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His mouth lifted into the beginnings of a smile, though it never quite eventuated. In fact he looked downright serious. Heart beating so loud she was certain he could hear it too, Paige took a breath to say goodnight, but Gabe cut her off, eating up the space between them with three long strides. Barefoot, she had to look up so far to meet his eyes.
‘When will I see you again?’ he asked.
Paige’s breath hitched in her throat. Apart from the party invite, it was the first time either of them had even come close to suggesting making actual plans. ‘Soon enough, if the past few days are anything to go by,’ she said, trying for sassy, but when her voice came out all husky she failed miserably.
‘Good point. But I was thinking more along the lines of dinner.’
‘Dinner?’ Paige asked, her voice rising in her complete surprise. ‘Like a proper date?’
Gabe nodded, serious face well and truly in place.
A date? A date. A date. Experience said no way. Gabe was a nomad. She’d recognised the impatience in his eye the moment she’d first seen him. If she hadn’t learned to keep a man like that at arm’s length from watching her mum watch her dad walk away, time and time again, then she was an out and out fool.
Of course, there was the small fact that Nate was in the process of trying to get Gabe to stay …
‘Paige,’ Gabe said, the tone of his voice making it clear he wanted an answer.
While her subconscious argued back and forth, all she could do was go with her gut. And it turned out that her gut, like the rest of her body, wanted Gabe.
‘Okay. Let’s do it.’
‘Good,’ he said on a hard shot of outward breath. ‘I’ll call to set it up.’
Gabe slid a finger beneath her chin, and kissed her gently. Tenderly. Then his tongue swept into her mouth and she curled her fingers into his sweater and held on for dear life.
Then with a shake of his head, and a growl that told her it took everything he had to leave it at that, he turned and disappeared into the stairwell, a flash of dark clothing, and huge shoulders, and powerful strides. Leaving Paige blinking into the bright empty hallway.
At the start of the night her biggest hope had been that their sizzle didn’t fizzle in public. Now he’d asked her on a date. She’d wished for a guy to end her dating drought. She had nobody to blame but herself.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_8ec4ca67-6e4c-543f-839d-7736092edce9)
PAIGE had just sat down to cocktails with Mae and Clint at the sparkly pink Oo La La bar on Church Street when she got the call she’d been telling herself she hadn’t been waiting for all day.
She held up a finger to excuse herself, slipped off the stool, and headed out into the icy Melbourne night. She stuck her spare hand under her armpit and banged her feet against the ground in an effort to keep warm as she answered her mobile.
‘Hey, Gabe!’ Paige scrunched up her face. Even in the age of number display, she should have at least feigned nonchalance.
As Gabe’s rich laughter rumbled down the phone she realised she needn’t have worried about the cold; every time she heard that voice a wave of heat followed in its wake.
‘What’s up?’ she asked. As if she didn’t know that either! She bit her lip to stop herself from saying anything else daft.
‘I do believe I promised you dinner,’ he said.
‘Right. So you did.’ There, that was better. Now she might get away with him not guessing she’d spent much of her Saturday daydreaming about where he might take her. Or what she might wear. If Gabe’s sweet tooth was enough to make them last till dessert. Or if his taste for her was stronger still.
A tram thundered noisily down the street, sparks flinting off the overhead cables and disappearing into the inky blackness above. Paige pressed the phone to her right ear, and a finger in the left. ‘I’m sorry, I missed that last part.’
‘I said we’ll have to have a rain check.’
Her feet stopped stamping and she came over all still.
‘I’m in Sydney for work. Flew down first thing this morning. Not sure when I’ll be back.’
He was in Sydney? A thousand miles away and he hadn’t even told her he was going? He hadn’t even had anything like this on the cards as far as she knew. Because she didn’t known much of anything? Unless he’d simply changed his mind. Maybe his claustrophobia was so bad he’d only asked in the aftermath of post survival euphoria!
‘Paige? Can you hear me?’
‘Yeah. I got that,’ she said. She rubbed at a spot under her ribs where she suddenly felt as if someone were poking her with a chopstick. ‘Cool. I understand. I’ve got so much going on at work this week as it is. I guess I’ll catch you when you get—’
‘Paige.’ He cut her off, his deep drawl pouring through her like melted chocolate.
‘Yep?’ She closed her eyes and slapped herself several times on the forehead for good measure. When she opened her eyes it was to see a couple, arms linked, scooting as far around her on the footpath as possible. She sent them a sorry smile but they were jogging too fast to see.
‘I’ll be back in a couple of days, and then I’m sure we can squeeze in a night out if we both try real hard.’
He didn’t say, ‘before I leave for good,’ but it was out there, like a big black piano waiting to fall down on her head. Paige pressed the heel of her palm to her chest as the chopstick beneath her ribs grew thorns.
‘I’ll call when I know more,’ Gabe said.
‘Sure. Fine. Or not. Whatever. Honestly, I’m cool either way.’
