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  With his large hand on the center of her spine, he escorted her inside, across a dreadful patterned red carpet, probably chosen to hide stains. As well as failing this brief, the velvet pile had disappeared in a well-worn track to the bar in the first room off the dark main hall. The area smelled of hot chips and beer.

  A pretty, twenty-something barmaid looked up and smiled. “Hi, JD,” she said in an animated voice, pretending to wipe a glass while assessing the fit of his jeans. “What’ll it be?”

  “Two beers,” he said without asking Vix. Then he turned to her. “Do you want the roast of the day or a mixed grill?”

  “May I look at the menu?”

  “That is the menu.”

  “Oh. A roast then, please.”

  “And two roasts.” He handed over a fifty-dollar note to the barmaid.

  “Take a table, and I’ll bring everything over.” The barmaid gave Jay two napkin-wrapped sets of knives and forks, and twenty dollars change.

  As Vix eased herself into a vinyl-padded chair, she glanced at the billiard table in the corner and the towel along the bar. Except for the arguing drunken couple in the corner, most of the customers looked as if they’d stopped off for a drink after work, the men in tired suits, and the women in dresses or shirts and skirts. Although the pub looked as down-market as one could get, the atmosphere seemed upbeat. “Do you eat here often?” She dropped her bag to her feet.

  “About once a week.” He smiled at the barmaid, who placed two glasses of beer on the table.

  Vix glanced at the froth on the beer and took her first sip, probably adding a white moustache to her helmet-hair. She swiped her tongue over her lip. “No doubt you get sick of cooking like the rest of us. I’m just discovering how tiring a working week can be, having now worked for two of them. How long have you been working?”

  “I started at seventeen in the building trade. I’ve been doing set construction for three years. I wanted something I could do on weekends or nights, if need be. Set-building fit my brief. I can choose my hours.”

  “What do you have against regular hours?”

  “Regular hours? That’s what I do now and in another week or two, that’s what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life. Tomorrow is the last time I’ll need a Thursday off.”

  She moistened her lips. Since he hadn’t said why he needed a day off in the middle of the week, she didn’t know if she should ask or wait to be told. “What do you do on Thursdays?” she asked tentatively.

  His gaze dropped. “I’m learning all those tricks I need, like using a slide rule.” He picked up his beer and downed half, and two very presentable roasts arrived. “The service is speedy when you arrive before the rush. Most people drink now and eat later.”

  “This looks delicious.” She eyed roast pork with blistered crackling, accompanied by piled vegetables and apple. “You know the right places to eat, clearly.”

  Sipping at her beer, she began to eat, amazingly conscious of him. She noticed when his arm moved, when his head lifted, and when he smiled at her, the warm fuzzies took over. The meal finished quickly while he discussed the politics of the area and the beauty of the old Georgian buildings. She mentioned the irresponsibility of the local property owners who let their buildings collapse instead of renovating, a subject her father had touched on from time to time. Being a landowner himself, he couldn’t understand the neglect. The conversation continued in a lovely getting-to-know you way until JD ordered coffee. After that, she could only think about racing him home and into bed, despite the early hour.

  This time, prepared, she had brought fresh underwear and working clothes for tomorrow. The trip home on his roaring bike took minutes, and she wanted to rush him inside. She jittered from foot to foot while he settled his bike and locked the garage door. Her blood pounded loud enough to hear. She latched onto his arm, almost pulling him to the front door, where he stopped. Dead. Fumbled around for the key in his pocket and turned.

  “I enjoyed our conversation tonight very much,” he said in a formal voice. “I hope I see you again.”

  For a moment, she was taken aback…until she realized he was playing with the first date scenario. She smiled. “So, how about a kiss?”

  He lowered his gaze demurely and shuffled his feet. “I don’t usually kiss on the first date.”

