The Other Side of Us (Harlequin Superromance) (18 page)

The voice at the back of his head wanted to pick a fight with
his logic, but he didn’t want to listen. Right now, he was happy, and it felt
good. It seemed to him that only an idiot would question that.

CHAPTER TWELVE

M
ACKENZIE
WOKE
ALL
AT
ONCE
,
aware that something was wrong. It took a moment
to work out that it was because she wasn’t in her own bed. Again.

So much for her “dodging a bullet” game plan.

Tentative, she reached toward the other side of the bed and
found a warm, solid back. Oliver hadn’t retreated to the kitchen this time,
then.

Or, he hadn’t retreated
yet.

The thought made her belly tight. Granted, they’d agreed that
they would accept this for what it was—whatever that may be or may become.
Still, she didn’t want to feel like an unwanted guest twice in as many nights.
If Oliver felt the need to create some space for himself again, it would be
kinder to both of them if she simply offered it to him. She should slip from the
bed and quietly get dressed and leave as though it was her choice.

She didn’t move. She told herself it was because the bed was
warm and the night was cold, but she knew it was a lie.

She didn’t want to leave. Didn’t want to walk away from the way
Oliver made her feel.

Beautiful. Sexy. Wanton.

Not once in any of their encounters had he said or done
anything or indicated in any other way that her scars even registered on his
radar. She knew that couldn’t be true, but she was everlastingly grateful for
his low-key acceptance. Unless he was the best actor she’d ever met, the only
conclusion she could draw was that her scars and the limitations of her body
simply didn’t matter to him. He wanted her, scars, dodgy hip and all. On top of
all his other charms and attractions, it was pretty heady stuff.

She weighed the demands of her still-fragile vanity against her
heartfelt desire to avoid a repetition of last night’s debacle. It was a titanic
struggle, but after a tense few minutes her pride won out.

Moving quietly, she slid to the edge of the bed. She stood,
blinking in the dim light, trying to work out which of the dark shapes on the
floor were her clothes. She bent to pick up the first indeterminate shape and
quickly worked out that it was her yoga pants. She did a slow circuit of the
bed, adding items of clothing to her haul as she identified them. She was on
Oliver’s side, bending to pick up her bra when a large, warm hand wrapped around
the back of her thigh. She gave a small start and nearly dropped her bundle.

“What are you doing?” Oliver asked, his voice a husky murmur in
the dark.

“Getting dressed so I can go home.”

There was a small silence, then he curled his hand more fully
around her thigh and tugged her backward.

“Come back to bed.”

She hesitated, and he tugged on her leg again.

“Come back to bed and I’ll give you a foot rub.”

She smiled, even though she was pretty sure he couldn’t see it
in the dark. “How do you know I like having my feet rubbed?”

“A good guess.”

She let her clothes fall to the floor and allowed him to pull
her onto the mattress, shaping her body to match his as he made room for her on
his side of the bed. She tried not to read too much into his actions beyond the
fact that he wasn’t ready for her to go home yet.

He smoothed a hand down her back, his fingers stopping here and
there to knead the small muscles either side of her spine. “Tell me about Mary
De Garis,” he asked idly.

She was so surprised by his request she sat up to stare at him,
even though she could only see the outline of his head against the pillow.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I went searching for my De Garis project files this morning.
Talking about it with you yesterday gave me an idea for a new take on it. A sort
of modern twist to make it more relevant.”

“Ah. That must be why I’m getting such strong Mary De Garis
vibrations off you.”

She nudged him with her elbow, amused despite herself. “Do not
pretend you’re suddenly psychic.”

“I could be.”

“And I’m Zsa Zsa Gabor.” She settled in again. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want to know about her?”

He turned his head to look at her. “Because you said she was
your passion project.”

He said it as though it should be the most obvious thing in the
world that what interested her naturally interested him. But she’d been married
to a man who put his own needs and wants first, second and third. It took her a
moment to get her head around the idea that Oliver was prepared to invest his
time and energy in something simply because she was fascinated by it.

