The Collector's Edition Volume 1 (29 page)

How many other men, he wondered?

Her ex-husband for a start. Something must have gone badly wrong there. The others were probably irrelevant, he decided. Her marriage would have been the crucible that had cemented her attitude towards what she did and did not want in a man. His marriage had certainly sorted him out about what was important to him and what wasn’t.

Tasha’s recipe for a happy marriage slid into his mind.
It’s wanting the same things.

He looked at Lauren. Did she want what he wanted? Her magnificent hair frothed around the
constriction of the headphones. Her profile in repose had a purity of line and proportion that would have appealed to any artist. There was a translucence to her pale skin, giving an impression of fragility. Under the sweep of her lashes lay shadows he hadn’t noticed when her eyes were open. The result of sleepless nights? Had she lain awake, mourning the despoiling of a dream?

He wished he could cradle her in his arms, wished they could go back a week and start again. He gathered every shred of willpower he had and drove it into a telepathic message.

Give me another chance, Lauren. That’s all I ask. Another chance.

“T
HE
Como Hotel, Chapel Street, South Yarra,” Lauren said to the taxidriver, hoping he was capable of giving them a problem-free trip.

“Going to be slow, I’m afraid,” he informed them cheerfully. “Lot of traffic tonight. Big rugby league match on at the MCG.”

“Of course. Queensland against New South Wales in the second of the State of Origin matches,” Evan cried, his face lighting up with eager interest. “What’s the betting here in Melbourne?”

“The money’s on New South Wales, but most people I talk to want Queensland to win.” The driver grinned. “Sorry if that’s against your home state, but that’s how it is.”

They chatted on about state rivalries as the driver stowed their luggage in the boot of the taxi. Michael, she noted, did not join in the conversation. He moved around to the far passenger side, leaving her and Evan to take their places in the car wherever they willed. No direction from him this time. Had he let go? Given up?

She frowned, knowing it was positively perverse of her to feel disappointed. If he was respecting her decision, she should be approving his restraint, glad to be relieved of the stress involved in resisting continual pressure to change her mind. Best to make
a clean break of it. Perhaps he saw it was the wisest course, too.

Lauren hesitated over whether to sit in the front or the back of the taxi. It was easier for Evan to carry on his football chat with the driver if he sat beside him. It didn’t really matter where she sat. Michael Timberlane would still be sharing the same space as herself, and she wouldn’t escape being aware of him. Even with her eyes shut and music playing in her ears on the flight to Melbourne, she had been unable to block him out.

Michael was already settled on the back seat when she chose to join him. His eyes flashed with surprise, then kindled with warm pleasure. His mouth curved into a slow, teasing little smile that somehow expressed both hope and self-mockery.

“Does this mean my sins are forgiven?”

The smile and the soft lilt of his voice played havoc with her composure. The corners of her mouth twitched. Her sense of fun wanted release. It was difficult to control the impulse to respond in kind, to let her eyes flirt with his.
Remember, remember how quickly he can change,
she sternly berated herself. It was incredibly stupid of her to suddenly feel light-hearted, pleased that he hadn’t given up.

“I think that’s between you and God,” she answered blandly. “Isn’t hatred one of the seven deadly sins?”

“No. Pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth,” he answered, with admirable recall of that rather arcane piece of knowledge. His eyebrows
slanted in comic ruefulness. “You’ve definitely got me on three of them, and I’ve been in sackcloth and ashes all the way from Sydney, doing penance.”

Lauren was having real difficulty in keeping her mouth straight. As an exercise in self-control she did a mental juggle and came up with pride, lust and anger for the three deadly sins he confessed to. Lauren was highly unsettled by the fact she was having considerable trouble with lust herself.

Despite her serious reservations about Michael Timberlane’s character, she could barely glance at him without remembering and wanting the sexual excitement and intense pleasure of his lovemaking. His mouth was sinfully sensual, the smile playing on it extremely provocative, suggesting soft and tantalising little movements.

She wrenched her eyes away from the inviting twinkle in his and glanced out the rear window, where Evan and the taxidriver were nattering away, taking their time about getting going. She wished they’d hurry up. Michael Timberlane was far too treacherously attractive for any peace of mind.

