Nikki Logan - Once a Rebel...

Known of him.

Watched him.

She chased down the contact details for the company right here in Sydney and its executive structure. He wasn’t on it. Disappointed by that dead end, she called the company direct and asked for him outright.

‘Mr Tennant does not take calls,’ the receptionist told her.

Really? Too busy and important? ‘Could you give me his email address, please?’

It took the officious woman nearly a minute to outline all the reasons why she couldn’t. Shirley rang off, far from defeated. Chasing down story leads was what she did for a living. It wasn’t stalking if you were a professional. A bit of reconnaissance, finding out where he was and what was so important it had made him forget the promises of a decade ago …

That was doable. He’d never even know.

Thank goodness for search engines.

Two hours went by before she surfaced, frowning deeply at the screen. Hayden Tennant was a time bomb. Her online search was littered with images of him stumbling out of one seedy venue or another on the arm of some blonde—always a blonde—going back six years. In most of them, it was hard to tell who was holding up whom, but the club security was always on hand to facilitate their departure.

She stared at one image. He looked nothing like the Hayden she remembered. He used to get around in a shabby kind of hip style— the garret look, her mother had used to joke and make Shirley promise never to go out in public like that. So of course she had instantly wanted to. The designer lank hair, holed jumper and frequently bare feet. Bohemian plus. She’d coveted everything about his personal style back then, as only a lovesick fourteen-year-old could.

But the Internet had him in some pretty fancy threads now, as carefully fitted as the women accessorising the sharp suit and cars.

Guess everyone grows up.

She searched up Molon Labe’s website, flicked through to their corporate contacts and scribbled down the address. Maybe his reception staff would find it harder to say no to her face? Not that she had the vaguest idea of what she’d say if she saw him.

Or why she wanted to.

Maybe so she could ask him, personally, why he hadn’t bothered to tick a single box. Maybe because she owed it to her mother.

Or maybe just so she could finally nail a lid on the last remnants of her childhood.

‘PLEASE be a stripper.’

His voice was thick and groggy, as though she’d just roused him from sleep. Maybe she had. It was a gently warm and breezeless day and Hayden Tennant looked as if he’d been lying in that longish grass at the base of the slope behind his cottage for quite some time.

Shirley found some air and forced it past a larynx choked with nerves. This suddenly seemed like a spectacularly bad idea.

‘Were you expecting one?’ she breathed.

He scrutinised her from behind expensive sunglasses. ‘No. But I’ve learned never to question the benevolence of the universe.’

Still so fast with a comeback. The man in front of her might have matured in ways she hadn’t anticipated but he was still Hayden inside.

Somewhere.

She straightened and worked hard not to pluck at her black dress. It was the tamest thing in her wardrobe. ‘I’m not a stripper.’

His head flopped back down onto the earth and his eyes closed again. ‘That’s disappointing.’

Discharged.

She stood her ground and channelled her inner Shiloh. She wouldn’t let his obvious dismissal rile her. Silent minutes ticked by. His long body sprawled comfortably where he lay. She took the opportunity to look him over. Still lean, still all legs. A tiny, tidy strip of facial hair above his lip and on his chin. Barely there but properly manicured. It only half-covered the scar she knew marred his upper lip.

The biggest difference was his hair. Shorter now than when he’d been at uni and a darker blond. It looked as if someone who knew what they were doing had cut it originally, but she guessed they hadn’t had a chance to provide any maintenance recently.

She pressed her lips together and glared pointlessly at him as the silence continued. Had he gone back to sleep?

‘I can do this all day,’ he murmured, eyes still closed. ‘I have nowhere to be.’

She spread her weight more evenly on her knee-high boots and appreciated every extra inch they gave her. ‘Me, too.’

He lifted his head again and opened his eyes a crack.

‘If you’re not here to give me a lap dance, what do you want?’

Charming. ‘To ask you some questions.’

He went dangerously still. Even the grass seemed to stop its swaying. ‘Are you a journalist?’

‘Not really.’

‘It’s a yes/no question.’

‘I write for an online blog.’ Understatement. ‘But I’m not here in that capacity.’

He pulled himself up and braced against one strong arm in the turf. Did that mean she had his attention?

‘How did you find me?’

‘ Molon Labe .’

He frowned and lifted his sunglasses to get a better look at her. His eyes were exactly as blue and exactly as intense as she remembered. She sneaked in a quick extra breath.

‘My office wouldn’t have given you this address.’

No. Not even face to face.

‘I researched it.’ Code for I stalked your offices.

It had taken a few visits to the coffee shop over the road to spot what messenger company they used most regularly. A man at the head of a corporation he didn’t visit had to get documents delivered to wherever he was, right? For signatures at least. Sadly for them, if Hayden ever found out, the courier company had been only too obliging when a woman purporting to be from Molon Labe had called to verify the most recent details of one of their most common delivery addresses.

His eyes narrowed. ‘But you’re not here in a journalistic capacity?’

‘I’m not a journalist.’

‘Or a stripper, apparently.’ He glanced over her from foot to head. ‘Though that seems wasted.’

She forced herself not to react. She’d chosen this particular outfit carefully—knee-high boots, black scoop-neck dress cinched at the waist and falling to her knees—but she’d been going more for I am woman and less for I am pole dancer.

‘You used to say sarcasm was the lowest form of wit,’ she murmured.

One eye narrowed, but he gave no other sign of being surprised that she already knew him. ‘Actually, someone else did. I just borrowed it. I’ve come to be quite fond of sarcasm in the years since …?’ He left it open for her to finish the sentence.

He didn’t recognise her.

Not entirely surprising, given how different she must have looked when he last saw her. Fourteen, stick-insect-thin, mousy, uninspired hair. A kid. She hadn’t discovered fashion—and her particular brand of fashion—until she was sixteen and her curves had busted out.

‘You knew my mother,’ she offered carefully.

The eyes narrowed again and he pushed himself to his feet. Now it was his turn to tower over her. It gave him a great view down her scoop neck and he took full advantage. His eyes eventually came back to hers.

‘I may have been an early starter but I think it’s a stretch to suggest I could be your father, don’t you?’

Hilarious.

‘Carol-Anne Marr,’ she persisted, the name itself an accusation.

Was it wrong that she took pleasure from the flash of pain he wasn’t quite fast enough to disguise? That she grasped so gratefully at any hint of a sign that he hadn’t forgotten her mother the moment she was in the ground. That he wasn’t quite as faithless as she feared.