By Marriage Divided

‘It may not matter a whole lot whether we like each other,’ he said and poured two cups of coffee.

Domenica’s fingers hovered over a little dish of finely dusted pale pastel Turkish Delight that had come with the coffee. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

He didn’t answer. But his smoky-grey gaze travelled from her glorious dark hair to the smooth pale skin of her throat and the outline of her figure to her waist beneath the camellia voile. She had very fine, narrow hands, he observed, and on the little finger of the hand still poised above the dish of Turkish Delight she wore a rather unusual plaited gold ring. Then his gaze drifted back to her mouth and he contemplated it silently.

Domenica dropped her hand to her lap sweetless and suppressed a tremor that was composed of both outrage and awareness. Because she knew exactly what Angus Keir meant and, while she’d contrived to ignore it until now, one all-encompassing glance from him had spelt it out. ‘Liking’ one another was not what it was about between them.

Liking one another had nothing to do with wondering about a man on a physical level, which, heaven help her, had plagued her again while she’d watched him discard his jacket to hook her car up to a towline he’d produced from his vehicle. It hadn’t been a great physical exertion for him, but enough to make her conscious of the long lines of his back and the sleek, powerful muscles beneath the midnight-blue cotton of his shirt.

And at the garage she’d stood silent and feeling oddly helpless as he’d made arrangements with the local mechanic with the kind of authority, not only of a man as opposed to a woman who knew nothing about starter motors anyway, but the kind of man who almost had the mechanic bowing and scraping.

Then, for some reason, his wrists and hands had specifically plagued her during their lunch. He’d taken off his jacket again and, beneath the cuffs of his shirt, his wrists were powerful and sprinkled with black hairs, but his hands were long and well-shaped and he wore a plain watch on a brown leather band. Strong, but nice hands, she’d caught herself thinking a couple of times.

But she now had to put it all into context, she realized, and find a way to make him believe that ‘liking’ a man was important, for her anyway.

She compressed her lips and decided to opt for honesty and forthrightness and didn’t give a damn how she sounded. ‘I don’t go in for that kind of thing, Mr Keir.’

‘Mutual attraction and admiration?’ he suggested lazily.

She paused, then shot him a telling little look. ‘Not with people I do business with, no. And not with people I don’t happen to like. But most of all, not with people—’

‘Men—shouldn’t we be specific?’ he put in blandly.

She shrugged. ‘All right, men, then, who I don’t know from a bar of soap!’

‘That’s commendable,’ he remarked. ‘I even applaud you, Miss Harris. But I’m not suggesting we leap into bed, only that we get to know each other.’

Domenica felt the surge of colour rising up her throat but she ignored it to say coolly, ‘Thank you, but no, and, while you may not be suggesting we leap into bed, it is how you’ve been looking at me. And I find that—unacceptable.’

He laughed, but with genuine amusement that caused his eyes to dance in a way that was rather breathtaking. ‘I’d be surprised if most men don’t look at you that way, Domenica.’

Her eyes flashed. ‘On the contrary, Mr Keir, most men are a bit more…mannered.’

His lips twisted. ‘Oh, well, if nothing else, at least you know where you stand with me, Domenica. Incidentally, I believe your mother owns another property, a warehouse in Blacktown?’

‘Yes.’ Domenica blinked as she tried to make the adjustment. ‘It’s leased to a catering and party hire company. So?’

‘Sell it,’ he said.

She did a double take. ‘Why? At least the rent provides some steady income!’

‘You may not realize it,’ he broke in, ‘but you’re sitting on a small gold-mine there. A new road proposal resuming land nearby has given several companies around you the headache of having to put their expansion plans on hold, or move entirely to another industrial estate, a costly exercise. But don’t sell it for a penny under this figure.’ He drew a black pen from his shirt pocket and wrote a figure on the back of the bill that had come with the coffee.

Domenica stared at the figure, swallowed, and, raising wide eyes to his, said huskily, ‘You’re joking! I know the valuation—’

He stopped her by gesturing a little impatiently. ‘Things change. It’s an established estate with good facilities and the new road will make it better and even more accessible. And you’ll be in the position of being able to play several potential buyers off against each other. Believe me.’

