by Trish Morey
She was disposable.
And she had no right to yearn.
With a sigh she realised it was good she’d left his bed when she had, while she’d still been capable of it. Good she’d pulled back and created some distance between them. Good that she’d let him go before he’d done the same to her.
And he would have let her go, nothing surer. Men like him didn’t fall for women like her. They fell for sleek high-gloss sirens who could further their career, not charity cases from the back blocks. Besides, he’d made no attempt since that night to come to her. Wasn’t that proof he was regretting that night as much as her? No, it was clear she’d done the right thing.
And if she managed to keep her distance, she might even just survive this with her pride, if not her heart, intact.
She was quiet on the way home, barely saying a word in response to his attempts at conversation. He’d expected her to be a little shy given the last time they’d tangled words they’d ended up tangled together in the sheets, something he was having trouble getting out of his head, but it was more than that.
She was cool, distant, and so he hadn’t bothered making too many attempts at conversation. For it had soon become clear she didn’t share his excitement over what they had witnessed on the scan.
He was disappointed. He’d thought she’d at least express some interest in the child she was carrying. He’d thought he’d seen some flicker of maternal instinct in her expression in the way she’d curve her hand under her bump, rubbing it gently, whispering soft words when she thought he wasn’t looking. And what about what she’d done in preparing the nursery! It had been Rosa who had disclosed that Angelina had done it all herself—all of it. How could a woman prepare rooms for an infant like that and not be interested in seeing that infant’s face on a screen?
Was she really so opposed to the idea of having a child?
Perhaps she was.
But perhaps that was what it took to be able to walk away. Right from the start she’d insisted she wanted no part in it, that she would walk away and never have anything to do with the child again. Right from the start she’d told him she wouldn’t change her mind.
It appeared that she wouldn’t.
Which was a shame, really.
He’d been thinking lately about what she’d said about Rosa managing an infant along with the house. Rosa would be happy to do it, he knew, but it was unfair to expect her to. He hadn’t given it enough thought. And down there in the garage last night, sculpting the piece he was working on, thinking about this woman splayed across his big bed, a look of utter abandonment on her face when he’d sent her plunging over the abyss for a second time and how much he burned to send her to oblivion again, the kernel of an idea had come to him. A good idea, he’d thought. A sensible solution.
Though clearly it would never work. Not once she found out what he had managed to secure for her.
Shame.
Dinner would have been completely silent if not for the occasional unintended clatter and scrape of cutlery against crockery, and even that rare occurrence intruded into the otherwise quiet. Rosa gathered the unfinished plates, saying nothing yet saying volumes in her eyes. Across the table Dominic sat like a volcano, brooding and about to erupt.
Angelina didn’t dare look at his eyes. She said no to dessert, despite the fact she’d barely touched her dinner, and when Dominic called her back, halfway to leaving, she expected he was going to admonish her for not eating all her meal.
‘I have something for you,’ he said instead. ‘Meet me in my office in ten minutes.’
She almost breathed a sigh of relief. The old Dominic was back. The old Dominic she could deal with.
Duly she arrived at his office at the appointed time, expecting the worst. He was waiting for her, standing stiff and tall and mountainous behind his desk. ‘What did you want to see me about?’ Try as she might, it was impossible to keep the slight tremor from her voice.
His face looked like thunder, his stance so tightly drawn she wondered if he might snap if he so much as moved. But he did move, picking up some documents on his desk, handing them to her. ‘These belong to you, I believe.’
Confused, she took them and tried to make sense of what she was holding. She blinked, not entirely recognising the property reference, still unsure what it all meant when she saw the mortgage discharged stamp on the second page. A sizzling snake wound its way up her spine. She looked up at him. ‘Is this what I think it is?’ He was waiting. She imagined he wasn’t used to people not understanding forms and papers and legal things, but she’d never seen a title deed before, if this was what it was.
‘It’s the title deed to your house on Spinifex Avenue. It’s yours now, lock stock and barrel.’
His words confirmed her wildest imaginings. ‘It’s mine! But what about Shayne? What happened? I thought he wanted his so-called share.’
He snorted with contempt. ‘The lawyers sorted that. In the end, as we suspected, he was happy to settle.’
‘But who paid him? Who paid the mortgage out?’
He brushed her questions aside. ‘Forget it—he came cheap. The mortgage even cheaper. I figured it was the least I could do.’
The least he could do when he’d already done so much? She looked down at the deeds, unable to believe what she was seeing. The house was hers. All hers. It was a dream come true.
Except …
Wanting the house belonged to a different dream. A dream that belonged to a different time, when she’d willingly go home after the birth. Willingly go home, alone.
A wave of logic swept her objections away. Because it didn’t matter what she thought or what she wanted or whether she was having second thoughts.
Dominic was only doing this because Dominic wanted her gone and she’d agreed that was what she would do. Was that so surprising? He’d always wanted her gone. He’d always expected her to leave. That was their arrangement, after all. Now he was doing everything possible to make it happen. And she would need somewhere to live.
