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He grimaced but didn’t answer directly. ‘Your career means a lot to you, doesn’t it, Clare?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that why you’re looking a little troubled and wary?’ he said gently, and slid his hand over to cover hers.
‘No. I suppose I’m surprised for one thing.’ Her fingers trembled beneath his. ‘I’m not terribly experienced for another.’
‘You shouldn’t be surprised. In your own quiet way you’re—captivating. And we know each other pretty well now.’
‘In some ways,’ she agreed.
‘Walk with me along the beach?’ he suggested.
The beach was only across the road and she agreed. They took their shoes off and paddled in the shallows, Clare holding the skirt of her long floral dress up. Then they sat on a bench on a grassy promontory and watched the lights of a big ship as it slid up the coast, and the flash of the Byron Bay Lighthouse.
To her surprise, they talked. He told her about his great-grandfather and how he’d come to Australia with only a few pounds in his pocket. He talked about his son, Sean, who was now seven and had a very high IQ and an equally high propensity for getting into trouble, and about how his latest crop of macadamia nuts was progressing.
And she responded, gradually relaxing and telling him about her teenage years when her fascination with law had begun to emerge, her years at university and something of her home life. She’d grown up in Armidale, a leafy, pretty town of some substance on the tablelands of New South Wales about three hundred and seventy kilometres south of Lennox Head. Armidale was home to the University of New England and home to her father’s prosperous tractor and farm machine agency.
She told Lachlan that she was an only child, and something about her gentle, retiring mother. Also, how her father dominated her mother and had tried to dominate her.
‘Which fed your ambition, I suppose,’ he commented.
‘Probably,’ she agreed with a little grimace.
‘Helped along by being as bright as a tack, no doubt.’
‘That hasn’t always been an asset,’ she said slowly.
He put an arm around her shoulders. ‘Frightened all guys away, you mean?’
Clare hesitated because she was suddenly acutely conscious of him, but she tested it in her mind, this first physical contact. And came to the conclusion that she felt comfortable against him, that she liked the subtle scent of clean cotton and his faint lemony aftershave, and even wished to draw closer to his warmth and bulk.
‘Perhaps,’ she answered eventually. ‘Not that it’s ever bothered me greatly,’ she added honestly.
‘It hasn’t frightened me away—it’s part of the attraction,’ he said quietly. And he started to kiss her for the first time.
Initially she was aware that the feel of his fingers moving gently on her cheek was pleasant. That his lips were cool and dry and she seemed not to mind parting her own for him. Then her senses took over.
The hunger that she’d battened down for twelve months asserted itself and the intimate act of being kissed by a man became a mutual pleasure.
The difference between her own soft skin and the slight graze she felt as she trailed her fingertips along his jaw, the knowledge that he could probably span her waist in his long, strong hands—all this brought a heady feel of elation and desire.
The feel of his arms around her, the feel of him against her body was rapturous and ignited a steady flame within her that made her forget the beach, the bench, the park. It was as if the only beacon in the night was this man and the mixture of excitement and quivering need he aroused in her...
When they drew apart, Clare was stunned and speechless for a few moments. Then she said, ‘I didn’t expect that...’
He grinned. ‘That we would generate those kind of fireworks? I did.’
Two weeks later they became lovers.
Coming back to the present again, Clare moved restlessly in her office chair and put her hand on her stomach.
It was six months since she’d begun a relationship with Lachlan Hewitt. Six months during which she’d been—well, almost blissfully happy, she conceded to herself. Six months during which the power of their attraction still took her by surprise.
He still called her Slim, but he used it now in moments of great intimacy, when her slender figure with its pale satiny skin fascinated him and together they experienced the kind of passion she’d thought might never exist for her.
Then there was the friendship they enjoyed, the moments of laughter, the things they did together such as climbing to the top of Lennox Head and watching the hang-gliders take off. But there were no ties—she still worked as hard as ever and if she wasn’t available he never made a fuss, and vice versa.
She visited Rosemont, the family home, often, and knew young Sean as well as Lachlan’s aunt May who ran the house, and Paddy and Flynn who were the size of small ponies but otherwise charming and gentle dogs.
