From Sydney With Love: With This Fling... / Losing Control / The Girl He Never Noticed
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‘She doesn’t have to.’
‘Alas, she doesn’t know that.’ Grey studied her some more. ‘I’ll tell her you’re busy.’
Charlotte lowered her gaze. Had she really been involved with Greyson, she’d have grasped the olive branch extended. As it was … he could tell his mother whatever he liked.
‘It’s one of the drawbacks of having a nosey family,’ he said next. ‘My mother’s been after grandchildren for years.’
‘Grandchildren?’
‘What’s your position on that?’ he asked and Charlotte glanced back towards him to find his gaze more intent than ever.
‘On grandchildren?’ she said lightly. ‘I can see the appeal.’
‘On children,’ he said. ‘And you having them.’
‘Yours?’
‘Anyone’s.’
‘Again, I can see the appeal,’ she said. ‘And were I in a loving and stable relationship, I might consider children an option.’
‘What if your partner had a vocation that required travel? Would you consider joining him on his travels? You and the children?’
‘Are we talking about a partner much like yourself?’
‘Let’s assume yes,’ he said.
‘It’s not a question I’ve given much thought to,’ she said. ‘Mainly because the plan is to avoid becoming involved with such a man. I’ve a lot of experience when it comes to unorthodox childhoods, Greyson. I know what worked for me, and what didn’t. I’ll not be repeating what didn’t.’
‘Wouldn’t that make you the perfect partner for such a man?’ he said silkily.
‘That would depend on his ability to forfeit his needs and desires for the greater good of his family when the time came for him to do so,’ she said, equally silkily. ‘Could you?’
‘Good question,’ he said blandly and peeked into the oven. ‘I think they’re done.’
They ate on deck, bypassing the perfectly prepared table in favour of a starry sky, a playful breeze, and balancing their plates on their knees. It fed Greyson’s need for freedom and Charlotte’s need for escape from difficult questions and impossible compromises. When they were done with the food she relaxed back against the moulded bench seating and stared at the sky. You couldn’t see the stars from where she was in Sydney. Not many, at any rate, and not often. ‘I’m not against travel,’ she murmured. ‘I’m very fond of new horizons and experiences.’
‘I see that,’ he murmured.
‘Just not as an ongoing way of life.’
‘Have you ever made love beneath the stars?’ he murmured.
‘Are you changing the subject?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough of the old subject. I’m hunting a new one. Have you ever made love outside, under the stars?’
‘No.’
‘Want to?’
She rose and straddled him, pushing his shirt from his shoulders as she’d wanted to do all evening, glorying in his size and his strength and the lazy intensity he could bring to a moment. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do.’
He didn’t mean to devour her. He hadn’t meant to bring up his mother’s dinner invitation or the subject of children either. Hadn’t meant to make love to her half the night and then again come sunrise because he couldn’t get enough of her. But he did all those things to Charlotte Greenstone and she matched him, passion for passion, and warned him that last time, before her eyes had fluttered closed, that if he didn’t want her committing mutiny, her breakfast had better be bountiful and could he please serve it some time after ten.
‘What did your last Sherpa die of?’ he’d muttered.
‘Boredom,’ she’d mumbled and promptly fallen asleep.
Greyson wasn’t bored.
Exasperated, at times. Astonished by the sexual pleasure he found in Charlotte’s embrace. But not bored.
He had a plan, formulated last night in between one bout of lovemaking and the next. A stupid plan, half baked and wholly crazy and one he wasn’t at all sure he’d be able to sell to Charlotte as a viable option, given her soul deep aversion to traipsing around the globe according to someone else’s whim. Still, he did have a habit of getting what he wanted. Eventually.
Grey waited until ten-thirty to wake Charlotte from her slumber. He used a mug of the finest highland coffee PNG had to offer to rouse her. He told her the pancakes would be ready by eleven, and that there were fresh towels and toiletries in the bathroom. He thought he heard the words slave driver mumbled by way of reply, along with a few other odd words like incubus, sadist, and dead man.
Perhaps she’d been comparing him favourably to Gil.
‘I have a plan,’ he said when Charlotte was wholly awake and halfway through her pancakes and coffee. ‘Will you hear me out?’
