Even the way he handled the streets in a foreign city had her impressed. The Coonawarra could get busy, sure, on festival weekends or in peak season, but this was workaday madness and it just went on and on.
‘How do you know where you’re going?’
‘Sheer gut instinct,’ he answered, looking so superbly confident behind the wheel that she almost believed him. Then he looked at her over his sunglasses. ‘And I may have checked a map. It’s not that hard. Not far now.’
And while she loved the playfulness he sometimes showed, she almost wished he’d never given a glimpse of this side of his character. It made it harder to remember this was temporary. It made it too easy to wish for things that she shouldn’t wish for, things that could never be.
She gazed out at the busy city streets, the swirling traffic and the crush of pedestrians, promising herself that she would not fall into that trap. She’d sworn black and blue that she wouldn’t get emotional or needy or start thinking domestic bliss. And yet here she was already dreading his leaving. Knowing she would miss him. Knowing it would hurt.
Two weeks, that was all they probably had left together, given the progress they’d made with the pruning. Two short weeks at most.
That was all she was ever going to have.
She tossed her hair back and took a deep, settling breath.
It would be enough.
It would have to be.
He took a right at an intersection and pulled into a hotel reception driveway. ‘Here we are.’
‘The Chatsfield? But I thought—’
‘I changed the reservation,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I get a family discount.’ And he shot her a smile that made her laugh as the doorman opened her door and welcomed her to the hotel.
But really, the Chatsfield?
‘My parents were married here,’ she mused, taking in the classical facade of the stone building as he handed over the car key to the valet and joined her.
‘I know,’ he said, serious again. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I thought you might want to see.’
‘No, it’s … lovely. It’s so strange to think of them here so many years ago.’
‘I’ve got something to show you. Once we’re all checked in.’
All she could do was nod and smile as the brass-framed glass door opened into the smiling luxurious world of Sydney’s version of the Chatsfield.
It was like stepping back in time, Holly thought as she passed through the marble entry, although it wasn’t old-fashioned so much as classically elegant. Nothing looked cheap. Nothing looked shabby. Even the city air had been left behind and there was a note on the air—lemongrass?—clean and fresh. The whole impression was quality all the way, like she’d imagined Chatsfield’s had been in the past, before its reputation had been tarnished.
This hotel didn’t look tarnished.
Check-in was awesomely efficient. Amazing, of course, what a Chatsfield name on the booking could do to speed that up. And then they were shown to their room.
No, make that suite.
A suite with a view.
‘Our finest suite,’ said their well-practised personal concierge, who pushed open the door to a view that anyone in their right mind would gladly pay millions for and probably did. The best of Sydney was spread out around them with a panorama that stretched from the Sydney heads on one side all the way to the sails of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge on the other.
He gave them a second to drink in the view before showing them around their extravagant suite, a king-size bedroom complete with four-poster bed, a sumptuous marble bathroom and the expansive lounge area complete with dining table and where fresh flowers filled vases on timber side tables, lending their sweetness to the air.
‘A beautiful city,’ Franco said beside her after the concierge had left and they returned to the windows overlooking the city.
Holly was awestruck. She was actually here, in Sydney, looking out over a diamond-tipped harbour dotted with ferries and yachts crisscrossing the waters. And there, nestled alongside the harbour, was the Opera House, where Saturday’s award presentation would be made. All of a sudden she felt ill. She put a hand to her stomach, where butterflies were madly flapping their wings. ‘I don’t think I’m ready for this,’ she said.
‘You will be,’ he assured her, and then, ‘Come with me, there’s something I want you to see.’
He took her down the lift to the library room, a sumptuously rich dark room with panelled timber walls and high ceilings and shelves filled with books and old leather-bound ledgers. Wing-backed chairs and low tables strewn with the day’s newspapers from around the globe invited one to sit down and linger.