by Daphne Clair
‘Yes,’ she said, sliding into the passenger seat.
Devin closed the door and came round to the other side. His sleeve brushed against her arm as he fastened his safety belt, and she felt a disconcerting frisson of awareness before he inserted the key in the ignition and the engine purred into life. ‘So who was with you yesterday morning?’ he asked as the car picked up speed.
‘You…knew there was someone?’
‘It was rather obvious.’ His voice was bleak and desert-dry.
She slanted a look at him, but the dim light fleetingly thrown by a street lamp didn’t help to define his expression, which was seldom simple to assess anyway. ‘It was Craig. Craig Sloane.’
For a few moments he drove in silence. Then, in a curiously detached tone, he said, ‘So you’re sleeping with your handsome leading man.’
‘I’m not sleeping with him!’ Before she could stop herself, she shot at him, ‘Are you sleeping with the divine Rachelle?’
He looked at her, then laughed as he returned his gaze to the road and the traffic. ‘Do you care?’
‘Of course not.’ A lie, she dismayingly discovered, almost suffocating with unreasoning jealousy.
Stupid, she told herself. For three years she’d managed to blot any thought of Devin with another woman out of her mind, tell herself it no longer concerned her.
Which it didn’t.
‘If you’re not lovers,’ he said, ‘what was Craig doing at your place?’
‘He used my sofa. He was a bit…under the weather.’
‘Drunk.’
‘Tipsy.’
‘Like I said.’
Shannon compressed her lips.
Devin swung the car around a corner. ‘And if he hadn’t been…’
Shannon shrugged. She didn’t need to justify herself to him, and objected to being cross-questioned.
Devin persisted. ‘Are you telling me you haven’t let him into your bed yet?’
‘I’m not telling you anything,’ she snapped. ‘My love life is none of your business.’
‘We’re married,’ he reminded her.
‘We are not married! We haven’t been for the last three years.’
‘Your choice.’
‘You forced me to choose!’
‘Is that how you see it?’ His scorn was patent.
‘There’s no point in going over all that again.’
He stopped for a traffic light and turned to look at her. ‘You’re right. Let’s leave the past where it is and move to the present. Does Craig know you’re out with me tonight?’
‘It was his idea.’
‘His idea?’
‘To phone you. I told him it wouldn’t do any good.’
‘You’ve lost me. Any good for whom?’
‘Can’t this wait until dinner?’ she asked. After all, the whole idea of having a meal together was so that they could talk, wasn’t it? In the comfort of a restaurant, with a good meal hopefully making him amenable to her request.
Someone tooted impatiently. The light had turned green.
‘Okay,’ Devin said on a tight, irritated note. Shannon wasn’t sure if he was addressing her or the aggressive driver behind them. He released the brake and the car glided forward.
After a while she asked, ‘How did you know where I live?’
‘It’s not a secret, is it? You’re in the phone book.’
‘No, it’s not a secret.’
‘Well, then…’ He shrugged as if the subject bored him, and for the rest of the journey into the central city he concentrated on his driving.
It wasn’t until they had ordered from the glossy menu in the expensive restaurant he’d chosen—or that his secretary had chosen for him—that he leaned his forearms on the linen tablecloth, looked across the wreath of flowers surrounding a squat gold candle in a glass bowl, and said, ‘So why did you phone me, Shannon? If not just to give your bedmate a bit of kinky titillation?’
Shannon clenched her fingers about her fork. ‘Craig is not my bedmate. And if he were, I wouldn’t have done a thing like that.’
Looking at her thoughtfully, he said, ‘No, I don’t suppose you would. Considering the company you keep you’re surprisingly straitlaced in some ways.’
‘Is that a complaint?’ she asked, stung. Had he found her a boring lover? ‘I’m sorry if I wasn’t up to your expectations.’
‘You know I had no complaints,’ he said. ‘I’ve never enjoyed such a…satisfactory relationship, as far as sex goes.’
