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He looked sceptical, but chose not to explain why. He said, ‘Narelle can look after herself better than most. But how come you appear to handle a position that requires great diplomacy with ease when you have a problem with outspokenness?’
‘Yes, well, it’s been a bit of a mystery to me at times,’ she conceded. ‘Although I have been told it can be quite refreshing. But of course I do try to rein it in.’
‘Not with me, though?’ he suggested.
Liz studied her glass and took another sip. ‘To be honest, Mr Hillier, I’ve never before been told to pass on the message that my employer’s…um…date would rather consort with a two-timing snake than go to a party with him.’
Cam Hillier whistled softly. ‘She must have been steamed up about something!’
‘Yes—you. Then there was your own assertion that to go to a party alone would leave you open to being mobbed by women—I had a bit of difficulty with that—’
‘It’s my money,’ he broke in.
‘Uh-huh? Like your great-aunt, I won’t take that one as gospel and verse either,’ Liz said with considerable irony, and flinched as a flashlight went off. ‘Add to that the distinct possibility that we could be now tagged as an item, and throw into the mix that death-defying drive through the back streets of Sydney, is it any wonder I’m having trouble holding my tongue?’
‘Probably not,’ he conceded. ‘Would you like to leave the job forthwith?’
‘Ah,’ Liz said, and studied her glass, a little surprised to see that it was half empty, before raising her blue eyes to his. ‘Actually, no. I need the money. So if we could just get back to office hours, and the more usual kind of insanity that goes with a diary secretary’s position, I’d appreciate it.’
He considered for a moment. ‘How old are you, and how did you get this job—with the agency, I mean?’
‘I’m twenty-four, and I have a degree in Business Management. I topped the class, which you may find hard to believe—but it’s true.’
He narrowed his gaze. ‘I don’t. I realised you were as bright as a tack from the way you handled yourself in the first few hours of our relationship—our working relationship,’ he said as she looked set to take issue with him.
‘Oh?’ Liz looked surprised. ‘How so?’
‘Remember the Fortune proposal—the seafood marketing one? I virtually tossed it in your lap the first day, because it was incomplete, and told you to fix it?’
Liz nodded. ‘I do,’ she said dryly.
He smiled. ‘Throwing you in at the deep end and not what you were employed for anyway? Possibly. But I saw you study it, and then I happened to hear you on the phone to Fortune with your summation of it and what needed to be done to fix it. I was impressed.’
Liz took another sip of champagne. ‘Well, thanks.’
‘And Molly tells me you’re a bit of an IT whiz.’
‘Not really—but I do like computers and software,’ she responded.
‘It does lead me to wonder why you’re temping rather than carving out a career for yourself,’ he said meditatively.
Liz looked around.
A few couples had started to dance, and she was suddenly consumed by a desire to be free to do what she liked—which at this moment was to surrender herself to the African beat, the call of the drums and the wild. To be free of problems…To have a partner to dance with, to talk to, to share things with. Someone to help her lighten the load she was carrying.
Someone to help her live a bit. It was so long since she’d danced—so long since she’d let her hair down, so to speak—she’d forgotten what it was like…
As if drawn by a magnet her gaze came back to her escort, to find him looking down at her with a faint frown in his eyes and also an unspoken question. For one amazed moment she thought he was going to ask her to dance with him. That was followed by another amazed moment as she pictured herself moving into his arms and letting her body sway to the music.
Had he guessed which way her thoughts were heading? And if so, how? she wondered. Had there been a link forged between them now that he’d noticed her as a woman and not a robot—a mental link as well as a physical one?
She looked away as a tremor of alarm ran through her. She didn’t want to be linked to a man, did she? She didn’t want to go through that again. She was mad to have allowed Cam Hillier to taunt her into showing him she wasn’t just a stick of office furniture…
She said the first thing that came to mind to break any mental link…‘Who’s Archie?’
‘My nephew.’
‘He sounds like an animal lover.’
‘He is.’
Liz waited for a moment, but it became obvious Cam Hillier was not prepared to be more forthcoming on the subject of his nephew.
Liz lifted her shoulders and looked out over the crowd.
Then her gaze sharpened, and widened, as she focused on a tall figure across the terrace. A man—a man who had once meant the world to her.
