A strange yearning unsettled her. Was she actually envying the austere Mr Carlton’s wife? There was nothing to be envious of, Meg assured herself. The man looked every inch the workaholic, and far too serious to be any fun. His wife was probably only treated to romantic evenings out on their anniversary and their children were bound to be frightfully spoiled.
She dismissed her musings in swift self-recrimination. Her cab-mate’s personal life was none of her business. ‘Go to your house,’ she told him decisively. ‘I’ll take the cab home from there.’
He hesitated. ‘If you’re sure.’
‘I’m sure.’ Meg felt nowhere near as certain as she sounded. She wasn’t sure the available limit on her Visa card would adequately cover the cost of such a long trip, so her suggestion made no sense at all. Yet it was the only choice that appealed to her. It was warm and dry in the taxi, and she really wanted to stay warm and dry right now. If circumstances were going to force her into returning to Karawak Downs and the life her well-intentioned but interfering family had mapped out for her, the least she could do was enjoy her last few days in Sydney as best she could.
***
Bryce Carlton stared at the reports on his lap without seeing them, trying not to be affected by the presence of the woman beside him. But the figures on the page might as well have been written in Sanskrit for all his diverted brain absorbed of them.
He should have simply let the woman have the blasted taxi. But damn it, he had to get home. His daughter was causing her usual havoc. Phillipa had managed to scare off another nanny, and he’d really thought Miss Windsor would work out. She’d come so highly recommended by the exclusive nanny outfit he’d contracted — but then, so had all those that went before her. In fact, the agency manager had gone so far as to imply that if either he or his daughter found some fault with Miss Windsor as well, perhaps hers wasn’t the right organization for them.
And now Phillipa had done or said something that had prompted Miss Windsor to storm out in the middle of the afternoon. He had to get home not only to discipline Phillipa, but to relieve his housekeeper, who had reminded him in no uncertain terms by phone that withstanding his daughter’s ‘guff’ was not written into her job description.
A fine time for his Mercedes to have a flat battery. He should have contacted his regular car service instead of taking his chances in a cab. At least then he would have been assured a quiet ride home. But he’d seen the taxi and the driver had waved to him. At the time it had seemed like the most expedient option so he’d figured,
why not?
The woman beside him coughed, drawing Bryce’s attention to her once again.
She
was why not. Apparently a man could encounter all manner of odd individuals in a taxi.
Her long hair was tied back in a thick ponytail of damp blonde tresses, revealing her winsome profile and the smooth line of her neck. She was slender, approaching tall for a woman, her figure willowy. Bryce’s focus snagged on her long legs. There was a fine run in her black stockings that traversed her calf before disappearing beneath the hem of her generic black skirt.
Something primitive in him stirred and almost came to life. Caught between surprise and annoyance, he realised it was a spark of attraction.
How odd.
Meg Lacy wasn’t anything like the kind of woman he would date. She gave the immediate impression of a high-spirited colt, difficult to tame and impossible to predict. His preference was for women who were cool and sophisticated, like the few he had escorted to charity functions or the opera in the year and a half since his marriage had ended. They had been looking for the same thing he was — simple companionship. He would never date a woman he thought remotely likely to demand more of him than that.
He’d tried serious commitment once and had found he wasn’t particularly skilled at it. Never again would he open himself up to failing so spectacularly
.
Instinctively he knew Meg Lacy was a relationship type of girl. While she wasn’t exactly uncouth, the light twang of her voice told him she wasn’t city born. He doubted she possessed a cool, sophisticated cell in her body.
The thought of her body had his eyes yearning to journey over her again. Bryce set his jaw against the urge. Yet he couldn’t remain completely unaware of her presence beside him, and after a time he came to realise she was shivering inside her thin white blouse. He frowned. ‘You’re cold.’
‘A little,’ she admitted. ‘I got caught in the rain earlier.’
She was soaked through. Bryce noted the almost transparent condition of her blouse. His blood surged in a way he couldn’t control.
Simple testosterone
. A woman in a translucent blouse was bound to get any man’s pulse accelerating. Even his.
Self-recrimination assailed him. She was shivering in her skin and he was thinking of what she might look like out of her clothes. What kind of behaviour was that? He leaned forward, shrugged out of his suit jacket and held it out to her.