  She slid her hand up his chest to the back of his neck, her thumb catching on his bristled jaw. He glanced at her with his tiger-eyes and she somehow wedged herself right up against his hard body. “You won’t get a second date if you don’t,” she said, her voice husky. She lifted to her toes to have as much of him against her as possible.

  His hands slid to her waist. “Okay, just one.” He lowered his mouth to hers, his lips tickling across, again and again. His breath shortened, or hers did. His erection pressed into her belly.

  Her flesh heated and her hand tightened around his neck. She dropped her handbag and lifted her other hand to join the first around his neck, lifting higher on her toes to rub herself against him. She wanted him so much that she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

  Without shifting his lips, he spun her around until she stood backed against his door. His hands grabbed her buttocks, lifting her off her feet, and he propped her upper body against the flaky wood. The door pressed into her shoulders. He nuzzled into her neck, ran his mouth to her jaw, and slowly teased his way back to her lips.

  She tightened her ankles around his waist and she knew the expression on her face had gone soggy and stupid. She didn’t want this, not to be emotionally involved. Day by day she not only wanted him more, but she liked him more. She knew then that he had planned this, every bit of it. He wanted her to like him more or he would just have taken what she offered: sex and only sex.

  If he could tease her into doing what he wanted, he would be another Tim, though Tim hadn’t teased. He’d simply given his orders. She couldn’t let a man control her by foul means or fair, and so she took Jay’s long slow kiss with desperation, knowing she had to finish him where she wanted to begin.

  When his arm scooped under her bottom so that he could open the door, she ended the kiss. Steeling herself, she let her legs slide off his hips to the ground. He glanced at her.

  “Wow,” she said, her voice not quite as steady as she would have liked. “If that’s your first date kiss, I can’t wait for the second.” She wriggled the hem of her skirt down, again, trying a limpid smile. “Sleep well.”

  Before she could let her second thoughts take hold, she backed and turned.

  “Wouldn’t you like a glass of milk?” He stood in the hallway, shoulders hunched, his hands plunged deep into his front pockets.

  “Maybe after the second date.” Drawing a deep breath and evading his stare, she fumbled in her bag for her car keys. “I’ll see you on Friday at the shed.”

  He waited at the door until she backed her car out of his driveway.

  * * * *

  Jay stood among the final year students in his project group, dressed like the other guys in cotton slacks, a casual shirt, and a jacket. Unlike most, his jacket was his own, not borrowed. Unlike the other students, he worked for a living already.

  He had given his talk for the group presentation, his final project before being awarded his Master of Architecture, which comprised his last two years of the five-year degree. This last part had taken him three years, one off while working in a full-time job to earn the money to qualify for a mortgage, and the other two working nights and weekends.

  In the last two years, he had refined his technical ability, solved design problems, and developed various skills in sustainability and urban design, and more. During the next two years, he needed to gain work experience and to pass a final written exam before the Australian Institute of Architects recognized him as an accredited architect. His work experience, however, would come with a wage.

  Three years ago, he would have done his work experience with Tremain’s. Now, he had to
find somewhere else. As long as his name hadn’t been bandied about as a thug, he shouldn’t have too much trouble in finding another architect willing to take him on. After the last speaker finished, he managed a wide grin and a fair bit of high-fiving before leaving the university grounds somewhat relieved. His job on the project had been the poster and, as the oldest, he had taken the role as the first speaker. He didn’t want to let the others down, and he hadn’t. Nor had they let him down. As a group, they were solid. He crossed North Terrace with the midday sun beating on his head and aimed for the side street, which housed Ilona’s business.

  He opened the glass door and walked through. The reception area had been painted a dark gray, matching the industrial carpet. A white couch and white table holding an arrangement of white flowers faced a doe-eyed receptionist, the front of whose desk displayed a laminated graphic of a sweaty rock band. He was waved through, past the closed white doors of a line of cubicles filled with low murmuring voices. Lonny sat in her dark gray office at the back.

