"What order do the belts go in?” Cain had no knowledge of and, until now, no interest in martial arts. In his lifetime, the best he'd ever managed was a great bar room brawling technique. Even so, his fists hadn't served as weapons for a long time now. Until tonight, he had preferred to use words. Maybe he'd go out and join a dojo tomorrow.
"White, yellow, green, blue, brown, black,” she reeled the order off. “I'm aiming for black within another three or four years."
Hmm ... so she had long-term plans for her martial art, but none for him. Not very reassuring and extremely unflattering. “Are you deadly yet?” She'd certainly looked it, standing over the full-grown man she'd dropped like a sack of shit.
"No. Traditional aikido doesn't have killing blows. We aim to stop our opponents, protect ourselves and leave everyone alive. Steven Segal modified it to suit his needs ... Did you know it's Aikido he does, combat aikido he calls it. Don't know what other kind there is, really.” Her voice was flat and monotone, but at least she'd stopped shaking.
"A blue belt escort, who gathers information on gold mining from Oprah shows.” It was a highly unlikely scenario, and rather insulting of her to think he'd swallow it.
"Yup."
At least she'd had the dignity to gulp that lie. “How's the hand?"
"What? Oh! Hurts a bit, actually.” She flexed her fingers. “I don't think anything is broken."
"No hospital then?"
"Not necessary. Thank you anyway."
"What about a hairdresser? We really need to do something about that colour."
She smiled bemusedly, fluffing at the terrible blonde wig. “I'll take that as a compliment ... thank you."
Two thank yous in a row. Since when was polite choir girl part of her persona? “Let me take you home, Olivia."
"I'm okay, I'll get a cab.” Was that panic he detected in the catch of her breath and the quick flick of her eyes toward the door handle?
Sighing, he slapped his hands against the steering wheel. “Just tell me your address, okay?” He felt stupid to think he'd had the most amazing sex of his life with a woman who fed him lies for breakfast and kept even her address a secret. Clearly, he needed a holiday, because he'd already taken leave of his senses.
"Thirty-eight Caroline Street, South Yarra."
He felt his eyebrows shoot up, not sure if it was because she'd surrendered to his demand, or whether he was surprised at the address. She lived in a swanky part of town. Either she earned a lot more than he'd guessed, or she had another source of income altogether. How was it that he knew all about her body, but not a single thing about her life or what went on inside her head? Certainly he'd gone about creating a relationship in a completely arse-about fashion, after all he'd been lured into by her delicious body and fantastic eyes. Captured by her languages, her wit and her laughter, he'd had little choice but to at least try seducing her. Now he understood his mother's warnings during his teen years—the ones about “getting to know a girl” before he slept with her. He knew nothing about Olivia and it made him feel like a prize idiot.
"Any more surprises I should know about?"
"Who me? Surprising? No way, I'm just your run of the mill escort.” Again she found precisely the scornful, derisory tone he'd used their first morning together, and he cringed inwardly. He'd hurt her or she wouldn't keep bringing it up. Barely two dates, two nights and an intervention together and he'd already upset her. Way to go Warner!
"I'm sorry for that comment; it was unwarranted. I was upset at you for running out on me. I'd been hoping we might have breakfast, read the papers ... spend a day together. I felt ... used."
"Forgiven."
"That was easy.” How could he not be suspicious?
"You'll make up for it later.” Her gaze roved slowly along the length of his body.
He could hardly wait.
CHAPTER FIVE
Driving away from the hotel, Cain flipped on the radio. If music soothed the savage beast, maybe it would also do something for her, Olivia figured. Wriggling in the soft leather seat, she tried to get comfortable. Most people probably had little trouble at all getting comfortable in this car, designed as it was for luxuriant ease. She, however, was feeling increasingly uneasy. Breathing a sigh of relief when they stopped at the lights, she turned to face Cain, pasting a smile on her face. She wasn't as well recovered as she'd have liked. During her confrontation with Phillip, she'd lost her cool and now didn't know where to find it. Nervous of what Cain might see while examining her face so carefully, she automatically sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, trying again to find her nerve.