By mutual, unspoken consent, she never stayed at Rosemont, however, although Lachlan stayed often at her apartment. But she didn’t feel excluded by this; she wouldn’t have felt right about it anyway.
Yet there had been times, she mused, still with her hand resting gently on her stomach, when an unidentifiable sense of unease had troubled her. How strange that an unplanned pregnancy should crystallize it all, she thought suddenly, and sat up.
She picked up her pen to doodle absently on her blotter and asked herself some things that she should have asked months ago; where had it all been leading, for example?
Had that inexplicable sense of unease grown because she, paradoxically, had wanted more than this undemanding relationship that she’d thought so suited her career? How would she feel if he ended the affair—perhaps she’d been a stopgap while he rebuilt his life after Serena?
And, of course, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, she mused as she drew a dollar sign on the blotter: what really happened with Serena to make it all go so terribly wrong?
She put her pen down and contemplated the unlikelihood, if she’d been asked to forecast it, of Clare Montrose getting herself into this situation. Because she’d never been able to visualize herself getting deeply, emotionally tangled with anyone. But then again she’d never visualized herself having this kind of relationship with a man, she reflected. Was she mad?
Because even without this complication she knew she was deeply and emotionally tangled up with Lachlan Hewitt, although she might not have cared to admit it. The crunch was, however—and she flinched as she acknowledged it—she had no idea where she stood.
She did have a week, though, she thought suddenly, to really think this through while he was in Sydney on business.
Her phone buzzed and she rubbed her face wearily, knowing her half-hour was up and she was about to be deluged.
But it was Lachlan. ‘Clare, can I come for dinner tomorrow night? I’m still in Sydney but instead of being down here for the week I’ve had a change of plan.’
‘Of course,’ she said.
‘Is something wrong?’
It shook her that he should have been able to read the sudden tension that had gripped her in her voice.
‘No, not at all. Well, I’m flat out as usual.’
‘See you about seven-thirty, then?’
‘Yes. I ... I’ll look forward to it. Bye!’ She put the phone down and closed her eyes. Because her week to prepare her—defences?—had suddenly shrunk to overnight.
And her phone rang again and would keep ringing all afternoon, she knew.
CHAPTER TWO
AT SEVEN-FIFTEEN the following evening, Clare was ready—or as ready as she’d ever be, she thought.
The table was set on the veranda of her first-floor apartment; it was a beautiful evening and the sun was setting. The beach at Lennox Head curved in a seven mile arc towards Broken Head to the north, and the setting sun bathed it in a transitory, golden pink and whitened the surf as it rolled in to a luminous radiance.
In front of her two-storey apartment block, built tastefully like a cluster of town houses with pale grey walls and shingled roofs, thick lush grass grew to the rocks that fringed the water’s edge. Immediately to the south, Lennox Head itself rose, clad in emerald-green, to its rocky lip. It was a favourite hang-gliding spot and on weekends provided a colourful, at times heart-stopping spectacle.
The bay formed by Lennox Head and Broken Head was a fisherman’s paradise—of the human variety, who fished off the rocks and launched small boats from the beach, and the dolphin variety. It was common to see them in the morning and late afternoons as they curved through the water, flashing their fins.
The village itself was within walking distance, small but colourful with pavement cafés and a holiday atmosphere.
None of this was on Clare’s mind as she stood before her bedroom mirror and studied herself anxiously.
She wore a long, cool dress in a soft watermelon-pink, gold sandals, and her dark hair was tucked behind her ears to reveal gold hoop earrings studded with tiny pearls.
The dress was loose and cut on a bias so it flowed around her as she moved, and it was perfect for a warm January evening, but she’d actually chosen it for its unrevealing nature.
Not that she could see anything to reveal, she mused. She hadn’t popped out in any direction and hadn’t put on an ounce of weight.
Then the doorbell rang.
She opened the door—to a dark-suited stranger.
‘Ms Montrose?’
‘Yes.’
‘May I come in?’
‘But I don’t think I know you,’ she said slowly.
‘I’d like to remedy that,’ he replied expressionlessly.
‘Do I have an option?’
‘Actually—no.’
‘I see.’ Clare took an unsteady little breath. ‘Then you had better come in.’
