by Miranda Lee
‘This is the best wine,’ she said after the waiter left and she took a sip.
‘Hunter Valley whites are second to none,’ Justin replied, sipping also.
‘Can…can I tell Isabel about us?’ Rachel asked tentatively. ‘She’ll be home from her honeymoon tomorrow.’
‘If you want to. But I’d rather you didn’t mention what we’ve been up to these past two weeks.’
‘Heavens, I wasn’t going to tell her about that!’ she exclaimed.
Rachel doubted Isabel would be shocked as such. But she would be furious. With Justin, for treating her best friend in such a fashion. At least now Rachel would be able to say that she was Justin’s proper girlfriend. They might even be able to go out with Rafe and Isabel sometimes as a foursome.
Justin’s head tipped to one side as he searched her face. ‘You have enjoyed what we’ve been doing, haven’t you, Rachel?’
‘How can you ask that?’ she exclaimed, blushing now. ‘You know I have.’
‘And your tears tonight… Did you tell me the truth about them?’
She swallowed, then looked him straight in the face. ‘Why would I lie?’
‘I was worried you might think you’re in love with me.’
‘Not at all,’ she said without batting an eyelid. And it wasn’t really a lie, because she was sure she was in love with him. ‘I…I confess I was bit upset because you hadn’t kissed me first. You just…you know…’
He grimaced. ‘You’re right. It was unforgivable of me. But I refuse to take all the blame. That perfume you’re wearing today should be banned. I just couldn’t wait.’
Rachel made a mental note to buy a king-sized bottle of that one. If she couldn’t have Justin’s love, she could at least ensure his ongoing lust.
‘So when are we going on our first date?’ she asked eagerly.
‘We’re on it now.’
‘Oh. Yes. So we are. And where to after dinner?’
‘I thought I’d take you home to my place for the night.’
Now Rachel was seriously surprised. When he’d said he would like to come home with her sometimes she’d thought he was still keeping his own place out of bounds.
‘If you like, that is,’ he added.
‘I’d like it very much.’
‘I lease a furnished apartment at Kirribilli,’ he went on. ‘No point in buying a place when I plan on setting up my future business out of the city. I’d like to buy some building with a couple of floors and then I can live above the office. I resent the time I waste travelling to and from work. Not that Kirribilli is all that far from here. Just over the bridge. But you know what I mean. Parking in the CBD is appalling and public transport is the pits.’
‘I know just what you mean. I don’t mind my train trip too much when I get a seat. But that’s not always the case. So what’s it like, your place in Kirribilli?’
‘Very modern. Very stylish. But a bit on the soulless side. Could do with a spot of colour. Everything’s in neutral shades.’
‘Sounds like the place I live in. It’s all cream and cold. I much prefer warm colours and a cosy, almost cluttered feel to a room. That’s why I’d like my own place, eventually, no matter how small. Then I could decorate it exactly as I want, with lots of interesting pictures on the walls, and knick-knacks galore.’
‘Sounds like Mum’s place. Truly, there’s hardly a spare space on the walls, or on any of the furniture. She’s a collectorholic. You’ll have to come over and see her collection of teapots one day. They fill up two china cabinets all by themselves.’
Rachel blinked her surprise. ‘You mean you’re going to tell Alice about us?’
‘Is there any reason you want to keep our friendship a secret?’
‘No. I guess not. But you know mothers. She might start thinking we’ll get married one day.’
‘I can’t worry about what she might think,’ he said a bit sharply. ‘She should know me well enough to know that is never going to happen. Now, why don’t you think about what you’re going to order for dinner? The waiter’s on his way over.’ And he picked up his menu.
Rachel was happy to do likewise, aware that her face had to be registering some dismay over his curt remark that he would never marry her. As much as Rachel tried telling herself that she was pleased with the kind of relationship Justin was offering her, deep down in her heart she knew it was a second-rate substitute for marriage and a family.