She turned away abruptly and handed her glass to her boss. ‘Forgive me,’ she said hurriedly, ‘but I need—I need to find the powder room.’ And she turned on her heel and walked inside.
* * *
How she came to get lost in Narelle Hastings’ mansion she was never quite sure. She did find a powder room, and spent a useless ten minutes trying to calm herself down, but for the rest of it her inner turmoil must have been so great she’d been unable to think straight.
She came out of the powder room determined to make a discreet exit from the house, the party, Cam Hillier, the lot—only to see Narelle farewelling several guests. She did a quick about-turn and went through several doorways to find herself in the kitchen. Fortunately it was empty of staff, but she knew that could only be a very temporary state of affairs.
Never mind, she told herself. She’d leave by the back door!
The back door at first yielded a promising prospect—a service courtyard, a high wall with a gate in it.
Excellent! Except when she got to it, it was to find the gate locked.
She drew a frustrated, trembling breath as it occurred to her how acutely embarrassing this could turn out to be. How on earth would she explain it to Cameron Hillier—not to mention his great-aunt, whose house she appeared to be wandering through at will?
She gazed at the back door, and as she did so she heard voices coming from within. She doubted she had the nerve to brave the kitchen again. She turned away and studied her options. No good trying to get over the wall that fronted the street—she’d be bound to bump into someone. But the house next door, also behind the wall, was the one whose driveway Cam had parked in—the one whose owner was out, according to him. He must know them and know they were away to make that assertion, she reasoned. It certainly made that wall a better bet.
She dredged her memory and recalled that the driveway had gates that could possibly be locked too—and this adjacent wall was inside those gates. But hang on! Further along the pavement, hadn’t there been a pedestrian gate? No—just a gateway. Yes! So all she had to do was climb over the wall…How the hell was she going to do that, though?
She tensed as the back door opened, and slipped into some shadows as a kitchen hand emerged and deposited a load of garbage into a green wheelie bin and slammed it shut. He didn’t see her and went back inside, closing the door, but his use of the wheelie bin gave her an idea. She could push it against the wall, hoist herself onto it and slip over it to the house next door.
As with just about everything that had happened to her on this never-ending day, it wasn’t a perfect plan.
Firstly, just as she was about to emerge from the shadows and move the bin to the wall, more kitchen hands emerged with loads of garbage. This led her to reconsider things.
What if she did manage to get over the wall and someone came out to find the bin in a different position? But she couldn’t skulk around this service courtyard for much longer. A glance at her watch told her she’d already been there for twenty minutes.
She was biting her lip and clenching her fists in a bid to keep calm, almost certain she would have to go through the kitchen again, when something decided the matter for her.
She heard a male voice from the kitchen, calling out that he was locking the back door. She even heard the key turn.
She closed her eyes briefly, then sprinted to the bin, shoved it up against the wall, took her shoes off and threw them over. She looped her purse over her shoulder and, hitching up her dress, climbed onto the bin. Going over from Narelle’s side was easy, thanks to the height of the wheelie bin. Getting down the other side was not so easy. She had to hang onto the coping and try to guess what the shortfall was.
It was only about a foot, but she lost her balance as she dropped to the ground, and fell over. She was picking herself up and examining her torn tights and a graze on her knee when the driveway gates, with the sound of a car motor behind them, began to open inwards.
She straightened up and stared with fatal fascination at a pair of headlights as a long, low, sleek car nosed through the gates and stopped abreast of her.
The driver’s window was on her side, and it lowered soundlessly. She bent her head, and as her gaze clashed with the man behind the wheel things clicked into place for her.
‘Oh, I see,’ she said bitterly. ‘You own this place. That’s how you knew it was safe to park in the driveway!’
‘Got it in two, Liz,’ Cam Hillier agreed from inside his graphite-blue Aston Martin. ‘But what the devil you think you’re doing is a mystery to me.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHO IS HE?’
The question hung in the air as Liz looked around.
She was ensconced on a comfortable cinnamon velvet-covered settee. Across a broad wooden coffee table with a priceless-looking jade bonsai tree on it was a fireplace flanked by wooden-framed French doors. Above the fireplace hung what she suspected was an original Heidelberg School painting, a lovely impressionist pastoral scene that was unmistakably Australian. Tom Roberts? she wondered.