  She swiveled to face him, her shapely legs bare. “Pretty well on time,” she said with her usual sultry smile. She stood, moved over to him, latched her long blue talons onto his arm, and kissed him on the cheek.

  “This place is so impersonal. It’s like a big classy factory.”

  “Everyone wants to look famous,” Lonny said, her voice defensive. She scooped up her handbag.

  “I won’t knock success.”

  She frowned at him. “You shouldn’t. I give you great haircuts. You look like a rock-star and that’s why people stare at you.”

  “Is that so? Could you make me look like an architect? That’s what I am as of today. Well, I will be when I get a job, and we both know that Tremain’s is out.”

  “Not necessarily. Tim’s been discredited by the divorce. He should have been discredited by having me on the side, but no one cared. I wasn’t the first, and since his wife was so plain and ordinary, the common opinion was that he ought to have been allowed to have a bit of fun.”

  He ushered her out into the sunlight. “C’mon. She was used.”

  “She could have bought anyone she wanted.” She tightened her lips.

  “Presumably she had.”

  “Well, I don’t have enough money to buy what I want,” Lonny said, tossing her gleaming hair back over her shoulder.

  “What do you want that you can’t buy?”

  “You,” she said in a low voice. “It’s always been you. I want you so much that I would take you on any terms.”

  He looked at her through narrowed eyes, still smarting about hearing lovely, funny Vix called plain and ordinary. “You don’t want me. You only want to prove you can have anyone.”

  She stood frozen, staring at him, her face stark. Tears filled her eyes and her bottom lip trembled. “You should give us a chance. I’m your kind. She isn’t. She’d be saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and be putting flowers in vases all over the house. She would want to be seen in the most expensive restaurants and she would spend all your hard-earned money on designer clothes.”

  “Who?” he said roughly, though he had a good idea.

  “Vix. What’s that short for? Vixen? How private-school is that! Give me a break. In bed, she’d be anything but a vixen. I’m right, aren’t I? Eight o’clock on a Sunday morning, and there she is, fresh and clean and cooking breakfast. Oh, so domestic!”

  “You dropped by, did you?” he said grimly. “She didn’t say a word.”

  “She wouldn’t. She doesn’t want you. All she wants is to walk on the wild side for a time. I bet you wouldn’t take her home to meet your father.” She flounced down the street, chin high.

  He followed, with little to say. Even if his father were alive, he wouldn’t introduce him to Vix and not out of shame, but rage. He caught up to Lonny. “I know she wants a walk on the wild side,” he said, keeping his tone mild. He had seen her in this sort of mood before. Every now and again, she wanted to lash out, testing to see if he would forgive her. Since this was so routine, he no longer let her moods control him. “But for just a while I want flowers in vases all over my house. Why not?”

  “God, Jay.” She stopped, turning to him, tears spurting out of her eyes. “I would give you bloody flowers in vases. I would cook your bloody breakfast. I would have your babies.”

  He laughed. “Babies, even? And what would you name our second-born?”

  “Something classy.” She frowned. “Why the second born?”

  He shrugged. Unlike Vix, she wouldn’t have assumed he might want to abide by the new family tradition of using up the alphabet. Quockadile. Quockadile Dun Dee.

  With a silly smile on his face, he escorted Ilona to the expensive restaurant she insisted on being seen in wearing her designer clothes. Not once in all the time he had known her had she gotten her clothes smeared with paint and not once had she helped him move furniture. If she knew how to upholster, she wouldn’t offer to do that for him either. She had the princess-complex she thought Vix had.

  Fortunately, though, she didn’t realize Vix was short for Victoria and she didn’t recognize Tim’s ex-wife. He wouldn’t have liked that because he didn’t want Vix to know that he had. Or she might suspect his motive for wanting to be her man for a while.

  * * * *

  Vix hoped Jay didn’t think she walked out on him the night before. Asking for a kiss would have shown she didn’t, but she still worried that she might have acted a little too much out of character.

