‘In a moment,’ he drawled. ‘Wow!’ His lips twisted as he stood her away from him and admired her from her toes to the tip of her fascinator and all the curves in between. Not only that but he admired her legs, the slenderness of her waist, the smoothness of her skin, her sweeping lashes and delectable mouth. ‘Pardon my boyish enthusiasm, but this time you’ve really grown up, Mia.’
She bit her lip. Dealing with Carlos could be difficult at the best of times but she well recognised him in this mood—there would be no moving him until he was ready to be moved.
She heaved an inward sigh and mentally gritted her teeth. All right, two could play this game...
‘You’re looking pretty fine yourself, Mr O’Connor,’ she said lightly. ‘Although I must say I’m surprised your mother hasn’t found a wife for you yet.’
‘The last person I would get to choose a wife for me is my mother,’ he said dryly. ‘What brought that up?’
Mia widened her eyes not entirely disingenuously but in surprise as well. And found she had to think quickly. ‘Probably the venue and what’s going on here,’ she said with an ironic little glint. ‘Mind you, things are about to flop here if I don’t pull something out of the hat!’ And she pulled away, successfully.
He stared at her for a long moment, then he started to laugh and Mia felt her heart pound because she’d gone for so long without Carlos, without his laugh, without his arms around her...
‘I don’t know what you expect me to do,’ he said wryly.
‘I don’t care what you do, but if you don’t come and do something, Carlos,’ she threatened through her teeth, suddenly furious although she had no idea if it was with him or with herself, or the situation, ‘I’ll scream blue murder!’
CHAPTER TWO
‘FEELING BETTER?’
Mia took another sip of brandy and looked around. Everyone had gone. The bridal party, the guests, the caterers, they’d all gone. The presents had all been loaded carefully into a station wagon and driven away.
Gail had gone home in seventh heaven because she’d not only seen Carlos, she’d spoken to him. And the wedding had been a success. It had livened up miraculously as soon as Carlos had made his speech and Juanita had thrown her arms around Mia and Gail and thanked them profusely for their contribution to her special day as she’d left.
Carlos had driven away in his metallic yellow car and Mia had kicked off her shoes and changed her Thai silk dress for a smock but, rather than doing any work, she’d sunk into an armchair in the foyer. Her hat sat on a chair beside her. She was perfectly dry-eyed but she felt as if she’d been run over by a bus.
It was quite normal to feel a bit flattened after a function—she put so much into each and every one of them—but this was different; this was an emotional flat liner of epic proportions. This was all to do with Carlos and the fact that she’d been kidding herself for years if she’d thought she’d gotten over him.
All to do with the fact that the feel of his hands on her hips and waist had awoken sensations throughout her body that had thrilled her, the fact that to think he hadn’t recognised her had been like a knife through her heart.
That was when someone said her name and she looked up and moved convulsively to see him standing there only a foot or so away.
‘But...but,’ she stammered, ‘you left. I saw you drive off.’
‘I came back. I’m staying with friends just down the road. And you need a drink. Point me in the right direction.’
Mia hesitated, then gestured. He came back a few minutes later with a drinks trolley, poured a couple of brandies and now he was sitting opposite her in an armchair. He’d changed into khaki cargo trousers and a grey sweatshirt.
‘Feeling better?’ he asked again.
She nodded. ‘Thanks.’
He frowned. ‘Are you sure you’re in the right job if it takes so much out of you, Mia?’
‘It doesn’t usually—’ She stopped and bit her lip.
‘Doesn’t usually affect you like this?’ he hazarded.
She looked down and pleated the material of her smock. ‘Well, no.’
‘So what was different about this one?’
‘I don’t know.’ Mia shrugged. ‘I suppose I didn’t think any of you would recognise me.’
‘Why the hell wouldn’t we?’ he countered.
She shrugged. ‘I’ve changed.’
‘Not that much.’
