LITMIR.BIZ

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taste buds broke into a dance just as the elevator doors slid open at the top level. And she realised with a jolt of shock how little notice she’d taken of her surroundings downstairs. Here the changes hit her full in the face.

      Ten years ago the house had been newly built and decorated in stark white to play up the clean lines and irregular angles. But with the open plan and abundant windows, light had bounced off every wall with blinding impact. Many times she’d teased him about the need to don sunglasses before entering his house.

      Not anymore.

      Evening sunlight still beamed through the glass doors that opened onto a large curved balcony, but the effect had been softened with earthy tones of cream and pale salmon and rich moss green. Kimberley paused in the centre of the living room to take in all the changes. In the dining room one feature wall was painted with a mottled sponging of peachy cream. The artwork, the plants, the polished timber floors and terracotta sofas packed with plumped cushions, even the gilded shades on the unusual light fittings, all complemented the warm palette.

      She finished her slow 360-degree inspection to find Perrini watching her from behind the kitchen bar. A bottle of wine and two glasses sat before him on the waist-high counter.

      “What do you think?” he asked. “Did I get it right?”

      There was something in his stillness, in the deliberate casualness of his question, that caused her heart to thump hard against her ribs.

      He’d listened. The night she lay on one of the matched pair of snow-white couches with her head in his lap and described how she would decorate this area. He’d remembered.

      She completed another turn as if she was still making up her mind, and then she lifted her arms and let them fall with the same fake casualness. “It works for me. Do you like it?”

      “Overall, yes.” The hawklike intensity of his expression softened as he switched his attention to opening the wine. “I could have done without the peachy colours but Madeleine insisted.”

      Kimberley’s heart stopped for a beat. Of course he hadn’t done it himself. How stupid to imagine him matching colours and cushions with her long-ago Sunday musings.

      She wandered over to inspect a large abstract canvas, then on to the glass doors where she stared blindly out at the view. “Madeleine?” she asked.

      “The decorator. She had her own interpretations on the brief I gave her.”

      Not the live-in lover stewing in her imagination, but a professional. It was nothing personal, nothing to do with Kimberley at all, which was a very good thing. It was bad enough that she still felt an intense sexual pull every time he got too near, she didn’t need the emotional resonance of discovering he’d decorated to her specifications, to please her, to welcome her home. It was much better to acknowledge that he’d taken her overall idea and used it to inspire the overhaul. She couldn’t be disappointed. She would not allow herself that weakness.

      When Perrini arrived at her side and handed her a glass of white wine, she thanked him with a smile. “Even if you painted the walls lime-green, it wouldn’t matter. This—” she raised her glass to indicate the view “—would always be the focus.”

      He opened the doors and Kimberley wandered out to stand at the wrought-iron railing. Low down to her left Sydney’s most famous beach was littered with people despite the late hour. Some swam, some strolled, others sat on the golden slice of sand and scanned the horizon, as Kimberley did now, for a sailboat or a cruiser or a cargo ship chugging out to sea.

      It wasn’t quiet, thanks to the traffic on Campbell Parade and the summer tourists cruising the beach promenade—but Kimberley welcomed the sounds and sensations that regaled her body, even the sensual buzz when Perrini came to stand close by her side. The past week sequestered at Miramare and focussed so completely on the plane crash and its deadly consequences had numbed her to the wider world. She’d needed to get out, somewhere like this, a place that breathed life into her senses.

      “I love this aspect,” she said with soft reverence. “Not to mention the view.”

      “Is that why you bought your town house in One Tree Hill?” he asked after a moment.

      Unable to make the connection, Kimberley shook her head. “What do you mean?”

      “Its similarity to this place. The high aspect, the view, the architecture.”

      “I don’t think they’re even close to alike. My total floor space would fit on one of your levels with room to spare. And as for the view—” she expelled a breath that was part wry laughter, part disbelief “—how can you compare? You have a version of this postcard panorama from every window. I have to stand on tiptoes in my highest heels to get the tiniest glimpse of Manukau Harbour, and that’s only from my deck.”

      Perrini didn’t respond although she felt the long, warm drift of his gaze all the way down her body until it reached her leopard-print heels. And for that length of time she wished she had worn the new dress with its matching print and silk-cloud fabric. She wished the evening could continue in this easy harmony, that she could kick off these heels and indulge her sensual self with the wine and the food and the company and yes, even the dangerous tug to desire.

      She wished she could forget her past hurts and everything that had happened this week and just live in the moment.

      “I don’t come out here enough.” Perrini’s voice, low and reflective, interrupted her reverie. “The view is a waste when I don’t take time to enjoy it.”

      “Do you still work those punishing hours then?”

      “When I have to.”

      “No one ever has to,” she countered with subtle emphasis. “They choose that course, for whatever motivation drives them. Ambition, money, ego, security, insecurity.”

      With Perrini she wasn’t certain which applied. For all his charm and extravagant good looks, he possessed an inner toughness and a determination to succeed. She knew he’d been raised by a single mother, that he’d worked his way through school and a business degree, but he’d never really opened up about his childhood. That was just one more regret she’d taken away from their relationship. He’d only ever shared what he’d chosen to, withholding so much of the important stuff.

      “Which is it with you, Kim? What motivates you?”

      “The work,” she said simply.

      “Still?”

      “Yes, still.”

      He studied her a moment, his blue gaze shadowed in the gathering dusk. “What about that ambition you used to talk about, that craving for a top-floor office at Blackstone Diamonds? You used to see yourself as your father’s successor. What happened to that dream?”

      “A dream is all that was ever going to be, Perrini. You know that.”

      “No,” he contradicted, “I don’t know that and neither do you. Everything is about to change at Blackstone’s. If you haven’t revisited that dream lately, then it’s about time you did.”

      Kimberley’s heart was beating hard. She hadn’t revisited those old dreams, old ambitions, the stuff of her childhood, in more than a decade. Since her return she hadn’t looked beyond the directorship proposition and the chance to end the old feud that had rent the two branches of her family apart.

      Did she want to be part of the family company?

      Did she harbour that leadership ambition anymore?

      The chime of the doorbell broke the intense moment. Perrini straightened, lifting his head. “That will be dinner. Roberto’s food is too good to keep waiting. Let’s continue this discussion after we eat.”

      Ric kicked himself savagely for bringing up business prematurely and destroying the relaxed ambience established on the balcony. Dinner provided a temporary distraction. While they enjoyed the simply

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