by Nikki Logan
This bruised, vicious drive was moderated? What on earth had Mitchell Arnot done to his son? Ava covered her shock. ‘That explains a lot. You two were always so close.’
Dan just nodded.
‘Do you miss my dad?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. I do. I tried to stay in touch for a while, but it got…hard.’
She remembered how worried her father had been when Dan had moved to Sydney. When he’d dropped out of all contact. How hurt. Trying to disguise it from a still-grieving Ava. ‘Too hard to pick up the phone?’
Dan glared at her. ‘You were just a kid, Ava. You don’t understand.’
‘What?’ Her eyes burned into his. ‘What don’t I understand?’
He seemed to pick his words carefully. ‘Not everyone got to have a fairytale childhood.’
‘Fairytale? I watched my mother die of cancer when I was eight years old.’
Dan swore. ‘I know. But you had your father and Steve. I had no one.’
I have no one. Was that what he meant? ‘You chose to go. Nobody forced you,’ she pointed out.
He burned to say something more; it was in the tightness of his lips, the intensity of his eyes. But he turned away and stared down at the watery depths passing by. They ploughed onwards in silence, and Ava grew hypnotised by the wash of the waves against the bow, the smell of the salt water on the warm night air. The rush of her thoughts.
She’d never got anywhere with her questions about Dan’s family, so eventually she’d just stopped asking. Stopped thinking about it. She’d accepted Dan as part of the furniture—part of the family. Even now. No matter how much time had passed. No matter how he’d hurt her.
Or that they’d kissed.
But he still wouldn’t share himself with her. Not as he’d shared himself with her father. She’d wanted to talk about the kiss tonight, to boldly go…But he suddenly seemed further away than ever, though he was only inches from her.
And so she sat, listening to the whoosh of the waves as it melded with the steady thrum of blood past her ears.
She’d waited nine years. She could wait a little longer.
As they swung against the pier at Neutral Bay, Dan stood and offered Ava his hand. She placed hers tentatively in it. As he pulled her up, the ferry lurched against the row of tyres mounted to the jetty and he caught her as she stumbled, wrapping one arm across her protectively.
Immediately her senses thrilled. Images, memories and feelings from the other night rushed in, exalting at being released. His lips. His warmth. The hungry press of his body. She slid one hand between them and braced against his chest to steady herself, hungry to feel again the particular hard softness that was Dan. She suddenly realised the whole night had been leading to this moment in her mind. She peered up at him through a veil of lashes.
Holding her breath.
He watched the boat’s docking with interest, and his arms dropped from around her as soon as the ferry’s turbulence eased. She straightened, frowning and not a little disappointed, and followed him to the exit.
He was entirely unaffected. More fascinated by the boat landing, apparently, than by the woman in his arms.
Ava trailed desolately down the stairs to the gangway. They crossed the pier and walked out into the quiet, late-night streets of Neutral Bay. Three or four others disembarked behind them and then dissolved into the darkness of the night, heading for their own homes.
Dan hooked his jacket over one shoulder and buried the other hand in his trouser pocket. No chance of further accidental contact there. Or intentional. Ava’s lips tightened. She wondered if her carefully rehearsed speech would be wasted. He hardly seemed eager for a repeat performance of the other night—perhaps her boundary-setting would be unnecessary. But home, their separate dwellings, was only a few more minutes away.
It was now or never.
‘Dan,’ she began, risking a glance at him, ‘about the other night…’
He slowed fractionally—all the evidence Ava got that he’d heard her. His eyes remained silently fixed on the luxury street they walked along.
Frustration leaked out between her words. ‘Are we never going to discuss it?’
Silent seconds ticked by before he sighed and pulled his fingers from his pocket to drag them through his thick hair. ‘It shouldn’t have happened. It was inappropriate in so many ways.’
Ava’s lips tightened. There was that word again. ‘Because you’re my boss?’
‘And a friend of your brother’s. Your father’s. I’m practically a brother to you.’
