A Date With Destiny
A Date With Destiny
Miranda Lee
A Neighborly Affair?Salome was still reeling from the heartbreak and anger of the sudden ending of her marriage. She hadn't accepted anything from her former husband except an apartment that had become her only refuge. Until neighbor Mike Angellini - if you could call an enemy a neighbor - threatened to invade her peace.The man meant trouble! He'd only asked her out to dinner, but the wealthy Sydney restauranteur had always had an aggravating effect on Salome. She couldn't stand his attitude - he still assumed she was a gold digger. And now he made her wonder if she'd ever really been in love… .
A Date with Destiny
Miranda Lee
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE (#u8d762ba1-e3f6-586f-9c2e-7683ee35fb35)
CHAPTER TWO (#ufcc75242-5d02-5b8c-b88d-e81d89859941)
CHAPTER THREE (#u2324dd10-7cf2-54c1-b605-6abd62154983)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
‘DO come in, Mrs Diamond.’
Salome gave the man still seated behind the desk a cool look.
‘You’re very punctual,’ he added with a cursory glance at his watch.
‘Ralph was not one of those men who liked to be kept waiting,’ she said, before realising that she was talking about her husband in the past tense.
But then came the bitter reminder that, for her, Ralph Diamond was past. Otherwise Charles Smeaton, Ralph’s long-time legal adviser, would have been on his feet, extending a polite hand and showing a wide smile beneath his pencil-thin moustache. Instead, he waved curtly towards the vacant chair in front of the desk.
Salome closed the door of the office far more politely than her inner turmoil warranted. She walked across the plushly carpeted floor, well aware that Charles’s beady eyes were running over her eye-catching figure with an insolence he would never have dared display in front of Ralph.
But she sat down and crossed her long, shapely legs without batting an eyelid. If there was one thing her husband had taught her, it was to show apparent indifference to what others did or said.
‘You will have to learn to ignore the gossip, Salome,’ Ralph had warned her right from the start. ‘There’s bound to be plenty, with your being only nineteen to my forty-nine. People who don’t know you will think you’re marrying me for my money, in exchange for which I get to bed the most beautiful girl God ever put breath into. There’s no point in telling the world the truth, my dear. No one will believe you. You’ll just have to learn to live with the slurs. But don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to distance yourself from malicious tongues, how to hold yourself above them.’
Ralph had been right, of course. People had thought the worst of her. Not that they had ever shown their true faces in front of her husband. He was too rich and powerful to offend directly. But there’d been looks and sniggers behind his back. Once, shortly after their marriage, Charles had cornered her at a party and told her to make hay while the sun shone, since dear old Ralph had a habit of discarding his material possessions with regular monotony.
For ages afterwards Salome had been plagued with doubts about the sincerity of Ralph’s love. But as the months passed—very happy months—she had gained more and more confidence in herself and her unusual marriage. The doubts were firmly buried, and remained so for over four years, only to resurface with a vengeance one day in May last year—the day Ralph had told her their marriage was over.
‘Well, Charles?’ she asked, setting cool green eyes upon his smarmy-looking expression. ‘Why did you want to see me? I received the final divorce papers in the mail last week. What more is there to be said?’
‘You’re looking as ravishing as ever, Mrs Diamond,’ he drawled, leaning his fleshy frame back into the swivel-chair and giving her the benefit of a further scrutiny, this time letting his eyes linger more insultingly on the thrust of her high, well-rounded breasts.
Salome didn’t flinch an inch.
‘It’s Miss Twynan now, Charles,’ she said with silky smoothness. ‘Or Salome, if you prefer.’ The sudden thought that her ex-husband would have been proud of her unruffled demeanour only brought pain. Oh, Ralph...why did you do it? Why marry me, make my whole life revolve around you, then toss me out like a worn-out shoe? Why?
An ugly smile twisted the lawyer’s thick lips. ‘Salome. Such an...interesting name.’
‘Molly liked it.’
‘Molly?’
‘My mother.’
‘Ah, yes...your mother.’ His derisive tone suggested that just mentioning her mother was distasteful.
‘Couldn’t we get to the point, Charles?’ she asked icily.
He snapped forward on the chair, reefed open a drawer on his left, and extracted a set of keys. ‘Ralph has decided to add another item to your settlement,’ he announced, tossing the keys forward to land on the edge of the desk nearest Salome. ‘A penthouse unit at McMahon’s Point. And you’ll find the white Ferrari he gave you for your twenty-first birthday in the basement car park.’ He leaned back again and gave her another one of those smirky smiles. ‘Why you left it behind in the first place, I have no idea. It wasn’t as though you didn’t earn everything Ralph gave you. He always seemed very satisfied with you during your—er—marriage.’
Salome’s chest squeezed so tight with the effort to remain composed that she could scarcely breathe.
‘I don’t want them,’ she managed to get out.
‘Too bad. The unit has already been transferred into your name by deed gift, and the car was always legally yours. It’s registered in your name.’
Salome took a deep breath. No way did she want to stay here arguing with this ghastly man. She would just take the unit and the car, sell them, then give the money to charity, as she had all the other money Ralph had settled on her. For how could she ever keep any of it? To do so would vindicate all the implied insults she’d endured over the years.
Not that any of her slanderers knew about her Grand Gesture. Nor Charles for that matter. She saw little point in telling people like him about something they couldn’t possibly understand. They wouldn’t appreciate her motives. They would think her crazy. Her own mother had thought her crazy!
‘Why is he giving me this penthouse now?’ she asked. ‘Do you know? Did he say?’
Charles shrugged. ‘You know Ralph. He never explains his actions. He just gives orders.’
Yes, she thought ruefully. That was Ralph all over.
‘We’ll go here tonight, Salome,’ he would say. ‘Order the prawn dish, Salome’ or ‘Wear the green dress, Salome.’
Most women would have hated his autocratic, bossy nature. But, for reasons which she had not explored deeply enough at the time, Salome had loved it. She had had many long, lonely nights since then to work out why she had acted so submissively. And, while she could appreciate the reasons behind her behaviour, she still wasn’t all that comfortable with it.
‘I see,’ she said tautly. ‘Have you got an address for this unit? McMahon’s Point is just north of the Harbour Bridge, on the Luna Park side, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right. Yours is penthouse two, in a multi-storeyed circular block called Harbourside Towers, right on the water at the end of Harbour Road. You can’t miss it. I—er—presume you’ll be moving in right away? After all, you can’t really be liking living with your mother.’
Salome picked up the keys and slipped them into her handbag. ‘You’re quite wrong, Charles,’ she said coolly. ‘I won’t be moving in, and I quite like living with my mother.’ But only since Molly seemed finally to have got over the urge to ask every man she dated to move in with her, Salome thought wearily.
She stood up, automatically smoothing down the emerald-green wool sheath over her slender thighs, then, with her free hand, flicking the long mass of tight coppery curls back from her face and shoulders.
A dry-mouthed shock took hold of her when she became aware of how openly lustful Charles’s gaze had grown as it followed each of these movements. Her eyes locked on to his with a sickening jolt inside, but she glared back at him quite boldly, till he was forced to drop his eyes.
Creep! she thought savagely.
‘Please don’t bother to show me out,’ she said, making no attempt to hide her sarcasm. And with that she turned on her black high heels and strode from the office.
It wasn’t till she was alone in the elevator that she realised she was shaking with fury.
* * *
Salome walked slowly through the penthouse, her emotions no more settled than when she had left Charles’s office. Her troubled gaze travelled around the enormous living-room she was standing in, taking in the no-expense-spared décor: the classically neutral colour scheme, the ultra-modern imported furniture, the huge, semicircular plate-glass windows that she’d discovered slid back electronically to allow access to the equally huge balcony.
She wandered out to lean on the high cylindrical railing, and frowned at the view, which stretched across to Darling Harbour on her right, Milson’s Point on her left, and the Bridge straight ahead. The blue waters were cold-looking but beautiful beneath the clear winter sky. A crisp breeze ruffled Salome’s hair, making her realise how cool and refreshing this balcony would be in the summer.
How much was this place worth? she wondered. A million dollars? More?
She sighed. Molly was going to go off her brain when she told her she was going to give it all away too. Just as well Ralph had seen fit to give his young bride’s not-so-suitable mother a house and income of her own when they got married, or she’d never hear the end of it. As it was, Molly often brought up the matter of money and how stupid Salome had been to give it all away, then have to go and work in a dress shop to earn her own living.
Which reminded her. She had still not told Molly that it looked as if she was going to be laid off soon. Sales at the boutique were slumping, along with the economy, the manager not minding at all that Salome had asked for the afternoon off. She’d been looking around for a better job but had found she wasn’t qualified for anything that paid well. To go back to waitressing was too depressing a thought to consider, but she might have to do just that while going to tech and getting herself some marketable skills. Perhaps a typing and word-processing course. That seemed very much in demand.
Meanwhile she would have to face her mother’s exasperation.
Perhaps she wouldn’t tell Molly about this unit at all, Salome mused. Perhaps she would only mention the car. She couldn’t get out of telling her about that, since she had already decided to drive the Ferrari back to her mother’s place at Killara that afternoon, then take it to one of the luxury-car dealers the next morning. There were a lot along the Pacific Highway up towards Hornsby.
But she really wanted to talk to someone about Ralph, wanted a sounding-board for the agony of frustration that she felt building up again inside her. A string of whys had been whirling in her head for too long a time, and now she had another to add to the list. Why had he given her this unit?
But her main questions dealt with the past. Why had Ralph cut her out of his life so abruptly and cruelly? And why, in the light of what had happened, had he married her in the first place? For, to have done what he ultimately had, he couldn’t possibly have loved her, as he’d claimed to.
Salome groaned at the crazed complexity of it all. If sex had been involved it might have made some sense! She was used to men claiming they were in love with a woman till they were firmly ensconced in her bed, only to desert her several months later when their lust had begun to pall. She’d watched them do it to Molly for years!
But her relationship with Ralph had not been a physical one, so sexual boredom—or another woman—could not be blamed for Ralph’s divorcing her.
Suddenly, Salome’s chest contracted viciously, seized by a defiant surge of anger. This was the overriding emotion she was experiencing lately. Anger. A bitter, frustrated anger.
‘Why?’ she screamed out across the water. ‘Why?’
It felt oddly good to give voice to her pain, even if only to empty air. In fourteen long months, Salome had been denied the outlet of actually screaming at Ralph, for he refused to see her, refused to let her get past the blanket of security he had wrapped himself in.
He had moved to his rural property out at Dural, on the outskirts of Sydney, his enormous mansion in Potts Point having been sold within weeks of their separation taking effect. Salome had driven out to Dural several times in vain attempts to gain entrance to see Ralph. But to no avail.
Her letters were returned unopened.
As for phone calls...Valerie always answered the telephone, and there was no denting Ralph’s secretary’s relentlessly negative stance. Not that the woman was rude. She was just totally immovable. Ralph had given orders that his ex-wife was not to be put through to him, and that was that!
Every which way Salome turned, her path was blocked. Finally she had been forced to give up, and had been trying to make a new life for herself. But it hadn’t been easy. Not easy at all.
Today she had put on a brave front for Charles, but inside she was still a shattered woman, a woman who had married for love, not money, a woman who had never been the cheap, mercenary, gold-digging little tart others had always believed her to be.
Though you have to admit, Salome, she conceded to herself with a certain irony, you can’t really blame people for thinking that was the case. You were thirty years younger than Ralph and—my God—the nineteen-year-old Salome Twynan would have made Eliza Doolittle look classy!
Salome ran an agitated hand through her wind-blown hair. If she impressed people now as a well-groomed, sophisticated and articulate lady then it was Ralph Diamond who was responsible for that. Ralph, who had shown her how to walk and talk and dress and act; Ralph, who had educated her in matters of manners and music and, yes, even men, to a degree.
As the wife of a successful businessman she’d been required to do a lot of entertaining, mostly in male company. Ralph had shown her how to be the perfect hostess to his male guests, which included knowing exactly what role to play to charm their particular personalities. Sometimes she was an intent listener, at others a witty conversationalist. Above all, she was always required to look as beautiful as possible.
This miracle had not been achieved overnight. It had taken time, but Ralph had eventually remade the rough Mrs Diamond into a sparkling jewel, coated with a polish, the veneer of which not even his abandonment had destroyed.
Oh, Ralph! Salome groaned. Why? Was I ever anything more to you than just another possession, to be toyed with for a while, then discarded when the game tired you? Have you found some other naïve, innocent young thing to make over to your requirements? Was that the object of it all? Do you get your kicks out of playing God with other people’s lives?
Tears welled up into her eyes. She turned and walked slowly back inside, unconcerned when the tears began to overflow and run down her cheeks. What did it matter? A good cry was what she needed. She sank down on to one of the plush leather sofas, her head dropping into her hands.
A loud, rapid knocking on the door gave her an awful fright.
