With This Fling... (19 page)

‘My wife’s not so much useful as essential,’ murmured Grey. ‘I thought one time, about a hundred years ago, that I could use her as an anchor. That I could go off and do my thing, and come back and there she’d be, perfectly willing to pick up where we’d left off. Didn’t work.’

‘Why not?’ Charlotte’s voice was nothing more than a sleepy whisper.

‘I missed her too much. Nearly went insane when I couldn’t get back to her in time when she needed me. If anything had happened to her …’ He had a feeling that that particular game of
what if
would have him waking up in a cold sweat for years to come.

‘What would you have done?’

‘Blamed myself.’

‘Dumb.’

‘I needed to get back to her in time, you see. To tell her how much I loved her, because I never had. Not with words. Nothing mattered except telling her that.’

‘Mh.’ Hard to tell if that was a word or a snore. Grey forced his eyes open and hauled himself out of the chair. He went over to the bed and slipped first one pillow from the pile behind Charlotte’s back, and then another. He didn’t want them for himself; he just wanted to make Charlotte more comfortable.

‘What’s her name?’ Charlotte snuggled down into the remaining pillows as he drew the blanket gently over her. Moments later she was asleep.

‘Charlotte,’ he said huskily. ‘Her name’s Charlotte.’

H
AVING
Greyson home and taking care of her was the sweetest form of torture. The live-in nurse had not eventuated—Greyson had eventuated, and he hovered like a protective lover and father-to-be and he kissed and held her often. Long leisurely tastes of her and quick stolen kisses, he delighted in them both and Charlotte in turn delighted in him.

They slept in the same bed but they held off with the lovemaking. Two weeks, the specialist had said. Longer, if she felt uneasy about the notion or if she had any more spotting, but there’d been no more of that.

Almost all of Greyson’s Galapagos project scientists were back in Australia now. Two team members had volunteered to stay behind and hold the fort. The group would rotate the stay-behind duty, but according to Greyson there were enough willing hands up for more than one stint at being left behind that the ones
who had responsibilities back home wouldn’t need to ante up if they didn’t want to. He was more than happy with his team. There were some fantastic, experienced, and multi-skilled people on it. All this Charlotte gleaned from a relatively communicative Greyson.

What she
hadn’t
managed to glean from him was when
he’d
be heading out next and how long he planned to be away.

Truth be told, the man seemed to be having a wee bit of trouble leaving her side. A development that amused the hell out of Millie and Derek, and even Greyson’s mother, the formidable Olivia, who’d taken to dropping by a few times a week to check on Charlotte’s progress.

‘How does it look?’ asked Charlotte some three weeks after the accident, shirt off and bra on as she sat on the edge of the long narrow hallway sideboard that Olivia had deemed suitable as a makeshift examination table. Nothing like undressing in front of one’s potential mother-in-law to break down a few barriers.

‘Lie back,’ said Olivia briskly, and Charlotte obliged and Olivia began to press down on Charlotte’s ribs, one section at a time. ‘Tell me when it hurts.’

But it didn’t hurt and Charlotte sat up beaming. ‘That’s good, right?’

‘Right,’ said Olivia dryly. ‘But no moving mountains just yet.’

‘I don’t want to move mountains.’ Charlotte’s words came out muffled courtesy of the shirt she was tugging over her head. ‘Just Greyson.’

She pulled the shirt down and eased off the sideboard to find Olivia regarding her with guarded eyes. ‘Olivia, may I ask you an awkward medical question?’

‘If you must.’ Olivia had a pained look on her face. Olivia had probably been a doctor long enough to know where this conversation was going.

‘It’s just that since the accident Greyson and I haven’t—I mean, we don’t—and I’d like to, and it’s okay to now, right? The specialist said two weeks, and it’s been three, so …’

‘As long as you’re careful.’

‘Great. Thanks.’ No need to dwell on the subject. No need to go anywhere near the subject with Greyson’s mother ever,
ever,
again. Fortunately, Charlotte had another question lined up, which would steer the conversation elsewhere. ‘Olivia, may I ask you advice on another issue? It’s not medical. It’s about Greyson.’

‘That boy,’ said Olivia. ‘What’s he done now?’

‘Nothing,’ said Charlotte defensively. And
at the glimmer of amusement in Olivia’s eye, ‘Oh, I get it. Mothers are allowed to criticise their children. Just … no one else can.’