There were two matching armchairs, and some lovely pieces of furniture scattered on the polished wooden floors. The windows looked out over a floodlit scene—an elegant pool with a fountain, tall cypress pines, and beyond the lights of Sydney Harbour.
Not as spectacular as his great-aunt’s residence, Cam Hillier’s house was nevertheless stylish and very expensive—worth how many millions Liz couldn’t even begin to think.
Its owner was seated in an armchair across from her.
He’d shrugged off his jacket, pulled off his tie and opened the top buttons of his shirt. He’d also poured them each a brandy.
As for Liz, she’d cleaned herself up as best she could in a guest bathroom. She’d removed her torn tights, bathed her knee and applied a plaster to it. She’d washed her face and hands but not reapplied any make-up. It had hardly seemed appropriate when she had a rip in her dress, a streak of dirt on her jacket and was shoeless.
She’d been unable to find one shoe in the driveway—until they’d discovered it in a tub of water the gardener was apparently soaking a root-bound plant in.
So far, the only explanation she’d offered was that she’d seen someone at the party she’d had no desire to meet, so she’d tried to make a quick getaway that had gone horribly wrong.
She took a sip of her brandy, and felt a little better as its warmth slipped down.
She eyed Cameron Hillier and had to acknowledge that he was equally impressive lying back in an armchair, in his shirtsleeves and with his thick dark hair ruffled, as he’d been at his great-aunt’s party. On top of that those fascinating, brooding blue eyes appeared to be looking right through her…
‘He?’ she answered at last. ‘What makes you think—?’
‘Come on, Liz,’ he said roughly. ‘If this story is true at all, I can’t imagine a woman provoking that kind of reaction! Anyway, I saw you fix your gaze on some guy, then go quite pale and still before you…decamped. Causing me no little discomfort, incidentally,’ he added dryly.
Her eyes widened. ‘Did you get mobbed?’
He looked daggers at her for a moment. ‘No. But I did get Narelle to search the powder rooms when I realised how long you’d been gone. She was,’ he said bitterly, ‘riveted.’
‘And then?’
He shrugged. ‘There seemed to be no sign of you, so we finally assumed you’d called a taxi and left.’
‘Meanwhile I was lurking around in the service courtyard,’ Liz said with a sigh. ‘All right, it was a he. We…we were an item once, but it didn’t work out and I just—I just didn’t want to have to—to face him,’ she said rather jaggedly.
Cam Hillier frowned. ‘Fair enough,’ he said slowly. ‘But why not tell me and simply walk out through the front door?’
Liz bit her lip and took another sip of brandy. ‘I got a bit of a shock—I felt a little overwrought,’ she confessed.
‘A little?’ he marvelled. ‘I would say more like hysterical—and that doesn’t make sense. You laid yourself open to Narelle suspecting you of casing the joint. So could I, come to that. One or the other or both of us might have called the police. Plus,’ he added pithily, ‘I wouldn’t have taken you for a hysterical type.’
Ah, but you don’t know the circumstances, Liz thought, and took another fortifying sip of brandy.
‘Affairs of the heart are…can be different,’ she said quietly. ‘You can be the essence of calm at other times, but—’ She stopped and gestured, but she didn’t look at him because she sounded lame even to her own ears.
He surprised her. ‘So,’ he said slowly, and with a considering look, ‘not such an Ice Queen after all, Ms Montrose?’
Liz didn’t reply.
He frowned. ‘I’ve just remembered something. You’re a single mother, aren’t you?’
Liz looked up at that, her eyes suddenly as cool as ice.
He waved an impatient hand. ‘I’m not being critical, but it’s just occurred to me that’s why you’re temping.’
‘Yes,’ she said, and relaxed a little.
‘Tell me about it.’
She cradled her glass in both hands for a moment, and, as always happened to her when she thought of the miracle in her life, some warmth flowed through her. ‘She’s nearly four, her name’s Scout, and she’s a—a living doll.’ She couldn’t help the smile in her voice.
‘Who looks after her when you’re working?’
‘My mother. We live together. My father’s dead.’
‘It works well?’ He raised an eyebrow.
