‘That’s irrelevant. I pay my own way.’
She crossed her arms over her chest so stubbornly that Bryce almost missed the anxiety that crossed her features when the cab driver interjected. ‘Maybe I’ll get your credit-card imprint now Miss, just so there’s no trouble later.’
Meg turned her fiery gaze to the driver who was eyeing her suspiciously in the rear view mirror. ‘Are you suggesting—’
‘I’m sure he wasn’t suggesting you don’t have any money, were you —’ Bryce sought out the driver’s identification tag, ‘Joe?’
‘Oh of course not sir,’ Joe said, his tone as dry as bone as he rolled his eyes. ‘But I
am
trying to make a living here, if you two lovebirds hadn’t noticed.’
Bryce decided he wouldn’t dignify the driver’s ‘lovebirds’ reference with an objection. ‘Then add the fare to mine.’
‘No!’
Bryce felt his irritation mount. ‘Meg, your pride is making a nuisance of itself.’
‘I said no,’ she told him adamantly, surprisingly immoveable in spite of her slim physique.
They eyed each other for a long moment until the driver interrupted. ‘Will someone please make a decision here? I haven’t got all day.’
Bryce told Joe, in the tone he used with his employees when he wanted a task carried out immediately, ‘We’re both getting out here.’
While Meg sat in the cab, still as stone, Bryce Carlton settled his fare with the ill-mannered driver and came around to her door. Opening it, he held out his hand to her, as though nothing other than absolute capitulation was a possibility.
Her temper surged, heating her blood. Why did men always think women should do exactly what they wanted?
‘You can’t seriously think I’ll…’ Her protest trailed off as he grasped her elbow and with gentle pressure pulled her from the taxi. The driver peeled out of the driveway, taking with him Meg’s only chance of leaving.
Bryce’s hand was still at her elbow, pressing gentle, insistent heat to her flesh through the layers of clothing. Swiftly she rounded on him, using the movement to escape his touch and its palpitating effect on her heart. ‘What did you do that for?’
‘Do what?’
‘Send him away. I told you I was going to pay him.’
Sounding put upon, Bryce Carlton sighed. ‘I had no choice, since you refused to let me pay for you. Besides, I didn’t like the idea of you riding alone with him.’
‘He’s a taxi driver. That’s what people do — ride alone with him.’
‘He was rude to you.’
Meg stared at him. Since when had he become her avid protector? She had enough of those back in Karawak Downs, thank you very much.
‘We’re getting wet,’ Bryce pointed out.
With a start Meg realised he was right. The rain had lessened, but it was still coming down in a light drizzle that was seeping stealthily through her clothing.
His
clothing, she mentally corrected, remembering too late that she was still wearing Bryce’s suit jacket. He was probably worried that she’d ruin it standing out in the weather like this.
She thought her suspicion confirmed when he said with barely suppressed exasperation, ‘Come inside before you catch pneumonia.’ His touch landed on her arm again and Meg allowed herself to be propelled toward the imposing front door of the man’s house, if for no other reason than getting drenched through to the skin for the second time in one day was a prospect she viewed with great disrelish.
Bryce opened the heavy timber front door and Meg followed him into a marble-tiled foyer. To the left was a grand, beige carpeted staircase and to the right a passageway leading into another part of the house. He called up the stairs, ‘Phillipa!’ He unbuttoned his coat. ‘Mrs Dunkirk!’
Hesitantly, Meg went to follow, pulling up short when she was nearly knocked down by a stout, fifty-ish lady rushing in the opposite direction. Her head was dipped as though she had eyes only for the way out the front door.
‘She’s upstairs, doing homework. She
says.
’ The woman threw the words at Bryce over her shoulder, not slowing down to elaborate. ‘Dinner is on the stove.’
With that the woman disappeared out the front door, barely sparing Meg a second glance. Soon after a car engine fired up, the sound quickly growing fainter as the woman made a hasty retreat.
Turning around, Meg caught Bryce’s wry expression. ‘I see you met Mrs Dunkirk.’
‘Is she always like that?’
‘For as long as I can remember. My father hired her when I was a child. She’s not one for loquacious conversation, but she’s an excellent housekeeper. Why don’t you come through? I’ll call a car service for you.’