Isabel would think her a fool for accepting such a go-nowhere affair. What on earth are you doing, Rach, she’d say, wasting more of your life on another man who’s never going to marry you or give you children? You’re thirty-one years old, for pity’s sake. Soon you’ll be thirty-two. Grow up and give him the flick. And get yourself another job whilst you’re at it.
Easier said than done.
Love made one foolish. And eternally hopeful.
Even whilst cold, hard logic reasoned she was wasting her time, Rachel kept telling herself that maybe, one day, Justin would get over his ex-wife and fall in love with her. Maybe, if she was always there for him, he’d wake up one morning and see what was right under his nose. A woman who loved him. A woman who would never leave him. A woman who’d give him a good life. And children, if he liked.
He would make a wonderful father, she believed. And she…she would dearly love the chance to be a wonderful mother.
‘So what do you want?’ he asked, glancing up from the menu.
You, she thought with a painful twist of her heart. Just you.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RACHEL woke mid-morning to the sun shining in the bedroom window and the smell of fresh coffee percolating. Justin’s side of the bed was empty, but she could hear him whistling somewhere.
He sounded happy. And so was she. Relatively.
Spending last night in his bed had given her some hope that Justin hadn’t changed the rules of their relationship just so he could have more of what he’d been having at the office. When he’d brought her back to his apartment after dinner he’d been incredibly sweet, and his lovemaking incredibly tender. He’d held her in his arms afterwards, stroking her hair and back. Strangely, she’d felt like crying again at the time, but she’d kept a grip on herself, thank the lord. Justin wouldn’t have known what to make of that. She’d finally fallen asleep and here she was, totally rested and…totally surprised.
‘Goodness, breakfast in bed!’ she exclaimed as a navy-robed Justin carried one of those no-spill trays into the room.
Sitting up, she pushed her hair back from her face and pulled the sheet up around her nakedness just in time for him to settle the tray down across her lap.
‘My, this is lovely,’ she murmured, eyeing the freshly squeezed orange juice and scrambled eggs on toast, along some fried tomato and two strips of crispy bacon on the side. ‘I usually only have coffee and toast. So what are you having?’
‘I’ve already had it,’ he said, sitting down next to her on the side of the bed then leaning across where her legs were lying under the bedclothes.
He looked marvellous, she thought, despite the messy hair and dark stubble on his chin. His vivid blue eyes were sparkling clear, with no dark rings under them. He must have slept as well as she had.
‘I’ll bet you didn’t have anything as decadent as this,’ she chided.
‘I surely did. And I enjoyed every single mouthful. I’m going to enjoy watching you eat yours, too. You need a bit of fattening up, my girl.’
‘Oh? You think I’m too thin?’ she asked, that dodgy body image raising its ugly head again.
‘Not unattractively so, as I’m sure you are aware. But you don’t have anything much in reserve.’
‘But if I put on weight I won’t fit into my lovely new wardrobe. And my boobs will start sprouting. That’s where fat always goes on me first.’
‘Nothing wrong with a bit more weight on a woman’s boobs. Though yours are already a gorgeous handful. Pity any extra weight I gain doesn’t go where it would d
o me the most good. It usually becomes entrenched around my middle.’
‘How can you say that? You don’t have an extra ounce of fat on you.’
‘You didn’t see me eighteen months ago. I was the original couch potato with a sprouting beer gut.’
‘I don’t believe you. You have the best body I’ve ever seen on a man in the flesh, with a six-pack to envy. And you certainly don’t need any extra inches in that other department. You have more than enough for me.’
His laugh carried a dry amusement. ‘Being with someone like you seems to have made a permanent difference to the size of my equipment.’
‘So I noticed. But you know what they say. Size doesn’t matter. It’s what you can do with it that counts. And I certainly have no complaints over what you do with yours.’
‘So I noticed. You are seriously good for my ego, do you know that?’