Gabe laughed again, the smooth deep sound vibrating down her arm and landing with a warm thud deep in her belly. ‘I’ll call,’ he promised, ‘even if you’re cool either way.’
‘Okay,’ she said on a long drawn out breath.
‘Goodnight, Paige.’ He rang off.
Paige turned towards the bar, but there her boots stopped short. She tapped her phone against her front teeth, her eyes misting over to the soft pink light spilling through the windows of the funky cocktail bar as she forced herself to think.
Good God, had she really floated the idea that Gabe was in Sydney avoiding her? She needed to get a grip. A man she wasn’t attached to had merely postponed a date that till the night before had never even been on the cards. And yet her heart thumped at triple its normal pace. That wasn’t her. She did not obsess about men she couldn’t have. She was not her mother …
No. Time apart was the exact wake-up call she needed. Her life had been plenty satisfying before Gabe Hamilton moseyed into her lift and into her life, and she could do with a few days without him to remind her of that.
She breathed deep, the thin cold air slipping into her bloodstream, and she felt far less wobbly than she had a minute earlier. In fact she felt positively urbane. Then the extreme mixed scents of Richmond’s Asiatic restaurant row hit the back of her throat and hunger followed in its wake. Teeth chattering, she hustled back inside the bar.
‘Trouble in paradise?’ Mae asked as Paige plonked herself back on her stool.
Paige opened her mouth to say everything was fine, but Mae’s open palm stopped her in her tracks.
Mae said, ‘Let me tell you a little story while you consider your answer. There I was the other night, enjoying my miniquiche at your gorgeous neighbour’s housewarming, when I spotted you and the hot pirate, looking all cosy. I barely had time to jab Clint in the ribs when you were off, running for the door as if you couldn’t wait to find somewhere private in which to tear one another’s clothes off.’
Paige blinked down into her milky cocktail as the heat rose in her cheeks; a healthy mix of mortification that if Mae had noticed there was a good chance others had too, and regret that Mae knew she’d been keeping her fling with Gabe a secret.
‘So what’s going on with the two of you?’ Mae asked.
‘Nothing,’ Paige insisted. ‘Okay, something. But not what you think.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It all happened so fast.’
‘So fast you couldn’t send me a text? Preferably with image attached.’
Paige frowned at Mae’s pink cocktail, and tried to find an answer her best friend might understand, and couldn’t. ‘Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. Maybe because I wasn’t quite sure what to say. I’m still not.’
‘Sounds serious.’
‘Lord, no! It’s a fling. That much I am sure of.’
‘You’ve had flings before, Miss Paige. Before Clint came along the two of us were the queens of the no-strings fling and you never kept it from me before. So what made this one different?’
She risked looking at Mae, and saw the one person in the world who knew her best. Her next breath out felt awash with relief that the truth was out, tempered by a little stab of heartache that she’d found it so hard to tell her.
She leaned forward, and wrapped her fingers around her cold glass. ‘Maybe it’s that from the moment I met him it felt different. Which has been thrilling, but also kind of terrifying. I might be struggling a bit with remembering where my limits lie.’
‘Maybe you’re struggling because, with him, you don’t want limits.’
Paige let herself wonder for about half a second before she remembered the unbearable feeling of the chopstick jabbing her under the ribs. She shook her head. ‘Oh, no. With this one I want them more than ever.’
Mae nibbled at the inside of her cheek a few moments as if she was grappling with some inner turmoil, before leaning over and wrapping cool hands around Paige’s. ‘I know you like putting your life into neat separate little boxes, Paige—work, home, friends, lovers—and I get why. Having them in boxes makes them feel like they’re under your control. I used to be the same way. And then I met Clint.’
Paige got her usual tummy ache at the mere mention of Clint’s name, only this time the jab of the chopstick under the ribs joined it. Which made no sense at all.
Oblivious, Mae went on. ‘I thought he was goofy and shy and way too sweet for the likes of me. I could have put him in that easy-to-ignore box on day dot and that would have been that. But I took a chance instead. I let him see me, and let myself see him. And look at us now.’
Paige wriggled on her stool, not liking talking about Clint any more than she had about Gabe. Because she hoped so hard that Mae could rise above the statistics, and genetics, and history and be happy for ever after? All of a sudden that theory didn’t hold water.
She gave herself a mental shake. One thing at a time. This current dilemma was about her. And Gabe. Even the mere thought of him had her breathing out long and slow.
Paige waved her hands in front of her face. ‘I know in your loved-up state you’re seeing cupid’s arrows flying all over the place, but it’s not like that. I assure you. It’s sex. Pure and simple. Well, to be honest it’s not so pure or so simple.’
Finally Mae stopped looking at her as if she was trying to see right into her soul. Her voice a low growl, Mae said, ‘Now, you’re talkin’. Details. You owe me.’
Paige figured she did, and then some. And gossiping like this felt so good, like the old days. ‘So what do you want to know?’
‘Do you have actual conversations in between bouts of athletic lust?’
