The sight of Ryan walking towards their table with the drinks in his hands reminded her of why she’d chosen him to lie about to her grandmother. He really was the epitome of what her grandmother would think the perfect partner for her favourite granddaughter. First there was the matter of his looks. Gran had always said that she liked a man to look like a man, advising Laura to steer clear of pretty boys whom, she’d said, invariably had no backbone and, more importantly, no muscles to speak of.
‘And they usually go bald early,’ Gran had claimed with a perfectly straight face.
Laura had never been overly impressed by her grandmother’s tendency to make superficial judgements when it came to the opposite sex. Though perhaps she should have listened, since the two men who’d broken her heart had both been pretty boys.
Ryan certainly wasn’t a pretty boy. All his facial features were large and masculine. He had a broad forehead, an aquiline nose and a strong, square jaw which wasn’t softened at all by the dimple in the middle of his chin. His hair was dark brown and would have been thick, if he ever grew it past his military-style crew cut. He certainly wasn’t in danger of going prematurely bald, with no sign of a receding hairline.
Gran also liked men with blue eyes, for some reason.
Ryan’s eyes were blue, though they were so deep-set under his thick dark brows that they sometimes looked black from a distance. Up close, however, their blue was the colour of a bright summer sky—but not nearly as warm. His eyes carried a hardness which no doubt served him well when he was negotiating a deal.
His body would have gained Gran’s tick of approval as well, being tall and broad-shouldered, with muscles in all the right places. Admittedly, Laura had never seen him dressed in anything but a business suit—the kind he was wearing today—but she had seen him jacket-less with his sleeves rolled up and there was no hiding the fact that the man was very fit, with a flat stomach and no flab anywhere.
It was no wonder that she’d chosen him as her imaginary Mr Right, she realised as she watched Ryan walk towards her. He fitted the bill perfectly. Not only did he look like a man physically, but he was financially secure, charming when he wanted to be and, yes, old enough to be experienced in life.
Gran always said that a girl should never marry a man around her own age.
‘Boys mature much later than girls, Laura,’ she’d advised her granddaughter on more than one occasion. ‘They need to experience life before they’re ready to settle down.’
Of course, when she’d been waxing lyrical about Ryan by her Gran’s hospital bed, she hadn’t mentioned just how ‘experienced’ he was, Laura thought caustically. She didn’t think her rather old-fashioned grandmother would approve of a man who’d had more women than underpants. And who changed them just as often.
Frankly, it always amazed Laura why women kept getting sucked into having a relationship with Ryan Armstrong. If you could call what he had with women ‘relationships’. They were just ships passing in the night from what she’d heard. And she’d heard plenty over the past two years.
He smiled as he placed the drinks down on the table, a wickedly sexy smile which gave her a glimpse of how dangerously attractive he could be. If one was susceptible to that kind of thing.
‘I decided to have what you’re having,’ he said as he sat down and swept up his own bourbon and coke. ‘Cheers!’
She picked up her drink, clinked it against his, then took a deep swallow. Their eyes met over the rims of their glasses. His glittered with wry amusement whilst she kept hers as cool as always. But, underneath the silk lining of her black jacket, Laura was startled to feel her heart beating a little faster.
Maybe she wasn’t as immune to the man’s charms as she imagined. But it was not enough to worry about.
Nevertheless, she glanced away at the harbour. It really was a spectacular setting for a city, especially on a warm spring afternoon. Lots of boats were out on the sparkling water, creating a visual feast for all the tourists who’d flocked to the quayside area to take holiday snaps of the bridge and the Opera House.
‘Sydney’s a truly beautiful city, isn’t it?’ Laura said with pride in her voice.
‘It surely is,’ he agreed. ‘You only have to live in other cities in other countries to know how lucky we are.’
She looked back at him. ‘You sound like you’ve lived in lots of other countries.’
Ryan shrugged. ‘Quite a few. But no more prevaricating, now,’ he said as he put down his glass. ‘Tell me what’s going on in your life which has sent you into such a spin today.’
‘I’m not in a spin,’ she said defensively.
‘Laura, you’re sitting here having a drink with me. That’s evidence enough that something has thrown you for a loop. So stop denying it. Given you’re not the sort of girl to make a professional mistake, it has to be a personal problem. And I’m involved in some weird way. Am I right about that?’
‘Yes,’ she said, seeing no point in lying. It was obvious Ryan wasn’t going to let up until he knew every depressing detail, so she took a deep breath then launched into her tale of woe.
‘It’s a bit of a long story, so please be patient with me.’
Patience, she knew, was not one of Ryan’s strong points. But he didn’t say a word, the expression on his face showing genuine interest. He might feel differently when he learned the part he’d played in her disaster, albeit unknowingly.
‘Two weeks ago, my grandmother had a bad fall down some steps and ended up in a coma in hospital. Not in a Sydney hospital—In John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle. Gran lives up in the Hunter Valley. Anyway, the family was told she wasn’t likely to pull through. In fact, the doctors didn’t even expect her to last the night. So I sat with her all that night and, because I didn’t want to go to sleep and not be with her if and when she did pass away, I kept talking to her. And, because I thought it wouldn’t matter, I told her all the things that I knew she’d always wanted to hear: that I’d finally found Mr Right and I was very, very happy.
‘Of course, it didn’t take very long to make that simple announcement, so I was forced to elaborate somewhat to fill in time. Unfortunately, I’ve never had a great imagination; creativity is not a talent of mine. So I thought of all the men I knew and worked with and came up with the one who fitted the bill of Mr Right from my grandmother’s viewpoint. Superficially, that is,’ she added with a rueful glance Ryan’s way.
‘Good God,’ he said, sitting up straight. ‘You’re talking about me, aren’t you?’
‘Unfortunately, yes,’ she admitted dryly.
He laughed, then laughed again. ‘Damn it, but that is funny, Laura. In an ironic way,’ he added. ‘I don’t think what happened to your poor grandmother is funny. I have a soft spot for grandmothers.’
Indeed, his eyes did soften with his words.
‘I must be missing something here,’ he went on, his forehead crinkling into a frown. ‘What harm did it do for you to invent a fictitious Mr Right on your grandmother’s deathbed? Frankly, I think it was rather sweet of you to do what you did.’
Laura sighed. ‘Sweet, but
