Detained (7 page)

She was unsurprised to find herself ambivalent about both those ideas.

Out on the street, Darcy forgot about Tara. She scoped out the old world European style buildings lining the Bund. Twenty-six in all, built from 1897–1948 with Parker Corporation headquarters in the 1920s-built Jardine Matheson building on the corner of Beijing Road.

From there she checked out the famous Peace Hotel. Brian had been here in the late nineties with Prime Minister Paul Keating on some Asia Co-operation junket. The twelve storey building with its copper roof was constructed in 1929 from the proceeds of opium and guns, according to the map she’d picked up at the Peninsula. The hotel had a famous six piece jazz band, all old guys. But there was no jazz being played in the white marble foyer that morning.

She quit the cool interior and headed down the Nanjing Road pedestrian mall, which according to the pamphlet was one of the world’s busiest shopping streets. From the number of big brand hotels and fast food outlets: McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King, Subway, and the number of times she was hit on by touts to buy a fake Versace handbag alone, that stat must have been correct. She passed Zara, Chloe, Dior, Tods, Louis Vuitton, Prada and Armani. Shops she’d never think to enter at home and didn’t appear any more affordable here, even with the favourable exchange rate. One part of being a print journalist that sucked; the very ordinary pay packet. It made retreating to Starbucks for a coffee feel sensible, if just to escape the colour and clang of the street.

Watching from her outdoor table was a better option than being in the mix. Darcy sipped her Frappuccino while the free tourist-trolley car traversed the street and shoppers of all ages and nationalities, arms laden with store bags and wallets lighter, looked about for their next retail fix.

Her post-pause itinerary included a stroll through Fuxing Park, a peek at Shanghai Museum, checking out the curios on Dontai Road and a stroll through the back streets of the old French Concession. Then back at the hotel, she’d organise a room switch and Tara would find she could be just as mysterious as he’d been.

Of course that meant she’d never know who he was, never see him again. That should’ve been a comforting thought. No, more than a comforting thought. It was a smart move. Thinking about what he’d done to her was enough to make the milk in her drink curdle. And the whole hotel suite thing was beyond even the worst
Pretty Woman
fantasy.

Darcy didn’t do pretty. Pretty took time and consideration and while she was no bush pig, Andy’s favourite description of an unattractive woman, she’d rather be acknowledged for her thought patterns than her eye makeup. More to the point, she didn’t do kept, so the only reason she was even trying on silk dresses and considering a pair of frivolous emerald green ballet flats was because she could.

Later that afternoon, exhausted from the heat and the amount of walking she’d done and back in the cool comfort of the suite, the first thing Darcy noticed was the music. The display on the stereo told her it was Birdy. And then there was champagne on ice and the roses. Had to be three dozen. Long stem, black-red, in full bloom and fragrant. There’d been flowers when she’d arrived as well, but nothing like this extravagance. No card, but no guesses needed.

She should pack, but a rainwater shower or another soak in the bath would be fantastic. She could ring for her butler, and he’d have to take a direct instruction to get her a new room. She should go, because the suite was so deeply seductive it did something to her sense of propriety. She should run screaming, because the idea of dressing up for Tara and then letting him strip her was so far beyond seductive as to be insanity.

She stood over the bath. It was the size of her eleven year old Honda Civic hatch, but her ordinary room would no doubt have running water. In the dressing room she searched for her wheelie bag. Packing would take five minutes, clearing the room another two. Check-out time on the suite was now. She could be safely back in her comfort zone and unpacked again before Tara arrived.

In the other room Birdy had given way to Missy Higgins. The songstress sang about unashamed desire and having nothing to hide. Darcy went back to the bathroom and ran the bath. Even with the taps running full bore, that bath would take a while to fill up, but suddenly there was no hurry.

The dress was one of those you could wear to a casual lunch, or dress up with hair, heels and jewellery for evening. With her hair out, with the flat heels and no bling she’d look cool and collected, but not like she’d tried too hard.