‘How…how do you know all this?’ she asked after a long pause.

He smiled slightly. ‘I do my homework.’

‘You…you wouldn’t be in the market for some extra space in this estate, by any chance?’

‘No, Domenica, I wouldn’t. Do you think I’d be advising you to ask this for it—’ he tapped the bill ‘—if I were?’

They stared at each other, she tensely, he rather mockingly. Until she said a little awkwardly, ‘I just can’t imagine why you would…just because you wanted Lidcombe Peace…investigate us so thoroughly.’

He didn’t answer immediately. Then he shrugged. ‘It had some bearing on what I’d get Lidcombe Peace for.’

‘You said you—’ her voice quivered ‘—you paid what you thought was a realistic price.’

‘Yes. Taking everything into consideration.’

Her awkwardness changed to contempt. He could see it in her eyes and the way her beautiful mouth set severely. And he knew what to expect before she said it. ‘That’s despicable, Mr Keir. I assume you mean taking into consideration that I was fairly desperate!’

He shrugged. ‘Life can be a bit of a jungle, Miss Harris. But if you take my advice on the warehouse, and if you invest some of the profits as I would be prepared to advise you, your mother should be well provided for, for the rest of her life. She may even be able to continue to live in the manner to which she’s accustomed.’

Domenica breathed deeply and fought a tide of emotion, an unusual, for her, desire to scream and shout at this man—but what if he was right? she wondered suddenly.

Her mother was one of those people you loved, especially as a daughter—excepting on those days when you wondered why; days when she was impossibly impractical, when she was being a raving snob as if she still queened it over society and had her parents’ great wealth to fall back on, when she was unbelievably extravagant. But the thing was, it was impossible to see Barbara Harris unhappy. It was a bit like closing down the sun…

She said slowly, ‘I might just take you up on that, Mr Keir. Unless you have a certain kind of repayment in mind?’ Her blue gaze was steady, and satirical.

‘Your body for my financial expertise?’ he hazarded gravely.

‘I can’t imagine why else you would do it,’ she said levelly.

‘You could be right.’

Domenica put her cup down and stood up, only a hair’s breadth from slapping his face.

But Angus Keir remained seated, with his eyes laughing at her. Just as she was about to swing on her heel, though, he stood up and said, ‘To clarify things, Domenica, no, I wouldn’t expect that kind of payment. But I would like to get to know you, that would certainly be a way of going about it, and you just might enjoy getting to know me. What would happen from there on—who knows?’ He shrugged into his jacket and picked up the bill. ‘Shall we go?’

‘Your car has been delivered, Dom.’

Domenica looked up from her drawing-board. It was seven o’clock the same evening. She and her partner, Natalie White, were working late although their other staff had left and it was Natalie who was standing beside her dangling a set of car keys.

Domenica looked at the keys then at Natalie, dazedly. ‘But it can’t be. They said it could take at least a day or two to get the part.’

‘Nevertheless…’ Natalie grinned ‘…it has just been delivered by a driver wearing a Keir Conway overall who told me to tell you that, on instructions from the boss, he rushed the part down himself, supervised its installation and drove the car back. He also said that, while you should have no more immediate problems with it, it’s probably about time you gave some thought to acquiring a new vehicle. Oh, and the bill has been settled, compliments of the boss, too.’

Domenica looked around the colourful chaos of the studio with its big half-moon windows, and said something unprintable not quite beneath her breath.

‘Darling,’ Natalie murmured, ‘I know you explained briefly about this Angus Keir and what you hold against the man, but are you sure you’re not spurning a knight in shining armour? When a country garage tells you it could take at least a day or two to track down a part, in my experience and certainly for a car that’s not in its first flush of youth, they’re actually talking in terms of weeks!’

Domenica started to say something but Natalie went on, ‘And considering that your hatchback doubles as our delivery vehicle, considering—’ she gestured around ‘—how much stock we have to deliver at the moment and the cost of hiring a vehicle—’

‘Stop,’ Domenica broke in but chuckling. ‘You’re right! It still doesn’t make me enjoy being beholden to the man!’

