by Margaret Way
The nerves in Olivia’s stomach were fluttering so badly she thought she’d be sick. Softly as the words were spoken they seemed to her to carry a real note of foreboding.
“Hello, Mr. Carlo,” Tali responded with a big smile, making a grab for Carlo’s hand and holding it.
“Hello, Natalie.” Carlo made no attempt to withdrawn his hand. He continued to stare back at the child as though this was just between the two of them. “What a pretty girl you are!” A powerful light had been let into Carlo’s shocked and confused brain. All the pieces slotted into place. This child was deeply familiar to him—he knew her face, he knew her manner, the sweet cheeky grin. She was the image of his sister, Gina at the same age. The resemblance leapt at him, so strongly it almost knocked him to the ground.
Surely if he could see it, why couldn’t others? Or did people only see what they wanted to see?
Normally Leanne was so quick. Apparently she saw nothing. She had a soft, open smile on her face as did the other women.
His friend Jason continued to hold the child, his strikingly handsome face, so vividly masculine, ineffably tender. Carlo darted another glance around. No one looked troubled. No expression was turning quizzical. They all accepted Natalie was Jason’s child. Jason’s and Megan Duffy’s. Sly, conniving, cheating Megan Duffy who had once given the entire district a great performance as a coy little virgin. In Carlo’s opinion, Megan was the worst Duffy of them all.
The beautiful Olivia, so perfectly right in this mansion, hovered in the background. Her face was as still as a porcelain statue, devoid of expression, but her eyes glittered with some emotion Carlo identified as trepidation. Olivia was waiting for the time-bomb to go off.
Olivia knew. He had real conviction without knowing exactly why. Olivia was a smart woman, part of the triangle. Olivia had fathomed the mystery. She should have been wild with anger at what had been done to her, but he could see not anger, but overwhelming sorrow in her eyes, anxiety for Jason and the child, possibly him. Olivia Linfield, like her late uncle had a kind heart. Not that it had done her much good.
The sound of Leanne’s voice broke into Carlo’s agonised thoughts; split-second timing when he had been ready to snap. “We really should be going, Carlo.” She smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. “We’re keeping this little lady from her bed.”
But Tali was more interested in saying something else to Carlo, who had obviously caught and held her attention. “Am I going to see you again, Mr. Carlo?” she asked, looking as though she hoped he’d say yes.
“Why don’t you ask your father?” Carlo looked with intensity into Jason’s eyes, but Jason appeared to notice nothing unusual.
“Why don’t you ask him?” Tali promptly replied.
“Hey what is all this about?” Jason laughed. “You’ve charmed my little daughter, Carlo.”
“I guess so,” Carlo murmured, moving his gaze to where Olivia stood.
Olivia knew what that instant rapport meant.
Love at first sight. That’s what happened when a man first laid eyes on his firstborn.
“That went off particularly well,” Jason remarked as he carried a hugely yawning Tali up the stairs. “I was pleasantly surprised—I’m not sure why—how nice Carlo was to Tali. They really clicked. The Carlo I remember didn’t find kids so appealing. Now I’m thinking he’ll make a good father.”
Olivia breathed a cautious, “Yes.”
Tali was already asleep by the time Jason tucked her in. He bent his auburn head to drop a kiss on her temple. “She told me she was dreaming about her mummy. It’s sad that has to fall into the bad dream category.”
“Whatever did Megan do to her, Jason?” Olivia asked when they were back in the softly lit hallway.
He grimaced. “Not Megan. Not now,” he pleaded. “I thoroughly enjoyed tonight. It was good to catch up with everyone.” Jason glanced down at Olivia quickly, catching her expression.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“There’s nothing the matter with me.” She continued walking along the quiet corridor.
“Standard answer. There is something the matter with you, I know you too well.”
“I’m always afraid something is going to go wrong,” she admitted quietly.
He was silent for a moment, conscious of her enormous emotional pull. “I think the worst thing that was going to happen to us has already happened, don’t you, Liv?”