As opposed to his ex-wife, Rachel guessed. Justin’s revelation about being a bit overweight and less than fit eighteen months ago gave rise to the speculation that the vain puss he was married to might have criticised him over his physical appearance, as well as his sexual performance. Rachel recalled Justin once implying he thought himself staid, and boring. Had that woman undermined Justin on every level, simply to excuse her own disgusting and disloyal behaviour?
More than likely. Guilt in a human being often searched for any excuse for their own appalling actions.
As much as Rachel understood how such criticisms would have been crushing, Justin must surely now know the woman never really loved him. True love wasn’t based on superficial things like gaining—or losing—a few wretched pounds. Or on knowing every position in the Kama Sutra.
Again, she wanted to ask him what Mandy had actually said when she left him, but once again this wasn’t the right moment. Hopefully, in time, he might confide in her himself. Meanwhile, she had to play a waiting game.
Wrapping the sheet more firmly around her bare breasts, she tucked into the breakfast whilst Justin watched her with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
‘You’re really enjoying that, aren’t you?’ he said and she nodded, her mouth full of egg.
‘I’m brewing some very special coffee for afters.’
She swallowed the last mouthful of egg and smacked her lips. ‘If it tastes half as good as it smells, I’ll be in heaven.’
‘That’s what I was thinking about you all yesterday,’ he said drily, and she laughed.
‘I aim to buy a really big bottle of that perfume this very day.’
He groaned. ‘Sadist.’
‘Takes one to know one. Now you know how I’ve been feeling every day in that office, waiting for five to come round. Only a sadist would make a rule like that.’
‘Trust me, it was much harder for me, with the emphasis on “harder”. Hopefully, we might both have a bit more control at work if we spend every night together.’
Rachel blinked her surprise. ‘Every night?’
‘Too much for you?’
She wanted to say no, of course not. But she didn’t want to be that easy. She’d been far too easy with Justin so far. Men never appreciated women who were easy.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ she said. ‘We women do have personal things we have to do sometimes, you know. Also, once Isabel gets back I will want to spend some time with her. She’s my best friend, after all. Actually, I’m having dinner with her and her husband tonight. Her husband, Rafe, has a terraced house in Paddington. He’s a photographer.’
‘I see,’ Justin muttered, his face falling.
Rachel decided that faint heart never won fat turkey. ‘You can come too, if you like,’ she said, and was rewarded with a startled smile.
‘Seriously?’ he asked.
‘Of course. There’s no way I’m going to be able to keep you a secret from Isabel. I wouldn’t even try.’
‘But won’t she mind having someone extra thrust upon her on such short notice?’
‘No, and she’s ordering food in anyway.’
‘I would have thought she’d be too tired to entertain on the first night back from an overseas honeymoon.’
‘I said much the same thing to her on the phone but she insisted. I guess it’s not all that long a flight from Hong Kong and I dare say they’ll have flown first class. Probably slept all the way. But I’ll check with her when she calls me. Which reminds me, I will have to go home this morning to await her call and get fresh clothes.’
‘I’ll drive you,’ he offered.
‘Gosh, you mean you have a car?’ she teased. ‘I thought you lived in trains and taxis.’
He certainly did have a car, a nice new navy number. Not overly flash; more of a family car, with easily enough room for two adults and two children.
Rachel wished she’d stop having such thoughts about Justin, but it was impossible not to dream.
They pulled up at the town house in Turramurra shortly after one, Justin accompanying Rachel inside as she knew he would. And they ended up back in bed, as she knew they would. So much for her resolve not to be easy! But it was so hard to resist him once he started kissing her. They were still in bed together when Isabel’s call came shortly after three p.m.
‘Yes?’ Rachel answered in a slightly croaky voice.
‘Rach, is that you?’ Isabel asked, sounding doubtful.
‘Yes, yes, it’s me. Justin, stop that,’ she hissed under her breath. ‘I have to talk to Isabel.’
‘Is that the TV on in the background, or are you talking to someone?’ Isabel asked.
