‘She is. Ma’s not my mother. She’s a friend.’
He sighed. ‘Something tells me you’re a very complicated girl.’
Gemma laughed. ‘Ma says I have hidden qualities. Is that the same thing as complicated?’
‘Could very well be. But I don’t think I should try to find out.’ Having uttered this rather cryptic remark, he picked up his room key, took Gemma’s elbow and ushered her outside. ‘Can you still see him?’ he asked.
Gemma’s heart pounded as she looked around. ‘No,’ she sighed.
‘Right, well, let’s get you safely home.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘SHE’S become impossible, Nathan. Simply impossible!’ Lenore glared at her ex-husband as he sat behind that damned desk of his, looking not the slightest bit perturbed.
‘Kirsty is a typical teenager. You shouldn’t let her upset you so.’
‘That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to live with her.’ Lenore slumped down into a chair and sighed heavily. ‘I’m at my wits’ end. They’re threatening to expel her from school. She’s smoking on the sly, swears like a trooper and dresses like a trollop. I...I’ve been thinking of sending her to boarding-school,’ she finished, flicking a nervous glance at Nathan through her long lashes.
Lenore knew what he thought of boarding-school, having been dumped into different ones by his drug-crazed mother whenever a new man came on to the scene, only to be dragged out once she was alone again and wanting company. By the time he was sixteen a totally screwed-up Nathan had run away from the latest five-star school, just in time to find his mother, dead from a heroin overdose.
With such a history, it was no wonder Lenore felt a little edgy about suggesting boarding-school for their daughter.
Nathan reacted just as she’d feared.
‘She won’t be going to bloody boarding-school,’ he bit out, snapping forward on his chair. ‘She can come live with me for a while.’
Lenore’s lovely green eyes widened with genuine surprise, then narrowed into a frown. ‘Where? Not at that beach-house of yours. Who would mind her till you got home from work?’
‘I’m living at Belleview till Byron gets out of hospital and on his feet again.’
‘Oh, yes, I forgot. Poor Byron. How’s his leg?’
‘On the mend. He might have to use a cane for a while, though.’
‘He’ll hate that.’
‘Better than being dead, like Irene. Though maybe Irene’s death isn’t such a tragedy. She was a miserable bitch, and she made Byron miserable too.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Nathan, don’t you ever have any pity for anyone?’ Lenore snapped, irritated with this hard man whom she’d tried to love, but failed. He just wouldn’t meet her halfway. Or even a quarter way.
‘I have pity for a daughter whose mother doesn’t want her around,’ he said coldly.
‘That’s not true and you know it! Oh, Nathan, you can be so cruel sometimes. Cruel and heartless.’ Tears flooded her eyes and she rummaged in her handbag for a tissue.
Nathan watched her mop up her tears without turning a hair.
‘Let’s get back to the point, shall we?’ he said when she was sufficiently composed. ‘I suggest you go home, get Kirsty to pack her things and bring her round tonight after dinner. But if she comes to live with me, she comes for a whole term at least. No chopping and changing mid-stream.’
Lenore felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Maybe Nathan would straighten the girl out a bit. Kirsty loved her father. And Nathan loved her too. His daughter was the only female who’d ever been able to get past the steely cover Nathan kept around his heart.
Kirsty was the main reason Nathan had married Lenore. That, and his mistaken belief that she would be the sort of wife to suit him: an independent woman who wouldn’t lean or demand, who would be there at his side when he needed a social partner, and there, in his bed, when he needed sex.
Well, Lenore had needed more than that. Much more. So after twelve years of the loneliest marriage she could ever imagine she’d called it quits. People had condemned her for their divorce, saying she’d put her acting career in front of her husband. And maybe there was a bit of truth in that. But she had to have something.
A depressing sigh wafted from Lenore’s lips. If only things had been different with Zachary all those years ago. If only he hadn’t been married. If only he’d loved her as intensely as she’d loved him, as she still loved him.
‘If you’ve finished daydreaming...’ Nathan drawled caustically.
Lenore blinked and looked up.
