‘Maybe not for you. But it is when you grow up in a small town and you know everybody within fifty miles, you know who they talk to in the pub, and you know they talk.’
‘It can’t be that bad.’
‘You want to bet?’ She dragged in air, remembering. ‘When I was in high school, I confessed to some so-called friends that I’d never had sex. It was all over the school by the end of lunchtime. You know what everyone called me for the rest of the year?’
He looked over at her, shook his head.
‘Purman the Virgin. Do you know how many times I heard that during my final year, because I sure lost count?’ She sat back in her seat. ‘Too many. And if there’s one thing I can thank Mark Turner for—that man who was just after the vines as you referred to him—it’s that everyone assumed we’d been lovers and they gave up and found somebody else to harass. But if anyone found out now, I’d be a joke all over again. I’d be Purman the Virgin for the rest of my life.
‘So no. You can take your needy virgin theory and shove it. Because I wouldn’t be your needy virgin wanting to march you down the aisle or have your babies.’
‘You don’t know that for sure. Sex changes a woman.’
‘You think it would change the way I think about you? No, the way I see it, it’s foolproof. Because you blow out of here in three weeks’ time and we never have to see each other again and I know I’m not going to become the subject of gossip at the local footy club. I know nobody will ever know. And then if I find someone I want to have gratuitous sex with, I can.’
‘Who are you thinking of having gratuitous sex with?’ he said too quickly. ‘Have I met him?’
‘That’s my secret,’ she said with a small smile. ‘Maybe I should have just asked him in the first place.’ This time she was rewarded with a glare. ‘Maybe I will.’
He grumped into silence, his mood as dark as the night around them. She didn’t understand. Didn’t want to. Couldn’t see past her sad stories and that he might be right.
It was too easy for her. Because she didn’t know.
He knew.
He’d witnessed a woman tear herself to pieces trying to find an excuse to hang on to a relationship when there was nothing else to hold it together. He’d borne the brunt of her tears and her anguish as she’d tried to find a reason to make the unworkable work.
And all the time he’d known he wasn’t blameless.
All the time he’d borne that guilt.
Because from the very beginning he’d let Michele down. He’d used her to get back at his family. He’d used her for his own purposes and then abandoned her just as carelessly when he’d taken off for Italy.
He could use this woman too. No matter what she asked of him, no matter what he agreed to, making love to her would never be an act of generosity. He would take more than he would give. He would be doing it for him. And then, just as he had done to Michele, he would abandon this woman too. He would return to Italy and leave her behind without a backwards glance.
Could he do that again?
Dare he risk it?
Because last time it had cost him a kidney and the love of a child he had known for too short a time.
What would it cost him this time?
She’d called Gus from the car to tell him they’d be home late and she was hoping he’d be tucked up in bed. He wasn’t. Gus was waiting for them when they got home, shuffling behind his new walking frame, happy to be out of the wheelchair.
‘I hear the highway was blocked for hours this morning,’ he said as they pulled boxes from the back of the car to stack on the long table for tomorrow’s labelling exercise. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t stay overnight.’
‘We thought about it.’
‘Holly was in a hurry to get back,’ explained Franco.
‘That’s funny,’ she said, ‘I could have sworn that was you.’
They didn’t look at each other or at Gus.
‘What’s that smell?’ Gus asked, his nose twitching as they passed. ‘You both reek of wine. What happened? Did you drop a bottle?’
‘Holly disgorged and dosaged a bottle and forgot to put her thumb over the top.’
Gus frowned and it was clear this was something that had never happened before, anywhere in the annals of Holly Purman wine whisperer folklore. ‘Holly forgot?’
‘Yeah, Pop,’ she said, because it was much, much easier than admitting that Franco had distracted her, and how. ‘I forgot.’
CHAPTER TEN
FRANCO PUNCHED HIS pillow but the pillow fought back and wouldn’t let him sleep. He swiped it out from under his head and threw it on the floor, cursing. It wasn’t the pillow’s fault, he knew that.