And all the time they were talking together, he’d been fiercely erect. Wanting her. Loving her. Hating her.
She’d looked even more beautiful than he remembered. Black became her. There again, just about any colour suited Serina, with her dark hair and eyes, and lovely olive skin. Having a child had enhanced rather than spoilt her figure. Her curves were the curves of a woman in her prime. She’d looked luscious, and as sexy as ever.
It had killed him to watch her leave the wake with another man, to see the proprietorial way Greg had taken her arm and led her away.
Nicolas hadn’t slept a wink that night. He’d tossed and turned, picturing Serina in her marital bed, in her husband’s arms, under her husband’s body.
The next morning, a grim-faced Nicolas had given instructions to his mother’s solicitor to dispose of the house and all its contents, and forward the proceeds to his bank in London. By noon he’d left Rocky Creek, vowing never to return.
Yet here he was, doing just that.
Of course, he’d never imagined that the extremely healthy-looking Greg Harmon would die so young. Or that Serina’s daughter would write to him and practically beg him to come back to Rocky Creek.
Nicolas wondered what Serina felt about Felicity doing that? Would she have been annoyed? Angry? It had been rather bold of the girl to write to him like that. He suspected it had been done without her mother’s permission.
The fact there’d been no email from Serina herself had been telling, he thought. The principal of Rocky Creek Primary school had emailed him, checking that his offer was for real, but nothing, however, from Felicity’s mother.
Perhaps her silence meant indifference. But he doubted it.
Serina could never be indifferent to him, just as he could never be indifferent to her.
As Nicolas carried his toilet bag into the bathroom, he made another vow. He wasn’t going to leave Australia this time till he knew for certain how Serina felt about him and how he felt about her. He was not going to live the rest of his life pining for what might have been, or what might be in the future.
He’d booked this apartment for a full week. Long enough, he imagined, to have all his questions answered…
CHAPTER FOUR
SERINA found it impossible to concentrate at work that Friday morning. All she could think about was the fact that Nicolas was on his way here right at this moment; that soon, he would reach Port Macquarie and call, not Felicity or Fred Tarleton, Felicity’s school’s principal, but her own sorry self.
Felicity, the precocious child, had informed her of these new arrangements late last night, explaining that she’d given Nicolas her mobile number to contact when he arrived at Port Macquarie, as everyone at the school would be tied up all day, getting the school hall ready for the concert the following evening. Everything had to be perfect for their famous visiting judge.
There had been no use protesting. Felicity was as stubborn as a mule. And Nicolas, it seemed, was uncontactable at that hour, having already boarded his plane in London for the flight to Sydney. It hadn’t occurred to Serina till she’d arrived at work this morning that he probably had one of those fan-dangled new phones that received emails, even on planes. Serina had never been overly keen on technology and whilst she used a computer at work and carried a basic mobile phone with her, she didn’t have a PC of her own at home and wasn’t at all enamoured with the Internet.
Felicity, however, like most modern children, was a real computer buff and could make her way around the worldwide web with ridiculous ease. Over the past fortnight she’d regaled Serina with scads of information about Nicolas that she’d found on the Internet, from his earliest concert playing days right up to the successes he’d had as a theatrical entrepreneur, including that of his latest musical protégée, a young Japanese violinist called Junko Hoshino who was as beautiful as she was talented. Several gossip columnists had them being an item already. It seemed Nicolas had somewhat of a reputation as a ladies’ man, a fact that didn’t surprise.
Serina already knew quite a bit about Nicolas’s life over the past decade. There’d been a segment on 60 Minutes a couple of years ago back that was like a mini This is Your Life, highlighting the accident that had ended his piano playing career, then praising him for the way he’d put such a tragedy behind him and forged a new career in show business.
It had made difficult viewing with Greg by her side on the lounge. She’d wanted to tape the segment and watch it over and over—watch him over and over—but hadn’t dared. Greg knew she’d once dated Nicolas, though she’d always downplayed their relationship, claiming she hadn’t been unhappy when he left Australia to pursue his career. Later that night, when Greg had wanted sex, however, she’d turned him down, because she knew she simply could not bear to make love with her husband with the memory of Nicolas so fresh in her mind.