âYou havenât heard my proposal. Itâs actually quite honorable.â
Aurora pushed her plate away unfinished and looked heavenward. âOkay, hit me with it. Then Iâll tell you exactly what I think of it.â
âIâll return one of your diaries to you,â Luke told her, âfor each date you have with me. Incidentally, I only intend to keep the last five diaries, so our agreement would extend for five dates. After that who knows?â
âAnd if I donât agree to this?â
Luke shrugged. âI guess Iâll get to know you through your diaries.â
âFOR crying out loud, Luke,â Jack Barnard said sotto-voce as he eyed the retreating, ramrod-straight back of one of the most militant women heâd ever met, âwhy the hell do you put up with thatâ¦that gorgon? Getting anywhere near you is like trying to break into Fort Knox!â
Luke Kirwan grinned and picked up the list of messages his secretary had just presented him with before departing indoors. âMiss Hillier?â he drawled. âBelieve me, Jack, sheâs invaluable for keepingâ¦â he paused ââ¦students of the female persuasion at bay.â
Jack Barnard stopped looking irritable behind his spectacles and laughed aloud. âDonât tell me they still make a nuisance of themselves? Itâs not a problem I would have a problem with, by the way. Herds of sweet young things panting to be in oneâs bed. Mind youââ he looked reflective ââwith the delectable Leonie Murdoch in oneâs life, perhaps not. Is that what this is all about?â He gestured comprehensively to include the house behind them and the garden around them.
Luke Kirwan rubbed his blue-shadowed jaw and squinted up at the home he had only recently moved into. It was a two-storeyed, attractive, hacienda-style home perched on Manly Hill, a bay-side suburb of Brisbane. From the terrace, where he sat enjoying a beer with his long-time friend Jack Barnard, who was also his solicitor, they had sweeping views out over Moreton Bay towards North Stradbroke Island. âMaybe,â he said pensively and shrugged. âMaybe not. I was looking for an investment when it came on the market, then I thought it might be nice to live here.â
Jack Barnard regarded his friend quizzically. It was hard to imagine a more unlikely professor of physicsâand one of the youngest to gain his chair at the university he taught at. Because Luke Kirwan was about as far removed in looks from the proverbial absent-minded professor as one could get. Tall, lean and dark with a hint of rapier-like strength, he also possessed a pair of brooding dark eyes that made him look arrogant even when he wasnâtâalthough there was no doubt he could be arrogant.
Add to this a boundless energy, a fine intellect and the capacity to look through people who bored him with complete indifferenceâand you had the kind of man women found electrifying, Jack Barnard mused ruefully. He himself, he went on to think also ruefully, was much more the archetypal professor. He was short-sighted and supremely absent-minded.
But it was on his mind as he surveyed Luke Kirwan that a worm of discontent might be niggling away at his friend. One would have thought that, by now, Luke and Leonie Murdoch might have tied the knotâthey were a spectacular couple and had been together for a few years. In fact he, Jack, had been quite sure it was about to happen when heâd first heard about the new house. Now, though, he wasnât at all sure of it.
âMay I point out that you spend very little time at home, Luke, so this could all be quite wasted on you?â he said, and added delicately, âHave you and Leonie fallen out in any way?â
Luke Kirwan gazed expressionlessly out over island-studded Moreton Bay as it danced and glittered beneath a clear blue sky. Then he transferred that enigmatic dark gaze to his friend and said with a quizzical little smile playing on his lips, âJack, what will be, will be.â
âIn other words, mind my own business?â Jack hazarded wryly.
âIn one word, exactly.â
A week later, Aurora Templeton set her teeth and commanded herself to stop shaking.
True, she was breaking into someoneâs house at the dead of night, but only to remove something that rightfully belonged to her. So it wasnât stealing. It wasnât really breaking and entering because she had no intention of breaking anything, as for enteringâyes, well, that could be a moot point, she conceded as she shaded the torch with her gloved fingers. But if you couldnât retrieve your property by any other means, what else were you supposed to do?