It Started With A Kiss. Miranda Lee

was working my way around Australia and had taken this job as a salesgirl in a trendy little boutique on the Gold Coast which sold Italian shoes. One day, this sophisticated guy came in and I served him. He bought six pairs of shoes, just so he could spend more time with me, he said. Naturally, I was impressed.’

      ‘Mmm. A bit naïve of you, Isabel, falling for a line like that.’

      ‘That’s me when I fall for a man. Naïve.’

      ‘You weren’t with me.’

      ‘I was attracted to you, Rafe. I didn’t fall for you.’

      Terrific. Well, he’d asked for that one, hadn’t he?

      ‘So what happened next?’

      ‘What do you think? He took me out to dinner that night, then straight home to bed afterwards.’

      Rafe decided not to pursue that conversation further. He felt decidedly jealous of this Hal and his instant sexual success. Isabel had given him icicles the first day they’d met. Still, she had been a bride-to-be at that stage, and possibly still suffering from the once-bitten twice-shy syndrome after this fellow.

      ‘So how did it end? Did he dump you?’

      ‘No. Actually, he didn’t. In a weird way I believe Hal did love me. As much as a man like that is capable of love. No, something happened and I could no longer pretend he was Mr Right.’

      ‘Oh-oh, sounds like you found out he was already married.’

      She laughed. ‘If only it were as simple as that.’

      ‘Now I’m seriously intrigued. What happened?’

      ‘He was arrested. For drug importation and dealing. He got fifteen years.’

      ‘Wow. And you never suspected?’

      ‘Not for a moment. He didn’t use drugs himself, and he never did any dealing in my presence. Even when he made numerous trips to Bangkok I didn’t suspect. He said he was an importer. Of jewellery. I should have known by past experience that he was too good to be true, but as you said…love will make a fool of you every time. I thought all my dreams had come true. Hal was handsome, successful, exciting, masterful. Materially, he had it all as well. The mansion on the water. The car. The yacht. He swept me right off my feet, I can tell you. Told me he adored me. It was just a matter of time, I thought, till he proposed. I was on cloud nine till I picked up the paper one day and saw his photograph on the front page.’

      ‘Must have been one bad day.’

      ‘That’s an understatement, I can assure you. I was devastated.’

      ‘Did you have to testify at his trial?’

      ‘No. Which was fortunate. Also fortunate that this all happened in another state. I hadn’t told my parents about Hal, you see. But I was going to, once we were engaged. I thought he’d be a pleasant surprise after all the going-nowhere men I’d been with in the past. Some surprise he’d have turned out to be!’

      ‘Just as well he was arrested when he was, then.’

      ‘I didn’t quite see it that way at the time,’ Isabel muttered.

      ‘No. Just as I didn’t see I was better off without Liz. But we’re both better off without both of them, Isabel. Much better off. And you’re better off without Luke, no matter what you think now. He didn’t love you.’

      ‘Love I can do without from now on.’

      Rafe looked at her. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Love still has a certain appeal.’

      ‘I can’t see what. It makes you do things. Stupid things. Irrational things.’

      ‘Mmm. You could be right there.’ Because for the next two days he was going to do the stupidest, most irrational things in his life!

      ‘Where on earth is that food?’ Isabel said irritably.

      ‘It’ll be here soon. Meanwhile, have some more champagne,’ he added, and topped up her glass. ‘Good, isn’t it?’

      ‘Yes. But if I don’t eat soon it’ll go straight to my head. I have a very low intoxication level with champagne. It can make me tipsy quicker than anything else.’

      ‘Is that so? Well, there’s no worry in being a bit tipsy, is there? It won’t make you do anything later that you wouldn’t be doing anyway.’

      The eyes she set upon him over the rim of her glass were very dry. ‘My, aren’t we full of the sauce tonight?’

      I hope so, Rafe thought ruefully. Because my sauce is going to have to work very hard to do the job from now on. He didn’t dare cut the whole top off every condom he used during the next two days. She might notice. He really could only risk a pin-prick or two. Except perhaps tonight…

      Isabel’s powers of observation could very well be limited if she got well and truly sloshed. If he was clever with what position he used, he might get away with not using anything at all.

      The thought excited, then worried him.

      It was a stupid thing to do, as she said. Stupid and irrational. She didn’t love him. She wouldn’t marry him. At best, he would be a father to their child at a distance, having limited access.

      But so what? he thought recklessly. He was still going to do it, wasn’t he?