by Miranda Lee
Luke frowned at his mother. ‘You’re not lying to me, are you, Mum? You didn’t really go with him, did you?’
‘Of course not! I went out and bought myself a sexy black nightie and started doing a few of those things I’d only ever read about in books before. Things really looked up after that.’
‘Mum! I’m shocked,’ he said, then grinned at her. ‘You devil, you.’
She blushed some more, though she did look rather pleased with herself. He felt inordinately proud of her at that moment. She’d been handed temptation on a plate, when his dad had foolishly been neglecting her, but her essential goodness had come through in the end.
Luke’s mouth thinned as he accepted that not all women were as strong, or as decent. Some were weak, self-centred creatures, who went out and took what they wanted, and to hell with the people they hurt in the process.
A waiter appeared by the table and asked Luke if he wanted to order. He declined, giving the excuse that his mouth still felt numb from the injection he’d had—which was true—but the real reason was that he could not stand to sit there any longer. He had places to go. Leads to follow. A woman to find.
‘Would you mind if I loved you and left you, Mum?’ he said as soon as the waiter had departed. ‘While I was at the dentist’s I remembered I’d promised Ray to look him up the next time I was home.’
‘Ray? Ray who?’
‘Ray Holland. He’s a photographer.’ Who I’m hoping and praying still lives and works in Sydney, he thought grimly.
‘Never heard of him. There again, the only photographer friend of yours you ever talk about is Theo, and that’s never very complimentary. I remember poor Theo had the hardest job talking you into going to the opening of his photographic exhibition last time you were home, and then the next morning he rang and complained that you’d disappeared ten minutes after you arrived!’
‘Yeah, well, over the past few years poor Theo’s work has gone from really good stuff down to the most pretentious crap. I thought if I stayed there any longer that night I might be tempted to tell the truth and offend him.’
‘Where did you get to that night? You didn’t come home, if I recall.’
‘Come now, Mum! You don’t really expect me to tell you, do you? I gave up reporting in when I turned eighteen.’
‘Don’t underestimate yourself, Luke. You were fifteen. The most difficult and rebellious boy God ever put breath into! I can see you haven’t improved much either. You’re still difficult.’
‘What about rebellious?’
“‘Rebellious” is not an adjective suited to a thirty-two-year-old bachelor. Let’s just leave it at difficult.’
‘Yes, let’s,’ Luke said, and stood up, sensing that his mother was about to deteriorate into emotional blackmail of some sort. She had that gleam in her eye which heralded that her female curiosity was far from satisfied.
Women could be quite ruthless when they really wanted to know something, he mused. If cool reason didn’t work, they tried every trick in the book—from Chinese-water-torture-style demands, to sulky silences, to floods of tears.
Luke could bear just about all those methods except tears. They were the undoing of him every time.
‘I must go, Mum. I have a lot to do today. And before you suggest it, no, I don’t want you to drive me. I’m going to rent myself a car.’
‘Will you be home for dinner this evening?’ Grace asked archly.
‘What are you cooking?’
She lifted her nose in a disdainful sniff. ‘I have no intention of telling you if that’s all that’s bringing you home.’
‘In that case you can surprise me. See you around seven, sweetie,’ he said, distracting her with a peck on the cheek while he scooped the women’s magazine up from the adjoining chair.
Grace watched her son stalk across the coffeelounge, well aware of the hungry female eyes which turned to follow him. Her sigh held a weary resignation. That boy is up to no good, she thought, her own eyes zeroing in on the magazine curled up in his right hand.
And it’s all to do with some woman, I’ll warrant. A woman featured in that magazine he’s been trying to hide. A married woman, no doubt, whom he met the last time he was home and whom he’s off to meet again in secret.
Oh, Luke... Luke...
Grace shook her head unhappily. When was he going to learn that there was no future with a married woman? No future at all!
Luke paced up and down the living-room of Theo’s apartment, impatiently waiting for his friend to come out of his darkroom.
He still could not believe his luck—or the ease with which he’d reached his objective! Within an hour of leaving his mother he’d been leaving the. offices of the magazine with the address of Ray Holland in his hot little hands. Half an hour later Luke had been walking into the man’s studio in Randwick, and once again his luck had been in—he’d caught the freelance photographer just before he had to leave. Luke had come to the point immediately.
A trendily dressed man in his early forties, Mr Holland had remembered the Cleary wedding very well, because he’d worked with the bride herself several times previously—her speciality having been modelling swimsuits and lingerie, both as a photographic and catwalk model.
He’d also heard on the grapevine that his ‘darling Rachel’—Luke’s teeth had ground when he’d called her that—had recently returned to modelling. Word around the photographic traps was that her scientist husband had died recently, and that financial difficulty had forced her to go back to work.
Luke had absorbed this last piece of news with ambivalent emotions. He hadn’t been able to deny his momentary elation at finding out that the object of his obsession was now a widow, but the news that the husband had only died recently—meaning she’d still been well and truly married that night eighteen months ago—had revitalised his underlying bitterness towards her.
