All that had stopped him breaking his own rule against office romances was one undeniable fact; only a bastard would bring his sort of darkness into her life.
War took its toll on a man, and the same skills that had enabled him to build Tamerlane Security also made him unfit for a long term relationship. Except short term sex without commitment no longer did it for him. He wanted Rita—and she was in his apartment, needing him to get his act together.
Ivan made toast.
Rita thought she’d braced herself for the sight of the ruined house, but the reality surpassed any nightmare. It was a burned-out, broken shell. The rosebushes by the front steps were blackened stalks. The lawn was a muddy, sooty mess.
Ivan parked his car on the street and squeezed her knee. “We’ll get you through this.”
“I don’t see how.” Hysteria bubbled up, tensing her muscles and making her breathing quick and shallow.
A large hand cupped her jaw and turned her to him, removing the view of the house. “You’re not alone. We’ll fix this.” Blue eyes looked hypnotically into hers. His thumb smoothed over her skin. His very restraint emphasised his strength. “Whatever you need, ask me and I’ll sort it.”
She shook her head, but that just turned her face into his light touch, and her lips brushed against his hand. She stilled.
“Hell, Rita.” He moved his hand slowly and lowered his head to hers.
It was a brief, chaste kiss of heart-shaking tenderness.
She unbuckled her seatbelt and stumbled out of the car before she succumbed to the madness of believing what that kiss promised. Caring, devotion, being there.
“Hi, Rita. How are you, chickie?” Tony gave her a one-armed shoulder squeeze. “Keys.”
She closed her hand over car keys. “They survived?” She was incredulous that anything had survived the blaze.
“Nope, but Ivan organised a replacement set. The car guy came by earlier.” He looked beyond her to Ivan. “The arson investigator and insurance assessor are poking around now. They reckon it was an electrical fault.”
“But I just had the house rewired.” She was shocked into protest. “All the electrical wiring is new.”
“Bloody electrician,” Ivan growled.
He growled it again when the insurance assessor spoke with them.
“The fire started in a wall of the kitchen, behind the refrigerator. By the time the smoke alarm sounded, it would have been well and truly alight, smouldering internally. You’re lucky you got out, Ms Jordan. These old houses are fire traps.”
Ivan clamped her to his side. Everyone else departed, including Tony, and she and Ivan poked through the ruins of the house. She found a few things, and Ivan produced a box from the back of his car. She put the few ornaments and heavy silver cutlery in the box. It was surreal to see her furniture as blackened blobs.
“I don’t care.” She straightened up suddenly from picking through the remains of her lounge room. “If there’s anything else here, it can rot.”
The fire had been fierce and comprehensively destructive. She was deluding herself to think there was anything left to salvage.
“I need new clothes. I need to go and buy them. I need to organise accommodation.”
“You’re staying with me.”
“No.” She kept going. “I need to see about securing the site. I don’t want kids climbing around and hurting themselves.”
“I’ll call a fencing company, and you are coming home with me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ivan.” She embraced her anger, enthusiastically. It was safer than feeling bereft and confused. “You’re my boss.”
“I’m your friend.”
“I’ve got my car. I can be independent.”
“There’s independence and there’s stupidity.” He was suddenly in her space, ash swirling around his feet. “You’re going to come home to my place, tonight. You’re not going to try to solve all your problems, all at once, on your own.”
“I am on my own.” Her soft scream echoed on the silence.
“Only if you insist on being stubborn.”
She knew him in this relentless mood. He’d keep on being reasonable until he got his way.
“Promise me you’ll come back to my apartment,” he said.
“I can get a hotel room. Or I can stay with Sonya.”
“You’re staying with me.”
And there it was. For whatever reason, he’d assumed responsibility for her. He probably, no definitely, pitied her. He came from a large family. His parents were Croatian migrants back in the Sixties. Their extended family rambled endlessly. She knew because she listened to his grumbles about family get togethers. Plus he had two brothers and a sister. He never had to face the world alone.
“I hate pity,” she said.
“Then try some commonsense.” Ivan didn’t give an inch. “Take advantage of having a place to stay while you get yourself sorted.”
“All right.” She gave in, but glared at him so he’d know she wasn’t happy about it.
“All right what?”
He was so suspicious.
“All right I’ll stay in your apartment today and tonight, and thank you.”
His mouth twitched at her gratitude, which did actually sound more like ‘and damn you’.
“The security card to the apartment and the code.” He handed both over to her. “I have to go into the office for a bit, but I do not want to see you there.” He spaced out the last few words. “Shop. Go back to the apartment. Have a soak in the bath.”
“You are so bossy.” She zipped the card securely inside her handbag.
“That could be because I am your boss.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, something she wouldn’t have dreamed of doing yesterday.
He laughed and lifted her into a quick hug. “Good to see you’re recovering.” He carried her, still in a modified hug out of the ruins of the house and deposited her near the garage.
The garage was old, set back in the corner of the yard and made of asbestos. She’d been going to replace it, not liking the thought of asbestos anywhere, but its inflammable nature had probably saved her car and the odds and ends of tools and junk stacked in there with it.
