Play Our Song Again (Lynsey Stevens Romance Book 13)

by Lynsey Stevens

  He glared at her as he closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side, while Alex wished she had the nerve to climb out of the car and make her escape. ‘Which beach?’ he asked as the engine roared to life.

  ‘Surfers, thank you.’

  ‘Do you need to collect your swimsuit first?’

  ‘No. I have my bikini on underneath my dress,’ she replied.

  Nothing more was said until Justin turned out on to the highway. Alex realised her fingers were playing nervously with her seatbelt and she clasped her hands firmly in her lap.

  ‘How did you come to be lunching with Ben?’ he asked.

  Feeling irrationally put out that he should question her, Alex was unable to keep the sharpness, the aggression, out of her voice. ‘He called at the flat to talk to me about the film and as it was lunchtime he asked me to share a meal with him. Why?’

  Justin moved his shoulders slightly. ‘Just curious. I expected you to be at the beach.’

  ‘I had a few things to do this morning.’ There was another brief silence. ‘I thought you were holidaying on the Barrier Reef somewhere.’ The words slipped out before Alex could bite them back. The last thing she wanted to do was give him reason to suspect she was interested in his whereabouts.

  ‘I was,’ he replied carefully, ‘but I decided to join Ben down here.’

  ‘Your parents will be happy to see you.’ Alex made what she thought was an unprovocative remark.

  ‘Undoubtedly.’ His lip curled cynically. ‘But not you.’

  ‘Me?’ Alex spoke quickly, flushing slightly at his implication. ‘I can’t see what I’ve got to do with it.’

  He turned the car left and then right on to the beachfront. ‘Can’t you, Alex?’ he asked softly.

  ‘You can drop me off anywhere along here,’ she said ignoring the sensual tone of his last words, sighing with relief that their journey had ended.

  He pulled easily into the first vacant parking space and switched off the engine, following her out on to the footpath and locking the car doors behind him.

  Alex’s nerves stretched to high pitch as he pocketed his keys. ‘Thanks for the lift,’ she began, her tone dismissing.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ he said, falling into step beside her.

  Frowning, Alex stopped, turning to face him, ready to do battle, but he took her arm and set her moving again.

  ‘I’ll join you in a surf,’ he said. ‘Like you, I have my bathers on underneath my clothes.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ Alex said tersely.

  ‘Oh, but I want to.’ His tone was smooth, amiable.

  ‘You don’t seem to understand, Justin. I don’t want to go surfing with you,’ Alex told him plainly.

  He made no comment as he slipped off his sandals and waited for her to do likewise. ‘What’s so bad about swimming with me, Alex?’

  She glanced up at the tone in his voice. She had expected a biting tirade, and now here he was almost teasing.

  ‘Afraid to?’ He lifted one dark eyebrow quizzically.

  ‘Of course I’m not afraid to go swimming with you. It’s a public beach. It’s just that I’m meeting the boys. I said I’d go swimming with them.’ Alex stretched the truth a little. The plan was that she would see the others at the beach if she felt like it. In actual fact, it was the last thing she felt like doing, but she had no one to blame but herself for getting into this situation.

  Justin’s eyes were screwed up against the sun’s glare and he took his dark glasses out of his pocket and put them on, shielding his expression still further. ‘Then let’s all go swimming together,’ he said blithely.

  Alex scanned the beach for the boys and she caught sight of Paul’s lime green surfboard first. He’d stuck it into the sand and was stretched out, leaning his back against it. His face, pink from the sun, his nose sticky white with protective zinc cream, lit up when Alex’s shadow fell on him, attracting his attention, and he called a welcome.

  ‘About time, Alex. We’d given you up.’ He stopped speaking when he noticed that Alex wasn’t alone. ‘Hi!’ he added a little reluctantly.

  Justin nodded.

  ‘You must be holidaying on the Coast, I take it, Mr de Wilde?’ Paul’s eyes flicked from Alex to Justin.

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Justin’s smile took the younger man aback. ‘Make it Justin, Paul. No, I couldn’t believe my good luck when I realised Alex would be down here at the moment as well.’ He turned an enigmatic expression on Alex’s astounded face, while Paul’s face turned even pinker.

