It Started With... Collection. Miranda Lee

is all that far from here. Just over the bridge. But you know what I mean. Parking in the CBD is appalling and public transport is the pits.’

      ‘I know just what you mean. I don’t mind my train trip too much when I get a seat. But that’s not always the case. So what’s it like, your place in Kirribilli?’

      ‘Very modern. Very stylish. But a bit on the soulless side. Could do with a spot of colour. Everything’s in neutral shades.’

      ‘Sounds like the place I live in. It’s all cream and cold. I much prefer warm colours and a cosy, almost cluttered feel to a room. That’s why I’d like my own place, eventually, no matter how small. Then I could decorate it exactly as I want, with lots of interesting pictures on the walls, and knick-knacks galore.’

      ‘Sounds like Mum’s place. Truly, there’s hardly a spare space on the walls, or on any of the furniture. She’s a collectorholic. You’ll have to come over and see her collection of teapots one day. They fill up two china cabinets all by themselves.’

      Rachel blinked her surprise. ‘You mean you’re going to tell Alice about us?’

      ‘Is there any reason you want to keep our friendship a secret?’

      ‘No. I guess not. But you know mothers. She might start thinking we’ll get married one day.’

      ‘I can’t worry about what she might think,’ he said a bit sharply. ‘She should know me well enough to know that is never going to happen. Now, why don’t you think about what you’re going to order for dinner? The waiter’s on his way over.’ And he picked up his menu.

      Rachel was happy to do likewise, aware that her face had to be registering some dismay over his curt remark that he would never marry her. As much as Rachel tried telling herself that she was pleased with the kind of relationship Justin was offering her, deep down in her heart she knew it was a second-rate substitute for marriage and a family.

      Isabel would think her a fool for accepting such a go-nowhere affair. What on earth are you doing, Rach, she’d say, wasting more of your life on another man who’s never going to marry you or give you children? You’re thirty-one years old, for pity’s sake. Soon you’ll be thirty-two. Grow up and give him the flick. And get yourself another job whilst you’re at it.

      Easier said than done.

      Love made one foolish. And eternally hopeful.

      Even whilst cold, hard logic reasoned she was wasting her time, Rachel kept telling herself that maybe, one day, Justin would get over his ex-wife and fall in love with her. Maybe, if she was always there for him, he’d wake up one morning and see what was right under his nose. A woman who loved him. A woman who would never leave him. A woman who’d give him a good life. And children, if he liked.

      He would make a wonderful father, she believed. And she…she would dearly love the chance to be a wonderful mother.

      ‘So what do you want?’ he asked, glancing up from the menu.

      You, she thought with a painful twist of her heart. Just you.

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      RACHEL woke mid-morning to the sun shining in the bedroom window and the smell of fresh coffee percolating. Justin’s side of the bed was empty, but she could hear him whistling somewhere.

      He sounded happy. And so was she. Relatively.

      Spending last night in his bed had given her some hope that Justin hadn’t changed the rules of their relationship just so he could have more of what he’d been having at the office. When he’d brought her back to his apartment after dinner he’d been incredibly sweet, and his lovemaking incredibly tender. He’d held her in his arms afterwards, stroking her hair and back. Strangely, she’d felt like crying again at the time, but she’d kept a grip on herself, thank the lord. Justin wouldn’t have known what to make of that. She’d finally fallen asleep and here she was, totally rested and…totally surprised.

      ‘Goodness, breakfast in bed!’ she exclaimed as a navy-robed Justin carried one of those no-spill trays into the room.

      Sitting up, she pushed her hair back from her face and pulled the sheet up around her nakedness just in time for him to settle the tray down across her lap.

      ‘My, this is lovely,’ she murmured, eyeing the freshly squeezed orange juice and scrambled eggs on toast, along some fried tomato and two strips of crispy bacon on the side. ‘I usually only have coffee and toast. So what are you having?’

      ‘I’ve already had it,’ he said, sitting down next to her on the side of the bed then leaning across where her legs were lying under the bedclothes.

      He looked marvellous, she thought, despite the messy hair and dark stubble on his chin. His vivid blue eyes were sparkling clear, with no dark rings under them. He must have slept as well as she had.

      ‘I’ll bet you didn’t have anything as decadent as this,’ she chided.

      ‘I surely did. And I enjoyed every single mouthful. I’m going to enjoy watching you eat yours, too. You need a bit of fattening up, my girl.’

      ‘Oh? You think I’m too thin?’ she asked, that dodgy body image raising its ugly head again.

      ‘Not unattractively so, as I’m sure you are aware. But you don’t have anything much in reserve.’

      ‘But if I put on weight I won’t fit into my lovely new wardrobe. And my boobs will start sprouting. That’s where fat always goes on me first.’

      ‘Nothing wrong with a bit more weight on a woman’s boobs. Though yours are already a gorgeous handful. Pity any extra weight I gain doesn’t go where it would do me the most good. It usually becomes entrenched around my middle.’

      ‘How can you say that? You don’t have an extra ounce of fat on you.’

      ‘You didn’t see me eighteen months ago. I was the original couch potato with a sprouting beer gut.’

      ‘I don’t believe you. You have the best body I’ve ever seen on a man in the flesh, with a six-pack to envy. And you certainly don’t need any extra inches in that other department. You have more than enough for me.’

      His laugh carried a dry amusement. ‘Being with someone like you seems to have made a permanent difference to the size of my equipment.’

      ‘So I noticed. But you know what they say. Size doesn’t matter. It’s what you can do with it that counts. And I certainly have no complaints over what you do with yours.’

      ‘So I noticed. You are seriously good for my ego, do you know that?’

      As opposed to his ex-wife, Rachel guessed. Justin’s revelation about being a bit overweight and less than fit eighteen months ago gave rise to the speculation that the vain puss he was married to might have criticised him over his physical appearance, as well as his sexual performance. Rachel recalled Justin once implying he thought himself staid, and boring. Had that woman undermined Justin on every level, simply to excuse her own disgusting and disloyal behaviour?

      More than likely. Guilt in a human being often searched for any excuse for their own appalling actions.

      As much as Rachel understood how such criticisms would have been crushing, Justin must surely now know the woman never really loved him. True love wasn’t based on superficial things like gaining—or losing—a few wretched pounds. Or on knowing every position in the Kama Sutra.

      Again, she wanted to ask him what Mandy had actually said when she left him, but once again this wasn’t the right moment. Hopefully, in time, he might confide in her himself. Meanwhile, she had to play a waiting game.

      Wrapping the sheet more firmly around her bare breasts, she tucked into the breakfast whilst Justin watched her with a self-satisfied smirk on his