Anna Cleary - Do Not Disturb

She shrugged. She’d learned enough about love and its consequences. ‘What’s there to say? I’m older now. I know better. How about you?’

‘Older.’

His mouth edged up at the corners in that sexy way he had and she felt herself slide further towards some cliff’s edge. How could someone so bad for her still be so appealing?

He pierced her with one of those glances. ‘Do you have someone in your life?’

His tone was casual, as if he didn’t care one way or the other. But there was a stillness in him, as if all at once the world turned on her reply.

She relaxed back in the sofa and crossed her legs. ‘Is this something bosses need to know about their employees, Joe?’

He smiled at the small challenge. ‘Bosses are only human. Isn’t it natural to be curious about old lovers?’

She felt an internal flinch at the word, but he’d used it deliberately. Lovers. Surely they were people who loved you and wanted to keep you? Especially when you were scared to death?

He continued to taunt her with silken ruthlessness. ‘I’d have thought you’d be married by now to some solid citizen in the suburbs. Some pious, clean-living guy who plays the church organ. Mows the grass on Sunday. Takes the kids to the park.’

She felt a sudden upsurge of anger, but controlled it. ‘Is that where you’re headed, Joe?’

‘Me? You’ve got to be kidding. You know me better than that.’

‘Yes,’ she said shortly. ‘I remember well.’ She conquered the emotions unfurling in her chest. After all, it had been ten years. ‘Anyway, would that life be so wrong?’

His eyes were mocking, sensual. ‘It might be. For you.’

‘Oh.’ She expelled an exasperated breath, but no doubt his assumption was her own fault. It had been her fatal mistake. She’d worked so hard to convince him she was super-cool and fearless and ready to fly, when all along she’d been this weak, clinging little girl who’d slipped on the most elementary of rules for conducting an affair with a bad boy. Not any more, though. ‘What makes you an authority on what’s right for me, Joe?’

He said, deliberately tweaking her tender spots, ‘Knowing you in your formative years. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your walk on the wild side.’

If only she could. A complex mixture of emotions rose in her, regret and anger uppermost, but she crushed them down and gave a careless shrug, though it pained her to dismiss the enchanted time and its bitter aftermath.

He smiled his devil’s smile. ‘Remember the time you borrowed your old man’s car? How many girls can claim they swam naked at Coogee at midnight, then drove home in their dad’s car?’ He added softly, ’Still naked?’ He broke into a laugh. ‘That was some ride. If Captain Summers could have seen his little girl that night.’ His voice softened. ‘You were—ablaze.’

Straight away her mind flew to the inevitable postscript to that wild, exhilarating ride. His flat. His hard, bronzed beauty in the flickering candlelight, in startling contrast to her own pale nudity. The excitement of being held in those muscled arms. Her passion for him, the intense heat of their coupling.

She met his eyes and knew he was remembering it too. Despite herself she felt the stirrings of desire, tightening the air between them, the sudden sweet possibility of sex. What could be more likely, with the two of them in this otherwise empty apartment? Her breasts swelled with heat and suddenly she was awash with the old bittersweet sensations. The yearning, the helplessness.

How easy it was for a man. No consequences, no griefs to bury.

But she’d already made those mistakes. She said steadily, ‘Look, much as I’d love to stay and reminisce, I have to go. I have a job, remember? ’ She made a move to get up but he put out one lean hand.

‘No, don’t go. Please. Patterson won’t be worried. You can tell him I waylaid you for my own wicked purposes.’ He smiled, a sexy smile that crept into her and coiled itself cosily around her insides, as if he shared some secret with her. Some private, intimate secret.

The trouble was, he did.

She examined her fingernails. Oh, heavens. Here she went, sliding down the serpent again in the old snake-and-ladders game of life. Was she imagining it, or was the mood seductive? Who else had ever been able to look at her with quite that degree of sexy assurance, as if they knew it was only a matter of time before she fell into his hands like a ripe plum?

She supposed her small test of his pillow had fuelled the flames. Why on earth had she succumbed to such an idiotic impulse? Whatever he was about to suggest, dinner and conversation or an afternoon of dalliance, a glimpse back at all the old pain and humiliation was enough to resolve her.

With a big firm no crystallising on her tongue, she looked up again and shouldn’t have. He was examining her, one corner of his mouth edged up in a half smile, his stunning eyes gleaming with an amused comprehension that rushed through her like a fizzy drink, stirring her to her entrails.

Was this the time to lose her nerve and turn respectable? No other man had ever been able to look at her like that, as if he knew all the secrets of her sinful heart. Heaven forgive her, but just this once, whatever decadent scenario he suggested, shouldn’t she at least listen?

But he surprised her. ‘To be honest, I’m glad we have this chance to talk. I guess there are things we both need to acknowledge before we can move on.’

She moistened her lips. Was this how he operated now? He bamboozled women into his bed? ‘Move on? Move on where? I’m not sure I follow…’

His brows edged together. ‘Well…’ He shook his head, then started again. ‘We’ve come up against each other again, and.’ He gestured with his hands. ‘It’s an opportunity to set the record straight. I know I for one can look back at that time on things I’m not comfortable with. Wouldn’t you prefer to operate from a basis of truth?’

If she hadn’t been seated she’d have been rocked off her stilettos. What was he doing? Inviting her to be honest? Demanding that all pretences be dropped?

What planet was he on?

The phone rang again. Joe made no move to answer it, instead continuing to search her face with his compelling gaze. He started to speak again, earnestly, sincerely. ‘Meeting you again has made me…reevaluate. Some of the things that were said back then… The way things happened, have had a—an afterlife.’

He met her eyes with such honesty she felt a deep surge of response. Her heart quickened, suddenly brimming with long-buried emotions. Hope, tenderness, the faint stirring of that all too weakening love. Despite all her protective barriers every cell of her being started urging her to listen to what he was saying.

Maybe there truly was a time when lovers could speak to each other without artifice. Open their hearts. Maybe she should have told him the simple truth that last time they met. Given him his chance to be a hero. Maybe if he understood what had driven her to lower her guard, humiliate herself like that, beg…

The phone clicked to answering machine and an urgent female voice flooded the room. ‘Joe, I know you’re there. Don’t hang up, please.’ Despite an attempt at lightness the voice croaked slightly on the don’t. ‘We really need to talk.’

He sprang up and grabbed the phone.

‘Sorry, Kirsty,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I’m occupied right now. I’ll call you back.’ He was about to hang up but something his caller said arrested him and he listened. Even from where she was sitting, Mirandi could hear the agitated female voice, beseeching.

If only the woman had been able to see him she wouldn’t have persisted. He was frowning, shaking his head, every line of his body from his chiselled, sensuous mouth to his long, lean limbs set in a steely, definite no.