Her head jerked up, her fingers moving in a frantic attempt to dry her cheeks. She blinked rapidly with some success, and began moving towards the door, automatically tidying her messy hair with her hands. Who on earth could it be? Her stomach twisted with a rush of nerves at having to ward off someone awkward. Like Charles.
But then she thought of the building’s security system, and relaxed. She had had to give the uniformed guard in the foyer a list of the people she would allow to come up without checking first with her. And she had only given her mother’s name.
Yet her mother didn’t even know about this place yet. Salome frowned. She had come here straight from Charles’s office. Slipping the safety-chain into place, she slowly opened the door. ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’ she asked sharply, worried when the small gap didn’t reveal any part of a human being.
A man moved into the space, a man whose cleft chin rested at her eye level. She looked up and saw the blackest of black eyes peering at her from beneath equally black brows and hair. Then realised they all belonged to a person she actually knew. ‘Good heavens!’ she exclaimed, startled.
The object of her shock said nothing for a moment, a fierce frown gathering his straight brows together as he stared at her through the narrow slit.
Finally he spoke. ‘Mrs Diamond?’ There was puzzlement—and a definite hint of antagonism—in the way he voiced those two words.
Now that her initial surprise was over Salome instinctively stiffened. Her visitor was not one of her most favourite people. Not even remotely.
Michael Angellini was reportedly one of Sydney’s most eligible bachelors, the wealthy owner of an exclusive Italian restaurant in King’s Cross that Ralph had taken Salome to many times during the years of their marriage. In his early thirties, and handsome as the devil, he was no doubt all smooth charm to most of his women customers, yet right from their initial meeting, or soon after she’d been introduced as Mrs Diamond, the restaurateur began treating her with a cold, almost exaggerated formality that had made her seethe inside. She had learnt to feel nothing but contempt for those people who classified her on sight in that predatory female category including women who married older men for money.
Yet, oddly enough, Salome found a perverse pleasure in their frequent visits to Angellini’s, taking pride in not showing her antagonism to this narrow-minded, prejudiced man. Quite deliberately, she would give him a sweet smile and then be extra-attentive and flirtatious with Ralph, revelling in the feeling that she was throwing the Italian’s unwarranted derision right back in his face.
He, however, found it very hard to hide his feelings, her presence always putting a tight, sour look on his face. Though this didn’t mar his undeniable male beauty. The man’s Latin ancestry had produced the sort of dark, brooding looks that women drooled over: strong, sculptured features; piercing black eyes; lustrously wavy black hair; a cruelly sensual mouth; and an elegant, arrogant grace that turned a dinner-suit into a lethal weapon.
Not that Salome drooled. The underlying antagonism she felt for him made her totally immune to his powerful sex appeal. There could have been a time when his brand of overt virility might have turned her head—she’d been as silly as the next young girl at sixteen and seventeen. But by the time she’d met Ralph, a few weeks short of her nineteenth birthday, she’d been cured of the irrationality of her adolescent hormones once and for all. Ralph’s dignified maturity and lack of sexual aggression had been like a breath of fresh air to her.
True, she’d been initially worried by his age, but he had been a very determined man and had courted her with an old-fashioned respect and decency that she’d found both captivating and highly flattering. Heavens, here was this multi-millionaire, handsome, intelligent, powerful, who could have any woman he wanted. And he had wanted her!
Of course she hadn’t known his secret back then... Still, even if she had known all along, Salome believed she still would have fallen in love with him. He had made her feel so very, very special, right from the start. Michael Angellini, however, never made her feel special, she thought, swinging angry eyes up to him. He never evoked anything in her except a simmering fury.
As was the case right now.
‘Yes, it’s me.’ Her tone was curt, her words clipped. ‘What is it you want?’ she demanded. ‘How did you get up here anyway? Oh, no! Don’t tell me you live in the other penthouse?’ The building was so large that the top floor had been divided into two huge luxury penthouses.
He sucked in an indignant breath, expanding his considerable chest beneath the pale blue sweater he was wearing. ‘I’m afraid so,’ he admitted with cold civility. ‘I was out on my balcony just now, and thought I heard someone scream out. Naturally, I was concerned. Of course, I didn’t realise you were in here, Mrs Diamond. I thought this was your ex-husband’s apartment.’
The implication was quite clear. Anyone else, and he would come to the rescue. But she could scream her head off and he wouldn’t turn a hair.
‘This happens to be my apartment now,’ she told him tartly, before she realised what the man had actually said. Cursing herself for her stupidity, she slipped off the chain and pulled open the door. ‘You’ve seen Ralph recently, have you?’ she demanded, uncaring now if they liked each other or not. If this man had some information about Ralph, then she wanted it. Here at last she might find some answers.
Her visitor looked startled, his black eyes flashing astonishment as they flicked over her face. ‘You’ve been crying!’ he said, almost accusingly.
Now it was Salome who was taken aback. For she had already forgotten her recent tears. ‘Yes... no...I...’ Damn it all, what was the matter with her? Did she have to go all helpless and confused, just because he was shocked to find that a calculating bitch like herself could cry?
‘Does it matter?’ she flung at him. He blinked. ‘All I want to know is when was the last time you saw Ralph?’ she went on, her tone urgent.
He gave her a long, assessing look before speaking. ‘A few weeks ago.’
‘Do you mean at the restaurant or here?’ she persisted.
‘You were with Ralph the last time he came to the restaurant, and that was well over a year ago.’
‘Oh...’ She frowned and chewed her bottom lip. ‘It was here, then?’
‘Yes. We run into each other occasionally. But what’s this all about, Mrs Diamond? Surely you’ve been in touch with your ex-husband personally if this penthouse is now yours?’
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t...I...’ The lump gathering in her throat appalled her. The last person in the world she wanted to break down in front of was this man. ‘I haven’t seen Ralph for fourteen months,’ she finished in a strangled voice.
Sympathy did strange things to Michael Angellini’s face. It made him almost human. His mouth softened. And his eyes, which were usually as hard as flint, melted to a liquid ebony, washing over her with a look of surprising warmth and pity.
And then he did something else that stunned Salome. He touched her.
Oh, it wasn’t an intimate, or a bold caress. He merely reached out his hand to curve lightly over one shoulder. But it seemed to burn a hand-print on the skin beneath her dress. She froze, her eyes widening, her lips parting slightly.
‘I think, Mrs Diamond,’ he was saying, his hand tightening before releasing her tingling flesh, ‘that you could do with a drink. You seem very stressed. Why don’t you come along to my place, where I can get you something to settle your nerves?’
Salome stared at this man whom she had always detested, unable to get her mind off her response to his touch. Surely it couldn’t have been a sexual response? Surely not!
‘Are you all right, Mrs Diamond? You look...odd.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she snapped in confusion.
A single dark eyebrow lifted and those black eyes hardened again. ‘Of course,’ he drawled. ‘Well, would you like to have a drink with me? Or would you rather be by yourself?’
Salome gave the darkly handsome face a hurried once-over, and was comforted to see she now felt nothing. Nothing at all! She sighed with relief. It had been shock, that was all, shock that her long-time foe had extended an unexpectedly sympathetic hand. No doubt she was susceptible to sympathy at the moment.
But the thought insinuated that he might have misinterpreted her reaction to his touch, and might even now be sizing her up as easy meat for his bachelor bed. The incident with Charles that morning had shown her that a man didn’t have to like her to lust after her.
‘You don’t have to feel obliged to accept,’ he said curtly as he noted her swift frown. ‘I won’t be offended in the slightest. I merely thought you looked like you could do with some company for a while. Believe me, I do realise you have never found my company to your liking in the past.’
Salome bristled. ‘What came first,’ she bit out, ‘the chicken or the egg?’
He stared at her for a moment, then laughed, drawing her gaze to his dazzling white teeth and the attractive dimple in his chin. But there was no laughter in his eyes. They remained as hard and cold as ever. For some reason this annoyed her even more than usual.
‘I think, perhaps, that I will take a rain-check on the drink,’ she said with an icy hauteur that belied her agitated pulse-rate.
The laughter died on his lips, his strong jaw clenching tightly. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ he grated out. ‘All I’m suggesting is that we have a drink together. Not another damned thing!’ Looking away, he ran an angry hand through his hair. ‘I’m not a masochist,’ he muttered under his breath, before swinging his eyes back and adding more loudly, ‘I thought you were anxious to hear about your ex-husband. Look, let’s have no more silly arguments. Where are your keys? Aah...I see them.’
With that, he strode inside, picked up the keys from the coffee-table in the centre of the living-room, and returned, ushering her firmly outside and locking the door. Then, taking her elbow, he guided her along the hall, shepherded her through an open door, and deposited her on a cream leather sofa that was identical to the one in Ralph’s unit.
‘There!’ He left her and strode over behind the glass and chrome bar that curved around one wall. ‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’
Salome opened her mouth then snapped it shut. She couldn’t trust herself to speak just yet.
A ‘masochist’? she was fuming, her excellent hearing having picked up his low comment. Low, in more ways than one. If that wasn’t the insult to end all insults. Brother, was she fed up with the way men perceived her. Fed up to the eye teeth!
Unfortunately, this particular man had information she wanted, so it wasn’t in her interests to give him a blast of her Irish temper at that moment. But, by God, if he came out with another of those clangers, she was going to let him have it! And it wouldn’t be the softly spoken, elegant Mrs Diamond he would have to contend with, but Salome Twynan, street-wise and tough, a fighter from her earliest years, a girl who’d had to be, just to survive!
CHAPTER TWO
‘SO!’ Michael deposited two crystal tumblers on to the glass top of the bar. ‘What will you have to drink? Your usual?’
Salome stared at him.
‘My dear lady,’ came the dry remark, ‘you don’t have to look so surprised. You and your husband were regulars at my restaurant for years. It’s my job to familiarise myself with my clientele’s likes and dislikes. I wouldn’t be much of a host if I hadn’t absorbed the fact that you only drink vodka and orange before dinner, and dry Riesling or white burgundy with your meals.’
He pushed the long sleeves of the blue sweater up his arms, showing surprisingly little body hair, and glanced at the gold watch on his wrist. ‘Since it is now approaching five, I merely guessed the vodka and orange.’ Those cold black eyes lifted. ‘Was I wrong?’ he drawled. ‘Or have your tastes changed in the last year?’
Salome’s green eyes flashed as they locked on to his hard gaze, certain that there was an underlying innuendo in those last words. Clearly he thought that, as Mrs Diamond, she had cleverly catered her tastes to what Ralph had liked, since he too had been fond of vodka and dry white wines. No doubt Mr Jump-To-Conclusions Angellini was now anticipating that such a professional gold-digger as herself might have moved on to the next man already, and adapted her likes and dislikes accordingly.
A type of black humour curved her lips back into a seductive smile. ‘Why don’t you just pour me something you like?’ she purred. ‘I’m sure you have excellent taste.’ She gave him a heavy-lidded glance, thinking viciously that if he was fooled by such blatantly feigned behaviour then he deserved to be!
He glared at her for a moment, then gave a dry, hard laugh. ‘Come now, Mrs Diamond,’ he scoffed. ‘You don’t really expect me to fall for the batting eyelashes and husky-voice trick, do you? Save it for an older, more vulnerable prey—one who’ll be so dazzled by your beauty that he won’t notice the dollar-signs clicking over behind those gorgeous green eyes of yours.’
He folded his arms and frowned at her. ‘You puzzle me, though. You’re a clever woman—an expert, I would have imagined, on the male psyche. I can’t believe you seriously thought that I would be so gullible. After all, I know that you know I’ve never been blind to your—er—chosen vocation in life.’
Salome could have reacted several ways. With a burst of true temper. Dignified outrage. Frozen silence. Even tears. She chose none of them. A cool smile crossed her lips and she had the pleasure of seeing a shocked look pass over her adversary’s face. ‘To be honest, it was an on-the-spot performance,’ she confessed bluntly. ‘A test, so to speak. But I’m relieved to see you came through it with flying colours. God knows how I would have coped if you hadn’t.’
His back stiffened, his arms slowly unfolding to grip the edge of the bar, a barely controlled fury smouldering in those normally cold black eyes. The fact that she had finally got under his skin soothed Salome’s own suppressed anger.
‘But you were right about one thing, Michael, dear,’ she went on. ‘Your company is not to my liking, and neither am I a masochist. I came along here with you merely because I wanted to hear news about my husband.’
‘Ex-husband,’ he reminded her harshly.
‘Whatever.’ She uncrossed her legs and got to her feet, unable to sit there sedately any longer. She tried to keep a calm exterior, but inside her blood was well and truly up. ‘If you’re not going to have the decency to tell me what you know without any added insults,’ she said curtly, ‘then just say so and I’ll leave.’
He didn’t say so. He just stood behind the bar, staring at her. Salome got the oddest impression that with her firm stance she had achieved more in changing this man’s opinion of her than she’d been able to do in her years as Ralph’s wife. There was a look of grudging respect in his eyes as they moved slowly over her.
‘I see there’s more to you than meets the eye, Mrs Diamond,’ he said at last.
She snorted. ‘Am I supposed to be flattered by that remark?’
