Simone felt her eyes sting, couldn’t bring herself to look at the other larger box that held letters from her mother. Just looking at it brought a rush of painful memories and a wave of guilt and fear. She bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from crying, turned on her desk lamp and began to type a bravely hopeful reply to Belle and Claire.
Next morning, stomach churning, she dialed Murrawinni’s number before she lost her nerve. Her grandfather’s housekeeper, Connie Price, answered.
“I beg your pardon?” she said. “Who did you say is calling?”
“Simone. Simone Gray, Jonathan’s granddaughter.”
“Simone?” Connie’s voice quavered with surprised disbelief. “Lord have mercy, child. This is going to be quite a shock for him. It’s been so long.”
Simone’s stomach lurched. “Is my grandfather well? I don’t want to upset him or make him ill.”
“I don’t think there’s any fear of that, Simone. He’s well enough. Fit as a fiddle, in fact. Keeps us all on our toes. Just a moment and I’ll fetch him.”
Connie took more than a moment and Simone’s heart accelerated to a gallop while she waited. Would her grandfather be angry? Would he refuse to speak to her? Would he hammer her with a thousand questions?
“Simone?” It was Connie’s voice again.
“Yes?”
“I—I’m sorry, my dear. Jonathan—” Connie paused and cleared her throat. “I’m afraid he can be a little stubborn these days.”
“What does that mean? Are you saying that he doesn’t want to speak to me?” Simone’s voice broke pitifully. She screwed her face tight, fighting tears. “I was hoping to ask if I could come out to Murrawinni to—to visit him. Th-there’s something I need—”
She broke off, couldn’t get the words out.
“I’m sure he’ll come round, dear. It’s just that your call has been quite a shock. It’s been such a long time.”
“Yes.” The word came out as a despairing squeak. “Perhaps Grandfather will ring me l-later, if—if he changes his mind.”
Simone gave Connie her number and hung up, felt an overwhelming sense of defeat. She’d already lost her diary. What else could go wrong?
By the end of a few days of self-imposed vacation, the printer’s ink in Ryan’s veins drove him back to The Sydney Chronicle newsroom. He was greeted with flattering enthusiasm and predictable curiosity about the row that had ended his time in London.
“What was that about?” asked Jock Guinness, the chief-of-staff and Ryan’s former mentor. “Brash young Aussie clashes with ultra-conservative British establishment?”
“More like—Aussie black sheep spits the dummy when intrusive, cashed-up father tries to jump his boy up the British promotion queue.”
Jock’s jaw gaped. “Your dad did that?”
Ryan’s lip curled. “Who else?”
Everyone in the newsroom expected Ryan to resume his old post. The chief-of-staff announced openly that a desk could be cleared for him in ten minutes flat. But Ryan shook his head. He wasn’t looking for another spot as a general news gatherer. He’d had a gutful of being sent out on tame stories pulled off the daily job sheet.
Jock accepted this with grudging good grace. “You’ll do well as a freelancer,” he admitted. “You were one of the few people in this place who always had a string of good stories on the back burner.”
Ryan was chatting to Meg James, one of the journalists, when he saw the girl from the airport.
He stared at her picture, smiling up at him from the pages of a glossy magazine—a full-page colour photo of her, sitting cross-legged on a grassy slope with a spectacular rocky gorge behind her and snow-capped mountains in the distance. Felt again that gut-punching sensation.
He had rung the airport’s lost property office, but no one had reported a missing diary. And now, here was the girl. She was wearing slim-fitting bike shorts, revealing her legs in all their shapely, golden-tanned loveliness.
He remembered the way she’d caught his attention at the airport—as if she were in glowing Technicolor and the rest of the scene was in black and white. Remembered the uncanny moment of connection when he’d locked gazes with her. Thought of the crowded handwritten pages of her diary, still sitting on his bookshelf. It was the weirdest feeling, almost as if he knew her and he’d let her down somehow.
With admirable restraint, he refrained from snatching up the magazine. Instead, he pointed to the open pages with an excessively casual hook of his right thumb. “Do you mind if I borrow this?”
Meg James shot him a curious smile. “Be my guest. But since when have you been a fan of City Girl?”
“I’d just like to check out this story. About the bike ride in the Himalayas.”
“Oh, sure, it’s a great travel piece.” Meg glanced at the picture and rolled her eyes. “Simone puts the rest of us to shame.”
Simone. He repeated her name softly, savouring it, letting it settle inside him. It was a sensuous name—just a little exotic—a good fit for her.
“Simone Gray,” he said, reading her byline.
“Yep. Don’t you know her? She’s the Big Chief at City Girl. Executive editor.”
“No kidding?” A pulse began to throb in his jaw and fine pinpricks erupted over his arms. “Tell me more about her.”
Meg sighed. “I get pea-green just thinking about Simone Gray. She’s smart, successful, has the job I’ve always lusted after. And every time I see her, she seems to have a different guy in tow and they’re all madly in love with her, of course. And then, to cap it off, instead of just writing a cheque for her favourite charity, she put herself through a huge ordeal, training hard, getting sweaty and blistered and making the rest of us feel like lazy layabouts.”
Ryan set the magazine down abruptly and Meg frowned at him.
“Changed your mind about reading it?”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll get what I want firsthand.”
Meg treated him to a very weird look, but he was already halfway out of the office.
Simone had given her PA the day off because it was her elderly mother’s birthday, so when the phone rang for the twentieth or maybe fortieth time that morning, her response was automatic. “Good morning. Simone Gray speaking. How can I help you?”
“Morning, Simone. My name’s Ryan Tanner. I’m a fellow journalist and I’ve rung to congratulate you on the article in this month’s City Girl. I really enjoyed your story about China. Nice work.”
Simone frowned. Her article was workmanlike and professional, possibly inspiring for some readers, but not exactly the kind of writing that would attract attention from fellow journalists—especially a male with a beautifully modulated, deeply sexy voice.
He’d said his name was Tanner…Ryan Tanner…
She didn’t think she’d met him, but couldn’t be sure. The only Tanners she could think of offhand were billionaires who owned vast tracts of mining land in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. No one in that family would want to work as a journalist.
“Thank you, Mr Tanner. It’s kind of you to take the trouble to call me.”
“No trouble.”
She waited a beat.