Marina’s lips trembled and she took a step towards him. ‘Dean.’
‘Please. Marina.’ He held up both hands, his breath a little ragged. ‘Just—let me get this out, okay. I’m finally getting somewhere here. I was missing you, and every time I’d pick up the phone, I’d think that’s what our future would be like. Always apart.’ He paused. ‘It scared the crap out of me. I’d made a decision years ago that my partner would always be with me. I’m selfish enough to want that.’
She nodded, blinked a tear from the corner of her eye.
‘There’s something you should know about me.’
‘Oh God.’ She brought a hand to her chest. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got a wife hidden away somewhere too?’
‘If only it were that simple. My father was a naval commander, away a lot. My mother didn’t cope very well. She was lonely. I didn’t know, but she was having an affair. Apparently she would meet her lover on the family cruiser, when I was at school. We used to moor it down from the house, in the river. To this day, I believe she didn’t bring him into the house because of me.’
He paused to take a breath. ‘One day, I came home from school, and she wasn’t there. It was odd. She was always there …’
His voice went husky, and Marina stepped closer. Too close for his comfort. If he wanted to, he could reach out and touch her hair, smell her perfume, look for the faded freckles he couldn’t see because of her make-up.
‘I went looking for her.’ He sucked in another deep breath. He’d get through this if it were the last thing he ever did because Marina Wentworth/Lane was worth it. She was worth every darn second of the agony that had him ripping open his chest and baring his emotional scars. ‘I couldn’t find her anywhere. I went down to the river. The dingy was there, tied up to the back of the cruiser.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Fifteen. I was worried, so I got my surfboard and paddled out. I found them in the cabin …’
Those big, vivid eyes were full of sympathy now. ‘Oh, Dean. You were a child. You can’t assume that long distance was the sole factor. Maybe there were other issues in your parents’ marriage that you weren’t aware of.’
‘They weren’t just in the cabin making love, Marina, although they had been.’
She frowned, not understanding.
His heart twisted.
‘They were in the cabin—dead.’
***
Shock turned Marina’s blood to ice. Dean’s eyes were wet, in the past, like he was seeing it all again, and for one moment she glimpsed the boy in the complex man in front of her.
And then an instant later the adult was back, nostrils flaring as he pushed an unsteady hand through his hair. ‘My father was the prime suspect. He was in Australia at the time, working at the naval base.’
‘But, he would have had an alibi—if he was working.’
‘He did. But there was something unusual about the way they died. All they knew was that they went to sleep and didn’t wake up. The forensic testing back then wasn’t what it is today. It took time for them to find out it was poisonous fumes, a gas leak from the cruiser. The police were around at our house every day. Questioning me, taking Dad down to the station, suspecting he poisoned them. Rask was the only really kind one. He believed me when I said I didn’t think Dad did it. Everyone else thought it was natural for me to say that because I was a kid, but I told Rask I knew he was innocent. My father loved her. I could see it in his eyes, in the way he treated her.’
Dear God!
If only she could absorb some of this pain.
But she couldn’t. She could only say the words and hope they were the right ones. ‘Apart from your mother, you knew your Dad better than anyone.’
He nodded, his beautiful face filled with such sadness Marina ached to go to him, longed to kiss away his pain.
‘He might have spent a lot of time away, but I knew the man he was. School was hell for a while, and it took months to clear his name. He was never the same. You know, mud sticks. Four years later, he was dead. I was nineteen, at university.’
It all made sense to her now. Dean’s fear of long-distance relationships, his wariness of the media, his lack of faith in police procedure. She could see now why he’d intercepted her in Venice and taken matters into his own hands. It was amazing he’d managed to work as well as he had with the authorities of three different countries.
Then again, he was no longer a boy, but a grown man.
And he had Rask to temper him.
‘I decided to become a naval architect. I wanted to build better boats, safer boats.’
A labour of love. For the mother he’d lost when he was fifteen, and his father a few years later.
Marina’s throat ached, and the hot tears forming in her eyes threatened to spill over. ‘I’m so sorry, Dean.’
‘It’s alright, Marina. I came through it. Rask took an interest in me, and I found my tribe in the sailing community. I started designing yachts and building them in the family home I inherited. When Rask retired, he came to work for me.’
