She opened her mouth to brush off his astute observation, but one glance at the shrewd gleam in his eyes stalled her. She knew that look. The look of a father figure who wouldn’t quit till he’d dragged the truth out of her.
‘It’s nothing, really—’
He tut-tutted. ‘Querida, I’ve known you for more than seven years.’ He pointed to his bald pate and wrinkled forehead. ‘These may indicate the passage of time, but up here...?’ He tapped his temple. ‘As sharp as Banderas’s sword in Zorro.’
She chuckled. If Artie had his way Antonio Banderas would be Spain’s president.
He folded his arms and rested them on the bar. ‘You know I’m going to stay here until you tell me.’
‘What about your customers?’
‘That’s what I pay the staff for.’ He grinned. ‘Now, are you going to tell, or do I have to ply you with my finest sangria?’
She held up her hands. ‘I’m starting work early tomorrow, so no sangria.’
How tempting it sounded. What she wouldn’t give to down a jug of Artie’s finest, get blotto, and forget the fact she had to accompany Archer to Torquay tomorrow.
‘Fine.’ She pushed a few olives around her plate before laying down her fork. ‘CJU Designs scored its biggest account ever today.’
Artie straightened and did a funny flamenco pirouette. ‘That’s brilliant. Well done, querida.’
‘Yeah, it’ll take care of mum’s bills for the next year at least, thank goodness.’
Artie’s exuberance faded. ‘How is Nora?’
‘The same. Happy, determined, putting on a brave face.’
Something she was finding increasingly hard to do when she visited and saw the signs that her mum’s condition was worsening. While Nora coped with her wheelchair, relaxed as if she was lounging in her favourite recliner, Callie watched for hand tremors or lapses in speech or drifting off.
She couldn’t relax around her mum any more. The effort of hiding her sadness clamped her throat in a stranglehold, taking its toll. She grew more exhausted after every visit, and while she never for one second regretted spending as much time as possible with her mum, she hated the inevitability of this horrid disease.
Artie patted her hand. ‘Give her my best next time you see her.’
‘Shall do.’
That was another thing that bugged her about this Torquay trip. She’d have to give all her attention to the account in the early set-up—and to the account’s aggravating owner—which meant missing out on seeing her mum for the week before Christmas or long drives to and from the beachside town. Which would lead to Archer poking his nose into her business, asking why she had to visit her mum so often, and she didn’t want to divulge her private life to him.
Not now, when things were strictly business.
‘If this account has alleviated some of your financial worries, why do you look like this?’ Artie’s exaggerated frown made her smile.
‘Because simple solutions often mask convoluted complications.’
‘Cryptic.’
‘Not really.’ She huffed out a long breath. ‘The owner of the company behind this new account is an old friend.’
‘Ah...so that’s it.’
She didn’t like the crafty glint in Artie’s eyes much—his knowing smile less.
‘This...friend...is he a past amor?’
Had she loved Archer? After the awful break-up, and in the following months when she’d returned to Melbourne and preferred reading to dating, she’d wondered if the hollowness in her heart, the constant gripe in her belly and the annoying wanderlust to jump back on a plane and follow him around the world’s surfing hotspots was love.
She’d almost done it once, after seeing a snippet of him at the Pipeline in Hawaii three months after she’d returned from Europe. She’d gone as far as logging on, choosing flights, but when it had come to paying the arrow had hovered over ‘confirm’ for an agonising minute before the memory of their parting had resurfaced and she’d shut the whole thing down.
That moment had been her wake-up call, and she’d deliberately worked like a maniac so she could fall into bed at the end of a day exhausted and hopefully dream-free.
Her mum had been diagnosed four weeks later, and as a distraction from Archer it had been a doozy.
Now here he was, strutting into her life, as confident and charming and gorgeous as ever. And as dangerously seductive as all those years ago. For, no matter how many times she rationalised that their week together would be strictly business, the fact remained that they’d once shared a helluva spark. She’d better pack her fire extinguisher just in case.
Artie held up his hands. ‘You don’t have to answer. I can see your feelings for this old amor written all over your face.’
‘I don’t love him.’
Artie merely smiled and moved down the bar towards an edgy customer brandishing an empty sangria jug, leaving her to ponder the conviction behind her words.
* * *
While Callie would have loved to linger over a sangria or two when the Spanish Flamenco band fired up, she had more important things to do.
Like visiting her mum.
Nora hated it when she fussed, so these days she kept her visits to twice weekly—an arrangement they were both happy with.
The doctors had given her three years. The doctors didn’t know what a fighter Nora Umberto was. She’d lasted seven, and while her tremors seemed to increase every time Callie visited the spark of determination in her mum’s eyes hadn’t waned.
After the life she’d led, no way would Nora go out without a bang. She continued to read to the other residents and direct the kitchen hands to prepare exotic dishes—dishes she’d tried first-hand during her travels around the world, during which she’d met Bruno Umberto.
Callie’s dad might not have stuck around long in his first marriage—or any of his subsequent three marriages, for that matter—but thankfully Nora’s love of cosmopolitan cuisine had stuck. Callie had grown up on fajitas, ratatouille, korma and Szechuan—a melting pot of tastes to accompany her mum’s adventurous stories.
She’d never really known her dad, but Nora had been enough parent and then some. Dedicated to raising her daughter, Nora hadn’t dated until after she’d graduated high school and moved out. Even then her relationships had lasted only a scant few months. Callie had always wondered if her mum’s exuberance had been too much for middle-aged guys who’d expected Martha Stewart and ended up with Lara Croft.
As she entered the shaded forecourt of Colldon Special Accommodation Home she knew that made it all the harder to accept—the fact her go-get-’em mother had been cut down in her prime by a devastating illness no amount of fighting could conquer.
She signed in, slipped a visitor’s lanyard over her neck and headed towards the rear of the sandstone building. As she strolled down the pastel-carpeted corridor she let the peace of the place infuse her: the piped rainforest sounds, the subtle scent of lemon and ginger essential oils being diffused from air vents, the colours on the walls transitioning from muted mauve to sunny daffodil.
Colldon felt more like an upmarket boutique hotel than a special home and Callie would do whatever it took to ensure her mum remained here.
Including shacking up with Archer Flett for a week to work on his precious campaign.
She shook her head, hoping that would dispel the image of her agreeing to his demands. It didn’t, and all she