on a pedestal. Untouchable. Far from harm’s way.
“No.” She faced him directly. The exterior lights gilded her flawless skin and added lustre to the fabric of her lovely gown. ‘You’re the first to know. I’m discussing it with you because I trust you, because you’ve seen so much of life, so much cruelty both hidden and on show, you would know where I’m coming from. I suspect Susan Crowley has endured hell.”
“I believe you.” Josh jammed his hands in his trouser pockets so he couldn’t reach for her. All his feelings for her, deep and romantic as they were, had to be kept under wraps. “What I don’t get is she has a son to defend her. What sort of a gutless wonder is he? No one would have hurt my mother with me there.”
Clio shook her head. “I’m sure he doesn’t physically abuse her.”
“You can’t know that. But I suppose he’s not that stupid,” Josh gritted out. “There are all kinds of abuse. Susan Crowley’s kind would probably be mental and emotional abuse. Crowley is one of those men who have to have total sway over the women in their lives.”
“Exactly.”
Josh lowered his resonant voice. “Leo will never agree,” he warned her.
“Would that I were a grandson!” Clio raised her slender hands, palms up. A gesture of frustration.
“I’m just so happy you’re not!” The words sprang from his mouth.
She turned to stare at him out of her lustrous dark eyes. “Do you mean that, Josh, or was that the sort of answer men come up with?”
He shrugged. “Make what you will of it.”
“Now, don’t get angry with me, Josh.” She surrendered to her own sublimated longings. She touched his arm as if in conciliation.
“Please don’t equate me with other guys you know, Clio,” he said, staring down at her elegant, long-fingered hand. “You’re a beautiful, clever woman, a smart, skilful lawyer. You’re the one with the empty words. You wouldn’t want to be a man.”
“Of course I don’t,” she admitted, removing her hand. “I’m only pointing out that in my family it would make things so much easier if I were. Both Leo and Dad were against me studying law. An arts degree would have done nicely. It’s okay for you, Leo’s brilliant protégée. Not all that suitable for Leo’s clever granddaughter. It’s no secret I don’t need to work. I could devote myself to charitable work and good deeds. The only trouble is I want and need to use my brain. I need to make my own money, live my own life. Find personal fulfilment.”
“You won’t find it with Jimmy Crowley.”
The heat and energy level between them was rising. To an onlooker, and there were plenty, they were a study in contrasts: Clio, a beautiful young woman with her warm Mediterranean colouring; Josh, the very picture of the classic blue-eyed blond alpha man. “Don’t push it, Josh,” Clio said. It was her turn to warn him.
“I apologise. You could leave town,” he suggested, his blue eyes trained on her.
She threw up her dark head so impetuously her pendant earrings danced, flashing lights across her cheeks. “Do you honestly think I haven’t thought about it? I used to all the time. But I can’t leave Leo right now. He’s been diagnosed with a heart condition. You know about that?”
“I do,” Josh confirmed. “Leo has told me about his heart condition. Not serious, he said. As a matter of fact, being Leo, he laughed if off as if he was going to live for ever.”
“My mother’s life came to an end when she was only forty-one,” Clio offered in a soft, melancholy voice. “I’ll never come to terms with it. I adored my mother. No one could ever take her place. In that way I’m exactly like Dad.”
“At least you had her that long.” Josh was battling his own fume of emotions, not the least of it his dangerous desire for a fascinating but unobtainable woman.
She could feel the hot flush that mounted to her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Josh. That was really insensitive. I wasn’t thinking for a moment. I know what a rotten time you’ve had.”
“The fact is you don’t, Clio,” he corrected her tersely, “and I’m not about to tell you.” They were surrounded by people laughing, talking, light classical music being piped through the house, but they might have been quite alone on a desert island. Josh looked out over the magnificent illuminated tropical gardens. “Your world has been safe. My world was damned scary—sinister might be a better word.”
She studied the handsome profile presented to her. He was almost painfully handsome. “You would never dream of sharing your experiences with someone who wanted only to help you?” she asked gently, though she knew it might be folly.
“Are we talking professional help here, Clio?” He swung his gleaming gold head back to her, gazing down his perfectly straight nose. “I had all that. One shrink called me a master manipulator. I think I was about ten at the time. Anyway, let’s get off me,” he said edgily.
“You don’t want me to get to know you, Josh?” she dared ask. Was he any different from the boy who had ordered her so harshly to go away?
“Clio, there are things about me I don’t wish you to hear. All right?”
Of a sudden she realized that for Josh that might qualify as an appeal. She held up her hands in surrender. “I get the message. Let’s get back to me and my world. Dad is desperately unhappy. He should never have married Keeley. They have nothing in common. Not that any woman wouldn’t have had a battle as the second Mrs Templeton. So you tell me, Josh. Should I turn my back on my family when they need me and go forge another life for myself maybe thousands of miles away, like Sydney or Melbourne? I have my great-aunts and many contacts there.”
“So you’re stuck for the time being,” he conceded. Leo and her father weren’t the only ones who couldn’t bear to lose sight and sound of her. “Why doesn’t your father divorce Keeley? He must know she only married him for his money.”
“Dad doesn’t believe in divorce.” She felt racked by pity.
“He thinks it’s better to live with a woman who doesn’t love him?” Josh asked, never in any danger of being attracted to the over-sexed Keeley with the practised throaty laugh. “That’s a character flaw he can live with?”
“Apparently,” Clio admitted with an effort. “I know I’m risking making you angry again, Josh, but …”
Such a glitter came into his eyes. “Then don’t risk it, Clio,” he said.
“So you’re going to saddle me with the worry. You don’t want me to say it.”
“Are you actually making judgements about my moral responses?”
“No, no I’m just thinking about consequences.”
“So you’ve appointed yourself watchdog?”
He looked incredibly superior. Unyielding. No vulnerability there. “I suppose I should apologize.”
“You should,”