In that second it hit her that she was navigating very shaky,
dangerous ground with this man. He was so lovely and sexy and sweet, it would be
very, very easy to slip from liking and lusting into some far more life-changing
emotion, despite all the little warnings she kept issuing herself along the
way.

“I’ll get you started. Mary De Garis was a woman, and she
wanted to be a doctor....” he said encouragingly.

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him he didn’t really
want to know, that he wasn’t really interested. That was how well her ex-husband
had trained her. She caught herself, however, and decided to take Oliver at his
word.

“Okay. She was born in 1881 in Charlton, and she was one of the
first thirty-five women to graduate from medicine at Melbourne
University....”

She sketched Mary’s life for him in broad strokes, answering
his questions, filling in details when he wanted more information. When she’d
finished he wanted to hear about her new idea, so she told him about that, too,
this morning’s excitement bubbling up inside her again.

“How long will it take you to make it?” Oliver asked.

“To do it properly, probably two years. Maybe three, so we can
get a true sense of the women’s journeys through med school. These kinds of
documentaries are long-haul, big-commitment projects.”

“Well, have at it. The sooner you get started, the sooner
you’ll be giving your acceptance speech. ‘I’d like to thank the Academy for
recognizing this film....’”

“Can I have a kilo of your faith in me, delivered fresh to my
door every morning, please?”

“What’s wrong? Don’t think you can go the distance?”

She knew he was playing devil’s advocate, deliberately goading
her, so she didn’t bother rising to the bait. “There’s no money in it, for
starters. I’d be living on the smell of an oily rag. And if I ever want to jump
back into drama production I’ll have to start kissing ass at the bottom of the
ladder all over again.”

“How much money do you need?”

She thought about her lifestyle, about her apartment and the
beach house and her European car. She’d been paid well in her career—of course,
she’d earned every penny—and everything she owned was hers free and clear. If
she wanted to, she could live frugally without sacrificing much. After all,
there was only her and Mr. Smith to provide for.

“Correct answer,” Oliver said very softly, and she knew that
he’d guessed what she was doing in the privacy of her own head.

She rolled onto her belly and rested her chin on her folded
hands, contemplating his profile.

“How did you get so wise?” she asked quietly.

“Am I wise? I don’t feel it, I can tell you. I only know that
life is short and time passes anyway, so you might as well do something you
believe in as something you don’t.”

“Does that mean you’re going to do something with that song you
recorded this morning?” she asked.

It took him a moment to answer. “Maybe. I need to see if
there’s more where that came from first.”

“Then?”

“Maybe I’ll record an album. Stick it up on the internet to see
if anyone wants to listen to the midlife-crisis ramblings of a nineties pop
star.”

“Me, me, pick me,” she said, holding her hand in the air like a
child in class. Inside, she was deeply pleased to hear that he’d been doing a
little stargazing of his own. It was good to move forward. Good to dream.

He started to say something, only to be interrupted by the
ferocious growl of her stomach.

“Wow,” he said.

“Lunch was a while ago.”

“It was.”

“And being on top is strenuous work.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Do you have anything to eat?”

“A couple of pieces of slightly stale bread?”

“That’s not going to cut it.”

He slipped an arm beneath her, encouraging her to roll on top
of him. “I had a feeling you were going to say that. We could send the dogs out
for pizza.”

She settled on top of him, loving the feel of his
hair-roughened legs against hers. “There’s a reason why dial-a-dog pizza didn’t
take off, you know. The dogs always eat it before it gets home.”

She kissed him again, then rolled off him and threw back the
covers.

She heard the rustle of sheets as he leaned across and flicked
the bedside light on. “Where are you going?”

“To my place, where there is food in abundance.”

“Huh.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder as she began collecting
her clothes again.

“You’re invited, in case you were wondering.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” he said, rising with flattering
alacrity.

They dressed hurriedly and gathered the dogs, then raced next
door where she turned the heating up high before making them scrambled eggs and
ham on toast. Later, they showered together, then Oliver made good use of the
stash of condoms in her bedside drawer.

