like the longest day of her life, after an impossibly draining few hours with an impossible man, finally she was free. Outside, she heard his car engine purr like a jungle cat into life, then the smooth sound of it accelerating away.
Another sigh of relief. He was gone.
And yet still she was unable to get the picture of man and machine out of her head. She shouldn’t have looked. She’d tried to resist. But the temptation to steal just one more glance had been too much.
So she’d peeked over her shoulder and seen him standing there alongside that car of his, watching her, his arms crossed, his eyes shaded by dark glasses that may have covered his eyes but did nothing to hide the intensity of his expression.
So intense she’d had to catch her breath as sensation had skittered up her spine. The sleek black car looked like sin. Its owner had looked even more dangerous. More potent, reminding her of some of the ads in the motoring magazines Shayne had sometimes pored over, except the car would be positioned strategically at thevery edge of a cliff top or on a highway next to a rolling surf beach, places that matched driver and machine for pure unbridled beauty. Not places like Spinifex Avenue, with its drab houses and front yards filled with dead gardens and rusting car bodies.
Whoever Dominic Pirelli was and wherever he came from, he did so not belong here.
With a sigh, she pushed herself away from the door and through the near empty lounge room to the kitchen. She dropped her bag on the table, snapped on the kettle and flicked through the mail while she waited for the water to boil.
Great.
All window envelopes—electricity, rates and … Her heart tripping faster in her chest as she recognised the name of the legal aid office Shayne was using. What did they want now? She tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter, scanning its contents, her mind refusing to believe what her eyes were telling her.
She collapsed onto one of the two remaining mismatched chairs, gutted that he could do this to her. He’d already taken the car and most of the furniture. He’d told her he’d wanted nothing else but a divorce from her ever again.
She read the letter again, slower this time in spite of a heart beating like thunder that sent panic coursing around her body, but the words remained unchanged, their meaning starkly clear.
Shayne wanted a property settlement agreed as quickly as possible. Only now he was claiming half the house—the house that had been her mother’s pride and joy, the house her mother had left her in her will.
Her house.
And if he got that, there was no way she could payhim out without selling and then where would she go? Where would she live?
What the hell was she supposed to do?
Dominic reached an intersection, knew he should turn right for the highway but inexplicably turned left instead, wending his way through streets marked with signs long past their use-by date. He didn’t need them anyway. He’d escaped his past a long time ago, he’d thought, but his past was still there, buried deep inside that box, waiting for the opportunity to burrow its way out.
His heart hammering, he slowed as he passed a tired shopping centre where all the windows wore security grilles and where half the shops were empty, feeling a strange lurch in his gut to see the laundromat shabbier but still open for business. His mother had found him crying in there, hiding behind the row of machines, bleeding from the split in his ear where a rock had caught him and from where he’d slid on gravel and taken the skin off both knees. He’d been ashamed he’d run. Ashamed he’d been caught. But most of all he’d been ashamed he’d cried.
And right there on the floor of the laundromat, amidst the steam and the hum and clang of a dozen machines, his mother had hugged him tight and cried right along with him. She would make it better, she promised him. She would take him away from his horrible school and the bullies who
Another sigh of relief. He was gone.
And yet still she was unable to get the picture of man and machine out of her head. She shouldn’t have looked. She’d tried to resist. But the temptation to steal just one more glance had been too much.
So she’d peeked over her shoulder and seen him standing there alongside that car of his, watching her, his arms crossed, his eyes shaded by dark glasses that may have covered his eyes but did nothing to hide the intensity of his expression.
So intense she’d had to catch her breath as sensation had skittered up her spine. The sleek black car looked like sin. Its owner had looked even more dangerous. More potent, reminding her of some of the ads in the motoring magazines Shayne had sometimes pored over, except the car would be positioned strategically at thevery edge of a cliff top or on a highway next to a rolling surf beach, places that matched driver and machine for pure unbridled beauty. Not places like Spinifex Avenue, with its drab houses and front yards filled with dead gardens and rusting car bodies.
Whoever Dominic Pirelli was and wherever he came from, he did so not belong here.
With a sigh, she pushed herself away from the door and through the near empty lounge room to the kitchen. She dropped her bag on the table, snapped on the kettle and flicked through the mail while she waited for the water to boil.
Great.
All window envelopes—electricity, rates and … Her heart tripping faster in her chest as she recognised the name of the legal aid office Shayne was using. What did they want now? She tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter, scanning its contents, her mind refusing to believe what her eyes were telling her.
She collapsed onto one of the two remaining mismatched chairs, gutted that he could do this to her. He’d already taken the car and most of the furniture. He’d told her he’d wanted nothing else but a divorce from her ever again.
She read the letter again, slower this time in spite of a heart beating like thunder that sent panic coursing around her body, but the words remained unchanged, their meaning starkly clear.
Shayne wanted a property settlement agreed as quickly as possible. Only now he was claiming half the house—the house that had been her mother’s pride and joy, the house her mother had left her in her will.
Her house.
And if he got that, there was no way she could payhim out without selling and then where would she go? Where would she live?
What the hell was she supposed to do?
Dominic reached an intersection, knew he should turn right for the highway but inexplicably turned left instead, wending his way through streets marked with signs long past their use-by date. He didn’t need them anyway. He’d escaped his past a long time ago, he’d thought, but his past was still there, buried deep inside that box, waiting for the opportunity to burrow its way out.
His heart hammering, he slowed as he passed a tired shopping centre where all the windows wore security grilles and where half the shops were empty, feeling a strange lurch in his gut to see the laundromat shabbier but still open for business. His mother had found him crying in there, hiding behind the row of machines, bleeding from the split in his ear where a rock had caught him and from where he’d slid on gravel and taken the skin off both knees. He’d been ashamed he’d run. Ashamed he’d been caught. But most of all he’d been ashamed he’d cried.
And right there on the floor of the laundromat, amidst the steam and the hum and clang of a dozen machines, his mother had hugged him tight and cried right along with him. She would make it better, she promised him. She would take him away from his horrible school and the bullies who
Similar Books