She bridled and looked daggers at him before swiftly veiling her eyes. ‘That’s what your mother tried to tell me. I’m just a souped-up version of the housekeeper’s daughter, in other words.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ he retorted. ‘Since when did you get so thin-skinned, Mia?’
She took a very deep breath. ‘I’m not,’ she said stiffly.
‘I can’t work out whether you want us to think you have changed or not.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Carlos,’ she advised coolly. ‘In fact, thank you for getting me a drink but I’d be happy if you went back to your friends. I have a lot to do still.’
‘Short of throwing me out,’ he replied casually, ‘which I doubt you could do, you’re going to have to put up with me, Mia, until I’m ready to go. So, why don’t you fill me in on the missing years? I’m talking about the years between the time you kissed me with considerable ardour then waltzed off to uni, and now.’ His grey gaze rested on her sardonically.
Mia went white.
‘I’m waiting,’ he remarked.
She said something supremely uncomplimentary beneath her breath but she knew from the autocratic set of his jaw that he wouldn’t let up until he got the answers he wanted.
‘All right!’ She said it through her teeth but he intervened.
‘Hang on a moment.’ He reached over and took her glass. ‘Let’s have another one.’
* * *
With the deepest reluctance, she told him about the intervening years. How her mother and father had retired and were living in the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales. How they’d started a small tea shop in a country town that was becoming well known, not only for the cakes her mother baked but the honey her father produced and the herbs he grew.
How she’d finished university, spent some months overseas; how a series of catering jobs had finally led her to taking the plunge and starting her own business.
‘And that’s me up to date,’ she said bleakly and added with irony, ‘how about you?’
He avoided the question. ‘No romantic involvement?’
‘Me?’ Mia drew her finger around the rim of her glass. ‘Not really. Not seriously. I haven’t had the time. How about you?’ she asked again.
‘I’m...’ He paused and grimaced. ‘Actually, I’m currently unattached. Nina—I don’t know if you’ve heard of Nina French?’ He raised a dark eyebrow at her.
‘Who hasn’t?’ Mia murmured impatiently. ‘Top model, utterly gorgeous, daughter of an ambassador,’ she added.
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘We had a relationship. It fell through. Today, as a matter of fact.’
Mia choked on a sip of her drink. ‘Today?’
He nodded.
‘Is that why you were late?’ she asked incredulously.
He nodded. ‘We had a monumental row just before we were due to set out—to be here on time.’ He shrugged. ‘About fifty per cent of our relationship consisted of monumental rows, now I come to think of it.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry,’ Mia said. ‘But that probably means a...a grand reunion.’
‘Not this time,’ he replied perfectly coolly, so coolly it sent a little shiver down Mia’s spine.
He was quiet for a time, rolling his glass in his hands. ‘Otherwise,’ he continued, ‘I’ve worked like a Trojan to fill my father’s shoes since he had that stroke. He died a few months ago.’
‘I read about that. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It was a release—for all of us, I guess. After the stroke he became embittered and extremely hard to live wit
h. He was always a hard man. I never felt I was living up to his expectations before he became ill but even less so afterwards.’
He sat back and tasted his drink. ‘I’ve even branched out in new directions, successfully, but—’ he paused and shrugged ‘—I can’t help feeling he wouldn’t have approved or that he would have thought of a different way of doing things.’
‘I didn’t know him much,’ Mia murmured.
‘The thing is—’ Carlos drained his drink and looked out into the sunset ‘—I don’t know why I’m telling you this; maybe weddings generate a desire to understand things—or maybe monumental rows do it—’ he shrugged ‘—but I don’t know if it’s thanks to him and his...lack of enthusiasm for most things, including me, that’s given me a similar outlook on life.’
Mia frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s something missing. Hard to put my finger on it, though.’
‘Maybe you’d like to take a year off and live amongst some primitive tribe for a change? Is it that kind of an itch?’