Apparently he wasn’t giving up his quest to pay her way home. With a frown, Meg followed Bryce down the passageway from which the curt Mrs Dunkirk had emerged. ‘That’s okay. If I can just use your phone I’ll call my flatmate. My battery died today.’ She didn’t add that she had not enough credit left on her prepaid phone to make the call anyway. ‘Her boyfriend has a car. I’m sure they’ll come pick me up.’
If they’re home.
Jessica and Lachlan were always rushing in and out of the apartment to their respective jobs or a concert or party. Either that or they were holed up in Jessica’s room, engaged in activities Meg usually didn’t spend time contemplating.
‘If you’re sure.’ He showed her a frown of his own. ‘There’s a phone in the den you can use.’
As they entered the living room, Meg noted the leather furnishings, Persian rugs and the big-screen TV, the expensive-looking artwork and the grand piano in the corner, gleaming ebony in the fading light. Sydney Harbour was framed by large picture windows that rimmed the room. The murky water chopped turbulently toward the distinctive sails of the opera house and the famous arch of the harbour bridge, just visible through the evening gloom. Despite the grey weather, the view was magnificent.
‘Crikey!’ Meg exclaimed before she could censure the very country-girl expression. ‘This place is unbelievable!’
‘You like it?’
‘Who wouldn’t?’
‘My ex-wife for one. She always complained it was too stuffy.’
Meg turned in time to see Bryce’s scowl deepening. She felt sure he hadn’t intended to say what he had about his ex-wife. Meg was a little perturbed, as well. In the taxi she had assumed he was married. Now she discovered that he was divorced, and the knowledge was doing strange things to her vital signs.
Ridiculous. Why should the fact that he was single have any effect on her pulse rate?
Avoiding his eyes, Meg glanced around once again at the dark leather sofas, the rather drab floor coverings and the sombre oil colours gracing the walls, and made an effort to be politic. ‘The furniture’s a little…heavy, I suppose. But very tasteful.’
He cocked a brow. ‘Diplomatically put, Meg. I wasn’t sure you had it in you.’
‘I’m full of surprises.’ Her lips tilted upwards.
‘I don’t doubt it for a second.’ He smiled back and a completely unexpected dimple appeared in his left cheek. It softened his austere countenance, making him appear almost boyish. It was such an incongruous impression to have of such an imposing man that Meg caught her breath.
The disturbance in her blood began to feel as turbulent as Sydney Harbour looked. Meg knew she needed to say something, but felt utterly incapable of forming a coherent sentence. Relief mingled with surprise when an imperious voice demanded, ‘Just
who
are
you
?’
‘Phillipa!’ Bryce exclaimed, his attention, blessedly, pulled away from Meg. ‘That was impolite.’
A little girl’s big brown eyes remained fixed on Meg. She gave Bryce’s remonstrance little notice. ‘I asked you a question Missy.’
Meg couldn’t help it. She laughed. ‘
Missy!
’ she exclaimed, wondering if the girl had picked that term up from the surly Mrs Dunkirk. ‘Aren’t you precious?’
‘
Precious
! I know what that means. It’s what Mrs Dunkirk says when I’m being cute. And I was not trying to be cute.’
‘Don’t worry yourself,’ Meg said dryly, turning away and wandering idly toward the grand piano in the corner. ‘I didn’t think you were.’
From the corner of her eye, Meg saw the little girl staring after her, hands perched on tiny hips as she narrowed her gaze. She was wearing a matching skirt and top made of lavender crushed velvet. Her lush dark hair didn’t look as if it had been brushed anytime recently. Thick curls sat half in, half out of a purple band at the back of her head.
‘Daddy, she didn’t even introduce herself when I asked.’
‘You didn’t ask, Phillipa, you demanded. There’s a difference, as I’ve told you more than once before. When will you learn to be polite?’
‘Polite,’ the girl muttered derisively, as though he were suggesting she eat Brussels sprouts. ‘I don’t have time to dawdle.’
Before Bryce could admonish his daughter again — although she deserved some admonishing and a lot more — Meg walked back to where Phillipa stood. ‘Forgive me for not introducing myself. My name is Meg Lacy.’
‘
Miglasee?’
She wrinkled her pert nose. ‘What a strange name.’
Meg smiled despite the girl’s outright rudeness. She certainly was a spirited little thing, she had to give her that. ‘It’s no Phillipa Carlton but I’ve had it all my life and it suits me fine. Why don’t you just call me Meg?’
