Ran From Him (5 page)

Amie’s forehead wrinkled. “What a strange thing to say. Happy about the salmon.”

Amie’s expression reminded Cate of how she’d looked through high school—continually bemused. Amie was enthusiastic and compassionate, but she wasn’t a brain.

Not that intelligence matters compared to a loving heart
, Cate thought. If only she knew that Rob and Amie truly loved one another, she’d be happy for them. But she couldn’t see any signs of devotion.

“Don’t you think food should make you feel happy?” she said at random. “Certain foods match certain emotions. Like champagne is for celebrations and chicken noodle soup is for comfort.”

“So is chocolate.” Amie giggled, evidently intrigued by the notion of emotional dining. “Oysters for seduction and porridge for when you’re feeling stodgy.”

“What would you serve if you were feeling angry?” Daniel asked idly.

“Squid served in its own ink. The dish is all black. It’s disgusting.”

“Take note, Rob,” Cate teased gently. “Don’t make Amie angry.”

“I’ll remember.” He didn’t look up from his fisherman’s pie.

The joke fell flat and a small silence descended. Cate listened to the hum of conversation and chink of china from surrounding tables. Amie, despite her professed enjoyment of Salsa’s food, toyed with her salmon rather than ate it.

Daniel rescued the conversation by launching into a tale about airport delays and missed flights on his last trip to China. It was a topic all four could relate to and it drew Rob into the conversation.

“Heathrow is the worst,” he said. “Even after all the changes, I still dread it.”

“Yeah. People get cranky and cross and it becomes a nightmare.” Amie shuddered. “I prefer to fly to Charles de Gaulle Airport in France. Then if I want anything in London, I just take the train.”

Cate smiled ruefully. Her experience of international flights was limited to Africa and South America. In the glamour stakes, she wasn’t even a starter.

But Daniel had also travelled to some remote areas. Cate tended to forget he’d been a geologist before turning businessman.

“Small Third World airports are the worst.” He pushed away his plate. “Pickpockets and the need for bribery. And when there’s a delay with your flight—and there always is—you have to sleep wrapped around your belongings to prevent them being stolen.”

“But the people are friendly,” Cate argued. “They’re philosophers. Most of them accept the delays. I’ve had some great conversations in tin shed airports.”

“That’s because people like you,” Rob said.

She smiled. “What a lovely compliment. Thank you.”

Daniel chuckled. “And the inference is that I have a miserable time because people don’t like me.”

Rob flushed. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Cate allowed a naughty smile to dawn. “If the shoe fits…”

“Thank you, Caty.” Daniel toasted her. “Maybe we should stick to a safer topic, like politics?”

They did so through the main course, cheerfully arguing over the tax and welfare systems.

“And the government doesn’t invest enough in higher education.” Caty’s face was flushed. “It’s a crime. Education is an essential investment in the future.”

“Hey, pax.” Rob laughed and waved his white serviette in surrender.

Abruptly she recalled where she was. “Sorry.” She had been arguing with both Rob and Daniel, and only now realised Amie had fallen silent.

“I didn’t mind,” Daniel said. “I like to see you passionate.”

She was grateful her cheeks were already flushed. She shook her head and turned to Amie. “Sorry I got carried away. I never even asked what the seasoning was on the new potatoes.”

Amie threw her serviette onto the table. “You don’t have to talk down to me.”

“I wasn’t.” But she had chosen a topic she’d thought would interest Amie more than politics.

“You were. You’re like Rob. You think I’m stupid.” She stormed out of the restaurant, leaving Cate blinking.

“Rob?” She looked to her brother for an explanation.

“Sorry, sis. You copped the backlash meant for me. If you’ll excuse me, I drove Amie here. I’d better catch up with her.” He dropped a quick kiss on her cheek and hurried out.

He left Cate bewildered, but with her worst fears confirmed.

“Amie’s unhappy.” Cate stared at the empty doorway through which first Amie, and then, Rob had vanished. From high school she remembered Amie as confident and outgoing, the last person to take offence at anything a friend said, or to imagine herself excluded.

Did the wild swing in her mood from initial exuberance to tears mean Amie regretted her engagement to Rob? A happily engaged girl didn’t accuse her fiancé of thinking her stupid. Nor did Rob’s exasperation suggest a devoted lover.

“Should we go after her?”

“Amie—despite her display of bad manners just now—is an adult. She has to sort out her own problems. So does Rob.” Daniel picked up a menu. “What would you like for dessert?”

“Dessert? Daniel, your sister’s just run out in tears. Doesn’t that bother you?”

It bothered Cate, and not because of the other diners’ humming curiosity.

“Rob went after her, and I’m not so insensitive as to intrude on their private quarrel or their reconciliation. Amie does tend to get wound up. Now, would you like dessert?” Very clearly, he didn’t want to discuss Amie or her behaviour.

“No.”

He closed the dessert menu. “Then I suspect you don’t want coffee either. Shall we leave?”