Natalie, a five-feet-two bubbly blonde, perched on the corner of a cutting table and studied Domenica thoughtfully. ‘I would say this Angus Keir is well and truly smitten, Dom. Is that such a bad thing? Sounds as if he’s rolling in dough.’ She shrugged and eyed her friend and partner shrewdly. ‘What exactly did happen between you two?’

Domenica frowned, because her encounter with Angus Keir had started to take on a surreal quality. They’d said little on the drive back to Sydney, and she’d recovered her composure sufficiently to thank him both for the lift and lunch, although with a cool little glint in her eyes as if to warn him off. But either he’d heeded it or he’d needed no warning off, because he’d responded in kind, and left it at that. All the same, she’d had the feeling she was amusing him and that would not be that—as she now knew.

But even with this reminder—she took her keys from Natalie and stared at them—the whole encounter seemed more like a dream than reality, except for the fact that it had been difficult to concentrate all afternoon because even a dreamlike recollection of events had made her feel restless and edgy.

She sighed suddenly. ‘I don’t really know, Nat. But for some reason he—makes me nervous.’

She was to repeat that sentiment later in the evening, at home with her mother and sister Christabel.

At twenty-two, three years younger than Domenica, Christabel still lived at home with Barbara Harris at Rose Bay in a house overlooking the harbour.

Close to the shopping delights of Double Bay and because she’d lived there for the past twenty years, Barbara Harris had mentioned several times that she’d die rather than be parted from her Rose Bay home although it was far too big for just her and Christabel.

She’d also tried to make Domenica feel guilty about moving out to a flat of her own several years previously and had tried desperately to persuade her to come home after Walter’s death. But Domenica knew that it had been a wise move to stay put because she and her mother were at their best with each other when they each had their own space. Although she often spent the night or the weekend with them and would do so tonight.

Whereas Christabel, who had always been quiet and studious and looked set to follow in their father’s footsteps, was able to shut herself off from Barbara’s more difficult moods. Still at university pursuing an MA in History, she was also working part-time as a research assistant for a writer, and, Domenica thought affectionately of her sister who was also dark but short, thin and amazingly unsophisticated, she often lived in a world of her own.

Tonight, though, as they ate a late meal together it was Christy who said, ‘If he’s right and he can give good investment advice, it could be the end of all our problems.’

Domenica grimaced. She’d just passed on the salient points of her encounter with Angus Keir, which had not included the personal, and contrived to strike her mother dumb.

It didn’t last long. Barbara reached for her wineglass and said in a wobbly voice, ‘This is amazing. This is sensational! I’m saved! Unless—’ she looked at her elder daughter piercingly ‘—there’s something you haven’t told us!’

‘Not really,’ Domenica sidestepped. ‘I just, well, don’t know if we can trust the man, for one thing. For another he did tailor his offer for Lidcombe Peace to suit our rather desperate circumstances and I find that…’ She shrugged.

‘But if this is true, it’s more than made up for it, Domenica. Who is he, by the way?’ Barbara asked.

Domenica told them his name.

Barbara looked blank but said all the same, ‘I think I’ll invite him to dinner. He must have some good reason for wanting to help out and—’

‘No—uh—Mum, just hang on a minute,’ Domenica broke in. ‘Let me check him out first before we plunge into wining and dining him. I’d also like to check out the Blacktown scenario for myself. Please?’

‘Well…’ Barbara looked undecided and Christy suddenly tapped the table with her fingers.

They both turned to her. ‘It’s got to be the same one,’ she said, frowning. ‘Angus Keir, you said his name was, but does he own Keir Conway Transport?’

‘That’s him,’ Domenica agreed a shade darkly. ‘Do you know him?’

‘No, but I’ve been researching him for Bob’s next book tentatively titled New Money. Which he’s made a mint of, Angus Keir.’

‘Oh. A self-made man,’ Barbara said disappointedly and got up to make coffee.

Domenica and Christy exchanged glances, although Domenica was actually feeling relieved, because nothing could dampen their mother’s enthusiasm more than ‘new money’. But she couldn’t resist asking Christy for more details.

Her sister shrugged. ‘He was born and raised on a sheep station way out west. Apparently his mother deserted both he and his father, who was employed on the station as a boundary rider and wanted no other life. But Angus broke the mould. Exceptionally bright at what schooling he did grab, he—’

‘Started with one eccentric old truck and turned it into a transport empire,’ Domenica finished for her.