His laugh was very dry. ‘No. I guess not.’
‘Then would you kindly put me out of my misery and tell me what you know about Ralph?’
Again she was on the end of a sharp look. ‘And are you in misery about your...about Mr Diamond?’
She shook her head in exasperation. ‘Wouldn’t you be, if the person you were married to chucked you out one day without so much as a word of explanation, then refused to see you?’
‘I would,’ he admitted slowly, ‘if I really loved that person, and knew I hadn’t done anything to instigate such behaviour.’
Salome gritted her teeth. ‘Oh, of course,’ she ground out, ‘that couldn’t apply to me, could it? I’m Delilah and Jezebel all wrapped up in one, aren’t I? The sort of vampirish female that ensnares older men into her sexual clutches in order to fleece them of every cent, then tosses them to the wolves when the game grows tedious or a better meal-ticket comes along?’
He was clearly startled by her verbal attack, but recovered well to shrug nonchalantly. ‘You said that. I didn’t.’
‘But you’ve been thinking it all right,’ she flung at him. ‘You thought it the very first night Ralph took me to your rotten damned restaurant!’
He glared at her, eyes hard again. ‘You have to admit you did a good impression of the vacuous sex-object wife, married to a man old enough to be your father!’
‘Age has nothing to do with love,’ she argued. ‘And I wasn’t vacuous. I was shy. Tongue-tied...’
‘Oh, come now,’ he scorned. ‘Shy? Tongue-tied?’
‘Yes,’ she insisted. ‘At first.’
‘Well, you soon learned what was expected of you,’ he pointed out caustically. ‘I’ve never seen such an accomplished courtesan, dripping all over your escort, eating him up with your eyes, laughing deliciously at every joke he made. And the clothes you wore. Or didn’t wear, more accurately. Hardly the way a shy woman would dress!’
A fierce blush coloured Salome’s cheeks at the essence of truth behind this accusation. Ralph had always chosen her clothes, and he had a penchant for evening wear that was very sexy. Low necklines and bare shoulders meant that underwear had always been at a minimum. Neither could she dismiss the fact that on subsequent visits to Angellini’s she had often gone over the top with her flirtatious behaviour towards Ralph out of some sort of spite of their host’s ever-reproachful eyes.
‘I was always perfectly decently dressed,’ she defended staunchly through her inner fluster. ‘And decently behaved. Ralph was my husband, and you had no right to sneer at me behind his back.’
‘I never sneered.’
‘You could have fooled me!’
‘Apparently I did!’ he snapped.
They both glared at each other, the silence electric. And then he did the strangest thing. He sighed, his face softening, his eyes almost apologetic.
‘Look, let’s stop this,’ he said reasonably. ‘It’s rather childish, don’t you think? If it makes you feel better, I apologise. Now calm down and sit down. I’ll get you that drink.’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘I think you might be more in need of it now than before.’
For a moment Salome stood where she was, feeling somewhat stunned. But then she slumped back down on the sofa, for she had begun to shake with spent emotion. What on earth was wrong with her, letting this man goad her into defending herself so hotly? What did it matter what he thought of her? He meant nothing to her, nothing at all! The only issue at stake here was trying to find out what she could about Ralph, yet she had allowed herself to be totally side-tracked.
Irritated, she glared over at Michael’s now superbly composed self, silently going about mixing the drinks with efficient, economical movements. Cubes of ice were dropped in first, followed by a hefty slurp of vodka. Finally the glasses were topped up with fresh orange juice from the small bar fridge. She watched him walk round the front of the bar, grudgingly admitting that he looked almost as good in casual clothes as he did when dressed formally.
The softly moulding crew-necked pullover showed that his broad shoulders were not an illusion of good tailoring, the wool’s blue colour highlighting his dark colouring. Salome’s gaze drifted downwards to where his trim hips and long legs were housed in a pair of loosely fitting grey trousers. It annoyed her when she began to wonder what he would look like in a pair of tight, body-hugging jeans.
‘Here we are,’ he said, scooping up the brimming drinks without spilling a drop, and bringing them over with the skill and ease of an experienced waiter.
Which is probably what he once was, she thought caustically, before reminding herself that they had a lot in common, in that case. She had been a waitress before marrying Ralph. It bothered her momentarily that her years as the wealthy and privileged Mrs Diamond might have turned her into some sort of snob, since Salome Twynan would never have looked down her nose at someone for doing any kind of a job at all.
Don’t be silly, she berated herself. You have every reason to feel bitchy towards this man. It has nothing to do with what job he’s done, or hasn’t done!
‘So you really have no idea why Mr Diamond ended your marriage?’ Michael asked, giving her a penetrating look as he handed over her drink.
The intensity those black eyes could project unnerved her. ‘None,’ she admitted.
He sat down on the sofa next to her, his own drink moving to his lips, those same disturbing eyes watching her closely over the rim of the glass.
Salome tried desperately to ignore how his gaze and closeness were affecting her. She felt stifled, nervous, afraid even. Of what? she puzzled frantically. Because she was alone with him in his apartment? Michael Angellini didn’t seem the type of man to make a crass pass unless given some encouragement. He was, on the surface at least, a gentleman.
Salome pushed aside her illogical apprehension and put her mind back on the issue at hand. ‘I came home one day,’ she explained somewhat reluctantly, ‘and found my bags packed. Ralph gave me no explanation other than to state that our marriage was over.’
The man next to her was clearly taken aback. He straightened and just stared at her, his glass hovering at his lips. Salome sipped her own drink, her hand shaking slightly.
‘I...I tried to find out the reason, but he wouldn’t budge,’ she went on agitatedly. ‘In the end I suppose I got a little hysterical. Ralph simply called one of his body-guards and had me removed from the premises.’
‘My God, that’s appalling!’
The depth of disgust Salome saw in his face startled her. Yet it was oddly comforting to have someone else find Ralph’s behaviour inexcusable. Even her own mother had presumed she had been to blame. But then, poor Molly always thought women were to blame when a relationship ended.
‘As I said to you earlier,’ she managed to get out, ‘I haven’t seen Ralph in the fourteen months since that day. Not that I haven’t tried.’ And she found herself relaying to her surprisingly intent listener all her endeavours to have a personal meeting with her ex-husband.
‘So, you see,’ she finished, ‘I’m anxious to hear anything about Ralph at all. I want some answers. I need some answers!’
‘Of course you do,’ he agreed strongly. ‘Of course. No one deserves to be treated like that!’
Not even a gold-digging little tramp like me, Salome added silently with a weary sigh. Strangely enough, all of a sudden, this man’s low opinion of her hurt. It hurt like mad. Ralph might have been able to snub his nose at the opinion of others, but Salome was finding it increasingly upsetting to have people believe she was little better than a woman of easy virtue.
An involuntary shudder ran through her, bringing a puzzled frown from her companion. ‘Is there something wrong with your drink?’ he asked.
It was just as well, Salome realised bitterly, that she had grown expert at the art of the superbly bland social face, which consisted of totally unreadable eyes and a soulless smile.
Yet, somehow, hiding the hurt this man kept dishing out, however unconsciously, proved to be more difficult than usual. That plastic smile just wouldn’t come, and when she looked at him she found herself becoming lost in those incredible black eyes of his, which at that moment were filled with a disarming sympathy. She dragged her own away, and stared down at the half-empty drink.
‘No,’ she said tautly, twisting the glass around and around in her hands. ‘It’s fine.’ She gulped most of it back in one go, then cleared her throat and looked up. ‘You’re being very nice to me, Michael. Considering...’
For a second he just looked at her, but she thought she detected a hint of irony in his eyes. He reached to pick up his own drink once more, turning his eyes back to hold her nervous ones with consummate ease. ‘My friends call me Mike,’ he said quietly.
For a second Salome was taken aback. Then she laughed. ‘I’m not a friend, though, am I?’
He smiled and shrugged. ‘You could become one.’
‘I doubt that very much.’
‘Why?’
Her expression was incredulous. ‘Why? For one thing, you don’t like me!’
‘Aah...’ His smile became quite cynical. ‘I can’t deny that I didn’t like you much when you were Mrs Diamond. But as...Salome’s your name, isn’t it?’
‘Y-yes,’ she admitted warily.
‘As single Salome, I think I could like you well enough,’ he stated with a seductive softness, then leaned back and took another swallow of his drink.
Salome’s insides tightened. Was this what she’d subconsciously been waiting for, been agitated about? For her one-time foe to make a sexual move towards her? Her glare was withering. ‘I suppose I’m going to have to get used to that sort of remark,’ she snapped. ‘But I would have thought that a man as eligible as yourself wouldn’t have to resort to chasing frustrated divorcees.’
There was a sardonic lift to one eyebrow. ‘And are you frustrated, Salome?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ She stood up and slammed her glass down on to the low marble-topped table in front of the sofa. ‘I’m not going to stay here and exchange sexual innuendoes. Obviously your offer of friendship was nothing but a ruse. You couldn’t give a damn about helping me with news of Ralph. All you really want is to get me into bed!’
He stared at her for what seemed like ages, then a wry smile tugged at his lips. ‘Let me assure you, my dear Salome,’ he drawled, ‘that such a thought has never entered my head. Of course,’ he added, his gaze travelling slowly over her heaving breasts, ‘I wouldn’t knock you back if you offered. Or aren’t you that frustrated?’
‘Oh!’ she gasped. ‘Oh!’ she repeated with a stamp of her foot. ‘Of all the—’ Flustered and fuming, she whirled on her heels and began striding towards the door.
‘Mr Diamond always had the same young woman with him.’
Salome froze mid-stride, then turned. So there was another woman, a new ‘project’ for Ralph to work on, a new ‘possession’. Funny, she would have thought she’d be relieved to find an answer at last. Instead, she still felt devastated. Yet there she’d been lately, thinking her love for Ralph had finally begun to die.
‘A—a young woman?’ she repeated blankly.
‘Yes. A brunette. Attractive. Very well-groomed. A career girl, by the look of her. Though I have to confess I don’t think they were business acquaintances. Fact is,’ Michael went on quite ruthlessly, ‘there’s no doubt in my mind they were lovers. I saw them come out of the penthouse very early in the morning together a couple of times. Once they had their arms around each other in the corridor.’
Lovers?
Salome stared, a weak hand fluttering up to her throat as she tried to make sense of Michael’s observation. How could Ralph have a lover? Unless... unless he had lied to her...
Salome felt quite ill, the blood draining from her face, her eyes dropping to the floor. Why would he have done such a thing? Why?
‘Come and sit down.’
Salome’s head jerked up when gentle hands closed over her shoulders. How had he got to her side so quickly? The last time she had looked he had been sitting down.
‘Come on.’ He led her over and settled her on the sofa. ‘I’m sorry, Salome. I shouldn’t have told you that quite so bluntly. I didn’t realise—’
Her head snapped up, green eyes pained. ‘Realise what?’ she said brokenly. ‘That I might really care about my husband? That I might actually be upset to find he was probably being unfaithful to me all along?’
He crouched down on his haunches in front of her, his hands gripping hers. ‘Maybe Mr Diamond has a lover now. But I don’t believe he would have been unfaithful to you while you were still living together.’
The fierceness in his voice and eyes startled her. ‘I can’t imagine any man having a woman like you in his bed,’ he continued, ‘and looking elsewhere.’
For a second she almost laughed at the complete irony of his remark. Till she realised exactly what his words implied—that, as a supposed ‘professional’ at the art of lovemaking, she should be well equipped to hold a man’s interest.
It infuriated her that she kept on feeling distressed by this man’s bad opinion of her. No way, however, was she going to show that he had upset her again.
She still laughed, but it reeked of sarcasm. She also snatched away her hands. ‘What a typically superficial male comment! No woman is that good. Somehow, I expected more of you, Michael Angellini, than to believe sex alone will hold a man indefinitely. Or is that all it takes to hold you?’ she couldn’t resist adding.
Those black eyes glittered dangerously as he got slowly to his feet, glaring down at her. She had hit a nerve all right with her comment. And serve him right! she thought savagely. She’d had a few nerves hit by him over the years. She lifted her chin defiantly to glare back up at him. Think of me what you like, her eyes taunted. I don’t give a damn!
‘Actually, you’re wrong, Salome,’ he bit out. ‘Sex, alone, does not hold me. I wish it did,’ he grated out, throwing her a black look as he dropped down in his corner of the sofa. ‘At least sex is straightforward and simple. It’s when it gets tangled up with deeper emotions that the trouble starts.’
Salome found herself feeling an odd sympathy for him. He sounded genuinely wretched, as though he had suffered deeply from an unhappy love-affair, and was still suffering. She didn’t like to see anyone on the end of that kind of distress—even Mike. She knew how it felt.
She darted a quick sidewards glance at his grimly set mouth, and wondered if that was why he hadn’t married. Perhaps he loved some woman who didn’t love him back? A measure of guilt crept in as she realised she might have done him an injustice. Not that she felt he deserved an apology. He’d always given more than he got. Besides, they had once again got off the point of why she had come along here.