Her head snapped up at that. How long was he going to hide behind that one? She scoffed. ‘You don’t think they’d approve?’
‘I don’t approve, Ava. You and I getting hot and heavy is a bad idea all round.’
Ava nursed the tiny hurt his words caused and forced herself not to dwell on just how hot and how heavy he might be, towering over her. Her blood rushed.
‘Then why did we?’ His shrug was no answer. It irritated Ava enough to make her careless. ‘You started it, Dan.’
He hissed at her choice of phrase. ‘Can you hear yourself? You might as well be wearing plaits and braces. Not exactly an image I find attractive at my age.’
At any age. She’d been there the first time. ‘You’re hardly an old man, Dan. And I’m twenty-five. All grown up.’ She clamped her jaw hard.
‘Physically, maybe—’
‘Emotionally as well. I’m a different person to the girl I was then.’ Belatedly, Ava remembered she was supposed to be arguing him out of any further physical interaction between them. But the sheer injustice of what he was saying stuck in her gut. ‘If I’m able to separate boy-Dan from man-Dan, then why can’t you separate the girl I was from the woman I am now?’
He stopped hard and blazed dark eyes at her. ‘You had a head start, Ava. I was already a man and you were always just a kid.’
The old hurt surged to the fore. ‘You’re overlooking one important point, Dan. You came on to me. You kissed me. No one held a gun to your head.’
His lips tightened, then parted in an almost-snarl. ‘You want me to say it, Ava? Fine. You have grown up. You have a fantastic body and you know how to use it. You were using it on me that night, in all that moonlight, and just for a second I thought why the hell not?’
Ava sucked in an outraged breath to protest but he bullied onwards.
‘Hey, I never pretended to be a saint. I got carried away in the moment, just like you did. Thank God your father called when he did, or we might be having a very different conversation right now.’
Outrage shook her hands, and she tucked them behind her. Unfulfilled tears ached in her throat. ‘I did not get carried away—’
Sharp eyes challenged her. ‘You meant for it to happen, then?’
‘No!’
‘So you got carried away.’ He loomed over her. ‘Put away the righteous indignation, Ava. We were both curious and we tested the waters. End of story.’
Suddenly what they’d shared sounded so…filthy. She blazed silently at him, determined not to let one angry tear spill over. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She turned and stalked off along the leafy street.
His quiet challenge followed. ‘Or were you hoping for a second go-around?’
She spun around to face him. ‘You must be joking!’
‘Wasn’t that where this was going? Can we talk about it, Dan?’ His impersonation of her was insulting.
‘No!’ She moved off again, furious.
‘Then where’s the problem? You were going to tell me it won’t happen again. I certainly don’t want it to happen again. I think we’re actually on the same page here.’
She turned with dangerous deliberation and marched straight towards him, fast enough that he actually faltered back a step when she poked him in the chest.
‘What happened to you, Dan? What happened to the clever, troubled young man who used to patch me up when I fell off my surfboard? The boy my mother opened her hom
e to?’
The boy I gave my heart to. He didn’t answer, staring at her with intense heat. Well, if he had nothing to say, then, by God, she was going to have her turn.
‘I thought I’d lost him that day on the beach, when you ripped my heart out without a second thought, and then in your office, when you brought in your legal muscle to force me into accepting your stinking deal. But then the other night I got a glimpse of the young man I remembered, and I wondered whether he wasn’t just buried, deep in there—’ she poked his chest hard ‘—under six years of loneliness.’
He stepped back again.
‘But that Daniel—my Daniel—would never speak to someone the way you just did. Not someone they once called a friend.’ Impotent rage shook her voice and she swiped at a single tear that had leaked out, furious with herself for allowing it to escape.
‘That’s the problem, Ava. I was never yours. And you always did have me on too high a pedestal.’ He flung his arms out wide. ‘Welcome to reality, honey.’
