LITMIR.BIZ

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had candidacy.’

      Ironic that an opportunist should find herself so treated. And now she was working up his father to fill the vacancy for sucker?

      She flicked back her hair. ‘Except him cutting me free made me discover that I could stand on my own. So, yes, I’ve been self-sufficient for two years now. I own my studio thanks to him, I own my house, thanks to Mum, and I make my rates and put something better than fast-boil noodles on the table at night thanks to my seven-day-a-week glass habit.’

      ‘And thanks to your reputation. Your pieces don’t come cheap.’

      She shifted in her seat but held his eyes. ‘As you’re about to find out.’

      He chuckled and then asked something off-script. Something just because he was curious. ‘It doesn’t bother you that Jardine got rich on your talent? Then cut you loose?’

      She looked as if she wanted to say a whole lot more on the subject but thought better of it. ‘He can only sell them once. I can make a new one every week. Besides—’ she smiled at the woman who came to take her order ‘—when you’re an artist, every single piece you sell is going to make someone else more money than it made you. Nature of the beast. It doesn’t pay to get attached.’

      Did that go for people as well? Was that a survival tactic in her world?

      She turned to order. All-day breakfast. Totally unapologetic that it was nearly four o’clock. He ordered something small and a second coffee. This was going to be an interesting meal.

      ‘So why the fascination with nature?’ All those sea creatures and birds and stormy colours.

      She considered him and then shrugged. ‘I make what the glass tells me to. Usually it’s something natural.’

      ‘“The glass made me do it.” Really? That’s not a bit...hippy?’

      She smiled. ‘I am a hippy. Unashamedly so.’

      If she was, she’d reined it in today. Dark crop top with an ornate bodice over the top, and a full skirt. Feminine and flowing. He couldn’t see her feet but he itched to know whether she’d have sandals or painted nails or—something deep inside him twisted sharply—a toe ring. Maybe tiny little bells on her ankle. Some ink?

      Get a grip, Moore. Fantasising about a woman’s foot decoration. Pervert.

      ‘What?’ she asked, a breadstick halfway to her mouth.

      He composed his expression. What had he betrayed? He scrabbled his way to something credible. ‘I have a memory,’ he said. ‘Of my parents. When I was young. My mother was dressed a bit like you. I think they might have been a bit...organic...in their day.’

      She smiled. ‘What was that, mid-eighties? The New Age movement would have been burgeoning about then. It’s very possible. Or did you think your father was born in a business suit?’

      The memory that his subconscious spat up when he needed the lie became manifest. He did remember his mother dressed loose, earthy and free. Down by a river somewhere. Laughing with his father, her arms wrapped around Aiden as a toddler. The memory even had that Technicolor tinge, the way old photos from the eighties did.

      But, it was his mother’s happiness that struck him as incongruous. It had been a long time since he’d had any memories at all where she’d looked at his father like that. Adoring. Engaged.

      Maybe it was more figment of imagination than of memory.

      Because he kind of had thought his father was born in a suit. And some days it felt as if he had been, too. Mergers and acquisitions did that to you after a decade or two. He couldn’t imagine father or son on their back in the grass by a river. Picking shapes out of the clouds. Breathing in synch with the tumbling water.

      The water feature out front of MooreCo was about as close as they got. And the last time he was on his back in the grass...?

      Not a thought for a public place.

      ‘So you don’t know a lot about your parents’ past, then?’ she asked, her face carefully neutral. As if he wouldn’t notice her poor attempts to elicit information about his father. Maybe information she could use in her seduction.

      He fixed his jaw. ‘Before I came on the scene? No, not really. I know they met at uni. He was doing a double-major in commerce and law and she studied arts until she withdrew at the end of second-year.’ All pretty much public record. ‘That’s about it.’

      ‘Aren’t you curious?’

      ‘Not especially. It’s ancient history.’ If they’d had any friends at university, they didn’t stay in touch into adulthood. If they had, he’d have known. They’d be amongst the endless honorary aunts and uncles that visited the Moore home when he was younger.

      Which made it strange that Tash’s mother didn’t rank amongst them, now that he thought about it.

      Almost as strange as realising he now thought of her as Tash.

      She lifted one brow. ‘Or is it more that it doesn’t involve you so it doesn’t rate?’

      Ouch. Had he been that much of a jerk since meeting her?

      Yeah, probably.

      ‘My family are close but they’ve always tried to keep the kids out of the old business.’ In fact, in his family the kids got knuckle-rapped for sticking their noses into anything adult.

      Which was how he knew exactly how pissed his father was going to be when he realised his son was running interference with a gold-digger. But he didn’t care. He was hardly going to stand around and let Natasha Sinclair lure his father’s attention away from his wife of thirty years like some toe-ring-wearing siren.

      His father was a handsome, rich man. Ambitious women came and went regularly. But generally they didn’t make a ripple. In all the years they’d worked together, he’d never seen his father so fixated on a woman. Especially such a young woman. Though he knew there’d been at least one time.... It was infamous in his family and no one talked about it above a whisper.

      So, like it or not, he was going to keep himself right up in their faces and on alert. If she wanted to mess with a wealthy Moore, she could have a crack at the heir. He was more than capable of taking her on, and—as his body tingled at the thought—more than willing.

      Maybe some of her free spirit would rub off on him like a breath of fresh air.

      * * *

      He didn’t know.

      Or, if he did, he had an outstanding poker face.

      Nothing about that had changed in the week since she’d first sat in this boardroom.

      Tash glanced out at the suburbs across the river stretching off beyond the horizon. The MooreCo building executive floor had to have one of the best views in town.

      Aiden Moore seemed entirely oblivious to their parents’ shared past. Exactly as oblivious as she was before she’d opened that first diary. For a whispered-about family secret, this one was surprisingly well maintained. She was hardly in a position to enlighten him.

      She glanced at both men. By the way, did you know that my mother and your father were lovers?

      She didn’t owe Aiden any loyalty just because they were offspring-in-the-dark in common. Her loyalty lay with Nathaniel—her mother’s love—and outing them both to Aiden would damage more than just his relationship with his own father. They were close, she could see. Not close enough to share secrets—and she had no doubts that Aiden had his fair share, too—but they were respectful of each other where it counted and disrespectful enough to speak of a close, affectionate relationship. Much closer than she could ever imagine with her own father. Their humour was pretty much aligned with hers and she had to concentrate on not smiling as they gently ribbed each other.

      She wasn’t part of this family, even if she felt like it.

      She

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