How many times had she excused inexcusable things from Wayne for the comforting illusion of closeness that physical intimacy provided? If she didn’t apply the lessons learnt from painful experience, she was a fool. Sexual attraction-lustwas treacherous. One didn’t spend one’s whole life in bed. There had to be something good in the rest of it.

“Did Roxanne say I hated you?” Michael asked quietly.

“Yes.” And she’d better keep remembering that, too.

“I’ve never hated anyone, Lauren.”

The sweeping claim was such a downright lie, it swung her gaze to his in sizzling challenge.

“I confess I was fed up with hearing ‘Lauren says’ every time Roxanne wanted to score off me, but my hatred was for the way she wouldn’t face up to-”

“I’m not stupid, Michael,” Lauren cut in impatiently. “I know what I felt coming from you in the Golden Wing lounge.”

His expression instantly changed, responding to the seriousness of the charge. He nodded gravely. “Yes, that was hatred, Lauren. The hatred of knowing the guts had been torn out of something I believed beautiful and seeing the shell of it still there, yet unable to fix it, unable to breathe life into it again.”

His eyes stabbed into hers, tearing at her interpretation of his emotions. “I certainly hated that. I can’t view the destruction of something rare and precious with indifference or even equanimity.”

The passion emanating from him, throbbing through his voice and flashing from his eyes, clutched at her heart and shook her mind into encompassing more than it had before. Rare and precious. She had felt that, too.

“I hate a lot of things people do and say, especially when it hurts others,” he went on. “And
now I find I’m guilty of that myself, much as I regret it.” He heaved a sigh. His eyes softened to appeal. “Hasn’t there ever been a time when you wish you could undo what you’ve done and make it better?”

Lauren felt so churned around it was a welcome relief when their private tête-à-tête was broken by Evan and the taxidriver, finally taking their seats. Football talk flowed unabated from the front of the cab as the taxi left Tullamarine Airport and headed for the city. The good-natured banter provided a convenient cover for Lauren’s retreat into herself.

Her thoughts were turbulent. The straight line she had drawn in her mind was now wavering all over the place. Michael had pleaded a strong case for himself. Everybody made mistakes. While never having set out to hurt anyone, Lauren had her own private list of things she’d do differently, given the time again. It was all too easy to jump in and make black-and-white judgments instead of waiting to weigh all sides of a situation.

Maybe she should give him another chance.

If it hadn’t been for Roxanne feeding her the hate message…Had that been inspired by what Graham Parker predicted would be a dog-in-the-manger attitude? Roxanne could hardly call her second husband a sexy male animal. He was close to fifty, carried a middle-aged paunch and somehow reminded Lauren of a lolloping lick-happy Labrador. Whereas Michael had the sleek, beautiful, lethal power of a Doberman.

Her gaze strayed sideways. His hand rested loosely on his thigh. She knew the tensile strength of those muscle-moulded legs, knew the tenderness and sensual skill of his hands. There wasn’t one part of his magnificent body that she didn’t know intimately, the way it felt, the way it responded to her, the way it could make her feel.

She could picture it perfectly, remember the exquisite sensations. A purely wanton excitement coursed through her, tightening her muscles. If she reached out to him.

Lauren took a deep breath and clamped down on the dangerous impulse. She wasn’t prepared to commit herself so wholly to Michael Timberlane again, not until she was more sure of what he was really like. She needed to see how he reacted to a number of situations before giving him her complete trust. Another chance didn’t mean shutting her eyes and hoping for the best.

She looked out the side window to keep temptation at bay. The taxidriver was right about the traffic. It was crawling from one red light to the next.

“We’ll be out of this at the next turn right,” he announced in his genial manner. “We should have a better run to your hotel from there.”

A few moments later he manoeuvred the taxi into the right-hand turning lane, and there they stopped, waiting for another light to change. The stream of cars on Lauren’s side kept flowing for a while, then came to a halt, as well. She admired the stylish line of the electric blue sports car that had drawn level
with the taxi. It stirred a curiosity about its owner. She glanced at the driver and gasped in shock.

