Six Australian Heroes. Margaret Way
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it was a cold day. There was absolutely no wind and there wasn’t a cloud in the clear, blue sky. There was no logical reason why she should be alarmed. But she was.
‘You’ll enjoy it,’ he added, his eyes meeting hers. ‘Trust me.’
Laura gave him a tight little smile. It wasn’t him she didn’t trust, she realised with a jab of dismay. It was herself.
Where had this sudden mad attraction come from?
Admittedly, Ryan was a very attractive man in a physical sense; as cynical as she was about the male sex, Laura wasn’t blind. Okay, so he wasn’t her usual type. Unlike her gran, she’d always gone for elegantly built males of average height who didn’t tower over her. Big, broad-shouldered, macho men had always made her feel uncomfortable.
Ryan was certainly making her feel uncomfortable right at this moment, but in a disturbingly delicious and insidiously corrupting way. It was as well that he didn’t fancy her, Laura realised. A blessing, too, that he had a girlfriend, otherwise she just might have been tempted to make a fool of herself this weekend.
Her stomach churned at the development of this highly unexpected situation. There she’d been, thinking she’d have trouble pretending to be Ryan’s girlfriend. Now she was faced with having to control the urge to seduce the man!
Not that she would know how to seduce a man. She’d only had two lovers in her life, both of whom had done the seducing. She had absolutely no confidence in bedroom matters, and not a lot of interest these days, either.
Until this moment …
Perhaps her years of celibacy had finally caught up with her. It was the only reason Laura could find for the way she was feeling, so horribly aware of the man sitting next to her. Her sudden vulnerability to him brought a peculiar tension to her body which she could not remember experiencing before. Her shoulders stiffened, then pressed back hard against the seat, her hands twisting together in her lap.
‘Relax, Laura,’ he commanded as the car accelerated away from the kerb and hurtled off down the street. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’
She wasn’t so sure about that. Even if she got through this weekend with her pride intact she’d have to give Ryan up as a client. She could not bear the thought of going to his office every Friday afternoon with the same kind of feelings running through her that were running through her now.
It wasn’t long, however, before she forgot about her pride and succumbed to the exhilarating and highly seductive experience of riding along in a convertible. Lord, but it was fun, whizzing through the city streets with the sun beating down on her face and the wind in her hair. It was impossible to remain uptight. Soon she relaxed back into the seat, thoroughly enjoying the envious looks on people’s faces as they passed them by. Perhaps it was silly of her to feel pleasure at the misconception that Ryan was her boyfriend, but she couldn’t seem to help it.
‘See?’ Ryan said after a few minutes. ‘I told you you’d enjoy it. Want me to put some music on?’
‘If you like,’ she replied, having to work very hard to keep her voice cool and in no way flirtatious.
‘Tell me what you like,’ he countered. ‘Music wise. I should know your taste in music, don’t you think? And vice versa.’
Laura shrugged. ‘I like just about anything which has a melody, a good beat and interesting words. I’m not into hard metal, or rap. I don’t have a favourite artist or a band. I never was the sort of teenager who went ape over some singer. Unlike Alison who was—and is—simply crazy about Robbie Williams.’
‘Who’s Alison?’
‘My best friend. We went to boarding-school together.’
‘Ah. Perhaps we should leave the music off for now whilst you give me a quick update on your life so far. You don’t have to tell me everything. Just the things you think I should know.’
‘I’m certainly not going to tell you everything,’ she retorted, thinking of Brad and Mario.
And she certainly didn’t mention those two humiliating relationships. But she did tell Ryan about her mother running away from home to Sydney and eventually marrying her father, who’d been a runaway of another kind. Carmelo Ferrugia had been a lawyer, a refugee from Columbia whose first wife and children had been murdered by some very bad people. Carmelo had been twenty years older than her mother, a kind, compassionate man who’d spent the rest of his life helping people in difficulty.
She also told him about their tragic death in a small-plane crash when she’d been only eleven, about her years living up in the Hunter Valley with her grandparents and her time at a Sydney boarding-school.
‘I always knew that I would stay in Sydney as soon as I finished school,’ she added. ‘And that I would become a lawyer, like my dad. I actually worked for legal aid for a while, like he did. But I didn’t like it all that much. I found it a bit … boring.’
‘So you moved on to Harvey, Michaels and Associates.’
‘No, I joined another legal firm first, one which specialised in criminal defence.’
‘You couldn’t have found that boring.’
‘No, I loved it. But I … um …’
‘You what?’
Too late Laura realised where this conversation was heading.
She winced. She hated talking about Mario. Brad had hurt her, but Mario had cut very deep.
‘I had a relationship with a client that ended badly,’ she finally admitted.
‘I see.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘No, I do see. I had a relationship with a client once. That ended badly too. It almost destroyed my business.’
Laura was shocked. ‘What happened?’
‘In a nutshell I had a brief fling with a client. When I broke up with her she did her very libellous best to bring my company—and me—to our knees. It was a close call, I can tell you. Makes you damned careful in future. I’ve never dated a client since. I dare say you feel the same way.’
‘You could say that.’
‘Just as well this isn’t a real date, then. Still, I don’t think I have to worry about your ever getting obsessed with me, Laura.’
Oh, the irony of that remark, she thought as she turned droll eyes his way. ‘I think you’re reasonably safe.’ Provided you don’t do anything stupid like make a pass at me.
His laugh carried real amusement. ‘You know, it’s quite refreshing being in the company of a woman whom you can entirely trust.’
‘Meaning?’ she said a bit more tartly that she meant to.
‘Meaning I would never have offered to pretend to be your boyfriend if I thought you liked me at all. Because let’s face it, Laura, if that was the case this weekend could have complicated our working relationship.’
‘I don’t see how. Even if I liked you, you don’t like me.’
‘Not true, sweetheart. How could I possibly continue to dislike a woman who spent three-thousand dollars saving the life of her poor little puddy-tat?’
‘Oh,’ she said, and then did the unthinkable.
She blushed.
RYAN could not believe it when Laura’s cheeks flushed a bright red. For a second or two, he was troubled by her reaction. But then he saw it for what it was: a natural response to the unexpected occurence of a man saying something genuinely nice about