Dylan muttered under his breath.
Mia had to have heard him, but she didn’t say anything, turning instead to a kangaroo waiting on the other side of the fence and feeding it some titbit she’d fished from her pocket. He glanced back at Carla and a sickening cramp stretched through his stomach—along with a growing sense of foreboding.
Mia nudged him, and then held out a handful of what looked like puffed wheat. ‘Would you like to feed the kangaroo?’
With a sense of wonder, he took it and fed the kangaroo. He even managed to run his fingers through the fur of the kangaroo’s neck. The tightness in him eased.
‘Do you have anything pressing you need to attend to in the next couple of hours?’
She shook her head. ‘Nora has instructed me to give you all the time and assistance you need. Later this afternoon, if I’m free, she’s going to run through some things that I probably need to know—help me create a checklist.’
‘Will you meet me at the lily pond in fifteen minutes?’
She blinked, but nodded without hesitation. ‘Yes, of course.’
* * *
Mia was sitting at the picnic table waiting for him—her notepad at the ready—when he arrived with his bag of goodies.
If he hadn’t been so worried about Carla’s situation he’d have laughed at the look on her face when he pulled forth sandwiches, chocolate bars and sodas.
‘This is a working lunch, Mia, not some dastardly plot to seduce you.’
Pink flushed her cheeks. ‘I never considered anything else for a moment.’
To be fair, she probably hadn’t. She’d made it clear where she stood yesterday. When he’d gone back over her words it had struck him that she really hadn’t thought him interested in her. She’d just been setting boundaries. And if that boundary-setting hadn’t been for his benefit, then it had to have been for hers. Which was interesting.
He took the seat beside her rather than the one opposite.
Why was Mia so determined to remain aloof?
He didn’t want her aloof.
He wanted her help.
He took her notepad and pen and put them in his pocket. ‘You won’t need those.’ He pushed the stack of sandwiches, a can of soda and a couple of chocolate bars towards her. ‘Eat up while I talk.’
She fixed him with those moss-green eyes, but after a moment gave a shrug and reached for the topmost sandwich. She didn’t even check to see what it was.
He gestured to the stack. ‘I didn’t know what you’d like so I got a variety.’ He’d grabbed enough to feed a small army, but he’d wanted to make sure he bought something she liked.
She shrugged again. ‘I’m not fussy. I’ll eat pretty much anything.’
He had a sudden vision of her in prison, eating prison food, and promptly lost his appetite.’
‘Dylan?’
He snapped his attention back. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit distracted.’
She bit into her sandwich and chewed, simply waiting for him to speak. It occurred to him that if he wanted her help he was going to have to be honest with her.
A weight pressed down on him. Yesterday afternoon she’d looked at him with such gratitude and admiration—as if he were a superhero. Nobody had ever looked at him like that. He didn’t want to lose it so quickly.
Not even for Carla’s sake?
He straightened. He’d do anything for Carla.
He opened his can of soft drink and took a long swallow before setting it back down. ‘I’m ashamed to admit this, but over the last twelve months I’ve neglected Carla shamefully. She and Thierry have only been dating six months, and the news of their engagement came as a shock. This will probably sound ridiculously big brotherly, but... I’m worried she’s making a mistake.’
Mia stared at him for a moment. ‘You and Carla seem very close.’
‘We are.’
‘So why haven’t you spent much time together recently?’
How much of the truth did he have to tell her?
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. ‘There’s an older family member who I have...difficulties with. It’s impossible to avoid him when I’m in Australia, and I’ve wanted to avoid a falling out, so...’
‘So you’ve spent a lot of time overseas instead?’
‘Rather than putting up with said family member, I flitted off to organise parties. There was a Turkish sultan’s sixtieth birthday party, and then a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration for a couple of members of the British aristocracy. I did some corporate work on the Italian Grand Prix. Oh, and there was a red carpet film premiere that I did just for fun.’
She blinked, as if he’d just spoken in a foreign language. In some ways he supposed he had.
‘So there you have it—I’m a coward.’
He lifted his arms and let them drop, waiting for her eyes to darken with scorn. She just stared back at him and waited for him to continue, her gaze not wavering.
He swallowed. ‘I came home for Carla’s birthday...and for two days over Christmas.’ It hadn’t been enough! ‘That’s when she announced her engagement. That’s when I realised I’d spent too long away.’
But Carla had finally seemed so settled...so happy. She’d refused to come and work for FWE, preferring to focus on her charity work. Nothing had rung alarm bells for him...until he’d met Thierry.
Mia didn’t say anything, but he could tell from her eyes how intently she listened.
‘When I heard what he said to you in the reptile house I wanted to knock him to the ground.’
She halted mid-chew, before swallowing. ‘I’m very glad you didn’t.’
It had only been the thought that Gordon would somehow bring the blame back to her and she’d lose her job that had stilled his hand.
‘What he said to you...’ His hand clenched and unclenched convulsively around his can of drink. ‘I’m sorry you were put into a position where you were forced to listen to that.’
‘It’s not your responsibility to apologise on behalf of other people, Dylan.’
Maybe not, but it felt like his fault. If he’d taken the time to get to know Thierry better before now...
She reached out and placed a sandwich in front of him. ‘And you need to remember that just because he dislikes me, and my background, it doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person.’
Dylan was far from sure
