by Неизвестный
'Now, don't chat to me till we get through the city,
there's a good girl,' he added as he eased out into the line of cars. Tm not used to driving in morning traffic and I don't want anything to happen to stop us getting where we're going today. I'm already distracted enough by having you sit next to me. If you say things like you've just said, and look at me like you've just done, I'll run up the back of a truck in no time.'
Paige did as she was bid, hugging his flattering words to herself during the next twenty minutes, wallowing in the excitement and anticipation of the ten days ahead. Antonio bypassed the city centre and whizzed across the harbour via the tunnel, zooming up the other side with no time-consuming hold-ups.
Antonio was the first to speak, while the car was idling at a set of red lights around Chatswood.
'Did your father say anything to you yesterday?'
'About us, you mean?'
'Yes.'
'No. I didn't see him at all. He was gone by the time I got up in the morning, and he went out for dinner last night. This morning, I avoided going downstairs till he was gone. But I sent a fax to his office just before I snuck out to meet you.' No way had she been going to give Evelyn any letter to hand to her father. Paige didn't trust her not to steam it open.
The infernal woman had hovered all yesterday, clearly trying to work out what was going on. When she'd briefly gone out to do some shopping mid-morning, Paige had raced downstairs to her father's study, looked up Antonio's home number and given Antonio a short ring, telling him not to call her at home and ask for her, in case Evelyn answered the phone and recognized his voice. She was pleased Antonio hadn't thought her paranoid.
'What did you say in the fax?' he asked.
"That I was going away up the coast with a friend for ten days. That I would be coming back home afterwards, but only till I find a new place to live.' Going to Queensland was now out of the question. She would want to be in Sydney whenever Antonio was in town.
He shot her a sharp look. 'Is that really your plan?'
'Well...yes. You must know by now I can't stand living at home for long.' It was a bit too optimistic to think Antonio would ask her to accompany him back to Europe after only ten days.
'I see,' was all he said, and fell silent. The lights turned green and he drove on, a little more slowly than before, as though his mind was elsewhere and working overtime.
Paige wondered what he was thinking, then decided to find out. 'Don't you want me to?' she asked.
"That depends,' he said brusquely.
'On what?'
'On what kind of people you move in with, I guess. According to your father, you have a habit of always choosing male flatmates who invariably end up sharing your bedroom. On one occasion he was horrified to learn you were flatting with two men, and both boasted they knew you intimately.'
Paige laughed. She couldn't help it.
Antonio threw her a truly scandalized look, and Paige reluctantly decided it was time to clear the air where her past history with men were concerned. She didn't give a damn what her father thought of her. He could hardly stand in judgement of her sexual behaviour with all the mistresses he had stashed around the world.
But she didn't want Antonio believing she'd jumped into bed with every man she'd lived with, despite her having done nothing to dissuade him from this erroneous belief the other night.
But the situation had changed from that, hadn't it?
'I presume you're talking about Paul and Les?' she said.
'Don't recognise the names,' Antonio said stiffly. 'But if they're the two men you enjoyed a manage & trois with, then, yes, I mean Paul and Les.'
Paige sighed. If she'd known her father was going to discuss his private investigator's findings in detail with Antonio, she'd never have let the creep get the wrong idea in the first place. But at the time she'd been so annoyed with her father she hadn't cared what he thought.
Clearly, Antonio carried a lot of misconceptions about her. She could only hope she could rectify some of them.
'Paul and Les were gay,' she said firmly. 'All my male flatmates over the past few years have been gay, Antonio. Gay men, I eventually learnt from hard-won experience, are nicer friends than girls, and safer than heterosexual males. If you must know, the only man I've actually lived with since leaving home is Brad. Till Jed, of course. I was going to live with him, but you know what happened there.'
She could feel his eyes upon her, disbelief and shock in his gaze.
'Better watch the road,' she advised drily when they began to drift towards the next lane, where a white taxi carrying two worried-looking passengers was coming alongside.
Antonio swore, but kept his eyes glued ahead after that. His knuckles, however, went white on the wheel and his shoulders bunched up. His straight black brows bunched up as well.
'Are you saying you encouraged your flatmates to lie to Lew about your relationships with them?' he growled.
'Well...yes,' she confessed. 'Sort of. I...er...always warned them Lew would be around, and told them to say whatever he wanted to hear. Paul and Les particularly enjoyed themselves, I think, pretending to be my live-in studs. Of course, they were very macho-looking guys-as are a lot of gay men. I often used them as cover when a guy was bothering me.'
Her explanation didn't entirely satisfy Antonio, judging by the lingering scowl on his face. 'So when you told me you always liked to live with your boyfriends you lied as well?'