‘Sometimes. Sometimes we don’t want to waste our breath.’
‘Phew.’ Mae rested her elbow on the table and her chin on her upturned palm. ‘Do you catch yourself daydreaming about him? About his belly button, the whirl of hair behind his right ear, the way his eyes go all dark and dreamy when he sees you?’
Paige raised an eyebrow. ‘Clearly you do.’
‘Ha! So are you seeing anyone else?’
‘No,’ Paige answered before she’d even noticed Mae’s change of tack, or the knowing gleam in her eye. Dammit.
‘Do you want to?’ Mae asked.
Paige sat up straighter. ‘Where’s Clint?’
‘At the bar.’
‘Good, I need another drink.’
‘I’ll bet you do.’ Mae gave Paige’s foot a quick nudge under the table. ‘I know you, Paige. You are doing your absolute all to avoid even considering it, but I’m living proof that happily ever afters can happen, even to those who don’t believe in them. And that’s the last I’ll say about that.’
Mae mimed zipping her mouth shut tight as Clint returned with a beer for himself, another pink drink for Mae, and a Midori Splice for Paige.
‘You looked like you might need it,’ he said, before he slumped back onto his stool and closed his eyes as if he was seriously about to have a nap right there in the middle of the bar.
Paige should have thanked her lucky stars that Clint’s arrival had saved her from answering any more of Mae’s questions. But watching Mae’s eyes constantly swerving back to her fiancé, her finger running distractedly across the rim of her cocktail glass, her cheeks warm and pink, a small smile curving at her mouth, Paige felt as if she was witnessing something so intimate she ought to look away.
But she found she couldn’t.
Did Mae really believe they could love each other through everything? Through fights and ambivalence? Through having kids and demanding jobs? Through the times they were in each other’s pockets every minute of the day and the times they spent apart? Through the times they’d inevitably hurt one another in moments of boredom, exhaustion, self-absorption?
Her parents hadn’t. Not even close. For them it had simply been too hard. So Paige just couldn’t make herself believe. Even when Clint opened one eye and gave Mae a warm lazy smile, and it was like being this close to the real thing Paige could almost touch it.
She took a hard gulp of her cocktail, barely tasting it as her mind shifted to the one secret she hadn’t dared share with Mae, the secret she’d refused to even admit to herself until that quiet moment in the noisy bar.
She felt things for Gabe. Soft, gentle, warm things.
She didn’t believe it would last. She didn’t believe it was about anything other than chemistry. But it terrified her to the soles of her boots.
In the end Gabe was gone a little over a week.
Paige was thrilled at how much she got done with all that extra time! She’d done her tax. She’d rearranged her lounge-room, twice. Made her way through every level of Angry Birds. Caught up with Mae, and Clint, another two times. And she’d thrown herself into work with a gusto she hadn’t felt for months, shining up her proposal to shoot the summer catalogue in Brazil until the thing about glowed.
Time apart had been a good thing for sure. She was in a good place. Sure again about what she was doing. And that she could handle it. Yet there was no denying the nerves that skittered through her belly the morning of the Monday he was due back.
She donned the new black lacy underwear she’d bought specially, then practically skipped into her walk-in robe to get dressed for the day and—
Instead of reaching for the work outfit she’d hung out the night before, her hand went to the white garment bag poking out from the deepest darkest corner of the cupboard and before she could stop herself she’d unzipped the bag containing her secret wedding dress with a rush.
The moment the weight of the daring concoction of chiffon, pearls, and lace filled her hands, something flipped a switch inside her and she had rough-housed the gown over her head. The satiny lining slid over her curves, cool and soft against her bare skin, then the hem dropped with a gentle swoosh to float over her bare toes. Her fingers shook as she guided the zip up her back until it stopped just below her shoulder blades.
Eyes closed, knees trembling, she turned to face the mirror behind her wardrobe door. She hoped desperately the thing swam on her, or the colour made her look jaundiced, or that she looked as if she belonged on the top of a toilet-paper roll like the doll her mum had in her downstairs bathroom.
‘It’s just a dress,’ she whispered, her voice echoing in the cosy space. Yet when she opened her eyes it was to see herself through a sheen of tears.
Was this how Mae felt when she tried hers on? Beautiful, and special, and magical, and romantic, and hopeful? She didn’t know, because she’d never asked. It was always Mae who brought up the wedding. Mae who came over to her place with bridal magazines. Mae who booked meetings with caterers and bands. Mae who had to work so hard to get Paige to even pretend to sound enthused.
Mae had motivation. Mae had found the thing they’d spent so many years convincing one another didn’t exist. A man to trust. A man to hold. A man to love.
As if she were having an out-of-body experience, Paige watched her reflection with a feeling of detachment as a single tear slid down her cheek. And then everything came into such sharp focus she actually gasped.
Paige knew the moment it had happened. The moment her work had ceased to satisfy her. The moment she’d stopped dating. The moment her life had lurched out of her tightly held control.
