style="font-size:15px;"> Rebecca! She haunted his dreams at night and constantly popped into his head during the day. Her gamin grin, her bubbly laughter and zest for life.
Hair as black as ebony and eyes as green as the brightest emerald. Her body warm and wanton in his arms, and he craved that body with a hunger he could never satisfy.
Dominic groaned in anguish as his manhood grew hard, his arms aching to hold her again.
“Damn you, Becky.” He rubbed his hand around the back of his neck in a futile attempt to relieve his frustration. “Must you haunt me forever?”
Muttering curses under his breath, he strode out of the office informing Meg on the way past her desk that he was going down to the squash courts.
Meg sighed in sympathy as she watched his back disappearing out the door. He had been thinking of Rebecca again. She knew that.
Every time he thought of her he would take off and play a few games of squash on the courts in the basement until his libido settled down again. But then sadly the pattern would repeat itself all over again the following day.
All the sleepless nights and work filled days over the past five years were written in every inch of his body. He was thirty-eight years of age, but he looked ten years older.
His thick black hair was sprinkled with streaks of grey and he no longer strode the corridors like a young, virile man. He was six feet two inches tall, but he appeared to be much shorter.
Meg sighed in despair. She felt so helpless.
The three of them, Dominic, Mike and herself had been friends since their university days and had started out in this business together, but their camaraderie could not help Dominic forget the waif named Rebecca.
The following morning, Mike jumped on the telephone every time it rang but the call from Rebecca never came. He cursed himself, wishing he could rewind the clock back to yesterday again, when he had first received her call. His answer would be very different this time.
At one-thirty he gave up waiting for a call that was obviously never coming and rose to his feet intending to go and break the bad news to Dominic. He would not blame him if he sacked him on the spot for his blunder.
The telephone rang as he was halfway to the door and he glanced back over his shoulder hesitating for a moment before retracing his steps to answer the ringing machine.
He had decided to answer it as it might be important. Mike had no idea just how important that particular telephone call would turn out to be. He was not expecting it to be from Rebecca. He had given up on her calling him again.
“Mike Conway,” he recited automatically.
“Second chance Mike.”
“Rebecca!” he shouted in relief as her voice came clearly down the line. “Please don’t hang up,” he begged desperately. “I’ll agree to anything.”
He was surprised when she laughed.
For a moment Rebecca was tempted to ask him if he would walk along Bondi beach naked. After all, he did say he would agree to anything.
The mental image of old sober-sides Mike walking naked anywhere almost sent her into hysterics. She was not even sure he completely disrobed when he showered.
“Calm down Mike,” she ordered choking back a laugh. “I would have given you one final chance tomorrow.” She paused then demanded with steely determination. “I want your word that you will not tell Dominic that you are coming to meet me.”
Rebecca knew Mike. She knew that once given he would never break his word regardless of his loyalty to Dominic.
But she also knew that he would take other measures to keep track of her whereabouts. However, those steps did not worry her at all. She had taken her own precautions to keep her location secret.
She had returned to Sydney for one purpose only, to arrange two meetings, and those meetings would be conducted on her terms or they would not occur.
This time Mike did not hesitate. “You have my word.”
As soon as he said the words he felt like a traitor, but he had no choice.
If he did not agree to her condition the meeting would not take place, and he had a feeling that somehow this meeting was vital to Dominic’s future well-being. He only prayed he had made the correct decision.
“Solitaire Plaza, room two-one-six,” Rebecca stated abruptly.
The line went dead, and he idly wondered if she would ever end a telephone call in the accepted manner.
Just out of curiosity, he punched in caller ID and was not surprised when it came up as ‘Private’ again.
When he suddenly realized she had told him she was staying at the Solitaire Plaza, he instantly had an insane desire to burst into gales of laughter.
He sure admired her audacity. Actually, he could not decide how he felt about her staying in that particular hotel.
The Solitaire Plaza was the first hotel Dominic had ever owned. He had even named his home Solitaire because of that hotel.
His laughter echoed around the spacious office at the thought of Rebecca staying in their hotel. What irony.
The staff would have a heart attack if they were aware of her true identity. He knew she would not be using her married name. The name Rebecca Farrell would cause too much speculation throughout the hotel and would be too easy for the firm’s investigators to trace.
Mike rose to his feet, straightened his tie and shrugged into his suit coat. He had a very important appointment to keep, but he intended to stop off at the security office on his way out of the building.
Thirty minutes later Rebecca watched as Mike entered the hotel lobby and noticed he had not changed much at all. Maybe he looked a little older but then so did they all.
He was thirty-eight years of age, the same age as Dominic with curly red hair and a sprinkling of freckles across his nose. He hated those freckles, but he had been scandalized when she had suggested he cover them up with makeup.
After checking to make sure he had come alone, she crossed to one of the front windows and was not surprised to see a neatly dressed man in a casual white shirt, a pair of black slacks and a denim jacket standing on the other side of the street. Obviously, he was watching the hotel entrance and she knew with certainty that Mike had placed him there.
Really Mike, she chuckled quietly. He stands out like a gum tree in the middle of the Simpson Desert.
“I’m not that gullible girl you remember Mike,” she muttered to herself as she returned to the room where she had arranged to meet him earlier.
She had booked and paid for that room for one purpose only, this meeting with Mike. Her accommodation and her luggage were situated elsewhere in the city. Had Mike broken his word and brought Dominic with him then she would not have returned to that room.
Instead, she would have walked out of the hotel by the employee’s entrance and returned to Queensland. Then he would have found
