made of her time, and her loyalty to the company, and most importantly the reward at the end, would make taking the biggest chance of her life worth it.
‘Max, I have an offer to make you I think you can’t refuse.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘I thought my remuneration package for the Rome gig was fairly unbeatable.’
‘And it was. But it’s not the package that concerns me. I want … I need to be here. Not Rome. I need to stay in Cairns.’
Max watched her over the rim of his glass before he sighed and ran a ringed hand across his temple. ‘Oh, Lord, if you tell me you’ve met a boy I’ll drown myself in my Martini right now.’
‘I wouldn’t want you to do that, Max. But I’m afraid I have met a boy.’
Max rolled his eyes. ‘If only one could hire eunuchs with the talent you girls have. But alas. It seems that, having a mostly female workforce, I will continue to lose my favourite girls to family.’
‘But that’s just my point. You don’t have to lose me, Max. I just think you could use me in a way that suits both of us.’ She pulled a piece of paper out of her handbag with a shaking hand. ‘May I?’
He waved a flamboyant hand her way, allowing her to continue.
It would mean less pay, it would mean more hours, and it would mean that never again would she have to push a ridiculously heavy drinks trolley down an aeroplane aisle while wearing heels at thirty thousand feet.
It meant that she would have to find herself a permanent base in Cairns instead of a tiny serviced apartment in Melbourne that merely served as somewhere to store the hoards of clothes she was partial to collecting on her European stopovers.
But that was fine with her. Because it meant that she could also make James a counter offer to the one he had made the night before, which she hoped would be too good for him to refuse as well.
It was time to stop running. And, as she had sat watching the sun rise from Rick’s back porch that morning, she realised that she already had.
She set out to tell Max what her new job would entail, with all the confidence in the world that he would then blithely fire her on the spot for daring to presume that she knew more about his business than he did.
James sat in his studio, looking out over the large square garden of his suburban home.
It felt too quiet. It was Saturday yet Kane wasn’t home to help him out in his workshop as he usually did. Cate and Dave had called that morning to ask if Kane wanted to come with them and their kids to the Cairns lagoon for the day. And without hesitation his shy, quiet son had actually smiled and said, ‘Can I?’
He stared at his mobile phone, which sat silent and still on his workbench.
Dust fluttered slowly through a ray of sunlight.
Siena ought to have finished with Max ages ago. In the last hour he had see-sawed through moments in which, despite her insistence that she didn’t want to stay for him, he was hopeful she had told her boss to shove the Rome job, and others where he was just as sure she had done as she had always intended and taken the job and run.
Either way, after she had let him leave without saying a word the night before, he was all but certain he was not on the list of those she would be calling with the news.
But, even after the way they had left things, he needed to know.
He loved her. Having lived a night with the thought that he might never see her again, he knew that he loved her more now than ever. His love for her filled him up, brought him pleasure and pain, and he wouldn’t have traded either for the world. And because he loved her he wanted her to be happy. Sure, he would prefer her to be happy with him, but if she had to leave.
He slammed a fist against his workbench. Damn it! If only he’d said things differently the night before. Told her more of his feelings. Kissed her longer. Refused to let her go.
Never before had he felt that something so important was so far out of his control. His whole life had been about control—controlling his feelings, his actions, his wife, his son’s temperament. But this,