‘There’s air-conditioning if you prefer.’
‘Fresh air’s fine.’
‘The bathroom’s next door down the hall. You’ll have it all to yourself; I had my own en suite built into the master bedroom.’
‘Thanks.’ She laid the day’s purchases on the bed.
‘Come down when you’re ready and I’ll fix us something for tea.’
As in they’d be dining in? With all these undercurrents swirling them into dangerous waters? She wanted, needed, to be amongst people. Lots of people. To go to the city and smell hot Adelaide pavement and hear familiar Aussie accents.
‘Let’s eat out,’ she said. ‘I know just the place.’
Chapter Five
THE SETTING sun had turned the sky gold. The city streets still held the day’s heat. Tourists and locals strolled along North Terrace, past the lovely old railway building, now home to a casino and Hyatt hotel, where fairylights sparkled in trees. Others were enjoying drinks at open-air bars on the other side of the busy street.
From their little table Mariel glared at the spot where she and Dane had enjoyed many a meal—only the old pie cart wasn’t there. A line of waiting taxis now filled the kerbside. ‘But it was a more-than-century-old Adelaide icon,’ she grumbled. ‘I was going to shout you a pie floater for letting me drive…and for being a good sport about the close brush with the foliage…the very soft, very overhanging foliage.’
He tossed back a mouthful of beer. ‘It’s not really pie weather.’
‘Any weather is pie floater weather, and I haven’t tasted one in ten years.’ She pursed her lips to suck lemonade through a straw. ‘You know, I tried explaining it to Luc…How do you convince someone, especially a French someone, with vast gastronomic experience, that an upturned meat pie swimming in thick green pea soup and smothered with tomato sauce is a culinary delicacy? And has to be eaten standing at the kerbside, rubbing shoulders with cleaners to cops to politicians come rain or shine?’
He tipped back his glass, swallowed, then nodded. ‘I guess you have to experience it.’
‘Yeah…’ She dropped her chin on an upturned palm and sucked on her straw some more, and for a moment they were kids again, shovelling pie and soup into their mouths, arguing over who had more sauce, waiting for the piecrust to turn sodden…
She didn’t notice him move until the warmth of his hand touched hers. He slid his thumb over the inside of her wrist. ‘So we’ll make our own.’
The way he said that—as if he wasn’t talking about pies, but something much more pleasurable. Her gaze darted to his and she found herself drawn unwillingly into the sensuous promise she saw there.
The guy watching her wasn’t that teenager she’d known. Dane, the man, wouldn’t hesitate to take what he wanted, be it in business or pleasure, and the knowledge shivered down her spine. She tried to tug her arm away, but his grip tightened.
‘Don’t,’ he said, and lifted it to his lips, laying a line of kisses from the middle of her palm to her elbow, watching her with that heated gaze as he did so.
Sensation sparkled along her skin—much too brightly.
Her pulse beat a tattoo beneath his lips—much too loudly.
‘We’re meant to be lovers, remember?’ The low timbre of his voice vibrated against her flesh.
Drawing a breath, she shook her head, as much to clear it as to negate his words. ‘No one’s watching. You don’t have to…do that.’
‘Not true—you never know who’s watching, and you should be as aware of that as I. Let’s go home.’
‘Dinner is served, mademoiselle.’ Dane set the steaming, aromatic plates down on the French-polished dining room table. Two pies floated in a sea of pea-green, looking incongruous amidst the room’s old-world elegance.
‘Ah, merci, garçon, c’est très magnifique.’ She smiled at him, a smile that reminded him of long-ago days, and said, ‘But it’s traditional to eat it standing.’
‘To hell with tradition,’ he said, pulling out a chair for her. He passed her a half-empty bottle of tomato sauce with the instruction to, ‘Leave some for me.’
‘You’ll be lucky.’
Dane watched her up-end the bottle over her meal, then pass it to him. Only Mariel Davenport could eat a soggy pie dripping with red and green and maintain some modicum of elegance.
She sipped at her glass of wine. ‘So your dad hasn’t moved to the city?’
‘No.’ He stabbed his fork into the pie, hacked off a corner.
She frowned, censure in her eyes. ‘I know it was bad for you as a kid. But he’s old—he must be in his late seventies now. How does he manage on his own?’
‘You know my father—he has a fit and healthy forty-year-old woman drop by to help him manage.’ He chewed more vigorously, making his jaw ache.
‘Oh.’
‘Exactly.’
Mariel knew his circumstances. How both his parents had indulged in extra-marital relationships. How his mother had left to live interstate with a new guy when Dane was seven. And how his father had paid for his only son to board at the exclusive school he and Mariel had attended because he didn’t want the inconvenience of a son underfoot.
‘I’ve done okay without his support,’ he said into the silence. He’d worked his way through uni like any regular guy, waiting tables to pay his own way until he and Justin had set up their own business. It had exploded—way beyond their expectations. Five years, and financially he’d achieved what some would take a lifetime to do.
He didn’t need family. Didn’t need anyone. The women who flitted into his life either flitted right out again when they realised he wasn’t there for the long haul, or understood where he was coming from and were happy with a temporary arrangement.
Wealth was happiness.
Strange, but tonight he didn’t feel as happy about that as he’d thought. He set down his cutlery with a rattle of silver on china, reached for his wine, took a long, slow swallow.
‘So I take it you’ve never changed your mind about settling down and having kids?’
Had she read his thoughts? His fingers tightened on his glass. ‘You know me: terminal bachelor. As for kids—never in a million years. No way. No how.’
‘That’s sad, Dane. You’re letting your own childhood rule who you are now. There’s nothing more precious than family. If you do want to talk about anything, at any time…’ Mariel set her own cutlery to one side of the plate and met his eyes in the intimate lighting.
He nodded once. Mariel. Sincere, honest, caring. Soothing his mood the way she’d always done. The one person he’d always been able to count on. Unfortunately, right now he wanted her to soothe a lot more than his current mood. And with a lot more than words.
Forget it, Huntington.
Reining in his runaway libido, he straightened, flipping his linen napkin onto the table. ‘I’ve got some fresh peaches, or a frozen—’
‘Nothing more for me, thanks.’ Patting her mouth on her own napkin, she rose. ‘I’m going to be lazy and not help you with the clearing up. I haven’t finished exploring yet.’
‘Do