"Leave some of that for me,” he admonished quietly, slipping his fingers inside the fist of her right hand. She couldn't help but loosen her grip when he kissed her knuckles, then sucked her forefinger into his mouth. Feeling herself wince as he swirled his tongue across the tiny grazes on her knuckles, she tried tugging her hand away. His tongue was creating far too many sensations for her to deal with while trapped in a car.
In the face of any number of reasons to give up and suffocate, Olivia tried concentrating on breathing. Cain's mouth at her hand was distracting enough that she could just forget to inhale. The way he moved her finger in and out of his mouth was more than merely suggestive. She could imagine doing the same thing with his body. Dear God, she was getting wet already. He'd love that.
The spreading pleasure in the pit of her stomach grew immeasurably when he scraped his teeth over the pad of her finger. If they weren't stuck in this suffocating machine, she knew he'd have taken advantage of the quivering sensations spreading across her body. When the street light changed colour, his concentration was drawn back to the road. When he wasn't looking at her, the distraction he provided diminished. Returning her eyes to the road, the pleasure in her stomach became a violent pit of churning bile.
It wasn't that cars made her nervous, the truth was they scared the absolute bejeebies out of her. Not all modes of transport had such a dramatic effect. Despite the fact that flying cans had a propensity for falling from the sky, she utterly adored aeroplanes. Mostly she liked planes because they usually meant new and adventurous, probably holiday, locations. The possibility of crashing was of little consequence when the destination was fantastic.
Trains didn't worry her in the least. In fact, she'd booked herself for a trip on “The Ghan” already. The train's route ran from Adelaide to Darwin via a great many other towns, straight through the red centre of Australia. “The Ghan,” was named for the Afghan camel traders who had been the only people able to travel the impassable terrain. She could barely wait to get on that particular mode of transportation.
Even motorbikes weren't a worry for her. Wind rushing past her face, clutching to the body of the rider, she'd long held some rather adventurous fantasies involving motorbikes ... although their general proximity to cars and insane car drivers was somewhat of a concern.
Submarines had always enticed her imagination, too. A perfectly viable form of transport. With so few of them chugging around in an immensely large ocean, she supposed that the odds of surviving a submarine expedition were probably better than surviving this short trip home. Even ships and space shuttles seemed better options than hurtling along a bitumen road, crowded with vehicles ... vehicles manned by people who were often not paying attention. Cars were the reason Olivia loved trams so much. Trams were another reason she loved Melbourne.
Sneaking a peek to her right, past the padded leather steering wheel, she checked the speedometer. Cain wasn't speeding, it just felt like he was. Trying to ignore the sweat beading at her hairline, where the ugly blonde wig started, she closed her eyes while terror grew huge in her chest. Little smatterings of fear worked their way along her throat, causing her to gulp breath like a drowning woman. Her chest felt like tight steel bands had closed about her ribcage and her thoughts were fluttering about in her head, madly trying to avoid the one subject that scared her most.
Breathe in, breathe out. J
ust breathe and think about something else. Think about the odds ... That pathetic advice was exactly the reason Olivia had stopped going to see her therapist. Who needed a therapist to give that kind of advice? What she really needed was something that would actually work. Valium, for example. Something ... anything to stop her from opening the car door and leaping out of the still moving vehicle would have been appreciated. Something that would...
"Jesus Christ!” Cain swore loudly standing on and then pulsing at the brake pedal.
Olivia was thrown against the seat belt. The tyres screeched, probably leaving behind great black snail trails on the road. Inhaling took all her strength, especially since it seemed she was fighting against what felt like a pallet of bricks stacked on her chest. Against her will, her eyes snapped open, forcing her to watch the bonnet of Cain's midnight blue jaguar miss the red light running, blatantly homicidal driver's side of a gigantic four-wheel drive. A four-wheel drive fitted with kangaroo bar, most likely to ensure it completely destroyed any other car it chose to plow into while careening through the streets. Was it possible for all the blood to drain from her face when it sounded like the entire contents of her circulatory system was pounding in her ears? The odds ... God bless the odds.
