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on the floor in floods of tears, “Don’t be so silly, Sash. If we tape it we can fast-forward all the advertisements.”’

      Brett chuckled softly. ‘Definitely a man after my own heart. What did she say to that?’

      ‘Well, she’s no fool either,’ Nicola mused with secret laughter lurking in her eyes. ‘She said she liked the advertisements, they gave you a chance to go and get drinks and things, and she couldn’t stand the way men imagined they were driving a speed car when they had a remote control in their hands—flicking from one channel to another, fast-forwarding things and so on.’

      ‘You’re kidding. She’s only six.’

      ‘All the same, in more juvenile terms, that’s what she said! Six is old enough to be struck by male failings, apparently. You, for example, are a nightmare to watch television with for just that reason. So is Chris.’

      ‘Good Lord!’

      ‘So, there you go.’ Nicola sat down and pulled the sheaf of bills towards her.

      ‘We’ve been invited out to lunch on Sunday, by the way,’ Brett said after a moment.

      ‘Anywhere interesting? Can we take the kids?’

      ‘Of course. The Masons—I believe you met them at the Goodes’ dinner party a few weeks ago.’

      Nicola wrinkled her brow. ‘Oh, yes, I remember. He’s a big, bearded bear of a man and she’s small and cuddly and given to being embarrassingly frank.’ She looked amused. ‘Isn’t he the new District Court Judge?’

      ‘The same. They’ve invited us to their house at Buchans Point. They have a pool as well as the beach. The kids should enjoy it.’

      ‘Sounds nice.’ Nicola threw down her pen to yawn heartily. ‘I think I’ll finish these tomorrow.’

      ‘Tired?’ he asked casually as he watched her tuck her feet beneath her.

      ‘I don’t know why.’

      ‘The rigours of marriage counselling?’ he suggested.

      ‘I think the rigour was on the other foot, if anything.’ She grimaced. ‘He was quite bemused.’

      ‘Let’s hope he’s quite discreet,’ Brett said.

      ‘He assured me he was.’

      Brett stood up and stretched. ‘Because I doubt whether you’d enjoy featuring in the gossip columns any more than I would, Nicola.’

      They stared at each for a long moment, until he added, ‘Don’t forget, that was the other object of this exercise—to protect your fair name from being dragged through the mud.’

      ‘And on that properly grateful note—’ she got up and curtseyed ‘—I’ll take myself to bed, sir!’

      He said nothing, but his eyes were suddenly cynical and cold.

      Don’t say it, Nicola warned herself. But, as so often happened, she failed to take her own advice—although she did manage to sound fairly clinical instead of rashly impassioned. ‘There are times when I hate you, Brett.’

      ‘I know.’ He picked up his glass and drained it.

      ‘Doesn’t it ever bother you?’

      He set the glass down on the desk, stared at it for a moment, then raised his eyes to hers. There was so much amusement in them now, she caught her breath at the same time as a little frisson ran down her spine. A frisson of awareness that she despised herself for but couldn’t help, because Brett Harcourt did that to her even when he laughed at her.

      ‘No, Nicola. You remind me of Sasha, actually. She often hates me when she doesn’t get her own way. Why don’t you go to bed? You not only sound tired and cross, you look it.’

      She opened her mouth, then bit her lip and walked past him. But he put out a hand and closed it round her wrist. ‘Good thinking,’ he said with soft satire, then genuinely laughed at her expression. ‘OK, OK, I’m sorry! Of course you don’t remind me of Sasha, that was tit for tat, but there is nothing on earth for you to be in a state about.’

      They were very close-close enough for Nicola to see the little golden flecks in his eyes and feel that frisson of awareness grow into something stronger as his lean, strong fingers moved on the soft skin of her inner wrist.

      ‘If you say so, Brett,’ she murmured colourlessly, and removed her gaze from the line of his shoulders beneath the bone-coloured shirt, hoping and praying at the same time that he had no idea what the strong column of his throat and those broad shoulders sometimes did to her—evoking an erotic little desire to explore them with her fingertips and follow that trail with her lips.

      He released her abruptly. ‘I do. Goodnight, Nicola.’

      But something stopped her from moving immediately, something that made her look at him fleetingly, into his eyes, to discover that everything—the amusement and everything else—had been leached from his expression so that it was like looking at a blank wall.

      ‘Goodnight, Brett,’ she said then, quietly and evenly, and slipped away.

      Brett Harcourt stood in the same spot for some moments and wondered, as he’d found himself wondering from time to time over the last two years, if his wife was essentially naive and genuinely had no idea how attractive and desirable most men found her. Because it was true that he couldn’t accuse her of appearing to have much interest in men at all, although he’d been right about her effect on them.

      But was it something she still had to grow into? he mused. Or had this marriage of convenience been even more successful than he’d thought, from the point of view of keeping the daughter of a man he’d admired immensely safe? But safe in an ivory tower?

      He stared at nothing for a moment, then shrugged.

      CHAPTER TWO

      SUNDAY dawned clear and hot, although not nearly so hot as Cairns could get. May was one of the nicest months in the far north of Queensland, Nicola often thought. By May the threat of cyclones had receded, the stingers and box jellyfish were removing their deadly tentacles from beaches and the weather was generally cooler and dryer—if not exactly autumnal by southern standards. Although she’d been brought up in Cairns, there was no doubt the hot steamy summers took their toll.

      She walked out onto the veranda and absorbed the view.

      Brett Harcourt had built a house at Yorkeys Knob, a northern beach suburb of Cairns dominated by a small, steep and wooded headland—the Knob. He’d built his house on the Knob to take in spectacular views of the ocean, as well as the cane fields, of which he owned a large slice, that stretched inland to the range. Sugar cane was not his only investment. He owned banana and avocado plantations, as well as mango farms—for that matter, so did she.

      But it was not the injustice of having her inheritance in someone else’s hands until she was twenty-three that was on her mind as she gazed at the view, it was only how lovely it all was that preoccupied her.

      Out to sea there were magic reefs and cays, not visible at this distance, but once you’d visited them they stayed in your mind whenever you looked out. Michaelmas Cay, Upolo—a lovely little hoop of pale gold sand in a turquoise sea studded with coral—Green Island, Arlington Reef, and to the north Batt and Tongue Reefs, the Low Isles, Agincourt Reef and many more as the Great Barrier Reef rose from the depths of the Coral Sea.

      Closer to home to the north was Trinity Beach and Palm Cove on the mainland, then Buchans Point—the venue for lunch today. And the Range, cloaked in its dense, dark green foliage, rose majestically behind them to Kuranda and the Atherton Tablelands.

      The other advantage of having a house on the Knob was the wonderful privacy. The road was actually above their roof level, and their neighbours were hidden by a glorious tangle of tropical shrubbery: pink, purple and white bougainvillaea, yellow allamanda and

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