  Alex’s anger rose. So that was his game. Well, she’d see about that! ‘You flatter me, Mr de Wilde,’ she said, almost offen­sively. ‘I’m sure you must say that to every female singer.’ She fluttered her eyelashes in his direction.

  ‘No, not everyone. Only you, Alex.’ He used her Christian name pointedly, looking straight at her, smil­ing charmingly.

  To Alex’s consternation her colour rose and she tried to shrug nonchalantly. ‘Yes, well, that remains to be seen.’ She turned back to Paul. ‘Can I borrow your surfboard for half an hour or so, love?’

  If the endearment tacked on the end of her request look Paul by surprise he didn’t show any outward sign that he was aware of it and he sat up and smiled at her. ‘Sure. Take it for as long as you like.’

  Without glancing at Justin Alex slipped out of her blouse and undid the tie of her wraparound skirt before picking up the fibreglass board and walking towards the surf. She could feel Justin’s eyes on her back and didn’t relax until she had paddled past the first line of breakers.

  The surf was reasonably high with the rather stiff breeze whipping up the waves, and Alex was soon lost in the exhilaration of cutting along the crest of a wave. She wasn’t overly confident about her ability at the sport, but thanks to Paul’s coaching she could stand on a board without toppling off into the water.

  The wind caught her hair as she altered the position of her feet on the board to adjust the trim. Feeling the power going out of the wave, she moved to the tail of the board, swinging her forward foot up in the air and over the curl, catching the board as she cut through the back of the wave.

  Sitting relaxedly astride the board waiting for another wave she considered she could tackle, Alex found her thoughts straying back to Justin with disturbing clarity. Why did he have to keep turning up to upset her, throw her off balance? And why should he make such a show of appearing interested in her in front of Paul? Surely he wouldn’t stoop to being a dog in the manger?

  Something soft touched her foot as it dangled in the blue water and she stilled a cry of fright, her first thoughts flashing the word shark. But even as she drew her feet out of the water and on to the board a tanned arm reached out and Justin was shaking the salt water out of his hair. He looked up at her, his eyes bright and clear, and gave her a mock salute.

  ‘Permission to come aboard?’

  ‘You’re joking!’ Alex let her feet slide back into the water, holding the edges of the board to steady it against Justin’s off-centre weight. ‘And you frightened the living daylights out of me. I thought it was a shark.’

  ‘Perhaps you would have welcomed the shark more,’ he said with a smile. The board lurched and he was sitting on the front. Alex slid backwards to try to counterbalance his weight.

  ‘Stay there. It should hold us both as long as we don’t get too energetic.’ He raised one eyebrow. ‘When did you learn to board-ride?’

  Paul taught me a few months ago. I’m no expert, but I can manage to stay upright if I don’t have to do anything fancy.’

  ‘How about teaching me?’ he asked.

  Alex looked at him, trying not to let her gaze fall down the tanned muscular length of his body. ‘I wouldn’t have thought surfboard riding was your thing at all.’

  ‘I may surprise you.’

  ‘Wel
l, I couldn’t teach anyone. I’m not sure enough of it all myself as yet,’ Alex shrugged, ‘so I guess you won’t have to put yourself to the test.’

  ‘Pity. It could have been fun. We may even have ended up friends.’

  Alex raised her eyebrows. ‘Friends.’

  ‘You’d be amazed at the ends to which I’ll go to get what I want,’ he said quietly.

  ‘And what do you really want, Justin?’

  ‘I told you, Alex. I want you back.’

  Chapter 8

  ‘Why?’ Alex kept her voice expressionless.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I? I repeat, you underestimate your attraction, Alex. You always did.’ He leaned forward and ran one finger down her bare arm, his eyes resting on her tanned body. ‘You look great in that bikini. No wonder Denman hangs around you, ever hopeful. You still haven’t lost that quality you always had, to make a guy feel he’s straining at the leash but not quite able to reach out and touch you.’ He shook his head. ‘I used to feel the same way. But I have touched you, Alex. And I want to go on touching you.’

