by Tina Duncan
And then she was there.
She threw her head back, her hair a dark splash of colour against the pillow. Her mouth opened, her teeth biting delicately at her lower lip before she cried out.
And then his mind went blank as he too slipped over the edge into a spiral of sensation that racked his whole body.
‘I still want to know what the A stands for,’ Shara said a moment later in a wearily satisfied voice.
Royce laughed. ‘Too bad. Now, you witch, unless you want me to have my wicked way with you again, I would suggest you get that gorgeous body out of bed.’
Shara looked as though she was seriously considering staying.
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ Royce said, wagging a finger in the air. ‘We’ve barely been out of this bed all week.’
Shara pouted. ‘Don’t tell me you’re getting tired of me already?’
He dropped a hard kiss on her pouting mouth. ‘Not by a long shot.’
As he got out of bed Royce was struck by the notion that it would be a long, long time before he tired of her.
‘Tell me something?’ Shara asked.
They’d collapsed on the sofa following a karate session during which one thing had led to another and the Aubusson rug had got a workout of a different kind.
Royce opened one eye. ‘What?’
Shara lay sprawled across his chest, her chin resting on her bent arm. ‘I want to know about the woman who hurt you.’
His other eye snapped open. His body tensed in an automatic reaction he was too late to prevent.
He could tell from the slight widening of her eyes that Shara had noticed his response.
Royce deliberately made his muscles go slack. ‘Why?’
Her index finger stroked over his skin. ‘You know all the skeletons in my cupboard.’
Royce tapped the tip of her nose. ‘Not all of them. I know you love Abba and have a secret weakness for blueberry pancakes.’
Shara groaned. ‘I wish I’d never told you that. I’m going to get fat if you keep making them for me every morning.’
‘Quit complaining. Our karate sessions more than work off that little indulgence.’ He ran a hand down her back and over her bottom. ‘Besides, I love your curves. You’re what a real woman should look like—not those stick figures on the covers of magazines.’
‘And was the woman you were involved with a stick figure? Or rounded like me?’ she asked, proving that she wasn’t about to let the subject go.
He shrugged. ‘The relationship was meaningless. It’s hardly worth talking about.’
‘Well, I think it is.’
Royce recognised the look on Shara’s face. She could be as stubborn as he was.
He sighed and closed his eyes. ‘It’s simple, really. It was in the early days of my career. I’d been hired by a wealthy businessman to find out which of his household staff was stealing antiques from his home. Fiona was the daughter of the house. She showed an interest in me from day one.’
Shara stole a quick kiss. ‘And why wouldn’t she? You’re handsome and sexy and smart. Not to mention that you make terrific blueberry pancakes.’
‘That earns you another kiss,’ he said, putting words into action.
A long, drugging minute later he lifted his head. ‘Anyway, to cut a long story short, it turned out that Fiona was the thief. She had a cocaine addiction she’d somehow managed to hide from everyone. She was stealing from her father to support her habit. She almost got away with it too—until I finally twigged to what was going on.’
‘And how did you do that?’
He shrugged. ‘I walked in one day and found her using. I added one and one together and came up with the right answer.
She admitted what she’d been doing and begged me not to tell her father.’
Shara’s eyes were locked unwaveringly on his face. ‘And what did you say?’
‘That I had no choice.’
Not only had he had a legal not to mention a moral obligation to do his duty to his client, but supporting Fiona’s lies would have made him no better than she was—and that was something he just wouldn’t do.
Shara was nodding her head, as if she agreed he’d made the right decision.
Royce stared at her.
Of course she would agree.
Her values were much the same as his.
She was as open and honest as he was.
‘So what happened?’ Shara asked, breaking in on his thoughts.
‘That’s when things turned ugly. She told me that she’d just been using me to keep tabs on my progress.’
He remembered that last scene vividly. It was imprinted on his brain.
‘I’m sorry.’
He looked at her. ‘Don’t be. It was a long time ago. Besides, it taught me an invaluable lesson.’
She raised a brow. ‘And what’s that?’
‘That it’s better to think with your head than your heart.’
‘Oh.’
Shara couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘You sound surprised,’ Royce said, brushing a strand of hair off her face.
‘I guess I am. I just …’
‘You just what?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It just sounds kind of … cold to me.’
‘Does what we share feel cold to you? Because it sure as hell doesn’t to me.’
As if to prove the point, he ran his fingertips down her back to her buttocks, where they lingered for a mind-bending moment. The trail of sensation he left in his wake was anything but cold. In fact just the opposite. It felt so blisteringly hot she felt it deep inside her.
She shook her head. ‘No, it doesn’t feel cold.’
‘Doesn’t it make sense to think logically about what you’re doing rather than just diving in head-first? It does to me. And I bet it does to the hundreds of divorcees who didn’t take the time to realise they were totally incompatible before tying the knot.’
Shara frowned. She couldn’t speak for those divorcees. She could only speak for herself.