“Please.” She felt choked with shock at Amie’s unexpected accusation of condescension mingled with renewed worry that her dad had manoeuvred Rob’s engagement. If only Daniel would see the situation as she did. If he could be convinced of Amie’s unhappiness, surely he would help Cate to unravel this tangle and minimise the hurt for everyone involved.

She looked up at him as he held her chair. A trick of the restaurant’s subdued discreet lighting showed his eyes darkened with concern.

“I’m sorry Amie spoiled your evening.” His hand rested lightly at her elbow as they threaded their way through the tables.

“I wanted to know the truth.”

His hand tightened. “Amie’s temper tantrum wasn’t proof of anything except immaturity. Certainly not proof of a relationship breakdown.” 

“Daniel, you must have felt the tension between Rob and Amie.” She appealed to him.

“Real life isn’t a fairy-tale with a guaranteed happy ever after. Amie and Rob have to work out their changing relationship.” 

He stopped at the front desk.

She walked on a few steps, putting some space between them. She could agree with him to some extent. Most couples did benefit from premarital counselling, but the tension between Rob and Amie seemed more than commitment jitters. Were they both feeling trapped?

She studied Daniel as he spoke with the maître de.

Rob had already paid the restaurant bill. Daniel added a substantial tip to the jar, then took her arm again.

“Maybe Rob and Amie are still out front,” she said.

“I hope not.” Daniel met her reproachful look. “Joining in another couple’s squabbles helps no one.”

“Maybe not.” But she worried about Rob and about Amie.

They were gone when she and Daniel stepped outside.

Cate sighed, and he put an arm around her as they waited for the car to be brought around. The night was cool. She shivered and tucked herself closer to him. She might resent his attitude, but his strength was reassuring amid the evening’s battering emotions.

The valet drove up with the Ferrari.

“In you hop.” Daniel had to have felt her shiver. “We’ll be home in a minute, and then you can have a brandy to warm up.”

“I don’t like brandy.”

“You’ve had a shock. You think Amie’s behaviour proves all your suspicions about her and Rob’s engagement, and although you came racing to Perth determined to find Machiavellian manipulation by your dad and me, you didn’t really expect it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She straightened in her seat. “Why else would I drop everything to fly home?”

“I think you came
home
,” he stressed the word. “Hoping to patch up your relationship with your dad.”

She inhaled angrily. “I came home to protect Rob, and tonight, I saw I was right to do so.”

Daniel shook his head in silent disagreement.

Her hands fisted. “If I wanted to talk to Dad, I wouldn’t hide behind Rob.”

“Maybe not consciously, but subconsciously all our motives are tangled.”

“Spare me the psychobabble.”

“All right.” He swung into the penthouse car park and killed the engine. He turned to her. “If you want the unvarnished truth: stay out of Amie and Rob’s business, and deal with your own issues.”

She scrambled out of the car, slammed the door and stalked to the lift.

Silently, he followed and set the lift in motion.

She tapped her foot and stared at the control panel, defying herself to feel hurt at his harshness. The lift button pinged and the doors opened.

Daniel opened the penthouse door. “Now would you like a brandy?” His tone held humour and sympathy.

She hesitated just inside the door. She was hurt, angry and on her dignity. She’d been tempted to rely on his strength, and he’d pulled it away from her.

He dropped his keys on the hall table. “I know you’re angry with me and think I have no right to judge you or anyone. I’d be a worse friend if I let you endanger your relationship with your brother by interfering between him and Amie. And I want us to be friends.” 

“Friends?” She considered the idea. She had friends, but none, other than Sister Lucy, would have challenged her so directly. “There’s no reason we should be friends.”

“No?” His smile twisted. “Think about it, Cate, while I pour the brandy.”

Did he mean he believed Amie and Rob would marry, and therefore, they’d be related? Or was it more personal?

He dropped his jacket over a chair in passing and loosened his tie on the way to the discreet built-in bar.

She observed the evidence of a man at home and comfortable in his own skin, comfortable with her presence in his life. And how did she feel? She registered a protest. “I don’t drink brandy.”

“Tonight, you will. Treat it as medicine. And don’t tell me about mixing drinks; you barely touched your champagne.”

They had all been abstemious at dinner, celebrating cautiously, or—as Cate thought with hindsight—not celebrating at all. Suddenly she was tired, with no energy left to fight.

“Okay.” She slipped off her shoes and curled up on the leather sofa.

He poured their brandies and sat beside her.

The balloon glass with its tiny puddle of brandy in the base felt surprisingly comfortable to hold. She cupped it with two hands, warming the liqueur in the approved fashion.

Daniel held his glass loosely in one hand, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. The posture drew his trousers tight across powerful thighs.

She took a cautious sip of brandy and looked away. The lights of the city were reflected in the river, and the scene looked charming and distant from the penthouse. She tasted the fire of brandy on her tongue, and let her thoughts slip away.

“When my dad died I was twenty five.”

She turned. She knew his family’s history from her friendship with Amie, but the note in his voice was unexpected and difficult to identify.

