Insecure (7 page)

He went back down the hall to the office and the rigid line of his shoulders and the lack of care he paid to his hurt foot made her accumulation of money, privilege and power seem like a pointless waste of time.

Jacinta was fearless, had taught herself to be that way, but her fearlessness came from having control, knowing she could argue, buy or rationalise any circumstance she faced. She didn't have the switch that flicked that could make a person run towards an explosion, but he did. Mace ran towards the fire and the pain of being alive every weekend.

Jacinta stood in the open fridge door and felt inadequate. Her fridge was full of girl food: salad and fruit, yoghurt and cold cuts. She had crispbread and cream cheese; things the housekeeper stocked for her to pick at when she was home. Any cooking was mostly reheating. She didn't know what to put together for Mace's lunch, but one BLT and a bottle of water would hardly be enough to keep his hangover from eating his brain if it was anything like hers.

He startled her with a brusque, “Sorry.” She turned to find him sitting on a kitchen stool at the counter. She'd figured he'd probably hide out in the office for the rest of the day, which might have been the best thing for both of them.

She closed the fridge door. “It's okay. I deserved that.”

He shrugged. “I didn't have to lay it on so thick.” He rubbed a knuckle into his forehead and closed his eyes. “I'm a dickhead.”

“And I was being all master of the universe. I wasn't thinking. My offer to help stands, but I get that it only provides for the more mercenary needs.”

She leant on the opposite side of the counter, facing him across its width. She wanted to tell him how affected she'd been by his words, how touched she was that he looked like action man but spent his weekends caring for someone who could no longer care for him. He wasn't an oyster shell, he was an onion with unexpected layers to his life that might make you cry if he let you peel them back.

He dropped his hand from his face. “If I had an ounce of grace I'd have recognised that's where you were coming from.”

“I can't do anything for your state of grace, but you must be hungry.”

“I'll gracefully accept your offer of food.”

“You don't happen to gracefully master catering type things do you?”

The eyebrow jumped.

“I don't do kitchens.”

It jumped again.

“I can slap salad on a plate, make toast and fry an egg and I'm an ace at microwave reheating, but that's where the talents run out.”

“Jay made the BLT.”

She grimaced and nodded.

He got off the stool and came around her side of the counter. “If you have mayo I could eat the countertop.”

She backed away to give him space, going to the stool he'd vacated. He studied the cupboards that hid the pantry, a wine fridge and the ordinary fridge.

“To the right of the stove, put your palm down and press gently.” He did and then made a hey presto flourish of his other hand when the fridge opened and she laughed.

She directed him to plates, glasses and cutlery and watched while he assembled chicken and salad. They ate side by side at the counter and it was much less awkward than it might have been. Giving him something to do was a good idea; it made him less irritated about being dependent on her hospitality. If he thought she was completely hopeless in the kitchen that couldn't hurt, and it wasn't far from wrong anyway.

He was on a second helping of salad when he said, “Did you set me up so I'd quit being such a grump, or are you really incapable of putting stuff on plates?”

She pushed away from the counter and looked over at him. “I was manipulating your extreme sensitivity about having to hang out here and hoping to appeal to your hunter, protector instincts.”

He coughed on a mouthful and when he'd recovered said, “Don't you mean predator?”

She laughed. “I'll handle dinner.”

Yes, dinner. They had hours of hanging out to do, unless she was the one who retreated to the office and went to work. There was enough to do, but the idea had lost its appeal. And unless the curfew was lifted there was another night to get through. She could take the worry out of that right now.

“There is a guest bedroom. It's all made up. It's yours for the night, or for an afternoon siesta, whatever you feel like.”

He gave her a curious look, and started cleaning up. He ran the plates under water in the sink. “Is one of these a damn dishwasher?”

She tapped the counter in line with the cupboard that hid the dishwasher and he opened it and stacked the crockery and cutlery inside.

