Mistress: At What Price?

by Anne Oliver

  Dr Judy scribbled something on Mariel’s case notes, then smiled at her over her rimless glasses in a grand-motherly way that made Mariel want to crawl onto her lap and cry like she’d done when she was five and she’d had stitches in her knee.

  ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘why don’t we do a blood test?’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  PREGNANT.

  Mariel dived off the edge of Dane’s pool and sliced through the blue water with smooth, powerful strokes. Pregnant. She increased her speed as if she could outpace her problem.

  Dr Judy had assured her it was a definite positive, and outlined the next steps Mariel should take. Choice of hospital, antenatal classes, vitamins. She’d directed her to a couple of websites that showed images of the foetus virtually from the first week. Imagine that?

  Except Mariel could barely remember a thing. A shocked numbness had invaded her body so thoroughly she’d driven back on autopilot and wondered how she’d made it from the hills town of Stirling to the city without an accident. Now, with the refreshing sensation of cool water over her, the shock was dissipating and stark reality was creeping in.

  Flipping, she backstroked her way to the middle of the pool, focusing on the sky’s cloudless blue bowl above her, keeping her mind on her breathing, her strokes.

  Not focusing on the place in the centre of her belly that suddenly seemed to practically pulse with its own self-awareness. She couldn’t think about the baby…Oh, God, she was having a baby. Dane’s baby.

  ‘Dane,’ she murmured. The man who didn’t want marriage, who didn’t want children.

  The man she loved.

  Rolling over, she dived deep, listening to the cascade of bubbles past her ears, trying desperately to outrush her emotions. She knew how dramatically everything was going to change.

  At the moment Dane was blissfully ignorant, and likely to remain that way for the next couple of days. There was no way she could tell him something that important, that devastating, over the phone. She wondered how long she should let that state of ignorance last. Maybe she could get away with it a little longer while she decided the best way to tell him.

  But a secret like that wouldn’t be a secret for long.

  Finally exhausted, she swiped water from her face as she pushed up out of the water and onto the deck. She shook her head, scattering water, then wrapped her hair in a towel and sat on the edge of the pool.

  He’d think she’d manipulated him, the way his former lover had. He’d been prepared to use contraception but she’d told him she was on the Pill. He couldn’t have made it clearer that he didn’t intend having kids. Ever.

  So she’d make it clear she didn’t intend to force him into something that would bring unhappiness to both of them. To all of them. Anger, resentment, and finally indifference would follow. And nobody had the right to bring a child into the world to live under those circumstances. Of all people, Dane would understand that.

  A sense of surrealism surrounded her as she reached for another towel and, wrapping it around her body, trudged upstairs to take a long, cleansing frangipani-scented bath. She still hadn’t examined her own feelings—couldn’t. Deliberately she didn’t look at her naked body in the mirror as she turned on the taps. Her maternal instinct must have gone AWOL, or maybe it was simply self-preservation or denial, because she could not touch her belly and think about the miracle happening in there.

  And she had two days to get used to the idea before Dane came home.

  In Alice Springs Dane keyed in his home number and switched on his laptop the moment he reached his hotel room. It had become a nightly ritual at seven p.m. over the past week. They’d talk a moment and then, if the reception was clear, switch to computers, where they could see each other while they talked over the day.

  It had been a buzz, watching the animation in her face as she told him about her steady journey towards realising her goals. And it gave him an added buzz knowing he’d helped.

  Tonight anticipation surged through him. He’d worked it so that he could go home earlier. This time tomorrow he’d be able to say hello to her in the flesh—a surprise he wanted to keep.

  He’d never had a woman waiting for him at home. A smile tugged at his lips. Not that Mariel was the kind of woman to wait around.

  But tonight she took longer than usual answering. ‘Hello?’

  Her voice was breathless and intimate and right up close against his ear, but he picked up on something else, too. He couldn’t identify it, but it sent a chill skittering over his spine despite the hotel room’s ambience. ‘Hi, there, Queen Bee.’

