Daniel's Bride (11 page)

Her mind spun into overdrive. To get away for a few days
with Daniel. She looked away but the image of him was burnt into her eyes. His
hands in the pockets of sleek black pants, the dark tie loose around his neck,
the top button of the still crisp white shirt undone, and the shirt sleeves
rolled up to the elbow. Black hair reaching the collar and a fraction beyond.
And his eyes, his dark gray eyes, assessing her, watching her. Maybe going away
wasn’t wise. While they were here, they had their own patterns, routines,
lives. Their own ways of avoiding each other.

She cleared her throat. “When would we leave?”

He pushed himself away from the door, his hands still in his
pockets. “Wednesday. We take the jet up to Brisbane, I take care of some
business, and in the afternoon we head to Broadbeach. We’ll be there for two
nights. You should be able to find something to amuse yourself.”

“Oh, I’m confident there’ll be plenty to amuse myself with,”
she said.

His eyebrows arched and she broached, “Have you ever been to
SeaWorld?”

He shrugged. “Sure. A few times when I was a kid. Why?” The
words were barely out when his eyes flickered shut briefly. He put his hand to
his forehead, began to rub in slow small circles. “Do not tell me you want to
go to an amusement park?”

“Is it an amusement park?” She shrugged and put her hand to
her chest. “Whatever it is, you should know that I’m a child at heart.” His
gaze followed her movement, then he looked away.

“Fortunately, I’m not.” He ran his hands up and down his
cheek for a long moment. “Okay,” he ground out. He closed his eyes as a painful
expression covered his face. “We’ll go to SeaWorld.”

They flew by private jet to Brisbane where Daniel conducted
his business in the city, and Mel window shopped and enjoyed a cruise up the
river. By early afternoon they were checking into their plush hotel at
Broadbeach. He had booked two suites, and they were across the hall from each
other.

Daniel had calls to make and promised to meet her for a
drink as soon as he could. When Mel had unpacked, she rode the lift to the
hotel’s garden bar where she ordered a beer for Daniel and a chardonnay for
herself. She took from her bag the tourist brochures she’d grabbed earlier, and
flicked through them as she waited.

She turned the page and straight away, there was a full page
advertisement for SeaWorld. Mel sat back in her chair with a heavy sigh, and
closed her eyes. Weeks before Ellie had suffered the stroke they’d planned a
trip to Queensland. Top of their list was a day at the amusement park. Mel had
had friends at school who’d taken holidays out of state and overseas, but Mel
and Ellie had only ever had small weekend camping trips to local grounds. And
then, just weeks before the day that had seen their lives change, Ellie had
come over to Mel’s with the brochures and said, “Let’s plan our holiday.”

It had never happened.

But now it could. Ellie had improved and Mel would have the
money. A lump rose in her throat, and she opened her eyes. They could plan a
new trip and she’d bring Ellie up here and show her the sights. This way, she
thought on a note of optimism, she was getting a head start on what to do.

The waiter set their drinks down, and Mel thanked him. A
cool sea breeze swept the heat from her face and she stared out across the
ocean. There was the hint of a view of the neighbouring high rise construction
which seemed as much a part of the Gold Coast as the coast itself. She breathed
in a deep sigh of pleasure and allowed the feeling of freedom to wash over her.

The chair next to her was pulled out, and she opened her
eyes as Daniel sat down. He took his bottle, ignored the glass alongside, and
tipping his head back, drank thirstily.

With a sigh he set it down, “I needed that. And I’m sorry to
keep you waiting.”

She shook away his apology. “It’s nice here. I’m loving it.”

Daniel took another gulp of his beer, and was thoughtful for
a moment. “I checked up on Grandad. There was a problem with his medication but
he appears to be fine now.”

“Did you speak to him?”

Daniel sat back in his chair, stretched out his legs, and
looked out over the surf. “Very briefly. He couldn’t talk for too long, he
loses his breath.” Daniel looked at her. “He asked after you, Mel. Asked when
you were coming around to see him. I told him the day we get back we’ll be
there.”

She nodded. “I’d be happy to.”