'Actually...no, I didn't.'
'That doesn't make sense, Paige,' he said irritably. 'Not if by boyfriend you mean lover as well.'
'Yes, that's what I mean.'
'Oh, for pity's sake,' he exploded, the car shifting ground dangerously again when he lanced her with a savage look. 'You can't expect me to believe you've only slept with two men in your whole life, especially when one of those two was a oncer!'
'No,' she said coolly, her heart sinking at this open display of disdain and disbelief. 'I've actually slept with three. You're forgetting yourself, Antonio.'
He swore. Violently. Then fell silent once more.
'Don't you believe me?' she challenged into the highly charged atmosphere.
He shook his head frustratedly, then sighed a resigned sigh. 'I suppose I must, because I can't find a single, solitary reason for you to lie.'
'So why look for one?'
He stared grimly at the road ahead for a few seconds
before nodding up and down. 'Very well,' he decided
aloud, and much to her relief. 'I won't!' a
He glanced over at her, black eyes narrowed and thoughtful. 'You're a wicked little devil, do you know that? Fancy letting your father believe you lived with all those men. You worried the life out of him. Not to mention me...'
As much as she was pleased by his accepting her word, she couldn't believe that last statement! 'Oh, come now, Antonio, you never worried about me. Not really.'
'I was worried sick when you first ran away from home.'
Paige could not have been more stunned.
'I felt so lousy for hurting you the way I did. And for saying such thoughtlessly cruel things. When Lew found you, and Conrad sent me to bring you home, I happily went, hoping to have the opportunity to apologise and make things right. Admittedly, when I saw you weren't exactly suffering from a broken heart, my worries evaporated somewhat. Which reminds me. What happened between you and Brad? You never did tell anyone when you finally came home.'
'Nothing happened. We were very happy together.'
'So why did you leave him?'
'I didn't. He died.'
'Good God! How?'
'He had a surfing accident. Broke his neck.'
'And you didn't tell any of us? Not your father? Or me?'
'I didn't think either of you would care.'
'I see...' He threw her a puzzled look. 'And is that why you didn't become involved with anyone else for such a long tune? Because you'd lost the love of your life?'
Pai
ge opened her mouth to tell him the whole truth, but then closed it again. She sensed it was way too soon to tell Antonio something that heavy. He might run a mile under the burden of her unrequited love for him. Best keep things light.
'You could put it like that,' she said instead. 'But I'm well and truly over Brad's death now.'
'If you say so...' He sounded unconvinced.
'I say so,' she said, then smiled over at him.
His returning smile was slow in coining, but warm when it arrived. 'You're full of surprises, aren't you?'
'I hope so.
'Why do you say that?'
'Because I wouldn't want to bore you. I have a feeling you're a man who's easily bored. Especially with a woman.'
'Is that so? And on what do you base that assumption?'
'On the passing parade of women in your life so far.'
'I'm not the heartless womaniser you think, Paige. The women I've had all knew the score. As I said...I don't make false promises. If you must know, I was in love once too. Not long before I came to work for your father. Lauren didn't die, but she let me down. Badly. She said she loved me, but she didn't. Frankly, I still feel pretty bitter over her betrayal.'
Paige heard the hard edge in his voice. This was something she hadn't envisaged, that Antonio had been suffering from a broken heart all these years.
The savagery of her resentment over this Lauren woman tore into her breast with a dark violence she had trouble hiding. It was as well Antonio was driving, with his eyes straight ahead, and couldn't see the fire bum momentarily in her own eyes.
'She must have been very beautiful,' she heard herself saying in a hard, flat little voice.
'She was,' he admitted curtly, then just dropped the
subject. Paige could not find the courage or the will to bring her up again. But Lauren's shadow moved into the car, drying up any further conversation and dampening Paige's earlier optimism.
It wasn't till the city was long left behind and the first glimpse of water came into view on the right that the depressive atmosphere lifted. And it was Antonio's doing.
'Nearly there now,' he announced, the brightness in his voice very welcome.
Paige responded with a blinding smile of relief. Tell me about this houseboat,' she urged.
'Seeing will be worth a thousand words!'. 'You don't sound as though you know what to expect.'
'I do and I don't. They featured it briefly on a programme on television I saw once, but I've never actually seen.one, or been on one before. Still, the man on the phone assured me ours was the latest in luxury, and easier to drive than a-shopping trolley. The one I've hired is their one and only honeymoon houseboat.'
Paige's eyes rounded. 'He thinks we're on our honeymoon?'
'No. But the honeymoon houseboat is the most luxurious houseboat they own, and it's kitted out just for two. Why, would you like people to think we're on our honeymoon?'
'No. I don't like lies.'
