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‘What does it mean to you?’ he asked curiously, settling back down against her.
‘Well, great music and great sex are a pretty terrific beginning…’ she said, straight-faced.
He laughed. She loved to make him laugh. All the harsh, straight angles of his face tilted into slants and curves.
‘What does it mean to you?’ she dared.
‘Right now?’ He lowered his head and nudged her nose with his to tilt her mouth up for his kiss. ‘Why, you, of course…’
Fortunately Petra slept soundly until Scott went in to wake her, and she was too busy enjoying the novelty of a room service breakfast and emptying the snacks out of the mini-bar to notice Anya’s self-conscious air as she buttered her croissant and poured the coffee and tried to carry on a politely innocent conversation with her wickedly uncooperative lover.
She couldn’t help but notice, however, when the Jaguar slid to a stop at the school gates and, after turning his head to say goodbye to Petra in the back seat, Scott leaned over and gave Anya a leisurely kiss on the mouth in full view of the school crossing patrol.
‘Uh-uh—no tongues, you guys. Remember my fragile juvenile psyche!’ she snorted, slinging her bag over her shoulder and opening the door.
‘Your psyche could be marketed as a bullet-proof vest,’ replied Scott drily, sending her off covered in grins while he kindly tilted the rear vision mirror for a flustered Anya to repair her smeared lipstick.
‘A pity it doesn’t taste as good as it looks,’ he remarked. ‘I like you better totally au naturelle. Except for the cute socks, of course,’ he added, just for the pleasure of watching her blush. ‘I’ve got them in my pocket. You can put them on for me again later…’
She sternly repressed the hot thrill his words gave her. ‘You shouldn’t have kissed me like that,’ she told him, putting the lipstick case back in her bag with a little snap.
‘How should I have kissed you, then? I hate to disappoint.’
As if he could! ‘Didn’t you see them all looking?’
‘Who? The kids? We’re a couple. Couples kiss each other goodbye.’ We’re a couple. The phrase sounded much less transitory than We’re lovers, thought Anya wistfully. Some couples who never got married nonetheless stayed together all their lives.
‘Everyone’s going to find out about us anyway. Don’t expect me to skulk around with you like Ransom did—’
‘We never skulked.’ She roused herself to say with dignity. ‘We were discreet.’
‘Although you’re employed by the Board he’s effectively your boss,’ he went on, shaking his head. ‘Office affairs are a legal minefield. Ripe grounds for sexual harassment suits, disputed promotions, unjustified dismissals and all sorts of other nasty complications…’
She realised he was enjoying himself. ‘We were not having an affair.’
‘But you were heading that way. Why else would he take you out to dinner on Friday night?’
‘Perhaps purely for the pleasure of my scintillating conversation. Men and women can simply be platonic friends, you know.’
His lawyer’s ear detected a subtle inflection in her tone and instantly pursued it. ‘Is that what he told you? That he wanted to keep it platonic? When did he say that—before Friday night—or afterwards?’
‘During,’ she sighed, knowing he wouldn’t rest until he had dragged it out of her. As soon as they had been seated in the restaurant Mark had revealed that the purpose of his invitation had been to tactfully define the limits of their relationship. He didn’t want to lead her on, he’d said, and his friendship was all that he could ever offer.
‘Much as I really like you, Anya, it just puts me in too much of an awkward position, ethically speaking, to get romantically involved with anyone on the staff,’ he had explained, with just the right touch of regret. ‘I don’t want to go through something like this again. And neither, I suspect, do you…’
Since Anya had been going to say much the same thing herself, she’d hardly been able to get up and walk out in a huff as he had rambled on about how much he valued her as a friend. After all, she wouldn’t even have agreed to the date with him at all if she hadn’t been jealous of the fact that Scott was going out with Heather Morgan.
Of course, she didn’t tell Scott that part. He was already looking far too smug.
‘So we both got dumped by disillusioned suitors on Friday night.’ He grinned. ‘Leaving no untidy loose ends to get in each other’s way. We are well matched, aren’t we?’
So much so that the next three weeks were a revelation to Anya. Scott might deny any pretensions to romance but he was intrinsically aware of how to make a woman feel special, and being the target of his exclusive interest made her increasingly self-confident, her heart soaring with hope in spite of her attempts to keep her feet firmly on the ground. She didn’t get hearts and flowers from him, but she did get handmade chocolates and pretty scented candles and flourishing seedlings for her garden—small tokens of his caring that she cherished more than diamonds.
At first Anya tried to hold back, wary of encroaching onto forbidden emotional ground by appearing to require more of his attention than he was able or willing to give, but he would have none of it, his innate curiosity and natural possessiveness coming powerfully into play as he responded with renewed determination to conquer any hint of restraint in her manner.
That first night he had driven over to see her after Petra had gone to bed—having paid Mrs Lee an exorbitant amount to stay on and babysit—and had ended up banishing the fevered memory of her bathtime fantasy by replacing it with even more ravishing reality. Sleek and playful as a seal in her steaming bath tub, Scott had proved her willow-like pliancy and his sexual athleticism to their ultimate satisfaction, and the detriment of her bathroom floor!
That had set the pattern of their relationship. Most nights of the week she either went over to The Pines for dinner with Scott and Petra, or he visited her later in the evening. They didn’t always make love, although the passion between them grew rather than diminished with familiarity. Sometimes they would merely talk, and in the process Anya learned more about him to love. She found out that he donated large sums of money to a scholarship fund to enable some of Hunua College’s poorer students to go on to further education, and that he provided free legal counselling to a woman’s refuge. She discovered that he had spoken to Lorna and Ken to assert his right to provide his daughter with a trust fund for her education and music studies, and that he was dreading the rapidly nearing date of Petra’s departure.