“As in Megan?” she asked. Her spirit was reeling from all her discoveries.
“Now I’m afraid,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about Megan. She wreaked an awful lot of damage.”
“I don’t think you’re through with her, either.” Olivia made the unwilling prediction, a shiver passing through her body.
“I told you, Liv. Megan doesn’t care about Tali. All her feelings are for herself.”
Olivia shook her head. “It might be more complicated than that, Jason. I know Megan thought nothing of causing pain. I’ve had to accept she probably hated me, interpreting my efforts to be kind as secretly despising her. I never did then, but I do now. What if she ever gets to hear you’re back on Havilah?” She lifted her head to stare at his chiselled profile. “She made sure she parted us once.”
“We can’t grieve forever for what was lost, Liv,” he told her gently. “Megan can do nothing. She can’t and won’t take Tali from me.”
“You want Tali beyond anything, don’t you?” she asked, a sad note in her voice.
“What a question, Liv? She’s my daughter. Are you saying I love Tali more than I could ever love you?”
“Do you love me?” she asked, a melancholy note in her voice.
He placed a hand on her shoulder, halting her progress. He made her face him. “I’m not afraid of my own heart, Olivia. I do love you. Sometimes I feel it’s beyond my control like it’s written in the stars. All these years I’ve had to bear without you, it was like living with a permanent hunger. When I lost you it was like the end of the world.”
“And now?”
He looked deep into her beautiful eyes, seeing in their crystal depths grief, confusion, even remarkably, a hint of fear. “I don’t think you can forget the past, Liv. You’ve lost your faith. You’ve lost your trust. Something happened tonight. I don’t know what and you won’t tell me. Something you remembered? Something that’s frightening you? Can’t you tell me?”
“Hold me,” she said. “Just hold me,” she implored.
He gave an odd choky laugh. “Liv! Do you enjoy torturing me? I can’t just hold you, I’m mad for you. I’m a man who desperately wants a woman. Not any woman. You. I don’t want to be standing in the hallway holding you around the waist. I want you naked in bed. I haven’t forgotten what our extraordinary intimacy was like. I haven’t forgotten the absolute rapture. I haven’t forgotten how you look and how you sound when you come. I haven’t forgotten our lovemaking, Liv. It meant everything in the world to me.”
She could have wept. She could have screamed. The one thing she couldn’t do was articulate her fears. She fell back on her usual lament. “Then how did you do that to us?”
Immediately the words were out of her mouth, she knew she’d lost him. Yet again. He all but threw her off, taking the steps of the staircase at such a pace he might have been born with winged feet.
“Jason, please.” Was it possible to act normal when the future was shaping up so precariously?
“None of your please,” he threw over his shoulder. “All you’re good for is opening old wounds.”
“I don’t want you to go.” She, too, had no difficulty negotiating the stairs at a run. “Tali and I will be alone.”
“You’re surely not nervous?” He spun about, finding her much closer than he expected. Her dark hair flew around her pale perfect face. Her eyes glittered like gems. Her mouth, her beautiful mouth with its full bottom lip was the only colour about her. Rose red. Her dress was an exquisite ice-white, fantastically pretty, one shouldered, the soft chi
ffon scattered all over with little silver beads and shimmery things that caught the light. “I pity the man who tried to get the better of you!” he grated.
“You did!” she answered with intensity. “I’ve never truly been free of you.”
“So why do you want me to stay?” He retraced his steps, standing over her, staring down into her troubled face.
“Because…because…” Her eyes started to fill with tears, rapidly increasing his already sizzling desire.
“Say it,” he ordered. “You understand, Liv. I want you to say it. Now!”
She knew he wouldn’t tolerate any further provocation. “Because I ache for you,” she said, her voice trembling. “You, Jason. No-one else.”
“You’ll let me sleep with you?” The words came out more harshly than he intended, but couldn’t she see what she was doing to him?
