The Girl He Never Noticed. Lindsay Armstrong
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grimaced, because he couldn’t doubt now that under that composed, touch-me-not Ice Queen there existed real heartbreak. He’d seen that kind of heartbreak before. The other thing he couldn’t doubt was that she’d sparked his interest. Was it the challenge, though? Of breaking through the ice until he created a warm, loving woman? Was it because he sensed a response in her whether she liked it or not?
Whatever, he reflected, in a little over two weeks she was destined to walk out of his life. Unless…
He didn’t articulate the thought as he finally drove off.
* * *
The next morning Liz placed a boiled egg with a face drawn on it in front of her daughter. Scout clapped her hands delightedly.
At the same time Mary Montrose said, ‘You must have been late last night, Liz? I didn’t even hear you come in.’
Yes, thank heavens, Liz thought. She’d been curiously unwilling to share the events of the evening with her mother—not to mention to expose the mess she’d been in, ripped, torn and with one soaked shoe.
Now, though, she gave Mary a much abridged version of the evening.
Mary sat up excitedly. ‘I once designed an outfit for Narelle Hastings. Did you say she’s Cameron Hillier’s great-aunt?’
‘So he said.’ Liz smiled inwardly as she decapitated Scout’s egg and spread the contents on toast soldiers. Her mother was an avid follower of the social scene.
‘Let’s see…’ Mary meditated for a moment. ‘I believe Narelle was his mother’s aunt—that would make her his great-aunt. Well! There you go! Of course there’ve been a couple of tragedies for the Hastings/Hillier clan.’
Liz wiped some egg from Scout’s little face and dropped a kiss on her nose. ‘Good girl, you made short work of that! Like what?’ she asked her mother.
‘Cameron’s parents were killed in an aircraft accident, and his sister in an avalanche of all things. What’s he like?’
Liz hesitated as she realised she wasn’t at all sure what to make of Cameron Hillier. ‘He’s OK,’ she said slowly, and looked at her watch. ‘I’ll have to make tracks shortly. So! What have you two girls got on today?’
‘Koalas,’ Scout said. She was as fair as Liz, with round blue eyes. Her hair was a cloud of curls and she glowed with health.
Liz pretended surprise. ‘You’re going to buy a koala?’
‘No, Mummy,’ Scout corrected lovingly. ‘We’re going to see them at the zoo! Aren’t we, Nanna?’
‘As well as all sorts of other animals, sweetheart,’ her grandmother confirmed fondly. ‘I’m looking forward to it myself!’
Liz took a breath as she thought of the sunny day outside, the ferry-ride across the harbour to Taronga Zoo, and how she’d love to be going with them. She bit her lip, then glanced gratefully at her mother. ‘There are times when I don’t know how to thank you,’ she murmured.
‘You don’t have to,’ Mary answered. ‘You know that.’
Liz blinked, then got up to get ready for work.
* * *
The flat she and Scout shared with her mother was in an inner Sydney suburb. It was comfortable—her mother had seen to that—but the neighbourhood couldn’t be described as classy…something Mary often lamented. But it was handy for the suburb of Paddington, for Oxford Street and its trendy shopping and vibrant cafés. There were also markets, and history that included the Victoria Army Barracks and fine old terrace houses. If you were a sports fan, the iconic Sydney Cricket Ground was handy, as well as Centennial and Moore Parks. They often took picnics to the park.
The flat had three bedrooms and a small study. They’d converted the study into a bedroom for Scout, and the third bedroom into a workroom for Mary. It resembled an Aladdin’s cave, Liz sometimes thought. There were racks of clothes in a mouth-watering selection of colours and fabrics. There was a rainbow selection of buttons, beads, sequins, the feathers Mary fashioned into fascinators, ribbons and motifs.
Mary had a small band of customers she ‘created’ for, as she preferred to put it. Gone were the heady days after Liz’s father’s death, when Mary had followed a lifelong dream and invested in her own boutique. It hadn’t prospered—not because the clothes weren’t exquisite, but because, as her father had known, Mary had no business sense at all. Not only hadn’t it prospered, it had all but destroyed Mary’s resources.
But the two people Mary Montrose loved creating for above all were her daughter and granddaughter.
So it was that, although Liz operated on a fairly tight budget, no one would have guessed it from her clothes. And she went to work the day after the distressing scenario that had played out between two harbourside mansions looking the essence of chic, having decided it was a bit foolish to play down the originality of her clothes now.
She wore slim black pants to hide the graze on her knee, and a black and white blouson top with three-quarter sleeves, belted at the waist. Her shoes were black patent wedges with high cork soles—shoes she adored—and she wore a black and white, silver and bead Pandora-style bracelet.
As she finished dressing, she went to pin back her hair—then thought better of that too. There seemed to be no point now. She also put in her contact lenses.
But as she rode the bus to work she was thinking not of how she looked but other things. Cam Hillier in particular.
She’d tossed and turned quite a lot last night, as her overburdened mind had replayed the whole dismal event several times.
She had to acknowledge that he’d been…He hadn’t been critical, had he? She couldn’t deny she’d got herself into a mess—not only last night, of course, but in her life, and Scout’s—which could easily invite criticism…
What did he really think? she wondered, and immediately wondered why it should concern her. After her disastrous liaison with Scout’s father she’d not only been too preoccupied with her first priority—Scout, and building a life for both of them—but she’d had no interest in men. Once bitten twice shy, had been her motto. She’d even perfected a technique that had become, without her realising it until yesterday, she thought ironically, patently successful—Ice Queen armour.
It had all taken its toll, however, despite her joy in Scout. Not only in the battle to keep afloat economically, but also with her guilt at having to rely on her mother for help, therefore restricting her mother’s life too. She had the feeling that she was growing old before her time, that she would never be able to let her hair down and enjoy herself in mixed company because of the cloud of bitterness that lay on her soul towards men.
So why was she now thinking about a man as she hadn’t for years?
Why was she now suddenly physically vulnerable to a man she didn’t really approve of, to make matters worse?
She paused her thoughts as a mental image of Cam Hillier came to her, and she had to acknowledge on a suddenly indrawn breath that he fascinated her in a curious sort of love/hate way—although of course it couldn’t be love…But just when she wanted to hurl a brick at him for his sheer bloody-minded arrogance he did something, as he had last night, that changed a person’s opinion of him. He hadn’t been judgemental. He’d even made it possible for her spill her heart to him.
It was more too, she reflected. Not only his compelling looks and physique, but a vigorous mind that worked at the speed of lightning, an intellect you longed to have the freedom to match. Something about him that made you feel alive even if you were furious.
She gazed unseeingly out of the window and thought, what did it matter? She’d shortly be gone from his life. And even if she stayed within his orbit there was always the thorny question of Portia Pengelly—or if not Portia whoever her replacement would be.
She smiled a wintry little smile