‘Satisfactory,’ she repeated. ‘Oh, thank you.’
‘I’ve offended you,’ he said calmly, but there was a lurking amusement in his eyes. ‘You were all I had imagined, and more,’ he said. ‘You have a beautiful body that I still dream about, and you made love like an angel—a surprisingly shy and yet intriguingly sexy angel.’
‘Angels have no sex,’ Shannon rejoined. ‘They’re gender neutral.’
‘Let’s not be too literal.’ He paused before saying with unusual deliberation, his lowered voice sending an insidiously pleasurable sensation curling down her spine, ‘It was a transcendental spiritual experience making love with you, as well as a very pleasurable physical one.’
Transcendental? An extravagant word, especially from Devin. But one that just about described it, for her as well as for him.
Not transcendental enough to keep them together. Her heart seemed to swell under the influence of something painful pushing against its walls from the inside. ‘That’s very…flattering,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure you’ve had equally spiritual experiences with other women.’
His face became mask-like. ‘Cynicism is new for you,’ he said.
‘A pity I didn’t have it when we met.’ It might have helped armour her against what was to come.
For a split second she saw a blaze of anger in his eyes, and then the waiter brought wine and made a ritual of pouring, and by the time he’d gone Devin had assumed a bland expression that told her nothing about his feelings.
He lifted his glass to her silently and waited for her to raise hers before he drank.
Replacing his glass on the table, he asked, ‘Do you want to know about Rachelle?’
‘No.’
‘We find each other useful for social occasions,’ he said, ignoring her denial. ‘We’re not emotionally involved. She has a bad marriage behind her and isn’t interested in an intimate relationship.’
So was he patiently waiting for her to become interested? And if they weren’t emotionally involved, did that necessarily mean they weren’t having sex? Some people were able to separate the two.
Don’t go there. ‘I’m not interested in your…girlfriends,’ she told him.
‘Sure?’ His gaze searched her face.
‘Absolutely. This meeting isn’t about personal matters, Devin. I have a business proposition for you.’
‘Business?’ He leaned back in his chair, regarding her dispassionately.
It crossed her mind that if she’d worn something low-cut, clinging, seductive, she might have had a better chance at persuading him.
Immediately she dismissed the thought. As she’d just said, this was business, and seduction had no place in it.
‘So,’ he said, looking like a large, watchful animal, his eyes lynx-like and unblinking. ‘What do you want from me, Shannon?’
She breathed deeply, quickly, and passed her tongue briefly over her lips. ‘I need money,’ she said. Might as well spit it out and get it over with. ‘And I need it fast. You’re the only person I know who has the kind of money I’m looking for.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘I SEE.’ Devin straightened, and folded his arms, his face showing only guarded curiosity. ‘What is it? You’ve overspent and need a loan?’
‘Nothing like that. I have a proposition for you.’
His brows rose. ‘A proposition?’
‘A business proposal.’ She had to put a positive spin on this, convince him that he wouldn’t be throwing cas
h down the drain. Devin was as hard-headed about money as any other successful businessman, probably more than most. ‘It’s an investment opportunity.’
‘A film,’ he guessed, his resigned, slightly contemptuous tone implying that he didn’t think much of the idea. His eyes strayed to a neighbouring table where a party of a half dozen women were chattering and laughing.
Shannon leaned forward to catch his attention, trying to infuse all her passionate belief in the project into her voice, her eyes. ‘A special film. It could be a great film if I can raise the finance. An international success.’
Devin still looked sceptical.
‘New Zealand is hot at the box office right now,’ Shannon pressed.
‘Right up there with Hollywood?’ Devin queried dryly.
Brushing aside the sarcasm, Shannon launched into her carefully prepared background pitch about the growing worldwide film market.
The party at the next table had ordered several bottles of wine and were obviously celebrating something. Shannon had to raise her voice a little.