He stepped across the threshold and waited while she closed and bolted the door. Then he took her in his arms and murmured, ‘It’s almost as if you’ve been waiting for me, Ms Montrose.’
‘Not you, someone else,’ she whispered.
‘I hope I’m able to take his place.’ And he trailed his long fingers down the side of her throat.
She shivered slightly. He looked into her eyes then lowered his mouth to hers.
When they broke apart, she was breathing raggedly and he took her hand and turned to lead her into the main bedroom.
She followed after a slight hesitation. The sun had set and a blue dusk was starting to fall beyond her wide windows.
She stood unresisting although she was tense and she kept her eyes veiled as he started to undress her. The zip at the back of her dress went down to her hips and the silky watermelon-pink material slipped off her shoulders. She glanced at him briefly but he only looked narrowly intent as he watched the dress slip farther down. She stepped out of it.
Her underwear appeared to hold his interest for some moments, a beautiful, dusky pink bra with elaborate silver embroidery and a matching pair of high-cut bikini briefs with a tiny silver ribbon bow.
He looked into her eyes again. ‘I wonder if they realize, when you’re in court and being so very professional, Ms Montrose, how seductive your underwear is?’
Clare licked her lips. ‘I don’t...always wear... these.’
He smiled briefly. ‘Good old Bonds Cottontails for work? Does that mean you wore these especially for the man you were expecting tonight?’
‘Yes...’ It was the bare echo of the word.
‘So he likes you to be sexy and seductive?’ He raised an eyebrow.
She didn’t answer.
‘Or do you like to be that way for him, Ms Montrose?’
Again she didn’t answer but looked at him proudly.
‘Spoken like a true feminist,’ he drawled. ‘But, on his behalf, I don’t believe I should allow this moment to go unrequited.’ And he pulled off his jacket and loosened his tie.
But he undressed no further. He took her into his arms first and kissed her thoroughly again before he went to release her bra.
Clare resisted and said huskily, ‘Do I have the right of reply, at least?’
‘Be my guest,’ he invited.
She smiled briefly and undid the knot of his tie and threw it on the bed, and started to unbutton his shirt.
‘Ah, that kind of reply,’ he murmured.
‘Even if I have to do this, I might as well make a statement of my own.’
‘Ma’am, I can’t take exception to that.’
‘Good. How sexy does this make you feel, sir?’ Her eyes glinted as she slipped her hands beneath his open shirt and ran them up and down his chest, curling her fingertips in the springy hairs then allowing them to wander down his hard, trim torso towards the waistband of his trousers.
He looked at her wryly but replied gravely. ‘More and more so, Ms Montrose.’
Tantalizingly, she let her hands roam up to his shoulders again and eased the crisp white cotton shirt away. The skin of his wide shoulders was smooth and tanned and she bent her dark head and kissed him lingeringly on the base of his throat at the same time as she freed his shirt from his trousers and once again rested her fingers on his waistband.
‘May I?’ he said, not quite so evenly.
‘Be my guest,’ she whispered, with the faintest gleam of victory in her aquamarine eyes.
They said no more as they dispensed with the rest of their clothing, although she trembled at each touch of his hands on her body—her breasts, the smooth curve of her hips, her inner thighs—and what the contact with his body did to her—igniting her senses and turning her slim, pale figure into an instrument of growing, sheer desire.
Then she was lying beneath him on the wide bed as they came together in a breathtakingly sensual rhythm and, finally, a union that left them both gasping with delight.
‘That was a cheap shot at my underwear in court, Mr Hewitt.’ She snuggled against him and laid her cheek on his chest.
She felt a jolt of laughter run through him as he combed his fingers through her hair. ‘I gathered that—if looks could kill! But you played your part perfectly, Slim. You even managed to turn the tables on me.’
She grimaced. ‘You did look like a stranger. I’ve never seen you so formally dressed before.’
‘I went straight to the airport in Sydney from a business conference, and came straight here from Ballina airport.’
‘Did you—?’ She stopped and bit her lip.
‘Tell me,’ he prompted gently.
She lifted her head so she could see his eyes, leant her chin on her hands and said slowly, ‘Did you think that after six months we’d still have that kind of effect on each other?’