Not that she need to try for this man. He’d probably be happy if she wore the hotel robe. He’d wanted her rumpled, and needing a shower and a toothbrush after a ten hour flight in her comfy jeans, a t-shirt from Target, and his three sizes too big jacket.

But he made her nervous. That blend of nervous carved out of excitement, anticipation and anxiety. And fear.

He’d want to take her to bed tonight. She’d let him, but what did that make her, lucky or the dictionary definition of a slut?

This time would be different. Apart from the setting being the polar opposite. This time she’d have questions and expect answers. Starting with his name and finishing with how in hell she could get to see him again.

“See a person's means. Observe his motives. Examine that in which he rests.” — Confucius

Outside the Palace Suite, he paused. He half expected her to let him stand at the door all night. He had his own swipe key. But despite how keen he was to see her again, letting himself in would be just wrong. Not that caring about rights and wrongs was high on his agenda. He’d left the agenda well and truly behind.

He pressed the bell and waited. Rested against the doorjamb and closed his eyes, remembering what she felt like in his arms. How her mouth tasted, how she made a criminally hot little gasp when he’d played his fingers inside her that had him straining to keep things from going too far. He’d had enough of that though. If she let him in there’d be no holding back.

He planned a quick seduction, and a long night of making her breathless, of forgetting the world and all the elements of it he needed to control.

If she opened the door.

He heard the slide and click of the lock and straightened up. She was standing in doorway in a simple green dress, her golden hair all tangling down round her shoulders and over her back. A lick of lipstick that wouldn’t last the greeting he wanted to give her.

“God, you’re gorgeous.”

She laughed and waved a hand to usher him in. “You’re not terribly discerning. You’d like me in a towel.”

That made him cough. He’d made it into the lounge room. He turned back to her. “I’d fucking love you in a towel. Is that your opening offer?”

She stopped in the entrance hall. “No!” Hands up, eyes wide. “No. My opening offer is an exchange of pleasantries.”

“Sure. Nice weather. Hot and steamy. It’ll be hot and steamy tomorrow too. Your turn.”

She laughed again. She came into the room and sat on the white sofa, pointed to the single chair next to it. “No. I want us to talk.”

He sat on the sofa beside her. “I don’t have a problem with that. There are things I want to say to you and I want the lights on.”

She stood, stepped up to the big glass coffee table and poured two flutes of champagne. “You’re deliberately trying to provoke me.”

“That’s a distinct possibility.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Lois, you can call me anything you want, but for God’s sake do it over here.” He stroked his hand over the soft white suede. He knew he was acting predatory. Not to would be a lie.

She regarded him over the rim of the flute. “I want to know your name.”

“Do you?”

She took a step further away. She wasn’t going to hand him a glass. “You say that as though it’s a strange request.”

“Not strange. Just unnecessary.”

“You don’t think it’s necessary for me to know your name?”

“My name is irrelevant.”

“You’re not serious?”

He stood, claimed his glass but let her keep her distance. “Look I understand what you’re saying.” He took a sip. Champagne wasn’t his thing, but it was a better fit with his ambitions tonight. More urbane than the sixteen year old single malt Scotch he preferred. “You want to know who I am before you let me inside your body again.”

He saw the shock of his words in the way her shoulders shifted, the flare of her eyes and the parting of her lips. She was taken aback, but she wasn’t shut down. She took a sip. He wanted his tongue to follow where the bubbles led.

“I, ah. Yes, that’s not unreasonable.”

“Just redundant. You already know who I am.”

She shook her head. “Don’t you want to know who I am?”

“Gorgeous, I know who you are.”

“Oh boy.” Said dramatically with an eye-roll that made him laugh. She refilled her glass. Ignored him. “You don’t know anything about me. How old I was when I lost my virginity is, to use your word, irrelevant, to who I am today.”

“You think? I think it’s very relevant. I think you still feel bad about it. About how unfair it was; the double standard. I think you still blame yourself and you’re worried even now about what I think of you because of what you let me do to you last night and what you’re going to let me do to you for the next twenty-four hours.”

She breathed out hard. Put the empty flute down on the table with a sharp crack of glass on glass. She’d guzzled it. This whole deal was out of character for her. “You don’t know me.”