As if reading her mind, Royce asked, ‘If you hadn’t been so desperate to escape your father would you have married Brady? I’m betting you wouldn’t.’
Shara wanted to argue with him—she wasn’t quite sure why—but she couldn’t.
Looking back, there had been signs that Steve was a control freak. Once or twice there had even been hints in his behaviour that he had bullying tendencies.
Hindsight was a fine thing. She hadn’t realised how she’d ignored those warning signs by simply sweeping them aside.
Why?
Because at the time her father had been her most immediate problem. She’d latched on to Steve as if she was a drowning woman and he was a life-preserver. If she’d let him go …
Well, she hadn’t wanted to face what would have happened—which was precisely why she’d overlooked those telltale signs that all had not been as it should and proceeded anyway.
She’d been forced to acknowledge more than once that when she was emotionally upset she almost always made the wrong decision—including the time she’d tried to slip away from Royce.
She nodded. ‘You’re right. It’s far better to think with your head than your heart.’
The day of the court hearing arrived far too quickly. It was a dose of reality they could both have done without, but Royce was proud of the way Shara walked in, with her head held high, back ramrod-straight and chin angled challengingly. She was there to do battle and it showed.
He was prouder still as he watched her performance in the courtroom. It was exemplary. When the judge asked her a question she followed Jackson’s instructions to the letter.
Keep it simple, Jackson had told her. Try and answer each question directly, without over-answering. Be calm and precise. And under no circumstances let Steve provoke you.
Afterwards Royce hugged her against his chest. ‘We are going to celebrate!’
Shara looked up at him, her blue eyes wide in her face. ‘We don
’t have to do that.’
Royce slid his hands into the small of her back. ‘I know we don’t, but I want to. I was so proud of the way you handled yourself in there that I was fit to burst.’
She smiled. ‘Burst, huh?’
He nodded. ‘It could have been ugly.’
She laughed, some of the tension in her face easing. ‘I couldn’t have done it without you.’
‘Sure you could.’
She shook her head. ‘No—seriously. Knowing you were there made all the difference. I knew I was safe with you to protect me.’
A sudden movement behind Shara caught his attention.
Brady!
A wave of anger rocked Royce on his heels—so intense that he heard a roaring sound in his ears.
A man who treated women the way Brady had treated Shara was not a man at all. He was the scum of the earth.
Royce stepped around Shara, blocking her view.
It was one thing to face Brady in the formality of the courtroom, where he was unlikely to say or do anything offensive or hurtful. It was quite another to meet him in a normal everyday setting like the corridor they were standing in, with no lawyers, judges or guards to prevent him from being his usual ugly self.
Royce hugged her to him. ‘I think you’re underestimating yourself.’ Swinging her in the opposite direction, he grabbed her hand. ‘Come on. I have just the place in mind.’
The restaurant Royce took her to overlooked Balmoral Beach. ‘This place has the best seafood.’
They took their time discussing the menu. Shara finally decided on roasted Kingfish, with a beetroot, baby spinach and feta salad, while Royce chose the crisp fried whole snapper with bok choy and Asian sauce.
Since they were celebrating Royce suggested champagne. When the waiter had poured the sparkling liquid and departed Royce raised his flute. ‘What shall we toast to?’
It was on the tip of her tongue to say To us, but that hardly sounded appropriate. It suggested something permanent—and neither of them wanted that.
Did they?
Shara was no longer so sure. Somewhere along the line she’d got in deeper than she’d intended.
Royce was a very special man. He’d helped her become the woman she was always meant to be, and he treated her as no man had ever treated her before.
As if she were a princess.
She raised her glass and stared deep into his chocolate-brown eyes. ‘How about to life?’
‘I like that.’ Royce clinked his glass against the side of hers. ‘To life.’
‘To life,’ Shara echoed.
‘What else?’
‘What do you mean what else?’
‘Well, I’m feeling on a high. I think we should toast something else. In fact I think we should toast anything and everything under the sun just for the sheer heck of it.’
Shara smiled back. In this mood Royce was impossible to resist. Quickly on the back of that thought came another. Royce in any mood was impossible to resist.
‘Well?’ he prompted.
Shara drew back in her chair, hands in the air. ‘Hey, don’t look at me. I came up with the first toast. Now it’s your turn.’
‘OK. Fair enough.’ He rubbed the side of his jaw thoughtfully, then raised his glass. ‘To infinite possibilities!’
‘Infinite, huh? There speaks an eternal optimist.’ They clinked glasses again. ‘To infinite possibilities.’
‘OK. Your turn.’
Shara put her glass down on the table. ‘I think we’d better slow down, otherwise I’m going to get drunk.’
Royce picked up her glass of chilled water, handed it to her, then picked up his own. ‘Here—this should keep you sober. What’s our next toast?’
Shara thought about that. To us was still sitting on the tip of her tongue, but it was no more appropriate now than it had been five minutes ago.
She held up her glass of water. ‘To new beginnings.’
She’d expected Royce to smile. Instead he lowered his glass to the table and frowned. ‘Don’t think about Brady. He has no place in this celebration.’