Phillipa eyed her outstretched hand as though it were something that had just scuttled out from beneath the fridge, so Meg pulled it back with a shrug. ‘Suit yourself. But
I
introduced
myself
.’
Ignoring the hint, Phillipa turned back to her father. ‘She’s not another nanny is she Daddy? She’s not right at
all
.’
‘Speaking of nannies,’ Bryce said, neatly sidestepping the issue of who or what Meg was to him. ‘I would like you to explain to me why Miss Windsor felt a need to escape so pressing she resigned without notice.’
The little girl shrugged, all innocence. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Why do I think you
do
know?’
Guessing that Phillipa would loathe to be upbraided in her presence, Meg interrupted. ‘Perhaps I should make that phone call now.’
‘Of course. The den is the room behind you, to the right.’ Bryce told her. Meg left him facing his daughter, his stern expression seeming to have little effect on the child’s haughty attitude. As she found the room Bryce had directed her to and stepped across the threshold, she heard Phillipa huff a breath and offer an explanation. ‘I didn’t know she’d get so upset. It was just a little food colouring. I thought her hair would look nice green…’
Much to Meg’s dismay, there was no answer at her flat. She had Jessica’s mobile phone number stored in her own phone, so she’d never had to learn it by heart. With the phone sitting dead in her handbag she couldn’t look it up. Sadly, she hadn’t been in Sydney long enough to get to know anyone else very well. Casual employees didn’t tend to stay long at the department store where she’d worked up until last week. Not surprising, given her former supervisor’s proclivity for harassing the female staff.
Holding on to hope that Jessica was in the shower and hadn’t heard the phone ring, Meg decided to wait a few minutes and try again. Remaining in the study seemed the best option. All the better to avoid her ‘host’ and his precociously impudent daughter.
Meg shrugged out of Bryce’s jacket, letting out a moan of regret when the cold seemed to infiltrate her flesh anew. She slung the garment over the back of a chair and surveyed the room with open curiosity, rubbing her arms to ward off the chill.
The large work desk was fashioned from heavy timber and sported a state-of-the-art computer. Gold pens were lined up neatly on the desk blotter. Meg could vividly picture Bryce Carlton leaning back in the leather executive chair, placing calls to New York or London with as much nonchalance as she might call a girlfriend. There was a fireplace flanked by matching burgundy leather armchairs, the mantelpiece lined with silver-framed photographs.
Curiosity got the better of Meg and she tiptoed over to take a peek. There were numerous pictures of the little girl Meg had just met, from baby photos to recent snapshots. There were just as many goofy candid pictures as there were studio portraits, and she sensed Bryce’s love for his daughter in the pictures he’d chosen to display. Among the photos of Phillipa was one of a couple who looked to be in their late forties, a handsome man with greying hair and a chic, serene-looking blonde. Meg lifted the picture and studied it.
‘Find anything interesting?’
Startled, Meg almost dropped the frame as she spun around. Bryce Carlton was standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, looking none too impressed to find her nosing around his study. Hastily, Meg put the photo back where she had found it, feeling her cheeks wash with heat. ‘I’m sorry. I was just…’
‘Snooping?’ he filled in as he crossed the room to glance at the photo she had been looking at. ‘My parents, if you must know. Lawrence and Margaret.’
At his nearness Meg felt a hum in her blood and she had to resist the urge to step back. ‘They’re a nice-looking couple.’
‘They were. They died in a plane crash almost ten years ago.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ Such an inane, inadequate thing to say, as Meg well knew. She found herself blurting, ‘I shouldn’t have said that. My mother died when I was fifteen. I always hated it when people said how sorry they were, as if it was their fault.’
He regarded her in steady silence. She felt his gaze and turned to meet it. There was a softness in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. It reminded her of that moment in the taxi, when she’d been talking about her wish to work in design. They’d shared a flash of kinship, as though they weren’t two utterly different people from separate worlds meeting by chance and nothing more. Here, in the quiet of his den, the sensation felt shockingly intimate.
Meg rubbed her arms again, clenching her teeth so they didn’t chatter. Ridiculous that a heavy sadness should fill her at the idea of this man’s loss. To lose two parents at the same time must have been horrendous. Her mother’s cancer diagnosis, and the painfully short journey to her ultimate death, had been devastating to Meg because they had been so close. But at least she still had her father and brothers. As often as they’d butted heads, those familial connections had kept her from loneliness so abject it might have destroyed her.