There’d been a note on the counter. Nina was staying with her mate back at the staff quarters tonight.
He scrunched up the paper, flicked it into the trash. When night fell, he cracked open a beer and reclined in a deckchair out on the balcony. With the Mikano restaurant’s piano tinkling in over the warm air, he watched the waves roll endlessly in, then roll just as endlessly out. He slept not a wink. When a peaceful dawn broke, sienna-gold on the quiet horizon, his eyes were gritty and his throat ached.
He believed he could change Nina’s mind. He knew what to say, how to touch, where to kiss, so she couldn’t say no. But, as much as the beast inside urged him to persuade her to continue their affair after she returned to Sydney, he simply couldn’t be that selfish and hurt her that way.
As he’d said—she was right. His past with women was proof. Nina would only end up hurt.
She wanted his respect and he did respect her—her courage, her humour and integrity. But respect and love were two different things. If she was frightened about how much she cared for him, he wasn’t too comfortable with his emotions either.
He’d told her his life was too busy to accommodate the kind of commitment she was wanted. But through these long, lonely hours he’d admitted that was a lie. The simple truth was he didn’t want to be tied down. But it went deeper than that. He didn’t want to commit because he didn’t need to worry about whether he was good enough. Whether he could provide enough—emotionally financially, physically.
His mother hadn’t given his father a chance and young Gabe had been the one to lose out. He’d come to terms with his mother’s choices. He’d forgiven her long ago. But he had Faith and her gentle wise ways to thank for that.
Faith had said, no matter what, he could be anything he wanted to be. But in a dark hidden place, he knew why he’d never let himself get close to any woman.
He didn’t believe in that kind of love. And until recently he hadn’t found that conviction to be a problem.
At 7 a.m. he showered, dressed, and made his way to the jetty. An hour later he stood when Nina approached wheeling one suitcase behind her. The ferry-cat to the mainland left in twenty minutes. Twenty minutes and then…
Would he ever see her again?
She didn’t seem surprised to see him. Her eyes looked as red as his felt, and it was all he could do not to tell her this was crazy. This didn’t have to end.
Instead he remembered her pleas, his long, insightful night, and handed over a tiger shell.
“This is for your nephew.” He placed the shiny tawny- and brown-dotted shell in her hand. “Put your ear to the opening and you hear the ocean.”
She listened, smiled, and then lowered the shell. “Thank you,” she said. “Thanks for everything you’ve done.”
He dropped his gaze and then found her eyes again. “Nina, I did some soul-searching last night.”
Her gaze sharpened. “And?”
“I want you to be everything you can be.”
In a heartbeat her eyes edged with tears and, although she set her mouth, her bottom lip still trembled. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, holding back from gathering her close, kissing her brow and telling her…what?
He’d already said he cared. He cared more for her than anyone he’d known. More than Faith, more than his father or Anthony. It was a different kind of emotion. A consuming sensation that affected every inch of him…head, but more so heart. And yet he couldn’t tell her what she needed to hear.
So what was the use of tormenting himself? Or her? Why had he come?
“Good luck with your work here,” she said.
He blinked against the emotion stinging behind his nose. “Good luck with the new job.”
A tear fell from the corner of her eye before she bounced onto tiptoe and stole a kiss from his cheek. Then she was gone, striding off down the jetty, boarding the cat and not looking back.
Soon it began to shower. The shower turned into sheets of rain. After an hour, Gabriel walked home.
He knew he could get Diamond Shores back on its feet. He was well on track now, thanks to Nina and the other staff’s suggestions. She was right. No one needed to lick anyone’s boots—not in his childhood and not now. He’d make the changes that needed to be made. He’d make the fortune he’d always wanted. He’d prove himself. Reach the top.
Yet all he could think about was how lucky some guy in Nina’s future would be and how, without her in his life, he might as well be broke.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
NINA had been back in Sydney two weeks, and had started her new job at Real Woman’s Life magazine a few days ago.
