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him so well, she observed, “You’re upset.”

      He took a long gulp of whisky before replying. “Why wouldn’t I be? I owe him. You owe him. He cared about you. You were such a feisty little kid.”

      “So what went wrong, Dev?” she asked with some bitterness.

      They were back on well-trodden ground. “We all know that,” Dev gritted out.

      “Your grandmother hated my mother and me.”

      His expression darkened. “She feared your mother. I’d say she had a certain respect for you, you little terror!”

      “Well, she’s gone now and soon your grandfather will join her. They’ll lie together in the family plot, if nothing else. You’re talking about running Westhaven. Surely you’ve considered your grandfather could have planned on handing Langdon Enterprises to you.”

      “After our bust-up?” he said, draining the rest of the Scotch. “Many harsh words were spoken.”

      “You’ve never told me what it was all about.” She tried to fix his gaze but did not succeed.

      How could he? Dev thought, leaning forward to place his crystal tumbler on the table, with its small collection of art books. Mel had more than enough to handle. Better he never told her. It was all so sick and sad.

      “Okay, so you won’t!” she said, her nerves frayed. “But, trust me on this, Dev. We both know your father has always found walking in your grandfather’s shadow very heavy going. It’s not in his nature or his area of expertise to step into Gregory’s shoes.”

      Dev wasn’t having any of it. “Dad will inherit as a matter of course,” he said as though it were written in stone. “My father is the legitimate heir.”

      “Maybe, in the normal way, but your grandfather isn’t going to allow his hard-won empire to fall apart. He needs someone to run it after he’s gone. That someone is you.”

      Dev punched one fist into the other. “Dad has worked his butt off.”

      “I know.”

      Dev loved his mild-mannered father. He had always been very protective of him, even as a child. Erik Langdon was a long way from being incompetent, but it had proved impossible for him to emulate his dynamic father, a man with the Midas touch. Erik lacked the specific qualities it took to be the man at the very top of the chain. He had once gone on record as saying it was like trying to drive a vehicle uphill with the handbrake on. The Can-Do man had skipped a generation. It was Dev who had inherited all the skills necessary to succeed his tycoon grandfather.

      “I’m sure your father will be justly rewarded,” she said, as gently as she could, “but your grandfather won’t cede him control. Want to bet I’m right?”

      “Darling Mel, you always are,” Dev drawled. “Let’s get off the subject. Life is just one long series of hurdles for us.”

      “It happens when one gets caught up with wealthy, dysfunctional families.” Mel matched him for sarcasm. “I’ll get your sandwich. The coffee will only take a moment.”

      “You never intended to go, did you?”

      She could have shown him her packing. Instead, she said, “I don’t like letting my mother down.”

      “You’ve let me down, haven’t you?” he flashed back. “How many times exactly have you told me you loved me?”

      She took a deep breath. “I couldn’t begin to count the number, Dev. But we live on two different levels. We have separate lives. You have an escape valve, being who you are. Soon you’ll be the CEO of Langdon Enterprises, with huge responsibilities, always busy, always travelling thither and yon.”

      “Gimme a break, Mel!” His voice held a rasp. “You’re a clever woman. You’d fit in supremely well.”

      Her laugh was raw. “Not with the clan, I wouldn’t. They do have a hold on you, Dev. A few of them are major shareholders.”

      “So what? I can’t solve your problems, Mel. Problems are keeping this God-awful distance between us,” he said with intense frustration. “This damned love torment. The never-ending family stuff is the prime cause of our alienation.”

      “It’s your family, Dev. Not mine. Such as it is. We’ve talked and we’ve walked all around our feelings. We’re on a merry-go-round and we can’t jump off. Any thought of marriage has turned into an impossible dream.”

      Dev leapt to his feet, his aquamarine eyes blazing with anger and outrage. “You know why? Because you’re always applying the brakes. Think I don’t know you fear being dominated? As though it could happen! What you really want is to bend my will to yours. It’s the war of the sexes, with you the man-hater. You said you wanted to stand on your own two feet. I’ve gone along with that.”

      “Standing on my own two feet is central to everything.” Mel tried to defend herself.

      “But I applaud it, Mel,” he cried in utter exasperation. “That’s what you can’t seem to grasp. I’m proud of you and how clever you are. You’d be a big asset to Langdon Enterprises, if you ever left Greshams. Anyone would think we were in competition, the way you behave. I don’t understand what it is you want me to be. I can’t grapple with all your expectations of the perfect man. I’m me. Far from perfect. Sometimes I think you’re actually frightened of me. Not in a physical sense. You know I would never hurt you. But you do have this huge problem with male domination.”

      God knew it was true. “I grew up with it, didn’t I, this little satellite orbiting a giant tyrannical figure. Your grandfather carried domination to the extreme. Always the iron fist.”

      “For goodness’ sake, Mel,” Dev protested, “he was himself. Stronger, cleverer, tougher than anyone else.”

      “You might be describing yourself.” Mel shook her head bleakly.

      Dev showed his fast-rising temper. “Now you’re making me really angry. What is it you want me to be, Mel? Do you even know? I can’t figure it out and I’ve come at it from every angle. As far as I can see, your biggest problem is you. Your exaggerated need for independence, self-reliance, like you don’t need a man, as though a man could break you. I’m telling you it’s paranoia!”

      “Okay, maybe it is!” Pressure was expanding inside her, building up a huge head of steam. There were always bottled-up forces ready to explode when they came together, a consequence of their shared troubled history and her mother’s illicit position in Gregory Langdon’s life. “Let’s stop now, Dev,” she said more quietly. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

      He sat down again, bending his blond head almost to his knees. “And I don’t want to argue with you. But you are one strange woman, Mel.”

      “I expect I am,” she said in a haunted voice. “You know your place in the world, Dev. All I know is I grew up without a father and a father’s love and wisdom. What I know about my mother wouldn’t fill half a page in a child’s exercise book. She’s the only child of Italian parents, Francis and Adriana Cavallaro, who migrated to Australia and settled in Sydney. It has a large Italian and Italian-descent population. There was no other family. My mother left home, a bit like Ava, to escape her father’s very strict control. I never got to know any of my family. God knows why she decided to shift as far away as North Queensland. That’s a long haul.”

      “Do we even know if that’s true?” Dev muttered. “I wouldn’t put it past your mother to have been wearing an impenetrable disguise all these years. When she came to Kooraki no one would have questioned her background. Where she came from would have been considered irrelevant. She was simply Mike Norton’s young wife.”

      “Terrible to think my mother’s past could be an invention, a construct of lies. I hate blacked out spaces, secrets.”

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