The Girl he Never Noticed

by Lindsay Armstrong

  Cam was already there, changed into navy shorts and a white T-shirt. He was sitting with his long legs propped up on the side of the boat. On the table beside him stood two creamy white cocktails, complete with paper parasols. There was also a pewter tray of smoked salmon canapés, topped with cream cheese and capers.

  ‘You’re a marvel, Mr Hillier!’ She laughed at him with her hands on her hips. ‘I had no idea you were so domesticated.’

  He turned to look at her, and it was his turn to catch his breath—although she didn’t know it.

  Nor could she know that it crossed his mind that she’d never looked so lovely—slender, sparkling with vitality, and absolutely gorgeous…

  He stood up. ‘I cannot tell a lie. I did make the cocktails, but Rob organised the canapés along with a catering package. You—’ he held out his hand to her ‘—are stunning.’

  She laughed up at him as he drew her towards him. ‘I also cannot tell a lie. I feel stunning. I mean, not that I look stunning, but I feel—’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ He bent his head and kissed her. ‘OK.’ He released her. ‘Sit down. Cheers!’ He handed her the cocktail. ‘To the sunset.’

  ‘To the sunset!’ she echoed, and stared entranced at the white beach so well named and the colours in the sky as the sun sank below the tree-lined horizon.

  That wasn’t all there was to the sunset, though. The sky got even more colourful after the sun had disappeared, with streaks of gold cloud against a violet background that was reflected in the water, and a liquid orange horizon.

  There were several other boats at anchor, and as the sunset finally withdrew its amazing colours from the sky they lit their anchor lights. Cam did the same, and then went to pour them another Mai Tai cocktail.

  Liz stayed out on the deck, enjoying the warm, tropical air and the peace and serenity. It was a calm night, with just the soft lap of water against the hull.

  ‘You could get addicted to this lifestyle,’ she said with a grin when he brought their drinks out, then she sat up, looking electrified, as soft but lively music piped out onto the deck. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  She cocked her head to listen. ‘That I was a frustrated disco dancer as a kid? I haven’t danced for years. Except with Scout. She loves dancing too.’ She smiled and sat back. ‘I feel young all of a sudden.’

  ‘You are young.’ He pulled up his chair so that they were sitting knee to knee, and leant forward to fiddle with the end of her scarf. ‘Actually, you make me feel young.’

  Liz looked surprised. ‘You’re not old. How old are you?’

  He grimaced. ‘Thirty-three. Today.’

  Liz sat forward in surprise. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  He lifted his shoulders. ‘Birthdays come and go. They don’t mean much when you start to get on. What would you have done, anyway?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘You seem to have everything that opens and shuts—so a present might have been difficult. But at least a card.’

  ‘To put on my mantelpiece?’ He looked amused.

  ‘No,’ she agreed ruefully. ‘OK, here’s my last offer.’ She leant right forward and kissed him lightly. ‘Happy Birthday, Mr Hillier!’

  ‘Miss Montrose—thank you. But I hope that was only an appetiser,’ he replied wryly.

  Liz trembled as she saw a nerve beat in his jaw—she’d seen it before, and she knew that under the light-hearted fun there lurked a rising tide of desire. It caused her nerves to tighten a fraction—not that she was feeling like a block of wood herself, she thought dryly, but was she ready for the inevitable?

  He didn’t press the matter. Whether he sensed that slight nervous reaction or not, she didn’t know, but he merely kissed her back lightly and handed her a cocktail.”

  ‘Finish that. Then we have a veritable feast to get through.

  A feast it was: a seafood platter heaped with prawns, crab, calamari and two lobster tails. There was also a side salad, and there was white wine to go with it. It was the kind of meal to eat slowly, often using fingers and not being too self-conscious about the smears left on your glass, despite the fingerbowl and linen napkins.

  It was the perfect feast to eat on the back deck of a boat surrounded by midnight-blue sea and sky—although she could just make out the amazing sands of Whitehaven Beach.

  It was a meal that lent itself to talking when the mood took them, about nothing very much, and to not feeling awkward when a silence grew. Because—and Liz grew more aware of it—there seemed to be a mental unity between them.