‘Does it involve your mother?’
‘No, although I dare say she’ll have something to say about the matter. It involves me going to Borneo next week to scout locations for the new project. And you coming with me.’
Charlotte chewed slowly and swallowed hard. She reached for her coffee, deliberately stalling for time. Grey kept his mouth shut and let her stall. Press her and he’d lose her. Rush her and she’d bolt. Challenge her and he might just be able to persuade her around to his way of thinking.
‘Why would I do that?’ she said finally.
‘Because it’d give you an opportunity to test your feelings about travel,’ he offered. ‘You’ll get all the vagaries of working a remote location without having to involve your own work. Then if the lifestyle still holds no appeal for you, your work will be exactly how and where you left it. Face it, Charlotte. You’re a little hazy right now when it comes to the direction you want your career to take. A trip like this can’t hurt and might even help clarify your thoughts on the matter.’
She didn’t deny it. ‘What’s in it for you?’ she asked warily.
‘You mean apart from the insanely good sex?’
He won a tiny smile from her. ‘You have a one-track mind.’
‘So I’ve been told. Usually by people who fail to comprehend the bigger picture.’ He sent her his most reassuring smile, not particularly wanting to discuss his big-picture plans with her at the moment. ‘I’ll pay your way, of course.’
Just like that, her smile disappeared. ‘Don’t be daft.’
‘Why is that daft? My invite, my expense. Your rules, remember?’
‘Those rules aren’t applicable to this situation.’
‘My mistake,’ he said smoothly. ‘You presented your position on the matter of who pays for what strongly enough that I naturally assumed there was no room for movement. You present your position on careers that require extensive travel with equal conviction, but again, I sense uncertainty as to why you consider them not to your liking. I leave on Wednesday. Sydney to mainland Malaysia, then a couple of regional flights to get to a little river city called Banjarmasin.’
‘I know it,’ she said flatly.
‘I’ve an interest in the conservation forests there.’
Charlotte picked up her fork and cut into her pancake with the edge of it, deftly liberating a chunk before stabbing it with the end of her fork. She put it to her mouth, chewed, swallowed, and smiled. ‘I’m sure there’ll be plenty there to interest you.’
‘And to interest you?’
‘Well, the monkeys are very sweet,’ she murmured. ‘When do you need my answer by?’
‘No rush. Although some time before Wednesday, obviously.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘Anywhere you need to be today?’
‘Not really. I often spend Sunday afternoon at Aurora’s house. It appeases the neighbours.’
‘If I dropped you back at the marina tomorrow morning, you could be there by lunchtime. Would that work?’
‘I didn’t bring two days’ worth of clothes.’
‘Wear mine.’
‘Are you asking me to sleep over again tonight?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you can convince me to come traipsing with you?’
‘Because I’m enjoying your company and I’m not quite ready to let you go.’ He gave her the truth of his thoughts in that he gave her what he thought she would bear. ‘A short term affair doesn’t by nature have to lack intensity.’
‘So I’m discovering,’ she murmured.
‘Will you stay on another night?’
‘Will you try and convince me to come travelling with you next week if I do?’
‘No.’ Greyson shook his head. ‘My offer stands but I’ll not badger you into accepting it. That’s not my way. I’m quite happy to leave the question hanging there if you are.’
‘The old elephant in the living room,’ she said with a wry smile.
‘Exactly.’
‘So what would we do with the day if I stayed on?’ she said at last, and watched Greyson’s eyes lighten and brighten with possibilities.
‘Wind’s picking up,’ he said. ‘Have you ever raced a cat under sail?’
They raced the day away and made the most of the night.
Greyson kept his word. He never once mentioned his offer. Instead he made love to her with a focus no other man had ever matched. Passion ruled him, ruled them both, along with greedy abandon in Charlotte’s case, liberally laced with desperation at the thought that this night might be their last.
Morning came too soon for Charlotte but she savoured it regardless, delighting in being wooed awake by wicked promises and exceptionally good coffee. A woman could get used to such treatment, but only a foolish woman would allow herself to depend on it.
She’d thought about joining Greyson in Borneo for the week. One week, what harm could it do? She had holiday time owing. Time her boss had urged her to take. She had no commitments to pets or to people—no responsibilities at all in that regard. She was a free agent and why shouldn’t she follow her heart—or at least her libido for a time—and see where it led?
