‘Did you have a dog when you were a boy, Max?’

The smile turned into a sardonic grimace as he shook his head. ‘The circumstances I lived in then…it wouldn’t have been fair on a dog.’

Not fair on him, either, she thought. A drug-addicted mother would not have given him a stable life.

‘I had a job on Sunday mornings for a while,’ he said reminiscently. ‘Pulling a barrow of newspapers around the neighbourhood, blowing a whistle for people to come out and buy. Their dogs always came out and I made friends with them. They’d follow me down the street until their owners called them back. I always enjoyed doing that paper run.’

‘You’ve come a long way since then,’ Chloe murmured.

‘Yes. And still too much on the move to acquire a dog.’

Or a wife.

She wondered if those early years with his mother had taught him not to get attached to anyone or anything, to count only on himself. But this place had called to him.

‘You have a home now,’ she said.

‘A home to come home to. I travel a lot, Chloe.’

‘Do you ever get tired of it…the travelling?’ she asked curiously.

‘The flights can be tedious. Australia is a long way from anywhere else. But I like having the world as my playground. Not being limited.’

She sighed. ‘You make me realise how limited my world has been. I haven’t even been outside this country. My mother always had more work lined up for me, hardly ever a break.’

‘You can change that, too.’

Yes, she could. Freedom was a powerful thing if she learnt to use it wisely.

‘Have you ever been sailing, Chloe?’

‘No.’

‘Then come out on the catamaran with me,’ he invited, his dark eyes challenging her to take on a new experience. ‘We’ll only be gone an hour or two and Eric will mind Luther. He’s up on your terrace trimming the hedge.’

Max watched temptation war with caution. She wanted to accept, but undoubtedly her mother had fed her fears about being alone with the big, bad shark. The dog had made this little encounter safe, put her at ease, but without Luther…

She turned her gaze to the harbour. Her chin lifted slightly. Then with an air of self-determination, she looked back at him and said, ‘You’ll have to tell me what to do.’

‘You don’t have to do anything except sit or lie on the deck and enjoy skimming across the water,’ he assured her, smiling as he pushed himself onto his feet. ‘While you fix Luther up with Eric, I’ll take the catamaran out to the wharf, ready for you to board.’

There was eager delight on her face as she scrambled up from the grass. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

‘No hurry. Get a hat, too, and put on some sun-block cream.’

‘Okay.’

Max felt a zing of triumphant satisfaction as he headed down to the boatshed. Stephanie Rollins was fast losing her influence on Chloe. Which was all to the good. He wanted her to feel free, to make choices for herself, and she’d just chosen to be with him, despite the witch’s warnings.

Once they were out in the harbour, Max realised winning had its downside. He had the exhilarating pleasure of watching Chloe’s uninhibited joy in the speedy ride across the water, her laughter when waves splashed over the hull, leaving them both dripping wet. She didn’t care about how she looked. She simply loved all the sensations of sailing. And it stoked Max’s desire for her to the point of severe physical discomfort.

Several times he had to turn away from her, focus fiercely on manipulating the sail, changing the cat’s direction, waiting until the tension in his groin eased. His baggy shorts gave him some cover but not enough after they’d got wet, and it certainly didn’t help that Chloe’s damp clothes clung to every luscious curve of her body.

He couldn’t remember ever being on fire for a woman to this extent. He wanted to lick the salt water from her beautiful face, taste her laughter, peel off her clothes, bury his face in her breasts, suck the nipples that were poking out at him so teasingly, bury himself so deeply inside her nothing else would matter-all-consuming sex, devouring all the reasons why they shouldn’t have it.

He knew she wasn’t immune to his sexual attraction. The occasional sharp intake of breath, the quick look away, the self-conscious curling up of her long, bare legs-all revealing little actions. The big question was-would she fight what she wanted with him, or welcome it?

Risky business.

Rushing into it might break her trust in him.

But it was damned difficult to hold himself back.

At least another week, he told himself. Keep building the chemistry between them, breaking down the mental barriers, issuing tempting invitations, which would seem simply companionable, no reason to refuse-no reasonable reason.

‘Had fun?’ he asked as he brought the catamaran in beside the wharf, grabbing the ladder to hold the craft steady for Chloe to get off.

She glowed at him. ‘It was brilliant, Max. Thank you so much.’

He grinned. ‘Hungry work, sailing. Like to join me for lunch by the pool after you’ve cleaned up?’

Again the hesitation.

He pushed, teasingly adding, ‘We can feed Luther tit-bits under the table.’

Including the dog sealed it.

She laughed. ‘He loves chicken.’

‘I’ll ask Elaine to make us chicken caesar salads.’

‘That would be great. You’ll have two eager guests.’

‘Glad to have the company.’

Chloe told herself it was stupid to deny herself the pleasure of his company. He was a brilliant, fascinating man. The powerful tug of his strong masculinity would affect any woman. It wasn’t special to her. She just had to learn to deflect it, concentrate on their conversation. This was a chance to learn more about him and his life and she wanted to know how he’d managed the journey he’d taken to here, what it took to become the man he was.

It was the right decision to go. The lunch was delicious. Max was totally relaxed, enjoying Luther’s appetite for chicken as well as his own. Chloe had tied a sarong over her swimming costume, and relieved of being over-conscious of her body in his presence, she relaxed, too. Max had already been in the pool for a swim when she’d arrived and had a towel tucked around his waist-a decent enough covering to allay the unsettling awareness of his body.

Luther curled up on one of the lounges and went to sleep while they lingered at the table, finishing off the bottle of wine Edgar had brought with their lunch. Chloe screwed up her courage to do some probing into Max’s background, telling herself it was okay if he rebuffed her. He had a right to his privacy. She could apologise and backtrack into neutral subjects.

‘Max, I know your mother died of a drug overdose when you were sixteen. You must have been through worse things than me in your growing up years,’ she started off, her eyes earnestly appealing for his forbearance when she saw the shutting down of all expression on his face. ‘I just want to know how you moved past it.’

He turned his gaze away from her, eyelids lowered to half-mast. For several tense moments, Chloe sensed him brooding over whether to answer her or not, his mind travelling back to the past, sifting through it, weighing up whether he was prepared to reveal anything. When he finally spoke, it was in a very dry, dismissive tone.

‘When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. You move on because there’s no alternative.’ He looked back at her, his eyes very dark and intense. ‘You have the harder road to travel, Chloe. You know there’s someone you can retreat to if you find it too difficult. That may weaken your resolve to move on.’

‘I’ll never go back to my mother,’ she said vehemently, knowing she had been weak not to make the break before this. The feeling of being hopelessly trapped in a relentless cycle of demands was gone now, thanks to Max.