Colour bloomed in her cheeks. “If you think Tali will sleep soundly.”
“And I have to get up at four o’clock in the morning to go home?” He smiled slightly but his expression remained taut. “I’m a very busy man after all.”
In an instant she was vibrating with anger, interpreting the tautness as insolence. “Then do what you want,” she said sharply, thinking he was trying to humiliate her. “Feel free to go. I’ll lock up after you.”
“Will you just!” He raised a sardonic brow. “You’ve just issued me with an invitation, Olivia. I’m going to take it. We’re both past games.”
What was she supposed to do? Olivia stalked to the door, the rigidity of her body language indicating he should leave. “I don’t like your attitude, Jason,” she said. “Tali and I will be quite safe. You can’t have forgotten we have an excellent security system.”
“Not to mention your eyes looking daggers, those sharp little teeth which you’ve already used on me, and your long nails. I might have to carry you up those stairs screaming and kicking but I will do it,” he promised.
“Would you really like to hear me scream?”
“Possibly.” His mouth twisted. “Little screams in my ear when I’m making love to you.”
The shift to tender eroticism quite vanquished her.
He wasted no time. He moved to take her quiescent body into his arms, one long arm reaching out to switch off all the exterior lights and the huge, multibranched chandelier that blazed over their heads.
“You’re an aggravating woman,” he said, staring down into her face.
“I am.”
His arms settled on either side of her while he shut then locked the front door. “We’re quite alone.” His eyes burned over her.
“Yes, I know.”
“Except for Tali who’s sleeping the deep sleep only children are capable of.”
She reached out to him, slipping several buttons of his blue shirt, then she slid her hand in over his bare chest, splaying her fingers through the tangle of hair. “Don’t you want to know who my last lover was?”
“No.” He bent forward to kiss her, a brief taste of what was to come, yet she almost whimpered at the rush of pleasure. “Whoever it was your heart wasn’t in it.”
“That goes for them all,” she said, when they were few. “I could never block you out.”
“And who were they?” he whispered against her throat, his mouth moving to kiss the shoulder laid bare by her dress; his hand to the chiffon folds over her breast, the sensitive tips of her nipples flaring at the touch of his thumb.
She couldn’t have moved even if she’d wanted to. Her body betrayed her anyway. Pleasure held her like a velvet trap.
“You can’t escape me, Liv.” His voice was quiet but vibrating with a lover’s emotion.
“I don’t want to.” With one hand she grasped the front of his shirt, pulling him ever closer to her, the other hand at the back of his neck.
The look in his eyes, the blue of sapphires, the blue of the ocean, had the hot blood glittering in her arteries. “You’re my girl. You always were. Always will be.”
He lifted her effortlessly, her long hair falling free as he strode up the graceful flight of stairs, to the moonlight and roses of her beautiful bedroom.
CHAPTER TEN
THERE was no sleep. They made love into the predawn as though they had to make up for the lost years. Their passion for each other was for once unguarded. There was no place for conflict, for control, for the self-disciplines they had imposed on themselves. There was no place either for alienation or restraint. It was an extraordinary night, a long waited exploration when time no longer mattered…
Jason was an infinitely skilled lover. Her body welcomed him as it had never welcomed another. He aroused in her sensations so exquisite they broke her heart; sensations of such intensity they drew her out of the deep void in which she had buried herself, tumbling her fathoms into a glittering sea of love where her body was weightless and incredibly she could breathe.
She was rising…reaching for him; Jason easing into her body, the tumultuous penetration; the throbbing, rhythmical, sensuality too wonderful to describe. Trembling moments poised on the brink before the blind rush to climax; the desperate desire, the convulsive rapture. The starburst! A brilliant display behind tightly locked lids. The reverie of endless contractions, vibrations that resounded deep within the body.