'Neither do I. We're just lovers, then.'
'Illicit lovers,' she suggested mischievously. 'Sneaking off for a dirty ten days together.
'Mmm. I like the sound of that,' he murmured, and gave her a look which melted every bone in her body. 'Is being provocative part of your plan not to bore me?'
'That's for me to know and you to find out.'
'I aim to find out everything there is to find out about you during the next ten days, Paige Fortune.'
'And I you, Antonio Scarlatti,' she countered, her heart going like a threshing machine.
He stared at her before switching his eyes back onto the road, and the bridge ahead. Once again, Paige was proving a vastly different person from the one he'd always imagined her to be. He'd glimpsed a hint of hidden depths the other night, but today was a real revelation!
What further shocks lay in store for him? What other preconceptions were going to be smashed?
He hadn't known that her first lover had been tragically killed; he had been taken aback by the news, then startled by the unexpected jab of jealousy which had accompanied Paige's confession that she'd been heartbroken over him all these years. Maybe that was the reason for her tears on the two occasions that she'd given herself sexually to another man. Maybe she was remembering what it had been like with the only man she'd ever really loved. Antonio conceded Brad must have been a fantastic lover to have taught her so well.
Again, this thought brought more jealousy. Or was it envy?
Envy, Antonio decided sensibly. Jealousy smacked of an emotional involvement, which simply wasn't the case. Clearly, he envied Paige the experience of making love to a person she'd loved and who'd loved her whole-
heartedly in return. In hindsight, it was an experience which had eluded him. And would continue to do so, now that he was no longer capable of contributing his side of such an equation.
Not that he should be complaining. Sex with Paige had been great the other night, the greatest he'd ever had-even better than with Lauren. Frankly, Lauren had been a bit unimaginative in bed. And selfish.
Lauren...
He wished he hadn't brought the woman up in his mind. He hated thinking about her. When he did, he always felt like a failure. Antonio hated failure.
His eyes slid over to the beautiful, sexy girl sitting beside him and his resolve strengthened. He wasn't going to fail this time. He was determined to win, not only Paige's hand in marriage, but her heart as well. He was going to have it all this time. The job and the woman.
'You're not watching the road,' Paige chided.
'I can't help it,' came his rueful confession. 'I can't take my eyes off you.'
'Well, I suggest you do,' she pointed out drily. 'Because the turn-off to Brooklyn's coming up fast
Antonio swore, then expertly weaved his way over to take the turn-off, a surge of adrenalin kicking in, as well as a surge of something else.
'I hope you've brought that gold dress,' he said.
'What gold dress?'
His head whipped round to find she was laughing at him, those big blue eyes of hers dancing with devil lights.
Incredible eyes, those eyes. They could look oh, so innocent and vulnerable one moment, then oh, so sexy and knowing the next. At that moment they glittered and
gleamed, taunting and teasing him with the promise of erotic delights he'd only glimpsed the other night.
He was almost grateful to dear old Brad. The man had obviously introduced her to sex with a joy and lack of inhibition which could only be praised in his absence. Even his untimely passing was a source of gratitude to Antonio, because it had kept Paige's natural sexuality bottled up for years in her grief, all the stronger now that it had been released. That idiot Waltham could have been Paige's sexual genie, but he'd been a fool. His failure had become Antonio's gain.
'Just you wait,' he told her with feigned displeasure. 'Teases get their comeuppance.'
'Promises, promises,' she said, with a toss of her gorgeous golden hair.
'No false promises from me, honey. When I say something, I mean it'
'Really! So what form does a comeuppance take?'
'I think the word speaks for itself,' he quipped, enjoying himself enormously. 'When it comes up, you'll be the first to know!'
CHAPTER TWELVE
AN HOUR had passed after their arrival at the Marina at Brooklyn, and now they were ready to start cruising the river in the incredibly compact yet truly luxurious houseboat. Twenty minutes had been spent watching a how-to video, which had covered everything navigational and operational they might want to know, and the rest of the time had been taken in being shown through the houseboat itself, with all its fittings and fixtures, storage spaces and supplies. The controls had had to be explained, plus all the other simple yet important workings.
Finally, with their luggage aboard, and a brochure and map in Paige's hand, Antonio had started the incredibly quiet engine, and angled them safely away from the dock.
Paige could not believe the feeling of exhilaration w
hich swept through her as they headed for open waters. Putting the map and brochure down, she went out on the front deck for a while, to admire the beauty and breadth of the river, before returning inside to where Antonio was standing at the wheel, one of those rare but truly happy smiles on his face.
"This is so much more fun than I thought it would be!' she exclaimed, combing her wind-blown hair back from her face with her fingers. 'I feel like we're going on an adventure together!'