Our Kind of Love (36 page)

Joe was distracted for a moment by how beautiful this woman was. ‘What story?’

Anna grabbed his hand and pulled him behind her into her office. She slammed the door behind her, stomped to her chair, typed something, fast and furious, her fingernails clicking on the keys.

To Joe’s relief, she was directing all her energy at the keyboard while she mumbled in Italian. He stood behind her, trying to focus on the monitor but all he could smell was her perfume and his lips were so close to her hair he wanted to kiss its silky softness.

He’s stayed away. It was what she’d wanted and he was man enough to respect her choices. That didn’t mean he liked it. In the months since he’d last seen Anna, he’d tried to forget. Tried to get past it. It had all been useless.

Nothing had changed for him. He still wanted her.

‘Look,’ she demanded and jabbed the screen.

Joe forced himself to concentrate on the words. He dragged his eyes away from her hair, her neck and down past her breasts onto her thighs, to the screen.

‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘Someone’s really got it in for me.’

‘How the hell do they get away with saying that about you? That is shocking.’

Joe leaned over Anna’s shoulder and moved the mouse so he could check the banner and the by-line. That simple piece of information gave him the whole back-story. He knew the gossip columnist and suddenly wasn’t surprised about the tone of the article. He stood, and slipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers. If he didn’t find something else to do with them, they’d be all over Anna in a hot second.

‘I know that piece of slime. He works for the opposition. Well, what used to be the opposition when I had a job. I’m a victim of Sydney’s newspaper circulation war, Anna, nothing more.’

She spun around in her chair and met his gaze, her eyes fiery and her cheeks flushed. Her full, red lips taunted him and when she swore in Italian, man, he almost lost control. He took a step back instead and bumped into the examination table.

‘I can’t believe you’re so calm about it. You should sue them for printing that bullshit about you. Don’t you care about people everywhere reading that stuff and thinking it’s true? Thinking you’re that person?’

Joe watched her for a moment, trying to decipher what her passionate defence of him meant. He leaned back on the examination table, crossing his arms. He shrugged.

‘I don’t care what people think, remember? And I know their tactics. They write stories like that in such a way that it’s kind of factual, weaving in facts with innuendo and bullshit to create a picture that feels true but is mostly a lie.’

‘Mostly?’

‘Yes.’

Anna found her necklace and twisted it in her fingers. ‘So you weren’t over in Sydney looking for a job?’

‘No.’ He let the words out on a deep breath.

The fury seemed to leave Anna’s face in a blink. ‘Oh.’

‘Is this really why you called me? Because you saw that story?’

‘Well,’ Anna averted her eyes. ‘Yes, obviously. I was so angry I had to talk to you about it.’

‘Why you were reading the gossip pages from that Sydney rag?’

‘I was …’ and she stopped, met his eyes and didn’t need to say any more.

‘So, you were googling me. Again.’

‘No. Yes.’ Anna threw her hands into the air. ‘Okay, I was googling you. Just because it didn’t work out between us, it doesn’t mean that I can’t care about you.’

Joe moved to her side, sat on the edge of the desk. ‘It’s kind of nice that you think I have some honour worth defending, Dr Morelli.’

‘I’m allowed to care what people say about you. That’s what friends are for.’

‘Friends.’

‘Yes.’ She really was giving that necklace a work over. ‘So, none of it was true?’

‘I was up in Sydney last weekend but I wasn’t looking for a new job. I was up there getting the last of my stuff packed. The house is on the market and I had to go and get what’s mine. I didn’t bring a whole lot with me when I drove off last year. I was travelling light.’

Anna paused. ‘So that line about you trying to get your wife back. That’s made up too?’

‘Total and utter bullshit.’ They sat in silence.

‘Anna, listen. I don’t care about what they say about me. I don’t want to go back to Sydney and I don’t want my wife back. I don’t care if they say I was sacked – that’s true. But I’m really glad you were angry enough to call me.’

‘Does all this mean you’re staying in Adelaide?’

‘Check out my suit. I’ve been up in the city today meeting a few people.’

‘Any luck with that?’

‘I’m waiting to hear.’

