Contract with Consequences

CHAPTER THREE

YOU could have knocked Scarlet over with a feather once she realised that the gorgeous man standing at the five-minute pick-up spot, dressed in snug-fitting black jeans, black T-shirt and a black leather bomber jacket, was actually John Mitchell. It was a realisation that didn’t come instantly, not even when he stepped forward and tapped on her passenger window. She’d thought he was some stranger wanting directions.

But as soon she wound down the window and he took off his wrap-around sunglasses, the penny dropped.

‘My God, John!’ she gasped as she stared into his familiar blue eyes.

‘Yup,’ he agreed. ‘It’s me.’

Scarlet could not believe how different he looked without long hair. Not better looking-he’d always been good-looking-but way more masculine. Without the softening effect of his hair, his facial features came into sharper focus: his high cheekbones. His long strong nose. His square jawline. Of course the clothes he was wearing added to the macho image. Scarlet wasn’t used to seeing John dressed in anything other than board shorts and T-shirts, his visits home long having been confined to summer. And, whilst she already knew he had a good body, there was something about a man dressed all in black that was very, very sexy.

Once she realised her staring was tipping into ogling, an embarrassed Scarlet swiftly pulled herself together.

‘I didn’t recognise you there for a moment,’ she said brusquely. ‘What happened to all your hair?’

He shrugged, then ran a slow hand over his near-smooth head, the action sending an erotically charged frisson running down Scarlet’s spine.

‘It was easier to look after,’ he said. ‘Where do you want me to put my bag? On the back seat, or right in the back?’

‘Whatever,’ she said, her offhand attitude a defensive reaction to her underlying shock at the situation. She wasn’t used to finding John sexually attractive. It was highly irritating. There she’d been on the way in, thinking how awkward driving him home would be, only to find that it was going to be extra-awkward now. She hoped he hadn’t noticed anything untoward. She would have to make sure she didn’t act any differently with him from usual. No way was she going to compliment him on either his haircut, or his clothes, reminding herself forcibly that, underneath his sexy new facade, he was still the same selfish, rude, antisocial bastard who’d given her hell over the years.

‘Mum shouldn’t have asked you to do this,’ he said as he climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door after him. ‘I could easily have caught a taxi.’ And he nodded towards the taxi rank ahead where several taxis stood, waiting for fares.

‘No pointing in worrying about it now,’ Scarlet said as she drove past them.

‘I guess not,’ he agreed. ‘This is more pleasant than a taxi, anyway. Thank you, Scarlet.’

She could not have been more taken aback. Not only did John look different, he was acting different too. She almost asked what had happened to him in the eighteen months since he’d last graced home, but decided not to go down such a personal road. He might start asking her what had been happening to her. No way was she going to tell John Mitchell anything! Best keep any chit-chat in the car strictly superficial.

‘Your parents have been lucky with the weather,’ she said as she drove down the almost deserted main street of Gosford. ‘This is the first decent day we’ve had so far this winter.’

He said nothing in return, for which she was grateful. But his silence didn’t last for long.

‘Mum tells me you haven’t met anyone else,’ he said when they stopped at a set of lights at East Gosford.

‘No,’ came her rather terse reply.

‘I’m sorry, Scarlet. I know how much you’ve always wanted to get married and have a family.’

Her head whipped around, her face flushing with a sudden spurt of anger. ‘Well, if you know that, then you shouldn’t have said anything to me about Jason. If you hadn’t, I would have been none the wiser, and I would have been married by now. Instead, I…’

Scarlet broke off when she felt tears sting her eyes, her knuckles showing white as she gripped the steering wheel tight and battled for composure.

John was appalled at the level of Scarlet’s distress. Appalled and sympathetic, but not guilty.

‘I am truly sorry, Scarlet,’ he repeated. ‘But I had no choice in the matter. I couldn’t let you marry a man who was just using you.’

‘There are worse things to happen to a woman than having a gay husband,’ she threw at him.

‘He didn’t love you, Scarlet.’

‘How on earth could you know a thing like that?’

‘Because he told me.’

‘You!’

‘Yes. I felt sorry for him-he was too scared to publicly accept who he was. Even I wasn’t as lonely or lost as that.’

Scarlet was moved by the grim bleakness in John’s voice and the stark reality of what he’d just revealed.

‘The lights are green, Scarlet.’

‘What? Oh yes, so they are.’

She drove on, her thoughts muddled by the sudden sympathy she felt for the man sitting next to her. Who would have believed it? First, she’d started finding John incredibly sexy. Now she was feeling sorry for him as well. Life could be very perverse, she decided.

‘So why haven’t you found anyone else?’ John persisted.

Scarlet sighed a sigh of sheer frustration. The one thing she could have depended on with John in the past was his brooding silences. Now, suddenly, he was turning into a conversationalist! And there she’d been, thinking she wouldn’t have to answer any awkward questions today.

‘I’ve stopped looking, okay?’ she replied somewhat aggressively. ‘I could ask you the same question, you know,’ she swept on, always having been skilled at the art of verbal counter-attack. She hadn’t been captain of the debating team at school for nothing! ‘Why is it that you’ve never found anyone? No one you dared to bring home, that is.’

He laughed. John Mitchell actually laughed. Things were getting seriously weird here.

