A Daring Proposition. Miranda Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ was cold too. Far too cold for April. Anyone would think it was the dead of winter, instead of mid-autumn.

      She rubbed a circle on the window to clear the mist on the glass, and could just make out the opera house in the distance. It looked uncustomarily dismal and grey, the sails of its roof huddling on Benelong Point like wet droopy birds. Closer in, a ferry chugged to a halt at the quay, spilling darkly raincoated people out on to the wet pier.

      Samantha sighed. How depressing it all looked. Which was the last thing she needed this morning. The only consolation to having to face another day with Guy was that it was Friday. She really needed two days away from him.

      Yesterday had proved to be a dreadful strain. He had called her back into the office eventually, but he hadn’t tried to talk her out of leaving. Instead he had made a surprising apology, then insisted they go through all the files together, checking on every person, act or group that he managed, seeing what they were doing at that moment and what could be lined up for them in the immediate future. His attitude had been matter-of-fact and businesslike. Clearly he had accepted the situation and wanted to get the ship shipshape before his ‘first mate’ set off for other horizons.

      His easy acceptance of her leaving upset Samantha terribly. So did their meticulous going through the files. With each file memories were thrown up to her, memories that held a disturbing amount of recalled pleasure.

      How could she have forgotten that her life over the past five years had been filled with all sorts of exciting and rewarding events? What about the shows she had been to that involved singers and musicians Guy had managed? The premières, the parties afterwards? What of all the interesting, larger-than-life people she had met? The challenges she had had to rise to? The satisfaction she had felt when something she had personally organised had gone off without a hitch?

      When she left Haywood Promotions she would leave not just Guy, but a way of life. What would she do? Where would she go?

      Oh, she didn’t doubt she could get another job in Sydney, but could she bear to be in the same city as the man she loved and not be a part of his life? Guy was a high-profile personality. He would be on television, in newspapers and magazines, probably with a stunning blonde in tow.

      Samantha grimaced, remembering his date with Debra last night. She was a relatively successful singer on the local club circuit who had come to Guy, ostensibly seeking him as a new manager. One hour after walking into his life she had looked like becoming his next lover.

      Would she have gone to bed with Guy on their first date? Samantha wondered bitterly.

      Nothing surer, came back the cruel answer.

      Her heart squeezed tight.

      ‘Excuse me, but don’t you get out here?’

      Samantha jolted out of her mental agony, throwing the woman seated next to her a startled look before recognising her as a regular on this particular bus. Her eyes snapped back to see that they had long left the bridge and were standing at the King Street junction. Luckily the lights were red at that moment so the bus couldn’t move off.

      ‘Gosh, yes, I do,’ Samantha gasped, snatching up her umbrella and jumping to her feet. ‘Thank you so much.’

      ‘No trouble. You’d better hurry, though. The lights will change soon.’

      They did. Just as Samantha made it to the back platform. The bus lurched forward and she half jumped, half fell off, landing in a gutter that was doing a good imitation of the Grand Canyon rapids in full flood.

      It was all she could do to keep her balance as the torrent surged around her ankles, splashing up her legs and under her skirt. She swayed and yelped. People were streaming by along the pavement, shoulders hunched, heads down, umbrellas jammed down low. But no one stopped to help. No one cared.

      ‘Who could ever want to live in this heartless place?’ she muttered, and stomped out of the raging torrent, unleashing her automatic umbrella with a vicious snap.

      You do, came the dampening answer.

      Infuriated with herself more than the rain, Samantha joined the trampling herd and eventually made it across George and Pitt Street, up through Martin Place then left down Elizabeth Street to the building that housed Guy’s office. The rain eased off as soon as she pushed through the circular glass doors, making her mutter several reproachful words to higher authorities.

      Not that He would take any notice, Samantha thought crossly. Look at all the prayers she had said on a certain other matter! She might as well have been praying to win the lotto, for all the results she’d had.

      Soaked and very irritated, Samantha marched across the huge black and white tiled foyer and stuffed herself into one of the crowded lifts, jabbing the floor-fourteen button with the end of her umbrella. Living in the city, she decided, wasn’t conducive to maintaining the sweet, Christian-like nature she’d had as a child.

      Well, she rethought more honestly as the lift heaved its cargo upwards, one shuddering floor at a time. Perhaps I never was exactly sweet...

      The memory of herself at high school flooded back, bringing with it the remembered agony of her adolescence. On the surface she had maintained the quiet, reserved, ladylike façde that her mother’s strict country upbringing had imparted to her. Underneath she had longed to break out, to scream at her classmates who had cruelly nicknamed her Amazon Sam, to rant and rave against the body Mother Nature had given her. No wonder she and poor skinny, pimply Norman had gravitated towards each other. They had been the misfits in their class. The uglies.

      Samantha smiled wryly to herself in the corner of the lift as she thought of her graduation dance. She’d looked as good as she could that night, all done up and dressed in a pretty mauve dress that had minimised her figure faults. Norman had looked surprisingly good as well, his well-tailored suit giving him shoulders, the night-light softening the effect of his bad skin.

      Had it been her improved appearance or the promise of imminent freedom from the torture of school that had made her act so recklessly later in the evening?

      Samantha sighed as floor nine came and went. Be honest, she told herself. You know precisely why you let Norman go ‘all the way.’ He started telling you you were beautiful and that he loved you.

      Now, no other boys had ever said either of those things to Samantha. At five feet ten inches tall and carrying far too many pounds during her teenage years, she had not been the femme fatale of her school.

      Norman’s protestations of everlasting love had been very disarming.

      Only later had Samantha realised what a crazy thing she had done, giving her virginity so carelessly. She hadn’t even enjoyed it! Could hardly even remember it happening, it had been over so fast. Never again, she had vowed. Never again!

      It had been difficult, though, to convince Norman she didn’t love him, and it had been a relief when at the end of summer she had gone to live with her widowed Aunt Vonnie in far-away coastal Newcastle while she did a secretarial course.

      Samantha shook her head fondly as she thought of her Aunt Vonnie. It had been her aunt who had directed her towards more sensible eating habits, which had trimmed down her bulk to more graceful proportions, her aunt who had paid for her deportment lessons, her aunt who’d overridden parental objection when she’d wanted to find a career in Sydney.

      Samantha had been СКАЧАТЬ