seemed to waver over the page.
'Here's your copy,' said Mal as they left. 'You'd better keep it safe.'
The day seemed hot and very bright after the air-conditioned cool of the office building, and Copper was glad of the excuse to hide her eyes with sunglasses. 'Can you keep mine until after the wedding?' she asked, rejoicing at the coolness in her voice. 'I don't want Mum or Dad finding it by mistake and knowing just what price I'm paying for our business to succeed.'
'If that's what you want.' Mal's face closed and he tucked the two contracts into his top pocket. 'Well, shall we go and have some lunch, since that's what we're supposed to be doing?'
They walked in strained silence down to the Torrens and along to a restaurant that overlooked the river, its tables shaded beneath a vine-covered pergola. Mal had changed at the hotel, and now, in light moleskin trousers and a pale blue washed cotton shirt, he looked casual and stylish and somehow unfamiliar. Copper had expected him to look out of place in the city, and it was oddly disconcerting to find him instead as at home in this cosmopolitan setting as he was riding Red under the huge outback sky.
Mal took the contracts out of his pocket and laid them on the table between them, where they lay taunting Copper in their pristine white envelopes. She tried not to look at them and fiddled with her fork as Mal dealt with the waiters, only lifting her head in surprise when he closed the wine list and coolly ordered a bottle of the best champagne.
'We are getting married the day after tomorrow,' he explained, in answer to her unspoken question.
'I know, but…well, we don't need to pretend when we're on our own, do we?' said Copper with some difficulty.
'No, but your parents might well ask you about your lunch, and I think they would expect us to have champagne, don't you?'
'I don't think they need any more convincing,' she said, concentrating on crumbling a roll between her fingers. 'Mum thought it was a bit sudden at first, but it helped that Dad had already met you, and he didn't seem to think there was anything odd about it at all. And they've both loved having Megan, so they feel as if you're part of the family already.' There were crumbs all over the tablecloth by now, and she brushed them into a careful pile. 'I don't think it's even occurred to them that we're not exactly what we're pretending to be.'
'Brett's the same,' said Mal. 'He's accepted the whole idea without question.'
Copper smiled painfully. 'We must be better actors than we think we are.'
There was a tiny pause. Was Mal remembering that kiss at the airport this morning? Or was he thinking of the contract, with its brisk specification that they should both behave in an appropriate manner whenever they were with other people?
'I suppose we must be,' he said at last.
The wine waiter was hovering, opening the champagne with a flourish. Copper could see the other diners smiling at the scene, obviously thinking that they were lovers, and she wanted to stand up and shout at them that it wasn't true, Mal didn't love her, it was all just for show and it meant nothing, nothing!
But she couldn't do that. She watched the bubbles fizzing in her glass and reminded herself about the successful business she would run and how happy her father was to know that his beloved project was going ahead. Her mind skittered to Mal, to the warmth of his mouth and the hardness of his hands, before she forced it back to the agreement they had made.
'Well…' She smiled bravely and lifted her glass. 'To our deal!'
Mal hesitated a moment, then touched his glass to hers. 'To our deal,' he said evenly.
There was a jarring silence as their eyes met and held, and then Copper managed to look away. She put her glass down on the white tablecloth rather unsteadily and tried desperately to think of something to say, but all she wanted to do was to snatch up those contracts lying there so mockingly and tear them into tiny pieces.
It was Mal who spoke first, anyway. 'So,' he said, 'how's it been going?'
'Not too badly.' Copper seized on the subject. Anything was better than that awful, jangling silence. 'I'm afraid the wedding's going to be bigger than we wanted, though. My mother's spent the last twenty-seven years looking forward to my wedding, and she's not going to be done out of it now.' She sighed. 'I kept telling her that we both wanted the ceremony to be simple, with just a quiet party afterwards, but every time I turn round she's invited someone else and the celebrations are getting more and more elaborate.'
'I'd have thought all the organisation would have ap-pealed to someone with your business instincts,' said Mal indifferently. Nobody would guess that they were discussing his own wedding, Copper thought with a flash of resentment.
She turned the stem of her glass between her fingers. A couple were strolling along the riverbank opposite, hand in hand, absorbed in each other. Copper watched them with wistful green eyes. It had been a difficult two weeks. The strain of trying to keep her mother's plans under control had been bad enough, but far worse had been the effort of acting the part of the happiest girl in the world the whole time.
'I wouldn't have minded if it had been for a real wedding,' she said. 'But all the pretence gets tiring after a while, and it seems stupid to go to so much effort when you and I know the whole thing's just a charade.'
Mal's eyes were shuttered, expressionless. 'It'll soon be over,' was all he said.
'It won't be over for another three years,' said Copper bleakly, and he put down his glass.
'Are you trying to tell me that you're having second thoughts?'
She looked deliberately down at the contracts. 'It's too late for that now, isn't it? We've signed on the dotted line.'
'We're not married yet,' Mal pointed out impassively. 'It's not too late for you to change your mind.'
'And find somewhere else to set up the project? No.' Copper shook her head, avoiding his eye. How could she change her mind now, when her father was better, when Megan was thrilled at the prospect of being a bridesmaid? When cancelling the wedding would mean saying goodbye to Mal and never seeing Birraminda again? She smoothed the cloth over the table. 'No, don't take any notice of me. I'm just…'
'Nervous?' he suggested.
'Nervous?' she tried to scoff. 'Of course I'm not nervous!' She picked up her glass and made to drain it, only to discover that it was empty. Feeling foolish, she set it back on the table and tried to meet Mal's gaze confidently, but her defiance collapsed at one look from those shrewd brown eyes. 'Oh, all right, I am nervous!' she admitted crossly. 'If you must know, I'm absolutely terrified!'
'About the wedding?'
'About everything! We hardly know each other and yet in two days' time we're going to be married.' She flicked the white envelopes with her hand. 'It's all very well to talk about contracts, but a piece of paper isn't going to help us live together, is it?'
'At least you know what to expect out of the marriage,' said Mal, watching her over the rim of his glass.
'I know which jobs you'll expect me to do every day, yes, but I don't know how we're going to get on, or whether I'll be able to cope living in the outback, or what it will be like suddenly becoming mother to a four-year- old… or anything!' Copper finished despairingly.
'You've been living in the outback with Megan for nearly two months,' said Mal reasonably. 'And as for us getting on…well, we've got on in the past and I don't see any reason why we shouldn't do the same again- particularly as neither of us has any illusions about the other or any false expectations about what the other one really wants. And if it's a disaster at least you'll know that you're not trapped and that your life isn't going to change for ever. When three years is up, you'll have established your new business. You'll be able to come home to Adelaide, sit back and reap the benefits, and simply carry on as you were before.'
Copper tried to imagine walking away from Birraminda, from Megan, from Mal, and trying to pretend that they had never existed. She couldn't do it now. How would she be able to do it in three years' time? 'Somehow I don't think things will be the same,' she said sadly.
The first course arrived just then, immaculately presented on huge white plates, and as if at a signal the tension was broken. For the rest of the meal they kept the conversation carefully impersonal, and Copper was even able to relax slightly as she listened to the news from Birraminda and told Mal in her turn how excited Megan had been with everything she had seen and done.
It was only when they were drinking coffee that Mal brought the conversation back to their marriage. 'By the way,' he said casually, 'I've booked a hotel in the hills for Saturday night.'
Copper put her cup down into its saucer and looked at him blankly. 'What for?'