“You're welcome to my office.” But he knew that already. “What do you feel like doing?”

He closed the dishwasher into its cupboard. “I was considering going all out for temporary residency.”

Unexpected. “Really?”

“Are you backing out of the offer to earn my stay by making you feel nice?”

He said the word nice like it was charged with an offense against everything natural and she felt her face colouring for no good reason. She hadn't blushed since she wore a school uniform. She should back out. Backing out was the smart thing to do. He was waiting, watching her. He was more than just a body to get lost with, a brain that didn't bore her, and for all his rough oyster traits, his hidden onion layers, he was a considerate lover.

Who was she kidding—considerate. He'd made her feel things she didn't know her body was capable of. He'd torn open the sealed packet of her senses and let light and heat in. Except maybe she was romanticising that. The drink, the wild, weird day, her loneliness weren't conducive to clear thinking. The forced confinement was, however, conducive to repeating the experience to find out. “The offer is still open.”

He stood with his arms stretched out on the counter, palms flat. His broad chest was a page in the story of his physical fitness that her hands had read last night and twitched now to re-read like a favourite book. He could vault the counter and have her on her back in less time than it took for a pygmy cymbal crash to sound in her head and there'd be nothing she could do to stop him. There was a certain danger to him because she had no idea what he was thinking. And that felt like so much trouble, like being insanely drunk without drinking and driving way too fast without brakes.

His eyes did a slow samba over her face. This strangely reticent man was oddly bold. He leant forward and stroked the back of his hand over her cheek. She closed her eyes against the soft pressure while other parts of her body jolted to wakefulness. It would be a crime if this man ever saw the inside of her guest bedroom. She needed to find a way to make sure that didn't happen.

When she opened her eyes again, he was back in front of the TV. Maybe it wasn't boldness. Maybe he needed alcohol to be attracted to her. She could hardly complain; she'd virtually forced herself on him in the first place. She took her place at the other end of the lounge. The screen showed a graphic re-enactment of the bombing, with cartoon figures demonstrating trajectories and blast impacts. They'd reduced the severity of the event to a macabre video game in an effort to have something new to broadcast. It was sickening.

“I can't watch this, Mace.”

He picked up the remote and switched the channel, flicking impatiently past more of the same on the other networks, sport and home shopping. He landed on a movie, sea monsters invading land. He grunted and switched to Hugh Jackman showing his Wolverine claws, then Brad Pitt running from zombies. He skipped over the Linda Lovelace 70s porn movie and Iron Man doing his thing. He stopped on
The Great Gatsby
.

“Violence, destruction, end of the world, sex or excess.” He looked across at her. “Preference?”

If he wasn't going to take her to bed then he had to talk. “How did Buster get her name?”

He muted Gatsby flinging shirts at Daisy Buchanan. He squared his shoulders off on the arm of the lounge and faced her. She did the same and brought her legs up, stretched in front of her, toes pointed towards him.

“She used to call me that when I was a baby. One day she came into the room, I looked her in the eye and called her Buster. It was the first real word I said.”

She smiled and Mace did too, a crooked half embarrassed smile. “That's a cute story. How did she come to be your Malcolm?”

He turned his head to look at the TV. There was room for a Sumo wrestler and his two size zero girlfriends between them. If they touched it would be no accident. If he went back to one phrase sentences she'd be bereft.

“What happened to your parents?” he said.

She inclined her head. Her turn, that was fair. “My father died when I was five. He had a brain tumour. I only have the vaguest memories of him.” Mace watched her, but his expression gave nothing away. “My mother didn't cope well without male affection. She had a series of boyfriends who I do remember, then suddenly there was new daddy, Malcolm. He left his wife for her. He was always ambitious, a social climber, and she was very beautiful. She was a better fit with his plans than his first wife. I was eight when they married. I was twelve when she died.”

“How'd she die?”