* * * *
Olivia's gasping inhalation filled the interior of the car, assaulting Cain's ears, making him feel even more jittery than he already did with adrenaline coursing through his veins. Looking across at her, he noticed the sickly pallor of her skin. Clammy and pale, she looked far more shaken than such a minor brush should warrant. Whatever was going on, now was neither the time nor the place to discuss it.
"Tell your mother I saved your life.” The wink and the grin accompanying the childhood phrase came out before he could stop them. As a boy, he and his friends had often played at this, holding one another by the backpack, shoving someone off the curb towards the traffic or almost onto the train tracks before snatching them back just in time. It had been incredibly dangerous and stupid he knew now, but at thirteen and fourteen, it had coursed an endorphin rush through his body similar to the one he was feeling now.
No sooner had the words left his lips than he watched Olivia's complexion grow positively translucent. Accompanying the pallor came a green tinge that couldn't mean anything good. Home, he had to get her home. The car was still idling in gear, the bloody radio still on. Turning off the music, anger settling into his mood, he accelerated away from the intersection.
Watching her, just waiting for his cue to pull over, he saw her lean an elbow on the windowsill and raise a shaking hand to support her temple. He could hear her teeth chattering. Then, when overhead street lighting illuminated her face, he saw something more. Tears glimmered trails down her cheeks. Shiny crystalline droplets hung from her lashes just waiting to follow their friends. Why was she crying?
"Olivia, are you all right?” Well of course she wasn't, any fool could see that. At the moment, though, in the face of this beautiful if frantic woman, he couldn't think of a single worthwhile thing to say.
* * * *
Olivia closed her eyes. Why had she expected something more? She was so tired of people who didn't really care asking after her well being. Her stomach was past churning now. It was clenched tight and threatened to expel everything she'd eaten if she didn't keep her teeth bitten hard together. Precisely the reason she nodded at Cain without lifting her head from the supportive fingers at her temple. If she spoke, she'd vomit right here on his lovely upholstery. Not the image for an escort at all.
Tell your mother I saved your life. Tears trickled faster down her cheeks. Stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking ... Okay think, but make it a blank T.V. screen. Blank, nothing, blank, nothing. Doing her damnedest to imagine the screen, big, black and blank, she worried at her bottom lip. Tasting droplets of blood was almost a pleasant distraction.
"For Christ's sweet sake, Olivia, what the hell is wrong with you?"
Cain pulled the car onto the side of the road, his words sounding exasperated and irritable. She could understand that. She was behaving stupidly in reaction to what had really been nothing more than a near miss. There'd been no damage to either car or any of their occupants, so what was she carrying on about? He had every right to be put out. She had every right to be freaked out.
The second the car stopped moving, she saw her chance to escape its suffocating confines. Clawing at the door handle, she stumbled from the death machine. Picking a direction, she kicked off her high-heeled shoes and started walking. There had to be a tram stop around somewhere. Arms wrapped about her waist, trying to keep her dinner in, she heard Cain swearing in the background. If she were lucky, he'd swear, bang on the roof of his car, give up on her, and drive away. That way he'd take nothing with him but anger, the conviction she was a nutcase, and a few hot memories. If he did leave, she'd get to live this down quietly, unobtrusively, without having to explain it to anyone.
The night was warm and clear but it had rained earlier. Puddles on black concrete shone pretty with rainbows in the street light. Teardrops of rain still sparkled while clinging to the guttering on bus shelters. The smallest things made the best distraction from her tangled thoughts.
Cain seemed to come out of nowhere and catch her by the waist. Picking her up, he walked until he reached the nearest bus shelter. He sat on a bench and placed her on his lap. Holding her close, he brushed the ridiculous blonde hair from her face and waited for her to speak. Tears still blurred her vision, so discerning his expression was impossible.
"Are you going to tell me now or are we going to sit here all night?"