‘I…um…I’m talking to someone.’
‘Oh? Who?’ Now she sounded surprised.
Rachel gave Justin a playful kick and he laughed before climbing out of bed and heading for the bathroom, Rachel wincing at the sight of the red nail marks she’d dug into his buttocks. Truly, she’d turned into a wild woman in bed!
‘Sounds like a man,’ Isabel said.
‘It is.’
‘Oh, my God, you’ve gone and got yourself a boyfriend!’
‘You could be right.’
‘Who? Rafe, Rafe, Rachel’s got herself a man!’ she called out before returning her attention to her friend. ‘Where did you meet him? What’s he like? Have you been to bed with him yet?’
Rachel had to smile. Trust Isabel to get down to the nitty-gritty straight away. ‘I met him at work. He’s gorgeous. And yes, I’ve been to bed with him.’
‘Oh, wow, this is such great news. How old is he?’
‘Early thirties.’
‘Presumably, he works for AWI.’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s he look like?’
‘Tall, dark and handsome.’
‘What’s he like in bed?’
‘Makes Eric look like a moron.’
‘Single or divorced?’
‘Divorced.’
‘Oh. Pity. But you can’t have everything, I suppose. So, does Casanova have a name?’ she added.
Rachel’s stomach swirled. This was going to be the sticky part. ‘Um…Justin McCarthy.’
Dead silence at the other end for at least ten seconds. Hearing Justin switch on the shower was a blessing. He wouldn’t be returning for a while. Time enough, hopefully, to smooth things over with Isabel.
‘Justin McCarthy,’ Isabel finally repeated in her best I-don’t-believe-you-could-be-such-an-idiot voice. ‘Your boss. You’re sleeping with your boss. Your obviously not gay but pathetically paranoid boss.’
‘Um… Yes.’
‘But why? How? When, for pity’s sake?’
Rachel did her best to explain the circumstances leading up to their first going to bed together, as well as where their affair had gone since then, without it all sounding as though she was desperate and Justin was simply using her for sex.
Her friend’s sigh told it all. ‘You are just setting yourself up for more hurt, love,’ Isabel said.
‘Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it’s my choice.’
Isabel sighed. ‘True.
’
‘He’s really a very nice man.’
‘I suppose I’ll have to take your word for that.’
‘No, you don’t. If you’ll let me bring him over to dinner tonight then you can judge for yourself.’
‘What a good idea,’ she said in a tone that worried the life out of Rachel.
‘Promise me you won’t say anything sarcastic.’
‘Who? Me?’
‘Yes, you, Miss Butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-your-mouth. You’ve got a cutting tongue on you sometimes.’
‘I’ll do my best to keep it sheathed.’
‘You’d better.’
‘Where is lover-boy at the moment?’
‘In the shower.’
‘Good, because I have something I want to say to you.’
Rachel rolled her eyes. Here it comes. ‘What?’
‘Now, don’t take that tone with me, Missy. Someone has to look after your best interests and that someone is me. I know you, Rach. You probably think you love this man. But I seriously doubt it. It’s just a rebound thing after running into Eric like that. You’ve also been very lonely. And loneliness can make a girl do incredibly stupid things. From the sound of things, your boss has been very lonely too, not to mention having had the stuffing kicked out of him. Not too many men could come through an experience like that without a seriously damaged soul. How do you know he’s not living out some sort of sick revenge, doing to you what he imagines Carl Toombs is doing to his wife? Have you thought of that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘It doesn’t fit his character. He’s too decent for that.’
‘Decent! Reading between the lines, he’s been screwing you silly all over your office. I haven’t forgotten that little joke you made during our last phone call. Only that wasn’t a joke, was it? That was the truth!’
‘Sort of. But things have changed.’
‘Huh. He’s just changed the scene of his crimes, that’s all. He’s probably afraid you’ll slap a sexual-harassment suit on him if he keeps doing it on his desk. He’s thinking ahead.’
