by Lee, Miranda
“Of course.”
“Then let’s go.” Whirling, she headed for the bedroom door.
Aiden stared after Zoe for a second, not sure he liked the sudden change which had come over her. The icy toughness. The steely glint in her eye. The bitter decisiveness.
The Zoe he’d met last week was not like that.
There again, the girl he’d met last week hadn’t just personally witnessed her boyfriend being pleasured by another woman.
“I don’t have a car,” he said, catching up with her in the hallway. “I came in a taxi.” He’d left his truck at the city hotel he’d booked into earlier that day.
“No problem. We’ll take my car. It’s here in the underground car-lot. I just have to get my things out of the guest room.”
“The guest room? But I thought…”
“Don’t think!” she snapped. “All you have to do is drive.” She turned into a bedroom farther along the corridor, and started shoving some clothes and toiletries in an overnight bag.
Aiden wisely kept his mouth shut after that. He didn’t want to delay her leaving in case Drake reappeared and tried to stop her. Though goodness knew what that lowlife could say to excuse his behavior this time. He could hardly use the old it-was-only-the-once line again. Maybe he’d try some new male line, like Zoe hadn’t been giving him enough and he was desperate.
Aiden raised his eyebrows at this last thought. Maybe she hadn’t been giving him any! It was certainly curious that her things were in the guest room. The possibility that Zoe might not have returned to Drake’s bed this week pleased Aiden no end. But he wasn’t going to ask. He might be a fool where she was concerned but he wasn’t that much of a fool. Clearly, Zoe wasn’t in the mood for chitchat. Or confidences. Or anything else for that matter.
But give her time…
Time, Aiden had. He had all the time in the world.
13
ZOE SAT, SLUMPED IN the passenger seat, her head turned toward the side window, her eyes shut. She was pretending to be asleep. She’d been pretending to be asleep since shortly after she’d explained to Aiden about the emergency, then given him directions to the farm.
She hadn’t wanted to talk. All she’d wanted to do was think, something she couldn’t do properly if Aiden started on at her with all that stuff about finding her special and how he’d come to Sydney just to be with her again, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So she kept her eyes firmly shut while she replayed the events of the evening over and over in her head, trying to make sense of them all, trying to see the truth.
At least, the truth as she saw it. She couldn’t speak for anyone else. More and more Zoe realized that the only person’s feelings she could ever be truly sure of in this world were her own.
Perversely, in the end, she had to concede that instead of feeling shattered, or depressed, by Drake’s abominable behavior, she actually felt relieved. His doing what he did had forced her to do what she should have done in the beginning. Split up with him. She’d hung on to their relationship like some desperado, as though it was better to have any man, even one who cheated on her, than no man at all.
Which had been foolish of her. And rather sad.
She’d honestly thought, after Greg, that she’d stopped being foolish when it came to men.
But she hadn’t at all.
Drake had made an even bigger fool of her than Greg had.
Still, Drake had fooled more people than her. Fran. Mel. Betty, even. Betty had thought him charming.
But he hadn’t fooled other men. Her dad hadn’t liked him one little bit, and of course, neither had Aiden.
Aiden…
Zoe scooped in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
What on earth was she going to do about Aiden?
The realization that he wasn’t driving her all the way home to Moss Vale in the dead of night strictly out of the goodness of his heart did not escape Zoe. His kindness had an ulterior motive, just as his kindnesses toward her had always had an ulterior motive. His helping her when she’d fallen over, his bringing her over those eggs, and then his saving her from the ocean. Not because he was one of the good guys. All because he’d wanted to get into her pants.
When his current knight-to-the-rescue act was over, he’d expect to be rewarded as men had been expecting rewards from damsels in distress since the Dark Ages.
Oh, yes. Everything came at a price with men like Aiden Mitchell.