She unwound her arms from his neck. How did they get there?
“I’ll wait for you to start the car, just to check everything’s working as it should.” He released her slowly, one hand running down her spine.
“You’re being really nice.”
“That’s me. A nice guy.” Irony dripped from the words.
No, he wasn’t a nice guy. Nice was for wimps. But he was a man you could rely on, a man it would be all too easy to give your heart to. “Maybe you shouldn’t be so nice to me.”
“What?”
But she was ducking away, getting into her car and reversing out. Ivan slapped the roof of the car and she braked.
“You’d better be in the apartment when I get back from the office,” he said.
She stared at him, wide-eyed.
“Or I’ll show you just how not nice I can be.” He strode away to his car. Bemused, she watched the denim of his old jeans stretch and mould to the muscles of his butt and thighs. Normally he camouflaged his raw power in business suits, but this was Ivan in his essence.
“I think I’m in trouble.”
Chapter 3
Rita didn’t hear the apartment door open, but she did hear Ivan’s steps as he roamed around it and finally tracked her to the tiny laundry room.
“I told you to relax.” He stood in the doorway, large and exasperated.
She finished transferring her new clothes from the washing machine to the dryer. She’d never owned a dryer. She’d always pegged her washing to the line in the back yard, near the old lemon tree. She hesitated a moment, checking the simple options for drying clothes, then pressed ‘start’. “I don’t like wearing new clothes till they’ve been washed.”
“I guess I should be grateful you used my machine and did
n’t go to a Laundromat.”
She concentrated on straightening the laundry basket. She had actually considered a Laundromat before realising the ridiculousness of such an action of independence.
“I need a beer.” He stalked off to the kitchen, opened the fridge door and stopped.
“I hope you don’t mind.” She darted around him to stir the sauce simmering on the stove. Tomato and basil. She’d found both at the supermarket. So much better than bottled sauces. “I thought I’d make dinner, as a kind of thank you. I hope you like ravioli? It’s spinach and ricotta.”
“Fine.”
“I bought a Greek salad and there’s chocolate gelato and strawberries for dessert.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“Yes. It took me ages to find some clothes. I didn’t want to buy things that I’d never wear again. So now I have enough to get me through a few days. I can buy more in my lunch hours.”
The frown that had been lifting from his face, descended again. “You can have as much time off as you need.”
“I’ll manage.”
He looked like he’d like to argue, but instead turned back to the fridge. When he straightened, he held a bottle of champagne. “Since I’m getting a home-cooked meal, this is better than beer.” He nudged her out of the way with a hip as he reached for glasses.
The champagne cork popped and he poured the bubbly generously.
She decided bleakly that he undoubtedly had lots of practice. The women he brought back to the apartment were definitely the champagne type.
“I bought the champers for my cousin Joe’s engagement party, then the Karim case erupted at work. I never made it to the party.”
He couldn’t be reading her mind, she assured herself. But she kept her gaze fastened on his throat rather than meet those clever eyes, as she accepted a glass. She sipped and savoured the tingle of bubbles on her tongue. “It’s lovely.”
“Definitely better than a solo dinner and a beer. Can I help with anything?”
“All that needs doing is to boil the pasta, and that’ll be whenever you want to eat.”
“How about we enjoy the glass of champagne, then think about eating?”
She nodded and followed him out onto the balcony. At evening, the view across the river was breath-taking. She sat on a comfortably cushioned chair and watched the stream of traffic trailing home to the suburbs.
Ivan slouched back and lifted his feet onto the balcony’s railing.
She grinned at the long length of leg. “How tall are you?”
“Six three. You’re not so short yourself.”
“Five nine.” She drank some champagne. It was better to delude herself that it was the alcohol and not Ivan, quiet and reliable beside her, that was responsible for her sudden sense of relaxation.
They sat in silence as the sun went down and the traffic eased. Rita glanced at her new watch and blinked. Her clothes would be dry by now and both their glasses were empty.
“I’ll put the water on for the pasta.” She filled the pot, added salt and placed it on the stove before rescuing her clothes from the dryer. By the time they were folded and stowed in her new suitcase, the water was boiling.
Ivan had set the table. He leaned against the island bench. “I had them put up fencing around your house.”
“Thanks.”
After their easy silence on the balcony, her sudden self-consciousness surprised her. Perhaps it was the domesticity. “Why did you call me last night? What was the emergency?”
“Kai’s son, Aaron.”
“What’s he done now?”
Gordon Kai was a multimillionaire. His son Aaron was a troublemaker.
“He got mixed up with one of the bikie gangs on the Gold Coast.”
During her year with Tamerlane Security Rita had learned a lot. The bikies were not people to mess with.
“Have you gotten him out of it?”
“Caleb’s negotiating.”
“It’s that bad?” She paused before draining the cooked pasta.
“It’s that bad,” Ivan confirmed. “Plus, Caleb’s sick of us cleaning up after the kid. He convinced me Aaron needs a lesson. He convinced Gordon, too.”