‘So,’ she said bitterly, ‘Ralph isn’t suffering from a hideously disfiguring disease after all.’
Her host shot her a startled glance.
Salome shrugged. ‘It was another of my way-out theories for why Ralph threw me out.’
‘I see,’ Mike nodded. ‘Well, I’m afraid to say Mr Diamond looks as fit as ever, though I can’t say I like his new hair colour. I prefer a man to go grey gracefully.’
‘He’s dyed his hair?’ The idea astounded Salome. Admittedly Ralph had always been vain about his thick brown hair, but the grey at his temples had never seemed to bother him unduly. No doubt he wanted to look younger to impress this new lover, she thought bitterly, then wondered with added misery how many others there had been.
‘Yes, he’s gone blond.’
‘Good God!’ She stood up, still shaking her head in confused desolation. ‘Well...there’s really nothing more to be said, is there?’
Her companion jumped to his feet. ‘Don’t go yet,’ he said, his tone surprisingly urgent. Salome blinked her amazement up at him. ‘Have dinner with me tonight.’
She gaped at him, unable to hide her complete and utter shock. ‘You have to be joking?’
He kept a perfectly straight face. ‘Not at all.’
‘But—but why?’ she stammered.
‘Why not?’ he persisted.
She gave a dry laugh. ‘I think you know damn well why not.’
His eyes didn’t flicker. ‘You’re going out with another man?’
She dragged a deep breath and counted to ten. ‘No,’ she said with barely held patience. This was too ridiculous for words.
‘Ralph won’t be dining alone tonight,’ he inserted quietly. ‘Why should you?’
She gave him a sharp look. ‘That’s playing dirty.’
A slow smile creased his mouth. ‘There are times,’ he drawled cryptically, ‘when one has to resort to whatever weapons are at hand.’
Salome didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
‘Come on, Salome. Say yes. It won’t kill you. We’ll call a truce for one night.’
‘Oh, so you do accept that we haven’t exactly been friends?’ she pointed out drily. ‘Nor are we likely to be while you hold the opinion of me that you do.’
‘You could always try to convince me differently,’ he suggested with a rueful smile.
‘Huh!’ She flicked a stray curl back over her shoulder. ‘I’d have more luck convincing the Greenpeace movement to take up whaling.’
He laughed, and this time genuinely amused lights glittered in his eyes. Salome suddenly realised that their bantering was not malicious any longer. She was, in fact, quite enjoying the flow of dry wit between them. It surprised her.
‘Come on, Salome. Stop frowning and say yes. I’ve only asked you out to dinner, not to marry me!’
There was a caustic flavour in this last statement that caused Salome to flare. ‘Thank goodness for small mercies!’
He glared at her for a few seconds, his whole body tensing noticeably. But then he visibly relaxed, a ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. ‘Tut-tut, you do have a temper, don’t you?’ He reached out and put a firm grasp on her elbow, and began leading her inexorably towards the door. ‘Next thing you know you’ll be changing your mind about going out to dinner with me.’
She ground to a halt, exasperation written all over her face. ‘Might I remind you I haven’t said yes yet?’
‘Haven’t you? I could have sworn you had.’
Though obviously put on, his air of bewildered confusion had a certain charm, and Salome found herself smiling. ‘Do you ever take no for an answer?’
A slow smile came to his mouth. ‘Not often.’
‘Perhaps I should refresh your memory on what it’s like to be turned down,’ she challenged.
His smile turned faintly sardonic. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘I’m surprised. I would have said a man such as you would have an impeccable track-record with the ladies.’
He shrugged. ‘You can’t win them all, I suppose.’
Salome thought she caught an edge of pain in those words, and she remembered her previous impression that Mike could well be suffering from a broken heart. Unexpectedly, it touched her. She didn’t like to think of anyone having to suffer what she’d been suffering.
This line of thought also made her realise he might be thinking the same about her, and that this invitation to dinner could very well be a true gesture of kindness. Yet here she was, being difficult and stroppy about it. She resolved to give in graciously and be done with it.
‘Very well,’ she said with a resigned smile. ‘I’ll come. Just this once.’
He seemed pleased. ‘Great. What time will I come along and pick you up?’
It suddenly dawned on her that he thought she’d moved into the penthouse, so she launched into the explanation that she didn’t intend living in the penthouse but would probably sell it, and that she lived with her mother in a neat, three-bedroom brick cottage in the suburb of Killara.
Now he didn’t seem so pleased, a dark frown drawing his black brows together. Salome deduced somewhat caustically that his Christian charity in asking her out clearly didn’t extend to a twenty-minute drive both ways through busy, city-bound traffic.
‘If it’s too much trouble...’ she began.
‘No, no—no trouble.’ But the frown had not entirely disappeared. ‘Just give me the address and a time to be there. By the way, do you have any preference where we eat?’
‘Not Angellini’s,’ she said instinctively.
‘Certainly not.’ His tone was even sharper than hers, and she actually winced. It was peculiar enough going out with a man who had once despised her, and maybe still did! She certainly didn’t want to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak.
A thought struck her, though, that hadn’t occurred to her before. ‘Don’t you have to act as host at your restaurant tonight?’ she asked. He’d always been there, if her memory served her correctly.
‘Not on a Thursday.’
‘Oh...’ Her eyes dropped, her heart regretful all of a sudden that she had agreed to go out with him. He was a link with her past, with Ralph, a past she now wanted to forget. Her ex-husband must be some sort of monster, to deceive her as he had done. She actually cringed as she thought of how she had allowed him to dictate every facet of her life. God, she’d been the original puppet on a string, the perfect piece of clay to mould as he willed. And all the while he’d been making a fool of her, having lovers behind her back while she fulfilled the role he’d chosen for her—that of a decorative hostess with no more say in their life than one of the original paintings he hung on his wall.
Salome shook her head as she vowed never to surrender herself to a man’s will like that again. If she ever remarried it would be to a man who would be her partner, not her master—an equal in every way.
Her eyes lifted to see a ruthless black gaze peering down at her, the gaze of a man whom she suspected would be no more husband material for a woman than Ralph, obviously, had been. For a moment she felt oddly disconcerted, but quickly dismissed the unwarranted reaction. This swinging bachelor’s personal life was no concern of hers. ‘Well, Mike?’ she said. ‘Have you got a pencil and paper, or an excellent memory?’
CHAPTER THREE
SALOME’S mother came into her bedroom as the former was putting the final touches on her make-up, and gave the large suitcase sitting beside the door a disgruntled look. ‘Just because I asked Wayne to move in,’ she flung at her daughter in a petulant tone, ‘doesn’t mean you have to move out. I thought you were happy enough living here with me.’
Salome counted to ten, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to keep the angry frustration out of her voice if she answered straight away. When she’d come home and found her mother had asked her latest boyfriend to share not only her bed but the whole house, Salome had seen red. It wasn’t that Wayne was a bad sort. He was probably the best type of man Molly had ever been out with.
But Salome couldn’t bear to stay around and witness her mother make the same old mistakes with yet another man. So she had drastically revised her plans, telling her mother some white lies about the unit and car, saying she had decided to keep them both and live in the unit.
Actually, this was not entirely untruthful. Given her new situation, Salome could see that to leave herself destitute was insane. It was all very well to be high-principled, but she could see, finally, that she had gone too far in giving away all of Ralph’s settlement. Her marriage to him, after all, had cost her four years’ wages. So she’d decided to take the equivalent sum from the money the sale of the unit brought, and buy herself a modest unit somewhere. The same applied to the Ferrari. When she’d met Ralph she had owned an old run-about, which he’d disposed of, so she believed she was justified in using some of the money from its sale to purchase a modest vehicle.
All these plans, however, she kept to herself. It was far easier to let her mother think she was keeping the lot. Less argument. Less hassle.
Molly had been astonished though delighted with what she called her daughter’s finally coming to her senses about keeping something from that ‘old coot!’ Not so delighted, however, about her moving out, for they had become very close over the last year, all their old differences seemingly having been resolved.
Till now.
‘Please, Molly,’ she said calmly. ‘Let’s not argue about it. I’m not exactly moving interstate. I’m only a twenty-minute drive down the highway, and I’ll visit often.’
‘Oh, I get the picture. Wayne’s just an excuse. It’s this Mike Angellini you’re going to dinner with, the one whose unit is next to the one Ralph gave you. You’ve set your sights on him, haven’t you?’
That was so ridiculous that Salome almost laughed.
‘Not at all,’ was her rueful reply as she picked up the bronze lip-gloss. ‘I told you. Mike’s an old acquaintance. I’ve known him for years. You don’t honestly think that after what I’ve been through with Ralph I’d leap into another involvement this quickly, do you?’
‘Who knows what you’d do?’ her mother said archly. ‘Any girl who could marry a man thirty years older than herself could do anything!’
Salome counted to ten again. ‘Not all women like younger men,’ she said with creditable control.
‘Younger men are more fun,’ Molly stated pompously. Then grinned.
Salome shook her head in fond exasperation and began putting more pins in her up-swept hairstyle. Her mother’s behaviour with men frustrated the life out of her, but it was impossible to dislike the woman. Or not feel sympathy for the events that had shaped her life. An abandoned child, and the product of various state institutions, Molly was a teenage runaway, pregnant by the time she was fifteen, Salome’s father an Irish sailor who’d been in Sydney for a week on shore leave and had never returned.
Molly had always claimed to have loved him. But then, Molly claimed to love all her boyfriends, even creepy Graham, who’d been twenty-three to her thirty-three, and spent more time chasing the eighteen-year-old daughter than the mother.
Salome glanced in the mirror at Molly, who was still very attractive at thirty-eight and not as rough in speech and manner as she used to be, and wished with all her heart that this time she’d found the right man, the one who would marry her.
‘How old is this old friend of yours?’ Molly asked, dropping down on the end of the single bed. ‘Not as old as Ralph, I hope?’
‘Early thirties.’ Salome stood back from the dressing-table mirror, and made a final survey of her appearance. The forest-green woollen suit, with its softly pleated skirt and fitted single-breasted jacket, suited her tall, shapely figure to perfection. And the ivory silk blouse with the tie at her neck looked suitably demure.
There would be no cleavage tonight, Salome had decided. No way did she want to spend the evening having Mike Angellini either glaring reproachfully at her breasts, or assuming from her mode of dress that he might be on to a good thing.
That was one of the reasons, too, why she had put her hair up, being aware that some men found long, loose hair sexually provocative. Maybe she was being overly careful, but she had a feeling that the evening could be spoiled if she gave Mike the wrong impression. As she’d found out to her chagrin that morning in Charles’s office, a man’s desire had little to do with admiration of a woman’s real personality. All a female had to have was a pretty face and a nice figure to interest a male on that level.
‘Is he handsome?’ Molly kept on.
‘Very.’
‘Not married, is he?’ Her mother’s voice carried suspicion.
‘No,’ Salome laughed. ‘For pity’s sake, quit the third degree, will you? You’ll make me nervous soon. Look, I can’t even get my earrings in now!’
Actually, underneath her composed façde, Salome was beginning to feel a bit nervous. Odd, really. Over the years as Ralph’s wife she had dined with princes and sheikhs, gone to the races with royalty, sailed with tycoons, and partied with movie stars. Why, then, should she be worried about a simple dinner for two?
Perhaps it wasn’t the dinner itself she was nervous about, but what Mike would think when he arrived and she told him she had decided to move into the penthouse after all. In fact, was moving in tonight! She could hardly explain the real reason without embarrassment. Nor could she, in front of Molly, reveal that it was only a temporary arrangement, till the unit was sold.
Hopefully he wouldn’t take her abrupt change of mind as meaning she was interested in him, as Molly had suggested. She had a suspicion that he wouldn’t need much encouragement to try to change their platonic date into a less platonic one.
Another disturbing thought popped into her mind. Perhaps he didn’t need any encouragement. Perhaps a man as handsome and eligible as Mike expected his dates to end the evening in bed with him. She hadn’t thought of that.
Salome had no idea what men expected on a date these days. She’d had to put up with a lot of groping as a teenager, and even then boys had expected a girl to come across pretty quickly. She’d had many a wrestle in the back of a car during her dating years, but only once had she given in—the summer she’d turned seventeen. And of course she had thought she was in love. The man in question had been older than her usual dates. At twenty-four, he’d not been prepared to take no for an answer.
But sex had not been the earth-shaking experience Salome had been expecting. Physically she’d felt nothing after the initial stab of pain. It had been a non-event. Things hadn’t improved either, on subsequent occasions, and her boyfriend had quickly dumped her, saying she was abnormal. Salome had been very upset at the time, the only consolation to her lack of pleasure in sex being that she didn’t have to fear she might turn out to be as promiscuous as her mother.
