HER EVERY FANTASY

She walked across the living room to the goldfish bowl and smiled at Rhett and Scarlet who were responding eagerly to her presence. She didn’t have to hide anything from them. They gave her pleasure and made no demands… except for food. It cost her very little to supply that.

A baby would cost a great deal more, on many levels. But whatever the price she would pay it… somehow. She would never, never ask Collins for anything. She’d taken the gift of a child from him. He owed her nothing. But the child was not all hers. The big question was… how would he react to it?

Her phone rang, drawing her away from her thoughts. Any distraction from her thoughts was welcome. She didn’t speculate on who might be calling. She simply reached for her bag and withdrew her phone. She paused when she looked at the caller ID and saw Collins name.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

She waited two more rings before she could bring herself to pick the call. When he said her name, she held her breath. There was a moment of silence then her name was repeated again at the other end of the line.

‘Jasmine…’ The deep timbre of the voice was instantly recognisable, stopping her heart dead and sending prickles down her spine.

‘… it’s Collins Templeton.’

Oh of course she knew that, but the confirmation did nothing to loosen her tongue which was stuck to the roof of her mouth. The shock of hearing from him held her utterly frozen.

‘I was wondering if you could get a goldfish-sitter?’ he continued.

The crazy question jolted her into croaking, ‘What? Why? I don’t understand.’

‘Someone to look after Rhett and Scarlet if you flew to L. A. for a week.’

‘L. A.?’ She knew she was sounding stupid at the moment, but couldn’t snap herself out of the stunned daze.

‘I would like very much if you’d partner me to the Academy Awards ceremony.’ said Collins.

Partner him. ‘Oh. When?’ The question tripped off her tongue. ‘I mean why?’

Flying to LA would mean flying on Thursday, twenty-first of March.

‘I will book the flight and you can pick up the E-ticket at the Qantas desk. You will be met at LAX airport by a chauffeur and transported to the Regent Beverley Wiltshire Hotel where T have a suite booked. All you have to do is arrange for time off work and find someone to look after the goldfish.’

The Regent Beverley Wiltshire-it was where they’d made the movie Pretty Woman. Was she to be Collins pretty woman for his big Hollywood night? She quickly checked herself. This was a man who had left without a words, and now he was calling, asking her to catch a flight like everything was okay and they had been in touch ever since. No matter how much she missed him, she felt like she deserved an apology… An explanation…. just something.

‘I don’t think I can do that Collins’ she said softly, fighting the urge in her to take the offer. She had missed him so damn much and simply hearing his voice was a lot for her.

There was a pause, and then he asked. ‘Why not?’

Why not? Jasmine wanted to punch something, but she kept herself in check, needing her emotional control. ‘Why? Because you just can’t call me out of the blue after all this time and make demands to see me. That’s just… Just…’

‘Just what, Jasmine?’ Collins asked, and the tone of his voice told her that he was laughing. The nerve of the man.

‘Disrespectful, Collins’ she blurted out, losing a bit of a much needed emotional control. ‘It’s disrespectful’

‘Oh. I’m sorry’ he said. He did sound remorseful, or maybe that was just what she wanted to hear. She wasn’t sure anymore.

‘I guess I didn’t go about it the right way, but believe me, disrespecting you was the last thing I intended to do. I’m sorry’

She didn’t say anything…. She just couldn’t.

‘Jasmine’ he repeated.

‘Jasmine… will you come?’

She should have asked, why her? She should have asked dozens of questions. But a wild rush of blood to the head blotted out all of them.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Good!’ A wealth of satisfaction in his voice. ‘Call Qantas tomorrow and they’ll give you the details.’

‘Collins…’

‘Mmm?’

Nothing. She’d just wanted to say his name. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you again,’ she rushed out.

‘I want you with me,’ he simply slated.

And that was the end of it.

Or the beginning of something Jasmine hadn’t dared to count on.

It was the end of February now. Three, four weeks… hopefully she still wouldn’t be showing her pregnancy. Whether she would tell him or not depended on… too much for her to even contemplate. She would just go. Whatever happened with Collins Templeton in Los Angeles would make the decision for her.

———

She was in bed and fast asleep, just as he’d left her three months ago, her glorious hair strewn across the pillows, the seductive curves of her lush body outlined by the sheet that covered her.

Jasmine…

He didn’t say her name out loud but it rolled through his mind, filling it with pleasure, and all the doubts he’d nursed since calling her to come suddenly seemed totally irrelevant. She was here. And so was he. It felt good… right.

He moved swiftly to the bathroom, stripped off, got under the shower to freshen himself up after his flight from New York. It was just past two in the afternoon. The desk clerk had told him Jasmine had arrived at seven this morning. She was probably trying to sleep off jetlag. It was a killer trip from Sydney to L. A.

As the water sprayed him in an invigorating burst, he shook his head over the London model who’d accompanied him to the BAFTA awards in the U. K. That woman hadn’t known when to stop posing, courting every photographer in sight, puckering up to him as though they were an item, loving all the limelight, thinking she was irresistibly sexy despite her skinny figure and not having half the natural beauty Jasmine had. He’d ended up hating her high screechy voice, hating her busy hands, hating her empty name-dropping chatter.