Margaret Way - Six Australian Heroes

Ryan knew most women were attracted to him, as they were to most tall, good-looking, successful men.

No false modesty about Ryan.

He didn’t interrupt her as she finished reading the contract but his mind remained extremely active. So did his eyes.

She really did have great legs. He liked women with shapely calves and slender ankles, and feet which weren’t too big. Laura’s feet were quite daintily small for a girl of her height. Pity about those awful shoes she was wearing!

Her hair was great too: dark, thick, glossy and obviously long. It would look fabulous spread out against a pillow …

Whoops. He was doing it again: having sexual fantasies about her. He really had to stop this.

Swinging his chair round to the huge window behind him, Ryan stared out at the view of the harbour which he always found pleasurably diverting and was one of the reasons he’d rented this particular suite of rooms in this building. The other reason was that it was less than two blocks from where he lived in an apartment building which also had a wonderful view of the harbour.

When Ryan had first retired from soccer, he’d missed spending most of his life outdoors. He hated the feeling of being closed in. He liked space around him, liked to see the sky—and water, he’d discovered to his surprise. He hadn’t grown up with a love of water, mostly because it hadn’t been a part of his life; he had never even been taken to the beach as a child. He hadn’t learned to swim till he was twenty, and that had only happened because he’d been forced to train in a pool for a few weeks whilst he recovered from injury.

After his return to live in Sydney, however, he had found himself very drawn to the water, hence his buying an apartment and leasing an office that both came with harbour views. Recently, he’d developed a real love of sailing, and was considering buying a boat.

There were plenty of boats out on the harbour that afternoon, winter having finally given way to spring. The rain which had plagued Sydney for the past two months was thankfully gone; the sky was clear and blue and the water inviting.

His eyes zeroed in on one of the boats which was just moving past Bennelong Point, heading out to sea. It was a large white cruiser, an expensive toy for someone with plenty of money.

Maybe I’ll buy one of those , Ryan thought idly.

He could well afford it; Win-Win wasn’t Ryan’s only source of income. Back during his goalkeeping days, he’d had the sense to invest most of the huge salary he’d earned each year into property. By the time he had retired, he was the owner of a dozen or so units, all located in Sydney’s inner-city suburbs where the rental returns were excellent and the apartments never empty for long.

His extensive property portfolio was another thing Ryan didn’t talk about, however, knowing it wasn’t wise to broadcast one’s wealth. He’d found it didn’t do to court envy. He had a small group of friends who were successful men in their own right, though not multi-millionaires like him. He enjoyed their company and was loath to do anything to spoil their friendship. Of course, now that they’d all tied the knot, he didn’t have quite as much to do with them as he used to. But they still got together occasionally to go to the football or the races.

None of them owned a boat. The ‘friends’ Ryan was going sailing with tomorrow were not real friends. They were professional yachtsmen whom he’d met through his job and who’d been teaching him the ropes about sailing.

‘I can’t seem to find anything wrong with it,’ Laura said at last, in a troubled tone which suggested she should have been able to.

Ryan swung his chair back round to face her.

‘You’re quite sure?’ he asked. It wasn’t like Laura not to want him to change something. She often spotted potential legal loopholes which weren’t to his client’s advantage.

‘Maybe I should read through it again.’

Ryan was as surprised by her suggesting this as he’d been by the odd look she’d given him earlier. Really, she wasn’t herself today. Now that he’d stopped filling his mind with distracting images, he could see that she was the one who was distracted.

What was it that had upset her so much that her mind wasn’t on her work? It had to be something serious.

A curious Ryan decided to see if he could find out.

‘No need to do that,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it’s fine. Why don’t you have a quick whizz through the other two contracts? They’re just renewals. Then we’ll call it a day and I’ll take you down to the Opera Bar for a drink.’ If he could get her to relax, she might open up to him a bit.

She surprised him again by not saying no straight away.

Curiouser and curiouser.

But she didn’t say yes, either.

‘Look,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m not asking you out on a date. Just for a drink. Lots of work colleagues go for drinks on a Friday afternoon.’

‘I do know that,’ she said stiffly.

‘Then what’s your problem?’

Again, she hesitated.

‘Look,’ he went on determinedly, ‘I do realise that you don’t like me much. No no, Laura, don’t bother to deny it; you’ve made your feelings quite obvious over the past two years. I have to confess that I haven’t exactly warmed to you, either. But even the most indifferent and insensitive male would notice that you’re not yourself today. As unlikely as it might seem, I find myself quite worried about you. Hence my invitation to take you for a drink. I thought you might relax over a glass of wine and tell me what’s up.’

And why you gave me that odd look when you first came in , he added privately to himself.

‘Even if I tell you,’ she replied, her eyes unhappy, ‘There’s nothing you can do about it.’

‘Let me be the judge of that.’

She laughed, but it was not a happy sound. ‘You’ll probably be annoyed with me.’

‘That’s a very intriguing thing to say. Now, I simply won’t take no for an answer. You are going to come for a drink with me—right now. And you’re going to tell me what this is all about!’

LAURA knew it was silly of her to feel flattered by his concern—and even sillier to agree to have a drink with him at the Opera Bar, of all places.

The Opera Bar was the place to go for an after-work drink in Sydney’s CBD, conveniently located near the quay and with one of the best views in town—the Opera House on the right, Circular Quay on the left, the Harbour Bridge straight ahead, not to mention the harbour itself. Half the staff at Harvey, Michaels and Associates gathered there every Friday evening. Even non-social Laura occasionally went with them. She knew that it would cause a stir if she was seen drinking there in the company of Ryan Armstrong.

Why, then, had she agreed?

This was the question which tormented her during the short walk down to the quay.

By the time they arrived at the bar—early enough not to be spotted by any of her work colleagues yet, thank heavens—Laura was no nearer a logical answer.

Alison would have said that she was secretly attracted to him. There again, dear Alison was a hopeless romantic, addicted to those movies where the heroine hates the hero on sight but somehow falls madly in love with him before the credits go up at the end.

Laura could never buy into that plot. When she didn’t like someone, she didn’t like them—end of story. She’d never liked Ryan Armstrong and certainly wasn’t secretly attracted to him.

Okay, so he was good-looking, smart and, yes, highly successful. Ten years ago, she might have found him fascinating. These days, however, she was immune to handsome charmers who used women for their sexual satisfaction—sometimes for other rotten reasons—and gave them nothing in return but the dubious pleasure of their company. They shared nothing of themselves, either emotionally or financially. They were greedy selfish men who wanted their cake and wanted to eat it too. Laura had been involved with two such men in her life and had developed a sixth sense whenever she met a man of their ilk.