'Oh, for crying out aloud! You wouldn't be human if you weren't curious.' He thumped his empty glass down on the tablecloth.
She scowled suddenly. 'All right! I was just wondering how she explained your absence at the same time as telling him you were wonderful!'
'I have no idea,' he said moodily. Then he closed his eyes briefly. 'Cathy was, probably still is, like Scheherazade. She's an artist, she paints, and if there's such a thing as an artistic temperament she has it in spades. She's quixotic, she can turn life with her into an Aladdin's cave of delight or the opposite. She comes and goes between you and her art-or whatever takes her fancy. She's impossible to pin down but she can be irresistible. She'd have spun Nicky some tale. What she may not have taken into account is-' He stopped and shrugged.
'Just as there was a threshold over and above which you couldn't suspend disbelief, Nicky has his own thresholds?'
The only sound for a long moment was the water lapping against the jetty. Then the soft chink of crockery came from the direction of the kitchen and the lovely aroma of fresh coffee wafted on the air.
And Max Goodwin said, 'You're extraordinarily perceptive for a twenty-one-year-old with such a convent background. How come?'
Alex pushed her wine glass away and looked at him with the slightest hint of hauteur. 'I wouldn't put too much emphasis on my convent background. I was reading widely, and discussing it with my parents, from an early age. You could say they gave me a classic education. Enough to know, anyway, that relationships come in all shapes and sizes. Besides which you only have to look at her to see the allure she possesses and you only have to listen to her to know there's a passion, a fire in her, whether it's misdirected or not.'
She paused for a moment. 'And if you'll forgive me for saying so, Mr Goodwin, one doesn't have to know you for long to realize that if you don't get what you want, your tolerance threshold is quite limited.'
'Thank you,' he said courteously. 'You say that as if it's something you've been dying to get off your chest. So that's it,' he added.
'That's what?' She looked puzzled.
'Feminine solidarity. You have me well and truly figured for the villain of the piece despite your wide and classical education.'
Alex was forced to wait as the housekeeper appeared to clear their dishes and bring a fruit bowl together with the coffee and some hot biscuits. As she waited she reflected that it was not a judgement she would make, that he was the villain of the piece-she was fairly sure there were two sides to the story, and feminine solidarity was not something she indulged in mindlessly. But it also occurred to her that to have him think this might provide her with some camouflage …
She couldn't quite bring herself to say it, though, so as she plucked a bloomy purple grape from the fruit bowl she simply shrugged.
'So be it,' he murmured, and raked his hand through his hair in a gesture of savage impatience.
For some reason Alex felt a smile tremble on her lips.
'I don't see anything amusing,' he remarked cuttingly.
'No. It's just-' she hesitated '-well, if you thought I'd been dying to get something off my chest, I thought I detected a heartfelt urge in you to say-women!'
He stared at her expressionlessly, his eyes dark and moody. Then the ghost of a smile touched them. 'You were right.' But the smile disappeared and any common amusement they might have shared was stillborn.
Alex laid her napkin on the table and wondered how to excuse herself.
'Have you ever been in love?' he said out of the blue and his sombre gaze captured hers.
'No.' She looked away as soon as she said the word and blinked. Why had it come out sounding curiously forlorn?
'Or anywhere close to it?' he persisted.
Unwillingly she returned her gaze to his. 'Not really, but why do you want to know?'
He watched her narrowly, in silence, for a long moment. 'Perhaps you should take into consideration, then, that even a classical education doesn't quite prepare you for-' he paused '-for the highs and the lows, not to mention the mysteries of it.'
She could think of nothing to say and it was he who excused himself. He stood up. 'I'm going to do some work, but please make use of the den-there's a television in there as well as books-if you'd like. Goodnight.'
He turned and walked away to disappear inside.
Alex stared after him and found herself close to tears. His words, before he'd excused himself, had been even and quiet, but the lines of his face and the shadows in his eyes had revealed an inner tension, a torment even, that had to lead straight back to Cathy Spencer, and her heart bled for him …
It wouldn't have been much consolation for Alex to know that she was right but also quite wrong …
Max Goodwin poured himself a brandy and closed himself into his study after he walked away from her. He sat down at his desk, threaded two fingers around the stem of the balloon glass and mentally examined several points that had arisen out of his conversation with Alex.
He thought of the highs and lows he'd experienced with Cathy Spencer and the scars they'd left him with. In the six years since he and Cathy had parted ways he'd allowed no woman to get really close to him despite telling himself time and again he was over it.
How ironic that proof of it should come in the form of a girl one would never have thought was his type yet, within a matter of days, a girl who had slipped under his radar and taken a position in his life-in his heart, even?
Why else would he be perfectly content to have her in his home? Why else would he appreciate so much how she was with Nicky, the little boy who had so quickly captured his heart? And there was no doubt he'd looked forward to having her company for dinner, no doubt he wanted to know everything there was to know about her, and he couldn't deny being physically stirred by her. He took a sip of brandy and crossed his hands behind his head. Why else would he find it annoying to think she sided with Cathy … ?
But that was just one example of why Alexandra Hill was not for him, or, more precisely, why he was not for her; this girl who'd only just stepped out of a most sheltered background, who found his past history somewhat distasteful. A girl who'd never even fallen in love-did she deserve someone as world-weary as he was or did she deserve some nice young man with a clean record, in a manner of speaking? A chance to spread her wings and have some fun?
He frowned suddenly as that thought seemed to strike a chord, but he couldn't place it, and his thoughts wandered on.
Why, he asked himself, had it happened at a time when there was the distinct possibility the only way to work through the Nicky problem was to marry his mother?
CHAPTER FIVE
THE next three days were mostly peaceful.
Both Jake Frost and Max had gone back to Brisbane and the household relaxed a little.
Alex and Nicky explored the islands with Nemo, they swam, they walked to the nearest shopping village of Paradise Point with its pleasant beach and they fished off the jetty.
The pool area of the Tuscan villa was especially beautiful. Enclosed in a walled garden, the pool was surrounded by thick emerald lawn and the walls were smothered in a variety of creepers; honeysuckle and jasmine scented the air and the starry little flowers of port-wine magnolia studded the dark green of its foliage. There were beds of creamy-white gardenias and glossy-leaved camellia bushes.
In one corner sat a quaint gazebo with a cupola roof. It looked faintly oriental or, Alex thought, like someone's 'folly', but Nicky loved it. He had a toy gun and it gave him a lot of pleasure to clamber around the gazebo or hide under its benches or behind its lattice screens and ambush imaginary villains. Nemo always assisted in these operations, pressing his belly to the ground and creeping forward, then erupting into action with a volley of barks.
A very normal little boy and his dog, Alex thought for the most part, although just occasionally Nicky's refusal to be parted from Nemo under any circumstances caused even her to think once: Yes, you are a lot like your father, Nicky. He always gets his own way too.
Fortunately, the housekeeper, Mrs Mills, as well as being superb at her job, was also good with both dogs and kids. Between them, she and Alex, they managed to establish some rules for Nemo and Nicky, some absolutely no-go zones and some rituals, frequent walks being one of them. Mrs Mills also had a grandson of Nicky's age who lived close by, and the two boys had taken to each other. Max came home around four in the afternoon but for the first two evenings he drove back to Brisbane as soon as Nicky had gone to sleep.