award.
Knowing he’d be there, her mother had urged Suzie to make an effort to look more elegant and sophisticated in the hope that her daughter would catch the eye of the eligible young bachelor. Dolled up in her award-winning gown, with her new sleek hairstyle and ladylike demeanor, Suzie had done her mother proud. Tristan had had eyes for no one else all night—or for the following three months.
“I had it straightened, that’s all,” she said with a shrug. “Every woman likes a new look occasionally.”
“Why change what’s perfect already?”
A tremor quivered through her. Mack was the only one who’d ever thought her perfect as she was. Everyone else preferred her new sleek-haired, sophisticated look—her mother, her workmates at Jolie Fashions, Tristan, his snooty mother.
“And you don’t need all that eye makeup and mascara,” Mack chided. “You’re too fair. It looks unnatural.”
“Tristan liked me like this.” He’d never taken a second look at the natural Suzie. He’d come to Jolie Fashions once to pick up his mother after a fitting, and he’d walked straight past her without a glance.
“He should have liked you as you really are.”
She twitched a shoulder. He never noticed me as I really was.
Mack reached up to brush a finger over her cheek. “Your mascara has run,” he mocked softly. “The hazards of makeup. Still, I’m sure Tristan appreciated your glamorous new look.” His dark eyes taunted her. “He’d like the cool, sophisticated ice-maiden look, from what I found out about him. Nothing too hot or passionate or unbridled for our straitlaced golden boy.”
He was so close to the mark that she forgot she hadn’t intended to let him get under her skin, and she lost her cool. “From what you found out about him?” she lashed back. “I still can’t believe you actually had the nerve to check up on my fiancé’s past—just on a vague, spiteful hunch!” She was too incensed to acknowledge that if he hadn’t, he would never have discovered and exposed Tristan’s secret marriage, and she would be the wife of a bigamist by now.
“There was nothing spiteful about it. I was merely looking out for your welfare. But we can discuss your errant ex-fiancé when you have a soothing drink in your hand. And when you’ve removed those wet things.”
She flinched away from him. “Oh…you mean your jacket.” She hurriedly slipped it off and handed it back to him. “Thanks.” She paused, glancing down. “I don’t suppose it matters that I’m leaving muddy splotches and watery drops on your carpet. How long since you’ve had it cleaned? Sometime last century?” She screwed up her nose in distaste at the stained, threadbare carpet.
“Oh, that old thing, it’ll be going soon.”
Yeah, I’ll bet, Suzie thought. And pigs might fly. She was still frowning at the carpet. “What did you do—hold a wild party in here? What are these stains—red wine? Or did someone get stabbed?”
His lip quirked. “It’s grease. I took my bike apart in here and made a bit of a mess.”
She rolled her eyes. “Heavens, Mack,” she exclaimed, looking around the room properly for the first time, “this whole room’s a mess. It’s a disgrace.”
There were piles of papers and cardboard cartons stacked on the floor, and more cluttering the tables and desktops, where a computer and keyboard were just visible. The armchairs had newspapers and computer magazines strewn all over them. “Don’t you ever tidy your house? Or do any cleaning?”
“I’ve been busy. I’m not going to die because of a bit of dust or a few messy papers and boxes. Besides, nobody sees the mess but me.”
“I’m seeing it.”
“Since when did a bit of mess bother you, Suzie?” His dark eyes glinted. “There was a time when you only noticed me, and the chemistry that flared between us every time we looked at each other. And we had more than just chemistry going for us.”
Suzie wanted to stop him, but his next words brought such nostalgic memories flooding back that they formed a lump in her throat, making speech impossible.
“Remember how we used to love listening to the band concerts and feeding the pigeons in Hyde Park, Suzie? And watching the yacht races on Sydney Harbour at weekends? And how we loved a good joke? And talking about everything under the sun? Music, sports, politics, books, movies, our dreams, our ambitions?”
She unlocked her throat. “Pipe dreams, in your case!” Her heart rate had picked up to a disturbing degree at his reminder of three years ago, and scorn seemed the best way to cover her turmoil. “You were always full of talk about what you were going to do with your life when your brilliant ideas hit the jackpot and you made tons of money, but I don’t see any sign that you’ve become rich and famous in the past three years!”
She raked a disparaging look around. “Nothing’s changed, has it, Mack? When I first met you, you’d just thrown in a perfectly good job and dropped out of university, and you’ve never knuckled down to a proper job since as far as I can see—let alone hit a jackpot!”
No, nothing’s changed, she thought, stifling a sigh. He’s just like my father. All his dreams of becoming rich and famous—in his case with his paintings—had come to nothing, too.
Mack gave a snort. “What was the point in staying at uni? I knew more about computers and programming than my lecturers. And the job I had with that computer firm was leading nowhere. And I have been working since then. Every time I sit down at my computer I’m working.”
“Playing games,” she scoffed.
“Inventing new games,” he corrected. “New programs. New software.”
“That nobody’s interested in!”
She would never have been so harsh or so discouraging three years ago—she would have put his failures down to being ahead of his time and urged him to keep trying—but she was still bitter at the way Mack had killed her trust in him on that last traumatic night, revealing a side of him she’d never seen, and never wanted to see again.
“So little faith!” Mack sighed. He seemed amused rather than devastated, she noted in exasperation. “How you’ve changed, Suzie. You encouraged me once.”
“Until I realized you were just like my father…living on your dreams and never facing reality,” she retorted. Didn’t he even care? “You’re going to end up just like him, with nothing to show for your life.” And look what that had done to her father.
“Is that why you cut me out of your life as if I’d never existed?”
She avoided his eyes. She’d never told him the full extent of her father’s sins. She’d only mentioned his depression, his drinking and the frustrations of a brilliant artist with a tortured soul. Both she and her mother had always tried to cover up her father’s destructive gambling, to protect the self-esteem of the man they’d both loved to the end. Loved, hated and despaired of.
“I was only nineteen,” she defended herself. “I was still a student. I had my career to concentrate on. I—I didn’t want to get involved with—with anyone.”
“Especially
