Dreaming Of... Australia: Mr Right at the Wrong Time / Imprisoned by a Vow / The Millionaire and the Maid

‘So … good luck this afternoon.’ She stood back to close her door.

‘I’ll call you. When I get back to Hobart.’

Her heart squeezed. ‘Why?’

His scowl bisected his handsome face. ‘Your book. Don’t we need to finish the interview?’

The book. The last remaining thread between them. A totally fake thread.

She pressed her fingernails into her palms. ‘I think I got everything I needed yesterday.’

‘I’ll call you. To be sure.’

She’d seen him angry, amused, confused, delighted. But she’d never seen Sam so … adrift. Cutting him completely free just wasn’t something she could do at this very second. She needed more strength for that.

She sighed. ‘Okay.’

No one said she had to answer his call.

The banks of the Derwent were busy as always—even for a week day. Small watercraft under billowing sails glided along its gleaming surface, and presumptuous ducks busied themselves nearby, waiting for any scraps that might tumble from Aimee’s lunch. Parallel pairs of prams pushed by athletic mums dominated the shared pathway and cyclists had to rumble onto the grass to go around them.

Aimee sat on her comfortable bench, tucked back into a recess in the thick foliage edging the pathway, munching absently on her chicken sandwich, her eyes very much lost amongst the boats out on the channel. Glorious golden rays of sun sprinkled down, warming all they touched.

Was there anything more restorative? A productive morning in Hobart’s research library, a simple lunch by the Derwent and a silent mind. A rare treat after the emotion of the past few days.

Aimee sighed and sipped her apple juice.

A clutch of power-walking nannas passed her, chatting across each other like the ducks grumbling around her feet, and she followed them with her eyes as she ate. She missed Danielle. Not that they’d ever been power-walking-type friends, but she missed having someone to chat to, to share work with, since her friend had gone on a month’s leave back to New Zealand.

Maybe that was what she needed? Some more friends. Broader horizons. New people. Non-Sam people.

As if just thinking his name had made him manifest, the gaggle of fast-moving nannas split like a cell, dividing around two people strolling towards her secluded corner of riverbank in the distance, then reformed behind them.

Her tasty chicken turned to ash in her mouth.

Sam.

With his wife.

They stopped in the distance and watched the boats go by, the downward tilt of Sam’s head indicating he was listening intently. Eager to see her after his three days away.

Aimee’s body reacted as immediately and inappropriately as it always did to the sight of Sam: tightening, anticipating. Going all gooey. But for the first time it wasn’t him that dominated her focus.

Melissa was as small and slim as she remembered from the confused chaos of the A10. But she was better lit in the golden noon light than she had been in the dimness of early morning on the mountain, and infinitely better dressed in businesswear rather than the running pants and sweater she’d had on that cold morning. Dark hair tumbled around her shoulders and seemed to blaze red in the sunlight.

She was … radiant.

Aimee’s heart pattered harder, and she dropped her eyes rather than be caught staring. Not that Melissa would have a clue who she was. But Sam would, if he turned around and saw her. Her mouth dried.

She hadn’t expected Melissa to be so lovely. She’d built an image of a fusty scientist gadding around in a lab coat stained by God knew what in a poor attempt to diminish her. What kind of cosmic injustice was this, that she should get Sam’s heart and be beautiful, too?

But of course he would pick someone beautiful. Ethereal.