Hot Nights with the...Australian. Nicola Marsh

was wrong. Max instantly broke into a fast stride under the columned pergola that led to the steps down to the next terrace. It had been a bad summer for snakes. Eric had spotted a few on the property—harmless green tree snakes—but it didn’t mean there weren’t any red-bellied black ones around. Or a deadly brown one. Terriers were renowned for going after snakes. If Luther got bitten …

      But why wasn’t Chloe calling him off? Surely she hadn’t let the dog out alone. He was only a pup—eight weeks old. Yet there was no sound from her. This felt like a bad scene. Adrenaline was pumping through him as the guest house came into view. Luther was clawing at the front door in a desperate frenzy. No Chloe in sight.

      Max bounded down the steps. Luther didn’t even register his approach. The little dog’s attention was totally fixed on whatever was going on inside the house. Had Chloe fainted, collapsed, knocked herself out somehow?

      A sense of urgency drove him into running to the front door, hand reaching instantly for the knob, testing if it was locked. It wasn’t. It turned. Both he and Luther burst into the living room, the dog belting straight for the man leaping up from one of the rocking chairs. Chloe was huddled on the far corner of the sofa, her face lighting with huge relief at seeing him.

      The man turned, scowling at Luther, his expression sliding to angry defiance as he saw Max.

      Tony Lipton!

      With her husband distracted from her, Chloe pushed up from the sofa, ran around the chair he had occupied and threw herself at Max, who was only too happy to curl a protective arm around her and hold her close, so close he could feel the agitated rise and fall of her lovely soft breasts and the rapid thumping of her heart. He rubbed his cheek against her silky hair—too tempting not to—and glared at Tony Lipton over her head, hating him for having had an intimate relationship with Chloe and not even valuing it enough to care about her.

      ‘How did you get here?’ he demanded.

      Chloe answered in a wild rush. ‘He came by boat, Max, and he threw Luther out and forced me to sit down and listen to him. I tried to make him go, but …’

      ‘Forced?’ Anger surged, the urge to punch out Tony Lipton rising to flash-point.

      Fear flickered in the other man’s eyes. ‘Oh, for God’s sake! She’s making a drama out of nothing. I just wanted to talk to her,’ he jeered dismissively. ‘I have a right to, as her husband.’

      ‘No-one has the right to abuse someone else’s rights,’ Max shot back at him contemptuously, reining in the wildly violent streak this situation had tapped. Control had been the key to the life he had achieved for himself, gaining it, holding it, never letting it slip. That something about Chloe was affecting his judgement, stirring feelings that made him a stranger to himself—jealousy, hatred, savagery. He sternly checked himself and spoke with icy control. ‘This is my property. Chloe is my guest. She wants you to leave and I will not have that wish disregarded.’

      ‘A lot more than a guest by the look of it,’ came the rash retort, his eyes raking over Max’s almost naked body, belligerently ignoring the aggression he was inciting.

      It was suddenly clear to Max that Tony wanted to goad him into a physical fight regardless of any injury to himself, wanted to make an accusation of assault, milk another sensational story out of the situation. No way was Max about to oblige him. He wouldn’t lower himself to gutter behaviour no matter what the provocation.

      ‘Get out, Tony. Get out while the going is still good. You can’t stop me from calling the police and having you charged for trespass, and if you continue to stalk Chloe, I’ll have a court order issued to legally prevent you from coming anywhere near her. It won’t be her name or mine dragged through mud. It will be yours.’

      Tony’s hands clenched into fists. He glowered at Max, hating his power, wanting to somehow bring him down. ‘Chloe is my wife,’ he said as though that exonerated his behaviour.

      Chloe twisted around to hurl her own response at him. ‘I told you our marriage is over. I’m never coming back to you. Never!’

      ‘Because he’s filled your head with other options,’ he yelled back at her, shaking an accusing finger at Max. ‘You’re a fool to trust him, Chloe. Once he’s had what he wants from you, he’ll dump you like he dumps all his women.’

      ‘I don’t care!’ she snapped. ‘He gives me what I need, and even if it is only a short-term thing, I’d rather be with him than you.’

      Elation spilled through Max’s mind. She had just made an active choice. He’d won. All he had to do now was get rid of the hanging-on husband.

      ‘Give it up, Tony,’ he tersely advised. ‘You’re in a no-win situation. Leave now or I’ll call the police.’

      Luther, who’d lined himself up with Max and Chloe, growled his own warning.

      Tony turned his vitriol onto him. ‘Bloody dog!’

      Luther charged, teeth bared to take a chunk of the enemy. Tony kicked him viciously right across the room. Chloe screamed and ran to check the little dog for injury.

      Max’s control snapped. With Chloe’s scream reverberating through his head and outrage at the callous cruelty to a little pup pumping through his heart, he took one step forward and king-hit Tony Lipton on the jaw. The sight of him, sprawled on the floor near the door, still despoiling the children’s house that should have been a safe refuge, could not be borne. Max grabbed the back of his shirt collar and dragged him outside, dropping him on the lawn before quickly returning to the living room to see how Luther was.

      ‘Do we need to call a vet?’ he asked Chloe, who was cradling the little dog on her lap.

      ‘I don’t think anything’s broken,’ she answered anxiously. ‘I think he just tumbled, Max.’

      ‘I’ll look him over as soon as I get back from dumping Tony in his boat.’

      ‘You needn’t dump him gently,’ she said with vehement feeling.

      A fierce exhilaration zinged through Max as he headed back to her decisively ex-husband, who had managed to draw himself up on his hands and knees, shaking his head dazedly. It might not have been a wise move, punching out Tony Lipton, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Justice had been served, albeit in a primitive fashion, and he’d certainly not damaged himself in Chloe’s eyes.

      He grabbed Tony’s collar again and the waistband of his trousers, lifted him onto his feet, and began frog-marching him across the lawn to the steps leading to the bottom terrace.

      ‘Let me go! Let me go!’ he gurgled, arms flailing as he tried to balance himself.

      ‘You used force on Chloe and force on her dog. Have a taste of it yourself,’ Max said, using unrelenting strength to push him along.

      ‘I’ll get you for this! You’ve broken my jaw.’

      ‘No witnesses,’ Max mocked.

      ‘Chloe …’

      ‘Will not testify on your behalf. You kicked her dog.’

      They reached the steps and Tony struggled against Max’s grip. ‘All right! All right! I’m going! Just get your hands off me.’

      ‘Okay. But try anything stupid and I’ll throw you down the entire flight.’

      Max let him stumble down the steps by himself, following to ensure Tony did, in fact, leave the property. He’d tied his boat to a pole at the base of the wharf—a small hired outboard motorboat—hidden by the rock breakwater. Max watched him clamber into it, untie the rope, start the motor and head out into the harbour. Neither man said goodbye.

      Max waited until the boat was completely out of sight. He didn’t think Tony Lipton would be returning in a hurry. Nevertheless, he made a mental note to have the security system tightened up on his harbour frontage. There should not have been a loophole