‘Oh, I couldn’t.’ She was clearly shocked at his gesture.
Bryce continued to hold the garment toward her. When she still hesitated he commanded with impatience, ‘Come on, you’re going to freeze to death.’
She bridled at his tone. He thought she was going to reject his offer again. But in sudden decision she unclipped her seat belt, turned her back to him and slipped her arms into the jacket. Their closeness brought her scent into his personal space. A delicate, feminine fragrance swirled around him, teasing his senses as effectively as the roses in his garden.
Her surprising impact on him lingered even after she slid back to her side of the cab and re-fastened her seat belt. He sounded as grouchy as a woken bear. ‘You ought to have worn a coat.’
‘It was sunny and warm this morning. I thought winter was over.’
‘Maybe by the calendar, but there’s often a last burst of cold before spring starts in earnest.’ He wanted to confirm his earlier suspicion about her background. ‘I take it you’re not from Sydney.’
Her sigh was wistful. ‘No. I’ve always wanted to come here, though. Despite the events of the past couple of weeks I’ve really enjoyed myself.’
He shouldn’t ask, yet Bryce found himself intrigued. For no other reason than that she’d piqued his curiosity and they were stuck together for the time being, he asked, ‘What’s been so bad about the last couple of weeks?’
‘I lost my job. Well, not exactly. I quit but I sort of had to. I was working as a retail assistant in a furniture store. Relations with my supervisor got a little strained when he asked me out and I said no. Soon after that, I started losing shifts.’ She shrugged, a
c’est la vie
kind of gesture. ‘I decided it would be easier to just leave.’
Fury rose swiftly within Bryce. Being an employer himself, he was livid that a man in a position of power would act in such a fashion. ‘That’s harassment. You should have reported him.’
‘I didn’t have any proof that was why I lost shifts. The store manager said they were cutting back everyone’s hours. Besides, I thought it would be easy to get another job.’ Her mouth twisted in derision. ‘Turns out no one in retail seems to be hiring now, and they won’t be hiring again until the Christmas season. I don’t have money to last until then.’ She heaved a sigh full of dismay. ‘I’ll have to go back home.’
‘Where’s home?’
‘Karawak Downs. It’s about an hour west of Dubbo. In other words, the middle of nowhere. My Dad owns a hardware store there. I’ve helped out in the shop since I was fourteen, when I started working after school. It’s how I got my retail experience, but not much experience in anything else. Anyway, I’m not planning to be a sales assistant forever.’
She left the statement hanging in the air as she lowered her head in an abashed gesture. ‘I’m rambling.’
‘It’s all right.’ To his surprise Bryce found that he meant it. ‘You can’t say something like that and not elaborate. What is it you really want to do?’
‘You’ll think it’s silly.’
‘Try me.’
She turned and pinned him with her bright eyes. He saw them spark with enthusiasm. ‘I want to be an interior designer.’
He’d half expected she would say she wanted to be an actress. She had the looks for it. ‘What’s silly about that?’
‘My Dad and brothers say it’s a waste of time — frivolous girly stuff. But it never seemed frivolous to me. My Mum and I used to sew together. We’d make curtains and lounge covers and things like that. Our house wasn’t much, but it only takes a few simple touches to make a house a home, doesn’t it?’
Bryce had no earthly idea what she was talking about. What was so darned special about curtains?
‘Anyway I did an online course in design. But there’s not exactly a great call for decorators in Karawak Downs, so I came to Sydney. I want a position with a design company, but I had to settle for furniture sales. I can’t get a job in the industry without experience apparently.’
Bryce twisted his lips. ‘But how to do you get experience without a job?’
‘Exactly.’ She smiled at their shared understanding. Bryce felt a camaraderie settle between them, as disrupting to his ability to speak as the sight of her sweetly curved lips. Her smile completely lacked artifice. In his experience smiles were so often born of pretence, and Bryce was taken aback by Meg’s genuine grin and its impact on his blood pressure.
Suddenly, he could find no words to continue the conversation and a strange sense of alarm rose in his chest.
