Bleeding Hearts. Lindy Cameron
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for the character, not to mention the writer, to deal with.
"Oh, you're hopeless, Flynn," Kit said to the half-written chapter. "Get with it. Okay?"
Kit tried to help by casting her mind back, just seven weeks, to draw inspiration from her own steamy, mind-blowing and passionate encounter with serious lust. When her right leg started the knee-jigging thing, a habit Kit was not prone to, she realised she was coming over all queer and tingly - and silly - and that conjuring that night was not going to help this fictional problem. It was one instance when the 'use what you know' theory of creative writing was a hindrance.
And why, you may ask? Kit asked herself.
Because, the lust part is not the problem - in fiction or fact, herself replied. Love is the problem. In fact love has always been the problem.
Kit had given lust and love to the fictional Flynn; now neither of them knew what to do with it. Actually, if Kit's own 'is it love' status was any indication, this was a thing she'd never figure out.
Crikey! she thought. Ooh, that's a nice old-fashioned word, her thoughts appended.
But yes! Crikey indeed! She'd had, how many phone calls with Alex in the last nine weeks? And what had they talked about? Not it, that's for sure. Not once had they talked about it. Not it, not them, not anything much. In fact, if she thought about it - which she did most of the time - she'd probably missed more calls and left more messages than had actual conversations.
She sighed. Deeply. If only it had been 'just lust', she thought. You'd be over it now.
Kit raised her eyebrows. Over it? What do you want to be over it for? If it is love, you want to be in it - forever. Fool.
Kit decided her screensaver was way more productive and sensible than she was, so she left the bytes to their own devices and headed into the kitchen to try and find something to cook for dinner.
Thistle, who raced her to the bench, had suggested salmon mouse, rabbit terrine, and chicken anything by the time Kit got there.
"Oh dear, this is sad," Kit said, noting the wide-open spaces inside her fridge. "We could film a not-likely-to-survive in the wilderness documentary in here, Thistle. Looks like it's bacon and eggs for me and, oh, bacon and eggs for you too."
"Mlaa-cack."
"Too bad," Kit replied. "Besides if I went out especially to buy you the canned SniffyPuss special, you'd only want my dinner anyway. So how about we start out with the same food and see what happens."
"Glaang," Thistle mewed.
"Good girl," Kit replied, figuring The Cat had said either 'okay' or 'bummer'.
CHAPTER THREE
Victoria Bennet had done quite nicely out of the divorce settlement her errant husband had been forced to agree to the previous month. Kit smiled broadly as she turned in through the gateway in the three-metre high sandstone fence, and headed up the steep driveway to the house.
House? This is not a house, she thought, as an uncontrolled 'wow' took over her face. This is a mansion's mansion, with a panorama and a half!
Kit figured the split-level, multi-balconied and windowed residence probably commanded a 240 degree view, sweeping around from Red Bluff, to the north of Half Moon Bay, then west and south across Port Phillip as far as the eye could see.
Residence, mansion, beach house - whatever it is! - it's now Tori's. Which just proves that sometimes the right people win, Kit thought, deciding it was bloody marvellous that she'd a hand in making that so.
She queued her RAV behind a Beamer, a Merc and a VW Beetle and got out, noting again the difference a half-way-decent vehicle can make to a person's self esteem. Acknowledging, also again, how incredibly shallow that was as a concept, she gave herself a mental slap and amended her original thought to: 'a professional person's self esteem'.
While her old car had always been reliable, she had frequently disowned it as a rent-a-bomb, and had often worried that it would be towed to a wrecker's yard if it was parked anywhere for too long. So, as she jogged up, and up, the steps to Tori's front door she had to agree with herself that a Toyota four-wheel-drive better suited her reputation as a PI who could secure this kind of outcome for her client. Stopping on the second landing, which was at least another 35 steps from the front door, she wondered, however, why the hell this outcome hadn't included a lift.
The prenuptial agreement that Frank Bennet had required Tori to sign before their marriage five years before had ultimately worked in her favour. This had obviously not been his intention. The deal had been that in the event of a divorce she would get nothing more than eight per cent of his financial assets, plus their $250,000 city apartment. Tori had agreed without question. Eight per cent of Frank Bennet was a great deal of money. Besides, she really did love him.
In the only acknowledgement of their age difference - Frank being more than twenty years her senior - he had worried that Tori would be tempted to take a holiday from their marriage bed, so he had included an extra clause: if an affair was the reason for the divorce then the agreement would be null and void and the offended party would retain the entire estate.
Frank Bennet was a self-made multi-millionaire, with two houses and an apartment in Melbourne, a house in Sydney, a luxury unit in Noosa, a villa in Tuscany, seven cars, a pleasure cruiser and a light plane. Frank Bennet also had an idiot for a solicitor; an idiot related by marriage to his sister, and currently serving time in prison for fraud. The prenup was so unspecific that Tori's solicitor - armed with Kit's video surveillance tapes - had no trouble arguing that, as the 'offended' party, Tori was entitled to everything that Frank Bennet owned. Given that she was only asking for twenty per cent of his money, one house - this $2.8 million one in Black Rock - two cars and the boat, the judge had no trouble ruling in her favour.
While Kit had been working Tori's case they had only ever met in cafes and in court, so Kit had never been to the beach-mansion before, although she had seen pictures of the interior. When occupied by the first Mrs Bennet, now known simply as Sharlie (emphasis on the second syllable) the 'face' of Flair Cosmetics, the house-mansion had been featured in a print version of 'lifestyles of the obscenely wealthy and vacuous'. Actually Sharlie's soulless but expensively furnished 'suite of entertaining spaces' had been given a four-page spread in one of the designer-decor magazines that Lillian bought every month. Which was the same thing really.
Lillian had exhumed the six-year-old article when Kit had asked her if she'd ever heard of Frank Bennett. While Kit had long ago stopped asking her mother why she kept every magazine she ever bought (mostly because the only time she ever thought to ask was when Lillian had just provided some useful info gleaned from those very magazines), she had, on this most recent occasion, questioned why she bought them in the first place. What was the point, Kit had wanted to know, in paying for pages and pages of ads for slate tiles and bidets, just to see a few photos of someone else's lounge, bath or bedroom - which always looked unlived-in and never seemed to include pets or televisions. Who the hell lived like that?
Not the second Mrs Bennett, that's for sure, Kit thought. While Tori was definitely lapping up the lifestyle to which her ex had introduced her, she was basically a delightful, down to earth, no bullshit kind of person who had no desire to be frivolously famous and was not letting her good fortune, or even her huge fortune, go to her head.
Kit knew that Tori was not the sort of person who, having acquired the house and goods and chattels would rearrange them all, and then call the editor of Vanity Home and demand her turn at fulfilling their mission statement: 'to show off your home to people who'll never be able to afford what you've got, because they spend all their spare money on our magazine'.
Kit had liked her now-ex client the first time they'd met, and when the front door was flung open just as her hand reached the doorbell, she knew her initial impression was a true and lasting one.
"Kit, it is so good to see you!" Tori greeted her with a warm and laugh-filled hug.
"You