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If Dr J was trying to give her therapy, he could forget it. She shrugged. “No, not really. Mum and I were never close. It was Gran who did the nurturing of me and Joe.”
“Your brother?”
“Yeah, he’s six years older than me. He helps run the farm now.”
“Is your mum still in Queensland?”
“No. She and Trevor bred chihuahuas for a while, but she was a smoker, ate crap. Never looked after herself. She’d had digestive problems for years that she’d never had looked at, and by the time she did, it was too late. She died of pancreatic cancer ten years ago.”
“Hence your dislike of me smoking.”
“Not you especially. Just anyone.” He wasn’t going to get her to admit she actually cared.
“I’ll remember to avoid the cancer sticks around you, then.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Just avoid them, end of story.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Polly couldn’t help a grin. “That’s better. I like compliance in a man.”
He threw himself back in his chair. “Wait a sec, I think I have a little studded collar somewhere in my pocket, do you want me to pop it on now or later?”
Now she was laughing. Ohfuckity fuck, and blushing again. She fanned herself with the menu. Time to get right away from the personal stuff. “Can we talk about something else? Like, not dredge up all the personal shit?”
“Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry. “I guess we haven’t really had much of a conversation, despite…”
He trailed off, and she wasn’t going to fill in the space that was full of all the unsaid things that were clearly going on in both their heads. She forced her shoulders to relax. Come on, she asked people questions about their lives all the time, so why was she so churned up?
As the plates of aromatic food arrived, crowding out the space on the chequered tablecloth, conversation halted until the waiter left. Solo motioned for her to go first.
She took a thumbnail of rice and two tiny mouse-sized portions of gorgeous, sticky caramelised pork, hesitated, then took one spoonful of the beef pho. Her stomach grumbled desperately.
“Is that it?”
She broke apart her chopsticks. “How do you mean?”
“Is that all you’re having?”
“Yep. I’ve over-indulged lately.” Heat burned holes in her cheeks. “With food, that is.”
‘You’ve got a distorted view of your body.”
“I do not!”
“Your body is beautiful.” He said the words quietly, firmly. His eyes seared into her, almost angry.
They stared at one another for a long beat. A vein throbbed in her neck, until the throb extended lower, like molten liquid. It was all she could do not to say “forget dinner, let’s move straight along to bed, shall we?”
But she didn’t. “I beg to differ,” she responded stiffly, wielding her chopsticks.
“Yeah, because maybe if that little girl had been perfect back then, she could have stopped her parents from fighting. Right?”
The comment stole the breath out of her lungs, left her hand waving the chopsticks in mid-air and her mouth half open. She’d always refused to dwell on it, her discomfort with just being her, the sense that she was never measuring up, but now it was like Solo had whacked a mallet between her eyes.
“Am I right?”
“I—oh. Jesus. Typical bloody psychiatrist,” she blustered, gripping the chopsticks firmer and digging them into her plate of food. “You can’t help but analyse, can you?”