Tempting, so tempting, this man’s kisses, as she and Greyson stood on dry land later in the day, saying their farewells beside her baking hot car, and stealing kisses where they could. Charlotte stole a lot of them, a woman bent on gorging herself before a famine.
‘Safe travels, Greyson Tyler,’ she murmured, and if her heart felt as if it was breaking, well, perhaps it was. She stood back and took one last look at him, storing up the memories for later. A big beautiful man with tousled black hair, intelligent brown eyes, more charm than was good for him, and an air of command and purpose that clung to him like skin. ‘I’ll think of you with pleasure and I’ll think of you with regret, but I’ll not be going with you to Borneo.’
‘Why not?’ His turn to move forward, to reach for her and coax every last drop of pleasure from a kiss. ‘We’re good together, Charlotte. Better than good.’
‘I know. And maybe in another lifetime, one shaped by a different upbringing, I’d have followed you and never looked back.’ She stepped back, out of his arms and the solace she found there and regarded him pensively. ‘You think I don’t know my own mind or that you can change it. Somewhere along the way, I’ve given you the impression that I don’t know what I want from a partner or from this life, and maybe I don’t. Not fully, not with certainty. Thing is, no matter how often I examine the notion of travel or of being with a partner who travels, there’s a resistance there that runs soul deep.’
‘Call me,’ he said gruffly. ‘When I get back.’
‘Greyson.’ She looked away, down at the suddenly blurry steering wheel of her car, anywhere but at him. How had she come to care for him so much in such a short time? Two weeks. Less than half a dozen meetings, and already he was tearing her in two. ‘I can’t.’ Nothing more than a ragged plea for mercy, for he seemed bent on making this farewell so much harder than it should have been. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered again.
‘Then I’ll call you.’
‘Greyson, please …’ She pressed her lips to his, one final farewell. She stepped back and smiled through her tears. Time to go before she begged him to stay. ‘Don’t.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
GREYSON TYLER wasn’t always an easy man to deal with. He had his fair share of dogged determination. He knew exactly how well persistence paid off. He hadn’t wanted to walk away from Charlotte Greenstone when she’d asked him to. His body had screamed no and his brain had assured him that he could overcome her protests eventually. Only honour had stayed his hand.
Charlotte hadn’t refused him in haste—she’d thought about his offer, thought hard about where their fledgling relationship might lead and what he could give her that she wanted. Her conclusion had been a valid one.
Not enough.
He’d heard that tune before. He knew all the words.
This time round, they hammered home hard.
He went to Borneo. He stayed the week and decided he had all the skills required to do good work there—if he had a mind to. Living conditions would be perfectly adequate. The seafood was exceptional. He’d be on the water a lot, and that always endeared a project to him, for the water was his home. He knew of half a dozen funding opportunities coming up. He should have been busy writing and sending out proposals.
And yet … a week passed, and then another three, and he still hadn’t written an outline for what he wanted to do in Borneo.
He tried telling himself it was because the PNG data had proved so richly rewarding, and he’d been distracted by that, and by all the research papers to be had from it. He even wrote some of those papers and was pleased with his efforts. Dr Grey Tyler was doing good work—work that, when reviewed and published, should make finding grant money for future projects easy.
Six months was all he’d allowed himself when it came to mining the PNG data for papers and two of those had already passed. He needed to get another project in place soon or he’d be out of work.
Being out of work held no appeal whatsoever.
Neither, he finally admitted to himself, did spending the next three years in a tiny fishing village in Borneo.
Something else, then. Something fascinating and captivating and a little more civilised would surely command his attention sooner or later.
And he wasn’t talking about Charlotte Greenstone.
With Greyson—and Gilbert—out of the picture, Charlotte attempted to settle back into her normal routine with joy, and, if not joy, then at least some measure of contentment. Alas, embracing her inner contentment really wasn’t going so well.
Restlessness plagued her. She couldn’t settle to her work.
For the first time in five years, the congestion of inner city Sydney got on her nerves, and the charm of her nose-to-girder view of the Harbour Bridge, and the vibrations that shook the windows with every passing passenger train, wore thin.