‘It works well,’ Liz agreed. ‘Scout loves my mother, and Mum…’ She looked rueful. ‘Well, she sometimes needs looking after, too. She can be a touch eccentric.’ She sobered. ‘It can be a bit of a battle at times, but we get by.’
‘And Scout’s father?’
Liz was jolted out of her warm place. Her expression tightened as she swallowed and took hold of herself. ‘Mr Hillier, that’s really none of your business.’
He studied her thoughtfully, thinking that the change in her was quite remarkable. Obviously Scout’s father was a sore point.
He grimaced, but said, ‘Miss Montrose, the way you were climbing over my wall, the way you apparently roamed around my great-aunt’s house is my business. There are a lot of valuables in both.’ His blue eyes were narrowed and sharp as he stared at her. ‘And I don’t think I’m getting a good enough explanation for it.’
‘I—I don’t understand what you mean. I had no idea this was your house. I had no idea I’d be going to your great-aunt’s house this evening,’ she said with growing passion. ‘Only an idiot would on the spur of the moment decide to rob you both!’
‘Or a single mother in financial difficulties?’
He waited, then said when she didn’t seem able to frame a response, ‘A single mother with a very expensive taste in clothes, by the look of it.’
Liz closed her eyes and berated herself inwardly for having been such a fool. ‘They aren’t expensive. My mother makes them. All right!’ she said suddenly, and tossed her head as she saw the disbelief in his eyes. ‘It was Scout’s father I saw at the party. That’s what threw me into such a state. I haven’t spoken to him or laid eyes on him for years.’
‘Have you tried to?’
She shook her head. ‘I knew it was well and truly finished between us. I came to see he’d been on the rebound and—’ her voice shook a little ‘—it was only a fling for him. I had no choice but to—’ She broke off to smile bleakly. ‘No choice but take it on the chin and retire. The only thing was—’
‘You didn’t know you were pregnant?’ Cam Hillier said with some cynicism.
She ignored the cynicism. ‘Oh, yes, I did.’ She took a sip of brandy and prayed she wouldn’t cry. She sniffed and patted her face to deflect any tears.
‘You didn’t tell him?’ Cam queried with a frown.
‘I did tell him. He said the only thing to do in the circumstances was have an abortion. He—he did offer to help me through it, but he also revealed that he was not only making a fresh start with this other woman, he was moving interstate and taking up a new position. He—I got the impression he even thought I may have tried to trap him into marriage. So…’ She shrugged. ‘I refused. I said, Don’t worry! I can cope! And I walked out. That was the last time I saw him.’
Cam Hillier was silent.
‘Although,’ Liz said, ‘I did go away for a month, and then I changed campuses and became an external student, so I have no idea if he tried to contact me again before he moved.’
‘He still doesn’t know you had the baby?’
‘No.’
‘Do you want to keep it from him for ever?’
‘Yes!’ Liz moved restlessly and stared down at her glass, then put it on the coffee table. ‘When Scout was born all I could think was that she was mine. He’d never even wanted her to see the light of day, so why should he share her?’ She gestured. ‘I still feel that way, but…’ She paused painfully. ‘One day I’m going to have to think of it from Scout’s point of view. When she’s older and can understand things, she may want to know about her father.’
‘But you don’t want him to know in the meantime? That’s why you took such astonishingly evasive measures tonight.’ Cam Hillier rested his jaw on his fist. ‘Do you think he’d react any differently?’
Liz heaved a sigh. ‘I don’t know, but it’s hard to imagine anyone resisting Scout. She—she looks like him sometimes. And I did read an article about him fairly recently. He’s beginning to make a name for himself in his chosen field. He and his wife have been married for four years. They have no children. There may be a dozen reasons for that, and I may be paranoid, but I can’t help it—I’m scared stiff they’ll somehow lure Scout away from me.’
‘Liz.’ He sat forward. ‘You’re her mother. They can’t—unless you can’t provide for her.’
‘Maybe not legally, but there could be other ways. As she grows up she might find she prefers what they have to offer. They have a settled home. He has growing prestige. Whereas I am…I’m just getting by.’ The raw, stark emotion was plain to see in her eyes.
‘Have you got over him, Liz?’
A complete silence blanketed the room until the hoot from a harbour ferry broke it.