Could she blame him for inadvertently making her life more difficult when he’d only just given her what she’d claimed she’d wanted all along?
Or should she thank him and not reveal how much his kind gesture was costing her when her mother’s house was the only lifeline she could trust?
‘Thank you,’ she said at last, hugging the title deeds to her chest.
The night was hot, the sheets were tangled and the baby had put on soccer boots. Angie decided to give up on trying to sleep for a while. Besides, did she really want to sleep when all she dreamed about lately was Dominic? He’d been so good to her. Too good, really. He’d spoiled her for anyone else, that was for sure. And now tonight, giving her the deeds for her house. How did you thank someone for doing that, for being so thoughtful, even when you longed for another outcome?
She stood by the windows looking out to sea, trying to catch a breeze, but the night was strangely silent, the sea calm and quiet, with nothing to stir even a ripple through the foliage.
Below her window the moon reflected off the surface of the pool. A swim would cool her heated body. A swim might even cool her heated desires, and that would be welcome, for she’d found it impossible to live in the same house as this man and not have heated desires. She glanced at the time. Insanely late. Nobody would be awake now. Nobody would see her. And a soak would relax her, she knew.
She put on the bikini she’d bought with Antonia, noticing how much more of her bump escaped between top and bottom now, and how little of her breasts the top covered, and dragged out one of her old singlet tops and put that over the top. There. Almost decent.
And then she grabbed a towel and padded through the sleeping house, heading for the pool.
The water was cool without being cold and Angie sighed as she slipped into its welcoming depths. It was bliss against her heated flesh.
She breast-stroked quietly across the pool, relishing the support it lent and the cool slip of water ag
ainst her skin. She tingled with pleasure, reminding her of another sensual night, another’s sensual touch. Tremors bloomed inside her at the memories, just thinking about his big hands and how they’d felt on her body. Possessive. Deliberate.
She missed them.
Halfway back, her singlet bothered her, tight and heavy and dragging with the weight of the water she wanted against her breasts, and out here, alone, she decided she didn’t need it. She tugged it off, tossing it the side, where it landed with a slap on the stone surrounds, and resumed her slow, gentle strokes. The water whispered past her breasts, sensual currents making her nipples peak and turning alight skin already sensitised by memories that could not be erased.
She reached the deep end and stopped, resting her arms on the edge, dangling her legs through the water, feeling suddenly frustrated. So much for a cooling dip. This wasn’t working at all.
Dominic was still in the garage, wondering why he felt the need to continue with the piece at all. It was torture now, working the piece, shaping it, recreating from memory the scale and the curves. And every time he touched it, every time he turned it in his hands, it made him think of her.
He had to finish it, if for no other reason than to stop thinking of her. Besides, he had a bin full of abandoned projects. This one, he knew, he had no choice but to persist with until the bitter end. He glanced at the watch he’d set close to his forgotten and now cold cup of coffee and winced, knowing he had to be up in a few short hours and remembering he’d wanted to do some work on the overseas markets before he went to bed.
Which pretty much meant now if it was going to happen at all. He took one last look at the sculpture, committing it to memory so his subconscious could work on what he needed to do tomorrow, and snapped off the lamp.
The night was quiet and heavy with it, a change expected tomorrow that would liven things up weather-wise. But, for now, the warm night air was eerily silent as he stretched his legs outside under the moon before heading upstairs. He heard it then, no more than a burble, a swish of water and the hint of a sigh that had him turning rock-hard even before he turned towards the pool.
Surely not?
Night time fantasies were just that, weren’t they?
And then he heard a wet slap and saw her in the pool, her bare arms pearlescent under the light of the moon, and fantasy collided with reality.
And he didn’t care that he’d decided it would be better to stay away. He didn’t care if he knew she didn’t want his child, because there was no way he could turn away. Because, he thought, as the top button came undone, and the next followed, this wasn’t about any child, or about what he knew was good for him.
This was about wanting her.
Pure unadulterated need.
And it was killing him.
She heard his footsteps before the husky, deep, ‘Hot night, mind if I join you?’
She swallowed. His shirt was already undone, a column of superb masculine flesh exposed to her gaze from his neck to his waist. Skin her fingers ached to touch. ‘It’s your pool,’ she managed. ‘Although you’re not exactly dressed for it.’
‘Easy fix,’ he said, his hands at his belt as he kicked off his shoes.
She turned her head away, wanting to look but afraid to, wondering just what he intended swimming in. Maybe it was time she got out. She heard a splash, felt the surge of water from his dive and turned to see him powering down the pool, long strokes eating up the length until he disappeared on a roll and came surging back towards her.
Maybe she should get out.
Maybe …
And then he was there beside her, water flying from his glorious head in beads that spun away like jewels in the silver of the moon.
‘Couldn’t sleep?’ he asked her, and she shook her head, not wanting to open her mouth lest she reveal what had kept her awake.
Besides, his eyes had her full attention, night sky meeting the night sky, with just the glint of the moon to light them. They should be cold, she thought idly, but instead they were charged with heat and she wondered—dared to hope—that he might be fighting his own internal battle with temperature control.
