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“Like my father?”
She sighed heavily—fourth in as many minutes, surely a record. “Well, yes, naturally.”
He stiffened visibly.
“We were friends, what do you want me to say?”
“It’s best if we don’t talk about him.”
“Sure, but he’s the whole reason I’m here.”
“For the sake of my blood pressure, let’s pretend it’s not.”
“Then why else would I be here?” She asked, breath catching in her throat. In the wardrobe of her bedroom, she’d found many clothes, all beautiful, designer items that had made her heart thump to run her fingers over. She’d settled on a simple pair of white cotton shorts and a lemon yellow halter neck that made her tan look a deeper shade of caramel.
He leaned back, his eyes a dark brown as he ran them over her face.
“Are you flirting with me?”
She straightened. “No.”
“Perhaps you do it without realizing.”
“No.”
His lips twisted in a mocking smile. “Okay.” His cynicism was obvious.
“You’re so—,”
“Impossible? You’ve said that already.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“Fine. But we’re stuck with each other, so shall we try to keep conversation somewhere near the boundary of civil?”
“To what end?” She lifted her shoulders, turning away from him. “We’re not friends. We’re never going to be friends.”
“Even strangers are capable of having polite conversations.”
“Is that what you want?” She turned back to him, sipping her ice water.
“I want to know more about you,” he admitted, with a grudging note in his voice. He’d changed too, from the business shirt and jeans and into khaki shorts and a polo shirt that emphasized the contours of his ridged abdomen.
“Such as?”
He visibly weighed his words. “Where are you from?”
A weight settled in her chest. Her past was hard enough to contemplate, let alone discuss. She took a sip of water, then placed her hands in her lap, pleating a napkin several times.
“Is it some great secret?” He prompted cynically. “Perhaps a criminal record you don’t want to expose?”
“No,” she forced a tight smile, but it was obvious that he wasn’t fooled. Curiosity stirred in the depths of his gaze. “It’s just not particularly interesting.”
“Then bore me,” he said. “We’re stuck here together, for days.”
Butterflies flapped their wings inside her tummy. She would keep the details brief. He was asking a simple biographical question—he didn’t need to know the awful truth of her childhood. He wouldn’t want that knowledge. “I lived in rural Victoria, then moved to Melbourne when I was fifteen.”
“And London?”