  ‘I don’t care to hear any more of that, Justin.’ Alex’s pulses raced and her skin burned where his finger trailed down her arm. Angry with herself for her reactions to him, she retorted, ‘Get off my board, please! I want to go ashore.’

  ‘You’re running away, Alex, from me and from your­self. What’s the point? You can’t run forever.’ His hand wrapped around her wrist. ‘Stay and face it. Talk about it. I think we can find that bond we used to have if you’ll only give it a chance.’ His thumb almost absently rubbed the inside of her palm.

  ‘You never give up, do you? For some misguided reason you suddenly want to pick up again after years of nothing. Well, it’s no go! I have my own life now and it doesn’t include you, so don’t you think you should practise what you preach and face up to a few things yourself?’

  ‘Alex, don’t push me,’ he said harshly, his fingers tightening, punishing her wrist.

  ‘I wouldn’t dare. Not the great Justin de Wilde, whose word is the law,’ she replied sarcastically, looking at him scornfully.

  His eyes bored into hers for immeasurable seconds before he threw her hand away from him and, using a word Alex had never before heard in polite conversa­tion, he slipped off the surfboard and struck out for the beach.

  Alex sat watching his dark head until tears blurred her vision. With the back of her hand she dashed them angrily from her eyes, chastising herself for her weak­ness. She’d wanted him to go, hadn’t she? So why, all of a sudden, did she want him back so desperately, to take her in his arms and hold her close the way he used to do?

  Well, there was no point in sitting out here wallowing in self-pity over a situation she’d brought on herself. All she had to do was tell him she was willing to make another attempt at their marriage and she could be back where they’d left off. But no, things could never be the same again. She was no longer the gauche young girl so blinded by her image of love and how it should be. Now she had grown up and all those pure girlish dreams were far behind her.

  She had reached maturity the hard way and she was incapable of wiping out the pain of these past six years. The crevasse ran too deep and throbbed too rawly to be so lightly, so easily plastered over. And who could pinpoint the moment when the first fracture had occurred? It would have been so easy to blame Margot for the first chink in their break-up, but Margot had only been a small part of it. A very small part. She could have coped with the situation if it had only been another woman, but…

  Justin had not exaggerated when he said their troubles had begun when they returned to Sydney, and Alex had a terrible suspicion that a great deal of their troubles had been of her own making. If she had not been so young, so naïve, so unrealistic, almost dreamlike in her outlook then perhaps none of it would have happened. Maybe the twelve years difference in their ages had been more important than they thought. Justin was a man of the world, while she had led a sheltered life all wrapped up in her dreams of how things should be.

  Their few days honeymoon on tropical Green Island had been pure bliss and perhaps had only encouraged Alex’s fairytale view of life. The sky and sea were blue, the sand white, the trees green, and their lovemaking had been so much more earth shattering than Alex had ever dreamed it could be. It was as though they were the only two people on earth, wrapped totally in each other. The rest of the world was merely a backdrop for their existence.

  No two people could have been happier and there had been no premonition of the turmoil to come. Alex had accompanied Justin as he continued his engage­ments in Northern Queensland and that had simply been a continuation of their shared days on the island.

  Then in no time at all they were flying back to Sydney and the first inkling that all might not be well had crept into the glowing aura of happiness that Alex had wrapped about her. At the thought of meeting Justin’s parents for the first time her stomach had churned with nervousness.

  Just before their wedding she had spoken to them on the telephone and the impersonality of the instrument had made them all sound rather stilted and forced. It meant so much to her that she should make a good impression, have them like her.

  And Justin’s attitude had done nothing to dispel her nervousness. Since the evening before he had been quiet, loath to talk, less attentive, and over breakfast be had appeared to forget completely that she was there. On the plane he had closed his eyes and to all outward ap­pearances he was catching up on some sleep while Alex sat beside him, wishing he would hold her hand or smile reassuringly at her.

  In fact they were in a taxi heading towards the de Wilde home before she summoned up the courage to talk to him about her nervous reluctance at the coming meeting with his parents.