Christy raised an eyebrow.

‘He told me that bit.’ Domenica propped her chin on her hands. ‘Is there more?’

‘He’s branched out a bit, he’s expanded his business overseas,’ Christy said thoughtfully. ‘In fact, I would say that Angus Keir knew exactly what he was talking about in regard to the Blacktown property and could probably make Mum a small fortune with the proceeds. But you obviously didn’t like him, did you, Dom?’

Domenica looked into her sister’s dark, intelligent eyes. ‘I…don’t know why but he made me feel…nervous.’

Christy considered. ‘On the other hand, to know that Mum was happy, settled and back in what she considers her rightful milieu would be such a weight off our minds, wouldn’t it?’

Domenica glanced towards the kitchen doorway through which she could hear their mother musically exhorting the percolator to perk. ‘Yes, Christy,’ she said, ‘it would. But, please, just head her away from any plans to socialize with him until I, well, work a few things out.’

‘OK,’ Christy agreed. ‘If she mentions him again I’ll tell her he was a boundary rider’s son who didn’t get to finish high school.’

They smiled ruefully at each other, then Domenica said slowly, ‘Not that you would know it—he looks and sounds anything but! Although—’ her mind roamed back ‘—perhaps he does have a slight chip on his shoulder. Do I often sound upper crust and la-di-da?’ she asked.

Christy laughed. ‘Darling Dom, in fact you’re light years from being it, but there are times when you can look down your nose just like Mum!’

Three weeks passed, during which Domenica forwarded a cheque to Angus Keir for the repairs to her car and investigated the Blacktown scenario. The cheque came back to her torn up but with no note.

This annoyed her considerably but she decided not to pursue the matter. And, quite irrationally, it annoyed her even more to discover that his summing up of the Blacktown estate had been quite accurate. Through another real estate agent, she found out that the warehouse was, indeed, suddenly a much more valuable property.

She tried to persuade herself that this would have become apparent to her anyway, through offers made for it, but she couldn’t persuade herself that she’d have known how much to ask for it.

Then her mother rang one afternoon to tell her that she’d invited a few friends round for a cocktail party early that evening and would she please come.

‘Why such late notice?’ Domenica asked down the phone, with her mind elsewhere.

‘You know me, darling, I’m so scatterbrained, I was quite sure I’d told you about it, then I thought I better check, just in case! I was right.’

‘Who’s coming?’

Her mother ran through a list of names, and added that she was dressing up.

‘All right, thanks, Mum, but I’m so busy, I might be a bit late. See you!’ Domenica put the phone down and shook her head. A couple of hours later, she remembered the party and had to shower and change on the run because she was already late.

Damn, she thought as she wriggled into her favourite black dress and did a contortionist act to zip herself up. It was short and fitted, with narrow shoestring straps that crossed over her back, and she embellished it with a single strand of pearls, another bequest from her Lidcombe grandmother. Deciding she didn’t have time to fight with tights and it was too hot for them anyway, she slipped her feet into a pair of closed-toed black patent sandals with little heels, and applied some lipstick and eye shadow.

But she hated rushing, she hated being late although she was not a great fan of her mother’s cocktail parties, so it wasn’t in the best of moods that she let herself into the Rose Bay house, convinced she looked less than her best and feeling quite breathless.

Nor did it improve her mood at all to discover that she’d been right about Angus Keir—he did stand out from a crowd because he was the first person she noticed amongst the throng in her mother’s living room.

CHAPTER TWO

DOMENICA stopped dead and looked around wildly, catching Christy’s eye in the process. She delicately pointed towards Angus Keir but all Christy could do in return was shrug helplessly in a way that told Domenica she’d also been caught off guard.

And as she looked back in Angus Keir’s direction it was to see that he had turned, and, from the mocking look in his eyes as they rested on her, had probably witnessed the little mime between sisters.

Then Barbara was surging towards Domenica, slim, petite and chic in a beautiful blue chiffon cocktail dress spangled with gold swirls that was also brand-new. Not only that, her mother’s hair was cut differently and exquisitely styled, her make-up was perfect and her nails freshly manicured, leaving her elder daughter in no doubt that she’d spent hours in a beauty parlour some time today.