“Poor Aaron.”
“Only you’d feel sorry for him.” He followed her to the table and refilled their champagne glasses. “The kid’s a mess.”
“He’s twenty three, not really a kid.”
“That makes it worse.”
She waited till they both started eating. “I think Aaron knows he’ll never measure up to the memory of his brother James.”
The relaxed lines of Ivan’s face shifted into the flat ‘warrior’ mask he assumed too readily. “Half brother, and Aaron doesn’t even try.”
James had been in Ivan’s army unit, and had died in the Middle East.
“It’s sad.” She hesitated. “Your brothers didn’t join the army, did they? And they’re both younger than you.”
“Ryan is a high school maths teacher and Steve is a helicopter pilot flying cattle musters in Queensland.”
“Do they envy you your success?”
“Why would they?” He stabbed an olive from the Greek salad. “Ryan is married with a daughter and Steve’s engaged to his girlfriend from university days. They’re both doing jobs they love.” He paused. “I’m the one Mum worries about.”
“Why?” But she’d pushed too far.
He shrugged. “Worrying is what mums do.”
She let the conversation lapse.
Silence never seemed to bother Ivan. He served himself a second helping of pasta—’good sauce’—and ate it, then insisted he’d clear the table. While he stacked the dishwasher, she spooned gelato into two bowls and added the strawberries she’d had soaking in sugar. Their flavour would be intense, brought out by the tiniest dash of balsamic vinegar. She contemplated the bowls for a moment, wondering if Ivan would think she’d gone too far.
“Chocolate ice cream is my favourite.” He stretched out on the sofa in front of the television, his feet on a big matching ottoman, almost a seat in itself.
She curled up in an armchair.
“Do you mind if I watch the news?”
It was something all women complained about, their men hogging the television remote control. For Rita, it was unique. She had to remind herself that this relaxed sense of closeness was false. Tomorrow, when she left the apartment, she’d lose it, too. “Go ahead.”
He poured the last of the champagne into their glasses and lounged back.
She finished her dessert and quietly took her champagne with her onto the balcony.
“Are you okay?” The television still burbled, but Ivan stood behind her.
“Yeah.” She turned and faced him, leaning back against the high railing. “I was just thinking about my house. I think I’ll rent a flat while I think what to do with it. I stayed there because it was the family home, but now that it’s gone, I don’t know if I can go back and rebuild. The memories are gone.”
She ducked her head as tears stung her eyes. He took the glass from her hand and pulled her into his arms. She hid her face against his throat.
“Memories never disappear,” he said. “Sometimes I wish they did. Wherever you go, they’ll be part of you.”
“No. Memories fade. They vanish. That’s why we need photos and mementos, souvenirs. They’re all gone. All that was left of my family is gone.”
“Ssshh.” His arms tightened.
“My granddads died before I was born and my grans when I was a kid. I never had aunts or uncles, and then, Mum and Dad were hit by a drunk driver when I was nineteen. Mum died instantly. Dad died in hospital. He never regained consciousness.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“And now I have nothing of them. Not even the house. And I just have to keep going forward because there’s nothing else I can do. I’m scared and I’m tired.” She pushed at his chest, like a jumper-punch in football. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
>
“You can tell me anything.” Her jumper-punch didn’t move him.
“Why should I tell you anything? You don’t share your problems with me. What are the memories that you can’t get rid of?”
“Men dying. Friends dying,” he said.
She jerked her head back and looked up at him.
“I hear screams and moans. I see the bodies of dead children.”
She shuddered and wrapped her arms around him.
“My memories are nightmares and they’ll be with me forever. You don’t need to share them.”
“You’re a macho idiot,” she told him bluntly. “You need to share them with someone. They’re part of you.”
“But they don’t fit in civilian life. Look at my hands.” He released her suddenly. “I’ve killed a man with these hands.”
She flinched at the raw note in his voice.
“See,” he said, fiercely satisfied. “You can’t bear for me to touch you.”
She caught his left hand and carried it to her mouth, kissing the palm. Her mouth lingered.
He made a sound as if she’d stabbed him, then grabbed her roughly and his mouth replaced his palm.
Their kiss was hot and harsh and howling with hunger. She pressed into him, all the emotion of her loss and grief transformed into stark need. She had wanted him for so long—ever since she saw him standing by his desk, waiting to interview her. Commonsense had insisted she suppress the need, but now it burned out of control. She could regret everything later.
She scraped her nails down his back, feeling his skin shiver beneath the fine cotton shirt. She moaned and rose on tiptoe as his tongue invaded her mouth. She sucked and his hands moved down her back to dig into her butt, pulling her in. They both liked that sensation, shuddering in unison. He swung her round, backed her into the glass door of the balcony and thrust against her.
“Yes. Ivan.” Her voice was slurred and aching as he dragged his mouth down her arched throat. She curled her foot around his calf, then gasped approval as he lifted her and she could wrap both legs around him.
His strength held her against the glass, freeing his hands to slide under her t shirt, warmly over her belly and up to close over her breasts.
Memories Of Love Page 2