You have a choice: either telling the truth, or inventing a temporary separation or impending divorce. Believe me when I tell you I have somewhere I can lay my head for the duration of that fortnight, so you don’t have to worry your pretty little head about where I’ll sleep.’
Bianca glared at him while he shepherded her out of his bedroom. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get dressed. I’m going out.’ And he firmly closed and locked his door.
CHAPTER THREE
ADAM closed his eyes as he leant against the door.
God damn Bianca for making him lie like that!
He had no intention of asking Sophie to marry him. Hell, he’d only just met the girl the previous week.
He also hadn’t been going to go out tonight. He was tired after his unsuccessful foray at the races. He would have liked nothing better than to settle down in front of the TV with his feet up and have Bianca dish him up one of her interesting meals.
She was a fantastic cook, and spoiled him whenever he was at home in that regard. It was one of the plusses among the many negatives in having her around.
But he’d be blowed if he’d stay at home tonight now! He’d have to sleep over at the penthouse, he supposed, even though it would still smell of paint. He didn’t have a date with Sophie, as Bianca would undoubtedly conclude. But he wished he had.
A night in bed with Sophie would blot Bianca out of his mind for a few hours at least. Sophie was everything Bianca wasn’t. Tall and curvy, with long blonde hair, wide hips and breasts like melons. He’d learnt from Laura many years ago never to date a girl who reminded him in any way of the heartless creature who’d told him she felt nothing when she looked at him. Generally he confined himself to bedding busty blondes, with the occasional redhead thrown in for variety. Brunettes never stood a chance.
Sophie was a minor actress, sleeping her way up in the world with gay abandon. He’d met her last Saturday night at the new Darling Harbour Casino, where she was working as a croupier between bit roles in movies. No doubt she’d thought he was a real high-roller, laying thousand-dollar bets. Which he was, he supposed.
Gambling had always paid off for Adam, because he approached it with a cool head and mathematical skill. Bianca would be stunned at how much money it had brought him over the years...if he ever chose to tell her. She thought he confined his gambling to the races. She also thought he lost more than he won.
Racing was all very well, in small doses, but the really big money was to be made in the casinos. Unfortunately, he had to keep changing venues, because management soon spotted professional gamblers, and had a dim view of clients capable of counting cards or who used other systems which could regularly beat the house.
Bianca had no idea of his weekend trips interstate, to the casinos in Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide and even Pert, nor of the elegant, sophisticated and very accommodating women who threw themselves at him on those occasions. It stroked his ego to note that they had no trouble with ‘spark’ when they looked at him, as Bianca did. Hell, they fairly went up in flames when he touched them.
Fortunately, the opening of a new casino in Sydney had brought him a much closer venue—for gambling and otherwise. The night he’d met Sophie, he’d been trying one of his newer systems on the blackjack table, though his concentration had been shot to pieces. He’d been thinking about Bianca spending the weekend up the coast at some sleazy motel with darling Derek. She hadn’t been bored with him seven days ago. Far from it!
Sophie had given him the eye as she’d dealt him the cards, so his bruised ego had taken her home to her place after she finished up. He hadn’t given Bianca a single thought till he’d woken the next morning to brown eyes instead of blue, and blonde hair instead of black.
Swearing at the memory, Adam levered himself away from the door, throwing off his robe as he strode over to his built-in wardrobe.
He began to agonise, as he dragged on some clothes, about whether he’d ever marry.
Probably not, came the savagely rueful acceptance. He’d only ever wanted one girl as his wife and the mother of his children. How could he settle for second-best?
No, he’d be having one-night stands with blonde bimbos when he was eighty—paid for, by then— and dreaming of what might have been, if only he hadn’t been such a useless schmuck at eighteen!
He glanced down at the old jeans he’d automatically pulled on and thought of all the swanky clothes he’d recently installed in the penthouse instead of the boot of his car—the ones he wore in his secret life as gambler and lover extraordinaire. The Italian suits. The tuxedos. The black silk pyjamas and dressing gowns.
He shook his head at himself, for he knew that that life wasn’t real. It would one day come to an end. It was a game. Thankfully a prosperous game, while his wits and courage were up to it, but still essentially a game—to be played as a boost to his ego and bank balance as well as a much needed diversion from the distress real life kept bringing him.
Real life was outside this door, waiting for him, waiting to try to change his mind about being her pretend husband.
He would have to be strong. Already he was feeling guilty. Already he was weakening. Tempting thoughts began infiltrating his brain. Maybe he would enjoy the pretence? Maybe he could lie there at night beside her and fantasise? Maybe she’d be so grateful to him that she’d let him...?
His teeth clenched down hard in his jaw. He didn’t want her bloody gratitude. He wanted what she willingly gave those other guys. He wanted her passion and her desire. He wanted her sexy little body, naked and panting beneath him, begging him to go on, desperate for him...
Adam swore as he became hotly aware that his fantasy had swiftly transferred to a hard, aching reality. He dragged a sloppy Joe down over his thudding heart and vowed not to weaken one iota.
Even if she got down on her hands and knees before him, he would not budge an inch.
A darkly ironic smile creased his mouth as he shoved his feet into battered trainers.
Let’s not go too far, Adam, came the wicked thought. Bianca on her hands and knees was a perverse and powerfully persuasive prospect. Too bad it would never come about. He would give anything to have her at his mercy. Anything!
Bianca spun round from the kitchen sink when she heard Adam’s bedroom door bang. Oh, dear. He still sounded very angry. What to do? How best to approach him?
Appeal to his sense of compassion, she decided, and raced out to head him off before he could leave. The sight of him dressed in old clothes distracted her for a second.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘So you’re not taking the soon-to-be fiancée out tonight?’ she asked tartly, and immediately bit her bottom lip. Wrong tack, you fool.
‘We’re staying in,’ he drawled. ‘Watching videos and searching for the meaning of life.’
Bianca was taken aback by his sarcasm. He really was in a filthy mood. Perhaps she should leave appealing to his compassion till tomorrow.
But what if he didn’t come home tomorrow? He was staying away from the flat more and more these days—obviously at this Sophie’s place.
‘Adam,
