“I have no intention of forfeiting any night,” he whipped back.
“You just have, Quin.”
“I’ll be home tomorrow. A mere postponement.”
“We made the arrangement—Fridays and Mondays. I’m not available to you on any other nights.”
“Be reasonable, Nicole.” His voice was very terse now. “I’m in Melbourne. A business meeting ran over and—”
“And, as always, making money comes ahead of being with me,” she cut in bitingly. “That’s fine, Quin. Your choice. But don’t expect me to accommodate your choice.”
She could hear him exhale a long breath of exasperation at her refusal to oblige him. Nicole felt pleased with herself for not giving in to him. Score one for me, she thought, remembering how she’d done whatever was needed to fit around his work in the past.
However, her moment of grim satisfaction was abruptly ended by Zoe rushing in from the living room, calling, “Mummy! Mummy! Come and see what’s on television.”
Nicole swung around from the kitchen bench, caught sight of her mother in the doorway and shot her a wildly pleading look.
Zoe was swiftly scooped up in her grandmother’s arms. “I’ll come and look,” she was assured and carried back into the living room.
“But I want…”
“Shh…”
The door was shut behind them, keeping them both out of earshot.
Nicole was gripped by shock, the childish voice of her daughter still ringing in her ears as she fearfully wondered if Quin had heard it. The suspended beating of her heart broke into an erratic pounding when he spoke again.
“Mummy?” The puzzled query was followed by a sharper question. “Whose child was that, Nicole?”
Her mind wrenched itself out of its distressed daze and flew to desperate defence stations. “The daughter of one of my friends. They dropped by to—” she deliberately huffed over the lie before adding “—but that’s none of your business, Quin. Thank you for calling to warn me tonight is off. Is Friday night a firm date or can I expect another cancellation?”
He huffed. Or rather a long heated breath hissed through his teeth. “You’ll be seeing me,” he said curtly, and ended the connection.
Nicole fumbled the receiver back onto its holder and sagged against the bench. That was too close a call. The relief of having come up with a swift explanation for Zoe’s presence still had her trembling inside.
It hadn’t occurred to her that Quin might contact her at home. He never had in the past. But then they’d been living together and working for the same bank. When she’d visited her mother, he had viewed it as time out from their relationship and didn’t intrude on it.
This was a different situation and she could hardly criticise Quin for giving her a courtesy call. She should have been more prepared for possible glitches in their arrangement. Although he had her e-mail address, e-mailing was not an immediate means of communication unless one was sitting at the computer all the time. And she would not have logged on before leaving this evening.
Shame wormed through her as she thought of how fixated her mind had been on having sex with Quin. He was starting to dominate her life again and she had to protect herself from that. Fourteen more nights…what if she didn’t want to end it?
Nicole shook her head angrily. That was crazy thinking. Right now she was caught up in indulging her sexuality. Quin was good for that but not for anything else. If she didn’t keep everything in perspective she’d be in bad trouble. And right now Zoe needed her attention.
She quickly entered the living room to find her daughter sitting on Nanna’s lap, placidly watching “The World Around Us” program on television—no apparent upset at having been ignored by her mother. Nicole paused for a moment, taking in the two people who did occupy the central core of her life.
They personified love, not lust. Without her mother’s ready support, Nicole knew she could not have managed the period of Zoe’s illness nearly as well. Then for Harry to have been hit by cancer…Nicole could not begrudge the extreme lengths her mother had gone to in search of a cure. It had been done out of love. And it had to be very hard to lose two husbands. Losing out on Quin’s love had devastated her five years ago.
We three are the survivors, Nicole thought, three generations of the one small family.
In the past few weeks her mother had pulled herself together and was back managing the dance school. The grey had been dyed out of her short curly brown hair and her trim dancer’s body and still pretty face belied her fifty-five years. Occasionally Nicole glimpsed a haunted look in the generally warm hazel eyes, but at least the depression that had followed Harry’s death had lifted.
As for Zoe, she was always a delight—a wonderfully healthy delight—and to Nicole’s mind, the most beautiful little girl in the world with her large smoky grey eyes and the amazingly thick, glossy, black hair which Zoe wanted to grow long so it could be braided. Nicole was smiling over this ambitious aim as she walked over to the three-seater sofa facing the television screen.
“You missed it, Mummy,” Zoe informed her, heaving a disappointed sigh.
“I’m sorry, darling. I was busy on the ’phone and couldn’t cut off the person calling me.” She sat down beside her daughter, smiling encouragingly. “Tell me what you saw.”
Her little face lit up with awe. “It was a butterfly farm.”