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Sienna shot him a dark look. ‘I don’t like being manipulated. I resent the fact that you imagine I can just drop everything at a moment’s notice—’
‘A week.’
She waved a hand dismissively. ‘I—’
‘Look, think it over, Sienna. You can let me know tomorrow.’
She opened her mouth, then shrugged, finished her drink and got up to go. ‘All right, but I don’t imagine I’ll change my mind. You should shower and change now. I’ll call Dave.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said meekly enough, but his dark blue eyes were full of satirical amusement.
Sienna swished her pony-tail and walked away.
She shopped for fresh fruit and vegetables on the way home.
Her apartment was small but pleasant, a second-floor flat in a two-storey building in the suburb of Red Hill, perched on the northern rim of the city.
It had cool tiled floors, white walls and all mod cons, but the broad balcony was her favourite spot. It was fitted with sliding insect screens, and had grand views of the city below. She had a table and chairs on it and a bevy of flowering pot-plants as well as an array of herbs—she loved growing things.
For the rest of her flat, she’d kept her decorating fairly minimalist to suit the climate. There was a sumptuous corn gold settee and two plain cane chairs in the lounge with moulded Perspex side tables. On one of the white walls she’d hung a large, lovely print of a girl walking on a beach at sunrise beside a calm, shining sea that seemed to draw you into its cool, tinted waters.
A beaten silver urn found in a market in Malaysia stood on her teak television cabinet and on the wall in her small hall a wonderful painting of three elephants, drawn as children might but delicately coloured and captivating all the same, greeted visitors. She’d found it in Thailand.
She’d found her garnet and sapphire rug on the lounge floor in Turkey.
Not bad, she often thought, for a girl who’d moved to Brisbane two years ago at a rather traumatic time in her life.
And now, at twenty-six, she’d had four years of practising as a fully-fledged physiotherapist, and, yes, it was true, she was beginning to make her mark in accident rehabilitation therapy.
She credited this with a genuine love of her job, plus the fact that she was “fancy-free”, to use an old-fashioned term, so she could give it her all.
Why she was fancy-free was something she rarely thought about these days. Her life was pleasant, she was able to take overseas holidays and she spent what free time she had doing things she enjoyed. She played golf, she was a movie buff and she belonged to a gourmet cooking club. Her social life wasn’t exactly a whirlwind, but she had a circle of friends she saw regularly.
That it should all come crashing down, that pleasant life, the same evening Finn McLeod had put his troublesome business proposition to her, seemed to be the height of irony, but that was what happened.
She juggled her purchases, her bag and the mail she’d retrieved, while she unlocked her door.
She got inside and dropped the mail. She left it on the floor while she put her stuff away and brewed herself a cup of tea. Only then did she retrieve the mail and flick through it as she sank down onto the settee.
It was a fine-quality embossed envelope with a Melbourne postmark that caused her heart to sink like a stone. She recognized the handwriting; her sister’s. She knew in her bones that it was a wedding invitation.
That was exactly what slipped out as she slit the envelope: a silver and white card plus a handwritten note. The card had the names Dakota and James curved around wedding bells.
The note said:
Sienna, we’ve finally agreed to do it. For your sake I fought this as hard as I could, please believe me when I say that, but James and I, well, it just wouldn’t go away. I know it’s short notice but I feel as if I’ve been dithering for an eternity—please, please could you be happy for us? And PLEASE could you come to the wedding? Not only for me but Mum and Dad, this is tearing them apart too. Love, your sister Dakota.
Sienna let the note flutter to the coffee-table and despite her distress, couldn’t help the faint smile that often curved her lips as she thought of their names, Dakota and Sienna. Her parents were self-confessed hippies of days gone by. They’d roamed the world and seen nothing odd about naming their daughters after the places of their conception.
Now, of course, they were pillars of society and would no doubt be planning a society wedding for their younger daughter, Dakota.
She picked up the card and checked the wedding date as well as the venues—yes, definitely society. Of course James Haig was not un-society himself. He was now a successful stockbroker in the family firm, an old and respected name in the business.
But the crux of the matter was that she herself had been all but engaged to James Haig when her sister had come home from a year overseas, and he’d fallen head over heels in love with Dakota.
Sienna closed her eyes and laid her head back wearily. She had no desire to put herself through all the agony of it again, all the unanswered questions—had he ever loved her, what had he really felt for her? All the bitterness she’d felt towards her sister who couldn’t help being just, well, Dakota and enchanting.
Her younger sister come to that. Why she should find that galling was an embarrassment to her—what difference did it make to anything? It did, though. On top of being spurned, rejected, on top of the baffling enigma of how close she might have come to marrying a man who didn’t love her—how could he have?—it made her feel old and spinsterish.