‘Come now, Scarlet, you know my mother. If I brought a girl home, she would immediately start wanting to know when the wedding was.’

‘I could tell her that. It would be never!’

‘You know me too well, Scarlet.’

‘I know you well enough to know you’re not interested in marriage. If you were, you’d be married by now. You’d have no trouble finding a wife.’

‘Thank you for the compliment,’ he said. ‘But you’re right. Marriage is not for me.’

‘That’s still no reason not to bring a girl home occasionally.’

‘I can’t agree with you on that score. There’s enough tension whenever I come home as it is.’

This was true, Scarlet conceded. John and his father didn’t get along. She’d always blamed John for this; he’d been such a difficult boy. But she now wondered if there’d been some secret reason for John’s antisocial attitude, something which might have happened before they’d come to live in her street. He certainly wasn’t being his usual gruff self with her right at this moment. Frankly, he’d spoken more words to her since getting into her car five minutes ago than he had over their whole lifetime together! Curiosity demanded she use this uncharacteristic chattiness to find out some more about his personal life.

‘Do you have anyone back in Brazil at the moment?’ she asked, glancing his way.

His face, which had been open and smiling, suddenly closed up again.

‘I did have,’ he answered. ‘Till recently.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quite sincerely, and wondered what had happened.

‘So am I,’ he said. ‘Now, that’s enough personal information for one day.’

Scarlet’s teeth clenched hard in her jaw. She should have known that his being nice and normal wouldn’t last.

‘Why didn’t you keep going straight along the main road?’ he asked when she swung right onto Terrigal Drive. ‘It’s quicker.’

‘Not any more, it isn’t. It’s suffering from terminal roadworks. If you came home a little more often, you would know that,’ she pointed out somewhat waspishly. ‘Apart from that, I’m the driver here. You’re the passenger. The passenger does not tell the driver where and how to drive. That’s bad manners.’

He laughed again, though this time it had a harsher sound. ‘Glad to see you haven’t changed, Scarlet.’

‘I was just thinking the same about you. You might look different, John Mitchell-you’re certainly dressing a damned sight better-but deep down, you’re still the same obnoxious boy who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.’

This time he made no come-back, leaving Scarlet to feel totally ashamed of herself. She’d overreacted, as usual. She’d always had a quick temper, especially around John.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said swiftly into the uncomfortable silence. ‘That was very rude of me.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said, surprising her with a wry little smile. ‘It wasn’t far off the truth. I can be quite arrogant.’

She couldn’t help it. She smiled back at him.

Their eyes met for a long moment, Scarlet being the first to look away, John’s eyes still on her as she struggled to put her mind back on her driving. It kept rattling her, this sudden attraction between them.

‘Will you stop staring at me?’ she snapped at last, but without looking his way.

‘I wasn’t staring,’ he denied. ‘I was just looking and thinking.’

‘About what?’

‘Don’t forget there’s a speed camera just along here.’

Scarlet rolled her eyes. ‘For pity’s sake, John, I live here twenty-four-seven. I know about the speed camera.’

‘Then why are you doing nearly fifty?’

‘I can do fifty. It’s not a school day.’

‘The sign said forty. Roadworks ahead.’

Scarlet jammed on her brakes. Just in time, too.

‘If they dig up one more road around here,’ she muttered, ‘I’m going to scream.’

‘No screaming,’ John said in droll tones. ‘Can’t abide screaming women.’

When she glared over at him, Scarlet was astounded to find him smiling at her.

‘John Mitchell,’ she said, her mouth twitching. ‘You’ve actually found a sense of humour.’

‘I have today, it seems. Which is just as well. I’m almost home.’

Which they were.

The street where Scarlet lived was no different from most streets on the Central Coast, full of a motley collection of houses of all different shapes and sizes. It was a family-friendly street where the inhabitants actually stayed put, rather than moving every seven years or so, as seemed to be ingrained in the Australian psyche. Of course, it was in Terrigal, which had been voted recently one of the ten most desirable places in the world to live.

It would be difficult to find anywhere better to bring up a family. Admittedly, they didn’t have ocean or lagoon views in their street, but that made the houses more reasonably priced. They still enjoyed the wonderfully mild climate which came from living near the sea. On top of that they were so close to everything, not just the beach. Erina Fair shopping centre was only a ten minute drive away and Sydney a little over an hour.

Scarlet could never understand why John didn’t come home more often.

‘Looks like a big turn-out,’ John said once Scarlet turned the corner into their street.

‘You have your mother to blame for that. If she didn’t put on such a good spread, she wouldn’t get so many people accepting her invitations. It’s always like this when it’s your family’s turn for the Christmas party. Look, there’s your mum and sister on the front porch, waiting for you.’ No father, though, she noted. ‘I’ll just stop in our driveway and you can get out. I want to put the car in the garage.’

‘Fine,’ he agreed, hopping out and taking his bag from the back seat before slapping the car on the roof and shouting thanks to her.

She pressed the remote for the garage door, watching John in the rear-vision mirror whilst she waited for the door to roll its way slowly upwards. He really did look amazing today. Great buns in those jeans. Great body all round. If he’d been anybody else, she might have been tempted to flirt with him.

Just the thought made her laugh. Flirt with John Mitchell? What would be the point in that?

Scarlet laughed again. She was still amused over the idea when she returned to the party.