But Barbara Harris was obviously happy and excited and as always, managing to infect everyone with her special brand of joie de vivre. It was a laughing, light-hearted throng in the room. And even Domenica, who had a very good idea of how much her mother would have splurged one way and another, felt her ire diminishing, although she would have loved to be able to hold on to it as Barbara kissed her and whispered that she was not to be cross because Angus Keir was quite delightful!

Then she took Domenica’s hand and towed her across the room to Angus’s side, saying gaily, ‘Here she is at last, Mr Keir! I knew she wouldn’t let me down. Stay put, Dom, I’ll get you some champers.’

Domenica took a deep breath and rubbed her nose to make sure it behaved itself. ‘Hi.’ She contrived to smile whimsically. ‘How are you? This is a bit of a surprise.’

‘So I gathered but I’m very well, thank you, Domenica,’ he returned, looking down at her quizzically. ‘Would I be right in assuming you warned your mother off me?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact you would,’ she answered ruefully, although still managing to project good humour and taking the glass her mother put into her hand. ‘But if I’d known you were here, I would have worn high heels.’ She took a sip of champagne and wondered what had possessed her to say this.

Because Angus Keir allowed his grey gaze to wander down her figure in the short black dress to her shoes, then he let it drift upwards again, to linger on the bare skin of her shoulders and the curve of her breasts beneath the fine black material before he looked into her eyes wryly. ‘Why?’

‘Dom always has trouble finding men tall enough for her, Mr Keir,’ Barbara explained. ‘I expect that’s what she means, don’t you, dear?’

‘I do!’ Domenica confirmed, feeling like a clown but unable to help herself. ‘Thank you very much for paying for my car, by the way, but I wish you hadn’t.’

‘What’s this?’ Barbara pricked up her ears but was fortunately waylaid by a couple who had to leave early.

And she moved away leaving Angus and her daughter in a pool of silence. He was wearing a dark suit this evening with a white shirt and a plain maroon tie. And there was something about him that made Domenica feel suddenly tongue-tied and oddly helpless, and very much reminded of the three uncomfortable weeks that had passed since she’d last seen him. Because while she mightn’t have seen him, she’d been unable to rid her mind of him.

So she stared down at the glass in her hand stupidly until he said quietly, ‘You look sensational.’

She raised her eyes to his in some confusion and put a hand to her head. ‘I was sure I looked a mess! It was such a rush I hardly had time to brush my hair.’

A faint smile touched his mouth. ‘I guess it’s the kind of hair that would look gorgeous in any circumstances.’ His gaze rested on the glory of her dark hair, then he focused on her eyes. ‘Even straight out of bed.’

‘It is…’ she cleared her throat ‘…easy hair, probably because it’s thick and has a mind of its own.’ Then she closed her eyes briefly at the inference of what he’d said, and added barely audibly, ‘Don’t.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Speculate?’

She nodded, concentrating on her glass again.

‘I’ve been unable to stop myself from speculating about us for three weeks, Domenica.’

Her lashes lifted and their gazes locked. And her mother’s lovely lounge at Rose Bay and all the party-goers in it receded even further as they exchanged a long, straight, telling look. Telling because she couldn’t cut the contact much as she might have wished to and, for whatever reason, neither did he. It was also an unspoken admission that, at that moment, there might as well have been just the two of them in the room.

Because all her senses were receiving signals, she thought dazedly. It wasn’t only visual, it was much more. It was as if a slow tide of recognition was running through her that told her she enjoyed crossing swords with this man. She enjoyed pitting her intelligence against his, she would enjoy worsting him in a verbal fight, but she would also, she knew, enjoy going to bed with him.

And demonstrating, heaven help her, she thought, that she was more than a match for his sheer, utterly sexy masculinity that no conservative charcoal suit and plain maroon tie could hide.

But just as the colour began to flow into her cheeks at these wild, wanton thoughts that were not particularly like her, Christy came to her aid.

‘Excuse me,’ she said politely.

Domenica wrenched her gaze from Angus Keir but not before she had the curious satisfaction of seeing him move his shoulders almost restlessly at the interruption.