  ‘I hope they like me.’ She had to repeat it twice before he turned to her.

  ‘They will,’ he replied flatly, and returned his gaze to the passing suburbs through the window of the taxi.

  ‘Justin, what’s the matter?’ she asked softly, her hand on his arm, over-conscious of the taxi driver in the front seat.

  ‘Nothing.’ He frowned. ‘What could be the matter?’ He lifted her hand and kissed it gently, a half smile on his face, and everything was almost all right again.

  The taxi driver deposited their cases on the front porch of a very nice two-storey house, and Alex stood waiting while Justin paid their fare and stepped up to ring the doorbell.

  Grace de Wilde opened the door herself, tall, poised, unsmiling, and at that first glance Alex could remember the sinking feeling of disquiet as her nervousness tripled. How would she ever be able to approach this self-pos­sessed, elegant woman?

  ‘Mother.’ Justin stepped forward to put his arms lightly around her, kissing her on the cheek before turn­ing to draw Alex up beside him. ‘Mother, this is Alex.’

  ‘How do you do, Alex.’ Justin’s mother touched her cheek briefly to Alex’s. ‘Come on inside.’

  They sat in the living-room and drank tea from an exquisite bone china tea set and tried to talk. Sitting on the edge of her chair, Alex could only answer Justin or his mother in monosyllables, and she almost gasped with relief when Grace suggested that Justin show Alex to their room so that she could freshen up before dinner. Justin’s father would be home by then.

  Inside the room they were to share Alex sagged tiredly back against the closed door, feeling tears of despair well up in her eyes. ‘Oh, Justin, she doesn’t like me at all,’ she cried to his back as he lifted her suitcase on to the bed.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Alex. Mother’s only just met you. There’s no reason why she’d take an instant dislike to you.’ He turned and shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers, a frown on his face.

  Tears tumbled down her pale cheeks and he crossed to her, pulling her gently against him. ‘Alex, no tears. You’re overtired.’ He kissed her nose. ‘I love you, and when she gets to know yo
u, so will Mother. Why not have a shower and lie down for a while? You’ll feel better when you’ve rested.’

  Alex nodded slowly. ‘What… What will you do?’

  ‘I’ll go down and chat to Mother. She likes to hear all about my tours. Now, off you go. I’ll come up and get you in good time for dinner.’ He kissed her softly again and left her.

  After a relaxing shower and rest Alex did feel better and she dressed for dinner with special care, choosing a pale blue crepe dress, its simple lines accentuating her slim figure, the pale blue colour highlighting the clear blue of her eyes. She brushed her hair until it shone and she was applying just a light touch of make-up when Justin returned.

  ‘Ready?’

  Alex stood back from the mirror. ‘Yes. Just about.’

  ‘Feel better now?’ he asked softly, sounding more like he had in the first weeks of their marriage.

  ‘Mmm, much better.’ Alex nodded. ‘Do I look all right?’

  Justin’s eyes moved over her in a proprietary fashion, the flame leaping there bringing a flush to her cheeks. ‘You look beautiful. I think we’d best go down right away, before my ideas develop any further.’ He took her arm, his fingers moving slowly over her firm bare skin.

  Justin’s father arrived home as Justin and Alex de­scended the stairs and he smiled up at them with Justin’s smile. Alex relaxed, taking to him immediately. He kissed her soundly, congratulating his son on his choice of brides and welcoming Alex to the family. Everything was going to be all right. Maybe Justin had been right, she had been simply tired.

  Grace de Wilde joined them and suggested they go into the living-room for a drink before dinner. And it was as they sat over their meal that Alex heard Margot’s name mentioned for the first of many times.

  ‘Did you know Margot was back from Europe?’ Grace asked her son.

  Justin shook his head, his expression not changing as he sipped his wine.

  ‘Yes, we met in the city for lunch last week. She’ll most probably be working with you again this season.’ Grace turned to Alex. ‘Margot’s a fine soprano and an old friend of Justin’s. You’ll have heard of her? Margot Donald.’