“I know you. You’re the woman whose mother was missing in action. Whose father had no idea what to do with a girl child. Who let her grow up thinking she wasn’t good enough, smart enough, tough enough to make it in the only profession that counted as important to him. Who made sure she did it the hard way so she’d fail quick and it wouldn’t reflect badly on him.”

She glared at him. A thousand pinprick stings in that look. “That’s not true.”

“It’s not?”

“You’re speculating.”

“Maybe,” he conceded, taking another sip, letting her examine him and trying not to get too heated by the way she raked her eyes over his body. “But I know you. You’re driven. You love a challenge, the chase. The very idea you can make a difference turns you on.

“You get high on the job and all you need is the next big story. You don’t care about the things most women care about. Not shopping and fashion; you bought that dress today, when you knew I was coming—you’d be in jeans or your work clothes otherwise. Not marriage and babies. You want your life to mean something, to stand for something and then maybe your father will love you enough.”

He sat forward, watching the expressions ripple across her lovely face: intrigue, resentment, offence. “Am I just speculating?”

She’d turned away as his words hit. She watched the boats on the Huangpu.

“That’s not all.” He put his glass down and moved to her side. “You’re passionate, intelligent, fucking sexy, and you don’t know how much you affect me.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her towards him. She met his eyes. “You’re alone because you scare most men away, because you won’t pretend, because you tell the truth, because you aren’t their mother, their housekeeper or their whore.” She closed her eyes, her breath was a sigh. “You don’t scare me, Lois.”

Her eyes opened and her head came up. She glared at him like she could see every lie he’d ever told. It almost stopped him.

“But you don’t hesitate to treat me like your whore.” She stepped out of his hold and stalked about the room. “This suite, the flowers, the summons to dinner.” She kept her voice level, she wasn’t angry, but she was pushing back. She owned who she was, but she wasn’t for sale. She was going to throw him out. It was hard to work out if he loved that more than the idea of staying the night with her.

“I meant to treat you like a queen. I meant to make you feel good. I’m rich. The suite, the roses, they’re nothing. If I wanted a whore I could lift an eyebrow in the lobby and I’d have my pick. I’ve had whores, good whores, for years. That’s how I’ve lived. I want you. You’re real to me. I thought you wanted me too.”

She considered him. Such a cool appraisal with those big round eyes. He kept still and let her make the next move. Not that leaving was an option; now that he’d seen the strength in her, been reminded of her composure, and comfort with own skin.

“You meant to buy me.”

A statement of fact so obviously true he had to laugh.

“You think it’s funny?”

“I think it’s practical.”

“Mercenary.”

“See, you do know me.”

“You should leave.”

“I should, for more reasons than you can know. I need something first.”

She looked around as though trying to figure out what the object in that sentence was. “It’s all yours. Take whatever you want.”

He felt the kick in that invitation in the soles of his feet, in the tension in his shoulders and the coil in his guts. They were standing close, but not close enough for him to touch her without his sudden movement giving her a reason to shift away. If he touched her the way he wanted to, all pretence of polite civility would be yesterday’s exchange rate, and he couldn’t touch her unless she wanted it too without it making him a complete brute.

Fuck that
.

He jerked her to him and she braced a hand on his chest to hold him away. He wanted to eat the wet shimmer of pink off her lips. He kept his grip on her arm light. She didn’t push, she didn’t struggle, but her breath was coming in shallow and fast.

Ah fuck
. He let go with a grunt and stepped back. It wasn’t going to stop at one kiss. Better to get out now. He was across the room, frustration an ache in his chest before she spoke.

“Don’t go.”

He bit down on his back teeth, ground the words out. “Don’t ask me to stay out of misplaced guilt. You can keep the suite. It’s a comp from the hotel. I thought you’d enjoy it. It was going to go empty.”

“Is that the truth?”

“It’s the truth.”

“So stay.”

He took a couple of steps back towards her. Her expression gave nothing away. She’d be a shit hot poker player. “Why am I staying?”