‘Good luck.’

‘Thanks,’ Joe said.

Words escaped both of them. Joe couldn’t drag his eyes from Anna’s, those dark caramel pools drawing him in like he was a fish on a hook. He didn’t want to walk out of there. And when she started to say something but stopped, her full lips parted and frozen on a breath, he just went for it.

In two steps he was next to her. He reached down for her hands and pulled her to standing. And she came to him willingly. There was no resistance and his hands were on her cheeks, guiding her lips to his.

Anna felt like she might hyperventilate and the only thing that would help her breathe again was to give in to what she felt, to be in his arms and give in to this kiss and this man. His lips were on hers, soft, urging, a question there, not a demand. The move almost undid her. It took Anna everything she had not to kiss him back. She wanted to, so much. She wanted to melt into him, wanted the physical release of surrendering to him and her need for him. Her problem was that she knew exactly what she was missing. And could now never have. She turned her face away, and his hands lingered on her cheeks for a moment, before dropping to encircle her waist.

‘Joe, we can’t.’ She held her hands in fists at her side, not trusting herself to unclench them. She wanted so much to feel him, slide them under the smooth charcoal wool of his suit, and press them against the cotton shirt, cool and crisp against his muscular body. She clenched her eyes closed to drive those thoughts away.

‘Anna.’ Joe pulled her closer.

‘Joe, please.’

‘I want you, Anna.’

Anna gasped as his hands were on her breasts, cupping them through her shirt, his thumbs teasing her nipples into hard peaks.

‘This,’ she sighed, ‘the way you make me feel? It’s just instinct. Pure physiological reaction and hormones. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Stop talking like a doctor. How does it feel here?’ Joe pressed a palm to the left side of her chest.

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Anna, this is killing me.’ He pressed his lips to her neck.

‘It’s got to be this way.’

‘Why?’ he murmured.

‘Because it does.’ Anna’s knees almost buckled.

‘That’s the only reason you can give me?’

‘You know why, Joe. I want what I want. We’re not teenagers anymore. We have to be adult enough to accept that we can’t always get what we want.’

‘I know what I want, Anna. I want you. Every minute of every day. I go to bed and dream about fucking you.’

‘Joe, don’t …’

‘And when I’m not dreaming about you, I’m thinking about fighting with you and laughing with you.’

Anna sighed and a hot tingling exploded low in her belly, her muscles clenching in anticipation. He reacted too, pressing against her, his intentions hard and clear. Joe’s lips were hot on her cheek, and his hands roamed her body now, moving from her breasts to her ribs, finding her arms and the tips of her fingers. He pulled one of her hands between them, onto the throb of his erection.

When his lips found hers, this time, Anna returned his kiss with full force, every part of her in the movement of her lips on his and in the way her tongue found his. He lifted her, carried her as he stumbled to the examination table on the far wall, and sat her on it. Her legs wrapped around him, and as they plundered each other’s mouths, Joe’s hand tugged at her skirt, pushing the fabric up her thighs. Anna pushed his suit jacket off his shoulders and it crumpled on to the floor. Then his belt was undone and his trousers unzipped, and Anna found him, hard and big in her fist. He tugged her stockings and knickers down her legs and flicked them to the floor, free now to take her as he’d been desperate to do for so long. Anna’s fingers gripped his hips and he plunged, filling her, her legs around him as she threw her head back and held her breath.

‘Joe … Joe …’ Anna whispered. She tightened her legs around him, willing him in deeper and stronger. His breathing quickened and his eyes closed in surrender.

‘Anna,’ he murmured into her neck as he held on to her with strong arms and a pounding heart.

Anna threw her arms around his neck and cried.

CHAPTER
43

The rest of winter was long. Anna worked harder than she ever had. It had been particularly cold and wet, and it seemed like a never-ending cavalcade of patients arrived at the surgery every day, afflicted with colds and flu and, for the more serious cases, pneumonia and worse. Grace had gone down for a week with a bad cold herself, so Anna had ordered her home to her bed. Their parents had arrived a millisecond later with food and fussed over her, which sent Grace a little wild.