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Miranda Lee
A Neighborly Affair?Salome was still reeling from the heartbreak and anger of the sudden ending of her marriage. She hadn't accepted anything from her former husband except an apartment that had become her only refuge. Until neighbor Mike Angellini - if you could call an enemy a neighbor - threatened to invade her peace.The man meant trouble! He'd only asked her out to dinner, but the wealthy Sydney restauranteur had always had an aggravating effect on Salome. She couldn't stand his attitude - he still assumed she was a gold digger. And now he made her wonder if she'd ever really been in love… .
A Date with Destiny
Miranda Lee
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE (#u8d762ba1-e3f6-586f-9c2e-7683ee35fb35)
CHAPTER TWO (#ufcc75242-5d02-5b8c-b88d-e81d89859941)
CHAPTER THREE (#u2324dd10-7cf2-54c1-b605-6abd62154983)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
‘DO come in, Mrs Diamond.’
Salome gave the man still seated behind the desk a cool look.
‘You’re very punctual,’ he added with a cursory glance at his watch.
‘Ralph was not one of those men who liked to be kept waiting,’ she said, before realising that she was talking about her husband in the past tense.
But then came the bitter reminder that, for her, Ralph Diamond was past. Otherwise Charles Smeaton, Ralph’s long-time legal adviser, would have been on his feet, extending a polite hand and showing a wide smile beneath his pencil-thin moustache. Instead, he waved curtly towards the vacant chair in front of the desk.
Salome closed the door of the office far more politely than her inner turmoil warranted. She walked across the plushly carpeted floor, well aware that Charles’s beady eyes were running over her eye-catching figure with an insolence he would never have dared display in front of Ralph.
But she sat down and crossed her long, shapely legs without batting an eyelid. If there was one thing her husband had taught her, it was to show apparent indifference to what others did or said.
‘You will have to learn to ignore the gossip, Salome,’ Ralph had warned her right from the start. ‘There’s bound to be plenty, with your being only nineteen to my forty-nine. People who don’t know you will think you’re marrying me for my money, in exchange for which I get to bed the most beautiful girl God ever put breath into. There’s no point in telling the world the truth, my dear. No one will believe you. You’ll just have to learn to live with the slurs. But don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to distance yourself from malicious tongues, how to hold yourself above them.’
Ralph had been right, of course. People had thought the worst of her. Not that they had ever shown their true faces in front of her husband. He was too rich and powerful to offend directly. But there’d been looks and sniggers behind his back. Once, shortly after their marriage, Charles had cornered her at a party and told her to make hay while the sun shone, since dear old Ralph had a habit of discarding his material possessions with regular monotony.
For ages afterwards Salome had been plagued with doubts about the sincerity of Ralph’s love. But as the months passed—very happy months—she had gained more and more confidence in herself and her unusual marriage. The doubts were firmly buried, and remained so for over four years, only to resurface with a vengeance one day in May last year—the day Ralph had told her their marriage was over.
‘Well, Charles?’ she asked, setting cool green eyes upon his smarmy-looking expression. ‘Why did you want to see me? I received the final divorce papers in the mail last week. What more is there to be said?’
‘You’re looking as ravishing as ever, Mrs Diamond,’ he drawled, leaning his fleshy frame back into the swivel-chair and giving her the benefit of a further scrutiny, this time letting his eyes linger more insultingly on the thrust of her high, well-rounded breasts.
Salome didn’t flinch an inch.
‘It’s Miss Twynan now, Charles,’ she said with silky smoothness. ‘Or Salome, if you prefer.’ The sudden thought that her ex-husband would have been proud of her unruffled demeanour only brought pain. Oh, Ralph...why did you do it? Why marry me, make my whole life revolve around you, then toss me out like a worn-out shoe? Why?
An ugly smile twisted the lawyer’s thick lips. ‘Salome. Such an...interesting name.’
‘Molly liked it.’
‘Molly?’
‘My mother.’
‘Ah, yes...your mother.’ His derisive tone suggested that just mentioning her mother was distasteful.
‘Couldn’t we get to the point, Charles?’ she asked icily.
He snapped forward on the chair, reefed open a drawer on his left, and extracted a set of keys. ‘Ralph has decided to add another item to your settlement,’ he announced, tossing the keys forward to land on the edge of the desk nearest Salome. ‘A penthouse unit at McMahon’s Point. And you’ll find the white Ferrari he gave you for your twenty-first birthday in the basement car park.’ He leaned back again and gave her another one of those smirky smiles. ‘Why you left it behind in the first place, I have no idea. It wasn’t as though you didn’t earn everything Ralph gave you. He always seemed very satisfied with you during your—er—marriage.’
Salome’s chest squeezed so tight with the effort to remain composed that she could scarcely breathe.
‘I don’t want them,’ she managed to get out.
‘Too bad. The unit has already been transferred into your name by deed gift, and the car was always legally yours. It’s registered in your name.’
Salome took a deep breath. No way did she want to stay here arguing with this ghastly man. She would just take the unit and the car, sell them, then give the money to charity, as she had all the other money Ralph had settled on her. For how could she ever keep any of it? To do so would vindicate all the implied insults she’d endured over the years.
Not that any of her slanderers knew about her Grand Gesture. Nor Charles for that matter. She saw little point in telling people like him about something they couldn’t possibly understand. They wouldn’t appreciate her motives. They would think her crazy. Her own mother had thought her crazy!
‘Why is he giving me this penthouse now?’ she asked. ‘Do you know? Did he say?’
Charles shrugged. ‘You know Ralph. He never explains his actions. He just gives orders.’
Yes, she thought ruefully. That was Ralph all over.
‘We’ll go here tonight, Salome,’ he would say. ‘Order the prawn dish, Salome’ or ‘Wear the green dress, Salome.’
Most women would have hated his autocratic, bossy nature. But, for reasons which she had not explored deeply enough at the time, Salome had loved it. She had had many long, lonely nights since then to work out why she had acted so submissively. And, while she could appreciate the reasons behind her behaviour, she still wasn’t all that comfortable with it.
‘I see,’ she said tautly. ‘Have you got an address for this unit? McMahon’s Point is just north of the Harbour Bridge, on the Luna Park side, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right. Yours is penthouse two, in a multi-storeyed circular block called Harbourside Towers, right on the water at the end of Harbour Road. You can’t miss it. I—er—presume you’ll be moving in right away? After all, you can’t really be liking living with your mother.’
Salome picked up the keys and slipped them into her handbag. ‘You’re quite wrong, Charles,’ she said coolly. ‘I won’t be moving in, and I quite like living with my mother.’ But only since Molly seemed finally to have got over the urge to ask every man she dated to move in with her, Salome thought wearily.
She stood up, automatically smoothing down the emerald-green wool sheath over her slender thighs, then, with her free hand, flicking the long mass of tight coppery curls back from her face and shoulders.
A dry-mouthed shock took hold of her when she became aware of how openly lustful Charles’s gaze had grown as it followed each of these movements. Her eyes locked on to his with a sickening jolt inside, but she glared back at him quite boldly, till he was forced to drop his eyes.
Creep! she thought savagely.
‘Please don’t bother to show me out,’ she said, making no attempt to hide her sarcasm. And with that she turned on her black high heels and strode from the office.
It wasn’t till she was alone in the elevator that she realised she was shaking with fury.
* * *
Salome walked slowly through the penthouse, her emotions no more settled than when she had left Charles’s office. Her troubled gaze travelled around the enormous living-room she was standing in, taking in the no-expense-spared décor: the classically neutral colour scheme, the ultra-modern imported furniture, the huge, semicircular plate-glass windows that she’d discovered slid back electronically to allow access to the equally huge balcony.
She wandered out to lean on the high cylindrical railing, and frowned at the view, which stretched across to Darling Harbour on her right, Milson’s Point on her left, and the Bridge straight ahead. The blue waters were cold-looking but beautiful beneath the clear winter sky. A crisp breeze ruffled Salome’s hair, making her realise how cool and refreshing this balcony would be in the summer.
How much was this place worth? she wondered. A million dollars? More?
She sighed. Molly was going to go off her brain when she told her she was going to give it all away too. Just as well Ralph had seen fit to give his young bride’s not-so-suitable mother a house and income of her own when they got married, or she’d never hear the end of it. As it was, Molly often brought up the matter of money and how stupid Salome had been to give it all away, then have to go and work in a dress shop to earn her own living.
Which reminded her. She had still not told Molly that it looked as if she was going to be laid off soon. Sales at the boutique were slumping, along with the economy, the manager not minding at all that Salome had asked for the afternoon off. She’d been looking around for a better job but had found she wasn’t qualified for anything that paid well. To go back to waitressing was too depressing a thought to consider, but she might have to do just that while going to tech and getting herself some marketable skills. Perhaps a typing and word-processing course. That seemed very much in demand.
Meanwhile she would have to face her mother’s exasperation.
Perhaps she wouldn’t tell Molly about this unit at all, Salome mused. Perhaps she would only mention the car. She couldn’t get out of telling her about that, since she had already decided to drive the Ferrari back to her mother’s place at Killara that afternoon, then take it to one of the luxury-car dealers the next morning. There were a lot along the Pacific Highway up towards Hornsby.
But she really wanted to talk to someone about Ralph, wanted a sounding-board for the agony of frustration that she felt building up again inside her. A string of whys had been whirling in her head for too long a time, and now she had another to add to the list. Why had he given her this unit?
But her main questions dealt with the past. Why had Ralph cut her out of his life so abruptly and cruelly? And why, in the light of what had happened, had he married her in the first place? For, to have done what he ultimately had, he couldn’t possibly have loved her, as he’d claimed to.
Salome groaned at the crazed complexity of it all. If sex had been involved it might have made some sense! She was used to men claiming they were in love with a woman till they were firmly ensconced in her bed, only to desert her several months later when their lust had begun to pall. She’d watched them do it to Molly for years!
But her relationship with Ralph had not been a physical one, so sexual boredom—or another woman—could not be blamed for Ralph’s divorcing her.
Suddenly, Salome’s chest contracted viciously, seized by a defiant surge of anger. This was the overriding emotion she was experiencing lately. Anger. A bitter, frustrated anger.
‘Why?’ she screamed out across the water. ‘Why?’
It felt oddly good to give voice to her pain, even if only to empty air. In fourteen long months, Salome had been denied the outlet of actually screaming at Ralph, for he refused to see her, refused to let her get past the blanket of security he had wrapped himself in.
He had moved to his rural property out at Dural, on the outskirts of Sydney, his enormous mansion in Potts Point having been sold within weeks of their separation taking effect. Salome had driven out to Dural several times in vain attempts to gain entrance to see Ralph. But to no avail.
Her letters were returned unopened.
As for phone calls...Valerie always answered the telephone, and there was no denting Ralph’s secretary’s relentlessly negative stance. Not that the woman was rude. She was just totally immovable. Ralph had given orders that his ex-wife was not to be put through to him, and that was that!
Every which way Salome turned, her path was blocked. Finally she had been forced to give up, and had been trying to make a new life for herself. But it hadn’t been easy. Not easy at all.
Today she had put on a brave front for Charles, but inside she was still a shattered woman, a woman who had married for love, not money, a woman who had never been the cheap, mercenary, gold-digging little tart others had always believed her to be.
Though you have to admit, Salome, she conceded to herself with a certain irony, you can’t really blame people for thinking that was the case. You were thirty years younger than Ralph and—my God—the nineteen-year-old Salome Twynan would have made Eliza Doolittle look classy!
Salome ran an agitated hand through her wind-blown hair. If she impressed people now as a well-groomed, sophisticated and articulate lady then it was Ralph Diamond who was responsible for that. Ralph, who had shown her how to walk and talk and dress and act; Ralph, who had educated her in matters of manners and music and, yes, even men, to a degree.
As the wife of a successful businessman she’d been required to do a lot of entertaining, mostly in male company. Ralph had shown her how to be the perfect hostess to his male guests, which included knowing exactly what role to play to charm their particular personalities. Sometimes she was an intent listener, at others a witty conversationalist. Above all, she was always required to look as beautiful as possible.
This miracle had not been achieved overnight. It had taken time, but Ralph had eventually remade the rough Mrs Diamond into a sparkling jewel, coated with a polish, the veneer of which not even his abandonment had destroyed.
Oh, Ralph! Salome groaned. Why? Was I ever anything more to you than just another possession, to be toyed with for a while, then discarded when the game tired you? Have you found some other naïve, innocent young thing to make over to your requirements? Was that the object of it all? Do you get your kicks out of playing God with other people’s lives?
Tears welled up into her eyes. She turned and walked slowly back inside, unconcerned when the tears began to overflow and run down her cheeks. What did it matter? A good cry was what she needed. She sank down on to one of the plush leather sofas, her head dropping into her hands.
A loud, rapid knocking on the door gave her an awful fright.
Her head jerked up, her fingers moving in a frantic attempt to dry her cheeks. She blinked rapidly with some success, and began moving towards the door, automatically tidying her messy hair with her hands. Who on earth could it be? Her stomach twisted with a rush of nerves at having to ward off someone awkward. Like Charles.
But then she thought of the building’s security system, and relaxed. She had had to give the uniformed guard in the foyer a list of the people she would allow to come up without checking first with her. And she had only given her mother’s name.
