And the fact that it was wasted love, pointless, unnecessary and painful love, that taunted her in her weakest moments, that exploited her darkest hours, was no defence. It made no difference to how she felt. She loved him regardless.
‘Damn him!’ she said, picking up her magazine and wine glass. The cat raised his head and yawned, stretching out his front legs.
‘Come on, Maxwell,’ she said, holding the door open for him to follow her inside. ‘Bedtime.’
‘Dr Ferraro, you have a visitor.’
‘Thanks, Cathy,’ Jade said to the young administrative assistant, holding down the intercom button. She’d promised the prison board a report on the first few months’ operations, and she’d been told someone would be sent to collect it. ‘I’m just finishing up. Tell them I’ll be right out.’
Jade completed typing up the last of the report and cleared her desk while it was printing out. She glanced down at her watch and grimaced. Maxwell would complain again, but it was Friday evening and they could spend plenty of quality time together this weekend.
She quickly scanned the report and signed it, before slipping the original into a large envelope. Her purse slung over her shoulder, she headed out.
‘Sorry to keep you,’ she tossed in the direction of the man looking down over the coffee table, his back to her. ‘The report is ready…’
Her heart gave a lurch, the words dying on her tongue.
No!
It couldn’t be.
Then he turned, and her world shook and changed direction. She blinked.
‘Loukas?’
She realised she was still holding out the envelope, her arm suspended between them. Stiffly, mechanically, she forced it down to her side.
‘What are you doing here?’
Something passed through his eyes, too brief for her to get a handle on, and his lips curved up into something approximating a smile. ‘I came to find you.’
Cathy made a sound next to her, dragging her attention away from Loukas to the young woman alongside her. ‘Um, is it okay if I leave now? Or would you like me to stay a bit longer?’
‘Of course,’ Jade said. ‘You go. I’ll be fine.’
Cathy looked at Loukas, her eyes narrowing a fraction in suspicion and curiosity, as if summing up this stranger with the sexy American accent, before looking back to Jade and nodding. ‘If you’re sure, then.’ She took the envelope from Jade’s death-like grip. ‘I’ll take care of this for you, too. Goodnight.’
The door closed behind the teenager and suddenly it was too still, too close, the office suddenly too small now that Loukas’s presence devoured the space. Only the sound of blood rushing in her ears, thumping through her veins, invaded the silence.
‘How did you find me?’ she asked.
She hadn’t wanted to be found. Her body language, her nervous tension—she wasn’t happy he was here. He buried a sudden kick of disappointment.
Maybe she hadn’t had enough time.
Then again, maybe she’d had too much.
Or maybe he’d just got it wrong.
He seemed to make a habit of doing that where this woman was concerned. He hadn’t expected to find her hiding out in a place like this, that was for sure. With its shabby redbrick exterior, shoved up against the boundary of Sydney Central Jail, it was the antithesis of everything the Della-Bosca Clinic had been. Tired vinyl chairs instead of Italianate leather sofas, flaking paintwork rather than original artwork, and barbed wire fences in place of palm trees.
And yet Jade herself looked vibrant, and so alive—despite her expression being guarded, wary.
‘You weren’t that hard to find.’ Especially not when he’d been Googling her name almost every other day. Only for curiosity’s sake, he’d told himself. Except since he’d discovered her new position in Sydney he’d been battling with himself to find a reason to stay away. Until he’d run out of excuses and the will to do that.
He glanced around the basic walls of the office. ‘This place must be a bit of a come-down after Beverly Hills.’
Her chin kicked up a notch. ‘Still judging everything by its appearance, I see.’
He nodded, unable to resist the urge to smile even while he was cursing himself for his mistake. But hell, he’d missed her arguing, and it was so good to see she hadn’t changed that much.