He grimaced. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Then it could be a wife and family you’re lacking,’ Mia said in a motherly sort of way and was completely unprepared for what came next.
He studied her for a long moment, his eyes narrowed and very intent. Then he said, ‘You wouldn’t like to take Nina’s place?’
Mia’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You wouldn’t like to get engaged to me? Not that I was engaged to Nina, but—’ He gestured.
She swallowed, choked again on a sip of her drink and came up spluttering.
He eyed her quizzically. ‘An unusual reaction,’ he murmured.
‘No. I mean yes. I mean...how could you?’ She reached for a napkin from the trolley and patted her eyes and her mouth. ‘I don’t think that’s funny,’ she told him coldly.
He raised a dark eyebrow at her. ‘It wasn’t meant to be. I’m in rather desperate need of a—what should I call it?—a shield at the moment. From Nina and the whole damn caboodle of them.’ He looked irritated to death.
‘Them? Who?’ Mia queried with a frown.
‘The set she moves in, Juanita too, my mother and all the rest of them.’ He gestured. ‘You saw them all today.’ He paused, then smiled suddenly. ‘In comparison, the housekeeper’s daughter is like pure sweet spring water.’
Mia moved abruptly and went white to her lips. ‘How dare you?’ she whispered. ‘How dare you patronise me with your ridiculous proposal and think you can make me laugh about being the housekeeper’s daughter?’
‘Mia—’ he sat up ‘—it may be seven years ago but you and I set each other alight once—remember? Perhaps it didn’t mean a great deal to you, but it happened.’
‘M-may not have meant m-much to me?’ Mia had trouble getting the words out. ‘What are you saying?’
‘You ran away, remember?’
‘I...Carlos, your mother warned me off,’ Mia cried, all her unspoken but good intentions not to rake up the past forgotten. ‘She told me I could never be the one for you, no “housekeeper’s daughter” would be good enough to be your wife. She told me you were only toying with me anyway and she threatened to sack my parents without references if I didn’t go away.’
‘What?’ he growled, looking so astounded Mia could only stare at him wide-eyed.
‘You didn’t know.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
‘I ended up in hospital that night, remember? When I got home you’d gone. Listen, just tell me how it happened,’ he ordered grimly.
Mia stared into the past. ‘She came home first, your mother,’ she said slowly. ‘The storm had passed but I was still—’ she hesitated a moment ‘—I was still lying on the settee. I hadn’t heard her. You were asleep. She was...she was livid.’ Mia swallowed and shivered. ‘She banished me to the service quarters after I’d told her what had happened and she rang for a medevac helicopter. I don’t know when you woke up. I don’t know if you had concussion but the next day was when she warned me off.’
‘What about your parents?’
‘I never told them, not what had happened with you. But I had just received an offer of a place at a Queensland university. I hadn’t been sure I’d take it—it would mean I’d be a long way from my parents—but that’s what I told them—that I’d made up my mind to do it. I left two days later,’ she said bleakly. ‘You hadn’t come back. I didn’t even know if you would. But I couldn’t risk them losing their jobs.’ She looked at him long and steadily. ‘Not both of them at the same time. I just couldn’t.’
He closed his eyes briefly. ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea. I must have been quite groggy because I don’t remember much about the medevac. But I did go back to West Windward after all sorts of tests and scans and—’ he shook his head impatiently ‘—palaver to determine whether I’d cracked my skull but you’d gone. That was when she told me you’d got a place at a Queensland university, that your parents were so proud of you and what an achievement it was for you. So I congratulated them and they told me they were so proud of you and there seemed to be no trauma attached to it.’
Mia patted her eyes again with the napkin. ‘They were proud of me.’ She shrugged. ‘Did you never...’ she paused, then looked at him directly ‘...did you never consider looking for me to check it out?’
He held her gaze for a long moment, then he said, ‘No.’
‘Why not?’ she whispered.