Yet her mother didn’t even know about this place yet. Salome frowned. She had come here straight from Charles’s office. Slipping the safety-chain into place, she slowly opened the door. ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’ she asked sharply, worried when the small gap didn’t reveal any part of a human being.
A man moved into the space, a man whose cleft chin rested at her eye level. She looked up and saw the blackest of black eyes peering at her from beneath equally black brows and hair. Then realised they all belonged to a person she actually knew. ‘Good heavens!’ she exclaimed, startled.
The object of her shock said nothing for a moment, a fierce frown gathering his straight brows together as he stared at her through the narrow slit.
Finally he spoke. ‘Mrs Diamond?’ There was puzzlement—and a definite hint of antagonism—in the way he voiced those two words.
Now that her initial surprise was over Salome instinctively stiffened. Her visitor was not one of her most favourite people. Not even remotely.
Michael Angellini was reportedly one of Sydney’s most eligible bachelors, the wealthy owner of an exclusive Italian restaurant in King’s Cross that Ralph had taken Salome to many times during the years of their marriage. In his early thirties, and handsome as the devil, he was no doubt all smooth charm to most of his women customers, yet right from their initial meeting, or soon after she’d been introduced as Mrs Diamond, the restaurateur began treating her with a cold, almost exaggerated formality that had made her seethe inside. She had learnt to feel nothing but contempt for those people who classified her on sight in that predatory female category including women who married older men for money.
Yet, oddly enough, Salome found a perverse pleasure in their frequent visits to Angellini’s, taking pride in not showing her antagonism to this narrow-minded, prejudiced man. Quite deliberately, she would give him a sweet smile and then be extra-attentive and flirtatious with Ralph, revelling in the feeling that she was throwing the Italian’s unwarranted derision right back in his face.
He, however, found it very hard to hide his feelings, her presence always putting a tight, sour look on his face. Though this didn’t mar his undeniable male beauty. The man’s Latin ancestry had produced the sort of dark, brooding looks that women drooled over: strong, sculptured features; piercing black eyes; lustrously wavy black hair; a cruelly sensual mouth; and an elegant, arrogant grace that turned a dinner-suit into a lethal weapon.
Not that Salome drooled. The underlying antagonism she felt for him made her totally immune to his powerful sex appeal. There could have been a time when his brand of overt virility might have turned her head—she’d been as silly as the next young girl at sixteen and seventeen. But by the time she’d met Ralph, a few weeks short of her nineteenth birthday, she’d been cured of the irrationality of her adolescent hormones once and for all. Ralph’s dignified maturity and lack of sexual aggression had been like a breath of fresh air to her.
True, she’d been initially worried by his age, but he had been a very determined man and had courted her with an old-fashioned respect and decency that she’d found both captivating and highly flattering. Heavens, here was this multi-millionaire, handsome, intelligent, powerful, who could have any woman he wanted. And he had wanted her!
Of course she hadn’t known his secret back then... Still, even if she had known all along, Salome believed she still would have fallen in love with him. He had made her feel so very, very special, right from the start. Michael Angellini, however, never made her feel special, she thought, swinging angry eyes up to him. He never evoked anything in her except a simmering fury.
As was the case right now.
‘Yes, it’s me.’ Her tone was curt, her words clipped. ‘What is it you want?’ she demanded. ‘How did you get up here anyway? Oh, no! Don’t tell me you live in the other penthouse?’ The building was so large that the top floor had been divided into two huge luxury penthouses.
He sucked in an indignant breath, expanding his considerable chest beneath the pale blue sweater he was wearing. ‘I’m afraid so,’ he admitted with cold civility. ‘I was out on my balcony just now, and thought I heard someone scream out. Naturally, I was concerned. Of course, I didn’t realise you were in here, Mrs Diamond. I thought this was your ex-husband’s apartment.’
The implication was quite clear. Anyone else, and he would come to the rescue. But she could scream her head off and he wouldn’t turn a hair.
‘This happens to be my apartment now,’ she told him tartly, before she realised what the man had actually said. Cursing herself for her stupidity, she slipped off the chain and pulled open the door. ‘You’ve seen Ralph recently, have you?’ she demanded, uncaring now if they liked each other or not. If this man had some information about Ralph, then she wanted it. Here at last she might find some answers.
Her visitor looked startled, his black eyes flashing astonishment as they flicked over her face. ‘You’ve been crying!’ he said, almost accusingly.
Now it was Salome who was taken aback. For she had already forgotten her recent tears. ‘Yes... no...I...’ Damn it all, what was the matter with her? Did she have to go all helpless and confused, just because he was shocked to find that a calculating bitch like herself could cry?
‘Does it matter?’ she flung at him. He blinked. ‘All I want to know is when was the last time you saw Ralph?’ she went on, her tone urgent.
He gave her a long, assessing look before speaking. ‘A few weeks ago.’
‘Do you mean at the restaurant or here?’ she persisted.
‘You were with Ralph the last time he came to the restaurant, and that was well over a year ago.’
‘Oh...’ She frowned and chewed her bottom lip. ‘It was here, then?’
‘Yes. We run into each other occasionally. But what’s this all about, Mrs Diamond? Surely you’ve been in touch with your ex-husband personally if this penthouse is now yours?’
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t...I...’ The lump gathering in her throat appalled her. The last person in the world she wanted to break down in front of was this man. ‘I haven’t seen Ralph for fourteen months,’ she finished in a strangled voice.
Sympathy did strange things to Michael Angellini’s face. It made him almost human. His mouth softened. And his eyes, which were usually as hard as flint, melted to a liquid ebony, washing over her with a look of surprising warmth and pity.
And then he did something else that stunned Salome. He touched her.
Oh, it wasn’t an intimate, or a bold caress. He merely reached out his hand to curve lightly over one shoulder. But it seemed to burn a hand-print on the skin beneath her dress. She froze, her eyes widening, her lips parting slightly.
‘I think, Mrs Diamond,’ he was saying, his hand tightening before releasing her tingling flesh, ‘that you could do with a drink. You seem very stressed. Why don’t you come along to my place, where I can get you something to settle your nerves?’
Salome stared at this man whom she had always detested, unable to get her mind off her response to his touch. Surely it couldn’t have been a sexual response? Surely not!
‘Are you all right, Mrs Diamond? You look...odd.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she snapped in confusion.
A single dark eyebrow lifted and those black eyes hardened again. ‘Of course,’ he drawled. ‘Well, would you like to have a drink with me? Or would you rather be by yourself?’
Salome gave the darkly handsome face a hurried once-over, and was comforted to see she now felt nothing. Nothing at all! She sighed with relief. It had been shock, that was all, shock that her long-time foe had extended an unexpectedly sympathetic hand. No doubt she was susceptible to sympathy at the moment.
But the thought insinuated that he might have misinterpreted her reaction to his touch, and might even now be sizing her up as easy meat for his bachelor bed. The incident with Charles that morning had shown her that a man didn’t have to like her to lust after her.
‘You don’t have to feel obliged to accept,’ he said curtly as he noted her swift frown. ‘I won’t be offended in the slightest. I merely thought you looked like you could do with some company for a while. Believe me, I do realise you have never found my company to your liking in the past.’
Salome bristled. ‘What came first,’ she bit out, ‘the chicken or the egg?’
He stared at her for a moment, then laughed, drawing her gaze to his dazzling white teeth and the attractive dimple in his chin. But there was no laughter in his eyes. They remained as hard and cold as ever. For some reason this annoyed her even more than usual.
‘I think, perhaps, that I will take a rain-check on the drink,’ she said with an icy hauteur that belied her agitated pulse-rate.
The laughter died on his lips, his strong jaw clenching tightly. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ he grated out. ‘All I’m suggesting is that we have a drink together. Not another damned thing!’ Looking away, he ran an angry hand through his hair. ‘I’m not a masochist,’ he muttered under his breath, before swinging his eyes back and adding more loudly, ‘I thought you were anxious to hear about your ex-husband. Look, let’s have no more silly arguments. Where are your keys? Aah...I see them.’
With that, he strode inside, picked up the keys from the coffee-table in the centre of the living-room, and returned, ushering her firmly outside and locking the door. Then, taking her elbow, he guided her along the hall, shepherded her through an open door, and deposited her on a cream leather sofa that was identical to the one in Ralph’s unit.
‘There!’ He left her and strode over behind the glass and chrome bar that curved around one wall. ‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’
Salome opened her mouth then snapped it shut. She couldn’t trust herself to speak just yet.
A ‘masochist’? she was fuming, her excellent hearing having picked up his low comment. Low, in more ways than one. If that wasn’t the insult to end all insults. Brother, was she fed up with the way men perceived her. Fed up to the eye teeth!
Unfortunately, this particular man had information she wanted, so it wasn’t in her interests to give him a blast of her Irish temper at that moment. But, by God, if he came out with another of those clangers, she was going to let him have it! And it wouldn’t be the softly spoken, elegant Mrs Diamond he would have to contend with, but Salome Twynan, street-wise and tough, a fighter from her earliest years, a girl who’d had to be, just to survive!
CHAPTER TWO
‘SO!’ Michael deposited two crystal tumblers on to the glass top of the bar. ‘What will you have to drink? Your usual?’
Salome stared at him.
‘My dear lady,’ came the dry remark, ‘you don’t have to look so surprised. You and your husband were regulars at my restaurant for years. It’s my job to familiarise myself with my clientele’s likes and dislikes. I wouldn’t be much of a host if I hadn’t absorbed the fact that you only drink vodka and orange before dinner, and dry Riesling or white burgundy with your meals.’
He pushed the long sleeves of the blue sweater up his arms, showing surprisingly little body hair, and glanced at the gold watch on his wrist. ‘Since it is now approaching five, I merely guessed the vodka and orange.’ Those cold black eyes lifted. ‘Was I wrong?’ he drawled. ‘Or have your tastes changed in the last year?’
Salome’s green eyes flashed as they locked on to his hard gaze, certain that there was an underlying innuendo in those last words. Clearly he thought that, as Mrs Diamond, she had cleverly catered her tastes to what Ralph had liked, since he too had been fond of vodka and dry white wines. No doubt Mr Jump-To-Conclusions Angellini was now anticipating that such a professional gold-digger as herself might have moved on to the next man already, and adapted her likes and dislikes accordingly.
A type of black humour curved her lips back into a seductive smile. ‘Why don’t you just pour me something you like?’ she purred. ‘I’m sure you have excellent taste.’ She gave him a heavy-lidded glance, thinking viciously that if he was fooled by such blatantly feigned behaviour then he deserved to be!
He glared at her for a moment, then gave a dry, hard laugh. ‘Come now, Mrs Diamond,’ he scoffed. ‘You don’t really expect me to fall for the batting eyelashes and husky-voice trick, do you? Save it for an older, more vulnerable prey—one who’ll be so dazzled by your beauty that he won’t notice the dollar-signs clicking over behind those gorgeous green eyes of yours.’
He folded his arms and frowned at her. ‘You puzzle me, though. You’re a clever woman—an expert, I would have imagined, on the male psyche. I can’t believe you seriously thought that I would be so gullible. After all, I know that you know I’ve never been blind to your—er—chosen vocation in life.’
Salome could have reacted several ways. With a burst of true temper. Dignified outrage. Frozen silence. Even tears. She chose none of them. A cool smile crossed her lips and she had the pleasure of seeing a shocked look pass over her adversary’s face. ‘To be honest, it was an on-the-spot performance,’ she confessed bluntly. ‘A test, so to speak. But I’m relieved to see you came through it with flying colours. God knows how I would have coped if you hadn’t.’
His back stiffened, his arms slowly unfolding to grip the edge of the bar, a barely controlled fury smouldering in those normally cold black eyes. The fact that she had finally got under his skin soothed Salome’s own suppressed anger.
‘But you were right about one thing, Michael, dear,’ she went on. ‘Your company is not to my liking, and neither am I a masochist. I came along here with you merely because I wanted to hear news about my husband.’
‘Ex-husband,’ he reminded her harshly.
‘Whatever.’ She uncrossed her legs and got to her feet, unable to sit there sedately any longer. She tried to keep a calm exterior, but inside her blood was well and truly up. ‘If you’re not going to have the decency to tell me what you know without any added insults,’ she said curtly, ‘then just say so and I’ll leave.’
He didn’t say so. He just stood behind the bar, staring at her. Salome got the oddest impression that with her firm stance she had achieved more in changing this man’s opinion of her than she’d been able to do in her years as Ralph’s wife. There was a look of grudging respect in his eyes as they moved slowly over her.
‘I see there’s more to you than meets the eye, Mrs Diamond,’ he said at last.
She snorted. ‘Am I supposed to be flattered by that remark?’
His laugh was very dry. ‘No. I guess not.’
‘Then would you kindly put me out of my misery and tell me what you know about Ralph?’
Again she was on the end of a sharp look. ‘And are you in misery about your...about Mr Diamond?’
