be seen in white shorts and her straight red hair that had suffered some sort of major collapse under the hospital’s version of shampoo. By the time she’d reached Ciro’s very impressive, very new black car Harriet had been more than ready to sink into the cream leather and close her eyes for the journey ahead.
Until he climbed into the driver’s seat.
Until the scent that had reached her nostrils on their one and only shift together had assailed her again. Until his hand had brushed her bare leg as he’d let out the handbrake.
Out of the relatively safe confines of the hospital, stripped bare of the safety of her uniform, suddenly she had felt exposed and vulnerable and she’d spent the entire journey in a state of nervousness, trying and failing to make small talk. But as they’d driven along the beach road, Ciro had gestured to the apartments set high and proud on a large rock that jutted into the ocean and Harriet’s breath had caught in her throat. She had scarcely been able to believe this was going to be her home for the foreseeable future.
Adequate didn’t come close to describing the massive, sun-drenched apartment that greeted her tired eyes, everything in the huge lounge geared towards the floor-to-ceiling windows that took in the endlessly divine sight of the Pacific Ocean. Waves eternally rolled in, the roar silenced by the closed doors. But, as everyone who stepped in surely must, Harriet walked straight across the polished jarrah floorboards to the balcony, hardly noticing the tasteful occasional furniture. She flicked open the catch, slid the windows open and stepped out onto the huge balcony. In a clever architectural feat, instead of facing out onto the ocean, the architect had angled the building, and as Harriet stepped out onto the balcony she could see exactly why—whichever way she turned the views were divine. Facing outwards, she could see the length of the beach, watch the joggers pounding along, yet if she turned around it was as if she were sitting adrift in the water, watching the pounding waves roll in towards her.
‘It’s divine,’ Harriet breathed. ‘It’s the most amazing view!’
‘I haven’t turned on my television since I moved in,’ Ciro admitted. ‘I’ll just go and get your case from the car.’
‘Thank you.’ Harriet smiled and as Ciro went to go she said it again. ‘I really mean that, Ciro. Thank you so much for doing all this for me.’
‘It really is no big deal,’ Ciro said modestly. ‘I knew that the apartment was vacant and that you needed somewhere to live. Of course, I may live to regret it.’ He smiled at her frown. ‘You might revel so much in your new-found freedom that you take to throwing wild parties every night.’ He pointed to the ceiling. ‘I’m in the apartment above you.’
‘I doubt that I’ll be throwing too many wild parties, at least not on week nights,’ Harriet said.
Suddenly the amazing view dimmed a notch. Turning to face him, Harriet had to squint to bring his features into focus, the harsh morning sun behind him rendering his features unreadable as she voiced an apology that had bubbled for a couple of days now.
‘I was very dismissive of you in the hospital.’
‘Dismissive?’
‘When you told me you’d just come out of a relationship,’ Harriet explained. ‘I was feeling incredibly sorry for myself and to imply that you couldn’t possibly understand what I was going through just because you weren’t married…’
‘And didn’t have surgery that day!’ Ciro teased. ‘Or find my lover in bed with someone else!’
‘You were trying to be nice and I was very rude, and for that I’m sorry.’
‘Forget it,’ Ciro said easily.
Only Harriet couldn’t.
Suddenly the details that she had waved away mattered now. Suddenly, for reasons she didn’t even want to fathom, Harriet wanted to know about Ciro’s past, wanted to know if there was someone in his present…
‘You said it hurt,’ Harriet pushed, hoping she could blame her rise in colour on the fierce sun. ‘What happened?’
‘That’s the sort of question that can only be answered over a very large glass of wine,’ Ciro responded, smiling, but something in his voice told her she’d crossed a line, that that subject was closed, and he confirmed it when, without pausing for breath, he headed back inside. ‘I’ll go and get your case.’
Oh, hell!
Groaning with mortification, Harriet waited for her front door to close safely before she headed back inside, her eyes barely registering her new surroundings. Instead, she sat down on a navy leather sofa and buried her burning cheeks in her hands.
’What happened?’ Harriet mimicked her own voice a couple of times, wincing as she did so. What did it matter to her what had happened in Ciro’s past? What business was it of hers to ask him about his relationships? It must have sounded as if she fancied him or something.
Which was ridiculous.
Ridiculous, Harriet affirmed. She had just been making conversation. As if she was even remotely interested in a relationship at the moment. Her marriage had only just ended, she’d just had surgery, she was here to recuperate, to get over the hellish past few days and gather her strength for the undoubted battles that lay ahead. So what if Ciro was good-looking, so what if he’d been kind, so what if he was the only person on earth who she’d trusted with her predicament…?
‘Are you OK?’ Depositing her suitcase on the lounge floor, he made his way straight over to her, clearly mistaking her hunched position on the sofa and groans as some kind of relapse. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing,’ Harriet started, then decided that surely she could be excused a tiny white lie. ‘Actually, I just came over a bit dizzy. I’ll be fine in a moment.’
‘Bed!’ Ciro declared, guiding her up by the elbow and practically frogmarching her towards the bedroom. Under any other circumstances it would have been a dream come true! ‘No arguments!’
He didn’t get one.
Mute, she stood there as he pulled the wooden slats on the divine view then proceeded to pull back starched white sheets. Her lies caught up with her as she truly did start to feel dizzy, only it had nothing to do with standing up too quickly and everything to do with the man guiding her by the elbow to the bedside and gently lifting her legs onto the bed.
‘Bed for me, too,’ Ciro said. ‘I’ve done my penance on nights.’
‘I like nights,’ Harriet admitted.
‘Me, too. Especially when you start in a new job. It forces you to find out where things are and how the system works. Right…’ He’d tucked her in firmly, the sheet well past her neck. ‘If you need anything…’
‘I won’t.’ Harriet shook her head, determined to redeem herself, to show she wanted nothing more from him than a courteous professional relationship and a friendly nod of greeting if they met on the stairs.
But it was Ciro lingering now, Ciro prolonging the conversation.
‘How long till you go back to work?’
‘They gave me two weeks.’
‘Well,
