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He looked slightly bemused by this and asked, ‘Why?’
She shook her head, not wanting to tell him it was how her mother made such a harsh gutteral sound of it when she was angry. ‘I just don’t like it.’
‘You could have it changed,’ he advised her.
She shrugged. ‘Too late for that. It’s a career name now.’
&
nbsp; ‘It’s never too late to make changes,’ he said seriously, straightening up and strolling towards her, Luther prancing around his feet. ‘What name would you prefer for yourself?’ he asked curiously.
‘Maria.’ It was soft and had a loving sound to it. ‘Ever since I saw the musical West Side Story, I’ve wished it was mine, though I guess it wouldn’t go so well with Rollins. Not as distinctive as Chloe.’
‘Maria…’ he repeated whimsically.
‘And I ended up marrying a Tony,’ she said with bitter irony. ‘Just goes to show how dreams can lead you astray.’
‘Well, you’ve woken up from that dream now, and Luther will give you more real devotion than your husband did.’ He dropped down on his haunches to pet the pup again. ‘Won’t you, little fella?’
He was right about that. Nothing about Tony’s devotion had been real. But that was behind her now, no point in dwelling on it. She had to look ahead. If she ever married again, she would make sure it was to a man of substance like…
Her gaze fastened on Max, who sprawled back on the grass, laughingly pretending that Luther had knocked him over. The pup leapt onto his chest and madly licked his chin. ‘Save me! Call him off!’ Max appealed to Chloe.
‘Luther, come here!’ she said firmly, and the little dog raced over to her, tail wagging like a windmill. She cuddled him on her lap, settling him down, eyeing Max with amusement as he rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow. ‘I don’t think you needed to be rescued from a miniature fox terrier.’
His dark eyes twinkled teasingly. ‘He was getting a taste for me. He might have gobbled me up.’
She laughed.
He smiled, and this close to her, his smile set off a fountain of buzzing female hormones inside Chloe. He was so attractive, for one wild moment, she fiercely envied Shannah Lian’s intimate relationship with him, wishing she could experience him as a lover. Her mind instantly clamped down on the shockingly wayward thought and sought some normal distraction from it.
‘Did you have a dog when you were a boy, Max?’
The smile turned into a sardonic grimace as he shook his head. ‘The circumstances I lived in then…it wouldn’t have been fair on a dog.’
Not fair on him, either, she thought. A drug-addicted mother would not have given him a stable life.
‘I had a job on Sunday mornings for a while,’ he said reminiscently. ‘Pulling a barrow of newspapers around the neighbourhood, blowing a whistle for people to come out and buy. Their dogs always came out and I made friends with them. They’d follow me down the street until their owners called them back. I always enjoyed doing that paper run.’
‘You’ve come a long way since then,’ Chloe murmured.
‘Yes. And still too much on the move to acquire a dog.’
Or a wife.
She wondered if those early years with his mother had taught him not to get attached to anyone or anything, to count only on himself. But this place had called to him.
‘You have a home now,’ she said.
‘A home to come home to. I travel a lot, Chloe.’
‘Do you ever get tired of it…the travelling?’ she asked curiously.
‘The flights can be tedious. Australia is a long way from anywhere else. But I like having the world as my playground. Not being limited.’
She sighed. ‘You make me realise how limited my world has been. I haven’t even been outside this country. My mother always had more work lined up for me, hardly ever a break.’
‘You can change that, too.’