‘Exactly.’ Olivia offered up a smile, and Charlotte blinked. ‘So, what’s he done? Apart from nothing.’

‘I’m worried that he’s neglecting his work. Because of me. He won’t say when he’s going back to the Galapagos. I’m worried that he’ll abandon this project altogether in favour of staying here in Sydney. With me.’

‘Most pregnant women I know would want their partners at their side,’ commented Olivia mildly.

‘I do. But not at the expense of taking away everything Greyson’s worked hard for. I know what your son is, Olivia. I know what he needs and it’s freedom, and challenge, and the world at his fingertips. I won’t trap him. I refuse to.’

‘Then go with him,’ said Olivia.

‘I was thinking more along the lines of staying here and encouraging Greyson to come and go. That was the pre-accident agreement. It doesn’t seem to be the post-accident one.’

‘I should hope not,’ said Olivia sternly. ‘It’s about time Greyson realised that he now has responsibilities beyond himself and his work. It won’t break him to honour them.’

‘But what if it does?’ said Charlotte, and
with those words exposed her deepest fears. ‘What if turning away from the work and the lifestyle he loves does break him?’

‘Or you could go with him,’ said Olivia. ‘Given the extensive travelling you’re accustomed to, I really don’t see why that’s out of the question. Good medical care can be found almost everywhere these days if money is no object, and in your case it doesn’t seem to be. Come back for the birth of my grandchild. Compromise.’

Charlotte ran a hand through her hair, sorting through Olivia’s words and her bone-deep resistance to them. ‘I stopped travelling when my godmother retired,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I was ready to stop. I’d been ready for years. I wanted—needed—a place to belong. A home. I still want that.’

‘Charlotte, do you love my son?’

‘I do.’ Charlotte eased off the sideboard and together she and Olivia walked back towards the kitchen where cups of tea beckoned and confidences were encouraged. ‘He’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of in a man. And so much more.’

‘That’s good,’ said Olivia. ‘Because if I’m any judge of my son, he certainly loves you. Enough to give up his Galapagos posting and
stay by your side if that’s what you want, and what you need from him.’

‘But it’s
not
what I want.’ Charlotte felt the sting of tears behind her eyes. ‘I don’t
know
what I want.’

‘I’ve never told you how I met Greyson’s father, have I?’ said Olivia conversationally, helping herself to the tea leaves and spooning them into Aurora’s old tin pot. ‘I was a very earnest young doctor interning at Randwick Hospital. Seth was a skipper on a forty-metre super yacht. He’d brought a crewman who’d dislocated his shoulder into Casualty. I had dinner with him when my shift finished. Two months later I was sailing around the world with him. Greyson was born eight months later. We married six months after that, on a beach in Tahiti. Seth wasn’t skippering super yachts any more, at this point. We had another yacht, a smaller one, and we were on our way back to Australia. It took us three more years to get there.’

‘Really?’ Charlotte’s mind boggled at the carefree picture the immaculate Olivia Greenstone had painted. ‘You raised Greyson on a boat?’

‘Many ports. Many boats, some of which I loved more than others.’ Olivia smiled at her memories, really smiled. ‘There was this one yacht … ugh. I’ll tell you about it some day.’

‘Tell me now,’ said Charlotte, but Olivia shook her head.

‘No, let me make my point first. The point being that the one truth I learned during that time we were travelling around was that as long as Seth and Greyson were with me, I could turn anywhere into a home.
Our
home. As long as they were with me.’

‘But you only did three years of it,’ countered Charlotte. ‘It gets harder.’ So much harder with the years.

‘And that’s something Greyson would do well to take into account,’ said Olivia. ‘As his father did, when he brought us home.’

‘How did it end?’ asked Charlotte, totally fascinated.
‘Why
did it end?’

‘It ended back here in Sydney,’ said Olivia. ‘With a job in yacht design for Seth, a little boy who needed schooling and children his own age to play with, and a chance for me to return to the medical profession. Charlotte, I know I’m biased. I want what’s best for my son and always will, but you’re family now and I want what’s best for you too. Take a chance on Greyson. Go with him the next time he goes to the Galapagos. Maybe the time after that, he’ll feel happier about leaving you here. Maybe you’ll happily go with him again. Things might get chaotic for a while, given the amount of work
you both have on and the imminent arrival of my grandbaby, but I’m confident that if you could just bring yourself to
trust
your instincts and Greyson’s … love will lead you home.’