  With him away and Steve in charge, her working day was as usual but without the added sexual tug of Jay’s presence. She painted the changing-huts with alternate aqua and yellow doors as in the Melbourne production while she plotted the family portraits she needed to begin for the Who Wants to be a Millionaire scene. The designer had told her he wanted portraits of the heroine’s parents and a few assorted ancestors. She had photos of the actors who played the parents, but she could use her imagination for the other relatives. A few regional-prominent identities should be subtly aged, she decided. Meanwhile, Trent searched out suitable frames.

  In the afternoon, she stiffened more fabric for the leaves in the outdoor scenes. Because making the leaves was so labor intensive, she did parts of the job whenever she needed a break from painting, or from thinking. The greenery would be glued onto sheer fabric in strips, so that the leaves would move when the actors brushed past. The warehouse wallowed in a momentary silence broken only by the buzz of a mobile phone and a low voiced conversation. Finally, she heard a loud shout of, “Whoopee!”

  “What happened?” she heard Trent call.

  “I’ve got another date,” Steve yelled. Then he did a slow, shoulder-swinging walk to Jay’s makeshift desk where Vix sat. “Did you hear that?” he asked looking down at her with a blue-steel expression, a casual hand resting on his hip.

  “They heard you in the outer suburbs. I gather getting another date is something unusual for you.” She gave him a wide grin.

  “Nah. But getting another date with Lonny is. I had a couple more than a month ago, and I thought I was in with a chance but…you know.” He lifted his shoulders helplessly. “She kinda brushed me off. Then we met up again last week and now today she’s called me. I can take her out again if I wear a long-sleeved shirt. She doesn’t like the tats. This one”—he pointed to the face on his bare upper arm—“is her.”

  “Is it a good likeness?” Vix peered closely at dark blue face that could have been anyone at all. “Well, sort of.”

  “The tattooist copied her photo,” Steve said, craning to look at his upper arm. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “I suspect most tattoos do. He’s got the shape of her face right.”

  His thick black eyebrows drew together. “Do you know Lonny?”

  And suddenly, Vix realized she’d been indiscreet. She’d promised not to let Jay know she’d met Lonny and now she’d blurted the news to Steve. “Not really. I only s
aw her once.”

  “Where? How did you know it was her?”

  “She introduced herself last Sunday morning at Jay’s house. I was, um, helping him paint his main room.”

  “Sunday morning.” Steve breathed out, his satisfied expression dying a slow death. His eyes clouded over. “I guess she slept over, hey?” he said, rearranging the pencil on the desk.

  “No.” Hot with embarrassment, Vix cooled her face with her arm. “I got there first. She dropped in.”

  “Oh.” Steve kept staring at her until she thought he suspected she had spent the night. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure. They’re only friends.”

  “That’s what they say.” He sighed. “No reason to lie, is there?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought he was a lying sort of man.”

  “He’s not.” He trailed away, his beefy shoulders drooping.

  She could have kicked herself, but she understood. He and she were of a kind. Neither wanted to see Jay and Lonny together and probably each for the same reason.

  * * * *

  On Friday, Vix tried to treat Jay casually, but the truth was that she couldn’t have been more conscious of anyone. The mere glimpse of him thrilled her, sent her heart vibrating like a wrongly positioned screwdriver bit. When he came near, her blood raced and her breathing ached through her chest.

  “Do I have to make dates with you or can I assume I’m the only man in your life right now?” he asked into the back of her neck as she leaned over her first sketch of the heroine’s grandmother. His breath tickled. “That looks like an elderly Nichole Kidman.”

  “Good. I wanted someone elegant. Do you think it would be too much to use Keith Urban as the grandfather?” She shivered a smile as his lips explored just under her ear.

  “Answer my question first.”

  “It’s insulting. I’m sleeping with you, sort of. I’d hardly be dating someone else.”

  “It’s the sort of that’s confusing me. You’re sort of not sleeping with me. How about tonight?”