The Night That Started It All

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Book: Read The Night That Started It All for Free Online
Authors: Anna Cleary
been a fantastic few minutes they’d shared. Fantastic.
    Her silky softness still seemed to be in his senses, her voice, her very
essence
… His hands tightened on the wheel. If he was honest, he wasn’t ready yet to call it quits with her.
    They left the Harbour Bridge behind, wound a way through the neon city and plunged into a maze of narrow one-way streets lined with terraces. Having lost the taxi a couple of times, he
thought
he still had the same one in view, and was heartened when he saw the name Paddington on a shop front.
    Wasn’t that where she’d said she lived?
    Just his luck, he was trapped on the wrong side of a red light. By the time he started again, the cab was out of sight.
    He cursed long and colourfully. Taking the direction he calculated his quarry must have taken, he crossed a couple of intersections before he reached one where he caught a fleeting glimpse of someone alighting from a stationary cab. The distance was too far for him to be certain it was Shari, but it was a chance. His only chance.
    Curbing his impatience, he recircuited the block and waited for the lights again, drumming his fingers on the wheel in his urgency to backtrack.
    By the time he reached the terrace he’d estimated was the one, the cab was well and truly gone, the street quiet.
    Breathing fast, her heart still thumping painfully, Shari paused in the delicate task of stripping her face bare. She would not accept the verdict. She wasn’t guilty of anything.
    She’d done nothing to feel ashamed of. She didn’t care what Luc Valentin thought of her. She’d allowed him to enjoy her body purely out of generosity.
    She took some deep calming breaths to slow herself down, then, when her hand was steadier, gingerly dabbed the paint from the bruise, revealing it in all its violent glory.
    Was it her imagination it looked worse? She cleaned her teeth, then changed into her flowery old oversized tee shirt and slipped into bed. Lying there in the dark, she rolled the events of the evening around in her mind.
    It was
his
problem if he couldn’t appreciate an honest human exchange without labelling a woman. And the insulting way he’d refused to believe a word she’d said. What was that all about?
    She was startled from her reflections by noise from outside. Her heart thudded until she remembered tonight was the neighbourhood’s bin collection night. Hers was crammed full to overflowing with trash left by the previous tenants.
    She should get up and take out the bin. She should.
    From his park across the street Luc scrutinised the row of houses in the terrace. He suspected 217 could be the one, for a light had recently gone out in its upper front window. Now the entire house was in darkness, as was its neighbour.
    What if he was mistaken? He began to see how ridiculous his mad chase was. He couldn’t knock on every door in the terrace.And how likely was Shari to open the door to him anyway? She’d probably accuse him of stalking her.
    Le bon Dieu
, he
was
stalking. Whatever it was about her that had got under his skin was compelling him to linger there even now, when he knew he’d lost any opportunity he might have had if only he’d been able to keep the cab closer.
    It wasn’t as if he could throw pebbles at her window. The chances were he might terrify some poor little old lady to death.
    He was about to cut his losses and call it a night when he heard a familiar rumbling, then at 221 an old guy came into view hauling a wheelie bin. He trundled it through his gate and parked it next to some others lined up under a streetlight.
    A minute or two later one after another all the lights came on at 219.
    Luc waited, watching, then his heart leaped. Another bin was being wheeled from the gate of 219, this time by a woman.
    A
blonde
woman.
    He got out of the car and strode swiftly across the street.
    She’d changed from her party clothes into some long, flowing robe-like garment, but as he drew nearer he saw it was Shari.

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