‘Your reality, maybe. Not mine.’ She heaved in an angry breath. ‘I’ll stick out my six months because I said I would, and because, unlike you—’ she poked him again ‘—I still value the integrity my father raised me to have.’
‘Leave your father out of this.’
She started retreating from him, eager that he wouldn’t miss her parting words. ‘I hope it’s worth it, Dan—your success, your high and mighty career. Because I know Dad would be ashamed to see the man you’ve become. I’m ashamed of you.’
With that, she spun around and sprinted off into the night rather than shed one more tear in front of him.
Coward, coward, coward.
Dan cursed himself all the way into his immaculate home. Spotless, expensive and empty.
I was never yours. Such lies. He’d been hers the moment she stood up to him and his lawyers in his office. But he’d said the one thing he knew would force some space between them. And it had worked. For a few minutes there, on the ferry, he’d felt her drawing closer, felt the threads of attraction strengthening and tangling. He’d been crazy to think the two of them could have any kind of normal relationship.
She was too much a part of his history. She knew all his buttons. And he wore down too quickly with the distraction of her closeness, her smell. Relating to her more like lovers than friends.
Almost-lovers.
For a few tantalising minutes on the ferry he’d let his guard relax, cracked the radiator cap and let some of the incredible pressure he’d been holding onto out into the atmosphere. But Ava was the one person in the world he couldn’t afford to get close to.
What the hell kind of choice was that? Between the girl he’d promised to protect and the career that was his whole reason for being.
But then the ferry had sent Ava crashing into his arms, and one glance at her flushed face and parted lips and he’d known he was in trouble. It had taken all his will-power to keep his own face impassive, to give nothing away.
To take his hands off her.
She’d been braver than he was, broaching the subject of the kiss directly, and with such an accent of hope in her voice. One gutsy woman—but still entirely transparent. He’d had no choice but to come out swinging.
Dan reached into his stainless steel fridge and snatched out a frosty beer, twisting the cap off and hurling it across the room into the gleaming sink. He downed one-third of the bottle in one miserable swallow and then slammed it onto the bench, his eyes watering.
He hadn’t worked himself halfway into the grave for six years to throw it all away now. He would not rest until his father knew exactly how successful his son had grown up to be.
Without him.
Mitchell Arnot was a big fish in a small pond. A pompous, ignorant fish, with all the parenting skills of a sea-jelly. Being able to get a transient hippy pregnant did not a good parent make. And Dan had paid his whole childhood for the sins of his free-spirit mother, who had skipped out when he was barely out of nappies.
He might have been beloved by the folk of Flynn’s Beach, but Mitchell Arnot was loathed by his son and the feeling was entirely mutual. He’d got more love and understanding from the Langes than he’d ever got from either of his real parents.
The only useful thing his father had done was taunt him about being a beach bum. That had sparked a passionate desire to succeed that had quickly flared into an all-consuming bushfire. And he was going to ride this train to the end of the line if it killed him. To show Mitchell Arnot the true definition of success.
He had a job to do. And today’s compromise, as much as it clawed in his gut, was that he needed to throw some logs under Ava and Brant, to kindle the illusion the network wanted. But he couldn’t do that while Ava’s attention was on him.
And, man, did he want her attention on him. He closed his eyes, letting all the feelings and mental pictures that had occupied his nights lately flood through him. It was as though she’d stained him with her essence wherever she’d touched, kissed.
She quite literally haunted him—day and night.
He pushed away from the kitchen bench, swallowing back another third of the beer as he paced. She’d invaded his life. Snuck up and taken it over. The level of cruel he’d just been to her was directly proportional to amount of hold she had over him.
And that made him nervous. Getting attached to someone had never been part of his ten year plan. Particularly that someone.
He set the bottle on the bench and ran his hands roughly through his hair with a grimace. He’d been brutal. Intentionally. Gnawing off the last sinews of friendship so that he would be free to manage this situation unencumbered. He couldn’t think straight when Ava was near, let alone act decisively.
