Legally Addicted - By Lena Dowling Page 0,53

centre proposal…’

‘Oh yes.’

Brad began to rifle through his briefcase.

For some reason she couldn’t breathe, as if her lungs had suddenly lost three quarters of their capacity. Her heart was still beating double time. This was it. She was about to get confirmation that her dream would be a reality.

Better than that, she wasn’t going to have to break up with Brad once she got it. She was starting to think that she could do this ‘seeing someone seriously’ thing.

She was doing it.

‘Sure. I’ve already read part of it. I’m about halfway through. Why don’t you have a swim while I finish it?’

‘I don’t have a costume.’

Georgia looked around. Spencer Towers wasn’t the only tall building on the quay. A number of other buildings were lit up around them, and she preferred not to risk a charge of indecent exposure by taking a skinny-dip.

‘Don’t worry. Jeffrey’s thought of everything.’

Brad reached down beside his lounger and handed up a bag. Inside she could see a towel, swimming costume and a swimming cap.

She put down her glass in order to fish out a pink latex cap adorned with flowers.

‘I didn’t know they still made these things!’

Brad laughed.

‘Just don’t say anything to him about it. He would be deeply offended. He prides himself on anticipating my every requirement. For Jeffrey, being a butler isn’t just a job; it’s a calling. Think of him as one of the family, he’s…’

Brad didn’t finish the sentence, taking a swig of beer instead.

‘Like a father to you?’ she guessed.

‘Yeah. Something like that,’ Brad said, turning away, but not fast enough to prevent her seeing something in his eyes she recognised.

Sadness.

Why hadn’t she seen it before? Perhaps, in some ways, she and Brad weren’t really so different. Maybe it wasn’t only children at the lower socio-economic end of the spectrum who suffered the scarring effects of parental inadequacy. Until now she wouldn’t have believed she could have anything in common with a billionaire, but maybe at the heart of their respective childhoods there was a kernel of experience that wasn’t so very different. They had both been abandoned. Money, and the material things it bought, was just window dressing. Wealth couldn’t soothe pain.

When he turned back towards her, the look was gone. He opened the document she guessed was her proposal and leafed through the pages. While he was reading, Georgia took the bag into a small screened off changing area at the side of the pool. Once she had changed into the cossie she slipped into the heated water, keeping one eye on Brad, trying to judge his reaction as he read.

She swam a few lengths, keeping her head out of the water, and then paddled back to the edge of the pool, just below the lounger where Brad was stretched out. He sipped from a stubbie of beer, the proposal document now back on the table beside him.

‘So what do you think?’ she called up to him.

‘I think it’s got real potential, and what you’re proposing is certainly backed up by the evidence. The funding will be your biggest stumbling block. The state government might stump up with the funding for some of it, and possibly the local council as well, but the majority will probably have to come from the Federal Department of Health and Ageing and that will be a long slow process.’

‘I thought, perhaps, you might like to help out.’

Georgia held her breath.

‘Possibly, the Spencer Trust might well contribute. I’ll have the trust secretary send you an application form, if you like.’

Georgia let the air out of her lungs in a rush and gripped at the handrail, edging towards the short ladder out of the pool.

Brad’s response had been indifferent, as if he had missed what she was actually asking.

‘Thanks, I appreciate it, but that would just be a formality, wouldn’t it? I mean, with your influence?’

Brad, who had raised the stubbie of beer to his mouth ready to take a drink, stopped, and pulled the bottle away again, placing it on the side table beside her proposal.

‘No, it wouldn’t be a formality, your application would go through the same process as any other.’

‘But you would still use your influence to help, though.’

Brad frowned.

‘No, I wouldn’t. The trust operates to strict criteria on which all requests for funding are ranked. The addiction centre would be assessed on its merits alongside the others. It would be inappropriate of me to interfere with the process, and to be honest I’m shocked that you would ask me