Emma Darcy: The Father Of Her Child

That lady had a few things coming to her.

Michael figured he was just the man to deliver them.

He could feel the primitive savage stirring inside him, and this time he didn’t try to suppress the feeling. He revelled in it. Being civilised could definitely be overrated. He had the taste of revenge in his mouth. It was sweet.

“COME on, Lauren,” Graham Parker urged. “It’s peak hour, remember? The traffic across the city is bound to be horrendous, and I want to make it to Rose Bay by six.”

“I’m coming.” The last page of the publicity flyer started rolling through the fax machine. Confident there’d be no problem with the transmission, Lauren turned to her desk, snatched up her handbag and flashed a smile at the head of the marketing department. “Ready to go.”

Graham was in his mid-forties, solidly married to his wife, family and computer and nicely avuncular towards her. Lauren knew he read nothing personal into her asking him for a lift to the launching party. It was simply a convenience between two coworkers. She always felt in a comfort zone with Graham. It was a pleasant feeling.

“Snazzy belt,” he commented appreciatively.

She grinned, pleased with the compliment. The belt was a recent purchase, featuring a large gold bow set on a wide, black, elasticised band. “Nothing like a good accessory to turn day wear into glitz.”

He shook his head in bemusement as she joined him. “Do you turn your whole life into a time and motion study?”

“Have to with my job, Graham.”

“I don’t know how you can stand the pace. Always on the go. It would give me a coronary.”

“I like it.”

It filled her life. She needed that. She didn’t like having too much time to dwell on the empty spaces. It was good to keep busy. Besides, she was doing what she did best, organising schedules, taking care of people, sorting them out, fitting everything and everyone into a workable and effective pattern. It seemed to Lauren she had been doing that as long as she could remember, having been the eldest child in a family of nine.

Once she had dreamed of having someone take care of her and do all the looking after. Big mistake. Her stomach clenched in recoil at the memory of the prison her ex-husband had made of their marriage. Never again, she vowed. Obsessive possessiveness had no place in Lauren’s concept of love. It was both frightening and crushing.

As she rode the elevator to the ground floor with Graham, she consciously banished those shadows from her mind. These days she lived life on her own terms, and the party tonight should be fun. No responsibilities for her apart from chatting to a few authors, making them feel welcome and introducing them to other guests. Champagne was to flow freely and a band had been booked to provide dance music after the speeches. Lauren loved dancing.

She adjusted the new belt so the gold bow was set closer to her hip line. It looked brilliant on the bright violet of her ribbed knit sweater. She was really pleased with the overall effect, the wide black elastic accentuating the black of her skirt and tights and the bow picking up the gold trim on her black suede shoes.

She still had to do her hair. It was in a bit of a tangle from being loose all day. Lauren grinned to herself as she recalled her hairdresser calling it a wild animal. The copper-red hue did not come out of a bottle and the natural curls bounced from her scalp and rioted over her shoulders and halfway down her back.

Once she was in Graham’s car she would pile up her unruly hair and clip on the black and gold earrings. That would certainly put the finishing touch to her cocktail-hour appearance.

Graham hustled her out of Global’s office building to the car park, clearly anxious to be on his way. By Lauren’s calculation, from where they were in Artarmon, the express route to the bridge and the Harbour Tunnel to the Eastern Suburbs cut the trip to Rose Bay to forty minutes at most, even through peak hour traffic. The party didn’t start until six, and it was only just past five now.

“Why the hurry?” she asked. Accustomed to travelling to a tight schedule, Lauren disliked the waste of time involved in arriving anywhere too early.

“I want to check the display table before anyone arrives.”

“I thought Roxanne was doing that.”

She had told Lauren so this morning, pleased with the task of setting up a display of the new titles catalogue and the gift T-shirts.

“She tripped down the steps out there and sprained her ankle,” Graham stated flatly.

Lauren rolled her eyes. Another drama in Roxanne’s life to be endlessly recounted to every ear she could find!

“I don’t know if she finished the job first,” Graham added with a grimace.

“I take it she won’t be at the party with her new husband tonight,” Lauren said dryly.

“Into each life some rain must fall.”

Lauren couldn’t help laughing at his droll intonation. Since Roxanne worked in marketing, Graham was even more a victim of her confidences than Lauren was. His responses were invariably short, pithy sayings. He let the rest float over his head.

They were probably being unkind, Lauren thought, as they settled into the car. Spraining an ankle was no joke. It should evoke sympathy. The problem was that Roxanne was such a sympathy gobbler, one’s natural store of it ran out. This past year Lauren had taken to actively evading Roxanne and her self-indulgent wallowing in real or imagined woes.

She ruefully reflected that when she had first arrived at Global Publications, she had been sucked right into being a listener. Like a sponge, she had absorbed a steady stream of complaints about the demands and unreasonable expectations of Roxanne’s first husband, It had hit on wounds from her own miserable marriage, drawing what might have been, in hindsight, unwarranted sympathy, as well as the best advice she could give.

She hadn’t known then that advice was not really what was wanted. Roxanne soaked up advice from everyone who would give it. She went looking for advice constantly because it gave her the excuse to talk about herself. Roxanne Kinsey was the most self-absorbed person Lauren had ever met.

All the same, Roxanne was probably well rid of her first husband. He had sounded as though he was tarred with the same brush as Lauren’s big mistake. Men who wanted to own women were innately insecure. No trust. Rabid jealousy. Demanding accountability of every moment away from them. Forcing their will on every little thing.

Nightmare alley, Lauren thought, and was glad to be out of it. Although she did miss living in Melbourne. All her family were there. Unfortunately, so was Wayne, and she didn’t trust him to stay out of her life. Despite their divorce, he wouldn’t let go. Coming to Sydney had effected a solid break from him, and that had been necessary for her peace of mind, but she did find it lonely up here.

At least she would have a chance to visit her mother during her stay in Melbourne with Evan Daniel. A smile broke through her brooding as she thought of the upcoming promotional tour. Some authors were highly touchy and temperamental, but Evan Daniel was a real sweetie, cheerful, obliging, appreciative of everything she had arranged for him, a lovely, warm, huggable bear of a man. She wished she could find someone like him for herself.

Her mobile telephone beeped, and she quickly drew it out of of her handbag.

Graham threw her a twinkling look. “That thing will be growing out of your ear if you don’t watch out, Lauren.”

“It would be handier if it did,” she returned lightly.

She knew Graham’s remark was not a criticism, yet coming on top of her thoughts about Wayne, it scraped a highly sensitive area. The night she had walked away from her marriage, Wayne had ripped her mobile telephone from her ear and hurled it against the wall in a jealous rage. The memory lingered darkly as she answered the call.