He shifted, hooking one knee up so his body angled towards her and he sat crossways on the sofa. “I never respected him. As a kid, I’d loved the sense of fun he brought with him. Amie inherited her enthusiasm from Dad. But as I grew older, I saw Mum couldn’t rely on him. No one could.” He swirled the brandy in his glass, then sipped it.

“Grandad, Dad’s dad, was the opposite. It was like he was carved out of granite, and everything he did turned out successfully. He was the one who started the mining company. He was rambling around north west Australia when the iron ore discoveries were made, and Grandad staked out mining leases and raised sufficient capital to get started. His was one of the astonishing success stories—from younger son with no place on the family cattle station, to mining mogul.”

Cate filled the small silence. “It would have been hard for your dad to measure up.”

“He tried.” Daniel stared into his brandy. “He ran the family company to the edge of bankruptcy, trying. We didn’t find out how close disaster was until Dad died. The stress and his failure undoubtedly killed him. He had a heart attack.” Daniel’s chest heaved in a huge sigh. “Mum was devastated. She never stopped loving him, no matter what foolish things he did.”

Cate put her empty glass down and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Love like that is a reason to get married.” A better reason than whatever caused the tension between Rob and Amie. A lifelong love should be treasured.

Daniel agreed in his own way. “Love is awfully hard to kill. I knew Dad’s weaknesses and I spent years cleaning up his disasters, making the future secure for Mum and Amie and everyone who depended on the company, but I still love the memory of him. He was fallible, but he was my dad.”

Carefully, he untucked Cate from her defensive tangle and pulled her into his arms.

She felt the warmth of his chest at her back, the strength of the arms holding her, and the gentle weight of his cheek against her hair.

“We have to love our families as they are, warts and all.”

“Even when they break our hearts?” she whispered.

His arms tightened around her. “Is that how you felt when your dad organised for you to marry me?”

“Angry, disbelieving, betrayed. I couldn’t believe Dad could change into such a stereotypical Sicilian patriarch and order me to marry you. He told me it was for my own good and that if I loved him I would do this.”

“Emotional blackmail.”

“Yeah.” Her sigh shifted her breasts against his arms. She noticed peripherally, but her attention was on old and still painful emotions. “I told Dad that if he loved me, he wouldn’t shuffle me off on a stranger. I asked him if I didn’t have a right to follow my own dreams, my own heart. I was as emotional as an eighteen year old can be.”

“What did he say?”

Her short laugh was sad. “He said I was too young to understand. When I couldn’t get through to him, I ran away.”

“That took courage.”

“More than I thought I had. It was only desperation that got me out of the house. Dad said if I left, I could never come back.”

Daniel swore in shock.

She wriggled around so she faced him. She tried to explain. “Dad’s a proud man, and he never thought I’d actually defy him.”

His hand ran restlessly along her back. “What did Rob do while this was going on?”

Her mouth tightened. “Rob’s easy-going. He did try to get Dad to see sense, but Dad wouldn’t listen.”

“Did Rob help you run away?”

“No. I didn’t want Dad blaming Rob. Besides, Rob tried to make me see that marrying you wouldn’t be so bad.”

“You’re kidding.”

She half-smiled. “Rob suggested you’d be so busy working, I’d be free to do what I wanted.” That was Rob, always looking to make the best of a bad situation, without rocking the boat.

“No way.”

Her smile became real. “I didn’t think so either. I knew you for a tyrant from the first time I saw you.”

“A tyrant? I thought I was a rat?”

She laughed that he’d heard her muttered insults at the airport, and smoothed his shirt with one hand, then unthinkingly, snuggled closer.

“Am I a tyrant?”

“You always seemed older brother bossy with Amie.” Then she sobered. “I was young, remember, Daniel. I didn’t understand how hard you were fighting to save your company or to protect your mum and Amie. I didn’t suspect your devastation with your dad’s death. At least when my mum died I could miss her whole-heartedly. There were no lurking resentments, only grief that she’d gone. You were so much older, and stressed. To me you were unapproachable.”

“And now?”

“Since I’m currently falling asleep in your arms, I doubt an argument of unapproachability would hold water.”

“Probably not.” He lifted her so she sat fully in his lap. “Are you falling asleep?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Cate, do you understand what a temptation you are to me?”

But emotional exhaustion had crept up on her, and she was beyond understanding anything more. “No.”

He groaned and rested his forehead against hers. His breath was warm with brandy.

She tilted back her head, and her lips slid and found Daniel’s. Drowsily, she kissed him, enjoying the flavour and hard silkiness of his lips.

Three, four heartbeats passed, then he kissed her back. Hunger, passion and tenderness melded in a breath-taking manner.

Blissfully floating, she fell into the kiss.

Daniel edged her scoop-necked dress down her shoulder. “You’re not wearing a bra.”

“The strap would have shown. Doesn’t matter. No one noticed.”

But he was noticing now. A coral pink tip riveted his attention.

She followed his gaze. A small part of her brain was shocked at her brazenness, but mostly she felt a drifting satisfaction at his interest. She took his hand and placed it on her breast.