Afterward, she kept waiting for him to make noises about
returning to his place, but he seemed content where he was, taking up more than
his fair share of her bed, his big body sprawling across the mattress.

Gradually it sank in that he wasn’t going anywhere. She knew
she should be alarmed by the notion—or at the very least wary—but she wasn’t.
She was, simply, glad.

* * *

“I
T
’
S
THAT
ONE
.
Number
sixty-five,” Mackenzie directed.

Oliver turned into the spacious parking spot, stopping his
wagon in front of a large storage cage that looked as though it was filled to
the brim with boxes.

“Tell me that’s not yours,” he said, even though he already
knew it was. This was the allocated parking spot for her apartment, and it made
sense for the locker to be hers, too.

“Don’t be a chicken. It’s perfectly manageable.”

Her tone was serious, but her eyes were laughing with him. It
had been a week since they’d cleared out his shed, a week full to the brim of
Mackenzie, and he’d had enough of her to know he could never have enough.

She was no walk in the park. She had a temper, and she was
impatient. She loved a good debate, and she was competitive, as he’d discovered
to his detriment when they played chess last night.

She was also incredibly smart and sharp, and she knew how to
laugh at herself and the world, and she was strong, with an inner resilience he
was slightly in awe of. He found her face captivating and her small body more
so, and when they were in bed—or the living room, or the kitchen, or the
shower—he gained enormous pleasure from making her crazy.

In short, he was hooked. And despite his initial misgivings, it
didn’t feel like a bad place to be. It felt
right.
As though it was meant to be.

“It’s probably worth checking the apartment first,” Mackenzie
said as she opened the car door. “There’s another filing cabinet in my home
office.”

“You have a lot of offices,” he said as he exited the car.

“That’s because I used to work a lot. Early starts. Late
finishes. There’s always more to do on a TV production. Auditions to watch,
rushes to assess, story lines and scripts to read over.
Time and Again
is pooh-poohed by some of the more high-brow one-hour
dramas, but we produce the equivalent of a feature film
every week.
Those are no small apples.”

“No, they are not,” he said, nodding, his face serious to let
her know he understood the import of what she was saying.

She laughed. “Did I just have a too-many-coffees moment?”

“Not at all. Please, tell me about your plans for world
domination.”

She rounded the car and grabbed a fistful of his sweater,
pulling him close and kissing him.

“The only thing I plan to dominate around here is you. If
you’ll let me.”

“Consider this my white flag,” he said, pulling her into his
arms.

He kissed her more thoroughly, his hands slipping beneath her
coat. He loved her breasts and he palmed them, teasing her nipples through the
thin wool of her top. She gave a small moan, her hips pressing forward.

The sound of a car starting had her stepping back. She gazed up
at him, her eyes cloudy with need.

“How do you keep doing that to me?” she asked.

“You started it.”

He was only half-joking. She had only to look at him in a
certain speculative way and he could feel himself growing hard.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she said, throwing him just such a
look.

He smiled to himself and beeped the car locked, following her
to the elevator. She swiped her security pass through the card reader to the
right of the control panel, then punched the button for her floor.

The lift transported them smoothly, the doors opening seconds
later to reveal plush charcoal carpet and a discreetly lit corridor. He knew
enough about Melbourne to understand that South Yarra was a very desirable
suburb, situated as it was a stone’s throw from the city center, and he’d
already guessed from the exterior of Mackenzie’s building that this was a
classy, glossy, expensive place.

A funny little tickle of something he couldn’t quite name
itched behind his breastbone as she led him to a shiny black door. She unlocked
it, and he followed her into a small foyer that led into a huge, open-plan
living and dining area. He took in the sculptural modern furniture, the pieces
of art, the bold colors and, most importantly, the view—a no-holds-barred,
untrammeled panorama of the Royal Botanic Gardens, lush and green and
beautiful—and admitted to himself that he was more than a little intimidated.
He’d never doubted for a second that Mackenzie was good at what she did, but
this apartment was something else.