Tessa shrugged and sat down at the kitchen table, opposite her father. “It might not come to anything, Mum. But I’m going out with him today. In fact, he’s sending a car for me at eight o’clock so I’ll have to hurry with breakfast.”
She quickly scooped up a spoonful and started eating.
“Sending a car? What do you mean, sending a car?” her mother demanded.
“That’s what he said. So I expect a car will turn up for me at eight o’clock,” Tessa said offhandedly.
“Who is he?” her father asked.
“The boss of CMA, Dad. Blaize Callagan. I filled in as his secretary at the conference,” she explained.
“Ah!” he said. “Taken a shine to you, has he?”
“It seems that way, Dad.”
“How could you fall in love with him?” her mother accused more than asked.
Love? Tessa paused for a moment to consider that question. Was she in love with Blaize Callagan? The thought hadn’t occurred to her before. Perhaps she was. And that was why her body reacted to him...and her mind. Certainly she was very strongly attracted to him in every sense there was. But her mother would never understand that. Better to say something that she could relate to.
“Well...he’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. And the smartest.” Tessa refrained from saying the sexiest. And that in some ways he appeared to be caring and nice. Apart from being a challenge and...
“How old is he?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Is he married?” Suspicious. Expecting the worst.
“Widowed.”
Visible relaxation. “How serious is he about you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“He’s never told me.”
“Tessa, you can’t play fast and loose forever.”
“No, Mum. I’m not going to. Cross my heart.”
Her mother relaxed a little bit more. “Where are you going?”
“He’s taking me out on his boat.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, Mum. Alone. He wants to get to know my mind. We’re going to explore it together.”
“Well, you make sure he doesn’t get to know anything else, Tessa,” her mother said with a hard look.
“Yes, Mum.” After all, he could hardly get to know what he already knew.
Tessa absorbed a barrage of advice. It was better than a barrage of abuse. Her father just smiled. Tessa ate her cereal. At five minutes to eight, her mother took up a vigil at the front door to see what kind of car would arrive for her hopelessly wayward daughter. At precisely eight o’clock, she almost had an apoplectic fit.
“Good heavens!” she choked. “It’s a limousine. A white stretch limousine.” She recovered fast. “Tessa, are you sure you can trust this man?”
“I hope so, Mum,” Tessa said, grabbing her bag for a quick exit. She had to say one thing for Blaize Callagan. He had a lot of style. Almost enough to silence her mother. Except it probably wouldn’t last.
Her father came to have a look at the car, as well. Not many white stretch limousines were seen at Green Point. A chauffeur alighted from the driver’s side and headed down the driveway.
“Well, ‘bye, Dad,” Tessa said, giving him a quick hug. “Thanks for everything. Thanks for listening.”
“Take care of yourself, Tessa,” he said, his forehead creased with concern.
“Not to worry. Everything will work out okay,” Tessa assured him.
She gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek. “Sorry about everything, Mum.”
“Be a good girl,” her mother called after her, more in hope than belief.
The chauffeur took her bag and saw her into the limousine with deferential courtesy. Tessa sat back in the plush leather seat and wondered about the wages of sin. Nevertheless, if Blaize Callagan thought he could seduce her with his wealth, he had another think coming!
All or nothing, she decided.
No compromises.
No half measures.
The weekend would settle what they wanted from each other, and how much they wanted it. If it wasn’t enough to get serious, then there’d be no more. If it was enough to get serious, Blaize Callagan would have to rethink his future, because Tessa was finished with grey areas.
White or black.
White, in Tessa’s opinion, was for brides.
Black was for emptiness.
And she wouldn’t be filling Blaize Callagan’s emptiness for long if he didn’t want white. The issue was cut and dried in Tessa’s mind. Her mother wasn’t wrong about everything. It was just that Tessa had to take a slightly crooked path to get to the straight and narrow with Blaize Callagan.
CHAPTER NINE
Tessa had never cruised the Hawkesbury River. She had passed over it thousands of times in the train, or on the expressway, travelling between Gosford and Sydney. She had always thought it awesome. Wooded hills and stone cliffs rose almost perpendicularly out of the water, the remnants of a river valley that had been submerged by the sea aeons ago.
It had a primeval feel to it, a timelessness that man could never make any real impression on. In some places houses clung precariously at water’s edge, but no one could ever tame this wilderness. Boats scythed through the waterways. But the majesty of the fiords made everything else seem unchanging, puny and irrelevant. Even Blaize Callagan’s magnificent motor cruiser.
The white stretch limousine had prepared Tessa to expect luxury on the water, and that was a fair description of Blaize’s boat. Sheer extravagance from stem to stern. All the latest technology combined with streamlined comfort. Blaize hadn’t yet shown her the stateroom, but Tessa knew that was only a matter of time. She had no doubt it accommodated his every material need, as did the galley and the saloon.
He was able to drive the boat from the sun deck on top, and that’s where they were, the wind blowing on their faces, sun shining its summer warmth on them, the light glittering off the small waves coming in from the sea. Tessa had a delightful sense of freedom from all care.
“It seems as though you could lose yourself here forever,” she remarked musingly.
Blaize smiled at her. “Great idea! They could make a movie about us. The Man Who Never Came Back.”
Their eyes clung for a few moments—wary, searching, wanting—then looked away. Tessa wondered what kind of game Blaize was playing with her. He seemed subdued, but Tessa wasn’t sure if he was being artful or genuine.
He hadn’t placed any pressure on her at all. When he touched her it was only for fleeting moments, nothing she could object to. A touch on her shoulder, her waist, her arm—innocuous really, but it made her shiver.