More Than One Night

“That’s it. We’re off and running. This is really going to happen,” Greg said.

“Yeah, it is.” Rhys felt dazed. They’d been working toward this moment for so long. And now they were here, it didn’t feel quite real. With Gainsborough on board, it would only be a matter of time before they scored the next hotel chain. All it took was one big player to give them credibility, and they had that now. In spades.

Soon, they would be the go-to guys for hospitality I.T. in Australia. After that… Well, after that they were reaching into territory far beyond even Rhys’s current ambitions.

Greg held his hands out in front of him. “Check it out,” he said as his fingers trembled in midair.

Rhys offered up his own shaking hands and they started laughing all over again.

“Man, I’m wrecked,” Rhys said. “I feel like I ran a marathon.”

He pulled his tie loose and shrugged out of his jacket. Half moons of sweat radiated from beneath his armpits from all the nervous energy he’d expended.

“Let’s go out, man,” Greg said. “Let’s grab this town by the scruff of the neck and not let go until it shakes us off.”

“For sure. I’ll call the office and tell the guys to meet up with us.”

“And I’ll tell Jess to hire a babysitter.”

They were both grinning as they exited the washroom. They’d come in separate cars and they parted ways in the garage beneath the building.

“Café Sydney, ASAP. Be there or be square,” Greg called over his shoulder.

“Bring your accessory liver, my friend. Because tonight is the night,” Rhys said.

Greg’s laughter echoed at him, bouncing off the concrete and the rows of parked cars. Rhys walked toward his ten-year-old BMW, aware that his cheeks were starting to ache with all his smiling.

So many people had raised their eyebrows when he’d quit his lucrative management role with a rival I.T. firm eight months ago. Friends, family members had all thought he was nuts to walk away from a cushy job when the global economy was still so shaky. But Rhys had always planned to start his own consulting company from the moment he’d earned his computer engineering degree. He’d saved every spare cent he’d ever earned, denying himself the luxury car and fancy apartment his salary could have commanded because he was determined to be his own master, to guide his own destiny. To make his mark on the world.

He pulled out his phone and dialed a number by heart rather than use his contact list, only registering that he was still underground when the phone beeped to let him know he had no signal. Shaking his head at his own woolly-headedness—apparently euphoria did that to a person, who knew?—he started his car and drove out into the dying light of a warm Sydney day. He tried his parents again and listened to the phone ring until finally the machine picked up.

“Hey. It’s me,” he said. “Just wanted you guys to know I got Gainsborough. Like I said I would. I want to take you out for dinner to celebrate, so let me know when you’re available and I’ll book someplace nice, okay?”

He ended the call as he braked at a stoplight. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, trying to think who else he should phone. The gang back in the office, obviously, but he felt as though there was someone else he was missing. His thoughts ranged over his brothers and sisters, but he dismissed them after a moment’s consideration. They were all so absorbed in their own things that they wouldn’t really care. They would be happy for him, sure, but they’d never really understood what he and Greg were trying to achieve with the business and at some point in the conversation he would feel as though he was bragging—the younger brother trying to impress his siblings with his achievements. They would hear his news via their parents or at the next family function.

He frowned. For the life of him, he couldn’t think of a single other person who would understand what today meant and share his excitement. The realization left him feeling vaguely dissatisfied. Shrugging off the sensation, he called the office, laughing as he heard the guys hollering in the background.

“Go home, put on your party clothes and meet us at Café Sydney,” he instructed when they’d calmed enough to be coherent. “It’s going to be a big one.”

He followed his own advice, cutting across town to his apartment in Potts Point. He spared a glance for the Finger Wharf as he drove through Woolloomooloo. The sun glinted off the white rooftops of the luxurious apartments that had been built on top of the ancient timber wharf. Home to Russell Crowe and a number of other high-profile Australians, the wharf was considered one of the best places to live in Sydney.

Not long now, baby.

He’d been eyeing an apartment in the wharf development for years now. The smaller apartments with the lesser views started at around half a million dollars, but Rhys didn’t want a small apartment. He wanted space, he wanted views. If things went smoothly with Gainsborough, there was no reason why he couldn’t start talking to real estate agents in earnest.

No reason at all.

A second rush of euphoria hit him as he considered what today meant. He wound down the window and let out a triumphant yahoo. A few people turned to stare. He felt a little stupid, but what the hell.

Today was the day his life had finally come together. All the planning. All the sacrifices. All the hours and hours of hard graft.

Life didn’t hand out many moments like this, and he planned to enjoy every second of it. And then some.

“STOP FIDGETING.” Gina slapped Charlie’s hand away from the neckline of her top.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. Everyone in this restaurant knows I’m not wearing a bra. You know that, right?”

Despite her friend’s admonition, Charlie once again tweaked the neckline of the metallic mesh halter she was wearing. No matter what she did, there was no hiding the fact that there was a lot of cleavage on show. Like the skintight black stretch-satin trousers she was wearing, Gina’s top was not built for subtlety.

She glanced around the dark, woody interior of Café Sydney, hugely self-conscious in her borrowed clothes.

“No one knows you’re not wearing a bra except you. And maybe the people at the next table now since we’re talking so loudly. You need to relax. Here, have some more champagne.”

Gina leaned over and plucked the champagne bottle from the ice bucket where their waiter had left it and poured them both another glass. “You look great, C. You look amazing.”

“I look like I charge by the hour.” Charlie shifted in her seat, wondering if it was possible for pants to be so tight they cut off circulation to vital organs.

“You know what your problem is? You’re too used to trying to be one of the guys. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why that’s a good thing in the army, but you’re not enlisted anymore. At the risk of sounding like a feminine-hygiene commercial, you need to embrace your womanhood.”

Stung, Charlie paused with her glass halfway to her mouth. “I never tried to be one of the guys. I tried to be a good soldier.” She could hear the defensiveness in her voice and she sat a little straighter. “Just because I’m not into pink and because I don’t put everything out there on display doesn’t make me butch or one of the guys.”

Gina reached out and touched her arm. “I’m sorry. That came out the wrong way. I wasn’t saying you were butch. That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?”

Like it or not, Gina had hit a raw nerve and for some reason Charlie felt unable to let it go. There was so much else up in the air at the moment, having her sense of herself undermined felt like a step too far.

Gina studied her for a beat. “Do you honestly think you look bad tonight?”

“I don’t look like me.”

“That’s not answering my question. Do you think you look good or not?”

Charlie glanced at herself. The black mesh of her top reflected the candlelight on the table and clung to her breasts in what she could only describe as an outrageously sexy way. The satin of her pants glowed with a more subtle luster, somehow lending her usually gangly legs a new voluptuousness.

“I look okay,” she finally conceded.

Gina shook her head. “You’re hopeless. You’re the hottest woman in this room and you don’t even know it. What a waste.”

Charlie made a disbelieving noise.

“You don’t believe me?” Gina asked.

“You don’t need to blow smoke up my skirt. I know exactly where I fit in the man-woman food chain.” From the moment she hit puberty she’d known. She wasn’t blonde, she wasn’t perky, and she didn’t have that unknowable “something” that made men want to howl at the moon. A painful realization at the time, but now simply a fact of life. She’d long ago accepted that straight, mousy-brown hair, plain brown eyes and nondescript features were not going to set the world on fire.

“So where do you fit, then?” Gina asked.

“On a scale of one to ten? Five. Maybe six on a good day.”