applying lots of bright red antiseptic so their wounds look even more dramatic than they are. Meanwhile I need to amend your cheat sheet.’
‘My cheat sheet …’ His mind wasn’t working like it should be, or maybe he was having trouble switching from banker to outrider to teacher to … ringmaster? Or to the guy who just wanted to watch Allie.
‘Your notes for tonight’s performance,’ she said patiently. ‘Tinkerbelle and Fairy can put on an awesome act if needed and they’re needed now. Okay, Maestro, time to suit up.’
‘Maestro?’
‘Maestro, all the way from the vast, impenetrable reaches of Outer Zukstanima,’ she said and chuckled. ‘It’s a circus tradition. That’s who we’ve decreed you are. By the way, when you’re not in the ring can I call you Matt?’
‘No!’
‘I’m not calling you Mathew for two weeks,’ she retorted. ‘It’s a banker’s name. It’s the same as your grandfather’s, according to the website I read. So Mathew is your banking name and Maestro is your circus name. What do I call you when I just want to talk?’
There was a question to take him aback. Or, actually, just to take him back.
‘Okay, Matt,’ he said, before he could think any more, and it was like a window being levered, opening into the past. Matt was who he really was, in his head, but he admitted it to no one.
His memories of his big sister Lizzy were hazy, but her voice was still with him. ‘ Matt, come and play with me. Matt, you ‘re messing up my painting. Mattie, hold my hand while we cross the street.’
And his mother—also a banker …
‘Elizabeth, call your brother Mathew. Mathew, call your sister Elizabeth.’
And the two of them grinning at each other and knowing that, regardless of how the world saw them, they were really Matt and Lizzy. He’d stayed Matt in his head, he thought, but only in his head. No one else ever used the diminutive.
‘What did I say? What’s wrong?’ Allie demanded and he hauled himself back to the present with a jerk. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and she was watching his face. ‘I’ve hurt you. The web said your family was killed. Is that what’s wrong? Did they call you Matt?’
How intuitive was this woman?
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said, more harshly than he intended. ‘But Matt is okay.’
And suddenly it was.
For two weeks he was playing ringmaster. Make-believe. Why not extend it? For two weeks he could be Matt in his private life and he didn’t have to be a banker at all.
With Allie. With The Amazing Mischka.
He should stay being a banker, he thought. He should insist that at least his name stayed the same, but Allie was moving on, and she was taking him with her. She seized his hand and tugged him forward to her grandparents’ caravan, where the circus world in the form of his ringmaster’s coat and hat waited.
Memories of Lizzy were suddenly all around him. ‘Come on, Matt …’
The pain of knowing she wasn’t there … He’d been six years old and the agony was still fresh. Lizzy.
Do not go there. Do not ever let yourself near that kind of emptiness again.
But … ‘Excellent,’ Allie was saying and the pressure on his hand intensified. Strong and warm—and very, very unsettling. ‘Matt is nice and easy to say,’ she decreed. ‘And it makes you sound far less toffy. We can relax around nice, plain Matt.’
‘Nice and plain? Says you who’s about to force me into spangly top hat and tails.’
‘There is that,’ she said and she chuckled. ‘Matt and Maestro seem a fearsome combination. For the next two weeks you’re our hero. We’ll like you in both personas, and we can forget about Mathew the Banker entirely.’
Matt or Maestro? He was thrown off balance by both. He shouldn’t answer to either. He felt … he felt …
Okay, he didn’t know how he felt. He had an almost overwhelming urge to head back to Margot’s, climb into his gorgeous car and go home to Sydney. Taking leave had been a bad idea.
He’d done it to say goodbye to Margot but now Margot had no intention of dying, at least for the next two weeks.
If he left, would she still die?
If he left they’d have no ringmaster. And more. Allie had the weight of this whole organisation on her shoulders. How could he walk away? He couldn’t walk away from Allie, he couldn’t walk away from Margot, but cool, contained Mathew Bond was feeling way out of his comfort zone.
Allie left him to dress herself. He put on his uniform and stared at himself in Henry’s mirror and thought … what was he doing here?
He knew what he was doing here. He had no choice.
A knock on the van door signalled Allie’s return. She’d transformed into Mischka faster than he’d thought possible. How on earth had she applied those eyelashes? They were … extraordinary.
‘I’m glad ringmasters don’t need fake eyelashes,’ he said faintly and she grinned.
‘You’d look awesome. I have spares if you’d like.’
‘Thank you, but no.’
‘No?’ She was teasing again, her sparkle returning with her spangles, and he felt like applauding the courage she was showing.
And the way she looked.
And the way she smiled …
‘I’m ready,’ he said, more roughly than he’d intended, and he stepped down from the van, but she didn’t move back like he’d thought she would.
‘The vet says you gave him your credit card details and all the veterinary costs of the camels are on you,’ she said and she was still far too close.
‘I … yes.’ He hesitated. ‘The circus is in receivership. That’s what receivers do.’
‘What, throw good money after bad? You realise these camels aren’t worth anything? They stand up and get down and kneel, and they don’t bite but there’s not much else I can teach them. Saving them isn’t a financial decision.’
‘No,’ he said and she looked up at him.
He was still too close.
She was still too close.
‘So it’s nothing about receivership and I do need to thank you,’ she said, and suddenly the desire to reach forward and touch her was almost overwhelming.
Almost. They were in full view of the crowd assembling for the performance. Any move he made now would be a public move, and he had no intention of making a public move.
Or