What annoyed Zoe most was his blatant hypocrisy. If only he would come out and just state the bare truth without trying to dress it up with romantic frills. Why not call a spade a spade? He didn’t want to explore a real relationship with her. He just wanted some more sex. That was the bottom line.
And what of your own truth, Zoe? came that taunting and devilish voice which never left her alone once Aiden entered her head. Are you willing to embrace brutal honesty yourself? Admit it. You want him to demand his reward. You want him to forcibly pull you back into his arms like he did in Drake’s kitchen. You want him to finish what he started before you were interrupted.
It came to her suddenly that if that man hadn’t come into the kitchen when he did, she would have ended up no better than Drake, having sex with Aiden right there where she stood, mindless of who might come in and find them actually doing it.
A shudder ricocheted down Zoe’s spine and sent her sitting bolt upright, her eyes flinging open.
Aiden slanted her a concerned glance. “Bad dream?”
“Yes,” she said agitatedly, shaken by this thought. “Very bad.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
“No!” she choked out, and shuddered anew.
“Fair enough. Most bad dreams are best forgotten.”
If only they could be, she thought despairingly.
“The turn off for Bowral and Moss Vale is coming up,” he went on. “You woke up just in time. I wanted to ask you a few things before we get to your place. I don’t want to put my foot in my mouth with your folks. Firstly, who’s Mel? Your sister?”
“No, my roommate,” Zoe returned crisply, happy to talk practicalities with him. “I don’t have any sisters. Or any brothers for that matter.”
“And Betty? Who’s Betty?”
“My dad’s housekeeper. He’s a widower.”
“She lives in, does she?”
“No. She has her own house in Moss Vale. She does stay over sometimes when she ropes Dad into playing Scrabble with her. She’s mad about games and never knows when to stop. Scrabble is her latest obsession.”
“She sounds a character.”
“Oh, she is. She’s very kind, too. I love her dearly.” If it hadn’t been for Betty…
“Any chance of marriage between her and your dad?”
“Lord, no. Betty’s only about forty. And quite attractive. Dad’s over fifty, overweight and very boring. My dad’s not interested in marrying again, anyway. Mom was the only woman for him. He’s been miserable and broken-hearted ever since she died.”
“What a shame. Still, marriage isn’t the be-all and end-all. You weren’t thinking of marrying Drake before tonight, were you?”
“The last person I want to talk about in any shape or form,” Zoe snapped, “is Drake.”
His eyes softened on her before turning back to the road. “I can appreciate that. What happened back in Sydney couldn’t have been pleasant for you. But at least you now know that he didn’t love you.”
“No kidding.” She certainly didn’t need him to tell her that.
“You don’t still think you love him, do you?”
Zoe sighed. “I’m not going to get into one of these conversations, Aiden. I’m far too tired and far too fed up.”
“Fair enough. I’ll put it on the back burner for now. But don’t go thinking I won’t come back to it tomorrow. I want to know all about you, Zoe. What you think. What you feel. What you want. I haven’t come all this way to be fobbed off. We have unfinished business, you and I. I aim to finish it, one wa
y or another.”
Zoe was rattled by such tunnel-vision focus. She speculated for a minute or two if he could possibly be sincere. But then her recently hard-earned cynicism kicked in and she remembered that such flattering talk was only a ploy. He didn’t really want to know everything about her. Talking was just a means to an end. And the end was more sex.
But she did wonder what it was about sex with her he found so compelling and addictive that he would work this hard for it. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t had oodles of sex before, unlike herself.
Perhaps a clue lay in his comment that she’d been like a virgin with him, constantly surprised by her feelings and responses, not to mention all those mind-blowing orgasms.
Maybe he’d really liked that. Maybe, over the years, he’d had so much sex with so many wildly experienced and uninhibited women that he found her relative innocence and inexperience refreshing. Maybe that was what he meant by special. Maybe what appealed to him was the idea of surprising her a lot more, of introducing her to all those erotic delights she’d not yet tasted. Things such as she’d seen tonight in Drake’s en suite.