  ‘Dane… Oh…is it seven o’clock already?’

  ‘You sound out of breath. Where were you?’

  ‘I was…in the pool.’

  He dismissed the hesitation as breathlessness—she’d told him she was swimming, hadn’t she?

  ‘Turn on the computer,’ he said. ‘I want to see you.’

  Definite hesitation this time. ‘You want me to leave a trail of water on the stairs, too?’

  ‘It’ll be worth it, I promise.’

  ‘Not tonight,’ she said. ‘I’m not feeling the best.’

  He blew out a slow breath, swallowed his disappointment. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. What’s wrong?’

  ‘I must have picked up a bug or something.’

  ‘Why don’t you take something for it, climb into bed and get some sleep?’

  ‘I already am. Will be.’

  He frowned. Less than a minute ago she’d said she’d been in the pool. They’d never lied to each other. At least he hadn’t lied to her. They’d promised each other open and honest communication. What had changed that? ‘Are you sure that’s all it is?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  ‘I’ll say goodnight, then, and let you get some rest.’

  ‘Okay. Goodnight.’

  The way she disconnected he could have sworn he heard the bedside table rattle halfway across Australia. If she was in bed? Something had rattled. He felt a little rattled himself.

  He stretched out on the hotel’s crisp quilt cover. Yes, she was in bed, he assured himself. In his bed. Apart from that last night they’d shared, she’d not slept the night with him in his home, yet he could see her there as clearly as if he were lying next to her.

  Her dark hair, smelling of flowers, fanned out across his pillow and tickling his nose. Moon-glow spilling through the tall window, painting her glorious silk-clad body silver.

  But in that same moon-glow he saw a single crystal tear track down her cheek.

  His smile faded.

  Dane thanked the chauffeur, unfolded his body and stepped out onto the footpath in the late-afternoon sun. Outwardly, his home looked the same as it always did.

  Ah, but inside there was a woman, delicate and strong, beautiful and sometimes aloof, that he couldn’t wait to see.

  Dumping his gear inside the front door, he walked through the house, seeing evidence of Mariel’s presence: her handbag, an international designer jacket draped over a chair. She’d cooked something with chilli and cumin and coriander, the aroma reminding him he hadn’t enjoyed home cooking in over a week.

  In all his adult years he’d never come home to another living soul. He’d learned independence and self-reliance the hard way. He needed no one; he was satisfied with his own company. But this…contentment was all he could think about. Having someone waiting for him, that was something new.

  He stopped at the glass door that led to the patio. Mariel was wearing a sexy one-piece crimson swimsuit and lying in the shade on a slatted recliner with a magazine over her face.

  His heart constricted. Not painfully, but quietly, with certainty. As if it knew something he didn’t. Which gave him a second’s pause. Had her strange mood of last night altered?

  Impatient to find out, he stepped onto the sun-drenched patio. A wave of heat rolled up from the decking, enveloping him in the smell of chlorinated water and sun-bleached wood.

  He crossed
the deck soundlessly, sat on the shaded recliner beside her so that their hips bumped, and slid the magazine from her face. ‘Hello, gorgeous.’

  Sleepy eyes blinked up at him. He watched emotions flicker through their depths as awareness crystallised. Pleasure, then confusion…and something like dismay. But her voice was composed when she said, ‘Either you’re a day early or I’ve been sleeping here a lot longer than I thought.’

  He grinned. ‘I managed to finish up early.’ He laid his hand on her belly.

  Her eyes instantly flared at his touch, and if he didn’t know Mariel better he would have said he saw a glint of something close to fear in their depths.

  ‘I was concerned about you last night.’ Justifiably so, he thought now, as she jerked. Her stomach muscles tightened beneath his palm before she swung her legs onto the deck and stood, facing away from him. He stood, too, to meet her on an equal footing.

  ‘No need,’ she said breezily, then turned, smiling, and waggled manicured fingers at him in a flippant manner. Too flippant. ‘I’m fine. I just wasn’t up for talking.’

