‘I’d prefer not to talk about it,’ he said. ‘I’m all grown up now and don’t angst about the past.’ Except when it was dark and lonely and he couldn’t sleep and he wondered if he was fated to live alone without love.
‘I understand,’ she said. But how could she?
She paused to leave a silence he did not feel able to fill.
‘Talking about my family,’ she finally said, ‘you’re my mother’s new number one favourite person.’
Touched by not only her words but her effort to draw him in some way into her family circle, he smiled. ‘And why is that?’
‘Seriously, she really liked you at dinner on Wednesday night. But then, when you had flowers delivered the next day, she was over the moon. Especially at the note that said she cooked the best lasagne you’d ever tasted.’
‘I’m glad she liked them. And it was true about the lasagne.’ Home-made anything was rarely on the menu for him so he had appreciated it.
‘How did you know pink was her favourite colour in flowers?’
‘I noticed the flowers she’d planted in her garden.’
‘But you only saw the garden so briefly.’
‘I’m observant,’ he said.
‘But the icing on the cake was the voucher for dinner for two at their local bistro.’
‘She mentioned she liked their food when we were talking,’ he said.
‘You’re a thoughtful guy, aren’t you?’ she said, tilting her head to the side.
‘Some don’t think so,’ he said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.
She lowered her voice to barely a whisper so he had to lean across the table to hear her, so close their heads were touching. Anyone who was watching would think they were on a date.
She placed her hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort which touched him. ‘Don’t worry. The party should change all that. I really liked Rob’s idea that no media would be invited to the party. That journalists would have to volunteer to help on the day if they wanted to see what it was all about.’
‘And no photographers allowed, to preserve our guests’ privacy. I liked that too.’
‘I really have a good feeling about it,’ she said. She lifted her hand off his arm and he felt bereft of her touch.
He nodded. If it were up to him, if he didn’t have to go ahead with the party, he’d cancel it at a moment’s notice. Maybe there was a touch of Scrooge in him after all.
But he didn’t want Andie to think that of him. Not for a moment.
He hadn’t proved to be a good judge of women. His errors in judgement went right back to his aunt—he’d loved her when she was his fun auntie from Australia. She’d turned out to be a very different person. Then there’d been Melody—sweet, doomed Melody. At seventeen he’d been a man in body but a boy still in heart. He’d been gutted at her betrayal, too damn wet behind the ears to realise a teenage boy’s love could never be enough for an addict. Then how could he have been sucked in by Tara? His ex-wife was a redhead like Melody, tiny and delicate. But her frail exterior hid an avaricious, dishonest heart and she had lied to him about something so fundamental to their marriage that he could never forgive her.
Now there was Andie. He didn’t trust his feelings when he’d made such disastrous calls before. ‘What you see is what you get,’ she’d said about her family.
Could he trust himself to judge that Andie was what she appeared to be?
He reined in his errant thoughts—he only needed to trust Andie to deliver him the party he needed to improve his public image. Anything personal was not going to happen.
‘ANDIE, I NEED to see you.’ Dominic’s voice on her smartphone was harsh in its urgency. It was eight a.m. and Andie had not been expecting a call from him. He’d been away more than a week on business and she’d mainly communicated with him by text and email—and only then if it was something that needed his approval for the party. The last time she’d seen him was the Friday they’d had lunch together. The strictly business lunch that had somehow felt more like a date. But she couldn’t let herself think like that.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I just have to—’
‘Now. Please. Where do you live?’
Startled at his tone, she gave him the address of the apartment in a converted warehouse in the inner western suburb of Newtown she shared with two old schoolfriends. Her friends had both already left for work. Andie had planned on a day finalising prop hire and purchase for Dominic’s party before she started work for a tuxedo-and-tiara-themed twenty-first birthday party.
She quickly changed into skinny denim jeans and a simple loose-knit cream top that laced with leather ties at the neckline. Decided on her favourite leopard-print stilettos over flats. And make-up. And her favourite sandalwood and jasmine perfume. What the heck—her heart was racing at the thought of seeing him. She didn’t want to seem as though she were trying too hard—but then again she didn’t want to be caught out in sweats.
When Dominic arrived she was shocked to see he didn’t look his sartorial best. In fact he looked downright dishevelled. His black hair seemed as if he’d used his fingers for a comb and his dark stubble was one step away from a beard. He was wearing black jeans, a dark grey T-shirt and had a black leather jacket slung over his shoulders. Immediately he owned the high-ceilinged room, a space that overwhelmed men of lesser stature, with the casual athleticism of his stance, the power of his body with its air of tightly coiled energy.
‘Are you alone?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. Yes!
Her first thought was that he looked hotter than ever—so hot she had to catch her breath. This Dominic set her pulse racing even more than executive Dominic in his made-to-measure Italian suits.
Her second thought was that he seemed stressed—his mouth set in a grim line, his eyes red-rimmed and darkly shadowed. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
‘I’ve come straight from the airport. I just flew in from Perth.’ Perth was on the other side of Australia—a six-hour flight. ‘I cut short my trip.’
‘But are you okay?’ She forced her voice to sound calm and measured, not wanting him to realise how she was reacting to his untamed good looks. Her heart thudded with awareness that they were alone in the apartment.
With the kind of friendly working relationship they had now established, it would be quite in order to greet him with a light kiss on his beard-roughened cheek. But she wouldn’t dare. She might not be able to resist sliding her mouth across his cheek to his mouth and turning it into a very different kind of kiss. And that wouldn’t do.
‘I’m fine. I’ve just...been presented with...with a dilemma,’ Dominic said.
‘Coffee might help,’ she said.
‘Please.’
‘Breakfast? I have—’
‘Just coffee.’
But Andie knew that sometimes men who said they didn’t want anything to eat needed food. And that their mood could improve immeasurably when they ate something. Not that she’d been in the habit of sharing breakfast with a man. Not since... She forced her mind back to the present and away from memories of breakfasts with Anthony on a sun-soaked veranda. Her memories of him were lit with sunshine and happiness.
Dominic dragged out a chair and slumped down at her kitchen table while she prepared him coffee. Why was he here?