The Fatherhood Affair

CHAPTER ONE

A GREAT deal could be done in two months.

The thought brought a feeling of satisfaction to Natalie Hayes as she walked from the foyer of the Regent Hotel and up the grand staircase leading to Kable’s Restaurant. Today she intended to show Damien Chandler precisely how much could be done in two months, and how much could be made to happen.

This luncheon was the ideal occasion to let Damien know she didn’t need him as a watchdog any more. She could take care of herself. Damien’s sense of duty—or was it guilt?—could finally be laid to rest.

She was back to her best weight. The bold orange dress was light-years away from any suggestion of lingering bereavement. It hugged her curves and highlighted both her recently acquired tan and the artful blonde streaks in her radically restyled hair. Damien couldn’t call her a pale ghost of herself today.

Her face had colour. She no longer had hollows in her cheeks. She had played up her light amber eyes with a subtle shading of brown and gold. The shorter, softer, brighter hairstyle suited her face much better than the long and rather lifeless fall of honey-coloured hair she had simply let grow in the past twelve months. Natalie was satisfied she looked quite pretty again, younger, and certainly up-to-date in every fashion sense.

She had felt absolutely confident about walking into this hotel, one of the classiest hotels in Sydney. She looked like a new woman. She felt like a new woman. She was a new woman.

There was a buoyant lilt of anticipation in her step as she reached the landing that led to the highly reputed restaurant. She was going to enjoy the surprise in Damien’s eyes. He would have to realise, must be made to realise, that she no longer required a crutch or a spur or advice or criticism. All these things he had supplied in abundance over the past year. It was time to bring it to a halt. A dead halt.

She saw him seated on the sofa beyond the receptionist’s desk. He was hunched forward, apparently contemplating the drink in his hand. Despite an air of weariness, probably from jet lag, he looked as impressive as he always did. A three-piece grey suit had the expensive sheen of silk in the fabric. Tailored for him in Hong Kong, Natalie surmised.

He glanced up and saw her.

The shock of recognition on his face was not the reaction Natalie had expected. Surprise, yes. She had hoped to surprise him. She had not expected a reaction that arrested all movement, dulled even further the light in his eyes, an outright withdrawal away from her into himself.

It was too extreme for Damien. It mangled the smile that had been hovering inside her. It sent an odd tingle of apprehension down her spine. She stopped walking. She was assailed by the sense of having a comfortable familiarity forcibly taken away from her.

Natalie had never seen Damien Chandler completely thrown by anything. He was always in charge of himself. He was always in charge of everything and everyone within his ambit. It was nigh on impossible to tell what went on inside the man. He revealed that to no one.

In the space of a few seconds, she saw total shock, followed by a twist of anguish, a jaw-clenching look of determination, veiled anger, then a plainly visible relaxation of his features into a smile of forced, lukewarm pleasure as he put his glass down and rose to his feet.

‘Natalie...’ He managed to inject both surprise and delight into his voice, although what he really felt Natalie had no idea. He moved to meet her. ‘What a joy to see you looking so brilliantly alive!’

Damien was a master of such blandishments. Natalie had heard him do it to every woman he had met over the years they had known each other. It sounded right. It was what she had wanted to hear. But something was missing. That something was approval. She couldn’t see it in his eyes.

Not that she needed Damien’s approval. It was simply that...why were his eyes full of questions instead of recognising she had answered all the criticisms he had angrily impressed on her at their last meeting?

Then he took hold of her hands as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do. But it wasn’t. Not with her. She had seen him perform the same welcoming gesture with other women, making a flirtatious intimacy of it and often accompanying it with a light kiss. He had never tried it with her. Never! Not even when she was Brett’s bride and Damien was best man at their wedding.

Her shoulder muscles stiffened as electric prickles ran up her arm. She didn’t understand what was going on. Damien wasn’t supposed to step out of the mould he had established in her mind as Brett’s closest friend and business partner. She did want him to drop the role of self-appointed guardian to Brett’s widow, but...his uncharacteristic behaviour was ruining everything.