Life didn’t shine so brightly these days. Emptiness had crept back into her life and this time it stayed. Dreariness and weariness had crept in too—ugly unwanted companions that she couldn’t seem to shake.
Crankiness … Heaven help her, she had a short fuse these days.
The Mead had requested a meeting this morning to discuss a dig he was keen to find funding for. No guesses required as to whose job that would be. Following that, she had two undergraduate lectures scheduled for ten and twelve, and a doctor’s appointment to go to in the afternoon.
It was seven a.m. and all Charlotte wanted to do was crawl back into bed and relive a morning or two when she’d woken up in a strong and loving man’s arms and been treated to coffee in bed and pancakes with syrup, and a day of sailing and sunshine that she’d never wanted to end.
‘Damn you!’ she muttered to the man who’d given her that day. ‘A curse on you, Greyson Tyler.’ A really good curse, for having the temerity and the God-given attributes to worm his way into her psyche and stay there.
Greyson the gone—be he in Borneo, PNG, roasting over hot coals … wherever.
Gone.
Charlotte’s meeting with Harold Mead didn’t start well. She was ten minutes late, the smell of the coffee he handed her made her want to throw up, and there were two other suits in the room—one of them the head of university finance, the other one the Dean of Geology. She smelled collaboration and coercion and they came through on that in spades. A joint dig involving every geologist, archaeologist, and currently aimless dogsbody on the payroll of three different universities. Charlotte would not be in charge, of course. She wouldn’t even be required to step foot on site, if that was her preference. Nor would they utilise her field expertise, nor, by extrapolation, did they intend to credit her with any of the research.
No, Charlotte’s sole task was to shake the loose change from the private sector in order to fund the project.
She declined. Politely.
She damn near resigned. Not so politely.
‘Charlotte, I don’t know what to do with you,’ Harold Mead told her after the other two had left, his frustration and disappointment clearly evident. ‘You won’t commit to any field work, you pick and choose which projects you’ll support with no clear research direction that I can discern, you say you’d like to move into project set-up and administration and yet here I am offering that to you on a plate and you refuse. What exactly is it that you want?’
‘How about we start with some small level of input into the projects the Greenstone name is expected to sell,’ she countered hotly, knowing her words were unprofessional but powerless to stop them tumbling out. ‘An assurance that my experience might, at some stage, be valued when it comes to modifying a project plan, and not swept aside because I’m young and female and couldn’t possibly know better than you.’
‘Sometimes you don’t,’ said the Mead curtly.
‘And sometimes I do,’ she said. ‘You want to know what I want? Fine. I’ll have a proposal on your desk tomorrow morning, outlining my thoughts on project funding and administration in detail. I suggest you look it over rather closely, see if you can bring yourself to accommodate at least some of my suggestions, because if not I’ll be moving on and taking my family name and my cashed-up connections with me.’
Two lectures, a salad sandwich, and a hasty drive through the city centre later, Charlotte arrived at the Circular Quay surgery near her apartment. Twenty minutes after she took a seat in the waiting room, the doctor called her in.
The affable doctor Christina Christensen sat her down, looked her over and asked her what was wrong. ‘Lethargy, loss of appetite, and a tendency to get a wee bit emotional over the strangest things,’ she said.
‘What kind of things?’ the doctor asked as she reached for the blood pressure bandage.
‘Well … this morning I was howling along to a piece of music,’ said Charlotte.
‘It happens,’ said the doctor. ‘You should see me at the opera.’
‘It wasn’t that kind of music.’
‘What kind was it?’ asked the doctor.
‘Beethoven’s Ninth. Seriously, I’m getting more and more irrational of late. Short-tempered. Opinionated.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Cross,’ said Charlotte.
‘You already said that.’
‘It probably bears repeating.’
‘Tell me about your appetite,’ said the doctor as she pumped up the pressure wrap around Charlotte’s upper arm to the point of pain and then abruptly released the pressure.
‘What’s to tell? It’s gone.’
‘Any uncommonly stressful events surrounding you lately?’
‘That would be a yes,’ muttered Charlotte. ‘But I’m either getting on top of them or coming to terms with them.’
‘Lucky you,’ said the doctor. ‘Your blood pressure’s fine. How much weight have you lost?’