Zoe wasn’t sure if that prospect appalled, or enthralled her. The image popped into her mind of herself on her knees in front of Aiden, not just half naked but totally in the nude. In her mind’s eye, he was nude too, his hands in her hair, his eyes downcast as he watched her, watched her doing that to him, watched her take him right to the edge. And beyond.
Zoe swallowed convulsively at the thought, a wave of heat washing through her.
“Zoe?”
“Yes,” she choked out.
“We’re coming into Moss Vale. Where do we go from here?”
Where indeed? she thought frantically, then gave him directions.
The farm was only a few miles the other side of Moss Vale, a hundred hectares of prime dairy country. The land was mostly river flats surrounding one large hill on which perched the old farmhouse. It was wooden and once was white, with a high-pitched, rust-red iron roof and a wide porch all the way around. A peeling picket fence enclosed the garden and kept out the cows, but the backyard was nothing like when Zoe’s mom had been alive.
Zoe sometimes found it hard to look at the now-bland shrub-filled beds which lined the front fence and which had once held glorious displays of Iceland poppies and primulas and snapdragons.
Aiden pulled up outside that same front fence just as the clock on the dash clicked over to two. Before he’d even turned off the engine, Betty burst through the screen door, her short coppery hair glowing under the porch light, her smile warm and welcoming as she hurried down the path and out through the gate.
Zoe opened the passenger door and smiled up at the woman who’d saved her when she’d really needed saving. Dear Betty. Zoe loved her almost as much as she’d loved her mom.
“Hi,” she said, climbing out of the car and reaching up on tiptoe to kiss Betty who was very tall. Just on six feet. Betty had once explained that the reason she’d never married was her height, saying with an amused twinkle in her fine gray eyes that she’d never found a boyfriend she could look up to. Zoe reckoned it was because she was far too strong-minded and independent to fancy marriage.
“You needn’t have stayed up, you know,” Zoe added. “I could have managed.”
“Oh, as if I could go to bed. I was too excited at seeing you again. Hey, look at you!” Betty exclaimed, taking Zoe’s hands and holding them out wide so that she could better see her dress. “Don’t you look pretty in pink. But I do feel terrible at having to drag you and Drake away from your party.” She bent down to peer into the car where Aiden was still sitting. “Drake, I…”
She stopped on seeing it wasn’t Drake behind the wheel, blinking her confusion at Zoe.
“Betty, this is Aiden,” Zoe introduced with an almost weary resignation in her voice. “Aiden, this is Betty.”
Aiden climbed out of the car as well. “Hi, Betty,” he said cheerily across the hood. “Pleased to meet you. And before you jump to any conclusions. Zoe and I are just good friends.”
Betty laughed. “With your looks? I find that hard to believe, and so will Zoe’s dad. What happened to Drake?”
“Drake who?” Zoe said with a poker face.
Betty’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh, I see. Like that, is it? What did he do? Refuse to drive you down here?”
“I didn’t ask him. We’re finished.”
“Ah, well, no loss, love. If it’s any consolation, I never liked him any more than your father did.”
Zoe was taken aback. “But…but you said he was charming?”
“And so he was. But it was all surface charm. He had no depth.”
“You can say that again,” came Aiden’s rueful remark.
Zoe whirled on him. “Excuse me, but I think that’s the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you?” She turned back to Betty. “Sorry, Betty. You know how it is with friends sometimes. Down deep, they love each other, but they fight a lot.”
“I know what you mean. Your father and I don’t see eye to eye on many an occasion.”
“How is Dad, by the way?” Zoe asked. “How long will he be out of action?”
“Weeks. But he’ll live. After you called and I gave him the good news, he finally agreed to take the pain-killers the doctor prescribed and he’s fast asleep. But come tomorrow, I want you to try and talk some sense to him. You and I both know, Zoe, that this dairy farm is no longer a going concern. Your father can only afford to keep running it because he inherited some money a few years back. But it’s time he sold. He’s no longer enjoying it and he’s had a good offer from one of those multi-national agricultural companies. I have a feeling he might not want to sell because he thinks you’re attached to the place.”
