not food.’
‘Want to bet?’
They drove in silence after that, apart from a murmured comment here and there. When they got to the outskirts of Sydney, Charlotte surprised him yet again by requesting that he drop her at an inner city Rocks address rather than the one he’d picked her up from.
She directed him into a steeply descending driveway, dug a set of keys from her handbag, and pressed a remote switch attached to the key ring. The eight-foot wrought-iron driveway gates began to ease open. A heavy-duty garage Roll-A-Door began to open further down the drive. ‘Who lives here?’
‘Me,’ she said as Grey drove down into a spacious underground car park with room for a dozen or so vehicles. ‘The house at Double Bay belongs to Aurora. At least, it did. Now it’s mine, only I couldn’t face going there tonight. She’d have been disappointed in me today, I think. In the hurt I caused, no matter how much better off Sarah’s going to be without you. Too many lies. Far too many lies of late, and they just keep getting bigger. You can park there.’
He did as suggested, brooding over her remarks as he strode around the car to open the door for her.
She smiled, briefly, as she got out of the car and he closed the door behind her, but there was no leaning into him as there had been for his parents’ benefit. No playing of power games.
‘I’m sorry about today,’ he said gruffly. ‘I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.’
‘You didn’t. We had a deal. A good deal—one I entered into willingly.’ She offered up a small smile. ‘Don’t mind me if I seem a bit morose. It’ll pass.’
He hoped so.
‘Would you care to come up for a coffee?’ she said next. ‘I’ve no agenda, no ulterior motive other than I don’t think much of my own company these days and I do my best to avoid it. You could tell me about your research. About what you hope to find in Borneo.’
Grey hesitated.
‘Never mind,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s not mandatory. We’re square now. And you probably have other places to be.’
Somewhere between this morning and now, Charlotte’s confidence had taken a hammering and self-derision had found purchase. His doing, not hers, and he cursed himself for not seeing, not giving any thought whatsoever to Charlotte’s feelings about the role he’d asked her to play and the hits she would take on his behalf.
‘You should know that a research scientist never misses an opportunity to expound on his work,’ he offered gravely. ‘You don’t even have to be an appreciative audience. You just have to be awake. And, yes, I’ll join you for coffee.’
They stepped into a lift and went up a few floors and came out onto a landing with only two doors leading from it, one of which was labelled ‘Fire Escape.’
Charlotte’s penthouse apartment boasted a million-dollar close-up view of Sydney Harbour Bridge, framed by enormous, double—or triple—glazed tinted windows. White was the predominant colour in the apartment; white walls and ceilings, white marble floors, white kitchen fixtures and benches and a snow-white leather lounge. And then, as if someone had taken exception to the designer palate and vowed to melt it down, an eclectic array of paintings, sculptures, books, tapestries and floor rugs in every imaginable colour and from every imaginable historical period had been added to the mix.
He stopped in front of a painting formed entirely of various coloured oil paints dripped onto a canvas in no particular order.
‘Do you like it?’ she said.
‘What is it?’
‘Abstract art. Jackson Pollock’s finest. It’s whatever you want it to be.’
‘Handy,’ he murmured. ‘You own this?’
Charlotte nodded. ‘It was my grandmother’s.
Lots of rumours about how she came to own it. My favourite one is that she and Pollock were friends and that she won it from him in a card game. Rumour has it they were initially playing with coins from the Roman Empire. As the stakes got higher, the currency of the realm went twentieth century.’
‘What exactly does a person throw in the pot to match a Jackson Pollock painting?’ he asked.
‘Could have been the Dali,’ she said.
Of course. The Dali. ‘Family wealth, you said. Just how much family wealth is there?’
‘Plenty,’ she said dryly. ‘My great grandfather was in shipping. My grandmother added luxury liners to the mix and then divested herself of the lot when she hit her fifties. Said it had sapped the life out of her. She turned philanthropist, gave a lot of her possessions away, but she still left my mother extremely well provided for. She urged my mother to follow her heart. My mother took her advice, chose my father and archaeology, and by all accounts was ecstatically happy with both. My parents died in a light aircraft crash in Peru when I was five.’
‘Long time ago,’ he murmured.
‘So it was. I usually went everywhere with them but that day they decided to leave me at the hotel with Aurora.’
‘This is the Aurora who died recently? Your godmother? The one you invented a fiancé for?’
Charlotte nodded. ‘Aurora was an archaeologist like my parents. Fortunately for me, they’d also named her as my guardian in their wills. From then on, I went where Aurora went and that was everywhere. You take milk in your coffee?’
‘No, thanks,’ he said. ‘How long have you worked at Sydney Uni?’
‘Five years.’
‘And this associate professorship, it allows for the kind of travel you’re used to?’
‘No, it’s a desk job.’
‘And you’re not fed up with that?’
‘Not yet.’ She set spoons and a bowl of sugar on the counter. A pewter sugar bowl with dragonfly handles. ‘I like the stability. I like the people I work closely with. I even like the routine, and I can usually tolerate the politics. And what with communications these days, field teams can get photos and data to me and I can make comment within minutes if required.’
‘You wouldn’t rather be there?’
‘I’ve been there,’ she murmured. ‘I travelled that road for twenty-three years. When Aurora retired, I lost enthusiasm for it. It just wasn’t the same without her and I didn’t want to continue on alone. I hate being alone.’ Charlotte absent-mindedly brushed dark curls from her face. ‘I can play your free-spirited bohemian friend to perfection, Greyson. I have many role models I can look to for inspiration. Heaven knows, my boss would be ecstatic if I went back out into the field for a while. Problem is, I’m very fond of my settled existence. Of being among familiar faces. I think that in the absence of family I look to the community for a sense of belonging. Of place. I need to feel connected to something, whereas you … you need to be free. It’s why we’d never gel in real life. It’s why, deep down inside, I’m no better suited to you than Sarah is.’
‘Thanks