"Please, Cain, don't make me. I can't talk about it.” Despite her whisper, Olivia's whole body cramped like a tetanus victim when she spoke. Her muscles tried to clamp down on the shudders racking her, tried to keep the rest of the words at bay, tried to evade the anguish so close to the surface now.
"Are you kidding me? The multilingual, misogynist bashing, Oprah informed gold mining expert, can't talk about it? I do believe your multiple languages have let you down. The word you should be using is won't."
Shaking her head, she denied the validity of his statement. She couldn't, really couldn't. Dismayed, she felt her face crumple, the sobs beginning without her permission. It wasn't quiet, dignified weeping. It was ugly, lung-searing, gut-wrenching sobbing. It was so far from the Olivia she wanted Cain to see, she didn't know how to reconcile the two images for him. When the memories came, vividly flashing scenes from her past, she didn't bother trying. At this point in time, she didn't feel like the Olivia he knew. She was the Olivia she'd left way back in her past—little Olivia returned to create a mess of her pleasant pretence of sanity.
To his credit, Cain didn't run screaming in the other direction at the sight of her make-up smeared face. He let her finish with the heart-crushing pain tearing through her lungs and out her throat before he persisted with his interrogation.
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me. It must have something to do with the car. Either you can tell me, or I'll find out for myself, somehow."
It was a hollow threat. Only two other living humans in the entire universe knew what could upset and unnerve her so badly. Charlotte was one, and she'd never tell anyone without Olivia's express permission, and the other ... well the other wasn't anyone Cain would ever meet. Still, she was touched that he'd let her sob all over him, that he cared enough to ask. Not only to ask but to listen when she answered. She probably owed him an explanation and something in her heart compelled her to tell him her secrets.
She fumbled trying to figure out where to start. So hard to know where to enter the story, how to explain. Beginnings were always slow and unimpressive, even when their ending was devastating. “M-my name is Olivia Therese Duplessis-Maigret. My family is French. We immigrated when I was twelve.” Her lips twitched through the tears at all the memories she couldn't relate in words. Her parents’ pride and excitement, their eagerness to be Australian, the hours of extra English t
uition before they'd even applied. The warmth and love radiating from them when they spoke of either country.
"There were four of us. We were so proud and happy to be in Australia, to be Australian. We wanted to learn the whole country. Immigrants are like that you know—most of the time they know more about a country than its natives. We were no different. My parents were desperate to see everywhere, talk to everyone. Every holiday they'd explore somewhere new. Sometimes not even holidays. Sometimes my parents would take us out of school. My father—his name was Henri. Yes, I know...” she paused, waving a hand at what she could guess Cain was thinking, “all French men are called Henri. My father would remove us from school for a week or two and take us on another Australian adventure."
Olivia could be calm relating all this for him. These were the good bits, the wonderful bits, and would make what followed even worse. If her father had been a violent child abuser or an alcoholic, her mother a neurotic drug addicted prostitute, maybe it wouldn't have been so horrid. But they weren't ... and it was.
"When I was fifteen, Pere—Father—planned for us to see the dog sitting on the tuckerbox near Gundagai. I don't know why. I've been there in recent years and it's so small. So ordinary. It's not something to...” Breathe, don't forget to breathe. “We were driving on a road, a straight road, almost there. Pere was trying to make it to the town because there was nothing else around—no hotels, not even a caravan park. A flat tyre made us late, so we were driving in the dark. I was asleep."
Oh, God, would the tears never stop? Sentences between sobs, this was not the way to tell a story. She could feel the stiffening in his body. Already Cain was tired of “Olivia the wet blanket.” Not looking at him, talking into the night, she couldn't tell if he was angry, cold or anticipating what would come next. Shivering, she swallowed another sob before trying again.
"I ... I ... I woke up to the sound of shrieking brakes. Shattering glass stung me like a million small bees and the screaming ... God, the screaming would break your heart. And then, and then there was nothing. Our car was hit by a truck. The driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. He swerved on a straight road ... a straight road!” Olivia fought back the hysteria that came rising with the memories like the bile in her throat.
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