For crying out aloud, she thought, as some tears slid down her cheeks, she’d even given them her blessing and retreated gracefully. Yes, perhaps it was a self-imposed exile that might have hurt Dakota, had certainly hurt her parents, but what more could she have done? And now they expected her to go to the wedding…
Her mobile phone rang. She checked the number—her mother. I should have expected that, she thought, and was tempted to leave the call unanswered, but in the end she didn’t. There was no point, she was going to have to discuss it with one or the other of them some time.
‘Hi, Mum! How’s it going? I’ve just got the wedding invitation.’ She crossed her fingers. ‘I’m really happy for James and Dakota but, look…’ she paused and found her eyes drawn to the date on the invitation rather like a magnet ‘…unfortunately I’ll be away on a cattle station out west with a patient.’
Ten minutes later she put down the phone and hugged herself distraughtly.
Her mother had given her to understand that it would break Dakota’s heart if she didn’t attend the wedding, not to mention her parents’ hearts.
What about my heart? Sienna asked herself. What about the fact that I’d fully expected to be married now and maybe starting a family with a man I—I thought I was head over heels in love with?
On the other hand, why do I feel so bad about refusing to go to this wedding? About using a trumped-up excuse—I have no intention of burying myself on a cattle station with Finn McLeod, do I?
Her phone rang again. She snatched it up and was about to turn it off when she saw the number—her boss, the senior partner of the consultancy she worked for, Peter Bannister.
Well, she wanted to talk to him, didn’t she? ‘Hello, Peter,’ she said rather crisply. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Sienna, how are you? Look—’ he didn’t wait for a reply ‘—I would really take it as a favour if you agreed to go to Waterford with Finn McLeod…’
Five minutes later Sienna ended the call and stared at the phone with an inclination to scream with frustration.
Peter Bannister, it turned out, was a friend of the McLeod family. He’d been away on extended leave, otherwise he would have taken on Finn’s rehabilitation himself. By the time he’d returned, he’d reassured himself that Sienna was coping admirably so he’d decided to let things stand. But now, he’d said, he could sense that Finn was really frustrated—it often happened even though the end might be in sight—and he needed a change of scene.
Peter had then gone on to enumerate the virtues of Waterford. Don’t expect a tin shack, it’s anything but, it even has a nine hole golf course—did you know Finn was a keen golfer before the accident?
Yes, she did, they’d often talked golf.
Well, then, Peter had continued, the Augathella Hospital could use her temporary services, he could arrange a locum situation and those outback areas were often crying out for health professionals.
Then he’d added what he obviously thought was a humorous little bit about how suited she was to do this—no hubby, no kids, no bedridden mums or dads, no pets so far as he knew, only pot-plants and they could be looked after—and that there was no one else in the practice as equally unencumbered. She was the only one who could do it, in other words.
Sienna, at the end of it, had swallowed several times and refused to allow herself to burst into tears. There was no way Peter could know the dreadful irony of what he’d said at this precise moment in her life.
Then she’d opened her mouth to say that she detected the heavy hand of Finn McLeod at work, which actually annoyed the life out of her, but she hadn’t said it.
She’d promised to think it over.
This time she sat back exhaustedly as she put the phone down—and tried to think it over.
Peter Bannister was far too ethical to hold it against her if she didn’t go. But he’d been very good to her in lots of ways. He’d been happy to be available when she’d needed professional advice. Come to that his wife, Melissa, had found her this apartment and they’d both taken her under their wing while she found her feet in Brisbane. For Peter’s sake, she’d like to do it but…
Of course, she could always do both, she thought suddenly. Surely there could be no objection to her taking a weekend off to go to her sister’s wedding?
It just so happens I don’t want to do either, she thought miserably. Yes, I like Finn, as much as I know him—how well do I know him?
Not a lot, really, she conceded.
Because just as much as she’d kept certain barriers up, kept things professional between them, she’d been helped by the fact that he’d had his own barriers.
Yes, they’d talked golf, they’d talked about all sorts of things in the hours she’d worked with him and encouraged him, but it had all been surface stuff. She had not run into this kind of brick wall side of him. This determination to get his own way.
Perhaps I should have guessed it, though, she reflected with a grimace. His progress has been little short of amazing. Maybe I should have realized what kind of personality lay behind that tremendous will-power?
As for her sister’s wedding, surely she’d killed all hope stone-dead that it was going to blow over and James would come back to her?
She wouldn’t have him back, anyway.
But—she closed her eyes and put her knuckles to her mouth—had her mother and her sister no conception of what it would be like to appear at the wedding amongst a lot of people who, no doubt, knew the background? To be the recipient of curious glances, to have to pretend that she didn’t care, she was over it, she wished them happy.
Do they think it will bring me closure? she wondered. Do they think we are a family—we used to be a really happy family—and that’s paramount? Do they even think I need a catalyst of some kind to help me put it all behind me? Heaven alone knows, they could be right!
