CHAPTER SIX

      JAKE LEFT IT until nine that evening to ring Olivia back, having learnt from experience that it was never wise to ring her before she’d been home for a while after work. After reading the news from six till seven, Olivia usually went for a de-stressing drink down near the quay before catching the Manly ferry home.

      Her phone rang several times before she picked up.

      ‘Well, hello, stranger,’ she answered waspishly. ‘Why didn’t you answer when I rang you earlier?’

      ‘I didn’t feel like talking,’ he said with blunt honesty.

      ‘Are you upset with me for not going to your uncle’s funeral?’

      ‘No,’ he told her with equal honesty. ‘I didn’t expect you to cancel your arrangements when they’d been organised weeks before Craig died.’

      Olivia and five of her girlfriends had driven up to a resort in the Blue Mountains on the Friday for a hen party for one of the girls, who was getting married shortly.

      ‘I was home by eight last night,’ Olivia pointed out tartly. ‘Why didn’t you ring? I was waiting for your call. Or your text. Or something.’

      Jake was totally taken aback. They didn’t have the kind of relationship where they called and texted each other all the time. They were lovers, but not in love.

      ‘You told me you were turning off your phone for the weekend,’ he reminded her. ‘Nothing stopped you ringing me when you got home last night.’

      ‘I was tired.’

      ‘More likely hungover.’

      ‘Yes,’ she admitted grudgingly. ‘That, too. But you still could have contacted me this morning.’

      ‘Come now, Olivia. You know I’m busy on weekday mornings, getting ready for my show.’

      ‘Ah, yes. Your show,’ she said in a tone which had a decided edge to it. ‘I happened to watch your show today…’

      ‘And?’ he prompted when she didn’t go on.

      ‘I saw the way you were ogling that actress’s boobs. You do know they’re fake, don’t you?’

      Jake could not believe what he was hearing. He sincerely hoped it wasn’t the sounds of jealousy. Because jealousy meant only one thing.

      ‘I dare say it was the cameraman doing the ogling,’ he said coldly. ‘Not me.’

      ‘That’s not the way I saw it. Just remember that if you’re dating me, Jake darling, you can look, but you can’t touch anyone else.’

      ‘Don’t start getting possessive on me, Olivia,’ he warned, his tone darkly ominous.

      There was a short silence before she suddenly laughed. ‘Of course not. I was only kidding. Any red-blooded man would have to be blind not to ogle Maddie Hanks’s boobs. That’s why they pay her so much to take off her clothes. So when am I going to see you next? I was thinking we could meet up somewhere in the city for dinner tomorrow night. Café Sydney, perhaps?’

      Jake knew if he did that then Olivia would want to come back to his place for the night. And he simply didn’t want to have sex with her. Truth be told, he’d been glad she’d gone away the previous weekend. After Craig’s wretched funeral and wake he’d just wanted to be alone.

      ‘I don’t think so, Olivia,’ he told her, trying not to sound as cold and hard as he suddenly felt towards her. But in his head he kept comparing her to Abby, who had cried in his arms over a man she hardly knew. And that was before she knew what he’d left her. Olivia might look all woman but she didn’t have a soft or compassionate bone in her body. She could read the most tragic news and shed not a single tear.

      ‘But why not?’ Olivia demanded to know in the stroppy tone she adopted when things weren’t going her way.