  ‘That was lovely,’ she said as he gathered up their plates and consigned their food scraps overboard. She got up and helped him carry the plates and accoutrements back into the galley, then washed her hands.

  He did the same. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please—I don’t believe it!’

  He raised an eyebrow at her.

  ‘It’s eleven o’clock.’

  He grinned. ‘Almost Cinderella time. Sit down. It’s getting a bit cool outside. I’ll make the coffee.’

  Liz sank down on to the built-in settee that curved around an oval polished table. The settee was covered in mushroom-pink velour that teamed well with the cinnamon-coloured carpet, and there were jewel-bright scatter cushions in topaz, hyacinth and bronze.

  She looked around. There were two lamps, shedding soft light from behind their cream shades, and beyond the saloon up a couple of steps was the wheelhouse, almost in darkness, but with a formidable array of instruments and pinpricks of light. A faint hum echoed throughout the boat.

  Where she sat was superbly comfortable, and she could see across to the galley where her boss—she amended that. Her lover-to-be?—was making coffee.

  ‘I could have done that,’ she said.

  ‘I can make decent coffee.’ He reached for a plunger pot from the cabinet, then a container of coffee from the freezer. ‘I have it down to a fine art,’ he continued. ‘Same coffee, same size measuring spoon and I can’t go wrong.’ He took down two Wedgwood mugs, spooned the coffee into the pot, poured boiling water on and balanced the plunger on top. ‘Four minutes, then plunge.’

  Liz couldn’t help herself. She started to laugh softly. ‘So you have an identical set-up in all your houses?’

  ‘Yep. But I only have two houses.’

  ‘And a boat?’

  ‘And a boat. Actually…’ He assembled cream, sugar and spoons on a tray with the mugs and pot, and brought it over to the table. ‘I wasn’t prevaricating about the real estate aspect of this trip. I’m looking at a house on Hamilton.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re combining pleasure with a bit of business?’ she teased. ‘Or maybe a bit of pleasure with a lot of business?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he denied. ‘I’m relying on your judgement in the matter.’

  Liz sobered. ‘Really? I mean—do you need another house?’

  ‘Really?’ He sat down and plunged the coffee, and a lovely aroma rose from the pot. He poured it and moved her mug towards her. ‘Help yourself. Do I need another house? No. But at least it’s not another company.’

  Liz digested this with a frown. ‘Are you—do you—are you happy? With your life, I mean?’

  He studied his coffee, then stirred some sugar in. ‘I have a few regrets. Apart from Archie and Narelle I have no close relatives left. No one to benefit from the fruits of my labours, you might say.’ He shrugged. ‘No one to wish me happy birthday.’ He looked humorous and held up a hand. ‘I don’t really care about that. But I do sometimes care—greatly—that my parents didn’t live to see all this.’ He looked around. ‘And Amelia, my sister.’

  ‘So…’ Liz hazarded. ‘Are you saying…?’ She paused to gather her thoughts better.

  ‘Do I sometimes feel like saying stop the world I want to get off? Substitute the Hillier Corporation for the world? Yes.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Why—why don’t you?’ she breathed.

  ‘Liz.’ He looked across at her
. ‘It’s not that easy. I employ a lot of people. And I don’t know what I’d do with my time, anyway.’

  He looked across at her and she could suddenly see something different about him. She could see the stamp of inner tension on the lines of his face and in his eyes.

  Then he shrugged and added, ‘Perhaps there’s a side of me that could never sit and twiddle its thumbs? Perhaps it’s the way I’m made?’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ she said huskily at length. ‘Maybe it’s the way things have happened for you.’ She grimaced. ‘Like me.’

  He opened his mouth to say something, but there was a whir as an unseen machine in the wheelhouse came alive.

  She looked a question at him.

  ‘It’s the weather fax,’ he said with a faint frown. ‘Any change in the forecast comes through automatically.’

  A smile curved Liz’s lips. ‘Go and have a look. I know you won’t rest easy until you do.’

  He raked a hand through his hair and got up. ‘I will. Contrary to what you may believe about me in a car, I’m a very cautious seaman. I’ll only be a moment.’