Unfaithful bitch, he’d raged inwardly while he’d taken down the name and address of the modelling agency she worked for.
The niggling suspicion that her much older husband might have been ailing at the time of her adultery had crossed his mind as he’d driven on to that agency. Such a circumstance might have mitigated her behaviour somewhat, if she’d gone about having her affair with some class and style, but there had been nothing of class or style in the way she’d been dressed that night—or the way she’d picked him up, or the way she’d slunk off afterwards while he’d been asleep.
That was one thing he would never forgive. Her running out on him the way she had—leaving him to worry and wonder, leaving him feeling a total fool and in torment for months, till a second blood test had assured him he wasn’t about to die for his insanity in going to bed with such a creature.
He’d always wanted to meet her face to face, and see what it was about her that still haunted him so. But also to ask her why. Why she’d chosen him. Why she’d taken such a crazy risk. Why, why, why?
And now... Now he would have the opportunity to do just that... in two days’ time. God, he could hardly wait!
‘That’s some smile, pal. It’s sending shudders down my spine. What are you up to?’
Luke’s dark eyes snapped up to find that Theo had emerged from the darkroom and was watching him closely. Theo had once been Luke’s employer, in the early days. Now he was Luke’s one remaining close friend in the Australian photographic world. Still a bachelor, he was an elegantlooking man in his late thirties who changed girlfriends as regularly as he did cameras and styles of photography.
Luke didn’t like the way Theo slavishly followed the photographic fashion of the moment. He believed that that was not the road to success or personal satisfaction. But he liked the man, who was easy-going and great company. Unfortunately Theo could also sometimes be as intuitive as Luke’s mother—something Luke had temporarily forgotten. His mind, after all, was rather preoccupied at that moment.
Luke casually wiped the darkly triumphant smile from his face, replacing it with an innocuo
usly bland expression. ‘I’m contemplating how you’re going to react to my asking to borrow two of your cameras.’
Theo’s blue eyes narrowed, suspicion in their intelligent depths. ‘You want to borrow my cameras?’ he said, his voice sceptical in the extreme. ‘That’d be a first.’
‘True. But I’ve been thinking lately how bored to tears I am with photographing faces—especially in black and white. I’ve decided to try my hand at something different.’
‘Such as what?’ Theo walked across his living-room in the direction of his well-equipped kitchen. ‘Care for a cup of coffee?’
Luke nodded, recognising the hunger pangs in his stomach for the first time that day. A glance at his watch showed him the reason why. Hell, it was after three, and he hadn’t stopped for a bite to eat since breakfast!
It just showed what effect that witch could have on him, he thought blackly. She disturbed his equilibrium as no woman had ever done before. Splitting up with Tracy had left him feeling wretched and lonely for only a few short weeks. Not being able to find this Rachel, after spending one short night together, had shattered him for months, then haunted him for another year, spurring him on to indulge in a personal lifestyle which was basically abhorrent to him.
Neither was it working.
Being with other women didn’t rid him of the memories of that night. It kept them alive by making him compare all the time. Yet no woman could compare—either with the physical feelings that that green-eyed alley-cat had initially evoked, or the emotional feelings she’d managed to engender later, once they had been alone together in that room.
‘Penny for your thoughts,’ Theo drawled as he slid a mug of coffee down the breakfast bar to where Luke had blindly propped himself up on a kitchen stool. Luke blinked a couple of times, then focused on his friend.
‘They’re worth a lot more than that,’ he muttered, thinking of all the jobs he’d knocked back this last eighteen months. It was as well he’d become independently wealthy these past few years, or he’d have been stony broke by now.
‘You’re talking in riddles, man. Care to tell your old mate what’s eating you up?’
‘No. Not really.’
Theo nodded up and down, his expression accepting. ‘Fair enough.’
Luke appreciated his friend’s not pressing. Maybe he would tell him one day about this Rachel, depending on what happened on Wednesday. But there again... maybe not...
‘So what cameras do you want to borrow?’ Theo asked.
Luke shrugged, then grinned. ‘Damned if I know. I’ll have to put myself in your expert hands.’
Theo grinned back. ‘Flattery will get you everywhere. Well, first things first, what are you going to photograph?’
‘Lots of beaches and bikinis.’
Theo’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Are we talking artshots here, or some sort of Australiana promotion?’
‘That depends,’ Luke returned non-committally.
Theo’s blue eyes twinkled. ‘Ahh. Methinks I’m beginning to see what lies behind this unexpected career-change. And there I was thinking you were the only other man I knew to have escaped the tender trap. So! Might I enquire her name?’
‘Who?’ Luke drawled.
‘The model you’ll be using, man. What do you take me for—a fool? Now, give. Who is she? Do I know her, and why are you going to so much trouble to be with her?’
Luke decided he had nothing to lose by telling Theo her name. Who knew? Theo didn’t do much fashion work any more, but he might still know her.
‘Rachel Manning,’ he said.
The agency had confirmed that she was working under her maiden name. They’d also confirmed that she was still specialising in swimwear and was free of bookings that week.