‘A couple of kilos in the past couple of weeks.’
‘Scales are over there,’ said the doctor.
And when Charlotte stepped on them and the readout settled, ‘You’re a little lean, but nothing to worry about. Periods regular?’
‘I’m on the pill,’ muttered Charlotte. ‘I went on them because of irregular periods.’
‘Any chance you could be pregnant?’ asked the doctor, gesturing for Charlotte to return to the patient’s chair.
Charlotte didn’t answer her straight away. She was too busy counting back time and fighting terror.
The doctor opened a desk drawer and pulled out a box full of little white individually wrapped plastic sticks. She set one on the desk in front of Charlotte. ‘Ever used one of these?’
‘No.’ Hell, no.
‘Bathroom’s two doors down. Pee on the window end, shake off the excess moisture, and bring it back here.’
‘I really don’t thin—’
‘Go,’ said the doctor gently. ‘If it comes up negative, I’ll order you some blood tests to see if there’s another reason for the changes you’re describing, but first things first.’
Right. First things first. Nothing to panic about.
Charlotte held to the ‘first things first’ motto all through the long walk to the bathroom and through the business with the pregnancy-kit stick. A blue line already ran across the window of the stick—that was good, right? It was the crosses you had to worry about.
‘Just pop it on the paper towel there,’ said the good doctor when Charlotte returned. ‘It’ll only take a couple of minutes.’
Longest two minutes of Charlotte’s life.
The doctor chatted. Inputted data into Charlotte’s patient file. Asked her if she was currently in a steady relationship and whether she’d been considering motherhood, of late.
‘No,’ said Charlotte, and, ‘No.’ While another little line grew slowly stronger and transacted the first.
Eventually the doctor looked down and then back up at Charlotte, her gaze sympathetic. ‘We can do it again,’ she said. ‘We can take a blood test to confirm, but I think you’d best brace yourself for unexpected news.’ The doctor’s smile turned wry. ‘Congratulations, Ms Greenstone. You’re pregnant.’
Charlotte sat unmoving, her gaze not leaving that terrible little stick.
‘I want to see you again in a few days’ time,’ continued the doctor. ‘We’ll talk more then. About options. What happens next. Until then, take it easy, don’t skip meals, and be kind to yourself.’ The doctor studied her intently. ‘Do you have anyone you can talk to about this? Family? Friends? The father?’
Charlotte didn’t answer straight away. Mainly because her gut response had been no. There was no one to talk to or turn to. No one at all.
‘Charlotte, do I need to refer you to a counsellor?’ Dr Christina Christensen’s eyes were kind and knowing. She’d probably seen this response before. ‘I can pull some strings and get you in to see one this afternoon, if need be.’
What was the doctor saying now? Something about a counsellor? Charlotte stared at her uncomprehendingly. She had no words. There were no words for this.
‘Charlotte.’ The doctor’s voice was infinitely gentle. ‘I’m going to make an appointment for you to talk to a family counsellor this afternoon.’
‘No!’ Another emotional outburst in a morning filled with them. ‘No,’ she repeated more calmly. ‘I’m fine.’ Not shattered, or terrified beyond belief. ‘Pregnant, right? But otherwise fine.’
The doctor sat back in her chair and steepled her fingers, her gaze not leaving Charlotte’s face.
‘I have people I can talk to,’ said Charlotte next. ‘I do.’ Imaginary Aurora. Back from the dead, fictional ex-fiancé Gil.
‘Your call on the counsellor,’ said the doctor. ‘But I still want to see you in three days’ time. Make the appointment on your way out.’
Charlotte made the appointment and made it to her car. She didn’t make it home to her apartment. Instead she drove to Aurora’s and went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea, black because there was no milk in the house because she’d cleaned out and turned off the fridge, and sugared, because there was sugar in the cupboard and sugar was good for shock. She sat in Aurora’s conservatory-style kitchen and stared out over the gardens to the harbour beyond and tentatively tried picking her way through her chaotic emotions.
A baby. Dear God, a baby to love and to care for. Loneliness in exchange for motherhood. A child to teach. A child who would learn what she had learned, what everyone learned eventually. That life was glorious and unexpected and too often brutal. A child who had no one. No one but her.