The waiter brought their meals and Shannon picked up her knife and fork, but kept talking. She had hardly touched the tender pork medallions in their golden apricot and orange sauce when Devin, halfway through his medium-rare pepper steak, raised a hand. ‘Eat your dinner,’ he ordered. ‘It’s a shame to let it spoil.’
Maybe she’d said too much. Devin liked good food and good wine and enjoyed savouring it. She should have remembered that. In business she knew he was incisive, practical, getting straight to the point, known as a fast worker. But paradoxically he took his pleasures in more leisurely fashion, giving time to appreciating scents, tastes, textures.
He had made love like that, as if there was all the time in the world to explore the soft inner skin of her elbow with a fingertip, tracing the faint path of a blue vein, to sift his fingers through her hair and admire the silky fan of it falling against the pillow, to inhale the perfume she’d dabbed behind her ear, his tongue finding the shallow groove, and to delight in looking at her naked body, his head propped on one hand while the other made tantalising patterns about her breasts, her navel, touching lightly, teasing until she raised her arms and pulled him fiercely to her, unable to bear the exquisite torment any longer.
‘What are you thinking about?’
His voice brought her back with a jerk to their surroundings. She realised she was sitting with her fork in her hand and probably a dreamy expression on her face. Hastily she lifted a piece of pork to her mouth, ducking her head as she cut another tender slice. ‘This sauce,’ she said. ‘It’s delicious.’
She must stop thinking that way, stop remembering. Their marriage was history now and they’d both come a long way.
She’d heard that Devin was spending a lot of time in America, after setting up a branch of his company there. After their split she’d consciously avoided places where she might expect to meet him, although she couldn’t escape the odd news item, the unexpected encounter with a photograph in some magazine picked up in a doctor’s waiting room, or an article about his company on the business pages of the daily paper.
She had hoped that when they did meet face to face she’d be able to confront him with indifference, their shared past a distant memory.
But one look at him and it had all come flooding back. The almost instant attraction of their first meeting, the golden-hazed weeks of his whirlwind courtship, their wedding day when the world was full of dazzling promise and they were certain their love would last forever and a day, despite the scarcely hidden dismay of his parents and family. The incredible pleasure of their lovemaking, and the way they’d seemed to be two halves of a whole, neither of them complete without the other.
And then the gradual disillusion and the pain of parting.
‘Dessert?’ Devin offered when she pushed away her plate.
Shannon shook her head, dispersing the memories. ‘Maybe some cheese.’
A burst of laughter from their neighbours drowned her voice and Devin frowned. ‘What?’
‘I’ll have the cheese board.’ Shannon didn’t share his surprising sweet tooth, but if he wanted something more she needed to be occupied rather than waiting for him to finish.
Devin ordered a chocolate mousse cake that came garnished with a generous swirl of whipped cream. He cut off a slice with a fork and offered it to Shannon.
Before she’d thought, she opened her mouth and allowed the morsel to slide onto her tongue. The achingly familiar, intimate gesture brought an unexpected sensation of tearing grief and regret. Appalled, she quickly swallowed the melting mouthful and grabbed at her wineglass, downing a gulp of red dessert wine to steady herself.
‘Don’t you like the cake?’ he asked her.
‘It’s fine,’ she answered huskily. ‘Very…rich.’
He took a piece himself, half closing his eyes as he savoured it. ‘Mmm,’ he murmured. ‘Superb.’
Shannon nibbled at bits of cheese while Devin finished the dessert. When he was done she pushed the board to him. ‘Help yourself.’
He had a sliver of New Zealand-made Edam and a small piece of Gruyère, then said, ‘Coffee?’ And as the hilarity at the next table reached a new pitch, ‘Or we could go back to my place and have it there.’
‘Your place?’
‘It’s not far.’ Watching her hesitate, he said with a touch of impatience, ‘You know me better than to imagine I’m luring you into my lair for nefarious purposes. And it’s a quieter place to talk than this.’
She had to agree with that. ‘I could give you coffee at my place,’ she offered reluctantly.
‘Mine’s closer. I’ll see you home later.’