He looked away and rubbed his jaw. Then he looked directly into her eyes. ‘Mia, it occurred to me I could only mess up your life. I wasn’t ready for a relationship so all I could offer you was an on/off affair, especially if you were up in Queensland. I’d only just taken over from my father so my life was in the process of being completely reorganised.’
He shrugged. ‘I could have kicked myself for doing it—’ He stopped abruptly as she flinched visibly.
‘Hell,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry but—’
But Mia had had enough. She jumped up precipitately. ‘So, if your mother hadn’t warned me off, you would have?’
‘No.’ He said it decisively and he got to his feet and reached for her. ‘No.’
As she jumped away she tripped and would have fallen if he hadn’t grabbed her. ‘Listen to me,’ he ordered as he wound his arms around her. ‘Just listen.’
Mia ignored him and struggled to free herself.
‘Mia,’ he warned, ‘since when did you think you could beat me in a damn fight? Be still and listen.’
‘There’s nothing you can say I want to hear,’ she gasped.
He eyed her narrowly, her flushed cheeks and her eyes dark with pain, her hair coming loose. ‘OK.’ He shrugged. ‘Then how about this?’
And before she had a chance to identify what he was leading up to, he bent his head and claimed her mouth with a kiss.
She went limp in his arms, from sheer surprise about the way he did it, the way he moved his hands on her body. The feel of him, steel-hard against her softness, was mesmerising. And her lips parted beneath his because she simply couldn’t help herself.
When it was over her head was resting on his arm, her hair flowing over it, her eyes huge, very green and stunned, her lips parted in sheer shock—shock that he had done it, shock that she had responded after his news of what had to amount to a betrayal.
‘Don’t look like that,’ he said.
‘Why did you do it?’ she whispered.
‘It’s a traditional way to stop a fight between a man and a woman,’ he said dryly. ‘Didn’t you know?’
Her lashes fell and it occurred to him that he’d hurt her again—like some ham-fisted clod, he thought with distaste. ‘Mia, I would never have warned you off because you were the housekeeper’s daughter.’
‘Oh, Carlos, you may be able to deceive yourself but—’
‘Listen,’ he broke in savagely, ‘yes, I’d have told you there was no future for us then but it had nothing to do with who you
were. I have never,’ he said through his teeth, ‘shared my mother’s delusions of grandeur.’
It flashed through Mia’s mind, an image of herself during the day and how, once again, she’d keenly felt her position on the sidelines, despite her designer clothes and her undoubted skills. How she’d proven to herself today that she still had a long way to go in the self-confidence stakes, how she might always be a fringe-dweller compared to the O’Connors and the ubiquitous Nina French.
But above all how much it hurt to know that Carlos would have warned her off himself...
As for his proposal?
‘I think you must be mad,’ she said with bitter candour, ‘if you really believe I’d want to get engaged to you. After all that—have you any idea how cheap your mother made me feel?’
He closed his eyes briefly, then released her and handed her her glass. She blinked and took a sip of brandy.
Carlos stared at her for an eternity, then he said abruptly, ‘How old are you now?’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Why?’
‘Why not—twenty-five?’
She nodded.
‘Has there been anyone?’
Two spots of colour entered her cheeks and she put her glass down on the trolley with a snap. ‘That’s none of your business, Carlos.’
‘I think it is. I think it must have been a ghastly experience. My mother—’ He gestured and shrugged.
‘I’m a little surprised you believe me,’ Mia broke in.
‘My mother,’ he repeated dryly, ‘has persistently meddled in all our lives but not in a way that’s actually hurt anyone like this before. What happened to my father came as a big shock to her too and may have made her...may have unbalanced her a bit.’ He paused and grimaced. ‘Whatever, I can’t let this go.’
‘There’s nothing you can do. I...one...gets over these things.’
‘That’s the problem, I don’t think you have. I strongly suspect you’re a twenty-five-year-old virgin, Mia.’
The Return of Her Past Page 3