He lifted a hand to her face, those dark eyes focused and intent, and her breath hitched as he pushed away a strand of wet hair from her face. His touch triggered sparks under her skin that travelled the entire length of her, a chain reaction that tugged at her nipples and sent a pulsing awareness between her thighs. ‘I meant to thank you,’ he said, ‘for what you have done with the nursery. Rosa said you did it all yourself. Everything.’
Breathless, she struggled to find the words to answer. ‘It was a job. It was good to have something to do.’
His eyes gleamed. ‘You like to keep busy.’
‘I like having something to do.’
‘What will you do now it’s finished?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.’
‘I have an idea,’ he said, his hand curling around her neck, subtly but deliberately drawing her closer. ‘If you were interested.’
‘What does it involve?’
‘It’s not really a job as such,’ he told her, his lips agonisingly close to her mouth. ‘More a pastime.’
‘What are the conditions?’
‘Very favourable. Although,’ he added, his lips brushing her cheek, tickling her eyelashes, kissing the tip of her nose as he drew her against him length to length, ‘I have to warn you, there are some long night shifts involved.’
What was he offering her? That she become his mistress? That she warm his bed at night and grow his child by day? Should she be outraged? Her mind tried to make sense of it all but her brain was marshmallow under his slow sensual onslaught and right now, pressed up against his slick, tightly wound body, their legs tangling underwater and his hand weaving through her hair, outrage was the last thing she felt. Hadn’t she secretly yearned for him to come after her? Hadn’t she secretly prayed it was not just a one-night stand?
His teeth nipped an ear lobe and she gasped, feeling the tie at her neck release and his hand at her breast, rolling one slippery, hard nipple between his fingers. Oh, God, how was she supposed to think?
‘Will I need a reference?’ she asked, his mouth at her throat, the thick column of his erection nudging her belly, answering an earlier question in graphic, carnal detail.
‘No reference required,’ he gasped, his mouth over her nipple, his tongue working at the pebbled peak, driving her wild with need. ‘Just an interview. Easy questions.’
He asked one of those questions now, tugging at her bikini bottoms. She answered by letting him push them down and curling her legs around him, opening himself for him.
His mouth was finally on hers, finally tearing her soul out again in a gut-wrenching kiss that left her almost shattered and ended only with the need to breathe. ‘It sounds tempting,’ she gasped, ‘but how can I be sure I’m the right person you’re looking for?’
He surged into her, hard and fast and deep and she took his glorious length to her heart, crying out with the effort. ‘Believe me,’ he told her through gritted teeth as he slowly withdrew, ‘you’re perfect.’
She came in a blaze of shooting stars—wave after endless wave of stars that splintered and shattered with his shuddering climax—and a solitary tear escaped from her eye.
You’re perfect, he’d told her. You’re perfect.
Nobody had ever said those words to her, nobody but her mother. But he’d said those words. He’d said them as if he believed them and he’d made her believe them. And her heart hoped and prayed. Surely he must love her, just a little?
He never told her she’d got the position, not officially, and he didn’t move her things into his room, but she spent plenty of nights there in his arms—those nights he didn’t come padding into her room in the dead of night.
His mood changed too. He was back to his old self. He’d visit the kitchen, spend time there with her and Rosa, sampling dishes and stealing breadsticks and
even kisses when Rosa’s back was turned and he got the chance.
And Angie felt herself fall deeper and deeper in love, dreading the day this child would be born. On the kitchen wall the calendar mocked her, every page turned bringing her closer to the inevitable—closer to the birth, closer to her departure until there was only one month to go.
Dominic said nothing about afterwards. He made love to her tenderly at night and he took her out for dinner on Rosa’s days off and walks along rugged coastal paths on perfect autumn days, and her heart ached and grew heavy like the baby inside her.
She loved him. She loved him as she had loved no other and she loved this child because it was part of him. It would break her heart to leave them both. But what choice did she have? She would not beg to stay on, especially after all the trouble he’d gone to to secure her house. She would not plead. She would walk out with her head, if not her heart, held high. She could not bear it if he rejected her.
It would kill her.
It was finished. Dominic held it up in his hands, in awe of the power of his grandfather’s tools, in awe of the beauty they had created.
He didn’t know if she’d like it or even want it, but it was done and he would give it to her as a gift when the baby was born. Something shifted in his chest and he looked at his watch. So soon.
He didn’t want her to go. He wanted to tear up their agreement and keep her here. She belonged here, even if she’d never wanted this baby. And a question he’d wanted to put to her months ago—a possibility—surged back.
It had to be worth a try.
‘Stay,’ he said, as they lay together in the sweet afterglow of tender loving that night. ‘Don’t leave.’
Her heart bumped against a chest getting rapidly more crowded by the day, hope blossoming large but still too afraid to breathe.
‘What do you mean?’
He raised himself on one elbow, looking down at her. ‘There’s no reason for you to go. Not really.’
But what reason is there for me to stay? She licked her lips. ‘We have an agreement. I promised I wouldn’t change my mind. I wouldn’t cause any problems for you after the birth.’