She shook her head in exasperation. ‘Wouldn’t you be, if the person you were married to chucked you out one day without so much as a word of explanation, then refused to see you?’
‘I would,’ he admitted slowly, ‘if I really loved that person, and knew I hadn’t done anything to instigate such behaviour.’
Salome gritted her teeth. ‘Oh, of course,’ she ground out, ‘that couldn’t apply to me, could it? I’m Delilah and Jezebel all wrapped up in one, aren’t I? The sort of vampirish female that ensnares older men into her sexual clutches in order to fleece them of every cent, then tosses them to the wolves when the game grows tedious or a better meal-ticket comes along?’
He was clearly startled by her verbal attack, but recovered well to shrug nonchalantly. ‘You said that. I didn’t.’
‘But you’ve been thinking it all right,’ she flung at him. ‘You thought it the very first night Ralph took me to your rotten damned restaurant!’
He glared at her, eyes hard again. ‘You have to admit you did a good impression of the vacuous sex-object wife, married to a man old enough to be your father!’
‘Age has nothing to do with love,’ she argued. ‘And I wasn’t vacuous. I was shy. Tongue-tied...’
‘Oh, come now,’ he scorned. ‘Shy? Tongue-tied?’
‘Yes,’ she insisted. ‘At first.’
‘Well, you soon learned what was expected of you,’ he pointed out caustically. ‘I’ve never seen such an accomplished courtesan, dripping all over your escort, eating him up with your eyes, laughing deliciously at every joke he made. And the clothes you wore. Or didn’t wear, more accurately. Hardly the way a shy woman would dress!’
A fierce blush coloured Salome’s cheeks at the essence of truth behind this accusation. Ralph had always chosen her clothes, and he had a penchant for evening wear that was very sexy. Low necklines and bare shoulders meant that underwear had always been at a minimum. Neither could she dismiss the fact that on subsequent visits to Angellini’s she had often gone over the top with her flirtatious behaviour towards Ralph out of some sort of spite of their host’s ever-reproachful eyes.
‘I was always perfectly decently dressed,’ she defended staunchly through her inner fluster. ‘And decently behaved. Ralph was my husband, and you had no right to sneer at me behind his back.’
‘I never sneered.’
‘You could have fooled me!’
‘Apparently I did!’ he snapped.
They both glared at each other, the silence electric. And then he did the strangest thing. He sighed, his face softening, his eyes almost apologetic.
‘Look, let’s stop this,’ he said reasonably. ‘It’s rather childish, don’t you think? If it makes you feel better, I apologise. Now calm down and sit down. I’ll get you that drink.’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘I think you might be more in need of it now than before.’
For a moment Salome stood where she was, feeling somewhat stunned. But then she slumped back down on the sofa, for she had begun to shake with spent emotion. What on earth was wrong with her, letting this man goad her into defending herself so hotly? What did it matter what he thought of her? He meant nothing to her, nothing at all! The only issue at stake here was trying to find out what she could about Ralph, yet she had allowed herself to be totally side-tracked.
Irritated, she glared over at Michael’s now superbly composed self, silently going about mixing the drinks with efficient, economical movements. Cubes of ice were dropped in first, followed by a hefty slurp of vodka. Finally the glasses were topped up with fresh orange juice from the small bar fridge. She watched him walk round the front of the bar, grudgingly admitting that he looked almost as good in casual clothes as he did when dressed formally.
The softly moulding crew-necked pullover showed that his broad shoulders were not an illusion of good tailoring, the wool’s blue colour highlighting his dark colouring. Salome’s gaze drifted downwards to where his trim hips and long legs were housed in a pair of loosely fitting grey trousers. It annoyed her when she began to wonder what he would look like in a pair of tight, body-hugging jeans.
‘Here we are,’ he said, scooping up the brimming drinks without spilling a drop, and bringing them over with the skill and ease of an experienced waiter.
Which is probably what he once was, she thought caustically, before reminding herself that they had a lot in common, in that case. She had been a waitress before marrying Ralph. It bothered her momentarily that her years as the wealthy and privileged Mrs Diamond might have turned her into some sort of snob, since Salome Twynan would never have looked down her nose at someone for doing any kind of a job at all.
Don’t be silly, she berated herself. You have every reason to feel bitchy towards this man. It has nothing to do with what job he’s done, or hasn’t done!
‘So you really have no idea why Mr Diamond ended your marriage?’ Michael asked, giving her a penetrating look as he handed over her drink.
The intensity those black eyes could project unnerved her. ‘None,’ she admitted.
He sat down on the sofa next to her, his own drink moving to his lips, those same disturbing eyes watching her closely over the rim of the glass.
Salome tried desperately to ignore how his gaze and closeness were affecting her. She felt stifled, nervous, afraid even. Of what? she puzzled frantically. Because she was alone with him in his apartment? Michael Angellini didn’t seem the type of man to make a crass pass unless given some encouragement. He was, on the surface at least, a gentleman.
Salome pushed aside her illogical apprehension and put her mind back on the issue at hand. ‘I came home one day,’ she explained somewhat reluctantly, ‘and found my bags packed. Ralph gave me no explanation other than to state that our marriage was over.’
The man next to her was clearly taken aback. He straightened and just stared at her, his glass hovering at his lips. Salome sipped her own drink, her hand shaking slightly.
‘I...I tried to find out the reason, but he wouldn’t budge,’ she went on agitatedly. ‘In the end I suppose I got a little hysterical. Ralph simply called one of his body-guards and had me removed from the premises.’
‘My God, that’s appalling!’
The depth of disgust Salome saw in his face startled her. Yet it was oddly comforting to have someone else find Ralph’s behaviour inexcusable. Even her own mother had presumed she had been to blame. But then, poor Molly always thought women were to blame when a relationship ended.
‘As I said to you earlier,’ she managed to get out, ‘I haven’t seen Ralph in the fourteen months since that day. Not that I haven’t tried.’ And she found herself relaying to her surprisingly intent listener all her endeavours to have a personal meeting with her ex-husband.
‘So, you see,’ she finished, ‘I’m anxious to hear anything about Ralph at all. I want some answers. I need some answers!’
‘Of course you do,’ he agreed strongly. ‘Of course. No one deserves to be treated like that!’
Not even a gold-digging little tramp like me, Salome added silently with a weary sigh. Strangely enough, all of a sudden, this man’s low opinion of her hurt. It hurt like mad. Ralph might have been able to snub his nose at the opinion of others, but Salome was finding it increasingly upsetting to have people believe she was little better than a woman of easy virtue.
An involuntary shudder ran through her, bringing a puzzled frown from her companion. ‘Is there something wrong with your drink?’ he asked.
It was just as well, Salome realised bitterly, that she had grown expert at the art of the superbly bland social face, which consisted of totally unreadable eyes and a soulless smile.
Yet, somehow, hiding the hurt this man kept dishing out, however unconsciously, proved to be more difficult than usual. That plastic smile just wouldn’t come, and when she looked at him she found herself becoming lost in those incredible black eyes of his, which at that moment were filled with a disarming sympathy. She dragged her own away, and stared down at the half-empty drink.
‘No,’ she said tautly, twisting the glass around and around in her hands. ‘It’s fine.’ She gulped most of it back in one go, then cleared her throat and looked up. ‘You’re being very nice to me, Michael. Considering...’
For a second he just looked at her, but she thought she detected a hint of irony in his eyes. He reached to pick up his own drink once more, turning his eyes back to hold her nervous ones with consummate ease. ‘My friends call me Mike,’ he said quietly.
For a second Salome was taken aback. Then she laughed. ‘I’m not a friend, though, am I?’
He smiled and shrugged. ‘You could become one.’
‘I doubt that very much.’
‘Why?’
Her expression was incredulous. ‘Why? For one thing, you don’t like me!’
‘Aah...’ His smile became quite cynical. ‘I can’t deny that I didn’t like you much when you were Mrs Diamond. But as...Salome’s your name, isn’t it?’
‘Y-yes,’ she admitted warily.
‘As single Salome, I think I could like you well enough,’ he stated with a seductive softness, then leaned back and took another swallow of his drink.
Salome’s insides tightened. Was this what she’d subconsciously been waiting for, been agitated about? For her one-time foe to make a sexual move towards her? Her glare was withering. ‘I suppose I’m going to have to get used to that sort of remark,’ she snapped. ‘But I would have thought that a man as eligible as yourself wouldn’t have to resort to chasing frustrated divorcees.’
There was a sardonic lift to one eyebrow. ‘And are you frustrated, Salome?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ She stood up and slammed her glass down on to the low marble-topped table in front of the sofa. ‘I’m not going to stay here and exchange sexual innuendoes. Obviously your offer of friendship was nothing but a ruse. You couldn’t give a damn about helping me with news of Ralph. All you really want is to get me into bed!’
He stared at her for what seemed like ages, then a wry smile tugged at his lips. ‘Let me assure you, my dear Salome,’ he drawled, ‘that such a thought has never entered my head. Of course,’ he added, his gaze travelling slowly over her heaving breasts, ‘I wouldn’t knock you back if you offered. Or aren’t you that frustrated?’
‘Oh!’ she gasped. ‘Oh!’ she repeated with a stamp of her foot. ‘Of all the—’ Flustered and fuming, she whirled on her heels and began striding towards the door.
‘Mr Diamond always had the same young woman with him.’
Salome froze mid-stride, then turned. So there was another woman, a new ‘project’ for Ralph to work on, a new ‘possession’. Funny, she would have thought she’d be relieved to find an answer at last. Instead, she still felt devastated. Yet there she’d been lately, thinking her love for Ralph had finally begun to die.
‘A—a young woman?’ she repeated blankly.
‘Yes. A brunette. Attractive. Very well-groomed. A career girl, by the look of her. Though I have to confess I don’t think they were business acquaintances. Fact is,’ Michael went on quite ruthlessly, ‘there’s no doubt in my mind they were lovers. I saw them come out of the penthouse very early in the morning together a couple of times. Once they had their arms around each other in the corridor.’
Lovers?
Salome stared, a weak hand fluttering up to her throat as she tried to make sense of Michael’s observation. How could Ralph have a lover? Unless... unless he had lied to her...
Salome felt quite ill, the blood draining from her face, her eyes dropping to the floor. Why would he have done such a thing? Why?
‘Come and sit down.’
Salome’s head jerked up when gentle hands closed over her shoulders. How had he got to her side so quickly? The last time she had looked he had been sitting down.
‘Come on.’ He led her over and settled her on the sofa. ‘I’m sorry, Salome. I shouldn’t have told you that quite so bluntly. I didn’t realise—’
Her head snapped up, green eyes pained. ‘Realise what?’ she said brokenly. ‘That I might really care about my husband? That I might actually be upset to find he was probably being unfaithful to me all along?’
He crouched down on his haunches in front of her, his hands gripping hers. ‘Maybe Mr Diamond has a lover now. But I don’t believe he would have been unfaithful to you while you were still living together.’
The fierceness in his voice and eyes startled her. ‘I can’t imagine any man having a woman like you in his bed,’ he continued, ‘and looking elsewhere.’
For a second she almost laughed at the complete irony of his remark. Till she realised exactly what his words implied—that, as a supposed ‘professional’ at the art of lovemaking, she should be well equipped to hold a man’s interest.
It infuriated her that she kept on feeling distressed by this man’s bad opinion of her. No way, however, was she going to show that he had upset her again.
She still laughed, but it reeked of sarcasm. She also snatched away her hands. ‘What a typically superficial male comment! No woman is that good. Somehow, I expected more of you, Michael Angellini, than to believe sex alone will hold a man indefinitely. Or is that all it takes to hold you?’ she couldn’t resist adding.
Those black eyes glittered dangerously as he got slowly to his feet, glaring down at her. She had hit a nerve all right with her comment. And serve him right! she thought savagely. She’d had a few nerves hit by him over the years. She lifted her chin defiantly to glare back up at him. Think of me what you like, her eyes taunted. I don’t give a damn!
‘Actually, you’re wrong, Salome,’ he bit out. ‘Sex, alone, does not hold me. I wish it did,’ he grated out, throwing her a black look as he dropped down in his corner of the sofa. ‘At least sex is straightforward and simple. It’s when it gets tangled up with deeper emotions that the trouble starts.’
Salome found herself feeling an odd sympathy for him. He sounded genuinely wretched, as though he had suffered deeply from an unhappy love-affair, and was still suffering. She didn’t like to see anyone on the end of that kind of distress—even Mike. She knew how it felt.
She darted a quick sidewards glance at his grimly set mouth, and wondered if that was why he hadn’t married. Perhaps he loved some woman who didn’t love him back? A measure of guilt crept in as she realised she might have done him an injustice. Not that she felt he deserved an apology. He’d always given more than he got. Besides, they had once again got off the point of why she had come along here.
‘So,’ she said bitterly, ‘Ralph isn’t suffering from a hideously disfiguring disease after all.’
Her host shot her a startled glance.
Salome shrugged. ‘It was another of my way-out theories for why Ralph threw me out.’
