by Trish Morey
Even the way he handled the streets in a foreign city had her impressed. The Coonawarra could get busy, sure, on festival weekends or in peak season, but this was workaday madness and it just went on and on.
‘How do you know where you’re going?’
‘Sheer gut instinct,’ he answered, looking so superbly confident behind the wheel that she almost believed him. Then he looked at her over his sunglasses. ‘And I may have checked a map. It’s not that hard. Not far now.’
And while she loved the playfulness he sometimes showed, she almost wished he’d never given a glimpse of this side of his character. It made it harder to remember this was temporary. It made it too easy to wish for things that she shouldn’t wish for, things that could never be.
She gazed out at the busy city streets, the swirling traffic and the crush of pedestrians, promising herself that she would not fall into that trap. She’d sworn black and blue that she wouldn’t get emotional or needy or start thinking domestic bliss. And yet here she was already dreading his leaving. Knowing she would miss him. Knowing it would hurt.
Two weeks, that was all they probably had left together, given the progress they’d made with the pruning. Two short weeks at most.
That was all she was ever going to have.
She tossed her hair back and took a deep, settling breath.
It would be enough.
It would have to be.
He took a right at an intersection and pulled into a hotel reception driveway. ‘Here we are.’
‘The Chatsfield? But I thought—’
‘I changed the reservation,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I get a family discount.’ And he shot her a smile that made her laugh as the doorman opened her door and welcomed her to the hotel.
But really, the Chatsfield?
‘My parents were married here,’ she mused, taking in the classical facade of the stone building as he handed over the car key to the valet and joined her.
‘I know,’ he said, serious again. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I thought you might want to see.’
‘No, it’s … lovely. It’s so strange to think of them here so many years ago.’
‘I’ve got something to show you. Once we’re all checked in.’
All she could do was nod and smile as the brass-framed glass door opened into the smiling luxurious world of Sydney’s version of the Chatsfield.
It was like stepping back in time, Holly thought as she passed through the marble entry, although it wasn’t old-fashioned so much as classically elegant. Nothing looked cheap. Nothing looked shabby. Even the city air had been left behind and there was a note on the air—lemongrass?—clean and fresh. The whole impression was quality all the way, like she’d imagined Chatsfield’s had been in the past, before its reputation had been tarnished.
This hotel didn’t look tarnished.
Check-in was awesomely efficient. Amazing, of course, what a Chatsfield name on the booking could do to speed that up. And then they were shown to their room.
No, make that suite.
A suite with a view.
‘Our finest suite,’ said their well-practised personal concierge, who pushed open the door to a view that anyone in their right mind would gladly pay millions for and probably did. The best of Sydney was spread out around them with a panorama that stretched from the Sydney heads on one side all the way to the sails of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge on the other.
He gave them a second to drink in the view before showing them around their extravagant suite, a king-size bedroom complete with four-poster bed, a sumptuous marble bathroom and the expansive lounge area complete with dining table and where fresh flowers filled vases on timber side tables, lending their sweetness to the air.
‘A beautiful city,’ Franco said beside her after the concierge had left and they returned to the windows overlooking the city.
Holly was awestruck. She was actually here, in Sydney, looking out over a diamond-tipped harbour dotted with ferries and yachts crisscrossing the waters. And there, nestled alongside the harbour, was the Opera House, where Saturday’s award presentation would be made. All of a sudden she felt ill. She put a hand to her stomach, where butterflies were madly flapping their wings. ‘I don’t think I’m ready for this,’ she said.
‘You will be,’ he assured her, and then, ‘Come with me, there’s something I want you to see.’
He took her down the lift to the library room, a sumptuously rich dark room with panelled timber walls and high ceilings and shelves filled with books and old leather-bound ledgers. Wing-backed chairs and low tables strewn with the day’s newspapers from around the globe invited one to sit down and linger.
‘A lot of the archival material for the hotel is kept in here,’ he told her, ‘but this,’ he said, leading her towards a timber-and-glass cabinet on one wall between shelves, ‘is what I wanted you to see.’
And as she came closer she saw. There was a dried flower arrangement and an assortment of papers and newspaper clippings and above it all a photograph, of a smiling bride and groom holding a knife poised over a beautiful three-tier wedding cake.
Her parents.
Her mother in the beautiful white dress that she’d seen in the old newspaper cutting, but unlike the cutting, this picture was clear and crisp and she could see the piping on the dress and the lace at her neck and the tiny buttons on the cuffs of her sleeves.
The entire contents of the cabinet were given over to a record of that day on the Chatsfield Sydney’s opening weekend, complete with copies of the menu of their wedding breakfast and an order of ceremony.
And the flowers? Holly gasped as she read the note printed alongside. Holly’s mother’s bouquet, which her mother had offered to the hotel as thanks for their perfect wedding.
And it was so beautifully preserved, the roses crinkled at the edges but still pink, the tiny white gypsophila sprigs still light as air between.
Her mother had held this walking down the aisle to meet her father.