But, on top of all that, and this is really trivial, but it’s still a barb I can’t ignore, do they understand how hard it will be to do while I’m still single and unattached? On the shelf, in other words.
She rubbed her face and thought with a tinge of black humour—maybe I could hire an escort? But where does one find a truly impressive escort? Otherwise it could be worse than being alone…
The name that sprang to mind caused her mouth to drop open and her eyes almost to stand out on stalks.
No, she thought immediately. Oh, no—she even laughed a little and told herself not to be stupid as she knocked the idea stone-cold.
The next morning, however, when it popped up again, she told herself she’d been press-ganged and goaded enough into making her own terms without even stopping to think how it could backfire on her. And that was the only reason she’d allowed it see the light of day.
CHAPTER TWO
‘COME to a decision, Sienna?’
They were in Finn’s study at Eastwood. They hadn’t had their session yet—he’d been delayed so Walt had shown her into the study and provided coffee.
Finn had just put the phone down and he continued, ‘I really need to know today.’ That, and his earlier question, were the first words he’d spoken to her.
They eyed each other. While she was wearing a track suit and joggers he was more formally dressed in navy trousers and a blue and white pin-striped shirt. He looked every inch a powerful businessman; he didn’t look to be in a good mood.
‘Why? What difference does a day or two make?’ Sienna replied. ‘Incidentally—hi! How are you?’
‘I’m sorry, that wasn’t very polite,’ he acknowledged. ‘But I have quite a bit on my plate today,’ he added briefly.
‘So do I. Obviously not the weight of the McLeod empire, but enough.’
Those dark blue eyes narrowed on her as Finn McLeod took in the shadows beneath her eyes, indicative of a miserably sleepless night.
‘Aren’t you well?’ he asked abruptly. ‘You know, a break on a cattle station could do you the world of good. Or…’ he paused significantly ‘…are you such an all-luxury-dependent city girl, the country terrifies you?’ There was a wealth of derision in his eyes.
She drew a tumultuous breath, exhaled audibly, then said quite calmly, ‘No, it doesn’t. However, you’re not the only one with an agenda, Finn. I have my own so I’m prepared to bargain with you. I’ll come to Waterford if you’ll agree to be my escort to my sister’s wedding.’
Her first reaction when she’d finished speaking was, Got you, Finn McLeod!—as his jaw dropped and he stared at her incredulously.
Her next reaction was—what had she been thinking? What had she done?
He closed his mouth and said, ‘I think you better explain.’
She went hot and cold. Colour flooded her cheeks, then left her looking pale and mortified. ‘I—uh—disregard that, Finn, it—sort of came out in the heat of the moment and—’
‘No. Tell me, Sienna,’ he ordered.
She swallowed and wished herself a million miles away.
‘Sienna,’ he warned, ‘I won’t let up until you do.’
She closed her eyes frustratedly, then sighed and told him as clinically as she could. It was only at the end of her explanation that she got emotional.
She said, ‘Funnily enough, I don’t want to be estranged from my family, I do want Dakota to be happy but the final humiliation—’ sudden tears blurred her eyes ‘—would be to be there amongst them on my own and still, obviously, on the shelf.’
He hadn’t interrupted once and all he said when she pulled out a hanky and blew her nose was, ‘Dakota?’
Sienna smiled shakily and explained. ‘As kids we used to thank our lucky stars we weren’t conceived in Timbuktu or Harare. We had a whole alphabet of weird place names we could have ended up with.’
‘I see what you mean.’ He looked humorous, then sobered. ‘But why me?’
‘When this bizarre thought literally popped into my head,’ she said ruefully, ‘that maybe I should hire an escort, my next thought was that it would have to be someone really impressive otherwise it could even be worse!’ She shrugged. ‘I couldn’t, at that moment, come up with anyone more impressive than you. But I never intended to—’ She stopped.
‘So what do you think made you say it?’
She stared at him and a little flame kindled in her eyes as she forgot about herself and thought about him.
‘Finn, you’ve been really high-handed and arrogant about this. You’ve gone to my boss behind my back, he’s been on the phone to me and the net result is that I’ll feel bad if I don’t do this on his account, not yours, but all the same,’ she insisted, ‘so—you’ve even gone to the Augathella Hospital behind my back!’
He looked amused.
‘All right, maybe that’s not so serious—’ she waved an exasperated hand ‘—but you have been extremely manipulative and I got mad but—’
‘I’ll come.’
‘But—’ Sienna stopped as if shot. ‘Oh, look, I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I mean, it sounded all very well, throwing down my own gauntlet in the heat of the moment, but that’s essentially what it was.’
‘Sienna,’ he said dangerously, ‘let’s keep it simple—if you come to Waterford, I’ll go to the wedding with you.’
‘But—’
‘Sienna,’ he growled.