‘I wasn’t thinking about Steve, I was thinking about—’
She broke off, her eyes dipping to the white linen tablecloth.
‘Thinking about what?’ Royce asked.
You.
For a minute she thought she’d said the word out loud. Because when she’d spoken about new beginnings she’d been thinking about him. And the new beginning she’d envisaged was of the two of them—together.
Which was quite patently ridiculous.
There were taking one day at a time. Keeping things casual.
Only the way she was feeling was anything but casual.
‘I was thinking about the future and those infinite possibilities you were talking about,’ she said, trying to force her lips into a smile. Only they weren’t co-operating. ‘Once this situation is over, the world is my oyster.’
The thought should have made her deliriously happy—but it didn’t.
Because once the situation with Steve was over Royce would walk out of her life.
There would be no more karate sessions.
No more talks.
No more seeing him smile or hearing him laugh.
Shara swallowed—hard.
Then did it again.
Royce flashed her a megawatt-bright smile. ‘Well, that’s OK, then.’ He raised his glass in the air. ‘To new beginnings.’
They went backwards and forwards for another ten minutes, each toast becoming sillier and more outrageous.
Finally Shara flung her hands in the air and called it quits. ‘You can’t make a toast to blueberry pancakes!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you just can’t.’
Throughout lunch Royce’s eyes never left hers—not even for one second, as if what she was saying was earth-shatteringly important and deserved his full attention.
He picked up her hand every so often and twined his fingers with hers. Sometimes he kissed the inside of her wrist, and the look in his eyes made her wish they were somewhere more private where she could draw his mouth down to hers.
After lunch Royce suggested a walk along the beach.
Shara looked down at her suit. ‘I’m a bit too dressed up for a paddle.’
‘Says who?’ He grinned. ‘The world is your oyster, remember?’
His grin was infectious. So much so that Shara found herself smiling back. ‘So it is.’
She kicked off her court shoes, scooped them up with two fingers, and jumped on to the sand. ‘Race you to the water!’
Royce beat her hands-down, but Shara didn’t care, waiting patiently while he pulled off his shoes and socks and rolled up his trouser legs.
They walked the length of the beach with the water lapping at their ankles, their fingers intertwined.
They were near the end of the beach when his hand tightened uncomfortably around hers.
‘Royce?’ she prompted, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking into the distance with a frown on his face. ‘What is it?’
He turned back to her, the frown turning into a smile. ‘Nothing. I just thought I saw …’ He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Afterwards they went home and made slow, languorous love.
And as her heartbeat returned to normal Shara realised that she hadn’t been this happy in a long, long time.
Smash!
Shara bolted upright and automatically reached out a not quite steady hand to turn on the bedside lamp and look around.
When her eyes landed on broken glass, she stared at it.
Where had it come from?
And then it dawned on her—the window had been broken!
‘Stay still,’ Royce ordered.
He was two steps ahead of her. He was already out of bed, pulling on the low-slung jeans that always made her mouth water, and assessing the situation with narrowed eyes.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked as Royce hea
ded towards the door.
‘Outside. Stay there,’ Royce ordered again in a hard voice. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said.
She watched his muscular back and tight denim-clad butt as he stormed out of the door. She could hear his heavy tread as he took the stairs two at a time before he raced through the lower level and continued outside.
Shara kneeled on the bed to take a closer look. Someone had thrown a brick through the window.
Shara shivered as she surveyed the scene. The brick had missed the bed by a matter of inches. A little bit closer and it would have hit Royce.
She paled, her insides trembling.
Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she used her toes to find her slippers. She rose shakily to her feet and then on wobbly legs walked to the brick and picked it up.
She weighed it in her hands, then turned it over—only to drop it again as if it had bitten her when she saw what was written on the other side.
You’re dead.
She staggered back towards the bed and dropped down on to it, the crudely carved message holding her full attention.
Shara stared at the message. Her initial shock was wearing off. In its place was a deep, burning anger that burrowed inside her until it was bone-deep.
Shara welcomed the feeling. A month ago this incident would have made her feel sick and anxious. And it would have made her feel like a victim.
Now anger and frustration dominated her. She had no doubt Steve had thrown the brick. Who else would do such a vicious thing? The big question was: who was the message for? For her? For Royce? Or for both of them? And what did it matter?
What mattered was that the situation couldn’t be allowed to continue.
CHAPTER NINE
ROYCE stopped in the doorway, his face grim as he looked at Shara. His hands were bunched into fists at his sides, the knuckles showing white. Anger swelled inside him, but he forced it back.
Now was not the time to let the emotions raging inside him free rein. Right now he had to make sure Shara was OK.
Striding across the room, he sat down beside her.
‘Did you see anybody outside?’ she asked.
Royce stiffened. ‘No. Whoever it was they’re long gone.’
‘It was Steve,’ she said flatly.
Royce nodded, doing his best to keep his voice even as anger ratcheted up his spine. ‘I suspect so.’
