Six Australian Heroes. Margaret Way

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       CHAPTER TWENTY

      ‘THANK God you rang me,’ were Alison’s first words. ‘I’ve been dying of curiosity all morning.’

      ‘It’s only ten-thirty,’ Laura told her friend. ‘I couldn’t ring you before. I haven’t had a minute to myself.’

      A white lie, actually. She’d been alone upstairs for a good while before breakfast but had spent the time trying to get her head around things. As soon as Ryan had left the room and she’d been out of his corrupting presence, Laura had been besieged by doubt over what she’d agreed to.

      So much for her much-vaunted pride! She felt disgusted with herself, not so much for sleeping with him last night—wild horses could not have stopped her from doing that!—but for agreeing to sleep with him some more without his offering her anything in return. He’d not even offered her the face-saving grace of becoming a proper girlfriend. He hadn’t said a word about dating her, just about sex.

      On top of that he expected her to waltz into work and announce that he was no longer her client? What excuse could she possibly give? ‘Sorry but he’s screwing me now and he doesn’t screw women he works with’?

      The man wanted his cake and wanted to eat it too, came the mutinous thought.

      The trouble was she still wanted him on any terms. The shock and shame of this realisation was almost too much to bear.

      She’d had to force herself to go downstairs for breakfast and to face not just Ryan but the rest of the family. She’d found them all in the kitchen being treated to one of Aunt Cynthia’s over-the-top English-style breakfasts. Laura was never one for eating anything heavy in the mornings and would usually have refused, but this time she’d allowed herself to be fed bacon, eggs, baked beans and fried tomatoes with lashings of toast, because that way she hadn’t had to talk much.

      After breakfast, she’d helped her aunt wash up whilst Ryan had whisked Jane off on the promised drive in his convertible. He still hadn’t returned half an hour later, which had given Laura the opportunity to go upstairs and finally ring her friend.

      ‘You sound a little strained,’ Alison said. ‘Please don’t tell me that nothing happened last night between you two?’

      ‘Something happened all right.’

      ‘Ooh. Do tell.’

      Laura told her everything. Well, not in minute detail, but in broad strokes; some things were too private to divulge. And possibly too embarrassing. But she certainly told her every single thing about the chat Ryan had had with her when she had woken up, plus her decision to continue her affair with Ryan even though she knew it was heading nowhere.

      ‘Please don’t tell me I’m a fool,’ she finished up, feeling drained all of a sudden.

      ‘Far from it,’ Alison said. ‘If I were in your position I’d do exactly the same.’

      ‘You would?’

      ‘Yes, of course! After all, Laura, what’s your alternative? You crawl back into an even more bitter and frustrated spinster cave where you hate all men and never have any fun?’

      ‘But what if I fall in love with him, Alison?’ she cried, voicing the worst fear she had about the situation. ‘I can’t afford to fall for another Mr Wrong. I just can’t!’

      ‘But this is different to the other two. Can’t you see that? They pretended they loved you. Ryan wants nothing from you but your body.’

      ‘But that sounds so cheap and nasty!’

      ‘Not to me, it doesn’t. To me it sounds seriously sexy. Go for it, I say. And, if you fall in love with him, so what? You might be sad for a while when it’s over, but you won’t be left feeling bitter and betrayed. You’ll have some wonderful memories of a great lover who’s made you see how beautiful and sexy you are. And, who knows? You might turn out to be the one.’

      ‘What one?’

      ‘The one who changes his mind about love and marriage.’

      Laura laughed. ‘You don’t know Ryan.’

      ‘Maybe not, but I’d like to. Why don’t you bring him over next weekend for a barbeque?’

      ‘I don’t think he wants that kind of relationship.’

      ‘You mean he just wants sex from you and nothing else?’ Now Alison sounded shocked. ‘No dates or anything like that?’

      ‘I think so.’

      ‘Now, that is cheap and nasty. You wouldn’t settle for that, Laura? Surely?’

      ‘That’s what I’m afraid of, Alison. That I might settle for any arrangement with him.’

      ‘Oh dear …’

      ‘What do you mean by saying “oh dear” like that?’

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