turn had forced her mind to function. Where? She had no idea. But the habit of luxury, fifteen years ingrained, came to the fore.
'Take me somewhere comfortable. Secluded.'
The drivers choice turned out to be a private resort. The main hotel complex was huge and almost hedonistic in its appointments. Her bedroom was all soft whites with drifting voile curtains and a canopy over the bed — the bathroom, a dazzling combination of marble and gold. She purchased the clothes she needed from a boutique in the foyer downstairs, and discovered everything else she needed could be provided by room service.
Her days became a routine of breakfast, lunch and dinner in the downstairs Restaurant. Between meals she spent her time exercising in the gym, swimming in the Hotel pool or lying on her bed. Occasionally she'd sit on the balcony, but she preferred the privacy of her room.
One day she'd have to return 'the real world'. She knew that. But the knowledge was a fuzzy thing, hidden behind the other things she couldn't look at yet. She was marking time. One day blended into another and each day Billy's face faded a little more in her memory, as did the horror of that blood and the split-second of soul-destroying guilt she'd experienced before her automatic defences had shut it down.
Isolated from everyone she knew and any help she might have received, a lesser person might have cracked, or at least sought counselling, but Dee was a survivor. She'd learned long ago to rely on herself, and an inner knowing told her that even this wound would heal, given enough time. And solitude.
So she kept to herself, avoiding other guests and discouraging conversations with the staff who came to respect her need for privacy, leaving her free to dwell on her own thoughts.
Mostly they were about James, strangely enough. She found herself missing the intellectual conversations they used to have, the quiet camaraderie she'd 'deliberately and wantonly destroyed'.
What a pompous old fool he'd been in the end. So intent on saving face. At the time she'd been too shell- shocked to care, but as she slowly thawed, she couldn't help thinking about it. In those long afternoons lying on her bed, she wondered whether he'd really ever loved her. Or whether his 'successful' marriage to a 'successful' Astronomer had been nothing more than window-dressing on his already 'successful' life.
And did it make a difference, she'd asked herself one night as she'd lain in the darkness of her room trying to find sleep. Did it matter whether he'd loved her or not? If she'd felt loved at the time, surely that was the important thing, the belief of love. Better that than to have someone profess love and offer no show of it. At least James had acted as though he loved her, even if his motives in marrying her had been avaricious. It all came down to whether you wanted truth or happiness, she supposed.
In her experience, the two were mutually exclusive.
She'd rolled around for another half hour, feeling something just below the surface, some emotion struggling to come up. Something about James.
Then a memory-feeling came to her. The trip home that night. She remembered how James had laid a plastic sheet over her seat to keep the blood off it. And the nurse — an anonymous stranger he'd arranged to strip and bathe her — ostensibly to care for her, but what if he'd simply not wanted to touch her.
And touch — comfort, had been exactly what she'd needed. Despite her 'betrayal', she'd just been exposed to the sort of horrific scene that gave hardened policemen nightmares. She'd needed physical comforting and sympathy, yet all James had been able to do was worry about what his colleagues would think.
A abrupt violent anger towards him surged up inside her, and without thinking she dived out of bed and wrenched open the French doors, her fingers gripping the door handles tensely as the humid night air drifted over her nakedness.
She had to cool down.
But she wanted to throw things and scream and ring James and tell him what a bastard he was. Instead, she forced herself to stillness, her eyes clamped tightly shut.
That was the old life, and she had to let it go. It wasn't real anymore. But her anger was real, and it raged through her body as she stood tensely in that open doorway, unaware that an even more destructive anger boiled deep within her. A vicious anger directed solely at Billy.
It would take another young man to release it.
Chapter Eight
He was in the Restaurant every night, watching her, careful not to draw attention to himself. But Dee knew what was happening.
On her first day she'd requested a secluded corner table, a place where she could enjoy her meals away from prying eyes, and it had become her own. But this man, this… Roc, had invaded her privacy with his bold eyes and stirred up feelings she felt unready for. Who was he? Each evening he dined with a different companion. All women. Some young, some quite old — elegantly groomed or bordering on punk, dark-skinned, light, Asian. No pattern. That bothered her. That, and the fact that no-matter who he was with, whom he lavished his attention on, he always managed the odd moment to scorch Dee with his broodingly exotic eyes, and always in the moment she found her own eyes drawn to him.
Eventually she'd been curious enough to ask a waiter and hadn't been surprised to discover he was a Gigolo, a male prostitute. What had surprised her was that he'd been allowed to work out of such a stylish hotel. But as the waiter had so pragmatically pointed out, the addition of his 'service' had been in response to a perceived customer demand. There were many lonely women passing through their establishment. And after all, 'customer service' was the industry byword.
Whatever the justification, the distraction had come at a good time. She'd become bored with her solitary meals, and so in lieu of company, which she didn't want, she'd invented a game. Each night, she'd try and guess the age, roughly of the woman he would be escorting. If she was close she'd reward herself with permission to return his bold gaze. If not, she'd ignore him.
It proved entertaining, even titillating, until the night he didn't arrive. She waited, drawing out her after- dinner coffee and then ordering another, amazed by her acute disappointment. Obviously she'd become attached to the game. But not enough to ask the helpful waiter where Roc might be.
Finally, at eleven o'clock she left the restaurant, filled with an aloneness that was nothing like the comfortable solitude she'd been enjoying. This was an emotional emptiness she knew would keep her awake for hours.
In the foyer, she stared disconsolately out at the tropical gardens. Fairy-lit and misted with a light, humid rain it was a captured portion of paradise and for the first time since she'd arrived she wondered if Cairns had been a bad choice. Even in the artificial environment of the Resort there was enough raw beauty around her to make her ache with loss. Flowers literally blossomed before her eyes and the air pulsed with the fragrance of life. Birth, death, the cycle was too fast. It crowded in on her. Somewhere colder and more remote might have been better.
Behind her the elevator doors opened and she shelved her thoughts. The elevator operator in his smart hotel uniform was waiting patiently.
She nodded to him, and stepped inside — they all knew her floor — then was caught by her reflection in the mirrored back wall. The contrast between her plain white cocktail dress and the ornate uniform behind her was stark and she was touching her throat, wondering if she should have bought a necklace to wear with the dress when she saw Roc step in behind her.
The doors shut.
In the mirror, his reflected image returned her stare, but his eyes were appraising and showed none of her surprise. He leant against the side wall as the elevator began its ascent and she had the peculiar sensation that her stomach had been left behind.
'I see you watching me. In the Restaurant,' he said, his accent as exotic as his burnished eyes. The liquid- black hair that was usually tied back, swam loosely around his exquisitely suited shoulders. Wide shoulders. Up close, he looked about twenty-five.
She could feel nervous tension creating a fist in her stomach, but for some reason she smiled at his reflection. 'I suppose I was curious to know why you were watching me.'