‘I ... had no way of knowing,‘ he said thoughtfully. ‘But I can’t complain. Can you?’
‘No ...’
‘You don’t sound too sure.’ He sat up and she followed suit so they were sitting side by side, and he took her hand.
Clare thought for a moment and discovered that her uppermost emotion now was a sense of disbelief. Here she was, a mother-to-be, but indulging in lovely, sensual games—well, to be honest she could no more help herself than fly to the moon, but was it right? Shouldn’t she be feeling less sexy and more—what—responsible?
‘Clare?’
‘I suppose I had no way of knowing either and no, I’m not complaining,’ she said humorously. ‘In fact, I’m also going to be very traditional and unfeminist right now. Lie back and I’ll bring you a drink which you can enjoy at your leisure whilst I have a shower and rescue dinner.’
She went to get up but his fingers tightened on her hand. ‘We could have a shower together—we usually do—and I could help you to rescue dinner, Clare. Too much unfeminism could have a detrimental effect on you.’
‘What do you mean?’ She turned to him with a slight frown.
He grinned then said simply, ‘I like your brand of independence, Clare. It makes things quite electric between us, or hadn’t you noticed? As in—what happened right here not that long ago, for example,’ he added softly.
She thought swiftly. ‘Ah, but this is just my famed independence in a different form, Lachlan. In other words, do as you’re told.’ She raised their hands and kissed his knuckles briefly, shot him an impish look, and this time escaped.
But as she showered quickly and donned a cotton housecoat her emotions were different again. This time she felt guilty and a little shoddy because the only reason she’d suggested he relax with a drink was so that he wouldn’t shower with her and get the opportunity to study her body in adequate light, just in case there was some tell-tale sign.
He’d have to know sooner or later, she reminded herself. Why put it off? She was scared, that was why, she answered herself. She didn’t know how he’d react. She don’t know if he’d ever see her as anything other than a tantalizing sexual partner... And perhaps it was the distance they kept from each other, not to mention her famed independence, that kept their affair so fresh and electric.
She’d made curry and rice, one of his favourites, and gone to some trouble with the sambals. He thanked her appreciatively as he studied the feast laid out on the veranda table. He’d showered and changed into a T-shirt and shorts, retrieved from a bag in his car.
It was quite dark by now but the night was starry and the rhythmic flash of the Byron Bay lighthouse could be seen in the sky.
A bottle of wine stood in a pottery cooler but when he started to pour her a glass she said suddenly, ‘No, thanks, Lachlan. I think I’ll have—just water.’
He looked at her for a moment then shrugged. She barely drank at the best of times but usually had one or two glasses of wine if they were having dinner together. Would he think something was amiss? she wondered apprehensively.
But all he said, as he poured his own glass, was, ‘Big day tomorrow?’
She relaxed. ‘They’re all big days these days.’
‘Ever thought of scaling down?’ he asked as they started to eat.
‘No,’ she said slowly, and then was suddenly conscious of feeling physically uncomfortable, oddly queasy and with sweating palms. ‘Uh—but I am thinking of taking on a qualified solicitor.’
‘If you did you might be able to spend some time away with me,’ he mused.
Her eyes widened. ‘Such as?’ she asked carefully.
‘Well, one of the reasons that I came back early was because I’ve decided to go to the States in a couple of days. There’s a macadamia conference I wasn’t going to attend but I’ve changed my mind. I’ve got one or two other business matters over there so I thought I’d kill all the birds with one stone. We could have gone together.’
“There’s no way, at the moment, anyway—’
‘There never is,’ he said.
She studied his expression by the light of the single fat candle between them, burning brightly in a candle glass, but it was entirely enigmatic.
‘All the same it doesn’t sound like much of a holiday,’ she murmured, and looked at her curry and rice with distaste.
‘Oh, I guess we would have found some time to—play.’
Clare blinked as she digested this, and drew no comfort from it, she discovered, as she visualized herself twiddling her thumbs whilst he attended to business matters, and visualized herself being dutifully grateful for the odd ‘times’ he found to play.
Moreover, she thought, with a tinge of bitterness, she didn’t know about this ‘playing’ any more, even if it was electric and devastatingly irresistible.