‘Maybe you’d like to tell me what or who is bringing that wistful look into your eyes. Surely not Kirsty. It wouldn’t be Zachary Marsden, would it?’
‘And if it is?’ she retorted, piqued by his sarcasm. ‘Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Nathan. Jealousy is an emotion reserved for people in love. You never loved me any more than I loved you so don’t pretend now, thank you very much.’
‘I never pretended a thing with you, Lenore. It was you who seduced me in the first place, you who used my body, not the other way around, you who pretended I meant more to you than I ever could mean.’
‘Are you saying you wanted me to be in love with you?’ she asked, disbelieving.
‘I’m saying no man likes to be had on the rebound. We could have had a good marriage, if it hadn’t been for Zachary Marsden lurking around in your heart. We could still have had a good marriage if you hadn’t indulged in sentimental rubbish and deliberately kept your supposed love for him alive. Do you think I didn’t notice how often you contrived to put yourself in Zachary’s company? The poor bastard. You’ve done nothing but tease him for years. You know he’s a decent sort of man, that he wants to stay faithful to his wife and family. Give him a break and find someone else to try out your femme fatale talents on.’
‘Oh!’ Lenore jumped to her feet. ‘Oh, you’re just impossible! You don’t understand true love. But one day, Nathan, one day you’re going to really fall in love and then you’ll know what it’s like. Who knows? Maybe it’ll make you human, like the rest of us. Maybe I might even learn to like you, as I once mistakenly thought I did.’
* * *
Gemma was sitting in a deep leather two-seater in the plush reception area of Whitmore Opals when the most stunning-looking woman she’d ever seen stormed out of Nathan’s office, masses of gorgeous red hair flying out behind a face so arrestingly beautiful that one could only stare. She banged the door shut behind her before covering her luminescent green eyes with sunglasses and striding across the grey-blue carpet on the way towards the exit.
‘Bye, Moira,’ she threw at the receptionist on her way past. ‘My commiserations that you have to work for that man. He’s impossible!’
‘Goodbye, Mrs Whitmore,’ the middle-aged receptionist called after her.
Gemma’s head snapped round to stare after the redhead. So! Nathan Whitmore was married.
She shook her head, smiling ruefully at her own stupidity. Of course a man like him would be married.
Gemma almost laughed at the silly thoughts that had been tumbling through her head since she’d parted company with Nathan in Lightning Ridge three days before. It had been crazy of her to imagine he’d been genuinely attracted to her, that he’d been loath to let her go. He’d simply been kind to her, that was all. Nothing more.
I’m as naïve as Ma said, Gemma realised with some dismay.
When she’d told Ma about what happened at the motel, the old woman had been aghast.
‘Good God, girl, and there I was thinkin’ you’d got your head screwed on where men were concerned. But you’re just as silly as the rest. Fancy huggin’ a stranger like that in his motel room. And acceptin’ a drink as well. The danger wasn’t from that ugly old bugger outside, love, but the handsome one inside!’
Gemma didn’t agree with Ma about that. She was sure Nathan Whitmore was a good man. But she had to agree about herself. Clearly, she was as vulnerable to a handsome face as the next girl, and twice as silly as most. Her actions in that motel room had been incredibly naïve and foolish. If Nathan hadn’t been an honourable man, God knew what might have happened, for there was no doubting she’d been blown away by how she’d felt when in his arms. Her only consolation was that the incident had eliminated her worry that a man’s touch would repel her.
The receptionist stood up from behind her desk and went over to knock on the door that Mrs Whitmore had slammed shut. After a brusque command to enter, she went inside, exiting a few seconds later with a polite smile on her face. ‘Mr Whitmore will see you straight away, Miss Smith. Please go right in.’
Gemma stood up, feeling suddenly fat and frumpish in her new pink cotton sundress with its tight bodice constraining her full breasts. Yet that morning, she had thought she looked...inviting. But seeing Nathan’s wife, so sophisticated and slim in a green silk suit, had put a dent in Gemma’s confidence over her appearance. She should have left her hair out, she thought unhappily, not tied it up into a childish pony-tail with an even more childish pink ribbon.