“He likes you, Mel. He likes you a lot.” He toyed with the
bottle for a long moment. A chair scraped the floor at the table next to them,
and Mel noticed the couple take a seat. The woman gazed at Daniel, then at Mel.
Her gaze flicked back to Daniel then away. She should be used to that. But she
wasn’t.

“Mel.” Daniel set the bottle on the table, ran his finger
down the condensation on the brown glass. “I’ve made a mistake with this whole
marriage thing. A major mistake it turns out.”

Mel frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I have completely and foolishly underestimated how much
Grandad does want to see you. I figured we’d show him a wedding photo, act nice
around him, and he’d be happy believing I had a future with a wife and a happy
family.” He glanced straight at Mel. “But that’s not the case at all. He wants
more than that. He wants to see you more.”

“I see.” She did see, too. Her mother’s stroke had cruelly
shown her freedom could be taken away in a flash and Arthur was confined in the
same way. To his house with his staff, Barnaby, friends like Hugh, and family.
Daniel.

“It was never part of the deal.” Daniel ran his hands
through his hair, frustration twisting his mouth. “I should have realised he’d
want to see more of my wife, considering he fully believes she will be the
mother to the Christie heirs.”

“I’m happy to spend time over at his place,” Mel said
finally. “I could offer to take Barnaby for walks. I know the staff let him run
around the grounds, but I’d be happy to walk him.”

“Then you must be bored,” Daniel commented drily, “if you
want to spend time with Barnaby.”

Mel stared at him closely. “Why are you so hateful to him?”

“I don’t hate him. I don’t like him either.”

“You grimace each time you pat him.”

Daniel narrowed his gaze. “I doubt that.”

“Almost every time, then. Is it all dogs or just Barnaby?”
She tapped her glass with her forefinger. “I can’t imagine there was any
anything as cliché as you having a bad experience with a dog when you were
younger.”

“I can’t remember anything. And don’t,” he said, holding up
his hand pre-emptively, “use your psychology and suggest there is something
buried deep in my memory. I never minded dogs as a child but as I got older I
just…” He stopped abruptly.

“You just what?”

He drained his bottle of beer and was silent for a moment
that seemed to stretch out longer and longer.

Finally he said, “My grandfather loves Barnaby.”

“He loves him as if he were a child.”

“He’s had Barnaby from a pup. He loves him so much that if…”
His voice faltered, caught in his throat. “If something happened to Barnaby, it
would just be too much.”

Mel nodded. “I know,” she agreed

She noticed a couple of women at a neighbouring table
watching him, then they glanced at her and promptly looked away. Oh for
goodness sake. Anyone would think she was a complete freak, the way they
stared. “How did she get him? She must have the most amazing personality.”

She straightened her shoulders and followed Daniel’s gaze
towards the sea. The surf was low, but people splashed in the sea, or walked
their dogs along the sand. An older man was walking a terrier, a dog very much
like Barnaby.

A sea breeze buffeted his hair, and he absently reached up
to push it back into place. His scent floated to her. Citrus. Masculine. Sexy.

He suddenly turned back and commented, “I’ll be busy until
about eight so we’ll have dinner late.”

She took a sip of her drink, enjoying the slide of the
fruity flavours on her hot throat and both relieved and pleased he hadn’t
suggested they eat from room service in their own rooms. “It sounds fine. I’m
looking forward to getting out and looking around.”

"I’ve hired a car for tomorrow. I’ll drive out to the
packaging plant near Toowoomba and I should make it back by early afternoon.”

“So is the afternoon free, then?” she asked.

“It is.” He nodded but his face had become suddenly grim.
“That should give us plenty of time to go and see some of ...” He squeezed his
eyes shut and ground out, “SeaWorld.”

The afternoon meetings had proceeded as planned. The plants
were being run smoothly, the managers were on the ball, but most of all, Daniel
was relieved to find there were no whispers of trouble in the Christie empire.
And those Queensland bosses would have had no hesitation in asking him straight
if they’d heard a whisper about anything. Rumors about the two youngest members
of the board. Or an unexpected marriage. He grimaced. Despite these more
liberal times, the next question would have been, “When’s the baby due?” His
rental car neared the hotel, and his mind skipped to Mel.

