he put down a deposit on a maintenance-free condominium for his mother, and a nearby bachelor pad for himself. As much as he adored his mother, Daniel felt it was high time he had his own space.
In the first few years of his career as a divorce lawyer, Daniel represented both men and women, but when he made partner shortly after his thirtieth birthday he announced that in future the only clients he would represent were women. The men he left to someone else.
Daniel found great satisfaction in preventing sleazebag husbands with more money than morals from weaseling their way out of paying what was due to their ex-wives. He was ruthless in his quest to gain financial security for the discarded, disillusioned and distressed women who trailed through his office. Women who were no longer young enough, or pretty enough, or exciting enough for the husbands who’d once promised to love, honour and cherish them forever.
Daniel was particularly vicious in his pursuit of justice if there were children involved, especially when the men in question didn’t want to face their responsibility regarding hands-on child-rearing. And there were plenty of those.
Men who abandoned their children had to be made to pay.
‘But not all men are like that,’ his more optimistic little sister had recently said to him over the phone during her weekly call from Sydney. Beth never had returned to America, even after her beloved grandfather passed away. ‘If my marriage ever broke up, Vince would never abandon our child. Or children. I’m not sure how many we’ll have. But more than one.’
Beth was currently seven months pregnant with her first child.
‘Not that our marriage is ever going to break up,’ Beth had added quickly. ‘We have our ups and downs but we’re still very much in love with each other.’
In love, Daniel mused as the jumbo jet banked and began its descent into Sydney.
What was being in love, exactly?
He’d never felt it, he was sure. Not once. Thirty-six years old, and he’d never fallen in love.
He’d liked lots of women. And lusted after them. And made love to them.
But that wasn’t the same as being in love. He’d never been so overcome by mad passion that he’d do anything for the object of said passion, such as ask her to marry him. Even if he did fall in love one day, Daniel couldn’t see himself marrying. He’d seen far too many divorces!
‘You’re a cynical, cold-blooded bastard,’ his last ladyfriend had flung at him just before she’d flounced out of his office—and his life—a couple of weeks before Christmas. ‘I refuse to waste any more time on you, Daniel Bannister. You obviously don’t love me. I doubt you even know what love is.’
All true, he’d finally agreed after she’d stormed out, her fury forcing him to have a long, hard look at himself.
What he’d discovered had been sobering.
He’d always condemned his father for being a serial husband, but he wasn’t much better when it came to relationships. He’d become a serial lover, going from one woman to another, never committing himself, never losing much sleep when these relationships—such as they were—were terminated.
Yep. He was a cynical, cold-blooded bastard all right. Not quite the noble, knight-in-shining-armour type he’d always imagined himself to be.
Two months later he was in a plane circling Sydney, still trying to come to terms with this revised character assessment of himself, trying to justify his past behaviour. Not very successfully. OK, so he hadn’t ever lied to his ladyfriends, or promised anything serious, or betrayed any vows, or abandoned any children. But he’d still hurt the women he’d dated, and who had probably wanted more from him than what he’d been prepared to give.
Daniel understood that he was a good catch, as the saying went. Physically attractive, professionally successful, financially secure. The kind of guy that his married acquaintances were always trying to set up with their single, female, husband-hunting friends.
To give himself some credit, Daniel always steered clear of the more obvious traps, sticking to women whom he’d mistakenly believed were dedicated career girls.
Only in hindsight did he realise that thirty-something girls who’d devoted their lives to their careers often had a change of heart when their biological clocks started ticking. Suddenly, some of them began to want wedding bells and baby bootees, whereas in the beginning all they’d wanted was some stimulating conversation over dinner and some satisfying sex at the end of the night.
Which he was more than happy to provide.
As Daniel stared through the plane window, his eyes glazed over and he started wondering if men ever suffered from the biological-clock syndrome. He’d turned thirty-six last month.
Maybe one day soon, he’d meet some girl and suddenly feel things he’d never felt before. Maybe he’d lose his head through love and desire and uncontrollable passion.
Daniel uttered a small, dry laugh.
Dream on, Daniel. This is you we’re talking about here. That cynical, cold-blooded bastard. You’d be the last man on earth to lose his head over a woman!
The plane’s wheels making contact with the tarmac startled Daniel. He’d been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he’d stopped following their descent.
His gaze focused again through the window to take in the view of Sydney from the ground.
A large bay of water stretched out before him on the plane’s left, fringed by sand. Directly opposite was an industrial area. To his right, a residential suburb. Airports were usually on the outskirts of cities but Mascot wasn’t far from Sydney’s city centre.
His sister’s house was in the eastern suburbs, at Rose Bay, also near the city centre. She’d promised to meet him, despite the early hour and her advanced pregnancy.
Daniel knew it would do him good to spend a couple of weeks here in Sydney with his sister and her husband. Australians were wonderfully easygoing, and Beth was Australian through and through now.
People blamed the hot weather, but Daniel didn’t believe it had anything to do with the weather. He believed it had something to do with their isolation. They lived so far away that they hadn’t yet been contaminated with the rest of the world’s mad and bad habits. In his experience, Australians didn’t seem to live to work as a lot of Americans did. They worked to live.
Daniel hoped to embrace some of that philosophy during his visit here. He was in danger of becoming a serious workaholic.
All work and no play made Daniel a very dull boy.
A fortnight of total relaxation would do him a power of good.
CHAPTER TWO
CHARLOTTE responded to the annoying beep-beep of her clock alarm as any person would at five a.m. on a Friday morning, especially one who’d only got to bed at two. She flung an arm over her duvet, cut the irritating noise off by hitting the snooze button, then rolled over and curled up again for ten more minutes’ precious sleep.
But before she could return to the bliss of oblivion, Charlotte suddenly remembered why she’d set her alarm at such a God-forsaken hour.