She’d fallen straight into the work and had hit it off instantly with her fellow staff. Best was the feeling that she finally fitted somewhere again. Her life was definitely on the upswing. Yet there was a hidden part of her that felt more lost than ever.
Sitting alone on a quiet stretch of Manly Beach, with a chorus of kookaburras heralding in a clear new day, Nina pushed to her feet, dusted off her shorts and headed for the water.
Once she’d loved coming here…laughable attempts at beach volleyball with her friends, devouring great summer reads while the sun warmed her skin. Now blue skies, white sand and the mighty tumble of surf only reminded her of Gabriel.
Almost to the water, she stopped as her insides clenched and tears brimmed in her eyes.
She’d tried to shake off the malady…late-night movies, visits with Jill and Codie, reconnecting with mates and former colleagues.Yet every waking moment his smile seemed to live in her mind. Dazzling. Seductive.
Her dreams were even more disturbing. Sometimes she woke up believing his bone-melting embrace was real. The memory of his night kisses teased her until she thought she might go mad.
She had to talk with him, tell him she’d been wrong, that she was willing to take whatever he could give. Last night the ache in her stomach had been so bad she’d picked up the phone, ready to beg him to take her back.
What did she have to lose? The tragedy she’d hoped to avoid had come. Her heart was broken. Cracked in two. Her professional life was soaring, but on a personal, lovesick note, she doubted she could sink any lower.
And it was that sorry realisation that kept her from crumbling completely. From making another gigantic mistake.
If she called Gabriel and pitched herself back into their affair she would only fall more in love. She would be even more heartbroken when they said goodbye again. In not so many words, on that last day, Gabriel had told her to run.
He knew who he was…a playboy millionaire who had success and little else on his mind. But he cared for her. When she lay awake in the midnight hours, staring at the ceiling, she told herself he cared for her more than any woman he’d been with.
Still, he’d let her go.
She couldn’t take back all she’d said to him. Couldn’t let him know she was willing to have her heart decimated again. She might not have Gabriel Steele’s love, but she could at least keep his respect.
And so, once she’d gone around that circle of logic a thousand times, she stayed her course. She longed for Gabriel’s smile, his touch. But she kept her pain to herself.
But then came the next dilemma.
Would she ever feel whole again…the wonderful, glowing, cherished way she’d felt when she’d been with him? When she looked in the mirror each morning and saw the opacity in her eyes she couldn’t imagine feeling that vibrant again.
As cool laces of water washed around her bare feet, Nina wondered where and what her life would be ten years from now. She’d always thought she would find Mr Wonderful, her true soul mate, and she had. Love had come at the most unlikely time, when every other aspect of her life had been turned upside down and pulled inside out. But finding love wasn’t keeping love. One week after meeting Mr Wonderful she’d lost her love for good.
She gazed out at the Pacific Ocean, glittering with dawn’s gentle jewels, and hugged herself as a cool sea breeze combed her hair.
The question she’d asked herself lately hadn’t been, Who am I? It was Why am I? Why am I here?
Why do I matter?
She came up with reasons. Good ones. Reasons that counted. And yet without Gabriel to talk with…to laugh with…to love…those reasons never seemed anywhere near important enough.
Ahead, a bottle lay half buried in the sand. An unusual bottle—bright pink, with a spray of flowers painted on one side. Curious, she collected it and rubbed the wet sand from the glass.
She stopped. Looked harder.
Paper was scrolled up inside.
A message in a bottle.
A wistful smile lifted the corners of her mouth.
On the night of April’s wedding Gabriel had asked her what she might write on such a note.
Nina closed her eyes, lifted her face to the northern sky and whispered…‘Wish you were here.’
Remembering her first vision of him on that cliff, she swallowed the tears backed up in her throat, screwed off the cork and shook the paper out. Unravelling the note, she saw the words were handwritten and slightly smudged. Only two words, and they read:
Turn around.
She blinked several times before tendrils of understanding gripped high around her throat and a flash of heat rushed over her skin. Her head was light and every hair on her scalp was standing on end by the time she did what the note asked. Slowly she edged around, and…