Maybe Max saw her dilemma, remembered the time she’d flung first and thought later, because without warning he began to laugh.
For a moment Louise couldn’t decide whether she was outraged or wanted to join him, but while she was thinking about it her mouth took off on its own and a hiccup of laughter escaped before she could slap a hand over her mouth to keep it in.
‘Just remember that I’m not some wet-behind-the-ears sous chef you can order around,’ she finally managed.
‘No?’
Without warning Max was not laughing, but reaching out for her, pulling her close, wrapping his arms around her, enfolding her in his warmth. Not taking his eyes off her as the heat of his athletic body began to seep into her bones.
‘No…’
‘I won’t forget,’ he said, mistaking her intuitive denial of her body’s response to him for agreement. Then, his voice soft as velvet tearing, echoed her own thought. ‘You have my word…’
‘Lou!’ The front door slammed shut, making her jump. ‘Lou, are you up?’
Cal?
Oh, hell, Cal!
‘Time to wake up and smell the sausages, gorgeous!’
She’d known, at the back of her mind, that there was something. If Max had just given her a moment to wake up, properly, five seconds to think straight instead of stunning her brain cells with an overload of pheromones…
It was hard to say who moved first, only that Max was no longer holding her, that somehow she was by the kitchen door, putting as much distance as she could between the two of them before her unwelcome visitor burst in with all the unrestrained enthusiasm of a Labrador pup.
She didn’t even know why. They weren’t doing anything wrong…
‘Damn, Lou,’ Cal said, his back to Max as he tossed the keys on the counter, dumped a bag of groceries alongside them without ever taking his eyes off her. ‘You looked like sex on a stick last night, but given the choice I’d take you rumpled every time.’
She tried to speak. Make it clear that he would never be given the choice. All that emerged was a croak.
‘Shocked into silence by the fact that I’ve been shopping, eh?’ he said, with a grin. ‘Needs must,’ he said, ‘and, let’s face it, you didn’t have anything in your fridge that a real bloke could eat for breakfast.’
‘I wasn’t expecting any kind of bloke,’ she finally managed, looking anywhere but at Max, knowing what he must be thinking would be written all over his face. And who could blame him? She was the one who’d let him think that she and Cal were more than…than they were. ‘Real or otherwise,’ she added, helplessly.
‘I know, but as always the welcome was as warm as the bed. In fact, my scrumptious, why don’t you toddle off back there while I cook you up a CJ special…?’
Max didn’t exactly clear his throat. It was more a low growl, alerting Cal to the fact that she was not alone.
He turned, glanced at Max, then at her, and with a careless shrug said, ‘Or maybe not.’ He turned back to the shopping, began to unpack it. ‘No problem. Plenty for three…’
‘Thanks for the offer, but I don’t do threesomes,’ Max replied and, with a nod in her direction, ‘You should have told me you had other plans.’
‘Max…’ she protested. Too late. He wasn’t listening. For an answer. An explanation. For anything.
‘I’ll see you on Monday morning, Louise. Check-in is at six-fifteen. I’ll pick you up at five-thirty.’ And with that he walked out of the kitchen, without so much as a glance at either of them, closing the front door very quietly behind him as he left.
She remembered that quiet anger.
It was nothing like the flashpoint moments when he’d shouted at her, she’d shouted back; up and down and over in a moment. Well, until that last time, anyway. But that white-lipped quiet when he was too angry to speak, that was something else. She’d seen it when his father’s last marriage had broken up, when his brother Jack had given up trying to please their father and walked out of the family home, the business, the country. Losing Jack had been another huge blow for him. The two of them had been so close, but when he’d left Jack had cut himself off from everyone…
Did he think that was happening again? That history was repeating itself with her? Understanding began to filter through the layers of her sleep-fogged brain…
‘He seemed a little tense,’ Cal said, distracting her.
‘He’s got a lot on his mind.’
‘Oh, right. Just as long as I didn’t ruin a special moment.’
She glared at him. Then, because it wasn’t his fault, but hers, she said, ‘No, Cal. You’re all right. Max just wanted to talk about work.’
‘On a Saturday?’ He grinned. ‘Bit keen, isn’t he?’
‘Keen?’ As she laughed she remembered laughing with Max. How good it had felt. ‘Describing Max as “keen” about the business is like suggesting Rip van Winkle took a nap.’
‘He needs to relax. Take things easy.’ Then, ‘So…Breakfast?’ He reached up and unhooked a frying-pan from the overhead rack.
How ironic that Cal, a man normally so idle that he looked pained if he had to pull the ring on his own beer can, had today of all days decided to do something to justify his keep.
On second thoughts it was far more likely that hunger had driven him to action. That and genuine fear that if he’d woken her, she’d leave him sitting on the pavement next time he turned up unannounced; that he’d have to find a hotel and actually pay for accommodation.
In fact, now she actually looked at him, she realised that his offer of breakfast in bed had been all talk. Far from leaping into action, he was holding the frying-pan in the helpless manner of a man who was making a gesture, assuming that like any sensible woman she’d quickly relieve him of the burden; anything rather than let him loose in her immaculate kitchen.
‘Not right now, thanks, Cal,’ she said. ‘But you go right ahead.’
She ignored his crestfallen expression and instead helped herself from the carton of orange juice he’d so thoughtfully provided. She carried it through to the living room and, in an effort to wipe out the memory of Max’s expression as he’d walked out, put one of the Beach Street DVDs that Jodie had sent her into the machine. Then she broke open a packet of Tim Tams-if ever a moment called for chocolate-and told herself that she’d go after him later. He’d be easy to find. He’d be in his office, or one of the restaurants. Funnelling his anger, converting it into action, making it work for Bella Lucia.
Not that he had any reason to be angry. She had the sole right to anger in this scenario. How could he think her so shallow, so easy?
She’d never bed-hopped. Had discovered the very first time that it was not the way to drive him from her mind. On the contrary. It had only made the longing more desperate. As the chocolate hit her anger began to melt into something dangerously close to regret and, without warning, tears threatened.
‘Are you sure I can’t fix you a fried-egg sandwich?’ Cal called from the kitchen, hopefully. Or was that desperation in his voice?
‘I’ll pass,’ she assured him, then, as the familiar theme tune swept her back to the warmth of Melbourne, instead of letting go and indulging herself, she found herself wondering why, when Cal was a freeloading pain in the backside without a scruple to his name, she wasn’t ever tempted to decorate him with the contents of her egg basket.
Actually, it didn’t take a genius to come up with the answer; she wasn’t roused to fury by Cal for the simple reason that nothing he did actually mattered to her.
CHAPTER SIX