It was a relief that he didn’t try to press any closer. If he had, she would have recoiled, unable to prevent the reflex action. As it was, she was acutely aware of the warmth and strength of the fingers enclosing hers, and the caressing graze of his thumbs across her knuckles.

‘I leave you a pale shadow of yourself, and I come back to find you glowing,’ he said in light bemusement, his tone belying the intense probe of his eyes. ‘You benefit from my absence. Is there some special reason behind the change?’

Natalie shrugged. ‘Lots of reasons.’ He was one of them. She forced a smile. ‘Wasn’t it your intention to jolt me into getting on with my life?’

‘The result is stunning.’

‘But you don’t like it.’

‘I prefer to have more time in which to make a judgement.’

He looked at her in a way he had never overtly looked at her before. Raw, jungle hunger. Natalie was stunned by the sudden blaze of uncloaked desire in his eyes. It burnt into her, making her feel naked and exposed. It bore no relation whatsoever to the kind and supportive business friendship they were supposed to be having. It sizzled with unrepressed sexuality.

She felt her heart catch. Her mind jumbled chaotically around the thought that Damien now saw her as different from the unexciting hausfrau she had been. And he was letting her know it. Without hesitation, he was jettisoning all of their past. The years of keeping his distance from her had just winked out.

He meant to have her. No doubt about that. Knowing Damien as she did, Natalie realised she would have her hands full trying to stop him. The charge of animal electricity coming from him had her nerves leaping like fire-crackers.

He released her hands. Natalie’s relief was short-lived. He smoothly moved to link one of her arms around his for escorting her into the restaurant. His eyes didn’t leave hers. ‘Hungry?’ he asked.

She wondered what type of hunger he had on his mind. ‘Yes,’ she said lightly, trying to fight the unsettling effect of his closeness.

Taking her arm was an ordinary enough courtesy. It was absurd to have this skittish feeling of wanting to shy away from him, to put more distance between them. He couldn’t seduce her into taking him as a lover. It would be like involving herself with Brett all over again. She wouldn’t consider it. Not in a million years. Damien had better put it out of his mind or this luncheon would come to a very abrupt end.

He gestured their readiness to the maître d’, who smiled and set off to lead them to their table.

Natalie registered that the smile was a typical female response to Damien. Most wome

n would classify him as outstanding in the tall, dark and handsome category. Add to that the charisma of keen intelligence, a charm of manner based on rock-solid self-assurance, and the attention he drew was perfectly reasonable.

As they passed tables where women were seated, interested looks were cast his way. Damien Chandler commanded a second glance from everyone, men included. He carried the air of being someone. He stood out from the general run. People noticed him, remembered him. Such attributes were both social and business assets. Objectively, Natalie had recognised this long ago.

She would never have believed that the simple act of having her arm linked to his would make anything different, but it did. The looks directed at Damien slid to her, looks of envy and assessment, matching her against him as a couple. It did nothing for Natalie’s self-confidence.

All the same, Damien was not going to sweep her off her feet. She didn’t care how many women fancied him or how fanciable he was. She knew better than to lay her head on his chopping-block. Easy come, easy go. She had seen it too many times to be even faintly interested. That he could be turned on by her new image was virtually an insulting demonstration of how facile his sexual urges were.

Damien would never marry. Of that she felt certain. He had done it once, in his mid-twenties before they had ever met. From all accounts, it had been his wife who had walked out on him. Which carried its own message to Natalie.

She was glad to reach their table and be seated. She concentrated on laying her shoulder-bag beside the leg of her chair, smiling at the hovering waiter, ordering a champagne cocktail, smoothing the table napkin across her lap. The actions gave her time to recover some of the sense of well-being and purpose with which she had started out for this meeting.

She felt Damien’s gaze on her and glanced up to meet it, determined on acting naturally. ‘How was your trip?’ she asked.

‘Successful.’

That was normal. Damien was a powerhouse of energy and inspiration. She smiled. ‘Does this mean you’ll be back and forth to Hong Kong for the foreseeable future?’