“Me?” She’d always hated the farm. “I can’t see why he’d think that.”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps because of your mom. He says the backyard holds precious memories of her for you.”
“Oh. Oh, I see…” Zoe had never told her dad, but her mom had never liked the farm. Or the house. Never. She’d just put up with it because she loved her husband. The backyard had been her only pleasure. But without her mother in it, the backyard held no precious memories for Zoe.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said.
Betty smiled. “I knew I could count on you. Sensible girl, our Zoe, isn’t she?” she directed at Aiden.
“Mmm,” he said, and Zoe heard sarcasm in there somewhere.
“But where would Dad live?” Zoe asked, suddenly terrified that he might want to come to Sydney and live with her.
Betty shrugged. “I dare say in Moss Vale. He wouldn’t want to move away from the area, and all his friends.”
“Friends! Dad doesn’t have any friends other than you.”
Betty gave her a reproving look. “You’d be surprised, missy. Your dad has become quite a popular man down at the bowling club lately.”
“Dad? Popular? At a club? I don’t believe it. He never goes to clubs.”
“Maybe he didn’t once, but he does now. I got fed up with his moping around the place after you left at Christmas and dragged him down there myself. He had such a great time, he’s joined up. Done him the world of good. Found a personality he didn’t know he had. Pity about his ankle, though. I was going to take him to a decent hairdresser this week, then on to the menswear store to buy some new clothes. I guess that’ll have to wait now.”
Zoe had to smile. Betty had this compulsion, it seemed, for making over ugly ducklings into swans. She might have achieved amazing things with one very fat teenage girl a few years back, but bringing an old fogey like her dad up to date would take a minor miracle. Trendy, he would never be. Still, fancy his agreeing to go to a club. And making new friends, no less. Wonders of the world would never cease!
“But enough of that,” Betty said. “I’m sure you two could do with a cup of tea and something to eat after your long drive. I have some fresh blueberry muffins just out of the oven.”
>
“Fantastic!” Aiden exclaimed, rubbing his hands together in pleasurable anticipation. “I’m starving.”
“You shouldn’t have, Betty,” Zoe chided.
“Had to do something to keep awake. Hard to play Scrabble with myself. You wouldn’t happen to play Scrabble, would you, Aiden?”
“Do I play Scrabble! I happen to be the resident Shelley Bay champion. But I’m even more famous for the number of hot muffins I can devour in one sitting. So lead me to the kitchen immediately, Betty. But come tomorrow, look out. I show no mercy when it comes to games.”
Zoe had a feeling he showed no mercy in lots of things. He was a winner through and through, which was possibly another reason why he’d chased after her to Sydney. Because he didn’t like the fact she’d made the decision last weekend to leave things at a one-night stand. Clearly, he liked calling the shots where his sex life was concerned. He decided when enough was enough.
“Coming, Zoe?” he said, taking her arm. Betty was already on her way up the front path.
Zoe stared down at his long strong fingers then up into his far too handsome face.
“I need my bag,” she said stiffly and extracted her arm from his, turning away to collect her things from the back seat of the car.
“Let me carry it,” he offered.
“No, thanks,” she said crisply. “Letting you carry my things is what got me into trouble in the first place.”
He frowned. “You think I’m trouble?”
“I know you’re trouble.”
“Mmm. And what do you think you are to me?”
“A challenge.”
He frowned, then nodded. “I never thought of you in that light before, but you could be right. I do like a challenge.”
“Either that, or a titillation for your jaded sexual palate.”
His eyebrows shot up. “A titillation!”
“Yes. You think you can teach me a thing or two.”
His surprised expression slowly changed to intrigued. “And can I?”
“Undoubtedly,” came her droll remark.
