A fierce wave of protest burst through her mind. She didn’t want Quin associated with it in any way whatsoever. He didn’t have the right to intrude upon it. He hadn’t been part of it, never would be part of it. Yet before she could find suitable words to check his impulsive suggestion, his arm was around her waist, scooping her inside the boutique, and as always with Quin, a saleswoman instantly zeroed in on him.
“We want the blue butterfly,” he said unequivocally.
“Ah yes, a beautiful piece.” The woman smiled at him, then quickly moved to get it out of a glass showcase which contained a menagerie of Australian birds, fish and animals, some exquisitely fashioned in crystal, others delicately made of blown glass with colour swirling through them.
“It’s a Ulysses, native to far north Queensland,” the saleswoman prattled on. “You see them everywhere up around Cairns and the Daintree Rainforest. The natural colour of their wings is an iridescent electric blue, so you’ll get the best effect if you can place this piece where sunlight shines through the delicate glass.”
“We’ll take it. Wrap it up,” Quin instructed.
“Wait!” Nicole cried, frantically trying to come up with a reason to stop this purchase. “It looks terribly expensive. How much is it?”
The price stated was exorbitant. There was probably a huge mark-up on everything in the boutique because of its prime position near the Opera House.
“I can’t accept this, Quin,” she said firmly.
He looked incredulously at her. “After all you’ve accepted from me today?” He shook his head, took out his wallet, extracted a credit card and smiled at the saleswoman as he passed it to her. “Wrap it up. It’s a perfect memento for a momentous evening.”
There was no stopping him from making the purchase. Nicole recognised that. However, she could and would refuse to take the butterfly from him. She kept her arms rigidly at her sides when he tried to hand the boutique bag to her as they left the shop. “This isn’t part of our deal,” she insisted.
“I bet you haven’t got one like it,” he pressed temptingly.
“That’s not the point.”
“What is?”
She flashed a fiercely determined look at him. “I don’t want a memento of tonight.”
A ruthless gleam answered her. “I intend that you find it unforgettable anyway, Nicole.”
Her hands clenched in a blind need to fight off the sense of very real danger to the life she’d made without him. “This will pass,” she muttered in savage resolve.
“It didn’t last time. Which is why we are here now.” His eyes challenged her to deny it.
She couldn’t. No-one else would have drawn her into bartering herself for money. It was because of who he was, what he was, and how unimportant he’d made her feel in the past when his obsession about amassing money had come ahead of everything else. But she was not about to admit that Quin was right. Feeding his ego was not on her agenda.
“We’re here now because you represented a way out of a situation I didn’t want,” she stated flatly.
“Which, in turn, represented a way into a situation I did want,” he slid back at her. “And both wants have their roots in the past…which definitely has not passed, Nicole.”
Not for him. It had only been sex on his mind then and he had the hots for her again now. This was just a second round of the same. But it was different for her. She’d been wildly, blindly, heart-wrenchingly in love with him. That definitely had passed.
Not wanting this subject pursued, Nicole kept her mouth firmly shut. Quin waved her to turn under an archway which led into a lobby housing a massive spiral staircase and a bank of elevators—marble tiles on the floor, marble walls, huge chandelier hanging from a ceiling, two storeys high—the kind of place that screamed exclusive to the very wealthy.
“Here we are,” he announced, using a key to operate one of the elevators.
The doors opened.
Quin ushered her into the softly carpeted compartment, stepped in after her, pressed a button marked P and closed out the rest of the world. P for penthouse, Nicole thought, panic skittering through her stomach as the elevator zoomed up to the private apartment where she would become Quin’s penthouse playmate. Would it be more pain than pleasure? Had she been completely mad to enter into this contract?
Think of what had been achieved for her mother, she told herself, trying desperately to appear calm and composed as Quin guided her into a fabulous living room. Dominating it were floor to ceiling windows, giving a spectacular view of Sydney Harbour stretching from Bennelong Point right out to sea. Nicole automatically walked over to it, needing to face something other than Quin’s material acquisitions, which had clearly meant more to him than she ever had.
The carpet underfoot was a soft teal colour. There were cream leather couches with lots of colourful scatter cushions, glass tables with creamy granite pedestals holding them up. Just props, Nicole thought in bitter dismissal. Status symbols. Expensive interior decoration did not make a home. Quin had never been interested in making a home.
It was a high view of the harbour. Although it was now dark outside, the foreshore with all its little coves was outlined by the lights of the houses crowding it. Boats riding at anchor could easily be seen, ferries carving through the water to their destinations. Nicole wondered if living up here made Quin feel he was on top of this city, king of his castle.
Did he know how empty his castle was, despite all his possessions, of which she was now one—but only a very temporary one.
Did he ever think this wasn’t enough?
She shook her head over the foolish questions.
They sprang from her own emotions, not his, and she was not—not—going to get emotionally involved with Quin Sola again!
Quin stood by the broad serving bench of the open plan kitchen, watching Nicole take in the multimillion dollar view. He made no move to join her, though he sensed she was armour-plating herself against the inevitable intimacy of the bedroom. Her shoulders were rigidly squared. Her stillness seemed to form a self-protective cloak. She would give what she had to give but nothing more.
Under normal circumstances, women coming here for the first time showed some curiosity or interest in his personal living quarters; checking out the furnishings, fossicking through his kitchen, making admiring comments. Nicole’s stiff back shut it all out and her silence affirmed her lack of caring. She no more wanted to be part of his life than she wanted him to be part of hers. The adamant rebuff of the butterfly gift underlined her determination to stay detached where it really counted—in her mind and heart.