She said, with a little movement of her shoulders, ‘Unfortunately, even with a partner or an associate, I may only just get back to normal—normal hours, at least, which is not “tripping around the world” kind of time off.’
He finished his curry, pushed his plate away and joined his hands behind his head. ‘Oh, well, it was just a thought.’
‘How long will you be away?’
‘Three weeks.’
Her eyes widened again. They’d never spent that long apart without some kind of contact before. ‘A lot of birds to kill,’ she commented.
‘I’m thinking of diversifying—coffee is only a boutique crop around these parts at the moment but it has potential. I’d like to investigate it thoroughly before I go into it, though. If I go into it.’
‘Aren’t macadamias and avocados enough?’ she asked curiously.
‘Macadamias suffer fluctuations in world prices, especially since Hawaii started producing and took some of our US market. And avocados can always be tricky to grow. They all can for that matter. It’s a good idea to have a few strings to your bow.’
‘Well, I wish you luck!’ She stood up and began to clear the plates—hers only half-finished. Then she became conscious that he was watching her rather intently, although his smoky grey eyes were unreadable.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked uncertainly.
‘No,’ he said, but after an odd little pause. ‘Talking of coffee—’
‘Just coming up, Mr Hewitt. Stay there.’
It was just as well that he did, because while she was making the coffee that insidiously unwell feeling gripped her seriously, so much so that she had to dash for the bathroom where she painfully lost what little of her dinner she had eaten.
It had to be morning sickness, she told herself incredulously as she rested her cheek against the cool of the bathroom mirror. But at night? And tonight of all nights—she couldn’t believe it.
She waited for a couple of minutes but the nausea seemed to have passed and she cautiously went back to the kitchen. But Lachlan was still on the veranda, gazing out over the sea.
‘This is Blue Mountain coffee,’ she murmured presently. ‘Who knows? I could shortly be serving you Rosemont Premium Blend.’
‘Not shortly. It would take a few years, at least.’
They sat in silence over their coffee for a few minutes, Clare sipping hers carefully in case it made her nauseous. Added to this she was in a bit of a whirl as she tried to get to grips with the suddenly tension-shot atmosphere that seemed to have developed between them.
Without stopping to think, she said abruptly, ‘Do you ever see Serena when you’re in Sydney?’
He looked at her. ‘Sometimes. Why?’
‘I just wondered.’ She shrugged. ‘How is it going for her?’
He paused. ‘What brought this up?’
‘Nothing really. If you’d rather not talk about it that’s fine with me.’
‘Serena,’ he said deliberately, ‘is enjoying to the full the jet-setting life-style she believes I denied her.’
Clare blinked at him. ‘She didn’t enjoy...Rosemont? ’
‘No. She felt buried alive. So she said.’
‘That ... No.’ She looked away.
‘Say it, Clare.’
She took a breath and sat up straighter as a little flame of annoyance licked through her at his tone. If anyone had the right to be curious, surely she did, she thought. ‘It sounds to me as if a fuller investigation of your life-style preferences might have been a good idea before you got married,’ she murmured coolly.
‘How right you are,’ he drawled.
She just looked at him.
‘But if you’d ever met her you might have understood that at the time they didn’t seem to matter—particularly if you were a man.’
‘I ... I did see her once,’ she said involuntarily.
His eyes glinted with mockery—self-directed? she wondered. He said, ‘Then I may not have to spell it out for you.’
No, she thought, and coloured for some reason as she recalled sleek blonde hair, long-lashed cornflower-blue eyes, an aristocratic little nose and lots of smooth golden skin exposed in a mini-dress that did little to hide a sensational figure. Plus, she mused, a definite air of combined hauteur and come-hitherness that would be hard for most men to resist.
‘I see,’ she said at length.
He smiled unamusedly. ‘A very lawyerly comment.’
‘Lachlan—’ She stopped, and stopped herself from simply saying, I’m pregnant, Lachlan. That’s why I’m curious although I probably always have been. It’s my own fault that this happened but—what do you suggest we do?
‘Clare?’ he said after a moment.
‘I’m tired. I have got a big day tomorrow, that’s all.’