The whole Morelli family had been very worried about Grace, especially since Nonna’s next door neighbour, Señora Farina, someone Anna had known since she was a baby, had caught the flu and with her weakened health from a variety of complaints, she couldn’t cope with the illness. When she’d died, Nonna seemed to take it harder than everyone. They’d been widows together and best friends since they’d arrived in Australia.

Once Grace recovered, the rest of Morelli family had turned their attentions to Nonna. Although Anna was worried about her too, she couldn’t help but find it a very welcome distraction from all the attention that had been directed her way. Any diversion of concern to Nonna meant a lessened chance of another blind date with a gay man.

Anna still turned up to work everyday, found a bright smile the minute she walked in the back door, and tried as hard as she could to be the Dr Morelli everyone knew and loved. Her patients had been loyal to her and she owed them. She also cared about them, which lessened the stress of working so hard. And all of this work, this business, hid the real truth of Anna’s new life.

She was lonely.

She’d tried to convince herself that being single would give her a new lease on life. But the imagined social life she thought she might slip back into never eventuated. All her old friends were having kids and living the domestic life she always hoped she’d be having at this age. And to tell the truth? It hurt too much to be with them. So she’d shut herself away. She’d caught up on years’ worth of television series that she hadn’t managed to catch the first time around, and now knew all about undertakers, science teachers turned drug dealers and cowboys. She’d tried to read books but the sad ones made her sadder and the love stories made her sadder still. It was easier to work and go home, and to avoid seeing anyone much except for her family for Wednesday night dinners and even that was becoming a strain.

As for her connections with Middle Point, Anna had stayed away and Middle Point had stopped coming to her. Julia was far enough along in her pregnancy now that the shared care had come to an end and she was being cared for by midwives in the hospital where she’d chosen to have the baby. When Anna talked to Dan on the phone she had the sneaking suspicion he was checking up on her. It was kind of nice that he was repaying the favour she’d done him the year before. But blokes were hopeless on real gossip and she was too nervous to ask about Joe.

She hadn’t spoken to him since the day she’d read the gossipy news item and called him.

Since the day he’d come straight over to see her.

Since the day they’d had sex in her surgery and her heart felt like it had been broken all over again.

Now, she felt as if a place in her chest had opened up like a sink hole and sucked in all her happiness. And the hole got bigger whenever she remembered that she’d chosen to live another day without Joe. Every morning was another day further away from the memory of him, from the sound of his voice, from his handsome face. From feeling his touch and having him tease her, laugh with her. He was still there, in her head. Every night and every day. She frequently wondered what he was doing. On a Friday night, was he at the pub with Ry, Julia, Dan and Lizzie? Saturday morning, was he surfing?

Every day was another day in her new life without him. She couldn’t have him, she knew that, had chosen to walk away, but nothing could quell the wanting or the knowledge, from deep inside, that he was the one.

But wanting wasn’t enough, was it?

Did Anna want things to be different? Of course she did. Meeting Joe had awakened something inside her, something to replace the death of the good girl she’d been for so long, And it wasn’t about being wild or crazy or anything so judgmental. It had been about liberating that part of herself that she’d kept trapped inside her.

She’d felt free when she was with him. Free to open up. Free to be who she really was. Free to love.

And she had loved. Loved him with such an open, hopeful heart, the crack there was so big that it still hadn’t healed. Maybe it never would.

She had loved.

She was still in love with Joe.

But she could go on and she would. Nothing would seem quite as bright as it had when he was hers. Her heart had permanently slowed, her pulse low. Her smile not too open, her heels not so high.

But there was no point wishing for what she couldn’t have. Memories of him would have to be enough, would have to sustain her until the next one came along.

The next one?

That thought was unbearable.

There would never be anyone like Joe.

But the price of being with him was too high. Would she give up wanting children, sacrifice the part that wanted desperately to be a mother? She’d asked herself that question over and over, and her heart answered it for her every time she’d treated a newborn or looked at a pregnant woman and felt a jealously and a longing that she couldn’t explain. Her heart wanted what it wanted. It was as simple and as devastatingly complicated as that.