He needn’t have worried. Meg Lacy had no such difficulty with easy banter. She tilted her head to the papers he’d left, once again ignored, in his lap. ‘So, what do you do? Are you a stockbroker?’
Her blonde brows were hiked ever so slightly over her sparkling grey-blue eyes, her rosebud of a mouth still upturned in that amiable smile. ‘Of a sort.’ Bryce dragged his gaze away from the distracting appeal of her lips. ‘I’m the CEO of DCA.’ At her blank expression he elucidated. ‘Drake, Carlton and Associates. It’s a wealth management firm.’
The second largest in the country, and on track to take out the lead position within five years, Bryce thought with some pride. His decision to merge the medium-sized company left to him by his father with the larger organisation, Drake Incorporated, had been a smart one. All his father’s dreams were finally being realized.
‘Wealth management?’
She spoke as though the term was entirely alien to her. ‘It’s a growing market. More and more people are beginning to see the benefit in having their assets professionally managed. People are living longer so they need more to provide for their retirement…’ He trailed off as he realised that now
he
was rambling, and probably boring her out of her wits. He’d never rambled in his life.
‘It sounds interesting.’
That was another new experience — being patronised. He stiffened. ‘I think so.’
‘I meant it,’ she insisted. ‘Did you think I didn’t mean it?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ But for some reason it did. People were always pandering to him, telling him what they thought he wanted to hear. For a moment he’d found his companion’s forthrightness refreshing.
‘Somehow I’ve offended you. I didn’t meant to. You seem like such a nice man.’
Bryce was so surprised he couldn’t respond. No one had ever called him nice before. Sensible, dependable, trustworthy — but never nice. Certainly his ex-wife Isabelle had never used such a word to describe him, or many charitable words at all, at least not after the first year of their six-year marriage. Cold, unfeeling, neglectful. Those were more her words of choice.
‘You know what?’ Meg said suddenly. ‘I bet you
are
a nice man, underneath this imposing exterior of yours. I can tell.’
‘Don’t be so sure.’ Her determination to think well of him made him uncomfortable. He didn’t deserve it. He’d been a terrible husband, that much Isabelle had been right about. As an ex-husband he wasn’t much better, given that he could barely stand to be in the same room as his child’s mother for more than a minute. And as a father… well, he had a daughter who had nannies running scared in droves. Enough said.
All he could cling to was the knowledge that as a son he was at least doing what had been expected of him. Running the business that was the legacy left to him by his father was a much easier undertaking than running his personal life. Since his divorce, he’d found it less complicated simply not to
have
a personal life.
The cab travelled forward through the driving downpour for several silent minutes. The rain beat against the car, turning the windows to sheets of opaque grey that enclosed them in an unnerving intimacy. Dwelling on his own thoughts, Bryce lost track of time until the cab turned into his quiet avenue.
He instructed the driver to park in the driveway of his tri-level, cream stucco home. Architecturally designed in the 1970s, the house had been bought by his father soon after, when Carlton and Associates had started showing substantial, consistent profits. Save for a brief period while he’d been at university, Bryce had lived here all his life. It would always be home to him, and none of Isabelle’s many complaints that the five-bedroom, three-bathroom house was too small to host any sizeable parties had prompted him to move. He always felt a sense of peace and serenity returning here after a day at the office, but he’d never felt the kind of wonder that he saw come over Meg as she stared at his home.
‘Wow,’ she breathed at last. ‘This is your place?’
‘That’s it.’
‘I guess you’re pretty good at managing wealth, huh?’ She appeared immediately contrite. ‘I’m sorry. That was rude.’
A smile tried to shape his lips. ‘It’s all right.’ In fact her complete lack of tact was oddly charming. He realised he felt a stab of regret that the cab ride was ending, as well as a peculiar rise of protectiveness that made him instruct the driver to charge the estimated cost of Meg’s ride home to his Platinum Card.
‘No!’ Meg protested hotly. ‘I don’t expect you to pay for me.’
‘Meg, the trip back to your flat might be very expensive,’ Bryce told her softly. He didn’t want to insult her by insinuating she hadn’t the money to pay for it, but all she’d told him on the cab ride made him aware she had limited finances. ‘You’re only here because I needed to come home in a hurry.’