  This woman standing before him wasn’t the Mariel he knew. What had changed her? Something like panic flitted through his system. ‘You want to explain why?’

  Narrowing his eyes, he scoured her features against the low sun’s glare. That perfect but slightly aloof smile was her trademark, the smile she showed the world. It wasn’t the one he wanted to see. Not here alone with her. Not as her lover.

  He wanted to see the smile that lit a glow in her cheeks and sparked fireworks in her eyes, that emanated a soft radiance that filled up an entire room. The smile that shut the rest of the world out and made him the centre of her universe.

  ‘Not particularly,’ she said. ‘Not right now.’

  Since her voice had grown husky on the last words and she was still smiling, albeit not the smile he wanted to see, he took that as an invitation and moved closer, ready to forgive and forget if he could just reacquaint himself with the taste of her mouth.

  He refused to try and interpret the tremble he felt in her lips as they met his. He coaxed her gently, cupping her neck, angling her jaw for a better fit when he felt her spine soften, her body turn pliant. Her hands crept to his shoulders, curving around his neck like ropes of silk.

  Satisfaction slid through him on a rising tide of desire. He could lure her with one persuasive kiss. Wasn’t she already right here with him? All the way?

  He hauled her against his burgeoning erection, her damp bathers slick and cool against the front of his T-shirt, and his hands tingled at the thought of how her skin would feel when he peeled the fabric from her.

  She moaned against his mouth, whatever was bothering her obviously forgotten as she poured herself into the kiss, arching against him so that he splayed one hand against her back to support her.

  Everything forgotten as he lifted his mouth from her lips to roam across the smooth curves of her face. Cheeks, eyes, brow, jaw. Her long twist of ebony hair slithered damply over his forearm; her fingers dug little grooves into his neck.

  Now, this was coming home. While he could still stand, he leaned down and, with one arm beneath her knees, swept her into his arms and headed for the door.

  Her softly fluttering eyes were startled open.

  ‘Relax,’ he said, kissing her brow as he reached the staircase. ‘I’ve decided that from now on carrying you upstairs is going to become part of my daily exercise routine.’

  Mariel’s heart stuttered. Not when he knew what she had to tell him, it wouldn’t.

  Steel eyes met hers as his footsteps stalled on the stairs. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I smell like chlorine,’ she whispered. ‘My hair’s still wet.’

  ‘You think I care?’

  ‘I guess not…’ Weak with wanting, and powerless to resist what she knew was coming, she allowed herself to be carried up the stairs—again—like some modern-day Scarlett O’Hara.

  Because she knew it would be the last time.

  One last time to know how it felt to be made love to by Dane.

  The sheen of the day’s heat reflected on the ivory-coloured walls as he laid her on his bed.

  Yanking his T-shirt over his head, he stripped naked in ten seconds flat, then crawled onto the bed. She’d never seen such passion in his eyes as he slid the straps of her bathers over her shoulders and down her arms. Her nipples, already hard from desire and damp, puckered further as he drew the fabric away.

  Then he was tugging it from beneath her bottom and sliding it down over her thighs, her knees, her ankles. He reached out, traced the curve of one breast. ‘I’d say you were beautiful, but you’ve heard it before.’

  Mariel heard the casual tone, rather than the compliment, and her heart constricted. ‘Not from you, I haven’t. Not this way.’

  His eyes met hers, a long, lingering hold that imprisoned her with silent and steely intensity.

  ‘So tell me.’ Her voice was edgy with impatience. Just once, she wanted to hear it from Dane’s lips.

  His eyes crinkled up around the edges for a moment, then his expression turned serious once more. ‘Ninety-nine percent of the time beauty’s an accident of birth. That’s what men see when they look at you. So when I tell you you’re beautiful I’m not only talking about the softness of your skin or the colour of your eyes. It’s inside you, Queen Bee, where it counts.’