“An accident.” He took that and gave nothing back. He made her want to tell him more, simply because he felt no need to push for it. “She broke her neck skiing.” She shook her head remembering her fractured childhood, where she'd wanted for nothing but was starved for affection. “I had a stepfather who found me a nuisance because he already had two boys who lived with their mother. He remarried almost immediately. He didn't know what to do with me. There were lots of babysitters, tutors and activity camps, then boarding school.”

“Do you look like her?”

“Like my mother? No. Why do you ask?”

He shifted, closing some of the distance between them. “You said she was beautiful.”

“I don't look like her.” Not beautiful, decorative. Not the kind of woman men lost their heads over. Not the kind of woman who needed them to. She had a figure that was fashionable and wore clothes easily. She had a face that was pleasant to look at but was too strong to be called beautiful. It was his turn. “What happened to your parents?”

He looked away, then reluctantly back. “My father shot through before I was born. My mother was...Buster used to say, delicate. Now I know she was bipolar.”

He looked back to the TV again. He had a way of making a full stop physical.

“What happened to your mother, Mace?”

“Want to go to the bedroom?”

And then starting a new, altogether disconnected sentence.

She did, even if he only wanted her to avoid talking, but she wanted this first. “Tell me.”

His eyes came back to hers. “She stepped in front of a bus.”

Her toes curled. He looked down at his leg, hooked up on the seat, but that was the only hint of emotion in him.

She couldn't ask the question she wanted to. “How old were you?”

“Seven.”

But she couldn't not ask it either. Something about what he didn't say. “Were you there?”

He looked up and sighed.

“You can tell me to shut up.” But if he did, she'd feel cheated, depleted somehow.

“Would you shut up if I took you into the bedroom?”

She gave him back a dose of the silent treatment he was so good at dishing out. But if he dragged her in there by the hair she'd do what she could to help him.

He dropped his head forward and rubbed the back of his neck. “One minute she was holding my hand, the next she stepped out on the road. I remember the driver's face. He was screaming before he even hit her.”

“Oh God.” It was her turn to look away from the flatness in his eyes.

“Don't.” He touched her foot and she brought her vision back to him, confused. He'd closed more distance between them. “You have nothing to feel bad about.”

“I'm not so great at casual conversation either. I don't know how not to push the point. It works in business, but otherwise I make everything too serious.”

He said, “Princess Severe,” but his hand was warm over her instep.

“Apparently so.”

He shifted again and her foot was in both of his hands. He stuck a thumb into her sole and it hurt. She flinched and he pressed again, but this time she was ready for it. “What are you doing?” He stroked up her instep and the move was inextricably connected to her eyelids. She closed her eyes and groaned.

“Why are you glad you don't look like your mother?”

“She was so beautiful she never had to learn to do anything for herself. I didn't want to be like that. I wanted to be like Malcolm. I wanted to be powerful and independent. I wanted to run my own life, not need someone to run it for me.”

“Looks like you got that.”

She nodded. She had the career she'd dreamed about and trained for, the future she'd worked for, almost ripe enough to pluck.

“Why do you hate him?”

She opened her eyes and fell into his. His hands were on her feet, but his gaze was all over her face. She rested her head back on a tower of cushions. He started on her toes. It hurt. She had tension in her toes, how the heck was that possible? “I don't hate him.”

His hands stilled. She lifted her head, wondering if he'd gotten bored and gone back to watching TV. He was watching her. He'd remembered. “He's not a good person.” Mace's hands started moving again.

Malcolm was a genius, a ruthless, arrogant, controlling mastermind. He'd taken a small, privatised credit union and built a global financial services organisation with offices on four continents in fifteen years. But he was also a corporate psychopath, utterly lacking in empathy, brutally uncaring about anything except the business, and capable of destroying anything and anyone standing in the way of his plans. And that extended to family. He'd sidelined his eldest son, Bryan, without a hint of regret when he'd judged him too soft to be of value to Wentworth Finance.