  But he was a bit longer than that, and Liz leant back in a corner and curled her legs up beside her. She fell asleep without even realising it.

  Cam came back with a piece of paper in his hands and the news that they’d need to change their anchorage tomorrow because of a strong wind warning.

  He stopped as he realised she was asleep, and let the sheet of paper flutter to the table as he stared down at her.

  He looked at the grace of her body beneath the long dress, her hand beneath her cheek, and thought that she must be really tired. Perhaps two Mai Tais and a couple of glasses of wine had contributed? Perhaps the trauma of it all…?

  His lips twisted as he pulled the table away and bent to pick her up in his arms. She made a tiny murmur, but didn’t wake as he carried her to her stateroom.

  He put her down carefully on one side of the double bed and rolled a light-as-air eiderdown over her.

  He stood looking down at her for a minute or so. Then he said, ‘Goodnight, Cinderella.’

  Liz slept for a few hours, then a nightmare gripped her and she woke with no idea where she was. There were different unaccountable sounds to be heard, and the terrifying conviction that she’d lost Scout.

  She thrashed around on a bed she didn’t know, grappling with an eiderdown she didn’t remember, and was drenched in ice-cold sweat as she called Scout’s name…

  ‘Liz? Liz!’ A lamp flicked on and Cam stood over her, wearing only sleep shorts. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’ve lost Scout,’ she gasped. ‘Where am I?’

  He sat down on the bed and pulled her up into his arms. ‘You haven’t lost Scout, and you’re safe and sound on my boat. Remember? Leilani and Whitehaven Beach? Remember the sunset?’

  Shudders racked her and her mouth worked.

  ‘Scout is safe at home with Daisy and Archie and your mother at Yewarra.’

  Very slowly the look of terror left her eyes and she closed them. ‘Oh, thank heavens,’ she breathed. Her lashes flew up. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’ He said it into her hair. ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Hold me—please hold me,’ she whispered. ‘I couldn’t bear it if I lost Scout.’

  ‘You’re not going to lose her,’ he promised. ‘Hang on.’ He unwound the eiderdown and lay down with her in his arms, pulling it over them. ‘There. How’s that?’

  Liz moved against him and found the last remnants of the nightmare and her sense of dislocation leave against the security of the warmth and bulk of his body, the strength of his arms around her.

  ‘That’s wonderful.’ She laid her cheek on his shoulder. ‘Do you still want to marry me?’

  ‘Liz…?’ He lifted his head to look into her eyes. ‘Yes. But—’

  ‘Then do it—please. Don’t take any nonsense from me. I can be stubborn for stubborn’s sake sometimes. Don’t let me go—oh! I’m still dressed!’

  ‘Liz, stop.’

  He held her close, staring into her eyes with his mouth set firmly until she subsided somewhat, although she was still shivering every now and then.

  ‘Yes, you are still dressed,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t take advantage of sleeping girls. And I don’t think we should make any earth-shattering decisions right now, either. You were over-tired, overwrought, and you got a fright. So let’s just take things slowly,’ he said dryly, and moved away slightly.

  She flinched inwardly, because whatever she might have been one thing had become crystal-clear to her through it all. Cam Hillier was her answer. Not for Scout’s sake—for her sake. He not only made her feel safe, he attracted her like no other man ever had…

  ‘Do you mean share this bed chastely?’ she said huskily. ‘I don’t think I can. I think I’ve gone beyond that. You can always claim I seduced you if—if it’s not what you want, too.’

  He took a ragged breath. ‘Not what I want?’ he repeated through his teeth. ‘If you had any idea, Cinderella…’

  ‘Cinderella?’ Her eyes widened.

  He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t so far from midnight when I put you to bed.’

  ‘Damn,’ she said.

  He lifted a surprised eyebrow at her.

  ‘I was planning—well, I was thinking along the lines of being a birthday surprise for you. If things fell out that way. I mean, it wasn’t a set-in-concrete kind of plan—more just a thought.’ She trailed off, thinking that—heaven help her!—it was true.

  He was silent for so long she looked away and bit her lip.