She pored over each and every item, read each little card at least twice, not wanting to miss a single tiny detail, and as she drank it all in, she realised she’d been given a gift—a glimpse of her parents on their special day as they’d started their new family together.
She sniffed, bit her lips together so she didn’t do more. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘it’s beautiful.’
‘I thought you’d like to see it.’
She couldn’t pretend any more. She brushed away the tears on her cheeks.
‘How did you know this was here?’
‘I didn’t, not really, but I guessed there would be some record kept, at least a picture. I contacted the manager and he told me of this cabinet and its contents. They want to get a photograph of you next to it, if you agree.’
‘Of course,’ she said, having to bite her lips together once again. ‘Gus would especially love to see it, I know.
‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling tremulously up at this man who had found this for her and made it possible.
She looked so vulnerable—so lonely—so alone. She was smiling but not with any great conviction and his first thought was to hold her. To comfort her for her loss. Strange, they were both without family. All she had now was Gus. He had no one really.
But then he’d chosen to walk away from his family.
She’d never had a choice to begin with.
He felt her hand in his, her other on his arm as she squeezed both of them tightly. ‘Thank you.’ And what choice did he have but to put his other arm around her and hug her to his chest after all? What power could stop him?
Even if he knew it was madness.
Even if he knew it was for nothing.
Because he could never be someone’s comfort or strength ever again, and the last thing he needed to do was let this woman think he could.
No wonder Franco had balked at the likes of Betty’s Drapery. Because while Holly didn’t have much of an idea abou
t shopping generally, Franco’s concept of going shopping might as well have been on a different planet.
For a start, they didn’t actually go shopping. The shopping came to them.
‘How did you do this?’ she asked as a slimline keen-eyed madame and her similarly attired younger assistants rapidly turned the suite’s living room into a boutique. And if the older woman reminded her of a girls’ high school principal—with lashings more make-up—the younger women were like unsmiling head prefects—tall and willowy slim and who knew their hallowed place in the world.
‘I made a call. I don’t know where to shop in Sydney, so I had someone listen to what I needed and take it from there.’
‘I don’t see any suits.’ Although there were plenty of gowns, boxes of shoes, cartons of lingerie and evening bags. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’ll go shopping tomorrow.’
‘What will I do tomorrow?’
‘You’ll be busy enough. You’ll be in the day spa.’
Before she could tell him she hardly needed an entire day to have a bath, the high school principal—who’d introduced herself as ‘Penelope, please don’t call me Penny’—bustled over to claim and transform her latest fashion victim.
‘Now, what do we have to work with here?’ She took Holly’s chin in her hand and held her face up to the light. ‘Hmm, good skin, though could clearly do with some help.’ And to Holly, ‘Stay out of the sun, dear, it’ll turn your skin to crocodile hide.’
She caught Franco’s smile under his hand and glared at him.
‘Green eyes. No, let me see—’ she twisted her face some more ‘—more like turquoise. Hmm, interesting. Blonde hair—could go a bit blonder. Needs highlights—no, low lights, I think. Note that down for the salon.’ And then she stepped back to take all of her in. ‘Size … ten. Eight possibly, but those curves …’ She shook her head as she stood back to consider Holly’s hips and breasts. ‘No. Let’s not be too positive. Let’s start with size ten and see how we go. We don’t want to be disappointed, do we? All right, girls, bring me …’ And Queen Penelope issued a stream of instructions that had her princesses running around in their perfectly high heels.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Franco, despite the fact he was looking altogether too much like he was enjoying this, and leaving Holly to the clutches of the woman and her helpers as she was undressed and redressed and her hair tied up this way and that and she was ordered to swivel and parade while walking on stilts.
Not a high school principal at all, Holly reconsidered as she watched her wield her power, mostly over her. Penelope was more a high priestess of fashion and her assistants, her vestal virgins, priestesses in training.
She wondered what they’d have thought if she’d turned up in her usual Purman Wines attire.
Although maybe that would have been a bridge too far.
It took the best part of two hours. Coffee, water and pastries had to be sent for twice. The women bolted down the coffee and sniffed at the pastries and merely sighed. Holly reached for a pastry at one time to be met with a collective gasp. She reached for the water instead.
But finally they seemed happy. They stood in a circle around her, examining her for any flaw, any bulge. There couldn’t possibly be anything bulging, Holly figured, not with the industrial-strength restraining device they’d shoehorned her into that seemed to squeeze all her organs into the space air once took in her lungs. Which probably explained why she was finding it so difficult to breathe.
‘Well?’ the high priestess asked of her coven. ‘What do we think? What is our verdict?’
Definitely queen speak, Holly thought, amending the call once again.
‘I like it,’ said one, and Holly would have sighed with relief if only she could breathe.
‘The colour is perfect,’ said another, ‘for those eyes.’ This time Holly found a smile.
‘And it does wonders for her figure,’ said a third. Holly ignored her. That was probably all down to the boa constrictor she had on underneath anyway. ‘I think it’s the one.’