  As he spoke, his palm seared her skin, rubbing slowly beneath her left breast, then over her concave belly.

  Over his unborn child.

  Tears gathered in her heart. She wanted to weep. She sensed something more in Dane’s voice today. More in his eyes, more in his kiss. Over the past few days her vision had cleared, as if a curtain had been lifted. It didn’t matter that they argued and disagreed. That there’d always be vocal and noisy differences of opinion. Who was right and who was in control?

  It didn’t matter.

  Under different circumstances she’d have asked him if it was the same for him, no hesitation. If nothing else they’d always had trust and honesty between them. With time and patience maybe she could have had it all, but she’d carelessly thrown that chance away. Because there was no negotiation where children and Dane were concerned.

  So take this moment and this man, she told herself. Take the rest of tonight and make it special. Memorable.

  She might possibly die of a broken heart, but his was made of stone and she’d told him so and he hadn’t denied it. He’d be okay. He’d get over the shock and the anger and they’d sort everything out, and maybe they could still be friends the way they’d always been.

  Friends sharing a child. That wasn’t so impossible. Was it?

  ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you after all,’ he murmured in his deep, husky voice, and she realised her mind had wandered off. ‘It seems to have made you sad.’

  She shook her head against the pillow. ‘Make love with me,’ she whispered. ‘No one ever made love with me the way you do.’

  He bent his head, grazed her lips once, twice. ‘Because no one knows you the way I do.’

  She wanted to tell him she loved him, right here, right now, while the moment sparkled with truth. But the only truth around here tonight was his truth. And her untold secret proved him wrong. He didn’t know her as well as he thought. It spun a web of guilt around her, but when he covered her body with his she lifted her arms and gave herself up to him.

  Tonight was lingering looks, slow, sweet passion, the languid glide of flesh on flesh. A lazy touch. A tender kiss. She took him inside her wordlessly and with all the love she had to give.

  The lowering sun turned the room orange, his skin to bronze. His eyes were dark, almost black in the fading light, and his day’s worth of stubble shadowed his jaw and rasped against her hand when she reached out to absorb, to stroke.

  Dane became her only reality in a room she no longer saw. The sound of his murmurs, the thump of his heart against hers. The intoxicating scent of man. This man.
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  And she clung to that reality, to Dane, and in those all too short precious moments, lived that lifetime she was going to be denied.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MARIEL woke first. It was full dark, and the city’s twinkling lights cast a dim glow across the walls. Angry with herself for falling asleep, she turned to watch Dane. She’d wanted to stay awake and think. To lie beside him and listen to his breathing while she prepared herself to tell him.

  As if he sensed she was awake, his eyes blinked open in the semi-darkness. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi.’

  He moved an arm, stopped. Then pulled a silk nightgown from beneath him and dangled it in front of her with a grin. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Oh…’ Mariel felt herself flush. ‘I…’

  Damn it, she hadn’t expected him back tonight, and now her secret indulgence to sleep where he slept and feel close to him was out in the open for Dane’s scrutiny.

  ‘You slept in my bed.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘Yes. Is that a hanging offence?’

  He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘I don’t think so. Wait here.’ He slid off the bed and disappeared downstairs.

  He was back in less than a minute with a small swing bag. He switched on the bedside lamp, filling the room with a soft ambience. ‘A present from Alice Springs.’ The mattress dipped as he climbed back onto the bed with her.

  With trembling fingers she pulled out a sexy black bra and matching thong. Her heart soared briefly, then sank as she stroked the flimsy material. How long would she be able to wear it? ‘Thank you, they’re beautiful. How did you know what size?’

  His eyes twinkled and he cupped a breast in his palm. ‘You think I don’t know the size of your breasts by now?’

  ‘I guess you do. They’re lovely.’ He didn’t suggest she model them, thank heavens, and she set them aside. The tremor in her fingers increased. ‘Dane…’

  ‘Mmm?’ He shifted closer, nibbled her shoulder. ‘I’m hungry; how about you?’