‘My dad died when I was fifteen,’ she said, rolling her right shoulder to ease away the tension that always encroached during the rare times she talked of that part of her life.
‘How?’ James asked, not even pretending to blather inanities as others always had. If only she could be as accepting, but ten years and a heck of a lot of guilt, regret, recrimination and fast living later, the memory still felt as though it was eating her from the inside out.
‘I was a handful as a kid, and that’s putting it mildly. Dad had a big heart; I gave it cause to worry and one day it finally gave out,’ she said simply.
‘Rubbish,’ James said, catching her so unawares she didn’t even have time to get her back up. ‘You had no control over how much your dad worried about you, Siena, or how he chose to deal with it. Not a lick. Handful or angel child, his heart was built to worry about you and to love you, not to collapse because you learned how to swear a year or two before your friends did.’
He had a smile in his eyes as he spoke, and for a second she almost believed him and the resulting weight off her shoulders made her feel as though she was levitating an inch off her chair. He was a parent. He had a troubled kid. He ought to know …
But Kane was only eight, she remembered, returning to the squeaky vinyl seat with a thud. Not even yet a teen. She wondered if she ought to give James details on how much worse she had been, and how much worse Kane could get. But somehow she couldn’t convince herself to take the rare shine from those divine grey eyes.
‘And big brother Rick became your guardian, I take it,’ James said.
Her mouth twitched. ‘He took to it like a croc to tropical waters. You may have noticed that telling me what to do is more of a vocation than a burden for Rick.’
‘That’s what big brothers are for.’
‘Doesn’t mean I have to like it.’
He leaned forward, his head moving to within a bare foot of hers. ‘So if you are a determined nomad as your brother attests, what has brought you back home now?’
Home. Siena waited for the word to make her nauseous. But the way the word sounded in James’s deep soothing voice, though there was a definite tingle in her stomach, for the first time since she’d hopped on the plane the day before she didn’t feel like throwing up.
‘I have an interview with Maximillian himself late this very afternoon.’ She looked at her watch and something twisted inside her as she realised they would soon have to head back so she could get ready.
‘Right. MaxAir’s head office is in Port Douglas,’ James said. ‘I was commissioned to do a piece for him for that house of his up there a couple of years back. That’s some pad,’ he said, his voice doing that low, intimate thing he was so good at that seemed to wash over every inch of bare skin.
She leant back in her chair as far as she was able but she still felt his woodsy scent enveloping her.
‘Not a changing table, I would hazard to guess.’ It had never been any secret to anyone who had ever known him that Maximillian was gay.
‘Ah, no. So this meeting with Max,’ he said. ‘Has he brought you up this way to try to convince you to stay? I have met several executives of his who were lured up here for job opportunities who have never left. That seems to be his routine.’
The cloud of warmth that had been slowly but surely curling around Siena faded out of sight. That was exactly what she was afraid of. Her crew had even put big money bets on it. ‘I don’t actually know what Max wants with me.’
‘What would be the ideal?’
‘Rome,’ she said, without even a hint of hesitation. ‘It’s the pinnacle. The top job. I want it so bad I can taste it.’
Well, she couldn’t taste anything after her hot coffee but she could remember what it tasted like.
A sudden shadow passed over James’s eyes and, knowing she had been the cause, Siena had to look away. She made a great play at looking at her watch. ‘And, speaking of Max, I actually should head back soon.’
James motioned to the waitress for the bill.
When Siena reached for her Visa card, which always lived in the back pocket of her jeans, he stayed her with a waggling finger. Siena watched it as if it was a metronome before putting her credit card away.
‘This is my treat,’ he said.
‘Wow, you’re a man of a different era,’ Siena said, trying to keep it light. ‘The guys I usually date offer to pay half plus the tip at best.’
Date? Had she just admitted to James that she saw this as a date? Faced with a nice suit and a clean shave her sense had been left by the wayside.
‘Nah,’ he said, a smile tickling at the corners of his mouth as he forked over a couple of notes after glancing at the menu prices. ‘You can pay next time.’
Next time? A wry smile? Oh, curses!
James slid out of the bench seat and held out a hand to help her out of hers. She took it, proud that she kept her breathing to a pretty reasonable canter as his warm fingers closed about hers. He tugged her slowly until her legs were free of the table, and then he didn’t let go.