‘Done!’ the high priestess declared. ‘That’s settled then. Pack up, girls.’
Holly blinked. ‘Do I get a horse in this race?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Do I get to have a look in the mirror and see if I like it?’
Apparently nobody had ever asked Penelope this question before. ‘If you must,’ she agreed, appalled that her authority might be questioned. A cheval mirror was found and duly wheeled up, and the head priestess sniffed again. ‘Of course, you have to imagine it with your hair and make-up professionally done. At the moment you look quite underdone in it, so you’ll have to make allowances.’
Holly was only too happy to agree to those terms. She just hoped she liked it or there’d clearly be hell to pay.
She looked at herself as the mirror was adjusted from side to side, looked at the reflection staring back at her and wondered what miracle had been performed that she, grape-wrangler from the Coonawarra, could be transformed into a fairytale princess.
The dress was one-shouldered, with a diamante clasp over the collarbone that sparkled like diamonds when she moved the slightest fraction, and it skimmed over her breasts to a cinched-in waist, while the skirt seemed inspired by the ancient Greeks, the fabric draped to fit elegantly but not in the least way cling.
But the best thing was the colour. It was the exact turquoise of her eyes and even ‘underdone’ as she was they seemed to glow with it.
‘Well?’ snipped Penelope-don’t-call-me-Penny behind her, back in pen-tapping headmistress mode.
‘I love it,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe it’s me.’
Penelope sniffed and scratched an imaginary itch behind her ear. A physical ‘go figure.’ ‘And now we can pack up, girls.’
And with the destructive force of a cyclone they set about doing just that, packing away shoes into crates and dresses onto racks to be wheeled away by the porters while Holly was left to get changed in her own time.
She didn’t rush. She stood in the bedroom staring into the mirror for a while after they had gone, thinking about a girl who had grown up more like a boy and who had never once thought she might have reason to look like this, even if it were ever possible she could.
She thought about a man who hired helicopters and Maseratis like other people hired a power tool, and who knew how to find someone who could turn tomboys into Cinderellas.
And she wondered if it were possible …
But then she shook her head free of such thoughts as she stepped from the gown and struggled her way free of the clutches of the boa constrictor beneath. It didn’t pay to wonder.
‘How was the shopping?’ Franco asked half an hour later when he returned with a package in his hands.
‘No good,’ she said with a thumbs-down from the sofa where she was reading up on her competition for the award. Some of them she already knew or had heard of, but reading their bios had made all of them depressingly good. Depressingly deserving. The dress might well turn out to be a complete waste of money. Unless they decided to award a prize for best-dressed female. Given she was the only female amongst the six, she was at least in the running for that one. ‘What’s in the box?’ she said, and Franco looked at it, frowning.
‘Just that koala picture. I had it framed. But hang on …’ he said, his expression bubbling over from surprise to annoyance, and she could see the pressure building in his grey eyes. Excellent. ‘What happened?’ he demanded, right on cue.
She shrugged and tossed the magazine away. ‘The woman simply had no clue about fashion. So I’ve decided to use the gown I bought the other day at Betty’s Drapery, just in case I couldn’t find a thing to wear in Sydney.’
It took him all of a split second to realise she was joking. It took another split second for her to be scooped in his arms and whirled around, giggling, towards the bedroom. ‘Don’t mess with me,’ he warned.
‘Or what?’ she said provoca
tively, already wending her fingers through his gorgeous wavy hair, tingling all over because she already knew the answer to her question.
‘Or you’ll pay for it.’
She smiled up at him as he tumbled her on the big four-poster bed. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
IF HEDONISM MEANT the pursuit of pleasure, Holly idly thought as the warm stones were strategically placed on her well-oiled back, then the receiving of pleasure must be the definition of day spa.
The pleasure had begun the moment she’d walked through the doors of Chatsfield’s Lotus Harmony Day Spa and relaxed with a cup of fragrant tea.
Since then she’d been pampered and oiled by angels in soft pink uniforms with gentle voices and even gentler hands. They’d massaged every inch of her body until she tingled all over and now she had stones.
Oh, God, it was so relaxing.
And it didn’t end there because next up was the hairdresser and a new style and colour after which Franco had promised to take her to dinner.
She couldn’t remember another time when she’d felt so spoiled and pampered.
A girl could get used to this.
Then again, she thought, thinking more wisely this time, a girl better not.
He lay in bed, listening to the breathing of the woman in his arms and feeling more heartsick with every slow breath. They’d dined on seafood tonight, the best Sydney had to offer, and then they’d taken a walk along a sandy beach where the sea provided the music in the crash and shoosh of waves on shore. Then they’d come back to the hotel and made love long into the night.
And that was half the problem. He’d recognised the danger—he’d known where this would lead—and yet still he’d talked himself into believing he could enjoy a few more nights of instruction, of passing on what he knew, and then simply walk away.
And now a one-night stand—a favour—had gone to spending the night in the same bed and waking up together in each other’s arms.