The most exquisite indolence! Satiated, they rested naked in each other’s arms until inevitably such was their hunger they slipped back into that ravishing eroticism where the only sounds were broken endearments, laboured breaths, little gasps and long drawn out rapturous moans. There was nothing they would not give to each other.
“You’ve exhausted me,” he laughed. “You’re so demanding.” He turned on his side to drop the sweetest kiss on her open mouth.
“You can’t go on?” she teased.
“We’ll see.”
Afterwards they showered together, soaping each other extravagantly, all laughter stopping abruptly as passion overtook them. Desire was more intoxicating than any drug. Only in the cool of dawn when Jason left quietly did Olivia fall into an exhausted sleep, waking abruptly at seven because she had Tali on her mind. She threw back the sheet that was her only covering, pulling her satin robe around her and belting it tightly before she walked down the hallway to check on Tali.
The little girl was all curled up, sleeping deeply. Probably she’d sleep another hour or so after her broken night. Jason had a few things to check on but he’d promised to come back around midday when all three of them could have lunch together, perhaps a picnic, Tali would love that. There was plenty of food left over. Olivia resisted the urge to go back to bed. She was still in a state of euphoria thinking all these years later she had finally found herself in Jason. She returned to her room to dress then she went downstairs to the kitchen to brew herself a fragrant cup of coffee. Her mood was so buoyant she felt she had somehow captured some of the stars that had exploded behind her closed eyes.
When Jason arrived at the house he saw the porch light was on. He was absolutely certain he had turned it off. Break-ins were few and far between in the area. Many people continued to leave their homes with the back doors unlocked. He didn’t go as far as that but he’d never felt anxious about leaving the cottage unattended.
It took him a few moments to park the four-wheel drive then he was up on the verandah fitting the key to the lock of the front door. Before he even entered the house he felt sure someone had been there. Possibly they were still there. He felt no fear. Unless some lunatic was going to confront him at gun-point he knew how to handle himself.
“Anyone there?” he called in a loud commanding voice. “You’d better come out because I’ll damned well find you.” Perhaps it was kids? Surely not.
He paused to pick up a small cast iron frying pan from the kitchen hoping he didn’t have to use it.
“Come out,” he thundered. Hell it could be anybody—a vagrant passing through.
A figure stood in the hallway. A woman with extremely short bleached blond hair and small pinched
features. She was wearing one his T-shirts, her legs bare, her hair standing away from her head in brittle spikes, her small face showing evidence of the kind of life she’d been living.
“Hello, Jason,” she said.
“Megan!” he exclaimed. She looked very different. One tough little chick.
“Are you going to brain me with that?” A provocative smile crossed her small face.
“What are you doing here, Megan?” He turned back to place the frying pan on the kitchen counter. “How did you get in?”
Megan rolled her eyes in feigned surprise. “Shit, Jason,” she said coarsely, “I know how to pick a lock, but I didn’t have to—a back window was ajar. I found a box in the shed…it was dead easy to climb in. I dossed down in Natalie’s bed. I’m sure the little darling won’t mind. Was it you that made the bedroom so pretty and comfy? Bet it was. Still the doting dad.”
“I asked you what you’re doing here,” he said.
“And where were you last night?” she countered, unabashed. She’d had her fair share of smacks in the face but she knew belting women around wasn’t Jason’s style. “Leave the kid with the old girl while you had it off with your precious Olivia?” She put real venom into that. “Oh yes, I know she’s back. I know Linfield died. I know you’re working at Havilah. Sounds like you’ve got it made.”
“All of which is absolutely no business of yours,” Jason said coldly. “We’re divorced remember?”
“Natalie is still my kid.”
Jason’s eyes flashed. “You didn’t want her. You couldn’t wait to be rid of her. As they say a cat would make a better mother.”
Megan padded into the living room and curled into an armchair, her posture suggesting she was trying to be seductive. “How do you know I haven’t changed?” she challenged, allowing the neck of his T-shirt to fall off one shoulder. “How do you know I’m not thinking of remarrying? I might want my kid back.”
