wasn’t love, Joanna didn’t trust love anymore. Love could lead one badly astray.
But what about sharing Brad’s bed for the rest of her life? Sex with him was pleasant enough. Fine, really. She had honestly believed she would never feel passionate desire again, yet Rory still aroused it, throwing all her sensible reasoning into chaos. If she married Brad, would she always be haunted with memories of what lovemaking had been like with Rory?
She probably shouldn’t be using Rory as some kind of yardstick. To Rory, sex was one of the pleasures in life to be enjoyed whenever and wherever the urge occurred. And the urge had occurred once too often, Joanna savagely reminded herself. At the wrong time, in the wrong place and with the wrong woman. One thing she was certain of in her own mind—Brad would never be unfaithful to her.
The powerful engine of the sports car throbbed into life. Joanna watched Rory’s hands slide around the steering wheel as he directed the Jaguar out of the garage and onto the road. He obviously enjoyed the feel of power under his touch. He was a tactile person, sensitive to the tiniest vibration, attuned to responding to it. Joanna wondered if Monique knew that.
“So tell me about Brad. What’s he like? Handsome? Physically attractive?”
“Yes.”
Not in the same traffic-stopping class as Monique, but Joanna was not about to tell Rory that. Besides, Brad was handsome. While his strong, clean-cut features had none of the rakish charm of Rory’s more dramatic individuality, nor the mischievous twinkle in his eyes, he was certainly good-looking. Everyone thought so.
“That’s not very forthcoming, Joanna,” Rory chided. “Tell me what he’s like.”
“He’s not a taker like you,” she shot at him in a burst of resentment. “He gives a lot of himself. He cares about people.”
“A sterling character,” Rory drawled. “What does he do for a living?”
“He’s the headmaster of—”
“Oh, no, no, no!” Rory rolled his eyes at her. “Don’t tell me this is true. Not a headmaster. Not after me. Headmasters are dull, conventional people.”
“Brad is not dull. He’s a go-getter and very progressive. Which is why he’s the headmaster of a prestigious private school.”
“Worse!” Rory groaned. “How could you even think of throwing your lot in with a stuffy, narrow-minded, elitist snob of the worst kind? To go from me to such a man...” He shook his head. “It’s not only insulting to me, it belittles you.”
“Stop the car and let me out,” Joanna commanded tersely.
“Not on this downbeat note. We haven’t got to where we’re going to yet.”
“I’m not having you criticising someone you don’t know anything about.”
“Put it down as a minor outburst of irritation and annoyance.” He threw her a smile of apologetic appeal. “I simply can’t bear to think of you putting yourself into a straitjacket for the rest of your life. That might suit your mother, Joanna, but—”
“I thought we agreed to leave my mother out of this.”
“You told me you didn’t want to live like your mother, always thinking of what others think of you.” He cast her a look of concern. “That’s how you’d have to be, married to the headmaster of a private school, Joanna. No putting a foot wrong. No letting your hair down. Dressed to the nines all the time. Like Caesar’s wife. Beyond reproach.”
“Better than being Nero’s wife, not knowing whose bed he was coming from,” she sniped.
Rory sighed deeply. “Now is that being reasonable, hitting me below the belt, unfairly, I might add, when I’m doing my best to be helpful? What happened to bygones being bygones?”
“You brought my mother into it.”
“Hard to keep her out of it when she must be promoting this match as though it was made in heaven,” came the dry reply.
In all honesty, Joanna could not deny that. She bit her lips and brooded for a few moments before her mind retrieved the claim by Rory that she had hit him below the belt unfairly with her shot about adultery. Was he still trying to deny what he’d done? While she couldn’t prove he had been unfaithful with more than one woman, one was quite enough for Joanna.
What had hurt most at that killing moment of revelation was that she herself had been trying to get pregnant for months. Not that Rory had known that. He had wanted to wait until they were financially on their feet before starting a family. Having a baby had been her decision, a desperate bid to rekindle the intimacy they had lost in endless arguments about what they should be doing and where they should be heading. For Rory to have had sex with another woman and impregnate her was a double betrayal.
Joanna could never forgive it. And she wasn’t about to forget it, either, no matter what Rory said, or did, or how he made her feel. Time did not mitigate some offences. Rory might be able to prove that Brad was the wrong man for her, but that didn’t make him the right one.
Her attention was caught by the view of beach and sea as the car turned into a street that led to them. “Where are we?” she asked, realising she had taken no notice of direction from the time they had left the office building in Chatswood.
“Dee Why,” Rory answered.
It was one of a string of beaches running north from the head of Sydney Harbour, but that was as much as Joanna knew about Dee Why. She had never been here.
“This is where I live now,” Rory added, turning the car into a driveway lined with palm trees and artistic clumps of other tropical plants. It led to a row of private garages, separated by white brick archways.
Expensive architecture. Expensive landscaping. It fitted with the expensive car, yet Joanna had difficulty in coming to terms with this new image of Rory. “You’re taking me to your home?” she questioned sharply, struggling to accept the evidence that Rory could now afford the luxury of living in what was clearly a block of very expensive apartments.
“I’d like you to see it.”
He threw her a grin that somehow reflected the intimate understanding they had once shared. Joanna’s heart did a treacherous jig. While she was still berating herself for being ridiculously affected by what could only be a memory, Rory parked the car and alighted.
Joanna sat in a feverish quandary as he walked around to the passenger side. She had serious doubts about the wisdom of being alone with Rory in his home. The more sensible course was to demand they go somewhere else. Considering the effect of Rory’s grin on her, probably the most sensible course was to leave him right now before he managed to confuse and disturb her any further with the powerful attraction he evoked with increasing ease.
Yet an irresistible tug of curiosity undermined all common sense. She wanted to know how Rory lived now. When he opened her door, Joanna found herself stepping out and saying nothing.
Rory led her into a grand foyer where there were elevators and a staircase. The patterned mosaic of tiles on the floor had the stamp of class. A fountain streaming over an artistic arrangement of modern sculptures made its statement, as well. Wherever Joanna looked, money, and lots