She hated him now. It had been written all over her flushed face as she’d let him have it with both barrels. She’d handed him the opportunity to put some distance between them on a silver platter. And he’d ripped her heart out with it.
His particular speciality.
He took a final swallow of frigid beer and relished the ache of it freezing in his gut. The pain was no less than he deserved. A sudden flash of grey eyes, bright with accusation and confused hurt, trebled the size of the rock in his gut.
Ashamed of me, Ava? He pitched the empty bottle into the trash and turned towards the hall. Nowhere near as ashamed as I am of myself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘WHERE is everyone?’ Brant suavely squired Ava through the restaurant doors, scanning the room for any sign of their colleagues.
She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s just after seven-thirty. Where are they?’ She looked at the name emblazoned on the wall. Scarparolo’s—right restaurant.
‘Here comes Dan.’ Brant said it so casually, oblivious to the effect the simple words had on Ava. She steeled herself not to turn and look.
‘Maddox.’
‘Arnot.’ Ava knew Brant well enough now to spot his very subtle use of sarcasm as he mirrored Dan’s unfriendly greeting. She turned casually and met Dan’s eyes. Or would have if they’d been trained on her. He looked flustered. Distracted. He crossed to the maître d’ and had a quick conversation. When he returned, with a black-clad waitress in tow, he addressed them both briskly, his gaze barely acknowledging her.
‘I’m just heading out to the car. I forgot my phone. You two go ahead and take a seat.’
He departed, sparing only the briefest glance for her. His brown eyes were dark with anger. She sighed. Hostilities had resumed, then.
She turned her attention to the table she and Brant were being directed to. By the window, candle flickering, beautifully set.
For two.
‘Uh..?’ Brant looked as confused as Ava felt. Their waitress stared at him, dazzled, but remembered to slide Ava’s chair out. Brant caught his lapse of manners and took over, gliding the chair in as Ava sat.
‘Excuse me?’ she queried, finally drawing the woman’s eyes off her co-host. ‘We should be part of a larger group? The Aus
One booking?’
The waitress looked nonplussed for a moment, before flashing her previous perfect smile. ‘One moment, I’ll just check.’ She drifted over to the maître d’. A furious whispered discussion behind a stack of menus ensued.
Brant smiled gallantly at Ava, his public face firmly in place. He took her fingers in his. ‘Looks like you’ll have the pleasure of my company to yourself for now. Try not to swoon.’
Ava laughed and glanced out of the window. In that instant a car turned onto the dark street, spotlighting the road ahead with its headlights. In the distance, beyond the glare, Ava thought she saw Dan in conversation with a shadowy figure on the sidewalk. It didn’t look like a relaxed conversation. She frowned.
Brant raised her hand to his lips. She restrained the impulse to pull it free, conscious that there was more than one pair of speculative eyes in the restaurant. Whatever Brant’s game was, he was a friend, and she owed him the courtesy of playing along in public. But later…
She spoke through the careful smile plastered on her face and tried to disentangle her hand, worrying that Dan could probably see them from his position out in the street. Not that he would care. ‘Oh, please, you’ve had me to yourself practically all day. I swear the network must not trust me in a scene alone.’
His face lost some of its slick. ‘You’re doing a great job, Ava. Has no one told you that?’
She squeezed her fingers gratefully around his and lowered them decisively to the table. ‘None so sincerely. Thank you, Brant.’
The puzzled waitress returned and said brightly, ‘There does seem to have been an error. You’re seated over on the large reserved table. Your booking was for eight p.m.’ There was no blame, only confusion in her voice.
Ava frowned. ‘My call sheet said seven-thirty.’
Brant’s surprise mirrored hers. ‘Mine, too. The call sheet never lies.’
Just then Dan walked through the door of the restaurant, phone in hand, colour high. His eyes connected with Ava’s immediately, then dropped to where her fingers were still gently clutched in Brant’s. She slid them free as he approached.