‘I see,’ Mike nodded. ‘Well, I’m afraid to say Mr Diamond looks as fit as ever, though I can’t say I like his new hair colour. I prefer a man to go grey gracefully.’
‘He’s dyed his hair?’ The idea astounded Salome. Admittedly Ralph had always been vain about his thick brown hair, but the grey at his temples had never seemed to bother him unduly. No doubt he wanted to look younger to impress this new lover, she thought bitterly, then wondered with added misery how many others there had been.
‘Yes, he’s gone blond.’
‘Good God!’ She stood up, still shaking her head in confused desolation. ‘Well...there’s really nothing more to be said, is there?’
Her companion jumped to his feet. ‘Don’t go yet,’ he said, his tone surprisingly urgent. Salome blinked her amazement up at him. ‘Have dinner with me tonight.’
She gaped at him, unable to hide her complete and utter shock. ‘You have to be joking?’
He kept a perfectly straight face. ‘Not at all.’
‘But—but why?’ she stammered.
‘Why not?’ he persisted.
She gave a dry laugh. ‘I think you know damn well why not.’
His eyes didn’t flicker. ‘You’re going out with another man?’
She dragged a deep breath and counted to ten. ‘No,’ she said with barely held patience. This was too ridiculous for words.
‘Ralph won’t be dining alone tonight,’ he inserted quietly. ‘Why should you?’
She gave him a sharp look. ‘That’s playing dirty.’
A slow smile creased his mouth. ‘There are times,’ he drawled cryptically, ‘when one has to resort to whatever weapons are at hand.’
Salome didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
‘Come on, Salome. Say yes. It won’t kill you. We’ll call a truce for one night.’
‘Oh, so you do accept that we haven’t exactly been friends?’ she pointed out drily. ‘Nor are we likely to be while you hold the opinion of me that you do.’
‘You could always try to convince me differently,’ he suggested with a rueful smile.
‘Huh!’ She flicked a stray curl back over her shoulder. ‘I’d have more luck convincing the Greenpeace movement to take up whaling.’
He laughed, and this time genuinely amused lights glittered in his eyes. Salome suddenly realised that their bantering was not malicious any longer. She was, in fact, quite enjoying the flow of dry wit between them. It surprised her.
‘Come on, Salome. Stop frowning and say yes. I’ve only asked you out to dinner, not to marry me!’
There was a caustic flavour in this last statement that caused Salome to flare. ‘Thank goodness for small mercies!’
He glared at her for a few seconds, his whole body tensing noticeably. But then he visibly relaxed, a ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. ‘Tut-tut, you do have a temper, don’t you?’ He reached out and put a firm grasp on her elbow, and began leading her inexorably towards the door. ‘Next thing you know you’ll be changing your mind about going out to dinner with me.’
She ground to a halt, exasperation written all over her face. ‘Might I remind you I haven’t said yes yet?’
‘Haven’t you? I could have sworn you had.’
Though obviously put on, his air of bewildered confusion had a certain charm, and Salome found herself smiling. ‘Do you ever take no for an answer?’
A slow smile came to his mouth. ‘Not often.’
‘Perhaps I should refresh your memory on what it’s like to be turned down,’ she challenged.
His smile turned faintly sardonic. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘I’m surprised. I would have said a man such as you would have an impeccable track-record with the ladies.’
He shrugged. ‘You can’t win them all, I suppose.’
Salome thought she caught an edge of pain in those words, and she remembered her previous impression that Mike could well be suffering from a broken heart. Unexpectedly, it touched her. She didn’t like to think of anyone having to suffer what she’d been suffering.
This line of thought also made her realise he might be thinking the same about her, and that this invitation to dinner could very well be a true gesture of kindness. Yet here she was, being difficult and stroppy about it. She resolved to give in graciously and be done with it.
‘Very well,’ she said with a resigned smile. ‘I’ll come. Just this once.’
He seemed pleased. ‘Great. What time will I come along and pick you up?’
It suddenly dawned on her that he thought she’d moved into the penthouse, so she launched into the explanation that she didn’t intend living in the penthouse but would probably sell it, and that she lived with her mother in a neat, three-bedroom brick cottage in the suburb of Killara.
Now he didn’t seem so pleased, a dark frown drawing his black brows together. Salome deduced somewhat caustically that his Christian charity in asking her out clearly didn’t extend to a twenty-minute drive both ways through busy, city-bound traffic.
‘If it’s too much trouble...’ she began.
‘No, no—no trouble.’ But the frown had not entirely disappeared. ‘Just give me the address and a time to be there. By the way, do you have any preference where we eat?’
‘Not Angellini’s,’ she said instinctively.
‘Certainly not.’ His tone was even sharper than hers, and she actually winced. It was peculiar enough going out with a man who had once despised her, and maybe still did! She certainly didn’t want to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak.
A thought struck her, though, that hadn’t occurred to her before. ‘Don’t you have to act as host at your restaurant tonight?’ she asked. He’d always been there, if her memory served her correctly.
‘Not on a Thursday.’
‘Oh...’ Her eyes dropped, her heart regretful all of a sudden that she had agreed to go out with him. He was a link with her past, with Ralph, a past she now wanted to forget. Her ex-husband must be some sort of monster, to deceive her as he had done. She actually cringed as she thought of how she had allowed him to dictate every facet of her life. God, she’d been the original puppet on a string, the perfect piece of clay to mould as he willed. And all the while he’d been making a fool of her, having lovers behind her back while she fulfilled the role he’d chosen for her—that of a decorative hostess with no more say in their life than one of the original paintings he hung on his wall.
Salome shook her head as she vowed never to surrender herself to a man’s will like that again. If she ever remarried it would be to a man who would be her partner, not her master—an equal in every way.
Her eyes lifted to see a ruthless black gaze peering down at her, the gaze of a man whom she suspected would be no more husband material for a woman than Ralph, obviously, had been. For a moment she felt oddly disconcerted, but quickly dismissed the unwarranted reaction. This swinging bachelor’s personal life was no concern of hers. ‘Well, Mike?’ she said. ‘Have you got a pencil and paper, or an excellent memory?’
CHAPTER THREE
SALOME’S mother came into her bedroom as the former was putting the final touches on her make-up, and gave the large suitcase sitting beside the door a disgruntled look. ‘Just because I asked Wayne to move in,’ she flung at her daughter in a petulant tone, ‘doesn’t mean you have to move out. I thought you were happy enough living here with me.’
Salome counted to ten, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to keep the angry frustration out of her voice if she answered straight away. When she’d come home and found her mother had asked her latest boyfriend to share not only her bed but the whole house, Salome had seen red. It wasn’t that Wayne was a bad sort. He was probably the best type of man Molly had ever been out with.
But Salome couldn’t bear to stay around and witness her mother make the same old mistakes with yet another man. So she had drastically revised her plans, telling her mother some white lies about the unit and car, saying she had decided to keep them both and live in the unit.
Actually, this was not entirely untruthful. Given her new situation, Salome could see that to leave herself destitute was insane. It was all very well to be high-principled, but she could see, finally, that she had gone too far in giving away all of Ralph’s settlement. Her marriage to him, after all, had cost her four years’ wages. So she’d decided to take the equivalent sum from the money the sale of the unit brought, and buy herself a modest unit somewhere. The same applied to the Ferrari. When she’d met Ralph she had owned an old run-about, which he’d disposed of, so she believed she was justified in using some of the money from its sale to purchase a modest vehicle.
All these plans, however, she kept to herself. It was far easier to let her mother think she was keeping the lot. Less argument. Less hassle.
Molly had been astonished though delighted with what she called her daughter’s finally coming to her senses about keeping something from that ‘old coot!’ Not so delighted, however, about her moving out, for they had become very close over the last year, all their old differences seemingly having been resolved.
Till now.
‘Please, Molly,’ she said calmly. ‘Let’s not argue about it. I’m not exactly moving interstate. I’m only a twenty-minute drive down the highway, and I’ll visit often.’
‘Oh, I get the picture. Wayne’s just an excuse. It’s this Mike Angellini you’re going to dinner with, the one whose unit is next to the one Ralph gave you. You’ve set your sights on him, haven’t you?’
That was so ridiculous that Salome almost laughed.
‘Not at all,’ was her rueful reply as she picked up the bronze lip-gloss. ‘I told you. Mike’s an old acquaintance. I’ve known him for years. You don’t honestly think that after what I’ve been through with Ralph I’d leap into another involvement this quickly, do you?’
‘Who knows what you’d do?’ her mother said archly. ‘Any girl who could marry a man thirty years older than herself could do anything!’
Salome counted to ten again. ‘Not all women like younger men,’ she said with creditable control.
‘Younger men are more fun,’ Molly stated pompously. Then grinned.
Salome shook her head in fond exasperation and began putting more pins in her up-swept hairstyle. Her mother’s behaviour with men frustrated the life out of her, but it was impossible to dislike the woman. Or not feel sympathy for the events that had shaped her life. An abandoned child, and the product of various state institutions, Molly was a teenage runaway, pregnant by the time she was fifteen, Salome’s father an Irish sailor who’d been in Sydney for a week on shore leave and had never returned.
Molly had always claimed to have loved him. But then, Molly claimed to love all her boyfriends, even creepy Graham, who’d been twenty-three to her thirty-three, and spent more time chasing the eighteen-year-old daughter than the mother.
Salome glanced in the mirror at Molly, who was still very attractive at thirty-eight and not as rough in speech and manner as she used to be, and wished with all her heart that this time she’d found the right man, the one who would marry her.
‘How old is this old friend of yours?’ Molly asked, dropping down on the end of the single bed. ‘Not as old as Ralph, I hope?’
‘Early thirties.’ Salome stood back from the dressing-table mirror, and made a final survey of her appearance. The forest-green woollen suit, with its softly pleated skirt and fitted single-breasted jacket, suited her tall, shapely figure to perfection. And the ivory silk blouse with the tie at her neck looked suitably demure.
There would be no cleavage tonight, Salome had decided. No way did she want to spend the evening having Mike Angellini either glaring reproachfully at her breasts, or assuming from her mode of dress that he might be on to a good thing.
That was one of the reasons, too, why she had put her hair up, being aware that some men found long, loose hair sexually provocative. Maybe she was being overly careful, but she had a feeling that the evening could be spoiled if she gave Mike the wrong impression. As she’d found out to her chagrin that morning in Charles’s office, a man’s desire had little to do with admiration of a woman’s real personality. All a female had to have was a pretty face and a nice figure to interest a male on that level.
‘Is he handsome?’ Molly kept on.
‘Very.’
‘Not married, is he?’ Her mother’s voice carried suspicion.
‘No,’ Salome laughed. ‘For pity’s sake, quit the third degree, will you? You’ll make me nervous soon. Look, I can’t even get my earrings in now!’
Actually, underneath her composed façde, Salome was beginning to feel a bit nervous. Odd, really. Over the years as Ralph’s wife she had dined with princes and sheikhs, gone to the races with royalty, sailed with tycoons, and partied with movie stars. Why, then, should she be worried about a simple dinner for two?
Perhaps it wasn’t the dinner itself she was nervous about, but what Mike would think when he arrived and she told him she had decided to move into the penthouse after all. In fact, was moving in tonight! She could hardly explain the real reason without embarrassment. Nor could she, in front of Molly, reveal that it was only a temporary arrangement, till the unit was sold.
Hopefully he wouldn’t take her abrupt change of mind as meaning she was interested in him, as Molly had suggested. She had a suspicion that he wouldn’t need much encouragement to try to change their platonic date into a less platonic one.
Another disturbing thought popped into her mind. Perhaps he didn’t need any encouragement. Perhaps a man as handsome and eligible as Mike expected his dates to end the evening in bed with him. She hadn’t thought of that.
Salome had no idea what men expected on a date these days. She’d had to put up with a lot of groping as a teenager, and even then boys had expected a girl to come across pretty quickly. She’d had many a wrestle in the back of a car during her dating years, but only once had she given in—the summer she’d turned seventeen. And of course she had thought she was in love. The man in question had been older than her usual dates. At twenty-four, he’d not been prepared to take no for an answer.
But sex had not been the earth-shaking experience Salome had been expecting. Physically she’d felt nothing after the initial stab of pain. It had been a non-event. Things hadn’t improved either, on subsequent occasions, and her boyfriend had quickly dumped her, saying she was abnormal. Salome had been very upset at the time, the only consolation to her lack of pleasure in sex being that she didn’t have to fear she might turn out to be as promiscuous as her mother.
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Miranda Lee
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: A Neighborly Affair?Salome was still reeling from the heartbreak and anger of the sudden ending of her marriage. She hadn′t accepted anything from her former husband except an apartment that had become her only refuge. Until neighbor Mike Angellini – if you could call an enemy a neighbor – threatened to invade her peace.The man meant trouble! He′d only asked her out to dinner, but the wealthy Sydney restauranteur had always had an aggravating effect on Salome. She couldn′t stand his attitude – he still assumed she was a gold digger. And now he made her wonder if she′d ever really been in love… .