Six Australian Heroes. Margaret Way

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       CHAPTER ONE

      FOUR years later it was an older and wiser Rhiannon Fairfax who found herself staring wide-eyed at a man in an airport lounge.

      Her flight was delayed and she was feeling bored and restless.

      He was, she supposed, a striking example of the male species. He was tall and dark and she got a glimpse of aquiline features. His physique was superb, wide-shouldered and sleek-hipped beneath designer jeans, a white shirt and a leather jacket that shouted expense and quality craftsmanship.

      He was the man she’d shared a taxi with four years ago, she was sure!

      He had someone with him, almost as eye-catching as he was; a woman, tall, slim, dark and expensive-looking. She spoilt it with a slightly submissive air as she received what was obviously a string of instructions from him.

      Then his briefing came to an end and he turned more towards Rhiannon and smiled, suddenly and unexpectedly, at the woman he was with. She blushed and looked for an instant as if she’d been transported to heaven, before taking her departure.

      If there’d been any doubt in Rhiannon’s mind, that smile banished it

      But that was when he lifted his head and surveyed the crowded lounge with the smile gone.

      She caught her breath at how well she remembered his dark blue eyes and that aloof air—although today it was more than that. He had the air of a man who took what he wanted when he wanted it and damn the consequences.

      All the same, she felt herself smiling at the memory of that rain-soaked taxi trip.

      Then she realised he was looking at her, and for a long moment she was flustered into immobility with the smile still etched on her lips.

      He took his time as he examined her short though stylish fair hair, her figure beneath her grey, severely tailored trouser suit worn with a black blouse. It was such a long, slow assessment and so intimate, she broke out in goose-pimples.

      Then he looked back into her eyes and, with a shrug, turned away.

      Rhiannon felt herself blush vividly.

      He obviously hadn’t recognised her—perhaps it wasn’t so surprising without that dreadful beret. But did she look like the kind of girl who made tacit passes at men?

      She bit her lip suddenly. She’d certainly pursued an unusual line of conversation with a strange man in a taxi.

      She was still smarting when the flight was called and she boarded economy class while her perfectly arrogant stranger disappeared into business class.

      She tried to comfort herself with the thought that he probably had some short-comings like an unmasculine sort of vanity—it didn’t altogether work but, by the time the flight landed on the Gold Coast, most of her equilibrium had been restored.

      She’d spent the last half-hour concentrating on her new position. Put plainly, she was a housekeeper. Put more accurately, she specialised in putting her skills to work for the rich, and sometimes the famous, for short stints while she reorganized their households to maximum efficiency and style; or in some cases for a special event.

      This wasn’t what she’d set out to do with her life. For most of her childhood she’d been rich and her parents had been famous. Then it had all fallen apart, she’d lost her mother and been forced to make a living.

      It had occurred to her that her time at an expensive finishing-school in Switzerland could be put to better use than its original purpose of “finishing” her to take her place in society.

      The result was that now, at twenty-six, she had her own one-woman agency that specialised in passing her expertise in house management, style, cuisine—she was a passionate cook—on to others.

      She rarely accepted assignments that were longer than a month. This one would be for that duration and she would be extremely well paid for it. She’d learnt not to sell herself cheap.

      The assignment, the one she was flying СКАЧАТЬ