He shrugged and his lips curved in a slight smile. ‘Well, I convinced him. I couldn’t really see him with his feet up somewhere and playing the odd game of bowls.’
Marina smiled through her tears and thought of her spat with the former detective over her violin. It had been a wrench handing back the instrument after her performance tonight. But it was nothing compared to this.
‘How is he?’
‘Why don’t you come and see for yourself?’ Dean said softly.
‘He’s here?’
Dean tipped his head towards the harbour. ‘The yacht’s out there. You can’t see her from here. She’s moored off Mrs Macquarie’s Chair.’
Marina sniffed and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hand.
He moved a little closer. ‘I brought her down for New Year’s Eve. I didn’t want to miss your final performance.’
‘I thought I saw you inside.’
He nodded, and his voice sank to a whisper. ‘You were—unbelievable. You are so talented—it’s humbling. It’s intimidating.’
Intimidating? Dean Logan wasn’t scared of anything. This was the man who had jumped overboard in Bass Strait and pulled five crewmen from a raging ocean. And now he was looking at her in awe, and with a pride that matched her father’s.
His gaze slanted towards the door. ‘I was going to invite you to watch the fireworks from the bow, but you were inside so long, and—I see you have other plans.’
It was her turn to be honest. ‘Only with my orchestra mates. No-one as important as you.’
She stepped closer, raised her hand and trailed her fingertips over his stubbled jaw. ‘I love you, but I accept why we can’t have a future together. But I want you in my life, Dean, at least until you find the right person. When that happens, I don’t think I could bear seeing you …’ Her words ended on a sob.
His hands came up to cup her face, and she tried turning away so he couldn’t see the anguish in her eyes, but he held her head steady, breathing hard as he made her look him in the eye.
‘I’ve found the right person, Marina,’ he said gruffly. ‘It’s you. Do you think I would bare my soul like this to someone I didn’t love and trust? I know we’re different, but I love that about us. You let me live on another dimension, you’re the dream I never knew I had. Every day we were apart, I looked at the photograph I took of you in the gondola and it ripped my guts to shreds. If you’ll have me, we’ll make it work.’
It was New Year’s Eve—and the whole world went silent.
‘I do.’ She breathed the words. ‘I want you so much.’
He lowered his head, slowly, eyes burning into hers with a love she’d never, ever doubt again. She parted her lips, and let her eyes drift closed, gave herself up to the wonder and joy gathering inside her. And as his lips met hers, the first of the pyrotechnics exploded over the Harbour Bridge.
They jumped, pulled back, laughing.
He winked. ‘I always had good timing.’
‘Happy New Year, Dean.’
Before he could answer, Eli was there, handing her the Marina roses and glancing at Dean. ‘I thought you might want these.’
‘Oh, thank you, Eli.’ She leaned over and kissed the younger man on the cheek. ‘Can you just take all the other stuff? Give the flowers to the girls, and share out the drinks.’
She slipped her free arm around Dean’s waist, put her head on his shoulder and smiled up at him. ‘I have everything I want, right here.’
As Eli beat a hasty retreat, Dean took the flowers from her hands and dropped them at her feet. Then he wrapped his arms around her, and with the strains of Auld Lang Syne drifting across the harbour they watched the brilliant colours explode in the skies above them.
‘I’ve started sketching the Logan Mach VI,’ he whispered in her ear.
‘Already?’ Marina shivered at his touch, turned her cheek into his lips. She couldn’t wait to be alone with him, but this was a special moment in time, one to savour.
She’d waited four months. She could wait a little while longer.
‘I’ve already named her.’
She stilled, drew back a little. ‘Not … the Marina?’
He smiled, shook his head, buried his nose in her hair and put his lips against her ear. ‘Close. She’s called the Virtuoso.’
And then his wonderful mouth claimed hers, and he crushed her to his chest. As the pyrotechnics continued to explode from the top of the Opera House, this time they didn’t break apart.
And as tears of joy seeped from the corners of Marina’s eyes, she thought of the old saying ‘What you do on New Year, you do all year’.
And she couldn’t have been happier with that.
THE END
Thanks for reading A Dangerous Arrangement, the first book in my Dangerous Arrangements series. I hope you enjoyed it.
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ISBN: 9780857992611
Title: A Dangerous Arrangement
Copyright © 2015 by Lee Christine
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