faintly. ‘Yes, Dr Tyler, your belongings arrived today. Did you get my email?’
‘Email?’ he echoed.
‘The one I sent you from your computer in the hope that you were still accessing your emails,’ she said. ‘Although judging by the several hundred emails that subsequently popped in to your inbox, I wasn’t all that hopeful.’
‘You accessed my computer?’ What about his password protection? The supposedly unassailable drive he kept his research files on? ‘How?’
‘Actually, it was the IT guy who did the accessing,’ she confessed. ‘He’s very good. And we only accessed your emails and we only did that to get your contact details. I tried calling the number in your signature line but you no longer seem to have a functioning phone.’
‘Forget the phone, you accessed my computer?’
‘Dr Tyler, why don’t you just tell me where you want your box sent?’ Not so mellow now, that gorgeous voice. Impatience had crept in, firing up his own.
‘Nowhere. Don’t send it anywhere. I’ll pick it up on Monday.’
‘What?’ For some reason, Charlotte Greenstone didn’t sound overly enamoured of the notion.
‘Monday,’ he repeated. ‘Preferably Monday morning.’
‘No!’ she said. ‘That plan’s really not going to work for me.’
‘Then outline a course of action that will,’ he countered. ‘I need my office back, Professor. I’ve work to do.’
‘Will you be in Sydney on Sunday?’ she asked.
‘I hope to be.’ Plane ticket willing.
‘I’ll go and get your box from work tomorrow, Dr Tyler. You can pick it up from my private address on Sunday or I will drop it in to wherever you’re staying. Does that suit?’
Decisive woman. And yes, it suited him just fine. She gave him her address. They arranged a collection time.
And when he got off the phone, the memory of her voice stayed with him and refused to go away.
‘Keep it simple,’ Charlotte said to herself for the umpteenth time that morning. Sunday morning, to be exact. Sunday morning at Aurora’s, no less, for that was the pickup address she’d given Grey Tyler.
Dr Greyson Tyler was a water weed control specialist. She’d discerned this from the research papers he’d authored and co-authored. Lots of them, and he didn’t bother submitting to the smaller journals either. Quality work, all the way.
Maybe she’d read one of his papers years ago and filed his name and that larger than life persona of his somewhere in the dim recesses of her mind. Maybe that was why, when she’d needed an absent fictional fiancé, she’d picked the name Tyler, only she’d used Gil for a first name instead of Greyson. Greyson being far too formidable a name for any fiancé, fictional or otherwise.
Not that it mattered, for within an hour his box would be gone and so would he, and after that there would be no more fictional fiancés ever and certainly no doing away with them. ‘This I pledge,’ she said fervently.
By the time the doorbell finally rang, a good two hours later than expected, Aurora’s house was spotless and Charlotte had taken to fretting that Dr Greyson Tyler wouldn’t come for his box at all today but would turn up at her workplace tomorrow, thus exposing the entire fictional fiancé debacle to all and sundry, thus sealing her reputation as a complete and utter nutter, and ruining her professional reputation along with it.
She opened the door hastily and found herself staring straight at a broad and muscled chest. She dragged her gaze upwards and finally came to his face. A tough, weathered face, not young and not yet old. Strong black brows framed eyes the colour of bitter coffee, easy on the milk. His hair colour hovered somewhere between that of eyebrows and eyes. He had excellent facial bone structure and an exceptionally fine mouth. A mouth well worth staring at. She had a feeling she’d stared at it before, but where?
Eventually the edge of it tilted up a little and she remembered her manners and stepped back politely and fixed a smile to her own face.
‘I’m looking for Professor Greenstone,’ he said, his voice a perfect match for the rest of him. Rough around the edges but with a fine baritone centre. Gil had also been in possession of such a voice. A voice to make a woman swoon.
‘That would be me,’ she said. ‘Dr Tyler, I presume?’
‘Yes.’ His eyes had narrowed. His mouth twisted wryly. ‘You’re young for an associate professor.’
‘My parents were archaeologists,’ she said. ‘I was raised by my godmother, who was also an archaeologist. I grew up chasing lost cities and ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at tables covered in maps. I was working dig sites by the time I turned six. I had a head start.’
‘Sounds like quite a childhood.’
‘Worked for me,’ she murmured, although it hadn’t exactly provided her with an altogether firm grip on reality. Not when there were so many ancient and different realities to choose from. Where had she seen his face before? A glossy magazine ad for something sumptuously male and decadently expensive? A magazine article? ‘World’s Sexiest Scientists’, perhaps? Oh, hell. New Scientist.
Charlotte sped back in time to a hospital waiting room, and an old waiting room copy of New Scientist magazine with an article on water weeds in it. There’d been a picture of the weeds. A picture of this man. She’d skimmed the article while waiting for the specialist to finish with Aurora.
Gil Tyler—fictional fiancé extraordinaire—hadn’t been a figment of her imagination at all.
The parts of Gil that hadn’t been based on movie superheroes and a long dead father had been based on this man.
‘Your box is here in the hall,’ she said, stepping back and opening wide the huge slab of petrified oak that doubled as a door. ‘I taped it back up for your convenience but you’re welcome to go through it while you’re here if you want to. It’s all there.’
The good doctor stepped into the hall and eyed the box balefully.
‘Okay, let me rephrase,’ she murmured. ‘Everything they sent me is in that box, and I’m really sorry if it’s not all there.’ Charlotte’s dismay hit a new low at the thought of Greyson Tyler losing important possessions on her account. ‘Extremely sorry.’
Greyson Tyler studied her intently. Finally he put his hand to the back pocket of his trousers, stretching fabric tight across places no well-brought-up woman should be looking. Charlotte averted her gaze and watched the unfolding of the paper instead. He held it out to her. ‘I understand you have a fiancé working in PNG and that he and I share a surname.’
Charlotte took the paper from those long strong fingers and reluctantly scanned the email printed on it. The request was a simple one for a photo of the late TJ (Gil) Tyler, botanist, if there was one about. Just as Millie had explained it to her.
‘Thing is, PNG is a small place,’ he continued conversationally. ‘Especially for scientists. I