‘I haven’t forgotten or forgiven.’ She stared out at the pool. ‘Not that I was—not that I wasn’t incredibly naïve and foolish. I haven’t forgiven myself for that.’
‘You should. These things happen. Not always with such consequences, but life has its lessons along the way.’
And, to her surprise, there was something like understanding in his eyes.
She moistened her lips and took several breaths to steady herself, because his lack of judgement of her was nearly her undoing. She gazed down at her bare feet and fought to control her tears.
Then she bit her lip as where she was, who he was, and how she’d poured all her troubles out to a virtual stranger with the added complication of him being her employer hit her.
Her eyes dilated and she took a ragged breath and straightened. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said huskily. ‘If you want to sack me I’d understand, but do you believe me now?’
‘Yes.’ Cam Hillier didn’t hesitate. ‘Uh—no, I don’t want to sack you. But I’ll take you home now.’ He drained the last of his brandy and stood up.
‘Oh, I can get a taxi,’ she assured him hastily, and followed suit.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘With only one shoe? Your other one is ruined.’
‘I—’
‘Don’t argue,’ he recommended. He shrugged into his jacket, but didn’t bother with his tie. Then he glanced at his watch. At the same time his mobile rang. He got it out of his pocket and looked at the screen.
‘Ah, Portia,’ he murmured. ‘Wanting to berate me or make disparaging comparisons, do you think?’ He clicked the phone off and shoved it into his pocket.
Liz took a guilty breath. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that. And—and she might want to explain. I think you should talk to her.’
He looked down at her, his deep blue eyes alight with mocking amusement. ‘Your concern for my love-life is touching, Miss Montrose, but Portia and I have come to the end of the road. After you.’ He gestured for her to precede him.
Liz clicked her tongue exasperatedly and tried to walk out as regally as was possible with no shoes on.
* * *
Cam Hillier dropped her off at her apartment building, and waited and watched as she crossed the pavement towards the entrance.
She’d insisted on putting on both shoes, although one still squelched a bit. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as it occurred to him that her long legs were just as good as Portia’s. In fact, he thought, her figure might not be as voluptuous as Portia’s but she was quite tall, with straight shoulders, a long, narrow waist. And the whole was slim and elegant—how had he not noticed it before?
Because he’d been put off by her glasses, her scraped-back hair, an unspoken but slightly militant air—or all three?
He grimaced, because he couldn’t doubt now that under that composed, touch-me-not Ice Queen there existed real heartbreak. He’d seen that kind of heartbreak before. The other thing he couldn’t doubt was that she’d sparked his interest. Was it the challenge, though? Of breaking through the ice until he created a warm, loving woman? Was it because he sensed a response in her whether she liked it or not?
Whatever, he reflected, in a little over two weeks she was destined to walk out of his life. Unless…
He didn’t articulate the thought as he finally drove off.
* * *
The next morning Liz placed a boiled egg with a face drawn on it in front of her daughter. Scout clapped her hands delightedly.
At the same time Mary Montrose said, ‘You must have been late last night, Liz? I didn’t even hear you come in.’
Yes, thank heavens, Liz thought. She’d been curiously unwilling to share the events of the evening with her mother—not to mention to expose the mess she’d been in, ripped, torn and with one soaked shoe.
Now, though, she gave Mary a much abridged version of the evening.
Mary sat up excitedly. ‘I once designed an outfit for Narelle Hastings. Did you say she’s Cameron Hillier’s great-aunt?’
‘So he said.’ Liz smiled inwardly as she decapitated Scout’s egg and spread the contents on toast soldiers. Her mother was an avid follower of the social scene.
‘Let’s see…’ Mary meditated for a moment. ‘I believe Narelle was his mother’s aunt—that would make her his great-aunt. Well! There you go! Of course there’ve been a couple of tragedies for the Hastings/Hillier clan.’
Liz wiped some egg from Scout’s little face and dropped a kiss on her nose. ‘Good girl, you made short work of that! Like what?’ she asked her mother.
‘Cameron’s parents were killed in an aircraft accident, and his sister in an avalanche of all things. What’s he like?’
Liz hesitated as she realised she wasn’t at all sure what to make of Cameron Hillier. ‘He’s OK,’ she said slowly, and looked at her watch. ‘I’ll have to make tracks shortly. So! What have you two girls got on today?’