Luke’s stomach had twisted into knots while they rang her on the spot and booked her for a shoot on the Wednesday and Thursday up on the Central Coast beaches, starting at Terrigal on the Wednesday, with an overnight stay at the Holiday Inn there that night.
Luke had known she wouldn’t refuse—not if she needed money. He’d offered a top fee, feeling quite safe when he’d heard the agency inform her over the telephone that the photographer’s name was Luke St Clair and that he was Australian, but had been working overseas.
‘Don’t recognise the name,’ Theo muttered. ‘There again, I never was good with names.’
‘Not to worry,’ Luke said, hating the way his heart was pounding just talking about her. He picked up his coffee-mug and sipped the now tepid drink.
Theo threw his friend a frustrated look. ‘Well, aren’t you going to tell me all about her?’
‘Not at this stage.’
Theo’s expressive eyebrows waggled up and down. ‘Do I get to know all the sordid details afterwards?’
‘For pity’s sake, don’t you have a sex life of your own?’
‘Not for over a week now.’
Luke always laughed at Theo’s crestfallen expression. ‘A veritable drought,’ he said drily.
‘It is for me.’
‘Maybe you should settle down, Theo. Find yourself a nice girl and get married.’
‘Perish the thought.’
When Luke didn’t say anything to this typical bachelor remark, Theo stared at him. Hard.
‘You’re not thinking of getting married, are you?’ he said, almost accusingly. ‘Damn it all, Luke, you haven’t gone and fallen in love, have you?’
Luke didn’t know what to say to either of those questions. Both distressed and confused him. His brain denied each in turn—the first as impossible, the second as highly improbable. Yet his heart leapt at both ideas.
Don’t be a bloody fool, he told himself scathingly. The likelihood is that she’s bad through and through. Bad and mad. You don’t go giving your heart and your life to a woman like that!
‘No,’ he denied aloud. ‘I’m not going to get married. And I haven’t fallen in love.’ What he had done, however, he rationalised brutally, was tumble headfirst into lust. A lust which hadn’t had the opportunity to burn itself out. A lust which still simmered, waiting for the instigator to come back into his life.
Well, that instigator was going to come back this Wednesday, and Luke was going to do everything in his power to satisfy not only his curiosity about her, but everything else she’d managed to keep aroused in him for the past eighteen months.
CHAPTER FOUR
WEDNESDAY morning could not have dawned more perfect. At least weatherwise. A little crisp—since it was only the first week in September—but clear, with the promise of some real spring warmth later in the day.
The sun had crept over the ocean horizon at around six, quickly dispelling the grey pre-dawn light, its gleaming rays spearing through the Norfolk pines on the beachfront and hitting Luke’s hotel room windows.
That had been nearly an hour ago, during which time he’d showered, shaved and dressed, before sitting down to eat the breakfast delivered to his room. Each mouthful had been accompanied by thoughts of her, already on her way up here, totally unaware of the true identity of Luke St Clair.
He had toyed with the idea of asking the agency to have her drive up the night before and stay here at the Holiday Inn with him, but he had dismissed it in the end as too dangerous. His intention was to catch her completely off guard, then sweep her into a day’s supposed work before she could even think.
He had a plan of action which he hoped would work—a strategy which would put her in his secret power and possibly make her more open with him. It would work too, if she felt guilty about what she’d done eighteen months ago.
And he suspected that she might.
Seven o’clock arrived—the time Luke had given the agency for her to meet him in the foyer of the hotel. Her instructions were to have his room paged if he wasn’t there. Which he had no intention of being. Luke expected that it would take her a few minutes at least to decide to do this, even if she was on time. No one liked to rush things these days, and punctuality was not the virtue it u
sed to be.
While he waited for the telephone call he wandered out onto the balcony of his hotel room. Leaning against the railing, he stared down, first at the magnificent turquoise swimming pool below, then out across the road to the beach and the sparkling blue sea beyond.
He’d chosen Terrigal because it was away from Sydney and he knew it quite well, having camped up here often with friends when he was in his late teens. All the local beaches were picturesque, and he knew that he would have no trouble finding some magnificent shots to photograph.
Above everything, Miss Rachel Manning was not to suspect that this was anything but a proper, professional photographic shoot. If she did, then all would be lost. No one liked to be fooled, or manipulated.
No one, Luke thought with a black bitterness.
The seconds began ticking away with agonising slowness. Five past seven came and went. Then ten past.
She was late.
A couple more minutes dragged by, but still no call came.
Luke was dismayed to find that he was beginning to feel more than a little agitated. He actually felt sick—sick with something like fear.
But fear of what?
Fear that she might not arrive at all? Or of finding out, when she did, that it had all been an illusion? What if he saw her again and felt... nothing? What if he found out that his obsession with her had all been a perverse fantasy of his mind?
The ring was shrill to his ears and he whirled around, staring back into the room and at the telephone sitting on the writing desk in the corner as if it were a cobra about to strike. Paralysed for a few moments, Luke listened to it ring and ring before lurching in onto the grey carpet and snatching the hated thing from its cradle.
‘Yes?’ he said sharply.