  Then he said, ‘Liz, I’m not made of steel.’

  She looked back. ‘Neither am I,’ she said, barely audibly, and laid her hand on his cheek. ‘I want to be held and kissed. I want to be wanted. I want to be able to show you how much I want you. Do you know when you first brought me out in goosebumps? A few days after I started working for you, when I tripped on the pavement and you caught me. Remember?’

  She waited as his eyes narrowed and she saw recognition come to them.

  ‘So I’ve actually been battling this thing between us longer than you have. Think of that.’

  He groaned and pulled her very close. ‘Don’t say I didn’t put up a fight,’ he warned, and buried his face in her hair.

  ‘I knew it would be like this,’ Cam said.

  ‘Like what?’

  They were lying facing each other. The eiderdown had hit the carpet, along with Liz’s maxi-dress and her bikini briefs—all she’d worn under it.

  Her hair was spread on the pillow and looked almost ethereally fair in the lamplight.

  He drew his fingers down between her breasts. ‘That you’d be pale and satiny, as well as slim and elegant and achingly beautiful.’

  She caught his hand and raised it to her lips. ‘I sort of suspected you’d be the stuff a girl’s dreams are made of. As for these—’ she kissed his hand again ‘—I love them. They’ve played havoc with my equilibrium at times. They are now.’

  ‘Like this?’ He took his hand back and traced the outline of her flank down to the curve of her hip.

  She caught her bottom lip between her teeth as his hand strayed to her thigh. ‘Yes, like that,’ she said, as those exploring fingers slid to an even more intimate position on her body. She gasped and wound her arms round his neck as all sorts of lovely sensations ran through her.

  ‘Cam…’ she said on a breath, and all playfulness left her—because she was body and soul in thrall to what he was doing to her, and because she knew he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

  She could feel them moving to the same drumbeat as their bodies blended together. She could feel the powerful chemistry between them. She could glory in all the fineness of Cam’s sleek powerful body, and she did. She traced the line of that dark springy hair down his torso, as she’d pictured herself doing not many days ago. She pressed her breasts against the wall of his chest and slid her leg between his.

  She was overtake
n by a feeling of joy as they touched, tasted and held each other. She felt like a flame in his arms—hot and desirable, then light as quicksilver. She felt wanton in one breath and irresistible to him in the next—incandescent, and totally abandoned to the pleasure he was bringing her.

  Their final union brought her close to tears as the pleasure mounted to a star-shot pitch, but he held her and guided her with all the finesse and strength and control she’d probably always known Cameron Hillier would bring to this act. So that even while she was helpless with pleasure she knew she wasn’t alone. She felt cherished at the same time…

  ‘Mmmm,’ he said when they were still at last. ‘That was worth the wait.’

  Liz put her hand on his shoulder and kissed the long, strong column of his throat. ‘That was… I can’t tell you… It was too wonderful to put into words.’

  He traced the outline of her mouth with one long finger and looked consideringly into her eyes. ‘I could try. You, my sweet, prickly, gorgeous-all-rolled-into-one Liz, created a bit of heaven on earth for me.’

  She smiled and smoothed her palm on his shoulder. ‘Thank you.’ A tiny glint of laughter lurked in her eyes. ‘But I couldn’t have done it without you.’

  She felt the jolt of laughter that shook him. ‘No?’

  ‘No. And you do know I’m teasing you, don’t you? Because I was utterly at your mercy, Mr Hillier.’

  ‘Not so, Miss Montrose. Well,’ he amended, ‘let’s split the credit.’

  ‘Sounds fair enough,’ she said gravely, but all of a sudden she sobered as it came back to her—what she’d said about marrying him.

  ‘Liz?’

  She looked up into his eyes to see that he too had sobered, and that there was a question mark in their blue depths. For a moment it trembled on her lips to tell him that she’d fallen deeply in love with him—that she probably had way back, despite everything to the contrary she’d told herself.

  But a remnant of fear generated from her past held her silent. Just take it slowly, she thought. Yes, she’d done it again—given herself to a man. And it was so much more than sex for her, but—for the time being anyway—should she protect herself by being the sole possessor of that knowledge?