It had been a last minute decision to bring her along and if
he was being honest, he’d regretted it as soon as he’d asked. This wasn’t a
holiday for him. He’d brought Nora along in the past, but Nora was his PA. An
exceptionally proficient personal assistant. Their work relationship had never
veered away from the professionalism he prized in that role. Sure, he could
easily allow himself to let his mind wander in that direction, but he’d be
losing more than the few minutes of pleasure a romp between the sheets would
give.

At the hotel, he handed the keys to the valet, and in his
suite he showered, dressed casually, and called Mel’s room.

“I’ve made reservations for eight. I’ll come by at ten two,”
he told her.

Mel’s voice was low, “I’m looking forward to it,” she said.
The enthusiasm in her voice, mute as it was, had him on edge. He pushed it
aside. Mel Green wouldn’t read anything in to this. And if she did, who was he
to complain when she’d calmly told him she would be happy to see Sir Arthur.
Would love to in fact. He couldn’t have asked for anything more, even though he
was kicking himself he hadn’t realised it at the time. Any woman would have
been justified in not keeping to the arrangement which mentioned nothing of
seeing Sir Arthur regularly or walking his dog.  

He switched on his laptop, and stared broodily out the
window at the dusk. Mel was growing on him, too. Attraction was growing. Which
was a nuisance at best, since she irritated him as much as she intrigued him.
She wasted her time on making quilts when you could buy them, had chosen a
career path that made him shudder, and there were times when she struck him as
downright flaky, like this insistence on going to SeaWorld tomorrow.

He opened up the stock market website. But he was the one in
control and that wasn’t going to change. And he appreciated that they had
stipulated from the outset that sex was a “no go”. It made the whole thing
easier when it came to break it up. Once you brought sex into the equation, the
playing fields changed and he suspected that once that boundary had been
crossed, Melinda Green was not someone you played around with and then
discarded.

And when it came down to it, discard was what he would be
doing when he faced the inevitable, and his grandfather passed on.

What he hadn’t told Mel was that Arthur’s body was slowing
down. At times he needed pain relief. Daniel shut his eyes as a wave of grief
swept through him. That’s why he’d brought this trip forward, so that over the
next few weeks and months he would only be a short car ride away.

Because it was going to happen. They were prepared for it.
And he knew he had given his grandfather hope that the family empire would
survive, that heirs would be produced.

Beyond that, there was nothing more they could do.

He walked with Mel the short distance from the hotel down
the main road to the restaurant. People were spilling out on to the sidewalk,
drinks in hand and laughter in their voices.

The waiter showed them to their table, and as they took
their seats, he noticed Mel wearing the gold pendant again.

He ordered a bottle of red wine, and when the waiter had
left, Daniel commented, “That chain around your neck intrigues me.”

Her fingers automatically went up to it. “It’s sentimental
value. My mother gave it to me on my thirteenth birthday.”

“Does it symbolise anything?”

“It’s of a patron saint my mother used to tell me the story
of. Saint Maria Goretti.”

His eyebrows rose. “Your mother is Italian?”

“Her mother was Italian. Grandmother Sophia immigrated to
Melbourne with the family when she was just a baby, during the immigration wave
in the 1930s. But she married my grandfather, a fifth generation Aussie. Which
apparently didn’t go down well with the rest of the family.”

The waiter came, and when he’d poured their wine, Mel added,
“Mum’s real name is Elena but she always went by Ellie.”

He nodded, intrigued. “So what did this Maria Goretti do
that your mother felt compelled to tell you?”

“You really want to hear it?” she asked doubtfully.

He leant back in his chair. “Of course.”

“Okay. Well, Maria was a girl from a poor Italian family
around the turn of the century. One day an older boy tried to…” She waved her
hand. “Have his way with her. But she refused and said she’d rather die than
submit to him. He stabbed her and she later died.”

“Good grief,” Daniel muttered.

“The story goes that she forgave the boy on her death bed,
but years later she appeared to him in a dream, and he repented his ways.” She
smiled wryly. “I guess my mother figured I’d need to learn forgiveness at some
point in my life.” She sipped her wine. “I think it’s because she had to
several times in her own life.”