Wayne!

She stared disbelievingly at his profile, trying to convince herself it must be a look-alike. There were other men with curly black hair, aquiline noses and full-lipped mouths. Wayne wouldn’t waste his money on an expensive sports car. It couldn’t be him. It was too much of a coincidence, seeing her ex-husband like this when he had been featuring so much in her thoughts about Michael.

As though sensing he was being stared at, the object of her inner turmoil suddenly turned his head and looked straight at her. A steel clamp squeezed her heart. It
was
Wayne! And his recognition of her was instant and frightening.

His dark eyes glittered as they always did when he won his way about something. His mouth curled with satisfaction. She was here in Melbourne, and he knew she was here. Despite the length of time they had been apart, there was no resigned acceptance of their separation, for Wayne.

Lauren silently and fiercely railed against the fickle trick of fate that had placed them both here. Two years had passed since she had broken with him. She had taken care that their paths didn’t cross. Avoidance at all costs had been her strategy for a trouble-free life. Now this, of all times and all places!

Wayne leaned forward to look at the man sitting beside her in the back seat. Was Michael aware of it? Was he watching? She dared not glance at him.
It would reinforce the kind of personal connection she didn’t want Wayne to make. Though surely with Evan in the front seat, Wayne would realise it was a business trip and not a private outing.

She saw his jaw tighten into pugnacious mode. He glared at her, angry, jealous, possessive. His attitudes certainly hadn’t changed. The sports car was probably an ego-booster, another superficial attraction to add to his pulling power with women, but however many women there had been in his life since her departure, he still resented her leaving him. A wife didn’t do that, in Wayne’s world. A wife did as she was told and pleased her husband.

The taxi started moving forward. Wayne jerked his attention to the cars ahead of him. They were also on the move, and since they were not in a turning lane there was nothing to slow them down. Wayne drew level again, threw her one last baleful glare, then, prompted by a horn blowing behind him, accelerated away.

Lauren wasn’t really aware of the rest of the drive to the hotel. Memories of her marriage to Wayne crowded in on her. She became conscious, at one point, of her fingernails digging into her palms. Her hands were tightly clenched. She uncurled them and stretched out her fingers.

No mark remained on the third finger of her left hand. When she had walked out on Wayne, she had left the rings he had given her behind, too. They should have been symbols of belonging together, not domination.

“Are you all right, Lauren?” Michael asked softly.

She swung around to face him, instinctively defying his concern, not wanting to discuss what she was feeling and why. “Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

His eyes probed hers but met a blank wall. “You didn’t eat on the flight,” he remarked. “The hotel restaurant, Maxim’s, has an excellent reputation. Evan and I plan to have a leisurely dinner there. If you’re not too tired, we’d both like your company.”

A tactically worded invitation, designed to allay any fears that he might come on to her. In the normal course of events she might have accepted. Nothing was normal now.

“Thank you, but I won’t join you.”

He frowned. “Because of me?”

She shook her head. “My family live in Melbourne. I’m going to visit my mother.”

“Fair enough.”

Lauren didn’t care if it was fair or not. Michael Timberlane could wait. She didn’t want any man close to her right now. She needed her mother, her sane, sensible, down-to-earth mother, who was never flustered by anything.

They arrived at the Como Hotel. It was situated right next to the Channel Ten studios and catered to the security concerns of visiting celebrities. Lauren was glad of the security measures that protected all the guests from unwanted visitors. No one could operate an elevator without a room key. Once
they were booked in and on their way to their rooms, she would feel safe from Wayne.

She kept an eye on the road while the luggage was unloaded, and she got a receipt from the driver for the taxi fare. No electric blue sports car pulled up or cruised by. Her apprehension eased somewhat as they proceeded inside to the reception desk.

When she was absolutely certain Wayne hadn’t tracked her to the hotel, she would ask the concierge to have a taxi waiting at the door for her and she would slip out of the hotel and go home. That took care of tonight.

Tomorrow. Well, she would cope with tomorrow as best she could when it came.