said, smiling at her as if she’d just been extraordinarily clever, then he turned to the hovering drinks waiter, who’d just delivered the first order, and ordered a bottle of French pinot, which Amelia knew from other visits to Capriccio’s was the most expensive still white wine on the menu.
‘We might have preferred a red,’ Helene said, with enough ice in her voice to make Amelia shiver.
‘Oh, that’s OK,’ Mac said, waving his hand carelessly in the air. ‘I’m just ordering for the two of us—you go right ahead and get whatever you like.’
He lifted his whisky and took a deep draught, making Amelia wonder if maybe the pre-dinner drink he’d had at her place had already gone to his head and she was about to see the uptight Fraser McDougal a little on the tipsy side.
The thought made her want to giggle again, but in Helene’s ultra-sophisticated company she thought better of it.
A little on the tipsy side? Amelia thought later. She was certainly that way herself. A glass of champagne and two glasses of white wine, plus a glass of dessert wine with the slice of seven-layer Viennese torte she’d had after her risotto, was way, way beyond her usual limits.
Perhaps more than a little tipsy, she decided as she laughed at some ridiculous tale Mac was telling. Though perhaps part of the unreality she felt was to do with Mac, rather than the wine, for the man sitting beside her, touching her lightly on the arm, the hand, the shoulder, whispering silly comments in her ear, was as different to the Mac she knew at work as…
Well, as different as she was to Helene.
Helene had dominated most of the conversation, sprinkling every sentence with the names of politicians and high-powered business people, but whether from habit or because she wanted to impress Mac, Amelia couldn’t decide.
It certainly hadn’t been to impress Amelia, who had been studiously ignored by Helene throughout the meal. Troy had been kinder, turning to her to try to draw her in, but as political discussions and the intricacies of political wrangling bored her rigid, Amelia had been happy to be left out.
Troy had even tried a few halting questions about electrical engineering, but as he probably knew a lot more than Amelia did on the subject—she wasn’t sure if being able to change a fuse counted—she’d sidestepped his conversational gambits with a comment about the deliciousness of her meal and a harmless question about whether Canberra, where he was now based, had always been his home.
They were preparing to leave when Rowley drifted across to their table, and a sister’s knowing eye guessed he’d been celebrating the anniversary of The King’s death a bit too hard.
‘Catch up with you soon, Bug,’ he said, bending to drop a kiss on his sister’s cheek and, under cover of the gesture, adding, ‘Very soon! You know I’ll have to report to the others about this Mac guy.’
He strolled away, while Amelia sighed—realising she’d be fielding questions about Mac for the next few weeks.
‘Wasn’t that Rowley Peterson?’
Helene’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as she asked Amelia the question.
‘Yes, do you know him?’ Amelia said, all innocence.
‘He’s Amelia’s brother,’ Mac explained, but his innocence was real. It had been obvious, when Amelia had introduced them earlier, that Mac had never heard of Australia’s newest young singing star.
‘But I read where he’s one of the United Construction Petersons,’ Helene said, staring suspiciously at Amelia.
So? she wanted to say, but she’d already let her manners desert her a couple of times this evening.
Instead, she said nothing. Her family’s company might be one of the top ten businesses in the state, but what they did or didn’t do was none of Helene’s business. Besides, Mac was now looking curiously at her, and if it became apparent that he didn’t know her background, the evening’s charade would be pointless.
She leaned towards him and rested her weight against his body, and looked up, through languorously lowered lids, into his eyes.
‘I think it might be nearly time for bed, darling,’ she murmured, pitching her voice just loud enough for the other two to hear.
She felt Mac’s jolt of reaction, but he recovered well, dealing out a jolt of his own when he wrapped his arms around her, then bent his head and dropped a light kiss on her lips.
‘Your wish is m
y command,’ he murmured, the huskiness of his voice vibrating down her spine.
It’s all pretend, Amelia reminded herself, but other parts of her were remembering how long it had been since she’d found pleasure in a man’s arms.
‘Professor of electrical engineering!’ she said to Mac when they’d settled the account, said their goodbyes and were walking, arms slung companionably—and perhaps slightly tipsily—around each other’s waists, down the street to her apartment. ‘Where on earth did that come from?’
Mac gave a great shout of laughter.
‘Brilliant, wasn’t it? You should have seen your face. But Helene’s not only a people snob—you’d have gathered that from the name-dropping—but an intellectual one as well. She thinks being brighter than the average person gives her all kinds of advantages. I had to cut her down to size or she’d have patronised you all evening.’
‘So, instead, she ignored me,’ Amelia said. ‘Is she still in love with you that she feels so threatened?’
‘Threatened? Helene? No way! And as for being in love with me, that’s a laugh. She’s the one who instigated divorce proceedings, you know. She felt I wasn’t moving fast enough or far enough up the career ladder. As far as she was concerned, A and E was a dead end. But while we’re on the subject of conversational topics, what does that brother of yours do that Helene knew of him, and who the hell are United Construction?’
He stopped and turned Amelia to face him.
‘Who are you, Amelia Peterson?’
She laughed, and shook her head.
‘You know exactly who I am, Mac. What you see is what you get with me. The family’s construction business is big enough to be known beyond Lakelands, so most people have heard of it, and Rowley sings. He’s a teenage pop idol but he’s also into songs older people enjoy. The boys he was with—they’re members of his band.’
She studied him for a moment, then added, ‘He’s…I suppose famous is the word, but it’s hard to think of your kid brother as famous. But even people like Helene, who I imagine isn’t a pop music fan, would know of him and recognise his face, so how come you’ve missed out? You don’t read papers?’
The Pregnancy Proposition Page 4