Charlotte stewed over Olivia’s words for two long days, turning them inside out and upside down looking for flaws, or dishonesty or hidden agendas. She didn’t find any. She needed to know what Greyson was thinking when it came to the Galapagos project and going away. She needed to know these thoughts sooner rather than later.

By Charlotte’s reckoning, today was the day.

A sweet autumn Saturday and they were cleaning out Aurora’s study; a mammoth job that involved Greyson hefting and Charlotte directing from the comfort of Aurora’s leather studded office chair that lived behind a vast mahogany desk. Such blatant displays of power and wealth didn’t come cheap, and Charlotte planned to put them to good use for the foundation. This would be the shakedown room, the place where
her
will met the wills of influential investors and project partners.

Just as soon as they’d cleared the last of Aurora’s things away, and sorted out exactly where their combined priorities lay.

Greyson had found one of her father’s journals, half an hour or so ago, and Charlotte had settled back in the fancy chair to read it. The chair reclined in armchair fashion and the table had seemed as good a place for her feet as any. Greyson had sniggered when she’d made herself at home.

‘If only your archaeology students could see you now,’ he murmured, between toting and hauling and proving himself a thoroughly useful individual. ‘I knew that get-up that the good Professor Greenstone wore to work wasn’t the real you.’

‘Wait till you see what Director Greenstone of the Greenstone Foundation has in store for you,’ she promised in dulcet tones. ‘She’s going to be channelling Katharine Hepburn. Besides, you can talk, Mr Eminent Botanist. Where’s your tweed jacket with the elbow patches?’

‘I don’t own one.’

‘Surely, though, you own a shirt?’

He grinned in thoroughly wicked fashion before turning his back on her and hauling down yet another stack of books from the highest row of bookshelves, giving her a stunning view of tanned skin and manly back muscles at play. ‘I own several shirts,’ he said loftily. ‘But even in the field, the wearing of one is optional.’

As far as Charlotte was concerned, this was
just one more reason to go with him next time he ventured forth.

‘Greyson, when are you going to the Galapagos again?’

He shot her a lightning glance and kept right on toting.

‘I’m not,’ he offered finally. ‘I’m off the project just as soon as they find a replacement.’

‘Oh.’ It was worse than she’d thought. Far, far worse. ‘That’s a pity. I was hoping to join you there this time. I wanted to see the tortoises.’

‘Tortoises,’ he echoed stupidly, box of books still in hand.

‘And the iguanas.’

No repetition on the iguana statement.

‘And I wanted to be with you.’

‘You can be,’ he said gruffly. ‘Here.’

‘Here’s overrated,’ she murmured. ‘Especially when it comes at so high a cost.’ Time to change tack. ‘There’s some interesting information in this diary. Very interesting, and very useful. For example, my father talks about a promising archaeological site that he wanted to go back to some day. In Ecuador. That’s near the Galapagos.’

‘I know where it is, Charlotte.’ Grey dumped the books on the window seat and turned to face her, one deliciously dishevelled man with don’t-mess-with-me in his eyes.

‘I’m just saying,’ she said mildly.

‘What
are you saying?’ he snapped, not so mildly. Testy. Maybe their continued lack of sexual intimacy
was
getting to him more than he let on. Something else Charlotte planned to fix before this day was through.

‘I’m just saying that you can’t babysit me for the rest of your life, much as it seems to be your main goal at this particular point in time. You’d go mad.
I’d
go mad. And your career would go down the drain. That’s not a scenario that appeals to me. Speaking of which, you should probably email bigwig Ellie and tell her you’ve changed your mind about giving up the Galapagos project leadership. I’d be inclined to tell her that, give or take a month either side of our baby’s due delivery date, you’ll stay on the job. As for your next trip, you can drop me in Ecuador on the way. We can meet up on some little island paradise on the weekends. You could bring a shirt. Or not.’

‘Drop you in Ecua—’ Greyson seemed to be have difficulty keeping up his end of the conversation. ‘Are you
insane
?’

‘Now is that any way to speak to your future wife?’

‘What?’