Maybe he’d feel more kindly disposed to her plans if she fell in with his suggestion. Though why he’d made it she wasn’t sure. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If that’s what you’d prefer.’ He looked amused at her acquiescence, and she wondered if he was bending her to his will simply because he could, knowing she wanted something from him. Devin liked to be in control of any situation.
After settling the bill he ushered her back to his car, and within five minutes he was driving into an underground garage below one of the city’s newer luxury residential buildings.
His apartment was on the fifth floor, and he guided her into a large room with a picture window giving a view of the Waitemata Harbour at night, all winking city lights reflected like shot satin in the dark water.
Shannon’s high heels sank into a slate-grey carpet, and Devin seated her on a deep couch covered in burgundy leather. Another couch and two matching burgundy chairs flanked a thick glass coffee table supported by hoops of burnished metal, and holding a striking bronze sculpture of an eagle with outspread wings.
‘I’ll get the coffee,’ Devin said, walking to a wide doorway through which she glimpsed pale grey tiles and a granite counter.
A functional kitchen, she guessed, designed for efficiency. There would be no hanging bunches of dried herbs, or potted fresh ones on the windowsill, no antique utensils decorating the walls, as there had been in the cramped cottage she’d fallen in love with when they’d been inspecting the brand-new, soulless new town house for sale next door.
After noticing her yearning across the fence at the colonial relic with the overgrown lawn and neglected shrubs, Devin had made the owners an offer they couldn’t refuse. An army of workers repaired the rusty guttering and worn boards, and modernised the kitchen and bathroom while Shannon had enlisted the help of an art director friend to bring the other rooms back to their quaint glory.
The place hadn’t been at all suitable for Devin’s lifestyle. Dinner parties had been necessarily small and intimate, and most of his business entertaining was conducted in restaurants, his office building or hired spaces.
After the break-up he’d lost no time, she guessed, in moving into this place.
Pale green walls showed off a couple of striking black-and-white photographs and a superrealist painting of a stream bed,
every rounded rock and ripple in the water rendered with breathtaking precision, creating an irresistible urge to touch and check that it was only paint. Open glass doors led from the living room to a spacious formal dining room with a long table and high-backed chairs.
Everything looked elegant, expensive and impersonal.
Shannon ran her hand along a couple of rows of books on long shelves, finding biographies, history and true crime stories, a number of tomes dealing with economics and business practice, a pile of National Geographics and a few other magazines. She was back on the couch, leafing through the latest issue of Time, when Devin returned with two bulbous ceramic mugs and sank down beside her, handing her one.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Tell me what the film is about.’
She picked up her coffee, instinctively curving her palm about the warm, smooth shape of the mug. ‘Have you heard of the Duncan Hobbs trial,’ she asked, ‘here in Auckland in 1898?’
‘Should I have?’
‘It was briefly mentioned in a TV programme last year.’
He shook his head. ‘What did Duncan Hobbs do?’
‘He was supposed to have raped the sister of his best friend’s fiancée. The trial hinged on the evidence of his friend, the future brother-in-law of the victim.’
‘Was he an eye-witness?’
‘No, the evidence was mostly circumstantial. And not very consistent.’
‘So, is this a whodunit?’
‘A sort of did-he-do-it, anyway. But the point I’m more interested in is the personal dynamics—the change in the relationship between the engaged couple, the two sisters, and most of all the accused and his friend who was called on to testify…the choice he had to make as the key witness.’
Devin looked thoughtful. ‘Support his best friend, and maybe alienate his bride-to-be…?’
‘Exactly. It’s a fascinating, true mystery story, and great for film. But expensive—the historical costumes and props, and even finding and adapting the settings, all add to the costs.’
‘Couldn’t you update it?’
Shannon shook her head. ‘Attitudes have changed since then. They didn’t even have women on juries, and a rape victim was often blamed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or for leading a man on. There are all sorts of reasons why it wouldn’t work transferred to the twenty-first century.’